Oh my god, Hekmatyar? I would expected them to have captured bin Laden before they found that old fox. He's an old, old, old-line ghazi, who has fought the Soviets, the other warlords, the Taliban, and us in succession. At one point after the Soviet withdrawl, he was "Prime Minister", which meant basically that he was primus inter pares among the warlords, or at least claimed to be so. I'll dig up some material on him over the course of the day. That's a damned impressive catch.
(Wiki entry here. When I checked, some Wiki silverback was whinging that the only source for the capture was Roggio.)
The source seems to be Deutsche Presse-Agentur according to this Rantburg article.
Some first-rate ululating in this Rantburg article from late yesterday.
Inital link via Instapundit.
Update: Meh. Looks like Roggio is walking it back to just a prominent commander in Hekmatyar's organization. Oh, well.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Aiee! There's an insanely cheap Geneon sale over at Right Stuf, 10 DVDs or CDs for $50, or 25 DVDs or CDs for $100. Even after screwing up and getting normal UPS Ground instead of the el cheapo free shipping, that's not much more than $5/DVD, which is my kind of cheap. But don't forget the coupon - BOUNTY10 for the 10/$50, or BOUNTY25 for the 25/$100 - because that can be a difference of over $500.
It's definitely a chance to pick up all those Geneon series you were kind of on the fence about.
This seriously destroys my budget for the fall, which was kind of straining at the seams as it was...
It's definitely a chance to pick up all those Geneon series you were kind of on the fence about.
This seriously destroys my budget for the fall, which was kind of straining at the seams as it was...
Monday, September 11, 2006
Through a series of impulsive decisions not distinguishable from mere whimsy, I found myself reading two adventure novels set in the Victorian period narrated by self-professed cowards, Flashman by a twentieth-century Scotsman named Fraser, and King Solomon's Mines by an actual Victorian, H. Rider Haggard. I'd been recommended the Flashman books repeatedly by folks on the Lois McMaster Bujold mailing list and by Fred Ramsey, so I don't suppose that would be too unexpected a turn, though my perusal occurred solely because I passed by the book on the shelves at Schlow Libary while looking for the last volume of an eight-volume fantasy series by another Scotsman, Dave Duncan, of which I had in my personal collection the first seven, having somewhere through my travels since graduation misplaced said eighth volume into the darkening depths of oblivion. The Haggard novel, on the other hand, I came across the other weekend, while amusing myself by trawling through the "antique mall" over on High Street, the entrance of which I've passed on a almost daily basis these last six years, but never had until that day entered. That establishment calls itself a "mall" instead of the usual claim of "store" or "shop" based on the owner's habit of renting out (or lending, or extending on credit - I'm not exactly sure of the contractual details or the practicalities for that matter) segments of that vast and sprawling laybrinth, extending throughout portions of if not the whole volume entire, of three buildings between the Curtin Mansion and Petrikin Hall, to individuals or consortiums of individuals looking to sell curios, antiques, and the scrapings of their deceased relatives' domiciles. Said book has on its front leaf a plate indicating that it once belonged to the holdings of a public library in Erie, Pennsylvania, and I am not sure if it was stolen from that institution, or merely sold off & not properly voided in the transaction.
The comparison of these two views of the period from the view-point of fictive "cowards" is rather instructive. The protagonist and primary narrator of the Flashman Papers novels is one Harry Flashman, a villain from Tom Brown's Days, supposedly gone on to enjoy a great and grand career as one of the most-decorated of Victorian heroes, in truth a base poltroon & moral monster, turned honest solely in his final memoirs, allegedly reproduced in the novels. King Solomon's Mines, on the other hand, is a narrative allegedly recorded by that book's protagonist, big game hunter Allan Quatermain of the Natal Province of South Africa, for the edification of his son, a much more direct and yet less likely conceit - for what man would repeatedly proclaim in a memoir intended for the eyes of his progeny his self-described cowardice? The answer, most likely, is that we're intended to accept that the narrator and alleged author is professing a sort of self-effacing falsehood for the purposes of, indeed, false modesty. At points during the reading of Flashman, one is inclined to suspect something of the same sort, having been hammered repeatedly about the head and shoulders by the narrator of his self-declared worthlessness and cowardice, until one turns contrary and querulous through a sort of combative perversity, but in the end, the comedic effect of this is too overwhelming for such heroic doubts to survive intact. If the pretended coward of King Solomon's Mines is more of a liar than poltroon, the protagonist of Flashman is a plain-dealing villain, and his lies in his would-be memoir more for effect than against the substance so stated - Flashman is, indeed, a coward.
