Went to the cinema, saw Romulus, the new Alien film. A nice homage to what’s gone before. Seemed to touch on elements of every other film in the franchise. But boy I hate the biological implausibility of the xenomorph’s sudden change from little baby skitterer to giant warrior/queen. The scene where the MC was dodging gobs of xenomorph acid in zero g was pretty damn good.  Finally listened to The Leaves Rarities 1966 album I bought at the Box Hill Record Fair all those months ago. I’m still processing it, but it’s classic California garage band music. They do a very woozy version of Judee Sill’s Dead Time Bummer Blues. In all, it’s very rough, but I enjoyed reading the liner notes from band leader Jim Pons, who is very honest about the original band’s lack of musical ability. I know I’m gonna love this the more I listen to it. Can’t beat sixties garage rock! Scored another great anime dvd thanks to the Idles list at work. It was Hozuki’s Coolheadedness, a way-cool anime about a guy who is King Enma’s trouble-shooter in the Japanese version of Hell. He keeps his head cool. I especially love Shiro the dog friend of peach boy Momotaro. An awesome pickup! I am so looking forward to seeing this again.  Watched first two eps of Hozuki. Each ep has two stories. Pretty funny. Especially the ep where Satan, ruler of the European hell, comes to spy on the Japanese hell but is caught off-guard by Hozuki’s wiles. There was even a little cameo from my darling Lum from Urusei Yatsura. The show is full of references to Japanese and Chinese myths and pop culture and the art style often reflects old Edo period art, especially the Master, Hokusai. There’s also an Australian angle where Hozuki and King Enma are both besotted by it, especially our animals. For all its hellishness it’s quite genial and wholesome.I watched three more episodes of anime Hozuki’s Coolheadedness. I’m really vibing to its genial and very funny take on life in Japanese Hell. I like how it’s full of references to old myths and modern pop culture. Ghibli references abound, as well as footnotes explaining the language used. One such footnote clarified a line about ‘Gold before cats’, which is a Chinese/Japanese version of the saying pearls before swine. It seems a little more synchronicity was in play with this reference, as the book I’d just read, It’s Like This, Cat, featured a chapter titled Money and Cats.  Listened to some Yes Live, because it was on my mind, and why not? Went with the longer tracks, Perpetual Change, Heart of the Sunrise, Yours Is No Disgrace and Starship Troopers. I have the three disc Yessongs album I picked up cheap in an op shop. Steve Howe’s guitar slinging, razor sharp, multiple tones, awesome. Not just a bunch of studio cats, but guys who could rip it up live. I saw this lineup live many years ago. Yes, they included Mr Rick Wakeman. Best prog band? |  Read the rest of the Mojo mag. A good profile of The Pretenders’ best albums. Predictably (and deservedly), the first album gets the #1 spot. Then Learning To Crawl, then Pretenders II. Before she formed the Pretenders, Chrissie Hynde was a writer for British rock magazines. Once she wrote a positive review for a single, a nice little ditty called Mirror of Love, by The Kinks. She later married the man who wrote it, Ray Davies.  I read the YA book It’s Like This, Cat by Emily Neville in one sitting this arvo (it’s a short book!). A Newberry Award winner, it was published in 1963 and is set in New York City. It gives us one year in the life of Dave, a fourteen-year-old boy who befriends a cat and gathers a motley group of friends around him in the course of the book. But the focus is his relationship with his parents, especially his father, whom he comes to understand and respect more as the story hits its climax. I have fond memories of reading this in the summer of 18/19 whilst sunbathing in the backyard and preparing for my year of library studies. It reads like a lighter version of Catcher in the Rye. Read the Absolution Experiment by Bao Shu in Sinopticon. A Twilight Zone-type story where a murderer gets a deal on a reprieve if he participates in an experiment. Of course there’s a catch. Mildly amusing, but not very original.  