12 Jan, Sun: Weekly Review 44

It’s all been about the boobies today. I won’t elaborate…

Caught a couple of interesting posts on Twitter. One was from Lady Valerian about the so-called Irish Potato Famine and how it actually happened because the British took most of their food away, leaving them to subsist only on potatoes. It’s true: the context is often removed in talk about the Famine. The thread mentioned how Sinead O’Connor, for one, constantly reminded people of this, bless her. Second Sinead reference for the day! The other one was this ethics question from Existential Comics, a funny and wry Tweeter. Why indeed! Maybe it’s a question for the British and their role in the Potato Famine.

I read another chapter of Capitalism: A Horror Story. This was about Monsters and Utopia. It was way too techie and egg-heady for me, but one good point was made. We are already living in a Utopia. It’s just not ours; it belongs to the rich and powerful. This is why they are so hell bent on maintaining the status quo. They get to keep their utopia. Main point of the chapter seemed to be that, in order to wrest the Utopia from the rich and scatter it to the poor, we need to become monsters, whether the monster of the mob or of an organised social justice movement.

I watched another ep of Urusei Yatsura. This was #53, The Do Or Die Subspace Part-Time Job This was an amazing episode that has a lot to unpack. Ataru gets his ideal job in a bathhouse; only, the path to get there is a tortuous one. With Lum’s help he needs to navigate a dimensional portal through an alley then a cemetery, meeting a number of strange characters along the way. There’s even a sidetrip on a train with Lum that gets him back to his arrival point. By this point he’s thinking he’s ‘entered hell’, but he keeps going because he wants to believe this job (which he thinks will entail scrubbing the backs of beautiful naked women) will be worth it. When he finally arrives he discovers, as is usual, there is a section for men and a section for women, and he’s working in the men’s section. This involves him in the unpleasant task of scrubbing the backs of giant monsters, who are surly about the sorts of brushes he should use. It is indeed like ‘hell’, but he works diligently. Then his communication device fails and he can no longer understand what his clients say, so he uses that as the excuse to slack off. At this point Lum’s little nephew Ten shows up in the men’s communal pool telling Ataru the women’s side of the bathhouse, where he has been, is ‘paradise’. This is all the encouragement he needs to try to scale the wall between the two sides. But he is constantly thwarted by Lum, who is onto him and keeps appearing at the top of the wall to stop him. Ataru then figures, if he can’t go over, he’ll go under, and that’s what he does. He follows Ten in his little sub-bike on a voyage deep beneath the bath, which is more like an ocean at this point, to emerge on the other side amidst giggling naked women, including Lum and her pals, Benten and Oyuke. But Lum immediately puts a blindfold on him and sneakily directs him to back-wash a nearby female-shaped statue. Ataru doesn’t know or care that his erotic fun makes him look foolish. But then Ten blows the statue up with a torpedo from his sub and it and Ataru sink into the bath pool, where he is pinned by the statue at the bottom, and the story ends. Wow, make of all that what you will! It’s surreal and epic and mythic and highly metaphorical all in one. The connection between this story and the chapter of the book I just read about monsters and Utopias is pretty clear. The same for the two Twitter posts I mentioned in here as well, for that matter. Everything is connected…

…I took a random book off my shelves and started reading it. It was Spires of Spirit, a short story collection by fantasy author Gael Baudino. I read the first story, called Charity and was enchanted. The MC, a carpenter called Andrew tries to offer charity to a down at heels old woman, who refuses it and tries to hex him with magic. The depth of characterisation and theme here is astounding, reminding me of Ursula Le Guin. But unlike Le Guin, there’s a definite strand of Christianity about Boudino’s writing, but it’s well-integrated and not heavy-handed. I think her elves are angels. The climax, or solution, to the story was wholly satisfying. I’m looking forward to reading more of the stories in the collection.

