This is getting old. (If Wichita isn’t quite in the red zone, it’s close enough that it doesn’t matter.)
Author: Don
A public [dis]service
Somebody dropped by looking for “rich anime woman laughing.” He presumably was interested in the “noblewoman’s laugh.” Here’s Renge from Ouran High School Host Club to demonstrate:
The noblewoman’s laugh is particularly associated with Slayers‘ Naga. Here’s more of her than anyone needs:
A list
While pondering a reply to Robin’s comment on the previous post, I thought it would be useful to compile a list of the Nebula award winners for novel, novella, novelette and short story from 2000 on and note the sex of the writers:
It’s a silly, silly, silly, silly world
Upon Hearing Leaf Blower on a Fine Spring Eve
It’s the Divine Right of Neighbors
To run their motors loud
At the sitting hour, proud
I’m like Sitting Bull, Red Cloud
Aghast what Pale Face has allowed.
*****
I am so much more enlightened than you.
*****
Consider the winners of the four categories [best novel, novella, novelette and short story] over the last five years:
• 2015: 4/4 women
• 2014: 3/4 women
• 2013: 4/4 women
• 2012: 2/4 women
• 2011: 2/4 women
Fifteen stories written by women have won the main prizes in the Nebula awards in the past five years, and five by men.
I never cared much about the Hugo awards. They have never been anything more than popularity contests, and that they have been demonstrated to be meaningless is mildly amusing and nothing more. The Nebulas, on the other hand, are determined by a vote of the SFWA membership, i.e., actual writers, and reading the annual volume of Nebula winners was one of the ways I found writers worth following many years ago. But I find it difficult to believe that nowadays women write three times as many of the best stories as men. So, the hell with the Nebulas. I think I’ll read Tim Powers instead.
*****
Every few years I clear my evenings for a week and re-read The Lord of the Rings — I’ll probably do so again sometime this summer. I also enjoy most of his other fantasy-oriented works published during his lifetime. However, I’ve never gotten beyond page 20 in The Silmarillion. It turns out that I’m not alone, and The Silmarillion is the worst book with Tolkien’s name on it. It may be worthwhile to check out his other posthumous books, after all.
*****
*****
Does the term “vibrancy” actually mean anything? (Note that the word “diversity” has become its own antonym.)
(Via Isegoria.)
*****
Every man his own rhinoceros: at last, a political party I can join. Unfortunately, it’s Canadian.
(Via Francis W. Porretto.)
Feeling blue …
… so here’s a California bluebell, Phacelia campanularia.
Double feature
Most of Satoshi Kon’s works are long out of print and are generally only available at extortionate prices or through irregular channels. However, Paramount Pictures is currently streaming Millennium Actress, his most approachable movie, for free. That’s it above.
Meanwhile, Michaël Dudok de Wit’s The Red Turtle has been acquired for North America. Will it come to Wichita? We can hope, but I doubt it.
Somatic perfection
Francis W. Porretto on Ghost in the Shell:
Ghost In The Shell is the absolute pinnacle of its art form. There’s nothing else in the anime oeuvre to compare with it, especially as regards graceful writing and philosophical depth. Masamune Shirow will be remembered for centuries for the story. The makers of the anime can be justly proud of the finished work. That Hollywood should choose to make a live-action version is merely additional praise of the original.
So what is this SJW concerned about? That central character Motoko Kusanagi, a round-eyed, big-bosomed cyborg, will be played by round-eyed, big-bosomed Scarlett Johansson, one of the foremost female action stars of today. “Whitewashing!” “Racial exclusion!” “Cultural appropriation!” “Insert your preferred SJWism here!”
These…persons deserve nothing but contempt. They’re the true bigots and squanderers of cultural treasures – all cultural treasures. That a brilliant piece of anime, known mainly to devotees of the art form, should be picked up by a major Hollywood studio and cast with a terrific, somatically perfect leading lady is an act of high praise…but no! “The character has a Japanese name!” Therefore, by SJW rules, she must be played by a Japanese actress. Failing that, at least one with an epicanthic fold.
Anyone who grants these cretins the smallest sliver of time or shred of respect is doing a disservice to the entire human race.
I wouldn’t say that the first Ghost in the Shell movie is incomparable in its philosophical depth — there’s Serial Experiments Lain, at least — but it is a superior work, and the remake, if competently done, should lead its more adventurous viewers to seek out the animated version.
