Author: Don

Touched by the hot hand of bewilderment

I long regarded James Fenimore Cooper as the worst writer ever published. I’m not a slow reader — I read Patricia McKillip’s entire Riddlemaster trilogy in one long evening — but it took me a full month to force my way through The Prairie. Mark Twain was too gentle in his assessment of Cooper.

But apparently there are worse than Cooper. Amanda McKittrick Ros, for instance. Here’s the opening of her poem “Visiting Westminster Abbey.”

Holy Moses! Take a look!
Flesh decayed in every nook!
Some rare bits of brain lie here,
Mortal loads of beef and beer.

According to Wikipedia, “The Oxford literary group the Inklings, which included C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, held competitions to see who could read Ros’ work for the longest length of time without laughing.” Her first novel, Irene Iddesleigh, is available at Project Gutenberg. I’ll leave it for readers with stronger stomachs to attempt.

360°


Cathedral renovations in USA

Some of the niftiest software is free. For instance, Hugin, which stitches 360° panoramas together from your pictures. You can then upload the panoramas to 360 Cities for everyone to explore. The basic membership there is also free. The above is the interior of the Wichita cathedral last week.

Although the ideal camera for making panoramas is a full-frame DSLR with a fisheye lens, any camera that isn’t junk will work, possibly even cellphone cameras. Those who travel to picturesque places might want to keep an eye out for possible panoramas.

Annual task

What anime calendars are available for 2013? I did a little searching at YesAsia and found a few:

Mouretsu Pirates
Natsume Yujincho (times three)
Inu x Boku SS
To Aru Kagaku no Railgun
Moyashimon
Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica (times two)
Sword Art Online
Accel World
Idolm@ster
Osamu Tezuka
TV Anime

… plus the usual Naruto, Gintama, Bleach and One Piece products, and of course multiple Totoro calendars. There are also Hatsune Miku and Mount Fuji. I didn’t see any Strike Witches or Dog Days calendars; maybe next year.

And then there’s Karel Capek. In the western world, Capek is known for such works as R.U.R., War with the Newts, The Absolute at Large and The Insect Play, but in Japan, “Karel Capek” means tea.

The wrong omen

So you think things are bad now?

I watched the final episode of Joshiraku before I left for the polling place this morning. That may have been a mistake; I couldn’t help seeing a political subtext that probably wasn’t actually there.

Four more years. Four more years. Four more years.

Not Red Reviews is posting the translator’s notes on this most idiosyncratically Japanese of shows: ((Sure, much of the show is obscure even after all the puns are explained, so why waste your time translating it? Oh, and you’ll never really fully understand medieval or ancient worldviews, either, so why read Chaucer or Homer?)) episode one, episode two, episode three, episode four, episode five, episode six, episode seven, episode eight, episode nine, episode ten. Update: episode eleven, episode twelve, episode thirteen.

Marching out

Which anime is this?

Attention, Funimation

Do you want me to stick to downloading fansubs? If not, then why do you put unskippable previews for series I have zero interest in on your DVDs? ((Yeah, there are ways around this, e.g., playing the disc with VLC or making a modified copy with Mac the Ripper. But these tactics shouldn’t be necessary.)) Punishing your audience is not good business practice. Also, please don’t have characters say “I could care less” when they mean the opposite.

Bonus, unrelated grumble: The hour you gain in the fall doesn’t compensate for the hour you lose in the spring.

Miscellany

A duck and a cuckoo from episode eleven of Joshiraku.

*****

You don’t need to attempt kanji for a memorable tattoo. A weak grasp of English is sufficient.

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An entertaining historical document is online: That Party at Lenny’s.

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Welcome to Crossover Hell. A related horror: another approach to Touhou Ponies.

I wonder: how does the world of Bronies compare with the Touhou universe?

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So salt and sugar are unnatural?

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Jinrui wa Suitai Shamashita was perhaps the best show of the summer. I did a little searching to see if Romeo Tanaka’s novels have been translated yet. As far as I can tell, there’s only one chapter available in English.

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(Bumper sticker courtesy of Borepatch.)

Last and least, some political notes. Although I am a member of the Wet Blanket Movement, I do have some interest in the Fringe Party. For those who believe that all people should have the right to vote, not just the living and the residents of Chicago cemeteries, Dr. Boli has yard signs you can download and print.

