As always, click to embiggen and see in better color.
Botanica, June 23
As always, click to embiggen and see in better color.
Perfunctory animation round-up
As regular visitors have probably noticed, I don’t often write about anime any more. This is because I don’t watch much these days. My interests run in cycles, and it’s been about 15 years since I discovered Serial Experiments Lain. Although I still sample many shows, I usually abandon each within five minutes. Steven’s gone, too. It’s time for fresh obsessions.
There are a couple of series I did keep up with this spring. What turned out to be just the first season of The Return of the Son of the Bride of Cardcaptor Sakura isn’t terrible, but it’s not in the same class as the original. It’s mostly filler. The makers focused on the incidentals, such as cooking and singing and being pathologically nice, while neglecting to tell a compelling story until the last few episodes. The sequences in which Sakura obtains new cards seem perfunctory, as if the CLAMP ladies themselves are bored with the story. Perhaps the next season will redeem the flaccid mess, but my question is, do they even care anymore?
The third season Nobunaga no Shinobi is hit-and-miss — making bloody battlefield deaths funny can be tricky — but sometimes it works, and the brief episodes don’t overstay their welcome. Knowing what the characters will do later in their careers occasionally makes the nonsense feel a bit off. Monkey-boy Hideyoshi, above, will later order the execution of the 26 Martyrs of Japan. All three seasons are entertaining, though the first is still the funniest.
Crunchyroll continues to add older anime to its library. Record of Lodoss War, which I’ve been meaning to watch for 15 years, is a recent acquisition. I watched the first episode of the 1990 OVA; it really is animated Dungeons and Dragons. The story isn’t promising and the characters are all stereotypes, and I doubt that I’ll watch more. If you are a D&D player, you might get more out of it than I did. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to sample for the pleasures of old-school anime, such as detailed hand-drawn art and characters with noses.
Another recent addition is Masaaki Yuasa’s wildly eccentric movie Mind Game. It’s difficult to encapsulate, and I’m not going to try, beyond noting that it ranges from claustrophobic noir to sheer goofy silliness. Instead, here are some screencaps from the first third of the film.
Dress rehearsal II
Rogers Ballet, May 2018. Click to see larger and with better color; right-click and open in a new window to see at the largest size. Dancers and others involved with Rogers Ballet are welcome to right-click and download pictures.
Rogers Ballet, May 2018. Click to see larger and with better color; right-click and open in a new window to see at the largest size. Dancers and others involved with Rogers Ballet are welcome to right-click and download pictures.
Hens on the Danube
There’s been a dearth of chickens around here lately. We’ll have to do something about that.
Anthropogenic pitch change is real.
Check
Chess was front-page news during July and August of 1972 as Bobby Fischer defeated Boris Spassky to become the first USA-born world chess champion.1 (Or the second, if you count Paul Morphy.) Fischer didn’t defend his title, and since then no one from the USA has made it to the world championship finals.
Until now. This November in London, Fabiano Caruana, born in Miami, faces off against the current champion, Norwegian Magnus Carlsen. Caruana, the third-highest-rated player2 in chess history behind Carlsen and and the now-retired Garry Kasparov, is having a terrific year. After winning the candidates’ tournament, he went on to win the GRENKE Chess Classic and Altibox Norway tournaments over strong competition. In the latter, he finished ahead of Carlsen, though he lost to the world champion in their match. (He did defeat Wesley So, who had earlier defeated Carlsen.)
Caruana seems to be decent, likable guy, not a demanding neurotic like Fischer. His candidacy is an occasion for national pride. So why isn’t this front page news? The Wichita paper reports in excruciating detail about football players’ knees, yet there has been no mention of Caruana (or of Sam Shankland from San Francisco, who recently joined the 2700 club and is also having a very good year). I suppose that unless something is easily politicized, it doesn’t exist. The Cold War is over, and apparently to the media there is nothing interesting about white males3 who are merely among the best in history at a deep, fascinating game.
Aerial photography
Some recent pictures from a dance rehearsal. There are more here.
Dress rehearsal I
Rogers Ballet, May 2018. Click to see larger and with better color; right-click and open in a new window to see at the largest size. Dancers and others involved with Rogers Ballet are welcome to right-click and download pictures.
Rogers Ballet, May 2018. Click to see larger and with better color; right-click and open in a new window to see at the largest size. Dancers and others involved with Rogers Ballet are welcome to right-click and download pictures.