Though both books are striking in their picaresque effect of exoticism, King Solomon's Mines in its fantastic re-design of Zululand as the mythical Kukuanaland, Flashman for its of reproduction of the setting and events of the First Afghan War, the purposes of their authors, of course, could not have been more diametrically opposed. Haggard had set out to write a simple lost-world adventure, without serious satiric intent. Fraser, on the other hand, intended nothing if not satire, and a nihilistic assault upon the figure of the Victorian heroic figure itself, in all its self-effacing glory, while he was at it. He was writing in the Sixties, in post-colonial Britain. It's not at all surprising that a writer of that time and place would want to tear down the intellectual and literary memories of the Victorians, obliterate those elements and personages and ideas which supported colonialism - discredit the morals and virtues which made the Empire possible, and justified it. After all, if those were allowed to stand, then they would continue to embarrass those descendants who had let the Empire lapse, had wasted their patrimony. It was not merely necessary to critique the Victorian project - see Orwell's Burmese Days - it was necessary to *destroy* it. The author of Flashman, taking seriously that old saw about Waterloo being won on the playing fields of Eton, went back to the very roots of Victorianism, resurrecting a minor prep-school villain, proposes to drag him through every heroic moment of the period, rendering each one as un-heroic as mud in the process.
One thing that stood out, since I'm sensitive to such things, is the two books' usage of the word "nigger". [ugh] The narrator of King Solomon's Mines, written in 1885, uses that word exactly once in the introduction, then immediately discards it as unworthy, observing that he'd known natives who'd better deserved the designation "gentleman" than many an Englishman. The word "kaffir" is used throughout the text, and though I'm not exactly sure that this is much of an improvement over that prior epithet, given its current racist associations with Afrikaans and the memory of apartheid, it couldn't have been as offensive to Victorian ears as it is now, at least to me. Indeed, most of the cast of the novel are "kaffirs", including many if not the majority of the characters with demonstrated agency & importance in the novel. Not that I'm saying that the book doesn't display a certain half-blind patriarchal paternalism, but it's not a virulent or vicious sort of bigotry, being rather similar to the tone of many space operas which clearly descend from this exact book, via Edgar Rice Burroughs and many lesser immitators.
Flashman, on the other hand, is absolutely rife with the "n-word". There are few pages, once the narrator arrives in India, which is not disgraced by that epithet. Repeatedly. With contempt & intent. Mind you, as an American, in my mind that word doesn't apply in the way used by the author & narrator, that is, the British usage, synonymous with "wog" or "native", only more offensive. But that's the intention, I suppose - the point being how inhuman the narrator and his peers considered the Indians, Afghans, and other native inhabitants upon which they proposed to impose Empire, absent-mindedly or otherwise. The distinction, in the end, between the usages of the two authors, boils down to intent. Haggard's primary intention was exoticism and entertainment. Fraser's intent seems more nakedly didactic, if clothed in the fashion of humor and satire.
The comparison of these two views of the period from the view-point of fictive "cowards" is rather instructive. The protagonist and primary narrator of the Flashman Papers novels is one Harry Flashman, a villain from Tom Brown's Days, supposedly gone on to enjoy a great and grand career as one of the most-decorated of Victorian heroes, in truth a base poltroon & moral monster, turned honest solely in his final memoirs, allegedly reproduced in the novels. King Solomon's Mines, on the other hand, is a narrative allegedly recorded by that book's protagonist, big game hunter Allan Quatermain of the Natal Province of South Africa, for the edification of his son, a much more direct and yet less likely conceit - for what man would repeatedly proclaim in a memoir intended for the eyes of his progeny his self-described cowardice? The answer, most likely, is that we're intended to accept that the narrator and alleged author is professing a sort of self-effacing falsehood for the purposes of, indeed, false modesty. At points during the reading of Flashman, one is inclined to suspect something of the same sort, having been hammered repeatedly about the head and shoulders by the narrator of his self-declared worthlessness and cowardice, until one turns contrary and querulous through a sort of combative perversity, but in the end, the comedic effect of this is too overwhelming for such heroic doubts to survive intact. If the pretended coward of King Solomon's Mines is more of a liar than poltroon, the protagonist of Flashman is a plain-dealing villain, and his lies in his would-be memoir more for effect than against the substance so stated - Flashman is, indeed, a coward.
Though both books are striking in their picaresque effect of exoticism, King Solomon's Mines in its fantastic re-design of Zululand as the mythical Kukuanaland, Flashman for its of reproduction of the setting and events of the First Afghan War, the purposes of their authors, of course, could not have been more diametrically opposed. Haggard had set out to write a simple lost-world adventure, without serious satiric intent. Fraser, on the other hand, intended nothing if not satire, and a nihilistic assault upon the figure of the Victorian heroic figure itself, in all its self-effacing glory, while he was at it. He was writing in the Sixties, in post-colonial Britain. It's not at all surprising that a writer of that time and place would want to tear down the intellectual and literary memories of the Victorians, obliterate those elements and personages and ideas which supported colonialism - discredit the morals and virtues which made the Empire possible, and justified it. After all, if those were allowed to stand, then they would continue to embarrass those descendants who had let the Empire lapse, had wasted their patrimony. It was not merely necessary to critique the Victorian project - see Orwell's Burmese Days - it was necessary to *destroy* it. The author of Flashman, taking seriously that old saw about Waterloo being won on the playing fields of Eton, went back to the very roots of Victorianism, resurrecting a minor prep-school villain, proposes to drag him through every heroic moment of the period, rendering each one as un-heroic as mud in the process.
