Sun, 26 Jan: Weekly Review 46

Had a patron at work whose name was Mo Mo, her first and last name. Also had BIG CELEBRITY Dave Graney and his wife Clare Moore come in to the library. He of the Moodists and the Coral Snakes, looking dapper as usual with his groovy hat and clothes. He was borrowing a book about Bob Marley. He wanted a receipt for his borrowing because the checkout machine had run out of paper. I didn’t go all fan-boy on him, I kept my cool – although, have to admit, I was a bit nervous processing his request. You don’t want famous people thinking you’re a clueless doofus. I told my colleagues afterward, and it turned out one of them, Jess, had already spotted him earlier walking around the library. The others had no clue. One of these, Juliet, looked him up on the computer. I regaled her about what I knew about him and recommended one of his songs to her. It was Night of the Wolverine, a good song. She assured me she would diligently check out the song for homework. One of the reasons I didn’t go fan-boy on old Dave (written as David Graney on his account) was because I’ve listened occasionally to the radio show he does on 3RRR, and he’s dissed some of my favourite bands, like the Manic Street Preachers, and comes off as a little bit precious. So, no fan-boy for you, Dave Graney, even though you are a legend.

Read some more of the 60 Songs That Explain the 90s book by Rob Harvila. It was a good chapter called Women Vs ‘Women In Rock’. Groups and artists cited (the book helpfully lists these at the start of each chapter) were The Sundays, The Cranberries, Garbage, PJ Harvey, Alanis Morissette, Tori Amos, The Breeders, TLC, Sinead O’Connor, Fiona Apple and Sheryl Crow. Rob, the author, makes the grand claim that the Breeders were better than the Pixies. The section on TLC was pretty informative and made me want to get out my copies of CrazySexyCool and Fanmail for another go-round. I guess the main theme of this chapter was ‘the strength of women in rock’. Of course, it was later in the decade when the strongest woman arrived, although she was not a musician. She was on TV and she was a Slayer. Her name was Buffy.

Watched another ep of Ranma ½. Ranma and Akane go ice skating and get into the inevitable challenge with two prize skaters over little P-chan the pig. This is the important episode where Ranma gets his first kiss. Only it’s from a guy, the male prize skater called Mikado, while he’s in his girl Ranma persona! This Mikado is a real sleazebag – worse than Ataru from Urusei Yatsura, because he’s so successful at it. In short, it’s sexual harassment. After the initial shock, Ranma gets angry and looks to exact his revenge upon Mikado during the challenge. Thing is, Asuza, the partner of Midado, is as bad as him in that she’s a complete psycho. She calls P-Chan Charlotte and puts a heart pendant around his neck and chains him up to the trophy the winner gets. Eeek, what a pair!

I watched ep 9 of Ranma ½. It’s the start of the free skate challenge between Ranma and Akane and that evil duo of Azusa and Mikado. Ranma’s looking to get some payback to Mikado for kissing him, but really, it’s too late for that. The deed has been done. At around the halfway point Ryoga gets in the action, as his pig form of P-chan breaks his chains and, with Ranma’s help and some hot water, he regains his human form. So we go from boy Ranma and Akane to girl Ranma and Ryoga as the challengers to Azusa and Mikado. By episode’s end the rink ice has been destroyed and the combatants float on mini icebergs within the rink. Ryoga best be careful he doesn’t fall into the cold water and revert back to his pig form. It was such an interesting choice by Rumiko to have Ranma’s first kiss be while he is in his girl form and for it to be from another boy.

I watched ep 10 of Ranma ½. This was the final ep featuring the skate challenge with Asuza and Mikado. They get their commeuppance in the end. The second half of the ep features the entrance of Shampoo, the girl from China who once fought girl Ranma and was bested by her. As being bested by an outsider is considered a disgrace with her Amazon tribe, she gave Ranma a kiss of death and followed her to Japan for her revenge. Shampoo is one of my favourite characters in Ranma, so I’ve eagerly awaited her entrance. I always thought Ranma should end up with her, rather than Akane. I’m a Ranma/Shampoo shipper.

Watched the last two eps of Ranma ½. In the eleventh ep Shampoo meets boy Ranma for the first time and he quickly bests her in combat. Shampoo promptly gives him a huge kiss on the lips that is not a kiss of death. It turns out, according to her tribe, if a man beats her in a fight she must marry him. This is a proposition she takes to enthusiastically, but not Ranma. At this point, the parallels with Urusei Yatsura are pretty clear. Shampoo smiles at and cuddles Ranma exactly like Lum when she’s around Ataru, her ‘darling’. And that kiss, boy, I don’t think Lum and Ataru ever went that far. I actually colourised the original panel from the manga a few years back, I liked it so much.