Annual rite
It’s recital season, and I spent a chunk of this weekend taking too many pictures at a ballet school’s dress rehearsal. Here are a couple of them. There are about 260 more to run through Photoshop.
Ouch ouch ouch
I suppose I should be grateful that my neighbors aren’t mowing their lawns this Sunday morning, but banging a hammer on a resonant roof is no improvement.
Testing, testing
One way to display a panorama without using 360Cities:
Clicking on the picture (if you’re using an older version of Safari) or the title in the lower left will take you to its Flickr page, where you should see it at a much larger size.
Update: This panorama is now an “Editor’s Pick” at 360Cities. Here it is using their embed code:
You can see another, rather different one of my panoramas at the bottom of their homepage.
In the red …
… again.
Whoopee.
Too fast for the drive-through
This past week has been a bit too eventful for my taste, but I did get a chance to stop for lunch at one of the better fast-food places in town.
Postcard from Missoula
Here are the answers to yesterday’s quiz.
Pigs, birds, trains
… and now for something less depressing. Here are some lines and fragments from various poems that occasionally pop into my mind. See if you can identify the poets and poems. I’ll post the answers tomorrow.
1. Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat!
2. No. Not this pig.
3. … yuck-a, yuck-a, yuck-a, yuck-a …
4. I have awakened at Missoula, Montana, utterly happy.
5. … boxcars boxcars boxcars …
6. May God damn for ever all who cry “Peace!”
7. Polyphiloprogenitive
8. What I tell you three times is true.
N.B.: The spoiler system for this website apparently doesn’t work for comments. Don’t read the comments until you’ve made your own guesses.
Today’s quote
TS:
The general election is dead to me, reduced to a mere curio object.
So abysmal are the choices that I have absolutely no skin in the game. I can write in PeeWee Herman.
Bonus quote from Mrs. Darwin:
But thanks to Trump virtually clinching the nomination by winning Indiana, I’m freed from the tyranny of the party. I don’t have to identify as a Republican anymore. When someone asks me if I’m a Democrat or a Republican, I can say neither! And for the first time, I can vote for someone I like for president. Who gets my write-in vote? Which person do I actually think would be best suited to run the country? It’s almost overwhelming.
(Illustration via AoSHQ.)
Update: Steven finds some positives. His post is in the appropriate category “Weird World.” Note particularly points #5 and #9.
Why Tolkien disliked allegory
What if The Lord of the Rings had really been about World War II?
In reverse, we could play with the idea of what would have happened in WW II if it had followed the lines of LotR…
The plot would focus on the destruction of the Atom Bomb (and implicitly all knowledge required to make it) by a small team of English patriots led by George Orwell, who infiltrate Germany and destroy the evil research establishment which is making the A-bomb.
The climactic end would be the death of Hitler (as the ready-for-use prototype explodes?) and the end of the Nazi regime in Germany with the return of the Holy Roman Emperor.
Snoopy goes to Gensokyo
Steven found some Touhou/Peanuts crossovers. Here’s a selection.
Coming attraction
It looks like tomorrow will be a good day for catching tigers.
Update:
Spring has sprung. We should hear the sirens any time now.
Update II: The tornadic storm fizzled out by the time it reached my neighborhood, and all we got was an hour or so of hail, none of it larger than half-dollar diameter.1 While this was undoubtedly a great disappointment to tornado aficionados, I have better things to do with the rest of the month than find a new place to live.
The greatest danger was inside the house. The only time I listen to traditional broadcast radio is during violent weather, when one of the local country stations intensively covers the meteorological events. They occasionally interrupt the descriptions of hail and flooding for commercials and public service announcements, the latter of which are mostly courtesy of the “Ad Council.” The mean sanctimony of these PSAs is sufficient to choke 2.65 SJWs and incalculably many people of normal sensibilities. They create a powerful temptation to punch the stereo speakers, which would hurt my hand.
First impressions, spring 2016
Tanaka-kun Is Always Listless — So listless, in fact, that his friend Ohta often picks him up and carries him over his shoulder. However lazy Tanaka is physically, though, his mind is active, at least until he falls asleep. It’s a one-joke show, but it has remained entertaining through three episodes with the introductions of Tanaka’s quirky classmates.
Um, okay
A couple of odd moments from current shows. The above is from Bakuon, which features the Queen of Tears in a non-angsty role as a motorcycle. Below is from Tanaka-kun Is Always Listless.
