1. This [Asian Americans’ enjoyment of classical music] reflects what can be observed at most American concert halls today: a sea of white hair, broken only by the black, unflattering bowl cut given to all Asian kids by their parents.

My parents aren’t terribly fashion-conscious, but neither I nor my brother ever had an unflattering bowl cut. Also, Asian kids don’t all have the same hair, because despite what the Paarlberg may think, we don’t all look or dress alike.

2. In Musicians from a Different Shore, University of Hawaii professor and pianist Mari Yoshihara describes her upbringing in postwar Japan. … Through her years of practice, she writes, “I never asked myself why I was learning music or whether I even liked playing the piano. Such questions never even occurred to me. Music was not something I had the option of liking or not liking; it was just there for me to do.”

This is one of the several examples Paarlberg uses to describe the (apparently universal) coerced and automated ways in which Asian American children learn to play an instrument. I have several responses to this excerpt, but the primary one is that of disbelief. Children listen to music from a very young age – probably from the very first day of their lives in our era of car radios and ubiquitous TVs and iPods. As a kid, I distinctly remember wanting to play the piano so I could magically make pretty sounds by pressing my fingers on a giant, hulking box, and I imagine a lot of children have the same creative desire, even if they don’t articulate that wish or are even conscious of it. Moreover, the children of even the most traditional or nostalgic of Asian immigrant parents will be Asian AMERICAN. It’s unfair to use an example from postwar Japan and extrapolate that experience onto non-Asian kids.

3. Asian and Asian-American performers gravitate almost exclusively to strings and piano: Those instruments which, within a genre that symbolizes class mobility in Asia, are at the top of the heap. Rarely does one encounter an Asian conservatory student playing the bassoon or trombone, or any instrument that does not afford the possibility of soloist superstardom.

“Almost exclusively? “Rarely?” Where are the numbers to back up these adverbs? And not that my anecdotes count for much toward empirical evidence, but I definitely remember seeing plenty of Asian American trumpeters, flautists, clarinetists, guitarists, even drummers (GASP!) while growing up.

4. Asian music education is not famous for its music theory. The Suzuki method, Asia’s most successful classical music export, is a highly mechanical training regimen based on drills and rote memorization, with no emphasis on “feeling” the music.

I don’t know why Paarlberg is knocking “Asian music education” – an incredibly general term – for not focusing on music theory. I studied music theory for several years, and I can think of few things mustier and more rigidly codified than music theory. And an incredible amount of theory is highly intuitive, anyway – I can’t imagine why anyone would need to learn it from a textbook. And again, where are the statistics to back up the assertion that the Suzuki method, which I never encountered in my 17 years of piano lessons – 12 with Asian teachers – is “Asia’s most successful classical music export”? And even if many music students learned to play the piano or the violin or the French horn using the Suzuki method, isn’t it supremely likely that their teachers also taught them to pay attention to the emotional, dramatic, and harmonic aspects of the music?

5. If there’s any irony to the most quintessentially Western music tradition being kept alive by the East, by now it’s a moot point.

There is no irony here. A lot of Asian Americans like classical music,as well as hamburgers, basketball, Facebook, and other mainstream American things. Why is any of this noteworthy?

Hugo

Leap Year (trailer)

Our Idiot Brother

Poetry (trailer)

Young Adult

Sometimes literary/film characters use the personals section too. Which leading man posted this want ad?

SWM seeks able governess. Not looking for romance; been BURNED before. Hobbies/skills include horseback-riding, international travel, abrupt changes in mood, and surviving multiple arson attempts. Enjoys scowling at servants and darkly brooding on the moors. Appearance unimportant, as house is ill-lit and shadowy. NOT MARRIED.

–This 2004 New Yorker profile of Grady Hendrix is DELIGHTFUL.

–Hendrix-san lists twenty of the best Korean movies available for streaming on Netflix.

–Having grown up during the 90s (and therefore never having seen a Muppets movie), I was utterly indifferent to the new installment until I read this review – now I can’t wait to see it.

–This smart Whitney Cummings write-up makes me wish 2 Broke Girls was more interesting and funny and a LOT less racist so I could STAND it.

–If Susan Orlean can make orchids interesting (supposedly), I’m sure she performed wonders in her biography of Rin Tin Tin.

Last week, I interviewed Jose Padilha, the Brazilian director of Bus 174 (a superlative documentary), Elite Squad 1 and 2, and the upcoming Robocop remake starring Michael Fassbender for BoxOffice Magazine. I asked him to explain why Elite Squad was the first ever Brazilian film to have a policeman as a protagonist, how cops in Rio are like American soldiers in Iraq, and whether he’ll be the first Robocop when the technology becomes available.

For a quick and dirty guide to everything there is to know about Brazil, head over to BoxOffice Magazine to read my introduction to the country that gave the world bossa nova, Victoria’s Secret models, and “the landing strip” via its post-City of God films. A sample:

Gays: Despite being a predominantly Catholic country, Brazil is host to the world’s largest Pride Parade, with last year’s celebrations in São Paulo attracting over 3 million participants. Although homophobic attacks are on the rise, things are definitely looking up with the Brazilian Supreme Court unanimously instituting gay civil unions earlier this year and the majority of Brazilians considering homosexuality “natural.” Loosely based on the life of a drag queen/bandit/street fighter/father of seven, Madame Satã (Madam Satan) is a wild rush of a biopic. Admittedly, it’s not the most representative film about being gay in Brazil, but it’s a good sign that a queer man has not only reached the status of national icon and folk hero, but also the most popular legend in Latin America: the outlaw.

