Sun, 15 Sept: Weekly Review 28

Watched GITS Arise Part Two. Called Ghost Whispers, Motoko goes head to head with Batou, Ishikawa and Borma, who she will soon recruit for her team. At the moment, they’re enemies working for different bosses. She tries to recruit Saito the sniper, but he quickly changes his allegiances when the other side ‘sweeten the pot’. There’s a rather disturbing detail about refugees who turn out to be terrorists that’s way too close to that awful racist anti-Arab film The Siege. Great scene on the highway with Motoko and the Logicoma battling Batou and his gang. By episode’s end, Motoko has most of her shell group in place. All that’s missing is Togusa, who’s not seen at all in this ep.  

Watched GITS Arise Part Three. A crucial episode in Motoko’s development featuring a phantom terrorist bomber. She takes a lover and experiences her body as a physical thing. We get to see her in a curvy cocktail dress and sporting lipstick for a party scene. Batou makes a comment about the dress and gets punched in the face with his own fist for the effort (coz she can bypass his network and control him). Always a comedy classic. Togusa joins the team, and Borma gets a nice moment figuring out how the bomber does his thing. The scene where he and Paz throw the hapless guard, who has the bomb in one of his prosthetics, down an elevator shaft is a classic. Of course the lover betrays Kusanagi and kills himself in the end. The course of true love never was smooth. Especially in Motoko’s world.  

Watched GITS Arise part three again, because it’s too dense for just one viewing. I still can’t work out half of it. And how many times have I watched this? Heaps, but I keep coming back because it’s so damn cool. The ending is classic, with Motoko offering Togusa a job with Section 9, but his wife’s water’s just broke and he’s off to attend the birth, surprising the hell out of Kusanagi. Operatives in her line of work aren’t supposed to be married – and they sure shouldn’t have kids.  

Watched GITS Arise part four, called Ghost Stands Alone. With Togusa in place, the team have all come together. Starts with a dramatic Christmas Eve mass extermination of protestors, and an opto-camouflaged Kusanagi killing the speaker at the nearby function that is the cause of the protests. Kusanagi and her team are then tasked with escorting the suspected cause of the extermination – a young girl, the only survivor – to an installation for analysis and/or dissection. Turns out there’s not one, but two ghosts inside her shell, both sharing a Wizard of Oz mental aesthetic (the girl is Dorothy, the man is the Tinman), and they escape. I loved the fact that Batou didn’t have a clue about the Wizard of Oz reference. Dorothy and the Tinman almost reach their Oz along a cyberized yellow brick road, but are blown up at the last minute – and Motoko with them, but she’s saved by Batou. An explosive ending to another great instalment in the franchise. The team are up and running and we’re ready for the first film.  

Borrowed a book from the library, Last Tango in Cyberspace by Steven Kotler. It fits with my Ghost In the Shell viewings, which has put me in the mood for some cyberpunk. Looks like it’s gonna be very Gibson-esque.

Started reading Last Tango in Cyberspace. Shades of Neuromancer, Pattern Recognition, GITS, Blade Runner and so forth. Breaks the fourth wall with reference to Tyrell Corp from Blade Runner and Weyland-Yutani Corp from Alien. References to the old New Journalism, including Joan Didion and Hunter Thomson. The MC even keeps a hardcopy of Frank Herbert’s Dune in his bag. Dune is a huge plot point for this story. I’ve read all these writers, all these books. The author is smart, but I’m smarter. I think I will see this one through.  

Got the latest Librarything newsletter. In the awards section it mentioned the new Hugo winners. Best novel was Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh. Best short story was Better Living Through Algorithms by Naomi Kritzer.  

Watched half of Perfume’s Future Pop Tour dvd. This is another of my Japan purchases that I’ve finally got around to watching. As expected, the wait was worth it. The ladies put on a great show. The computer graphics accompanying them and the music is eye-popping. The Japanese crowd are pumped. There’s a large slab of the Future Pop album, as expected, but they go deep and pull out some old ones too, including Electro World. I watched up to Tokyo Girl. They’ve pretty much stayed on the stage up to this point to highlight the light show, but I know they will come out on the runway and interact with the crowd soon.  

I’ve just discovered they’re bringing out another album in two days time (Sept 20). It seems to be called Nebula Romance (the title’s in Japanese). This will include the most recent single The Light. Can’t wait!  

Watched the second half of the Perfume Future Pop dvd. Yep, as noted earlier, the ladies come out along the runway and interact. It starts with the song Every Day. Then we get a-chan showing the crowd how to do the chorus dance for Tokyo Girl, which is fun. There’s something about the way a-chan does this, making funny little noises and gestures, that’s totally endearing. She’s always been the main personality in the group, the most outgoing, the main talker. Nocchi and Kashiyuka spur her on from the sides with comments and laughter. At the end of it, the backing track is played and large sections of the crowd have a go at busting those moves. It’s silly and funny and always a highlight. But they’re soon back to the raised stage for the high energy thump of rave favourite Party Maker. It finishes with the low key but atmospheric Mugenmirai (Infinite Future). Love the piano line in this one. All Perfume tours have been a tasty mixture of hi tech wizardry, that could be seen as slightly impersonal, with low tech very personal (even whimsical) interactions. The human and the machine joining together. That’s Perfume.      

