Sun, 19 Jan: Weekly Review 45

Bought a t-shirt at EB Games. It was a Stone Dragon shirt from the Disney animated Mulan. I liked it. I like dragons, especially Chinese or Japanese ones.

Went to get pizza with Daryl, which is always an adventure. Daryl was drunk and stoned, as usual. We were talking about life, and he reckons ‘life is shit’, to which I countered with my usual platitudinous ‘life is the greatest high’. He told me sometimes he feels like he wants to die, which would make sense if you thought life was shit. This could explain his non-stop ingestion of alcohol and drugs. He’s drugging himself into intentional oblivion. He also doesn’t seem to think he’ll live much longer. He may be right. Maybe it’s a death wish. I hope he doesn’t take my brother with him.

I bit the bullet and renewed my subscription to Netflix today. I think what spurred me on was seeing a post on Anime Lists that featured a poll on the best couples of the 2024 anime season, and one of them was Ranma and Akane from the new Ranma ½. So it must definitely be up on Netflix and good to go. I spent a pleasant evening putting shows on my To Watch list, including Squid Game, Ranma, GITS 2045, End of Evangelion, Arcane and Pluto. I also noticed they have the Christopher Nolan film, Interstellar. I will watch that again soon.

The first thing I watched was episode one of Squid Game season two. It was terrific. I thought the actor Gong Yoo who played the recruiter was especially good, giving us a good insight into his psychotic commitment to the job. The Russian roulette scene at the end was so tense. It seems so right that Seong Gi-hun, the survivor from the first season, should get his first revenge with this guy, who was his first contact with the dark organisation putting on the games. Then I watched the first episode of the Ranma ½ reboot. It was also great. I know the story and the characters so well from the manga, and parts of the original anime, but it was nice to see an updated version. The animation is eye-popping.

Watched ep 2 of Ranma ½ and Squid Game on my new Netflix subscription. Kuno, Ranma’s first nemesis and would-be beau of Akane, encounters girl Ranma during a fight with him – and falls in love. Hilarious. The second episode of Squid, like the first, is about exposition and setting us up for the point when Seong Gi-hun goes back to the island and participates in a new round of games. Bring on the games!

Watched ep 3 of Ranma ½ and Squid Game. In Ranma, Kuno continues to be blind about Ranma’s girl/boy dynamic and still has a crush on girl Ranma – AKA ‘the pigtailed girl’. His cluelessness is always a laugh. In Squid Game the games have begun, starting with a new round of Red Light, Green Light. But Seong Gi-hun is equipped with prior knowledge of what’s happening, so he’s able to help a lot of the contestants get through it. The vote at the end of the episode, where the contestants actually decide to stay in the game, when they could leave, seems batshit crazy. But then again, since they’ve just seen the organisation that runs the games murder a whole lot of people in the games, and even though the killers are masked, would they really just be allowed to leave? I wonder.

Watched the fourth ep of Ranma ½. Enter Ryoga, the direction-challenged martial artist who carries a very heavy umbrella. The ep ends with the iconic scene where Akane’s hair is cut in half during Ryoga and Ranma’s showdown.

Watched the fifth ep of the new Ranma ½ anime. it’s the aftermath of Akane’s hair cutting incident. The incident is tied to Akane’s attraction to Dr Tofu, the chiropractor, and is the catalyst for her coming to terms with the fact he loves her older sister Kasumi. Must say, we see a lot of naked girl Ranma in this episode (minus nipples).

Then I watched two episodes of Squid Game, eps 4, called Six Legs, and 5, called One More Game. It’s tense and compelling stuff. I was only going to watch the fourth ep, but it ended on a cliffhanger during the Six Legs game, and I had to continue. Outside of the game, Jun-ho, the cop who is trying to track down Gi-hun and the whereabouts of the island, clearly has a traitor in his midst. My money’s on the boat captain as the guy. We shall see if I’m right.

