Now that I’m looking closely at my pop culture consumption with this ‘mindful’ diary page, I’ve noticed a couple of things that are weird but wonderful. Fandoms do often lead to obsessive behaviours, but I didn’t realise how much I seem to come off as someone who’s slightly on the ‘spectrum’, if you know what I mean. No offence meant to those with autism, but uh, yeah, I don’t know what to say. It’s a bit unsettling. The other thing I’m finding is the self reflexivity is creating a weird feedback loop where, in between the living, sleeping and working, half the time I’m consuming pop culture and the other half I’m writing about what I’m consuming, so that even when I’m consuming I’m thinking about the writing. I guess this is the mindfulness I was striving for, so I only have myself to blame. Perhaps this is meditation?
 I watched Q&A on the ABC for the first time in ages. The main draw card for me was Yanis Yaroufakis, economist, former minister of finance for Greece and all-round good guy. There was also Labor cabinet member Ed Husic, uh, Jacquie Lambie, Tasmania Senator and fence sitter, and others. Yanis got a chance to talk some points from his new book Techno-feudalism in relation to a question about the influence of tech giants over governments. Other topics covered were Intergenerational Inequality (which seemed to boil down to no housing for millennials), UNRWA funding (which Husic surprisingly supported passionately), Will Trump Win the Election? and Can Australia Ever Regain its Manufacturing Base? Some good points were made by all, with little grandstanding or party political points made (apart from Lambie, who can never help herself). Host, Patricia Karvelas, did a pretty good job of teasing out points and keeping everyone in check. But the star of the show was surely Yanis. I advise interested people to check out the episode on Iview (if it’s still there) to see Yanis in action. I think I have a man-crush on him. He reminds me of Spock. I would follow him over the hill into battle (my preferred version of ‘I’d go gay for him’). Had a listen to the Twice b-sides compilation cd I made. It’s a thing I still do – making compilation cds. I know, I’m old school, but I love it. I know I could make a playlist like this with a streaming service like Spotify, but it’s really not the same. This one is made up of non-album tracks, remixes, English language versions and all their Japanese b-sides. (Besides their Korean albums, they also release unique albums and singles specifically for the Japanese market. Thus we Onces are doubly blessed.) I painstakingly bought all 11 of those Japanese singles over time, and they were not cheap. It’s so nice to put them all together on one cd, with others, sounding much better than they could with streaming. Listening to it is a good time. After that heaviness I did some light reading with Zen, Drugs and Mysticism by RC Zaehner. The main takeaway from this book so far seems to be that drugs should never be viewed as a short cut to religious or philosophical enlightenment. You must put in the hard yards with lots of meditation and pain. Or something like that. In any case, the book casts doubt whether hallucinogenic drug experiences can equate to authentic mystical, religious or spiritual experiences. An interesting line of argument. I’m a sucker for any book that has Zen in the title.
Saw there’s a new Wim Wenders film out called Perfect Day. Even better, it seems to be set in Japan. Can’t wait to see that. Wings of Desire is one of my favourite films.
This site got its first notice on Facebook. It was my mate, Rui, giving a shout out to my albums page. Thanks Rui! Speaking of Rui, I had a listen to a podcast on his recommendation. It was ‘How Can Novels Help Us Think About Money’, from the Money On the Left podcast. An intriguing episode by Rob Hawkes on the relationship of specific novels (Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley is one cited) to climate change and the world of global finance. It’s all about trust. I like Rob’s full bodied support of literature as an aid to real world problems.