Watched Urusei Yatsura ep 58, Steal the Kiss of Miss Snow Queen. I thought this one of the lesser of the top 50 episodes. It starts with Lum orchestrating a trip to the snow with Ataru, who is reluctant at first, but gets interested when he discovers a resort that has a contest where the winner gets to kiss the ‘snow queen’. The exposition seemed a bit unnecessary as many episodes just plonk our characters down into whatever wacky scenario is required without explanation. And the effort Ataru and the rest of the stormtroopers, who join in, to just get a kiss off some random snow babe hardly seems worth the effort. Geez Ataru, have a look at the girl next to you, will you? Even the reveal at the end that the snow queen was Lum was pretty predictable.

Edited a bunch of Rage clips I recorded on the PVR, mainly the recent Top 50 plus this morning’s selection. There was Rose’s Number One Girl and Stray Kidz’s Walk on Water, and FKA Twig’s Eusexua and Sabrina Carpenter’s Taste videos. Later, I hooked up my old media centre to my TV and watched some of my favourite old videos from the external hard drive I connected to it. Watched Lemon Kiss by the Deserters and Feel So High by Des’ree, plus a bunch of Kpops. Watching great music videos is an activity I could do all day – and night.

Someone called Jakeflix has uploaded the entire concert of the second night of Pearl Jam’s recent concert at Marvel stadium, the one I attended. It’s over two hours long, and I don’t know when I’ll have time to watch it, but I’m putting it in my Watch Later file. It will be interesting to see the concert close up after having watched it mainly from the screens, because I was so far back.

I’m getting dissatisfied with the way my cd’s are all spread out in my home. I’ve got my Heavy Metals in one shelf, sharing room with my Australian stuff. My 60s to 00s band stuff in a couple of draws, including my Kpops. My solo female and male stuff in another cupboards. My country, folk and prog and Dylans on another shelf. My garage and 50s stuff in the TV desk. It’s all over the place and out of control. I’d like them all in one place. So much clutter. My home is a hot mess. I’d love to have them all in a nice neat series of feature shelves on one wall, but just don’t have the room. Sigh.

I encountered a couple of amusing tweet threads on Twitter/X today. One was about old ‘teenagers’ in films like Grease by Historic Vids. It was pretty funny, and it’s an old bugaboo of mine too. When I think of all them old ‘teenagers’ in Buffy and other shows, it’s silly and annoying. The Grease cast were especially out of wack. Someone posted info about 17 year old Rizzo, how she was played by the (at the time) 33 year old Stockard Channing. Some photos were shown of actual teenagers from that era who actually did look much older. ONJ was actually six years older than Travolta. Another thread I liked was one from No Context Memes about the many games transgressions perpetrated by women, like getting rid of all the ugly people in the Sims 3 and 4. I like to think of this activity as merely getting creative with a game – or maybe ‘going off-script’. It had me thinking of times I’ve gotten creative in games, or of others I’ve known who have done it. I liked the post about Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, how easy it was to build rides that would get your sims killed. I did that a few times myself. It was fun!

Today I ordered some desirable Kpop items from K-pop Time. They were the digipak versions of Twice’s Strategy album (Mina version) and Blackpink Rose’s Rosie album. I’m also getting a terrific four dvd collection of Aespa material called Aespisode Synk #1 that includes the videos and some concerts. This is something I wish Twice would do. We have some concert videos, but no music video collection.

Still on the Kpop trail, my Twitter feeds informed me there’ll soon be a release of a new Twice Yes I Am book, this time for Nayeon. These are part of a series of large coffee table photo albums that have been released over the years featuring each of the members. I bought the last one, which was Yes I Am Chaeyoung. That was two years ago. This new Nayeon one makes it seven released so far. Only Jeongyeon and Momo to go. I really want the Mina one, but really, I’d like ‘em all.

Watched some Twice themed stuff on Youtube. One was an episode of Trick Kode, featuring Nayeon and Red Velvet’s Yeri. Nabong looked fabulous in a slightly low-cut dress. Yeri laughed a lot, with the subtitler calling her laugh a crow screech, which it kind of was. Nayeon guessed Yeri’s identity early on, but a good time was had. Although I could do without the incessant pizza product placements. The other was a little vid called Twice Day #5, about preparations for the Strategy comeback. Now I must track down the first four episodes.