Read the story The Tide of Moon City by Regina Kanyu Wang from Sinopticon. A story of two scientists working to create a form of tidal power that may solve their twin planet’s energy problems. The woman, Dianne, lives on the planet He’lin. The man, Youjia, lives on the nearby planet Bizhe, but visits He’lin and Dianne to help work out the solution. A romantic attachment is formed between them, but it is quickly thwarted by jealousy and political machinations. It is poignant and highly symbolic, touching on the Chinese legend of the Magpie Bridge that connects the lost lovers together in a great tide. I liked this unusual story a lot, even though it’s more romance than science fiction. It set a mood of imagery I won’t soon forget. Read the last story in Sinopticon, Starship Library by Jiang Bo. A millennia-spanning story about the last librarian and the last library that, considering my present choice of career, should have been more affecting than it was. I get that libraries are precious resources that should be cherished, preaching to the converted here. But even I don’t see a future where actual hard copy books are still in existence or used. Reading will continue, the idea of books will continue, but just in a different form. I agree, however, with the basic theme: if we give up learning, we are lost. |
In the library today I was listening to colleague Anne leading some children through a version of Kookaburra sits in the old gumtree during her Storytime session. I was amused to note that she had replaced the original line ‘gay your life must be’ with ‘fun your life must be’. Later, when I asked her about it, she said she could feel the audience’s disapproval when she used the original line, which is why she changed it. Fair enough. Then later, on a similar theme, I saw a book with the title Woolly Woofers, and did a double take. It was a book about clothes for dogs, with lots of endearing pictures of said animals in sartorial splendour. But that title, it reminded me of something we used to say in the bad old days of the 1970s, when being gay was still something to snicker about. We sometimes called them ‘woolly woofters’ (ie, poofters). Thus, my double take.
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Watched 2wice Date with Momo and Chaeyoung. They did an art project, with each painting a design directly onto a soft toy figurine. Chaeyoung’s one for Momo was a strange anime-inspired concoction with white lace fringes. It looked hideous. I don’t know what she was thinking, though Momo accepted it graciously. Momo’s figure for Chae was a more predictable strawberry design in keeping with Babybeast’s strawberry fixation. Momo encouraged Chaeyoung to hold an exhibition for her artwork, but Chae demurred, saying she’s not ready. I’m sure she’s right, but I’d like to see it. I liked Momo’s whimsical notion of a tv show where they show up to other members’ houses unannounced and surprise them. They made a very laidback couple.
Watched the last 2wice Date ep which featured Jihyo and Jeongyeon, collectively known as UJB. They went to a fishing farm and looked distinctly and fabulously unglamorous. When asked by Jihyo if she’d ever fished before, Jeongyeon said, ‘Of course. I’m in the business of fishing for Once’s hearts’. Cute. It was fun to see the two members, in between the low comedy of them trying to catch fish, arguing like a comfortable old couple and throwing out truth-bombs left, right and centre. We learned that Jihyo told Jeongyeon some hard truths during her hiatus and that she calls her Backout Yoo, because she has backed out of many opportunities. A dinner Jihyo had planned for the group and staff, which Jeongyeon didn’t attend, was a particular sore point; but we assume her refusal to follow through with her own solo album was another. I like how they didn’t hold back. When Jihyo excitedly caught her first fish and had trouble bringing it in, she asked Jeongyeon for help, but was told, ‘Life is solo, do it yourself.’ What a line! But then Jeongyeon held her rod for her, and Jihyo brought the fish in. This felt very real, about as close as we’re ever going to get to the real UJB with cameras rolling.