I don’t need more stuff! In fact, I have a very specific criteria these days for what I will buy. I call them ‘irresistible purchases’, as opposed to ‘unnecessary purchases’. Here’s the criteria:
Of course, a good way to avoid UPs is to not go into shops in the first place. So I avoided the trap of stuff, this time. Maybe next time I won’t be so ‘lucky’. I gave the money to the kids…
After all my palaver yesterday about controlling myself when I’m in op shops, I went and bought something in one today. It was a dvd of a film called Voyage To a Prehistoric Planet. A real low budget Roger Corman scifi about the first voyage to Venus. Yes, that’s right, I went with that rather than the uber slick Interstellar of yesterday. I know, my priorities are out of whack. I suppose I justify it in terms of my consumption criteria in that it was unusual, and possibly hard to get. Ultimately, it was in the category of ‘I just really wanted it’. The cover was so garish and retro, it looked like it was in the it’s so bad it’s good category. And it was. I know, because I watched it later in the day. You may recall I mentioned a film I bought yesterday called Voyage To the Prehistoric Planet (1965). Well, I thought it reminded me of something, and checking through the movies recorded on my PVR (I’ve got a backlog I haven’t watched yet!) I noticed a movie called Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968). This is the remake, which was in turn a remake of a Russian film. So I watched the film. There’s so much to say about this that I’ll leave it for a full blog shortly. But wait, there’s more. I discovered Youtube has a print of the Russian film the two Voyage films are based on. It’s called Planeta Bur (Planet of Storms) and, unlike the other two films, it’s in mint condition. Can’t wait to see that one. Spent a lovely Saturday night watching that Russian film, Planet of Storms, on Youtube. As mentioned before, this is the film that was the basis for those two ‘Voyage’ films Roger Corman had made. The crisp print and the direct English subtitles of Storms was like a veil lifted from mine eyes after the low budget murkiness of those two other films. I’ll give a full writeup about these films in a later blog. But I gave this film 3 and a half out of 5 stars. It was pretty solid. | A newsletter I subscribe to is Anime Underground, a survey of trends in anime usually presented as a series of list items. The 12 March letter had a list called The 14 Worst Anime Filler You Should Skip At All Costs. Filler, as the list page mentions, “are anime-exclusive stories that typically arise because the creators are waiting for the manga…on which the anime is based, to release new material”. This often takes the form of story arcs, such as the Bount Arc in the Bleach anime, or the Yota Arc in Naruto. Sometimes it’s considered entire seasons. Some filler can actually be good, but most times they don’t advance the plot or develop characters. Looking down the list I noticed item 13 was for the fourth season of Inuyasha, an anime based on the manga by Rumiko Takahashi, one of my favourites. I just so happen to be making my way through that anime (I have a box set). So far I’m up to season two. I guess I’ll just have to see if it lives up (or down?) to its bad reputation. The newsletter definitely has a way with clickbait list titles. Some others featured were The 30+ Best Anime for Teens, 17 Anime That Start Off Slow But Eventually Become Amazing, and The 16 Worst Anime Girlfriends of All Time. I don’t always agree with the selections, or even know a lot of them, but it’s all good reference material.
 I read another couple of chapters of online manga Ya Boy Kongming! on the Mangafire site. Written by Yuto Yotsuba and drawn by Ryo Ogawa, Kongming is a third century Chinese military strategist who is reborn as a young man in present day Shibuya, Japan. Here he sets out to use his knowledge of military strategy to help Eiko, an aspiring singer he has befriended to become a star. It’s a cool story, and I just read the fabulous scene where Kongming participates in a freestyle rap takedown against a troubled rapper who doubts himself. I first encountered a version of the manga when I was staying in Hiroshima last year. The live action version, called Paripi Koumei, was on in my hotel room, where I was enjoying a quiet beer and delicious taiyaki (with premium custard!). I saw the main character, complete in third century Chinese regalia and head dress, enter the Shibuya Tower Records store to do research for Eiko, and I was hooked. I had been to that Tower Records store just a week before. Ya boy!