Watched the sixth ep of Ranma ½. Enter Kodachi, the Black Rose, rhythmic gymnastics martial artist supreme. She takes a shine to boy Ranma and challenges Akane to a duel in which, if she wins, she gets to date Ranma. But Akane sprains her leg and girl Ranma has to take her place. I like how the show has made Kodachi Kuno’s sister, where she isn’t in the manga. Makes it a bit less random.
I watched the seventh episode of Ranma ½. This was a continuation of the Kodachi episode, featuring her epic rhythmic gymnastics fight with girl Ranma in front of a stadium crowd. It’s so typical of Rumiko to turn a sport that’s feminine and delicate into a powerhouse and dangerous martial arts event. The animation, like the action, in this episode was spectacular.

Also watched another ep of Squid Game, this time episode 6, called OX. They’re onto the third game, which is called Mingle. All the players are on a large rotating carousal. When it stops, a number is called out and the players have to select enough players for that number then run to one of the many rooms that circle the place. If they don’t make it they get shot. It’s pretty savage and heartbreaking, because people get left behind. But the games are really just an entertaining distraction (they’re the McGuffin, if you will) from all the intrigue and relationship dynamics that are going on. Has Gi-hun twigged that the duplicitous player 001 is The Front Man? What will his friend, Jung-bae, do when he witnesses player 001 killing another player in order to win? Next ep is the finale – at least for now. Netflix are doing a smart thing and presenting the final episodes later in the year. I suspect they hope people will hang on till then before they cancel their subscriptions. Gotta keeps the punters hooked. And at the moment, I am.

Misamo are doing the first of their two big concerts at the Tokyo Dome today. This is a concert I seriously considered going to and damn the expense. But here I am, watching it go down from afar. The footage fans have put up so far looks amazing. It seems Twice’s members Jihyo and Jeongyeon (and Jihyo’s sister) turned up at the show to give their support. I’ve seen Mina doing her solo number, Misty, dancing with some lucky dude dancer. She looks amazing with her bluey grey hair. They’ve also showcased two new songs. Man, I wish I were there…

Film director David Lynch died today. Thank you for bringing the Weirdness, David. And today was the day Elvis was born. Thank you…for being born, King. So there.

I gave away a bunch of my books today in the course of work. They were mainly some historical and crime thrillers I won’t likely read anyway. It was very liberating! What more can I get rid of?

I was back on the Flexi Van job today, after the holiday sojourn. I was listening to some more of my Australian Pop of the 60s collection in the van. Man, there’s so much good stuff in those old recordings. Marcie and the Cookies, The Groove, The Groop, The Strangers; MPD’s Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder; Everything I Touch Turns to Tears by Jeff Phillips; Western Union Man by Max Merritt and the Meteors; and, probably my favourite, King Fox’s Unforgotten Dreams, sounding very Moody Blues circa Days of Future Past. There’s something about the way they recorded and arranged their music back then that I think we’ve lost with our modern recording processes. It all sounded so discrete and organic. I love it.

I bought my ticket for Knotfest today whilst on the job. This of course is mainly so I can see Within Temptation and, secondly, the Japanese metal band Baby Metal, who are also playing. I really don’t give a shit about Slipknot. I’m hoping WT will also announce a separate solo gig somewhere in town too, but I’ll have to wait and see.

Another book I had on reserve at the library came in while I was working there. This time it was 60 Songs That Explain the 90s by Rob Harvila. A fun little concept and one that I can’t resist. Though, as Rob explains in his intro, there’s way more than 60 songs discussed.

Watched a bunch of Youtube, including the third and final ep of Misamo’s Once More documentary, this one featuring a profile of Momo. The editor seemed to have fun with some of the footage, showing the multiple takes required for Momo to get her introduction right, for example. She kept introducing herself as Twice Momo, when it was supposed to be Misamo Momo – and let’s face it, that doesn’t sound right. Thanks to this video we all know what Misamo have in common. They are all the same height, the same age, all from the Kansai district in Japan, and they all prefer their sushi without wasabi. Very important. The doco finished with a full live performance of the song Runway. They are apparently doing two new songs for this tour. By this point they will have finished their Tokyo tour (which I missed). I hope it all went well.