One thing that stood out, since I'm sensitive to such things, is the two books' usage of the word "nigger". [ugh] The narrator of King Solomon's Mines, written in 1885, uses that word exactly once in the introduction, then immediately discards it as unworthy, observing that he'd known natives who'd better deserved the designation "gentleman" than many an Englishman. The word "kaffir" is used throughout the text, and though I'm not exactly sure that this is much of an improvement over that prior epithet, given its current racist associations with Afrikaans and the memory of apartheid, it couldn't have been as offensive to Victorian ears as it is now, at least to me. Indeed, most of the cast of the novel are "kaffirs", including many if not the majority of the characters with demonstrated agency & importance in the novel. Not that I'm saying that the book doesn't display a certain half-blind patriarchal paternalism, but it's not a virulent or vicious sort of bigotry, being rather similar to the tone of many space operas which clearly descend from this exact book, via Edgar Rice Burroughs and many lesser immitators.
Flashman, on the other hand, is absolutely rife with the "n-word". There are few pages, once the narrator arrives in India, which is not disgraced by that epithet. Repeatedly. With contempt & intent. Mind you, as an American, in my mind that word doesn't apply in the way used by the author & narrator, that is, the British usage, synonymous with "wog" or "native", only more offensive. But that's the intention, I suppose - the point being how inhuman the narrator and his peers considered the Indians, Afghans, and other native inhabitants upon which they proposed to impose Empire, absent-mindedly or otherwise. The distinction, in the end, between the usages of the two authors, boils down to intent. Haggard's primary intention was exoticism and entertainment. Fraser's intent seems more nakedly didactic, if clothed in the fashion of humor and satire.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
I was told by a mailman walking up the Stoney Batter on the way in today that I was the only person he'd ever seen stupid enough to walk and read at the same time who wasn't also a mailman. Am I to infer from this that mailmen make a habit of reading other people's mail on their routes?
Do other people get randomly insulted on the road like this? Admittedly, the usual insult is more of a there-there poor pauperish you, do you need a ride somewhere? than an insult against my intelligence. Of the two, I think I prefer the insult direct. No, you condescending do-gooder, I own my own car - it runs and everything. Even has multiple gears & a working parking brake! I walk so that I'm not as fat as you are.
Ugh. You know, when somebody calls me & asks for me to write up a bunch of descriptions, and promises to email me *what* he wants written up, I kind of expect to find an email with said information waiting for me by the time I walk up here. I can just randomly make up stuff - and I did, and just sent it to him - but that can't be actually, you know, useful.
And I don't know which departments have already delivered descriptions per their requests. They're the ones with actual knowledge of what they're planning, aren't they?
Do other people get randomly insulted on the road like this? Admittedly, the usual insult is more of a there-there poor pauperish you, do you need a ride somewhere? than an insult against my intelligence. Of the two, I think I prefer the insult direct. No, you condescending do-gooder, I own my own car - it runs and everything. Even has multiple gears & a working parking brake! I walk so that I'm not as fat as you are.
Ugh. You know, when somebody calls me & asks for me to write up a bunch of descriptions, and promises to email me *what* he wants written up, I kind of expect to find an email with said information waiting for me by the time I walk up here. I can just randomly make up stuff - and I did, and just sent it to him - but that can't be actually, you know, useful.
And I don't know which departments have already delivered descriptions per their requests. They're the ones with actual knowledge of what they're planning, aren't they?
Friday, September 08, 2006
Four new Evangelion movies in the works? I guess those unnecessary Zeta Gundam movies must be making enough dosh to get *somebody* excited about film adaptations of old TV anime. But really, they've already done the movie adaptation thing for Evangelion. Just how many times are people willing to sit through dramatizations of Hideaki Anno's psychoanalysis transcripts, anyway? I just re-watched the Eva TV series a few months ago...
Bleargh. I now know why this Lipton green tea mix was half-off on closeout down at the Weis. Tastes like tap water strained through a clothes-iron & left in the crisper drawer for a week. *Smells* great, but the taste... If you make a mistake with a two-liter of soda, you're stuck with bleh for a couple days. Make a mistake with a box of tea mix, and you're up for a week or more of yetch. Thought that was too much of a good thing...