In the course of work today (I deliver a book library to country Victoria) I had a chance to talk to some patrons, where the convo turned to pop culture. I mentioned I’d just been to a Teenage Fanclub concert and Melanie, who attends one of my stops, started talking about the Pink concert she’d recently seen. I’ve gotta say at this point I’m not a fan of Pink, and I think of her audience as a bunch of bogans. Mind you, I have an inner bogan. He comes out whenever I listen to AC/DC, which is not often, but I do like them. It’s something I try to suppress. Anyway, Melanie was talking about how the show started with some dj playing a set of 80s songs to the large audience (it was at Marvel Stadium) and how it got everyone dancing. The image here of bogans boogieing was not something I wanted to imagine. Then, during Pink’s performance, Melanie was up and dancing, and some woman behind her asked her to sit down, and Melanie quickly put her in her place. Yep, classic bogan behaviour. That got me thinking about an incident where the exact opposite happened last year at the Paul McCartney concert I attended at the same venue. A man near me put his young daughter on his shoulders to give her a better view, when a man behind me yelled at him to put her down, which he meekly did. Then the yeller and his friends behind me proceeded to talk their way through the rest of the concert. So yeah, not much fun but it was still a good concert – and pause while I cross both ‘seen a Beatle’ and ‘sang Hey Jude with Paul’ off my bucket list. Then another patron, Leanne, an elderly woman who borrows dozens of books from me at a time, floored me by saying she saw the Everly Brothers back in the late Fifties at Festival Hall. I mean, I love and idolise the Everlys. Do tell me more, Leanne. She mentioned that Johnny O’Keefe and Billy Crash Craddock supported them, and that Johnny was good (at shouting) but she didn’t like Billy. “Because he couldn’t sing,” added Don, her husband. “That’s, right,” she agreed, “he was just a pretty boy.” A link on Twitter to a recent article in the online Telegraph newspaper about Justin Hayward, of the Moody Blues, took my eye. That’s mainly coz I’m a big Moodies and Justin fan, but anyway, the article mentioned that actor du jour, Dune 2‘s Timothy Chalamet, appears in an ad for Chanel that uses Justin’s famous song Nights In White Satin in its soundtrack. And apparently it’s made Justin’s song ‘go viral’. I don’t know if it’s quite done the business like that appearance of Running Up That Hill in Stranger Things did for Kate Bush, but I hope it does. Then again, I wonder how many people who heard Running Up That Hill checked out some of Kate’s other songs and albums. Will they do the same for Justin and the Moodies? Will they explore the magnificent body of work by the Moodies we call the ‘core seven’ for starters? It would be nice to think that they will, but I doubt it. A pity. Watched a bit of a film called The Current Wars, about the fight between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse to establish the electricity industry. It apparently had a troubled production, being made by Harvey Weinstein‘s company around the time of ‘Me Too’ that he was embroiled in. The film itself has some nice period touches (top hats, Victorian railways stations, walrus moustaches, plush boardrooms) that give it a steampunk vibe. There’s a telling scene where slightly idealistic Westinghouse doesn’t seem to realise how much he can monetise electricity, and the look on the capitalist investor’s face. There’s also some time given to the sad parade of animals that Edison had electrocuted to prove that AC current was deadly, but only a brief reference to Topsy, the elephant he had killed. Nikola Tesla, who is by far the more interesting person in all this, gets fairly short shrift – but then again, he did in life too. It’s amazing to think of all the deals, lies and betrayals we were not witness to at the time, that defined our lives. Finished watching that film Current Wars. George Westinghouse won, sort of. Edison went on to invent the phonograph, for which I think we’re all eternally grateful. Nice one Thomas. I just wish you weren’t such a thieving, greedy, animal-killing bastard.  Started reading a graphic novel called Mall Goth by Kate Leth. What I thought would be a fun light read has turned into a slightly angsty dark read. Funny about that. Liv, the main character, starts a new life in a new town and a new school with her mum and often absent father. She makes friends at school, including Jake, a goth boy who has a  myself. I was more Russian existentialist, or French Godard film freak. I’ve noticed the goth thing seems to be a phase people go through, especially when they’re young. Old goths seem a bit embarrassing, like old rockers or metal nuts. But I won’t lie, I still have a thing for goths, especially goth women. I still gaze mesmerized by my Victoria Frances vampire babe poster on the wall in my study. I still love all things Buffy. I adore goth (sometimes called symphonic) metal bands like Within Temptation and Lacuna Coil, which both feature hot goth babe singers (actually saw Lacuna once – Cristina!). I even made a multi-media project around a goth girl character I found on the net. It included a comic, films and even a song. I’ll present it here under Archives at some point. Check out my Spotify goth playlist here. That’s it, I’m goth’d out. Time to move on.
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