Bought a Star Trek TNG Tarot deck at QBD books today. It was a bargain at well more than half price. As usual, it was interesting to see how they’ve interpreted the cards through the lens of the Trek characters. Firstly, Data is The Fool, which is perfect. Worf is Strength. The Minor Arcana of Swords, Wands, Cups and Pentacles is swapped out for the Trekkish Cloaks, Latinum, Bat’leths, and Starships. When’s the next full moon?

Watched some Youtubes. Saw a new Workdol ep featuring Nmixx Haewon working part-time at a rice cake shop. This show is made for Haewon, giving her ample opportunity to mug for the camera and crack jokes in the adorable way she does. Also saw new Scandal clip for their new single Terraboy. It was a straight performance clip, but a pretty decent song. I’m presently listening to the Scandal compilation I brought back from Japan. There are about 35 songs on two discs and that’s a lot of new music to get into.

Read another Gael Bordino short story, called Lady of Light. This one was set in the same Isakei village as the first one but this time featuring David, a wood carver tasked with making a large crucifix for the village priest, an evil inquisition-loving guy called Alban. When he refuses because he only wants to carve ‘life’ subjects, Alban threatens to accuse his sister of witchcraft so that she will burned at the stake. Bastard. As in the first story, it’s the elf/angel Varden who comes to the rescue. I’m getting strong ‘Catholicism fucks you up’ vibes from this author.

Listened to and transferred Mariya Takeuchi’s Love Songs album. She sings a couple of songs in very clear English. It’s still early days, but the single September hits best so far, but I also liked the final song on side one, a nice little light jazz number called Gosenshi.

Also listened to a couple of XTC tunes based on my reading of Andy Partridge’s Complicated Game book. Each chapter has Andy talking about one song in his band’s discography, all in chronological order. I just finished reading the one on the song Meccanic Dancing, from Go2. So I’m listening to these songs as I go. The one before was This Is Pop, which informed me there were two versions of that song, an album version and the single version. I listened to both, and the single version was definitely better. Vocals more confident, music more adventurous. Meccanic Dancing is a snapshot of 1978, dancing to Kraftwerk and other ‘German disco’ records at the local Mechanic’s Institute in Swindon. Andy apparently wanted it for the single, but it’s a little too repetitive for my taste. Think I prefer the dub version, which I also played, called Oh We Go, Germany, from the GO+ EP.

Watched the film Interstellar on Netflix. This was just the second time since I first saw it at the cinema in 2014. It’s genre is science fiction, but I think it’s also, in its way, a horror movie. With its relativity physics it is a vivid and scary manifestation of that thing that is and always will be my eternal enemy – Time. And the desolate landscapes it presents to us – the flat ocean world (with occasional killer giant waves), and that ice cloud planet that Matt Damon is stranded on – simply haunt the soul with their nighmarish visions. I guess I’ve been haunted by this film ever since I saw it. At the time I didn’t quite get the ending where Matthew McConnaughy’s Cooper character enters the Black Hole’s event horizon and ends up in a dimensional portal where he is literally the ghost who haunts his daughter, Murph, in her bedroom. But the film plants enough clues and hints about the ‘others’ who built the wormhole Coop and his fellow astronauts travel through to make the payoff of that dimensional portal believable.

Read some more of my Discovering Yourself Through the Tarot book. It was the chapter titled The Attitude, the Ego, and the Persona. The author lumps Attitude as a function of Extrovert and Introvert. Sometimes our identification with these is dependent on how we perceive others. Getting it right is important, and one of Tarot’s functions, that of divination, can obscure what it’s really about. I quote: ‘The true goal of Tarot is the true goal of all occultism: to assist the individual in dispelling illusion and learning to work more effectively with reality’ (p 83). I also read about the Major Arcana card, the Death Card, in the Tarot Directory. As expected, it’s about the end of things, but it’s also about renewal and a new start. So, not so scary. I guess the scary part is having to let go of whatever has ‘died’. It may be a person, it may be a path, a goal, a phase in your life, etc.

Whilst doing some Stock Rotation in the library today I came across a book, a graphic non fiction, called Hyper Capitalism by Larry Gonick and Tim Kasser. I decided to borrow it, thus keeping it from the fate of being rotated elsewhere. It’s a nice dissection of the titular subject with lots of amusing illustrations and feeds my Lefty responses. Kasser is the psychologist who provides the text and theory, Gonick the cartoonist.