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Sorry, sorry. Not really busy, just... meh. I was down in Maryland last weekend, touring the Antietam battlefield & Harper's Ferry with my parents for Labor Day. Things have been middling busy at work, but not insanely so, I don't think.
It's getting a little coolish, and it's been raining way, way too much for this time of year. The apartment still leaks, although the roof guy & I have agreed that it's probably the exposed, aging brickwork on the south side of the house, and not the new roof that's the culprit. Whatever it is, the apartment stinks of mildew & mold. I've been burning a candle someone gave me at ComCon to try to change the stink, if not eliminate it. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be one of those strongly-smelling candles.
Picked up a cheap copy of the first disc of Argento Soma. Cheap DVDs are neat and all, but once you get one of 'em in a series, you find yourself semi-obligated to go & get the rest of the damned series, which are rarely as cheap as the first one you picked up on a whim. The show wasn't as bad as I remembered it being, from having watched an early digisub of the first episode way-and-a-hey back when it was new and notable. Nothing great, but really well-animated, and not the usual run of mecha cliches. It's supposed to be a loose mecha version of Frankenstein, in the same way Infinite Ryvius was supposed to be a very loose space opera version of the Lord of the Flies. (Same production house, I'm told.) I've never actually finished reading Shelley's book, but I doubt it had quite such a prominent role for the little girl befriended by the monster as what's portrayed in Argento Soma. In fact, I kind of suspect that the flower-girl from the classic Frankenstein movie was an invention of the filmmakers. Eh, speculation from total ignorance - so illuminating! The Japanese writers of Argento Soma turn the relationship between the flower-girl & the monster into the typical miko-and-kami Japanese cliche. Think Neo Ranga.
It's getting a little coolish, and it's been raining way, way too much for this time of year. The apartment still leaks, although the roof guy & I have agreed that it's probably the exposed, aging brickwork on the south side of the house, and not the new roof that's the culprit. Whatever it is, the apartment stinks of mildew & mold. I've been burning a candle someone gave me at ComCon to try to change the stink, if not eliminate it. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be one of those strongly-smelling candles.
Picked up a cheap copy of the first disc of Argento Soma. Cheap DVDs are neat and all, but once you get one of 'em in a series, you find yourself semi-obligated to go & get the rest of the damned series, which are rarely as cheap as the first one you picked up on a whim. The show wasn't as bad as I remembered it being, from having watched an early digisub of the first episode way-and-a-hey back when it was new and notable. Nothing great, but really well-animated, and not the usual run of mecha cliches. It's supposed to be a loose mecha version of Frankenstein, in the same way Infinite Ryvius was supposed to be a very loose space opera version of the Lord of the Flies. (Same production house, I'm told.) I've never actually finished reading Shelley's book, but I doubt it had quite such a prominent role for the little girl befriended by the monster as what's portrayed in Argento Soma. In fact, I kind of suspect that the flower-girl from the classic Frankenstein movie was an invention of the filmmakers. Eh, speculation from total ignorance - so illuminating! The Japanese writers of Argento Soma turn the relationship between the flower-girl & the monster into the typical miko-and-kami Japanese cliche. Think Neo Ranga.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Read the first volume of Drifting Classroom this morning. I don't think I'll be continuing that particular investment in historical manga-literature.
The art is extremely stiff, with characters who can't seem to run in a natural fashion, bizarre gape-mouthed expressions, and the designs in general give the impression of not particularly naturalistic drawings of dolls. Mind you, this isn't the sort of loose Disneyesque character design which Tezuka and his imitators used to produce - those are warm, charming, a little shabby at times, perhaps, jokey, yes - but not stiff.
The panel design suggests that the impression is intentional - very rigid, confined, ruled, patterned. Except when something violent or disturbing happens, then the gutters disappear, the panels fill up the whole of the page, and blood & violence is lovingly, delicately inflicted upon Umezu's doll-people, who suddenly come alive with fear, pain and horror.
I don't think that Drifting Classroom is my sort of thing. It seems designed to encourage all of my worst anti-social bordering on sociopathic inclinations. Not only could I not sympathize with any of the characters, but I found myself cheering up a bit when the little dead-eyed gape-mouthed doll-children started bleeding & wailing. That's not a good place to be going.
It's a little depressing that this is considered a classic.
The art is extremely stiff, with characters who can't seem to run in a natural fashion, bizarre gape-mouthed expressions, and the designs in general give the impression of not particularly naturalistic drawings of dolls. Mind you, this isn't the sort of loose Disneyesque character design which Tezuka and his imitators used to produce - those are warm, charming, a little shabby at times, perhaps, jokey, yes - but not stiff.
