If you simply must follow the Republican convention in Tampa, Dave Barry’s observations can be found here.
The picture is unrelated.
Category: Decline and fall
Quote of the week
Odds and ends
I noticed recently that Funimation is now streaming a couple of essential anime series, Serial Experiments Lain and Haibane Renmei. The latter will finally be available again on DVD next month, and for a very good price, but as far as I know, there are no plans to reissue Lain.
Update: As Mikeski mentions in his comment, Lain will be available again in November, possibly in much higher quality than the original release.
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Quotes of the week:
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Hollywood is the wrong place to look for heroes worth emulating. Try anime, instead. Seirei no Moribito is a good place to start.
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Jack Vance’s novel The Chasch is free for the downloading during August. (Via Aliens in This World.)
Quote of the day
“… if your life isn’t bigger than your politics, you’re doing one of them wrong.”
Not drowning, just waving
Blogging is low priority right now. I’ll be back eventually. Until then, here are a few links.
Mouretsu Pirates is the only current show I’m following. (I’ll eventually watch Sakamichi no Apollon, and I might finish Tsuritama, but it will be a while before I get to either. The soundtrack for the former is worth tracking down.) One advantage space pirates have over their earthbound predecessors: the cuisine is better.
Everyone who ever writes a review needs to pay attention to Steven Greydanus’s thoughts on spoilers. Once Kirika and Mireille are done with the perpetrators of comment spam, I’ll ask them to pay a visit to the bloggers who announced a certain event in the eleventh episode of Katanagatari, sometimes in the titles of their posts as they appeared at Anime Nano.
Eve Tushnet writes about three of my favorite writers: Ray Bradbury (Something Wicked This Way Comes is my favorite of his books, too); John Bellairs (who wrote about shufflies); and, Diana Wynne Jones. (Memo to web designers: Black type on a white background is easy to read. Light grey type on a white background isn’t.)
I don’t do politics here beyond the occasional sarcastic aside. Ace touches on one reason why. Elizabeth Scalia writes about another, related reason.
Winter wear for the physicists among you: emission spectra scarves. (Via Fillyjonk.)
John C. Wright, proponent of Space Princess Science Fiction, reprints his research on the Catwoman Equation.
Although Yellowstone is a superdupervolcano, it doesn’t really pose an immediate, immense threat. There might be enough oomph left for one more VEI8 eruption, but there will be plenty of warning and probably thousands of years before that happens. If you own land in Wyoming, you don’t need to be in a hurry to unload it. The vicinity of Mt. Ranier is far more dangerous. It wouldn’t take a large eruption to generate lahars that would reach Puget Sound. However, the most nightmarish city to live, from a vulcanologist’s point of view, is Naples in Italy. Vesuvius is its best-known neighbor, but it’s only one of three. Update: Let’s not forget Auckland, built on a volcanic field and liable to experience a Parícutin-type episode at any time.
Here are the true lyrics to “O Fortuna.”
(Via Darwin Catholic.)
I’m generally in favor of girls with guns, but this batch could use a few lessons in gun-handling.
The Brickmuppet hasn’t scheduled a trip to Tokyo, has he?
Memo to …
… the lady in the seat in front of mine at Mass last Sunday: Please choose shirts that extend below the top of your jeans when you go to church, and find pants that rise all the way up to your waist. You have no idea how distracting it was to see that you were wearing thong underwear.
… the bicyclist trying to light a cigarette while riding no-hands in the middle of the street: Idiot.
… the Department of Health and Human Services: I have never had the slightest interest in tobacco. However, whenever you subject me to one of your recent gross-out anti-smoking ads, as happens every single time I watch an episode of Soul Eater on Funimation, I get a powerful urge to buy a carton of cigarettes so I can blow smoke in your faces, you damned hectoring nitwit nannies.
Historical documents
My friend Richard has been following anime since the mid-1980s, when he was stationed in Okinawa. This past weekend he brought by a box of a magazines, many 20 years old or older. Most of them are Japanese-only, and I can’t read a word. However, I can look at the pictures, and there are lots of pictures.
