Trivia that matter
… and Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding and Richard M. Nixon. Fred Himebaugh, a.k.a. The Fredösphere, who has neglected his weblog for too long, shares the results of his historical research. Content advisory: robots, alien gods, banjos.
Fred earlier wrote a chamber opera “They’re Made Out of Meat,” using the Terry Bisson short story as the libretto, as well as a touching ballad of interplanetary romance, “Earth Girl.”
Steven isn’t enthusiastic about get-well cards, so here’s a nekomimi nurse.
Some very good news: Steven is in rehab and is making good progress.
I expect that he will be pleased to learn that there will indeed be a third season of Dog Days.
… while a massive philosophical gulf separates J.R.R. Tolkien and Hayao Miyazaki, their works both come from a strange and unmodern place, and speak to the part of us which is unmodern and strange; which is to say the human part of us.
Gilbert Seldes in 1928, quoted by Helen Rittelmeyer:
In the middle of the nineteenth century, the word “reformer” meant one who wanted to give liberty to others; today it means, briefly, one who wants to take liberty away. The change in meaning is accompanied by a change in method. There is a dislocation of the center of fear. Laws, lobbies, censors, and spies have displaced God as the object of awe and veneration, sometimes even as the object of faith. The great social and religious movements of the middle of the last century were based on the belief that man could be made perfect. The current belief is that machinery, including the machinery of government, can be made perfect. . . .
The typical zealot of 1800 was a man fanatically busy about salvation; in the 1840s he was as fanatically busy about improving himself; later he turned to uplifting his fellowmen and later still to interfering with their pleasures. . . .
Eighty years ago, [a reformer] withdrew from society, founded his own community, and preached Abstention. Today, he passes laws and cries, I forbid.
When engineers sleep,
catgirl breeding runs amuck;
Steven, get well soon.
(This is in reference to this news.)
To save you the trouble of clicking repeatedly on the lower left corner of Steven’s header, I’ve collected 915 of the images and assembled them into a convenient slide show.
The singer is Mayumi Kojima. She’s probably best-known in the anime world for “Poltergeist,” the memorable opening theme of the otherwise disappointing Ghost Hound.
Ubu on $369.98 ($498.98 retail):
I refuse to apologize for bittorrenting any longer, and I refuse to feel guilty, and I refuse to buy any series from anyone, anywhere at that price. Burn in hell, Japan.
If that is indeed what purveyors of anime have planned for us, and if they do finally succeed in eliminating torrents and downloads, then anime will be dead outside of Japan. However, there are other places where good animation can be found. France, for instance. Recently I made the mistake of browsing amazon.com and found both The Triplets of Belleville and Persepolis for $7 each.
Belleville was as good as I remembered, though I had forgotten just how fat the Americans were. Here are a couple of excerpts showing the eponymous triplets in their prime and in the movie’s present.
Madame Souza, who plays the bicycle wheel in the second clip, is one of the great heroic animated characters. She would have been serious competition for Balsa in the current poll had The Triplets of Belleville been a Japanese movie.
Persepolis is a girl’s-eye view of the Iranian revolution, with a sojourn in France. Despite its subject matter, it’s often quite funny.
I highly recommend both movies.
Other bargains I spotted include Chicken Run and The Corpse Bride, each for $5. I also found a two-disc edition of Coraline for $7 at the grocery store. It includes two pairs of red/green 3D viewers.
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Looking for Christmas presents for youngsters? Petite Princess Yucie is on sale at RightStuf for $10. This is an excellent price for a very good series. (Here’s Steven’s review, with which I concur.)
Princess Tutu is on sale for $15, also a good price for a very interesting story, though not as suitable for young viewers.
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Both Jonathan Tappan and J. Greely have been posting pictures of their recent trips to Japan. Visit their weblogs and see.
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Newt Gingrich has an idea for enhancing American defenses.
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Hot stuff:
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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Fred Himebaugh, a.k.a. “The Fredösphere,” who once wrote a jazz chamber opera using Terry Bisson’s “They’re Made Out of Meat” as the libretto, has unleased his idea of a pop song upon an defenseless world. “Earth Girl” is an a capella celebration of interplanetary romance. The performers are not credited; I presume they are Fred, Fred, Fred and Fred. Frëd is some kind of genius; what kind, I hesitate to say. It’s available at Amazon.com.
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It’s spring preview time again. As usual, little looks worthwhile. C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control is directed by Kenji Nakamura, who previously did Mononoke and Trapeze. Even if the story makes no sense, the visuals should be entertaining. I’ll probably also sample Moshidora to see if it’s possible to make management interesting. I might see how Dororon Enma-kun Meeramera compares to the original. The preview looks true to Go Nagai: too childish for adults, too pervy for kids.
There are times when I would swear that every man, woman and child in Japan is a pervert. I really didn’t need to read about Lotte no Omocha.