Watched Jeongyeon Inspector with Jihyo as guest. As usual, they bickered like an old couple, but were clearly good friends. It was a bit like their recent 2wice Date, but without the wacky fishing. At one point, Jeongyeon noticed a Learning English book on a shelf. Jihyo said she was learning English. Then, noticing a bookmark in the early chapters, Jeongy blithely pointed out she had not got far with her English language book study. There were not one but two large clothes rooms for all of Jihyo’s stuff, and minimal decoration. It was interesting to see where Jihyo lived and slept when she wasn’t doing group schedules. I guess these blocky high rise apartments are considered state of the art homes in Korea. But I wouldn’t want to live in one. Sorry Jihyo…  

Discovered new all-girl Krock band, Qwer, on Youtube. Very anime like. Songs TBH and False Idol are good. Saw a nice live clip of them doing TBH. They actually do play their instruments. Also saw Nmixx’s Love is Lonely video. A nice clip. Especially liked the opening shot where Haewon walks into the water at a beach and sits at a table there in the sand. Saw lots of clips of Tzuyu doing Run Away on various shows. Her voice, separated from the other Twice voices, sounds slightly naive though appealing. But listening to the album, I think it’s the weakest song, which is a good recommendation for the album.  

James Earl Jones died today. Farewell voice of Darth Vader. But I remember him most of all in TV series Roots as Alex Haley, and in Field of Dreams. To Kevin Costner, with a fly sprayer: ‘Go back to the sixties!’ RIP James.  

Listened to the new Motley Crue song, Dogs of War. Not bad. Not sure why they’re still going, but why not? Tony mentioned them on Sunday. Said Vince Neil is healthier these days. Maybe that’s why the new song. On ya, Vince.  

Watched some Rage clips, Victims by Culture Club and Cattle and Cain by The Go Betweens. Victims is one of CC’s best songs with a very soulful vocal from Boy. The clip’s pretty good too. Flowing camera work with George going for a ride on the arm, and nice visual matching with the editing and the music. Their music always takes me back to my college days. The Gobs clip, the one set in the barn, is another favourite. Love the quick cutaways at ‘and the wait’ from member to member, with each one quickly staring at the other for the segue – especially new member Robert Vickers (looking cool as fuck, as always), looking down, hair dangling, looks up and to the right, very quick. Lindy also looks cool, sitting astride that tiny drum kit, doing that tricksy pattern in her prim and proper nice girl’s dress.

The Kamala/Trump debate was everywhere, especially Trump’s meme about eating dogs and cats. Meanwhile, people protested the Military Expo here in Melbourne and got called ‘violent’, without irony.  What does the media think the military does?  

Encountered an interesting stat about Japan. 80% of its tourists are Japanese. The economy is so bad that it’s more economical for them to travel within their country then overseas. This makes me feel less guilty about the thought of travelling there. The topic often comes up in talk with my colleagues – will I go again? The answer must be yes, but not sure if it’ll be the next trip. England’s looking more likely at the moment.  

Caught a snippet of In the Heat of the Night with Rod Steiger and Sidney Poitier. It was the sequence from where Warren Oates’ cop finds the murder victim, then Sidney Poitier’s Virgil Tibbs character at a nearby train station, and gleefully brings him in for questioning. The scene at the cop station is classic. Steiger’s chief of police is ready to throw the book at Tibbs when they find he’s carrying a wad of money, then Tibbs tells him he is himself a cop with the badge to prove it. A quick call to his station in Philadelphia reveals he’s also a homicide cop, so Steiger ropes him in to help with the investigation. This was the only bit that felt a bit forced. Steiger’s racism for Tibbs the black man is too soon replaced with a kind of respect for Tibbs the policeman. Norman Jewison’s direction is terrific. He holds the camera on the actors, giving them room to convey information – to act. And they do it well.

Watched some Youtube. Saw the Twice girls (except Misamo, who I assume are away working on their new album) viewing Tzuyu’s Run Away clip. Lots of love, lots of support, some laughter. Tzuyu seems pretty chuffed with the results.  

Listened to a bit of (G)-Idle’s I Sway cassette. Last Forever’s a real good bogan-lite pop song. I still wonder if Klaxon is as filthy as I think it is (‘Honk, honk, hit the klaxon’).  

Returned to an old Playstation 4 favourite, the game Surviving Mars. It had been so long since I’d played it that I had to go back through the tutorial. But it didn’t take long to get mostly back up to speed. This game is a visual treat. One of my favourite things to do with it is jump into one of the rovers and have it drive me around Mars. The views are spectacular and the detail is superb. So many interesting and entertaining details. It reminds me of an old Sims-like game called Space Colony that’s only rendered in isometric. I’d always wanted to get in close with that game, and I can do that with Surviving Mars. This was like slipping back into a comfortable old pair of shoes. I’m looking forward to taking it for a long walk. And it may inspire me to read some of the many Mars-themed novels I’ve yet to read in my collection.