Ducks and religion
I recently came across this graphic. It’s a nice thought, but there seems to be something missing.
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Daniel Pinkwater has made a number of his books available for free download, including this odd little story, “Ducks!”
Other books include Lizard Music, about lizards, pod people and a chicken; Borgel, a journey through space and time in search of the Great Popsicle; Slaves of Spiegel, about very fat space pirates; and, Young Adult Novel, about the avant-garde and fascism.
Quote of the day
Oh yeah, anime
I used to write a lot about Japanese animation. I haven’t lately, partly because my obsessions vary with time, partly because I haven’t had opportunity to watch much of anything at all, animated or not. If nothing else goes wrong, ((While my luck isn’t Brickmuppet bad, the past 18 months have not been pleasant.)) there is a good chance that I will finally have my place back to myself again very soon, Then I will finally watch the rest of Dog Days and some more of Hyouge Mono, and see what else might be worth my time.
I don’t know if I will be able to afford maintaining an interest in anime, though. Katanagatari, a show high on my to-buy list, is offered in two Blue Ray/DVD “premium editions,” each containing half the series. These sets are available as “weekly specials” at RightStuf for $52 each. Katanagatari is good, but it’s not $100+ good. It wasn’t a Suzumiya Haruhi-level megahit, and I doubt that it will ever be released in an affordable DVD-only edition. Ditto Arakawa Under the Bridge, a series on my to-investigate list. Such prices seem to be what we can expect for most interesting series licensed during the next several years, until Blue Ray discs drive DVDs out entirely. When that happens, this might be what to expect. If so — well, good bye, anime.
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In other anime news, Dennou Coil remains unlicensed in America.
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Gingrich, who would have made a marvelous Marxist ….
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You can read the grim details and take the quiz yourself, if you dare, here.
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Fear the Death Note.
20% more electable
Any of the contenders for the Republican presidential nomination would be preferable to the current resident of the White House. So would a golden retriever, most potted plants, or any warm glass of milk. The problem is picking one who can defeat Barry Oh! in November 2012. Our choices include unprepared amateurs, inarticulate debaters, damaged goods and Mitt Romney. Can any of them compete with recycled visions of unicorns and rainbows? I doubt it.
Instead, let’s fight the phantoms with the real things:
But Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash aren’t American-born U.S. citizens, you object. Equestria is part of the Hasbro empire, headquartered in Rhode Island, USA; sure they’re Americans. But they’re too young, you say. With a slick lawyer and some expert testimony on “pony years,” that won’t be a problem. But there’s no puppy— So what? Twilight has a dragon assistant, and dragons are much cooler, and hotter, than puppies.
(I’m tempted to nominate Pinkie Pie for VP for the sake of the PP/Biden debates, but RD probably is the better candidate.)
Fun with …
(When you’ve got nothing to say, play games and post links. ((Actually, I have plenty to say, but it’s mostly unprintable.)))
… Wikipedia:
Go to your browser’s address bar and start typing en.wikipedia and report the five top results.
On my computer at home:
Surtsey
King Kung Fu
Headphones
Absaroka Range
Greasy Love Songs
At work:
Viscosity index
Cronopio (mammal)
Noble savage
Location hypotheses of Atlantis
Minoan eruption
I tried the game with the ANN encyclopedia:
Moyasimon (manga)
Tales of Agriculture (TV)
Tenchi Muyo! GXP
Junichi SATO
Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle (TV)
(Sato has an impressive resume, including Sailor Moon, Princess Tutu, Aria and Kerero Gunsou, so I gave Phi Brain a try. I lasted half an episode.
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… Vocabulary:
DENVER – Denver Police responded to the Crowne Plaza Hotel Friday afternoon where several Occupy Denver protesters reportedly caused a disturbance.
According to reports, a group of conservative bloggers are at the hotel, which may have incited the chanting.
