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Of Island Nations Saved by Divine Storms

To: Allen.Bachelder@vt.edu (Allen Bachelder), mgs@autox.team.net
Subject: Of Island Nations Saved by Divine Storms
From: fisher@avistar.com (Scott Fisher)
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 1995 11:15:07 -0800
(Kim -- here's one for Over The Windscreen -- Scott)

At  6:47 PM 4/9/95 -0400, Allen Bachelder wrote:
>MG Networkers -
>
>Your consideration for my predicament please.  My wife, who dearly loves my
>MGBs more than anyone has a right to expect from a wife, approached me the
>other eve, asking if I would mind if she bought a Miata.
>
>A MIATA?!

I must be one-a them weirdo California types who's into Ethnic
Diversity.  I've got four cars -- the MGB, a 1963 Volvo 122S that my
wife uses as daily transportation for her and the kids, a 1967 Alfa
Giulia 1300 GT Junior that is my everyday car (till the B's head
gets back on), and a 1982 Datsun 280ZX that was my everyday car
till I got the Alfa ten days ago.

One of the common complaints about Japanese cars in general
is that they have no character.  This is nonsense.  The ZX has as
much character as the Alfa -- it's just Japanese character instead
of Italian character.  I shall elucidate.

The performing art form for which Italy is most famous is the
grand opera.  It's loud, requires tremendous attention, overbearingly
expressive, beautifully crafted in the details, but generally lacking on
plot strength and character development.  It's complex, perhaps
overly so; it's ornamented beautifully and most important it
sounds simply glorious.  And making it happen requires highly
trained specialists with very, very fussy personal requirements --
the word "prima donna" was originally applied to the lead soprano
in an opera company.

Every one of those characteristics superbly fits my '67 Alfa.

Now, what about Japan?  In Japan, the classic performing art is
the Noh drama.  In Noh, characters dress in highly stylized
costumes and makeup.  As in Elizabethan drama (which I should
perhaps have explicated next, in light of the British context of
my readers), all the roles are played by men, even the female
characters.  The details of the drama are highly stylized,
incredibly subtle, and very difficult to pick up if you're not
an avid student of the art.

Most important, the scenery in a Noh drama is managed by
stagehands who dress in black.  This convention is understood
by the audience to mean that they are invisible.  They are only
noticed for what they do, and the audience ignores them when
they are working.  The results, the image, the finished product
is all that counts in the aesthetics of Noh; how it is achieved
is ignored by convention.

I contend that these two aesthetics are the dominating characters
of Italian and Japanese cars, respectively.  The character of the
ZX is that it's highly stylized in appearance, following traditional
designs for its role (which I jokingly say is a Japanese GT-6).
Its actual function, operation, and manner of achieving the
changes in scenery are completely transparent to the user, and
this is in fact a passionate part of its design and its intention.
The character of the Alfa comes from the most expressive, even
in-your-face art form this side of gangsta rap, one that requires
intense audience involvement to achieve the desired feel.
The ZX, on the other hand, requires that the audience have
the sensitivity to what's going on in the main thread of the
drama, while ignoring the technical necessities that make it
happen.

I could make similar analogies to Italian and Japanese cuisine,
but I hope you get the point.  In each culture, the pinnacle of
aesthetic success is quite different: in one it's represented by
being as obvious, as ornamented, and as intense in its audience
involvement as possible.  In the other, the aesthetic peak is
represented by self-effacing excellence, the honor of service,
rigorous adherence to tradition, and absolute unfailing integrity
of execution.

In that light, I am proud to own a Japanese sports car, as proud
as I am of my English and Italian sports cars.  (I haven't really
psyched the Swede yet; it's somewhere between lutefisk and
Ingmar Bergman, I think, with in the case of the 122S a certain
longing for Italianate coachwork in the area of the taillamps.)
And if your wife can appreciate the Miata for its vehement
expression of this aesthetic and cultural character, rather than
as the bland appliance that too many car-bigots maintain it to
be, then more power to her.  The top really is that easy to put
up and down, and the Miata is a fabulous, landmark sports car.
You don't have to like it, but I suggest that you decide you don't
like it out of understanding rather than out of ignorance and
knee-jerk response to your own preconceived notions.

In summary, if you don't like sushi, you don't like sushi and
there's no reason you should force yourself to eat it.  But too
many people are prejudiced against Japanese cars because of
ignorance, fear, misplaced ego, or just plain bigotry -- all of
the reasons they may be prejudiced against people.  Bigotry
against people is too big an issue to take up in this context,
but bigotry against cars isn't.  Bigotry against cars only hurts
the bigot, by closing his or her experience to something that
may in fact be wonderful.  And if you don't think this applies
to us, take a look at the next all-British car day you see and
watch for T-shirts that say "I'd rather push a <my car> than
drive a <your car>."  I love my cars, wherever they come
from, and if you have to push your car I'll get out and help.
That's the main reason I always run my tours for all British
cars -- Triumphs, M.G.s, Jensen-Healeys, Land Rovers,
Austin-Healeys, and anything else that shows up.  We even
had a Reliant Robin one year.  If it doesn't work for everyone,
it doesn't work for anyone.

On reflection, the art form for British cars is not Shakespeare,
but Gilbert and Sullivan, who as Tom Lehrer said are "Full of
words and music, signifying nothing."  Great fun to listen to,
even more fun to sing, but the plot breaks down well before the
curtain rises.  It's like Major-General Stanley's song from The
Pirates of Penzance, a supremely silly opera.  The Major-General
struggles for a rhyme and comes up with one that's just wildly
improbable (of a type called Hudibrastic, if you're following
along with your English Lit notebooks):

"In fact, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy...
(strategy?  Strategy, pategy, mategy -- Ah!  I have it!)
You'll say a better major-general has never sat a gee!"

(A "gee," for those who are still expanding their British English
vocabulary, is racetrack slang for a horse.)

That's the best way to describe English cars as well, and
what I love best about them: they are without exception the
most implausible contraptions on four wheels, and the degree
of fun that they inspire is completely out of any proportion with
their technical sophistication, sensibility, or even utility.  They're
simply wonderful, and that's enough.

--Scott "And it is, it is a glorious thing to be a pirate king" Fisher

--
Scott Fisher
fisher@avistar.com                 SEFisher@AOL.com



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