Trivia that matter
Dog Days II seemed like a collection of filler episodes, even if it was laying the foundation for a dramatic third season. There was an excess of jiggle and bounce and disintegrating clothes, too. I’m not a randy adolescent, and I would have preferred less fanservice and better stories. Fortunately, the more interesting first season is now available to Crunchyroll subscribers.
Don’t read the comments on articles in online magazines. Just don’t.
A thousand years from now, technology has advanced little, if at all, if what we see in the first episode of Shin Sekai Yori is representative. Not all technology, though — genetic manipulation has produced some remarkable results in farming and perhaps elsewhere. Many people, maybe everyone in the rural community where protagonist Saki lives, are capable of some degree of telekinesis. The appearance of this power in a youngster is heralded by the appearance of a “blessing spirit” and is the occasion for a quasi-Buddhist ceremony, but it is strongly hinted that there have been generations of selection and breeding involved. And culling.
There’s also Dvorak every evening at twilight.
The first episode suggests that Shin Sekai Yori could be a complex, uncanny story like Serial Experiments Lain was and Ghost Hound tried to be. However, the summary at ANN indicates that it will go in a different direction:
In the future Japan has become a fractured country, and small towns now exist. The rulers of this world have the cursed power of Telekinesis. When an incident occurs, 5 children come to realize the world is not as it seems, and learn the bloody history behind this world. These 5 children unite and help the world as it falls into a downward spiral of chaos.
More spectacular and less interesting that I would have hoped. I’ll continue watching it, anyway. It may still be the best show of the fall season.
Screen captures are below the fold.
The first episode of K is worth watching for sheer gorgeous spectacle. One episode will probably be sufficient. The characters are largely violent bishies (there’s also a creepy little EGL), and I have no interest in any of them. But the animation sure is pretty.
I also watched the brand new Hayate no Gotoku for a while, but bailed out half-way through. It was just dumb.
The complete Goldberg Variations, performed by Kimiko Ishizaka, are available here in various formats, for free, thanks to Kickstarter. ((The .mp3 zip file is missing the twenty-eighth variation, but you can download that separately from the player on the page.))
It’s been a few months since I last posted anything Pony-related, so here’s the inevitable crossover.
… maybe.
This is a slide show of the pictures I took at the Walnut Valley Festival. You might notice a lot of photos of Roger and Tricia. That’s partly because you were likely to hear good music when they were around. They are whom you hear in the video.
In excitement of Sing Like a Pirate and Talk Like Chester A. Arthur Day, it was easy to forget that this is also the week in which the year’s Ig Nobel prizes were announced. A couple of the highlights:
NEUROSCIENCE PRIZE: Craig Bennett, Abigail Baird, Michael Miller, and George Wolford [USA], for demonstrating that brain researchers, by using complicated instruments and simple statistics, can see meaningful brain activity anywhere — even in a dead salmon.
LITERATURE PRIZE: The US Government General Accountability Office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports.
The complete list is here.
There is a loud party at the business across the alley, with twenty or thirty young louts and loutesses lounging about, a PA system, and very dull music played very loudly. It’s going to be a long night. Please excuse me while I bang my head against the wall.
The Yale English department is a good example. In the directory for tenured and tenure-track faculty, “Marxist literary theory” is listed by five professors among their fields of interest, “gender and sexuality” by nine, and “colonial and postcolonial” by 11, or a quarter of the 44 professors. In the graduate student directory, however, the numbers for those subjects are one, three, and a fat goose egg. That’s quite a statistical drop-off, considering that grad students outnumber professors nearly two to one. The topics favored instead by these future scholars are Romanticism (six), Victorian literature (five), Milton (seven), and, oddly enough, religious literature (also seven). Honorable mentions include “Biblical exegesis,” “conversion narratives,” and “Middle English devotional, visionary, and anchoritic writing”— they’re not just reading the Bible, they’re reading monks.
I can’t get on Facebook without seeing people mocking various religions. However, the adherents of these faiths aren’t rioting, burning, or killing anyone — nor would they be tolerated if they did. However, the message we’re sending is that rioting works. The Islamists riot, and our government (and its media waterbearers) cheerfully throw the speakers who give offense under the bus. Apparently, the Mormons aren’t smashing enough windows or setting enough fires.
And Robbo.
Roger Netherton, a young friend of mine, placed second this year in the old-time fiddle contest at Winfield Friday. He celebrated by heading over to Carp Camp, where he led the assembled eccentrics in a couple of tunes. Here’s the first. It starts off with Roger alone.
There are more pictures of carp people below the fold.
The gizmo in yesterday’s post is a Stroh violin. This is what it sounds like:
The fiddler is Jill Woodhouse, of the Beautiful Music Violin Shop in Lawrence, Kansas.
It will probably take me several days to go through all my Winfield pictures and recordings. Until then, here’s a minor project for you: identify this object:
(Via Jane.)
*****
Here’s what was wrong with Moyashimon Returns: it didn’t stink. There was no kiviak, no hongeohoe, no surströmming, nothing pungent at all, not even cheese, just bland grape juice.
*****
I’m off to Winfield. See you all next week.
“Research” has determined the ten funniest movies of all time. Meh. There are a few minor omissions, such as anything from the Marx Brothers, Laurel & Hardy, Ealing Studios, Mel Brooks or Woody Allen, or movies such as Local Hero or The Wrong Box. Most films on the list I have no desire whatsoever to see.
I’m not that much of a moviegoer, so I can’t authoritatively list the true ten funniest movies ever made. Instead, I present some of my favorite comic movie scenes, only one of which is from a listed movie.