The panel design suggests that the impression is intentional - very rigid, confined, ruled, patterned. Except when something violent or disturbing happens, then the gutters disappear, the panels fill up the whole of the page, and blood & violence is lovingly, delicately inflicted upon Umezu's doll-people, who suddenly come alive with fear, pain and horror.
I don't think that Drifting Classroom is my sort of thing. It seems designed to encourage all of my worst anti-social bordering on sociopathic inclinations. Not only could I not sympathize with any of the characters, but I found myself cheering up a bit when the little dead-eyed gape-mouthed doll-children started bleeding & wailing. That's not a good place to be going.
It's a little depressing that this is considered a classic.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Anyone have any idea whether this is any good? It sounds kind of generic, but my attention was caught by the Oz reference, which seems like a total non sequitor given the plot synopsis.
Drove over to Clem's in Bald Eagle Valley to pick up some T-shirts for the company just now. Remember what I was saying about the corn being high this year? Not so much in that chunk of Bald Eagle Valley. Wish I could say I was surprised. That valley really is the arse-end of creation.
Well, OK, the arse-end of Centre County. Swampy, trash-dump-ridden, pestilent, - trashy. Why do they *bother* farming that land? It always *sucks*.
Ugh. Should not have eaten those peanut-butter fudge "cookies". More like shapeless, tiny candy bars. Like a lead bar in your stomach.
Well, OK, the arse-end of Centre County. Swampy, trash-dump-ridden, pestilent, - trashy. Why do they *bother* farming that land? It always *sucks*.
Ugh. Should not have eaten those peanut-butter fudge "cookies". More like shapeless, tiny candy bars. Like a lead bar in your stomach.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
So this month was volume 20 of Kare Kano, and second-to-last volume to boot. That manga had a pretty good run from vol. 15 through 19, and the first half of vol. 20 continued that run - great, right? It kind of deflates a bit after that strong start, though. And by the end of the volume - what, Arima wants to be a beat cop? Where the heck did that come from? - you can definitely see the seeds of why my Japanese-reading, manga-importing friend Bill warned me to pretend that the twentieth volume of Kare Kano was, in fact, the last volume. 'Cause there really isn't anywhere else for this story to go, other than limp bathos. In fact, I'd argue that it went there right after the mangaka led up to Yukino's grand reveal of the hidden Big Deal... and it fizzles like a pissed-on firecracker. That is to say, it manages at the same time to fail to catch fire, and stink horribly at the same time.
Bah!
On the other hand, I bought all of those volumes about the future pop-star siblings-by-marriage romance in the early teens, and those kind of stank in their own feeble sort of way. Kare Kano is definitely one of those manga that blow hot and cold. It's just that I've been warned that the end of the series doesn't really blow any warmer than this, and may in fact freeze solid before the pagecount goes to zero.
I will say that I liked the dead-trees ghost imagery in the first half of vol. 20. Stretching bare limbs across the characters, entrapped in the grasping deadwood tangle whose roots aren't visible, because the artist has only drawn the top halves of the scenery. Tsuda does have a way with subtle imagery. Or possibly the sort of blatant imagery which strikes clods like yours truly in a memorable way, I suppose.
Bah!
On the other hand, I bought all of those volumes about the future pop-star siblings-by-marriage romance in the early teens, and those kind of stank in their own feeble sort of way. Kare Kano is definitely one of those manga that blow hot and cold. It's just that I've been warned that the end of the series doesn't really blow any warmer than this, and may in fact freeze solid before the pagecount goes to zero.
I will say that I liked the dead-trees ghost imagery in the first half of vol. 20. Stretching bare limbs across the characters, entrapped in the grasping deadwood tangle whose roots aren't visible, because the artist has only drawn the top halves of the scenery. Tsuda does have a way with subtle imagery. Or possibly the sort of blatant imagery which strikes clods like yours truly in a memorable way, I suppose.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Oh, BTW? The corn? In excess of ten feet in the fields around Governors' Park east of town. It might have been higher in places - I don't carry a tape-measure around with me on my walks - but it was hard to tell up around the soccer field, which is entirely surrounded by cornfield. Up there, wind gusts and the stalks' own inability to support themselves have caused large swathes of overtall corn stands to collapse in on themselves. I wonder if those are harvestable, or are they basically wastage? I think those fields are taller because they're silage-specific seed varieties - few if any had more than one ear, which suggests that somebody had been monkeying with the genetics to favour stalk and height over grain and volume. But, since that farmer didn't care to brag about whatever seeds he or she planted this year via the usual seed-sign-posts, I can only guess.
I picked up a pile of closeout-cheap DVDs in a just-before-opening raid on The Best Anime Dealer On The Circuit, dashing in and out quickly during the Con. That best dealer on the circuit? BuyRiteDVD, although they never, ever identify themselves as such. In fact, the only thing I've ever seen them post in the way of signs are these "$5 DVDs!" banners, which I do admit, is pretty nifty advertising, because - hey! $5 DVDs!