 Started listening to Shirley Bassey’s This Is My Life album in the car. I’m a big fan of the opening track, Now You Want To Be Loved. I first heard it as I drove away from Las Vegas after a week-long stay, and it really spoke to me. ‘If you want to be loved/You can never be free.’ I think Bassey is one of the two greatest British female singers to come out of the sixties. The other, of course, is Dusty Springfield. One of the great things about Bassey’s music, besides that voice, is you get a good grounding in the Great American and British songbook, plus others. I remember telling my mate Paul that I liked her, and he thought I must be gay.  Did some net research on The Bard’s Tale game walkthroughs coz I want to play it again and have forgotten my path on it. So I had a session wandering back through the streets of Skara Brae. I headed first for the cellar and sewers that are beneath one of the taverns, because I missed that in my earlier forays in the game. This is an old favourite I used to play on my Amiga. I remember reading a review of the game in a magazine. It just went: ‘It’s 3 am, where are you?’ I experienced that feeling many times after. Usually I’d be in some dark dungeon trying to get my party out of there whilst fighting hordes of demons. Sometimes I would walk those dungeons in my dreams. |  Read more of my Tarot book. This time I looked at the Major Arcana Emperor card. Typical male energy representing the Yang, getting things done, sitting in judgement, suggestive of stability and security. A slightly boring card. Read more of my Discovering Yourself Through Tarot book. The chapter on Laying Out a Tarot Spread has this gem: ‘…you’ll never be bored again after you’ve taken up the Tarot. The Tarot knows no time and space. Why not have a conversation with it (lay a spread) about Napoleon? Why did Atlantis disappear? What is the prognosis for our environment? What is the history of this house? That is after you get bored with the thousands of questions you might ask about yourself and those you know!’
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Listened to Black Sabbath’s Masters of Reality and 4th albums in the car. These are very familiar old albums for me. Listening to them is like slipping into a comfortable pair of shoes. I’m finding that having a new sound system that plays cds in my new car means I can listen to these old albums with fresh ears. Sabbath, like much Doom Metal that came after them, are known for their slow ponderous beats, but it’s surprising how many of their songs have quite up-tempo passages in them, planting the seeds of Stoner Rock. Like the middle part of Sweet Leaf, and all of Children of the Grave, Paranoid (of course), Supernaut and the chugging Cornucopia. This last one apparently gave drummer Bill Ward a lot of grief when they did it because of its tricky rhythm pattern. I remember listening to Masters of Reality on the old 8-track player in my older brother’s car as a youth. It was usually at night and I’d be sat in his parked car on the street in front of my parents’ place. The strains of Solitude, with its flute and bass throb, would wash over me and imprint me with a loneliness I’ve never been able to shake off.
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Picked up my new kpop purchases of Yukika’s Timelapse album, Nmixx’s Stick Out album and the (G)-Idle I Sway album on cassette. I also purchased whilst at the store Twice’s Ready To Be concert bluray. This was the first two performances of the Ready To Be show at Seoul stadium in April last year. This is especially good because it includes Jeongyeon, who was still on hiatus for the World Tour 3 performances the year before. All in all, it was quite a haul. I must have spent an hour afterwards going through my stash. The (G)-Idle cassette – one of my nuttier purchases – had a card hidden inside its little jewel case. It was member Shuhua, 
which isn’t surprising as it was a Shuhua-themed version. I know little about this group apart from the fact that member Soyeon writes and produces much of the material, which is pretty impressive for a mere idol singer. I listened to the Nmixx and Yukika albums and it was a fine time. The first few tracks of the Nmixx album sound like a return to their early Mixpop sound, all beat and melody changeups. But the final song, Love Is Lonely, which has been generating a buzz among NSWERs (Nmixx fans), reminds me of The Killers. It’s anthemic like some of their stuff, but much less shouty, and that’s a good thing. I’m also liking the song before that, Moving On, which is an honest to goodness rock song. Nmixx mixing it up!
Later, I checked out one of the discs on the Twice bluray – the third one featuring behind the scenes and rehearsal footage. I’d seen much of this material on Youtube already, but it was good to see it again on hi def. I also took a sneak peek at the concert disc. During the second track, I Can’t Stop Me, Jihyo seemed to have some kind of wardrobe malfunction and went scurrying 
backstage. But during the ments that followed she was back and smiling. I watched up to the end of the third song, Go Hard, that features the members dancing dramatically in silhouette. I remember seeing this in the concert I attended at Rod Laver Park and being blown away that they were doing this little album track, which is one of my favourites. So far I’d have to say this bluray is enthralling.