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If J. Edgar Hoover is a “fact-based person,” who would be a fiction-based person? The Little O, ((Not to be confused with The Big O.)) who based his 2008 campaign strategy on Chauncey Gardiner?
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… Kittens:
Paging James Vogh
This is just too perfect. From today’s newspaper:
Astrologers warn against pop astrology that dooms chatty Gemini and hardworking Capricorn or decrees that dependable Taurus and sensitive Pisces are an ideal match. A person’s sun sign (the sign you check for your horoscope) is a small fraction of what determines cosmic compatibility, and it’s important to take into account the rising sign, the moon and the planetary angles to capture the full spectrum of a person’s being, said Hilary Young, a California hair salon owner who founded AstrologyDating.com.
I think I’ve mentioned before that that my sign is “No parking; violators will be towed at owner expense.”
Who is the unluckiest person in the galaxy?
Seina Yamada, of Tenchi Muyo GXP, or Ken the Brickmuppet? Consider this, this, this and this, and there’s plenty more in the archives.
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So there is a rumor that Bob Dylan might get the Nobel Prize for Literature. Well, okay. The Peace Prize is absolutely meaningless nowadays, so why not make the literary prize a joke as well? ((I am aware that some intelligent people think Dylan is a Great Artist, but in my arrogant opinion, he has but a modest talent for doggerel and none whatsoever for music.))
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High heels obviously make no sense for superheroines. ((Sailor Mars’ greatest superpower is the ability to sprint in stilettos.)) Neither does exposed cleavage.
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Nightmares, mostly academic
From the aptly-named “Overthinking It,” an analysis of the political economy of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic:
But the strong feminist themes of the series are built on a foundation of political contradictions. The most fantastic element of the show is not that ponies can talk or that dragons exist; it is the illusion that an egalitarian society can be maintained among groups with massive biologically inherent gaps in ability and economic utility. By even the most cursory of sociological and economic analyses, the society in MLP: FiM should be highly stratified along class and racial lines. And there are clear signs of that stratification, except they are obscured by a propagandistic focus on the power of “friendship”.
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“Unoriginal,” yes; “genius,” no:
… Goldsmith describes a course he teaches entitled “Uncreative Writing.” In this course, “students are penalized for showing any shred of originality and creativity,” and rewarded for “plagiarism, identity theft, repurposing papers, patchwriting, sampling, plundering, and stealing.” The course also involves such misadventures as modifying Wikipedia pages by inserting additional spaces between words and holding classes within the online game Second Life. The final exam consists of purchasing a paper from a paper mill and presenting it to the class as one’s own, on the basis of answering the question, “Is it possible to defend something you didn’t write?”
See also Professor Mondo’s note on Pierre Menard.
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I ain’t no damn academic and never will be, thank God.
“Gene, your writing style is very clear and concise. Very muscular. But it is not academic writing. It is popular writing. If you persist in writing clear prose, you will never get far in academic writing. Academic writing must be turgid and convoluted. You must force your reader to read your sentences four and five times before she can understand what you are trying to say. You must obscure the concepts that just anyone can understand. You must, as literally as possible, grab your reader by the throat and pull her face into the text, holding her captive until she can escape by understanding the essay in full after struggling and wrestling with your words.”
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Announcing the Société des Bozars:
We grant that television is a tragic addiction, and we yield to no one in our sympathy for its unfortunate victims. But why must the rest of us be prisoners of other people’s filthy habits?
Join the Société des Bozars today and raise your standard against aesthetic pollution. Make a pledge to patronize only establishments with no visible television sets.
One bonus of joining is that you need never set foot in an airport concourse or a McDonald’s again.
Utopian proposal of the week
If Fillyjonk were the Benevolent Dictatrix of the World:
There would be “quiet hours” in most neighborhoods from 9 pm until 7 am. Anyone caught driving a boom car, mowing, leaving their dog staked outside to howl, whatever…they pay a fine. If they persist in violating, the noise making object is taken away from them.
(Via Dustbury.)
On bad nights, I favor a “three strikes, and we stand you up against the wall and shoot you” policy for boom car operators.