–Reading these reviews about the pregnancy bodyhorror in Twilight: Breaking Hymen, I’m wishing all over again that I was into this Bella/Edward/Snoutface phenomenon. I like Kristen Stewart (she’s a good, if limited, actress), I love vampires, and I’m finally starting to see Taylor Taut-abs’ hotness. But that first movie was so boring.

–These doll-head cups are probably way creepier than anything Twilight could pull off. 

–I’m glad I don’t live in a world that caters to dog wants, but it’s nice to visit.

–Animals commit suicide sometimes. Sadface.

–I almost never read anything of the Seven Habits of Rich Dad, Poor Dad Winning Friends and Influencing People variety, but this article on how to shape your career or find a new one is probably the best thing I’ve read all week.

When The Skin I Live In (La piel que inhabito) premiered last month, Slate culture critic June Thomas wrote an exhaustive list of the recurring images, plot points, themes, and actors in Pedro Almodóvar’s movies. But I’ve been exhausted by the self-recycling and auto-homage in Almodóvar’s work for quite a while — since the mid-2000s, in fact. I appreciated Volver much more than I liked it, and watching Broken Embraces felt more like an obligation than a treat. (That’s not a criticism of those films or of Penélope Cruz; my unenthused reaction was merely the result of my Almodóvar binges of years past.) So I went into The Skin I Live In with low expectations (for pleasure, not cinematic craft). About half an hour into The Skin I Live In, I began to wonder if, despite the uncharacteristically Gothic tone and unfamiliar quasi-medieval setting, the only pleasure Almodóvar offered me now was his impeccable taste in dramatic interior design. I was happy to be swiftly proved wrong: The Skin I Live In is a spellbinding, narratively complex revenge/love/sci-fi story somewhere between Pygmalion and Frankenstein that explores more deeply than any of the director’s other films the creepy, morbid, even macabre side of love.

If you haven’t seen the film yet, do yourself a huge favor and watch it unspoiled. The film answers the questions it poses  — Who is the body-stockinged woman (Elena Ayana) that a plastic surgeon (Antonio Banderas) has trapped in his home? Why won’t he let her leave? And why does Banderas’ housekeeper (Almodóvar veteran Marisa Paredes) want the mystery woman killed? — rather languorously, and much of the viewer’s pleasure lies in guessing, then being shocked by, the twisted relationships between the characters. (If you must spoil yourself, click here.) Much like 2004′s Bad Education, Skin asks the viewer mid-way through the film to reconsider her sympathies for the protagonist by methodically revealing the murky but depraved motivations and desires of the mad doctor, thereby blurring the categories of (anti)hero and villain.

There are almost as many rapes in Almodóvar’s films as women on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and Skin features two rape scenes of different women. For a director known and admired for his fully developed female characters, Almodóvar has gotten into occasional trouble with the P.C. police for his idiosyncratic rape scenes, most notably for Kika (1994), in which he attempts a humorous rape scene. (Almodóvar’s experiment earned the film a virtual ban in the U.S.*) Jason Mittell, a media scholar, observes that “rape is a more taboo and emotionally volatile crime to portray on-screen than murder” — a situation that undoubtedly attracts the provocateur in Almodóvar to the topic. Several critics describe Skin as cold, clinical, and emotionally unengaging. While the film is indeed elegant and medical, I found it to be quite emotionally engrossing, and wonder if those critics found their sympathies for the characters inhibited by the fact that Almodóvar offers redemption to one of the rapist characters.

* Almodóvar’s take on the rape scenes of Kika and Vera, the mystery woman in Skin: The rape of Kika, like the rape of Vera, are terrible events, but they happen to two extremely strong women who have decided that they’re going to survive whatever happens to them, including the rape. At the moment, during the rape, when the victims try to talk to their rapists, it creates a kind of comic effect. Some people are outraged that there’s a comic aspect to those rape scenes, but I think you have to take it as it is. I’m not joking about rape at all, but sometimes in the course of the most terrible events, when somebody has decided that they’re going to survive, they may say or do things that appear comic to the spectator.

–This week, Americans laughed at Rick Perry for his 53-second brain fart, but they seem to love the fact that Adam Sandler’s somehow successfully parlayed his brain farts into a decades-long career. He also gave an black hole of an interview on Thursday’s The Daily Show. It was so bad Jon Stewart offered to re-do the interview for the studio audience, then just wound up apologizing twice for how lame it was.

–Nic Cage is, of course, a total nutjob. I’m sort of glad he’s an internationally recognized movie star, because he needs the big checks from Hollywood to continue to be a ridiculous human being who still has both his kneecaps.

–This review makes me wish I liked Sons of Anarchy, because there is nothing good on TV these days. (Exceptions: Parks and Rec, Community, Hung, maybe Modern Family.) Suggestions welcome!

–Farewell, Google+. We hardly knew ye, because you were boring and derivative.

–Sometimes I think about becoming a stage mom to my gorgeous dog, but I don’t think she’d go for this type of abject humiliation.