This year, they also had el cheapo box-sets. I went to the con looking for cheap Fancy Lala DVDs, after picking up a very cheap first volume of said Fancy Lala at a local Dollar General. BuyRiteDVD was selling the Fancy Lala brick for $15. Dude.
I should be ashamed to admit publicly that I bought & watched this series. For those not up on the details of Japanese girl culture - and I don't claim to be an expert, but - "Fancy Lala" is a sort of Japanese Barbie doll. I'm watching the anime equivalent of Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus. Or more accurately, Barbie Meets Jem. (How is it that they never did any sort of Barbie: Rock Star cartoon? Is it just that Amazon is letting me down, and I really ought to be searching elsewhere for my examples? I don't know, I'm allergic to polyurethane pink. I've spent more time semi-googling for Barbie crap than I wanted to already, give me a break, imaginary audience!)
Right. Back on track. Fancy Lala. It's an exemplar of the "magical idol" sub-sub-genre of mahou shoujo or "magical girl". Instead of prepubescent little girls transforming into various roles of adolescence and adulthood (traditional "magical girl", like Minky Momo) or into a fighting-hero (like Sailor Moon or Wedding Peach or any of dozens of similar bishoujo sentai), "magical idols" are little pre-pubescent girls who use their magery to become disposable entertainment figures, aka, in the Japanese parlance, "idoru". Nobody ever recognizes just how inappropriately childlike and callow these fake idols are, because one of the primary points of idolhood is the coy affection of aspects of childhood by adolescent or just barely post-adolescent girls who are themselves not all that far from the longed-for-state of innocence. If you haven't seen Perfect Blue yet, this is the point at which I urge you to go and see it, because it'll explain more about the "idol" industry than I could in fifteen paragraphs of tedious otaku blather.
Anyways, "magical idols". There are a lot more of these titles than you'd think. Fancy Lala is probably the best of the bunch, if only because it doesn't spend as much time on the main characters dreams and aspirations as is usual. In fact, the protagonist, Miho, never really wanted to be an idol at all. She wanted to be a mangaka, a comic artist. She gets the usual magical-pets and magical-tschoktes, turns into her grown-up self, and goes wandering around one of the trendier sections of Tokyo, where she's scouted as a model by a shoe-string production team who've just lost their model & were in desperate straits. One thing leads to another, and thus the accidental idol star, "Fancy Lala" is born.
But this accidental beginning isn't just contrivance, it is also theme. Miho's story is one of giri, of obligation and acquiescence. She goes through a lot of adventures more because it's what she's expected to do, or because of prior promises, prior obligations, and the natural logic of prior successes.
I suppose I'm making it sound a great deal more dreary and unpleasant than it actually is, so I should row back a few strokes at this point. Only about half the episodes are concerned with ldol-industry romping about. The show finds plenty of time for ghost stories, her school-friends, neighbors, and relatives, and all sorts of goofing around. Combined with the show's retro-Eighties charm - the character designs are by Akemi Takada, who was pretty old-fashioned even by the standards of 1998 - is a solid run of good writing and fine animation, by television standards.
This year, they also had el cheapo box-sets. I went to the con looking for cheap Fancy Lala DVDs, after picking up a very cheap first volume of said Fancy Lala at a local Dollar General. BuyRiteDVD was selling the Fancy Lala brick for $15. Dude.
I should be ashamed to admit publicly that I bought & watched this series. For those not up on the details of Japanese girl culture - and I don't claim to be an expert, but - "Fancy Lala" is a sort of Japanese Barbie doll. I'm watching the anime equivalent of Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus. Or more accurately, Barbie Meets Jem. (How is it that they never did any sort of Barbie: Rock Star cartoon? Is it just that Amazon is letting me down, and I really ought to be searching elsewhere for my examples? I don't know, I'm allergic to polyurethane pink. I've spent more time semi-googling for Barbie crap than I wanted to already, give me a break, imaginary audience!)
Right. Back on track. Fancy Lala. It's an exemplar of the "magical idol" sub-sub-genre of mahou shoujo or "magical girl". Instead of prepubescent little girls transforming into various roles of adolescence and adulthood (traditional "magical girl", like Minky Momo) or into a fighting-hero (like Sailor Moon or Wedding Peach or any of dozens of similar bishoujo sentai), "magical idols" are little pre-pubescent girls who use their magery to become disposable entertainment figures, aka, in the Japanese parlance, "idoru". Nobody ever recognizes just how inappropriately childlike and callow these fake idols are, because one of the primary points of idolhood is the coy affection of aspects of childhood by adolescent or just barely post-adolescent girls who are themselves not all that far from the longed-for-state of innocence. If you haven't seen Perfect Blue yet, this is the point at which I urge you to go and see it, because it'll explain more about the "idol" industry than I could in fifteen paragraphs of tedious otaku blather.
