Rebel Without A Clause? Review of 'Rimbaud in Java'

Writer Jamie James attempted to fictionalize his research for a novel,  after nine years of investigation, but ultimately he abandoned make-believe dialogue for the dogged truth.  That's a reporter. The book is released this week, and I got a chance to review it.

Long before Rambo, there was Rimbaud.
In fact, the poet Arthur Rimbaud can be seen as a kind of anti-Rambo: a literary child prodigy, army deserter, and blue-eyed French fop.
Consider "Bad Blood": A Season in Hell.

It sounds like an appropriate title for a Sly Stallone action movie sequel, but the punchy phrases are taken from an extraordinary prose poem, self-published by an openly gay teenager in 1873, which still is considered a milestone in French literature.

Jamie James's latest book, Rimbaud in Java-The Lost Voyage,  details the poet Arthur Rimbaud's inspiration and desperation to keep a low profile in a weird bygone Java replete with magic and carnal mysticism, then traces his travels back to Europe incognito as a deckhand aboard a steamer. Detours into sexual deviancy in the Victorian age and amorous French attitudes towards Orientalism and Islam are relevant and gripping.
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Arthur Rimbaud, decadent teen poet

 

Swine Flu Soundslide show gets thumbs up

Click here to see how swine flu creates echoes in empty Mexican churches shown in this Guardian sound slideshow. Prayer is not as available to Mexicans in this current health crisis and the church's tactics are discussed. Is this the future of feature news coverage? It's podcast + pix, and is easy to download.
Something about the reporter's Irish lilt and the surreal wire photos coalesce to make this a sensitive report about a possible pandemic. Especially on Cinco de Mayo. The Mexican tourists trapped in China have just got an airlift back home. Ole.

and, according to Harper's magazine (another future avatar of the aggregate news roundup):

Egypt, which has no cases of the flu, ordered all
its pigs killed, especially slum pigs; police at Manshiyat
Nasr slum fired tear gas and rubber bullets at rioting
Coptic Christian pig farmers.
Geneticists continued to
sequence the flu's genes. "Atgaaggcaa tactagtagt
tctgctatat," read the opening line of the segment-four
hemagglutinin gene. "Acatttgcaa ccgcaaatgc agacacatta."

And the latest fad in the midst of "Parmageddon" and Aporkalypso?
"Pimp your mask, man."

CNN to hire more foreign correspondents

CNN plans new operations worldwide, writes Steve Clark in Variety.
Publishing in Hollywood's favorite trade paper muddies the question, is CNN news or entertainment? But the empire from Atlanta definitely is growing.

CNN is pumping $10 million into what it claims is the biggest expansion of its international newsgathering activities in 27 years.
The newsie is beefing up its number of international news correspondents, bowing a regional news hub in the United Arab Emirates, and investing in a London-based digital production unit.

New operations are also planned for Afghanistan, Belgium, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Poland and Vietnam.

Tony Maddox, executive vice prexy and managing director of CNN Intl., said the move was designed to ensure the company owned enough content in the fast-emerging digital era.

"These new resources will have a huge impact across all of CNN's networks and platforms," he said. "Owning the content we broadcast, publish and make available to affiliates and other platforms is the backbone of this business."

Two correspondents are being hired at the combo's Johannesburg bureau, while an extra reporter will be taken on in both London and Istanbul.

Additional coin will be put into CNN's Hong Kong hub, and there are plans to assign new correspondents in China, Indonesia and Pakistan.

In online, CNN is creating a digital production unit based mainly in London. This will provide content for CNN Intl., CNNArabic.com, CNNMobile and new broadband sites.

In Mexico, CNN en Espanol is to tool up by hiring an anchor and correspondent plus an extra editor based at the operation's Mexico City HQ.

CNN en Espanol will increase the size of its editorial team in Atlanta.

The expansion comes as the number of news channels continues to mushroom around the globe, and online news becomes increasingly important.

Correspondent 'dos: Tintins now rival shaved baldies

Speaking of headliners, the Feral Beast can't help but notice trends in the way foreign correspondents style themselves these days. The vain guys, that is.
Sure, for years now, the most prominent look has been the Alpha male, testosterone-heavy baldy. It's a low-maintenance look which is guaranteed to be wind-proof. Think Andre Agassi/Bruce Willis/ Yul Brynner/ Mr Clean: just shave the whole head and avoid the unattractive Friar Tuck/ George Costanza fringe that can emerge. I can count dozens of presenters, photographers, and reporters who fall into this category. The uber-snapper John Stanmeyer of VII agency, BBC presenter and former hostage, Alan Johnston, Matt Walberg of the Chicago Tribune, CNN's Karl Penhaul and NY Times Baghdad reporter, Steve Farrell, spring to mind immediately.


But if you check on-screen and scrutinize photo-bylines, you will be sure to spot the quiff, which can make younger and with-it journalists look nearly as cool as video-jockeys. Think Astro-Boy or Tintin. (Hmmm, I don't mean to imply that foreign correspondents look rather drawn these days.)

It is an utterly appropriate look, given that Tintin is the world's most enduring international comic book correspondent, except maybe for Clark Kent, Superman's alter ego. Yet Kent was on the metro desk, after all, and intentionally missed all the big scoops because Superman was on the scene instead.
Tintin, the boy reporter, began his first adventure in 1929 in the Belgian comic strip Le Petit Vingtieme. Created by illustrator Georges Remi, aka Hergé, Tintin became an icon with his trademark crested quiff, plus-four trousers and his faithful dog Snowy. Each year more than three million copies of Tintin’s adventures are sold across 50 countries in 40 different languages. Note that these days, Tintin is not considered politically correct; the US chain bookstore Borders recently pulled copies of Tintin in the Congo from its shelves because of too many racist stereotypes in the colonialist-era text. Tintin in Tehran is not there, though, because it has not been published, yet it seems pretty relevant in these dire Islamaphobic times. (See mock-up cover at right, with its alarming image of Snowy as road-kill! Not, apparently, from an IED. Read it and weep.)

Tintin wannabes we have spotted lately include CNN entertainment reporter A.J. Hammer, their news reporter Michael Holmes, the BBC's London presenter Matthew Wright, the Guardian's Middle East ace, Rory McCarthy; and the list keeps growing. Even footballer celeb David Beckham had a go. It's the bald truth: things are looking hairier for journalists abroad.

There is one exception to prove this rule: a singular old-school journo who looks like he takes his grooming tips straight from Bigfoot rather than from the Belgian cartoonist Herge. That would be NY Times' two time Pulitzer-winner, John W. Burns. The Daily Show's Jon Stewart once chortled that Burns was wearing his hair on the outside of his helmet.
But now that Burns is stationed in London, it has been noticed that he goes to his barber far more frequently. How soon before we see him in a Tintinesque quiff? His untamed mane already is snowy.