Rated R, directed by E. Elias Merhige, with John Malkovich (F.W. Murnau), Willem Dafoe (Max Schreck), Cary Elwes (Fritz Arno Wagner), Aden Gillett (Henrick Galeen), Eddie Izzard (Gustav von Wangenheim), Udo Kier (Albin Grau), Catherine McCormack (Greta Schroeder), running time: 92 minutes. \nE. Elias Merhige looks at the filming of F.W. Murnau's 1922 German cult classic, Nosferatu, dubbed the scariest vampire movie of all time. Why the scariest? Murnau believed that the best way to make a vampire movie was to hire a real-life vampire. He found his man in Max Schreck, who his co-stars found to be as much a monster off screen as on. Murnau convinces Schreck to take the job by offering him the neck of the beautiful drug-addicted actress Greta Schroeder once the film is in the can. The rest of the cast is hesitant, however, wondering why the vampire demands to work only at night and why crew members keep turning up dead.
PHOTO COURTESY OF NEW ASPECT
Last week I had an experience that I suspect has become quite common for foreigners living in Taiwan: talking to a Taiwanese who was an ardent fan of soon-to-be-former US President Donald Trump. As I was heading for the stairs to my apartment, my landlady stopped me, eyes alight, with an idea for what to do about storing my bike downstairs. The conversation eventually veered into politics, and for a full 35 minutes she held forth on the manifold greatness of world-savior Donald Trump. She’s neither unkind nor a fool. Pro-Taiwan, she detests former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and the Chinese
Jan. 18 to Jan. 24 Viewers couldn’t believe their eyes when the Taipei First Girls’ Senior High School marching band appeared on television in 1981. None of the girls were sporting the government-mandated hairstyle for female secondary school students, which forbade their hair from going past their neck. Some even had perms. The students had been invited to perform in the US, which the government saw as an important affair since the US had severed official ties two years earlier. The idea was that sending a group of girls with the same permitted hairstyle would appear contradictory to
A new section of Taipei City bike path will open soon along the southern bank of Jingmei River (景美溪). Discovery of this missing link by members of Skeleton Crew, a Taipei-based group of cyclists that grew out of off-season training by dragon boat racers, reignited debate about how many kilometers of bike path there now are in Taipei. Their guesstimates ranged from 60 to almost 400 kilometers, though calculations used different criteria and definitions. Some said “Taipei means Taipei City,” others that this would be silly since it was too easy to cross unknowingly into New Taipei City, Keelung City
Decapitated and eviscerated, the two frogs lay on their backs in a clear broth. Noticing that other diners didn’t hesitate to pile toothpick-thin bones and bits of mottled skin on their tables, I set to work with chopsticks and spoon. I was winding up a day trip to Beigang (北港), the religious capital of Yunlin County, when I strolled east onto Minjhu Road (民主路) from Wenhua Road (文化路) and came across this eatery. I’d gone to the intersection to see an obelisk that honors the man regarded as Beigang’s founding father. The Yan Si-ci Pioneering of Taiwan Monument (顏思齊開拓台灣紀念碑) celebrates
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