Anyways, "magical idols". There are a lot more of these titles than you'd think. Fancy Lala is probably the best of the bunch, if only because it doesn't spend as much time on the main characters dreams and aspirations as is usual. In fact, the protagonist, Miho, never really wanted to be an idol at all. She wanted to be a mangaka, a comic artist. She gets the usual magical-pets and magical-tschoktes, turns into her grown-up self, and goes wandering around one of the trendier sections of Tokyo, where she's scouted as a model by a shoe-string production team who've just lost their model & were in desperate straits. One thing leads to another, and thus the accidental idol star, "Fancy Lala" is born.
But this accidental beginning isn't just contrivance, it is also theme. Miho's story is one of giri, of obligation and acquiescence. She goes through a lot of adventures more because it's what she's expected to do, or because of prior promises, prior obligations, and the natural logic of prior successes.
I suppose I'm making it sound a great deal more dreary and unpleasant than it actually is, so I should row back a few strokes at this point. Only about half the episodes are concerned with ldol-industry romping about. The show finds plenty of time for ghost stories, her school-friends, neighbors, and relatives, and all sorts of goofing around. Combined with the show's retro-Eighties charm - the character designs are by Akemi Takada, who was pretty old-fashioned even by the standards of 1998 - is a solid run of good writing and fine animation, by television standards.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Now that Ag Progress Days are behind us, it's time for Bellefonte's Arts and Crafts Fair, today and tomorrow. Unlike State College's Arts Fest, Bellefonte's emphasis is more on the crafts than the art. It's mostly tschoktes and the sort of pseudo-rural and actual-rural kitsch that some of my female relatives have been fond of.
Not really my thing, although I might toss the old wax-covered pinecone & get a new one.
Not really my thing, although I might toss the old wax-covered pinecone & get a new one.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Back from Ag Progress Days.
Talked to some seed company reps, and it looks like the avalanche of new seed traits may have slowed down - nothing really outrageous or novel in the works for 2007. For the years 1999-2006, it seemed like every year we'd get a new cluster of genetic modifications - first Yieldgard (Bt cornborer insecticidal) & Roundup Ready (herbicide product-specific resistant), then Liberty Link (another class of herbicide resistance), Clearfield (yet another class of herbicide-resistance), then Yieldgard-RW (Bt rootworm insecticidal), Herculex I (the next generation of Bt-like insecticidal, cornborer), Yieldgard Plus (Bt stacked both cornborer & rootworm), Herculex RW (see above, for rootworm), Herculex Extra (Herculex equivalent of Yieldgard Plus), and then more triple- and quadruple-stack varieties than you could keep track of in spreadsheet format.
It's getting increasingly hard to keep track of which varieties are trait-stacked with which varieties, as every company has its own nomenclature. But it seems to definitely be slowing down. No new traits, and the companies with Herculex are starting to retire their Yieldgard varieties. But that barely makes up for the confusion which is Garst. They started out with a slate of generic sort-of traits which mimicked the trademarked, IP-protected traits from Monsanto - Roundup Ready became GT, or Glyphosate Tolerant, Agrisure CB was synonymous with YG1, both of them being Yieldgard (Cornborer), etc. Then a bunch of company mergers brought the two lines of IP into corporate contact, and suddenly Garst is selling seeds for both sets of IP side-by-side. It's enough to give one a headache.
There was a stand selling Ribeye sandwiches and steak-and-egg sandwiches. The steak-and-cheese-and-egg was great, especially after an hour standing under the noon sun in a cornfield listening to a presentation on no-till & methods for measuring crop residue & soil field quality.
The corn and soybeans are doing insanely well here in Pennsylvania. I literally did not recognize the soybean fields at first - I've never seen them this high, this perfect-looking. Not only are the corn stands running between eight and ten feet, they're doing so uniformly. We didn't get all that much rain - Spring Creek is alarmingly low - but it all hit at exactly the right time for really, really pretty fields. Gorgeous.
Talked to some seed company reps, and it looks like the avalanche of new seed traits may have slowed down - nothing really outrageous or novel in the works for 2007. For the years 1999-2006, it seemed like every year we'd get a new cluster of genetic modifications - first Yieldgard (Bt cornborer insecticidal) & Roundup Ready (herbicide product-specific resistant), then Liberty Link (another class of herbicide resistance), Clearfield (yet another class of herbicide-resistance), then Yieldgard-RW (Bt rootworm insecticidal), Herculex I (the next generation of Bt-like insecticidal, cornborer), Yieldgard Plus (Bt stacked both cornborer & rootworm), Herculex RW (see above, for rootworm), Herculex Extra (Herculex equivalent of Yieldgard Plus), and then more triple- and quadruple-stack varieties than you could keep track of in spreadsheet format.