8,979 shows too many

I recently discovered that the Internet Archive contains over 100,000 live concerts that you can download, free and legally. Most of the performers I haven’t heard of, but there are quite a few of note. Acts represented include Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Brave Combo, Hot Club of Cowtown, as well as my recent enthusiasms Estradasphere and Secret Chiefs 3. There are also 8,980 Grateful Dead concerts. The archive also gives me a chance to sample bands who were previously just names to me, such as bluegrass eccentrics Split Lip Rayfield and Bad Livers, and just plain eccentrics like Hypnotic Clambake. The recording quality varies; most concerts I’ve listened to sound like good bootlegs.

Let’s all do the “Bulgarian Boogie.”

[audio:http://archive.org/download/hcb1995-10-21.flac16/hcb1995-10-21d2t03_vbr.mp3]

Now let’s do the “Hokey Pokey.”

[audio:http://archive.org/download/bravecombo2008-04-27.sp-cmc1.flac24/bravecombo2008-04-27t27_vbr.mp3]

Irony deficiency

From Helen Rittelmeyer‘s review of Yumiko Kurahashi’s The Adventures of Sumiyakist Q:

For one thing, Japanese literature has no tradition of satire. I did not realize this until I read it in the translator’s introduction (“only deviations from accepted socials norms have tended to be the objects of criticism . . . where there have been attempts at satire in the twentieth century . . . one gets a stronger sense of personal grievance than of objective criticism”), and if he says it, I suppose it’s true. I have heard that Americans visiting Japan are warned not to speak hyperbolically because they are liable to be taken literally, and it is difficult to imagine satire without exaggeration.

Is this true? Does Japan not have an Aristophanes or a Swift? I’m skeptical; I don’t see how a culture can stay sane or even survive without satire.

Even if it was once true of Japanese literature, it’s not true now. See Yasutaka Tsutsui, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Legend of Koizumi, Oh! Edo Rocket, Jinrui wa Suitai Shamashita, Dai Mahou Touge, ….

Update: The challenges of translating humor. (Via the Sanity Inspector.)

High culture, low culture

Thomas L. McDonald states:

I’ve said before that I consider the ink line of Charles Schulz one of the great artistic gifts of our time, and believe that Jack Kirby is a better artist than Pablo Picasso. It’s unlikely those would be “safe” opinions to have without the influence of Warhol, who once said Walt Disney was the greatest artist of the 20th century. (I agree.)

So who do you think is the better artist? Jack Kirby?

Or Pablo Picasso?

Continue reading “High culture, low culture”

Ancient cultural artifacts

[flowplayer src=’http://archive.org/download/GeraldMcboingBoing/RareLostCartoonsAndKidsShows-ColumbiaPictures-Upa-JollyFrolics-06-GeraldMcboingBoing1951.mp4′ width=643 height=480]

You might notice some familiar names in the credits of this 1950 cartoon. You can download it here.

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Without exception, everyone on the island clamors to the Skipper for help at every crisis. “Skipper will know what to do.” The Skipper is “brave and sure.” The Skipper calms the islanders at each emergency, not by alleviating the problem, but by standing tall, pounding his chest and loudly making magnificent promises that neither he nor any other person could possibly keep.

Gilligan, the Skipper’s “little buddy”, embodies every extraneous governmental agency, policy and program ever foisted on innocent people anywhere. It is “Gilligan’s island.” Gilligan is well-intentioned. He sincerely wants to help. Gilligan saves no exertion, refuses no absurdity, respects no boundary in his unceasing efforts to solve, or at least soften, any and all of the everyday problems of the castaways. More often than not Gilligan is the problem. At best he makes a bad situation worse. At worst, he makes a great situation completely unbearable.

From A Scholarly Critique of the Style, Symbolism and Sociopolitical Relevance of Gilligan’s Island.

(via Joe Carter.)

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Be sure to check today’s Google doodle. Update: It’s gone now, but there’s plenty of Little Nemo to look at here.

A few links

It’s a pity that Death Note is little-known outside of anime circles. The parallels between Light Yagami’s little black notebook and the Lightworker’s “kill list” deserve more attention.

(Via God and the Machine.)

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I’ve never read Eric Hobsbawm and I don’t plan to, but I can’t resist posting this picture (from The People’s Cube). Here are a couple of encomiums to the celebrated historian (the latter via Dale Price).

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Studying mathematics in Russia in 1984.

Today’s question

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.

Continue reading “Today’s question”

You don’t have to worry about a thing

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.

Continue reading “You don’t have to worry about a thing”