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Some visitors have come here looking for a “shinmoedake webcam.” There’s one here and a couple more here (the sixth and fifth seventh and sixth from the bottom in the box at right. The fourth fifth from the bottom ((The Suwanosejima camera is back (second from the bottom), though you still can’t see much.)) is Sakurajima, which is worth checking regularly). The Shinmoedake crater at Kirishima did erupt again Sunday, but it was not as catastrophic as the L.A. Times would have you believe:
If there was destruction and panic, everyone was over it in time to go to the mall the next day.
The big show was back in January.
If it’s “silly hindu stuff,” you’re looking for, I can’t help you.
(This post has nothing to do with Madoka.) I extricated myself from the Society for Creative Anachronism years ago, and I have no desire whatsoever to relive the past. So I felt a chill while bicycling through a park this afternoon when I saw a group of people with swords ((Boffers, actually.)) and shields whacking each other. It turned out that they were not SCA but a LARP organization called “Stormwrath.” They were friendly and let me take pictures. The morbidly curious can see the rest of the photos here.
Specifically, GreyDuck and Wonderduck.
1. If you’d like to play along, reply to this post and I’ll assign you a letter.
2. You then list (and upload or link to the video, if you feel like it) 5 songs that start with that letter.
3. Then, as I’m doing here, you’ll post the list to your journal with the instructions.
So here are five tunes in the key of H. I’ll skip the obvious ones — you all know “Highway Star” and “Hardware Store,” right? And “Harold the Barrel” and “Happy Jack”? These you might not have heard before.
Ghost Hound was a major disappointment. I expected so much more from the Lain veterans. But the opening did introduce me to singer Mayumi Kojima. ((Some of her recent recordings can be found at amazon.com, but they don’t show her at her best.))
Mayumi Kojima, “Himawari”
The Webb Wilder Credo: “Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard, grow big, wear glasses if you need ’em.”
Webb Wilder, “Human Cannonball”
Here are John Jorgenson, Will Ray and Jerry Donohue, and lots of guitar.
The Hellecasters, “Highlander Boogie”
To clear your ears, here is some finger-picking from a Winfield veteran.
Pete Huttlinger, “Hortensia”
Let’s finish up with a classic anatidian tune.
Raymond Scott, “Huckleberry Duck”
Here’s a more recent recording by David Bagsby and Kurt Rongey, alias “XEN.”
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Bonus H tune: What show does this come from?
Want to play? Leave a note in the comments, and I’ll give you a letter.
Over at Steven’s place, people are listing their five favorite animes and speculating on what their choices say about them. Here’s mine:
1. Haibane Renmei
2. Serial Experiments Lain
3. Denno Coil
4. Cardcaptor Sakura
5. Shingu
Let’s see: I like science-fiction and fantasy, complicated stories that ultimately do make sense, well-developed and engaging characters, and background music that’s interesting in its own right. (Update: And also stuff that’s out of print or unlicensed. Of these five series, only the last is currently available in the USA.)
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Another list I recently came across: The Top 25 Anime Characters of All Time. Yeah, right.
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I’ve watched the first two episodes of Kuuchuu Buranko, or Trapeze. It’s worth seeing for the visual novelties, but the stories themselves aren’t as interesting as the art.
I may also continue watching Aoi Bungaku, of which I’ve seen the first episode, part one of “No Longer Human.” Cheery stuff, this. I am curious to see how well the crew handles “Hell Screen.”
Jonathan gave Kobato a tentative thumbs-up, and it is CLAMP, so I’ll take a look. Otherwise, the rest of the current season doesn’t interest me.
Congratulations to one of the otakusphere’s outstanding members of Anatidae, quacking on .mu.nu for four years now this week.
I’m going to be busy not watching anime for the next few weeks. There may be an occasional trivial post, but don’t expect anything more. I’ll probably be back around the middle of December. Until then, here are a few links of interest.
I would have thought that this was obviously true, but apparently it isn’t clear to some people. Further discussion here.
Fred Kiesche discovers Ghost in the Shell. His reaction reminds me of mine to Serial Experiments Lain the first time I watched it. (Lain, by the way, was first broadcast ten years ago this summer, so I think it’s old enough to officially call a classic.)
Back in February, I had other things on my mind than following the otakusphere. Consequently, I missed Martin’s survey of the worst anime has to offer.
Here’s a preview of this winter’s new series. A couple might be worth checking out. Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou is a continuation of what was probably the best show of the summer, and Kemeno no Sou-ja Erin is based on novels by Nahoko Uehashi, who wrote the books Seirei no Moribito was based on. Update: Here are a couple of additional surveys covering more shows, here and here.
Has the internet indeed gone too far?
Ken the Brickmuppet writes about his uncle.
I’d been considering whether to look at Tytania, but Pixy points out a serious defect.
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This week’s frightening search term: “life sized anime bishounen cutouts.” For target practice, I presume.