It's getting increasingly hard to keep track of which varieties are trait-stacked with which varieties, as every company has its own nomenclature. But it seems to definitely be slowing down. No new traits, and the companies with Herculex are starting to retire their Yieldgard varieties. But that barely makes up for the confusion which is Garst. They started out with a slate of generic sort-of traits which mimicked the trademarked, IP-protected traits from Monsanto - Roundup Ready became GT, or Glyphosate Tolerant, Agrisure CB was synonymous with YG1, both of them being Yieldgard (Cornborer), etc. Then a bunch of company mergers brought the two lines of IP into corporate contact, and suddenly Garst is selling seeds for both sets of IP side-by-side. It's enough to give one a headache.
There was a stand selling Ribeye sandwiches and steak-and-egg sandwiches. The steak-and-cheese-and-egg was great, especially after an hour standing under the noon sun in a cornfield listening to a presentation on no-till & methods for measuring crop residue & soil field quality.
The corn and soybeans are doing insanely well here in Pennsylvania. I literally did not recognize the soybean fields at first - I've never seen them this high, this perfect-looking. Not only are the corn stands running between eight and ten feet, they're doing so uniformly. We didn't get all that much rain - Spring Creek is alarmingly low - but it all hit at exactly the right time for really, really pretty fields. Gorgeous.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
It's Ag Progress Days here in the valley. We're sending people from work in groups today and tomorrow for "educational purposes", which I'm reading as organized tours, which is a bit of a shame, as Ag Progress Days is like a carnival, with tractors. I managed to talk them into letting me go along tomorrow, after promising I'd take it seriously and be a good boy.
[Party!]
[Party!]
Monday, August 14, 2006
They had a German brass band down at the gazebo in Tallyrand on Sunday. Boy, was that annoying. They were actually wearing lederhosen. I could have sworn that most Pennsylvania Dutch were from northwestern and southwestern Germany, not Bavaria or Austria. Lederhosen are an *anachronism* for Pennsylvania Dutch.
You know, Germans have one of the least amusing and most embarrassing agglomerations of low culture in the world. Other cultures might have bagpipes, fiddles, clever oddly-named pipes & quaintly-formed stringed instruments. What do the Germans have? Tubas.
At least we have chocolate.
You know, Germans have one of the least amusing and most embarrassing agglomerations of low culture in the world. Other cultures might have bagpipes, fiddles, clever oddly-named pipes & quaintly-formed stringed instruments. What do the Germans have? Tubas.
At least we have chocolate.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Good God. I apparently had upwards of thirty heatstroke casualties on my prereg line at the Con on Thursday, which was a hundred-years record day for heat in Baltimore. The line control folks asked me for permission to open the doors early in order to get at least part of the line indoors - I can't fit the whole of a Thursdays' prereg line inside of the lobby we use, because said line might contain as much as four thousand competitive line-squatters, but we can probably get nearly a thousand in there - and I said "yes" as quickly as they would let me. For some reason, that decision didn't make its way back up the line of command particularly quickly, and since I had my own department to get organized and moved forward, I didn't personally move the line inside, as I might have if I'd had time.
But I did know there was some sort of a problem out there - everybody and their brother was talking about the heat wave, and every station on the dial was chattering about the heat advisories on the way down from central PA the previous morning. It couldn't have been any sort of surprise to anyone paying attention. Furthermore, my reg line is not a slow-moving one, nor does the Con have a reputation for slow Thursday preregistration - we have cleared our line by the end of the night every year for the previous three years on Thursday. There was no earthly reason for anybody to be waiting all day out there in the record heat and sun. Thirty-some sunstroke and heatstroke victims, and three who had to be hospitalized. Worse than I thought, but no great surprise. My people processed somewhere just south of nine thousand that night, and cleared the line before 9 PM. No reason whatsoever for people to be waiting on line all day. Good God Almighty.
Fans!
But I did know there was some sort of a problem out there - everybody and their brother was talking about the heat wave, and every station on the dial was chattering about the heat advisories on the way down from central PA the previous morning. It couldn't have been any sort of surprise to anyone paying attention. Furthermore, my reg line is not a slow-moving one, nor does the Con have a reputation for slow Thursday preregistration - we have cleared our line by the end of the night every year for the previous three years on Thursday. There was no earthly reason for anybody to be waiting all day out there in the record heat and sun. Thirty-some sunstroke and heatstroke victims, and three who had to be hospitalized. Worse than I thought, but no great surprise. My people processed somewhere just south of nine thousand that night, and cleared the line before 9 PM. No reason whatsoever for people to be waiting on line all day. Good God Almighty.
Fans!
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