Phalaenopsis, again
An unnamed Phalaenopsis hybrid. The label says Dtps ________ (Blessed ‘Walnut Valley’ HCC 76 pts x Phal Talsuco Date ‘Max’ HCC 77 pts) BKR/MCT SC1511 Unflasked 09/29/2012 “Dtps” is the abbreviation for “Doritaenopsis,” i.e., a hybrid between Doritis pulcherrima and a Phalaenopsis. However, the genus Doritis has recently been lumped into Phaleanopsis, so the Dtps … Continue reading “Phalaenopsis, again”
An unnamed Phalaenopsis hybrid. The label says
Dtps ________
(Blessed ‘Walnut Valley’ HCC 76 pts
x Phal Talsuco Date ‘Max’ HCC 77 pts)
BKR/MCT SC1511
Unflasked 09/29/2012
“Dtps” is the abbreviation for “Doritaenopsis,” i.e., a hybrid between Doritis pulcherrima and a Phalaenopsis. However, the genus Doritis has recently been lumped into Phaleanopsis, so the Dtps label is obsolete, and this plant is entirely a Phalaenopsis.
To see the three-dimensional images, cross your eyes so that pairs of images overlap, forming three images. Focus on the middle image, and the picture should snap into 3-D.
A “keiki” at the tip of a spent Phalaenopsis equestris bloom spike.
Phalaenopsis and something more
A couple of recent acquisitions. Look closely. I got a little something extra with this one. And yet another view of my Phalaenopsis equestris. Some alien-looking seedlings of Leuchtenbergia principis. This one was composed from 113 separate images. And a Nigella. Update: Now in stereo.
A couple of recent acquisitions.
Look closely. I got a little something extra with this one.
And yet another view of my Phalaenopsis equestris.
Some alien-looking seedlings of Leuchtenbergia principis. This one was composed from 113 separate images.
And a Nigella.
Update: Now in stereo.
A little something extra
The Phalaenopsis orchids I got back in November have been doing well, so I picked up a few more at an auction yesterday.4 When I took some close-ups of the ones in bloom, I discovered that I had acquired more than just orchids. The plant below is in isolation until the insecticide arrives later this week. (Click to embiggen; right-click and open in a new window to see at maximum size.)
The greatest show on earth, May 18 edition
Kilauea, live.
Update: The above camera is off now, but here’s another.
Update II, May 19:
When the live feed ends, go to the YouTube page and look at the linked videos on the right to find another active webcam. Or check here.
The man in the white suit
Tom Wolfe, whose writing I’ve greatly enjoyed, has died. Here’s his most notorious piece, “Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s.”
Purple dragon
The botanical garden recently added a “Chinese” garden. It doesn’t look like much yet, despite the big ceramic dragon on the wall leading to the little pagoda, and the plants that catch your eye are as likely to be American as Asian. I did spot the tree peony above there yesterday, which is definitely Asian, albeit Japanese. It’s Paeonia suffruticosa “Kokuryu-nishiki”, first introduced at a Yokohama nursery in 1905. The name, according to at least two sources, means “Black Dragon Brocade,” though Giggle Translate says “Small clew nishiki.” More pictures from yesterday’s visit are here.
Botanica, May 7, 2018
As always, click to embiggen.
As always, click to embiggen.
Spiny, fuzzy and smooth
Last year’s seedlings are approaching their first anniversary. I’m gradually potting them up individually, which will take a few weeks.
Seedlings
At one month: At one year:
At one month:
At one year:
Surfin’ Suomi
Alfred M. Yankovic and Brave Combo have conclusively demonstrated that virtually any popular song can be improved by polkafying it. It’s also true that rendering a song as a surf instrumental almost always makes it better.5 Charles Hill posts a couple of surf transformations that are superior to the originals and links to a third. My favorite re-arrangement, though, is this one by Laika and the Cosmonauts, yet another eccentric band from Finland. They call it “Sauna Soul” for no obvious reason, but you probably know it by another name.
Great Plains Renaissance Festival, April 22, 2018
Botanica, April 28
The samurai orchid
The Neofinetia falcata (or Vanda falcata) that I got back in November survived my inept care and is now in bloom. It’s a small plant, almost a miniature. The blossoms are about five-eighths of an inch across, and the length, including the spur, about an inch-and-a-half. This, I gather, is on the small side; an inch across and two-and-a-half long is more typical, according to what I’ve read. At night the flowers smell like vanilla with a slight hint of lemon.
I’ve mentioned before that the Japanese obsessed over these little epiphytes.6 Cacti, which would have been unknown in Japan until the later 19th century, turn up in everything from Martian Successor Nadesico to Elf Princess Rane, so there ought to be an occasional Neofinetia here and there in animated shows. But, as far as I know, there isn’t. Perhaps there’s one in the later episodes of Hyouge Mono, which I never finished, but probably not. I can’t think of any shows featuring orchidaceae.