I’m still reading through the Hyper Capitalism graphic non fiction. I do wonder about the author’s thesis that owning stuff, being an uber-consumer, leads to anxiety. I wonder, because most of my consumption is to do with what would be called Art, and I don’t feel anxious about it. And, do the rich feel this anxiety? I suspect not. As I mentioned earlier, in relation to the Capitalism a Horror Story book, they have their Utopia now. But I’m really liking the book.

I just read a section where they talk about the difference between what are called intrinsic values and extrinsic values. Extrinsic values or goals are associated with rewards from things or people external to the person who holds the value. This highlights a materialistic point of view, including the desire for money, greed and an individualist outlook. Intrinsic brings inner satisfaction. This highlights a benevolent or universalist point of view, including a desire to help others, belief in community and health. So, if we were to look at most stories in Western society we would likely find most of them are extrinsic goal-directed. We find characters who are motivated most often by the need for financial success. We generally have to look to the Japanese, and especially that sub genre of manga and anime called Iyashekai, to find stories that are intrinsic goal-oriented. It’s interesting, and I’ve started to work out a whole theory about all this based on something I call Therapeutic Values that I’ve described elsewhere. It originates with the philosopher Alain de Botton. But I won’t go into it here. Maybe I’ll write a full blog about it later when my ideas start to cohere.

I took a trip into Dixon’s Records today after work on this warm sunny day and bought up a stash of goodies. It was just something I knew I had to get out of my system. Here’s what I bought: Liverbirds Complete Star Club Label Collection cd (remember, I mentioned them recently); Tori Amos Caught a Lite Sneeze single CD; Easybeats Anthology cd; Australian Pop Classics Vol 1 cd; Dusty Springfield’s Complete A and B Sides double cd; Best of the Bee Gees Vol 2 record; 25 Rare Recycled RCA Rock Classics record. It seems so right that, just after having read about them recently, that Liverbirds album should show up. A necessary poichase to feed my Girls In the Garage fix. The Tori single has some interesting b-sides under the heading of ‘Silly Songs’. One is This Old Man – otherwise known as Knick Knack Paddywack. And there’s another called The Sandwich Song. Classic foody title for foody Tori. I actually don’t own any Easybeats (have it all on electronic files borrowed and burned from the library), so I thought I should get a nice hard copy compilation. The Australian Pop Classics cd contains a lot of stuff that’s on the Australian Pop of the 60s albums that I have. But it has one song that’s not, and that I was specifically looking for today. It’s There’s Something About You, Baby by The Vibrants. A great song. I was actually going to buy a much more expensive LP album I found at Dixons that featured that and other Vibrants songs, among songs by Ronnie Burns and the Groop (again, most of which I have on that other comp series). So finding this one saved me some money. The Dusty album is, again, fairly surplus to requirements in that I have most of it. I’m just hanging out for some of the rarer b-sides that appear on disc two. And at twelve bucks it was pretty cheap anyway. The Recycled RCA Rock album is another attempt to capture more rare Australian Sixties stuff. It includes songs by The Creatures, The Henchmen, The Syssys (yes, really!) and others. The Bee Gees album includes a favourite of mine called Cherry Red. And, apart from How Can You Mend a Broken Heart and Lonely Days, it’s all stuff I don’t have. I definitely wanted some Gibb Brothers on this trip, and this was it.

Taking my stash home, I checked what I got against what I have and had a listen to some of them. The Dusty album adds a grand total of three new songs to my collection, and I call it a win. Actually, I don’t have quite a few of the b-sides on cd anyway – they’re just on my digital collection. I like how the album has the a-sides on one disc and the b-sides on the other. The three songs that are new to me are really good, too. I have to say, the Australian Pop Classics album has some pretty shoddy production, or the transfers weren’t done well. That Vibrants song sounds pretty terrible, though the greatness of the song and performance still shines through (maybe I should have bought that expensive LP?). There’s also another great song on it that I hadn’t heard before called Temptation’s Bout To Get Me by The Virgil Brothers. They sound very much like the Walker Brothers. Again, pity about the production.