I had some small change to waste, so I went to a local op shop and bought some James Bond DVDs, plus To Have and Have Not, the old Bogart/Bacall film. The Bonds were Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and Skyfall, the first three Daniel Craig Bonds. I recall the first one being very good, the other two a bit so-so. I watched Casino Royale. It’s still very good! I read the book a little while ago and it’s interesting to note that the film only starts on using the original Ian Fleming story about half way through the film, when Bond goes to the casino of the film’s title. The shenanigans that go on during the big poker tournament are pretty epic. Craig was such a good Bond. Probably my second favourite to Sean Connery.

Watched some of the extra material on the Casino Royale dvd. This was the music video for Chris Cornell’s song You Know My Name and the documentary about the making of the film. The Cornell song was pretty good and Chris looked quite young and healthy in it. Hard to believe he would die just eleven years later. The doco was interesting for the footage of the stunt guys jumping off those cranes during the chase at the start of the film. They actually did that (albeit with safety harnesses)! The car crash scene was also pretty epic. The car turned over seven times, which turned out to be a world record. The amount of planning and preparation that went into the film was impressive. No wonder it came out so well.

I also watched a nice doco that came with Casino Royale called Bond Girls Are Forever. It was hosted and narrated by Maryam d’Abo, one of the Bond girls, and featured many of the actresses who had played them and their thoughts about the experience. They all seemed to have some affection for the roles they played, whilst being aware how ornamental most of those roles were. The role was an endless struggling for assertiveness, which mostly failed at the hands of the relentlessly chauvinistic Bond. Roger Moore’s Bond in Live and Let Die gets the nod for the biggest bastard when he seduces the virginal Solitaire, played by Jane Seymour, with the help of a trick set of Tarot cards, all featuring The Lovers.

Watched some more Youtubes, including another Twice thing on the Strategy Comeback Week schedule. The members went through their paces performing on various TV shows for this comeback schedule, though the focus was mainly on the behind the scenes prep and the usual Twice shenanigans. Nayeon seemed annoyed at Jeongyeon’s new hair extensions and the way she played with them as though they were her real hair. Later, she (actually, it was Chaeyoung) instigates a new call sign for the Misamo girls, like Twice’s One In a Million, saying they should be ‘three of nine’, including a unique hand gesture to compliment it. Funniest bit is Tzuyu happily nominating the best members, from first to last. She opts for the Meal Club members as the top three, numbering Chaeyoung, herself, then Dahyun. Just outside this privileged few is Jeongyeon, then Sana and Mina. Last of all is Nayeon and Momo. It’s another case of Savage Tzuyu, and I love it.

Someone listed the ranking Tzuyu made of her members on Twitter. I added a comment, namely ‘I accept this ranking’. This is true for the first four placings. Jeongyeon deserves a fourth place. Though I’d put Mina higher.

I read about some more of the Major Arcana cards from my Tarot Directory book (about time). This time it was Strength and The Hanged Man. Of the Hanged Man, the book says, ‘the concept of giving up all worldly possessions in order to follow a spiritual path is the central theme of this card’. This is clearly a card I should probably get every time I do a spread. The card, like the Death card, is nowhere near as sinister as it appears. The guy usually has a calm expression, and sometimes coins are seen falling out of his pockets, signifying the surrender of material things. It is a calm acceptance of the need to change.

I also read another chapter of my amazing Discovering Yourself Through the Tarot book. This one was Descriptions of the Court Cards. There are a lot of them, including Pages, Knights, Queens and Kings and four suits. Though the author includes an extra element called ‘Spirit’, which is all court characters combined. There’s a lot to unpack with the descriptions, but it makes a handy reference guide. It’s really interesting to me how the author incorporates elements of the I Ching into her analysis of the cards. Like, there actually is a correlation. An important originator of this connection was the notorious Alesteir Crowley, a person I first encountered through Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, who was a fan. Actually, the next Tarot book I’m reading will be Mirror of the Soul: Handbook for the Aleister Crowley Tarot.