In the twelth episode Shampoo and Akane fight and Shampoo uses a technique that gives Akane amnesia about who Ranma is. And only she has the special ‘shampoo’ formula that brings Akane back, and she says she will give it to Ranma if he agrees to kill the red-headed girl Ranma who is her enemy. Later, Ranma sits on the roof of the Tendo’s house and contemplates the situation, while admitting to himself that she’s beautiful. His central problem is that she wants to fight and kill girl Ranma, but wants to kiss and marry boy Ranma – and doesn’t know that they are the same person. It’s quite a predicament. His solution is to reveal the two sides of himself to Shampoo by dramatically pouring cold water in front of her while he’s boy Ranma. It works, and Shampoo walks off disappointed and heartbroken while Akane recovers her memory loss simply by hearing Ranma’s repeated taunts of how ugly he thinks she is. It’s wild, it’s wacky, and it’s a good time. I thoroughly enjoyed this new take on an old show. I can’t wait for the next season, which is slated to happen some time this year.

Watched GITS Sustainable War, the edited version of Ghost In the Shell 2045 Part One. It hangs together pretty well. The editors seemed to hit the main points of the storyline. I can’t even remember what they left out. Feels like everything’s present and accounted for. I guess the Palm Springs sequence that opens the film is a little edited down, which is a pity. I can’t say how much I loved seeing Makoto and the gang (including Tachikomas) chasing down some bad guys in sunny Palm Springs. The show was heavily criticised for its 3-D animation of the characters, but I liked it. I wonder will there be a film edit of Part Two?

I’m still reading through that Hyper-Capitalism graphic book. I’m up to the section where the authors have come up with the ‘5 Commandments of Capitalism’. Namely, Though Shalt Consume, Globalize, Deregulate, Cut Wages and Privatize. This is a pretty accurate and comprehensive description of what they do.

I finished the Hyper-Capitalism book with the Part 2 section, which looked at solutions to hyper-Capitalism. The first chapter was about Mindful Buying – something I’m all about. There was also chapters about Voluntary Simplicity and Sharing, things I try to be about. In fact, I had a bit of a ‘spring clean’ today getting rid of more books and generally tidying up in preparation for my cd display bookshelf. Anyway, in this section Thoreau’s Walden was invoked as well as a number of famous ‘simplifiers’. The concept of ‘time affluence’ was also mentioned. I take it this is basically another way of saying work-life balance. The chapter on Sharing gave good examples of how we can share goods, resources and services. The first example given, I’m happy to say, was good old Libraries. You know it! The authors also mentioned tool libraries, toy libraries and seed libraries. Time banks, coops, alternative ownership structures and more were also mentioned. It was all presented clearly and with much humour. I actually would like to own a copy of this book. But for now, since it’s a library copy I’ve rescued from the dreaded stock rotation, I’ll return it so maybe, just maybe, someone else will give it a read.

I saw on Twitter/X some footage of Twice Sana appearing at some Prada show. She was there as a Prada representative. I know, so far, so boring/haute couture. But, my god, the dress she was wearing! It was so short!

Today was Warren Zevon’s birthday. He’s well known for Werewolves of London, but there are so many other great songs and albums by him, many of which were purloined by Linda Ronstadt in the Seventies. An amazing talent. Happy Birthday, Wazza!

I put in an order for a cd display bookshelf with Big W online. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m sick of having my cds all over the place in my house. I want them all together. This will do the trick! I actually went down to our local Big W store to get the case, but they didn’t have it. They told me I could only order it online and have it delivered at home. This I did. I can’t wait to get it and have the fun of stocking it up. I wonder if everything will fit? But I’ll then have to put the old shelves and cupboards in storage or donate them to an op shop. This seems like an unnecessary frivolous purchase, but I don’t think it is. It’s actually practical putting everything together where I can find it. And I like the idea of being able to admire my amazing good taste with a wall of fantastic music. See, it has a therapeutic value.

Listened to the latest Economic Update podcast by Richard Wolff. The topic was Global Capitalism: What Trump 2.0 Means. Wolff did his usual deep dive into the history of American economics through his Marxist lense, dropping truth bombs along the way, like the fact that China’s economy at present is 5% GDP (and India’s is 7%), while the US can only manage a pitiful 2.5 at best. There was also comment about the BRICS partnership, how it’s shaping up to be a huge competitor to the G7 countries, including the US. And a scathing criticism of Capitalist Market Economics, especially in its form of Disaster Capitalism where necessary goods and services go to the highest bidder. But the main theme of Wolff’s talk was of a US in decline, and of Trump’s opportunism in offering himself as an extreme ‘alternative’ to the Democrats and Republicans. He reminded listeners there had been one other extreme alternative offered in the last election, namely Bernie Sanders, but the Dems buried him. Solutions to all this were few and far, with a united campaign of resistance serving as the only hope for the future. It was a good talk, with Wolff tying together his many threads into a coherent whole. He is an impressive orator, which is why I continue to support him and his organisation, Democracy at Work.

I started watching the Pluto anime on Netflix. It will be eight episodes of roughly an hour duration each. This first one was terrific. Split into two parts, the story tells of the mysterious murders of various famous robots in the world of Tezuka’s Astroboy – albeit a much more adult-centred version of that world. The investigation is led by Inspector Gesicht, himself a very human-looking robot. The first part introduced us to all this. I especially liked the scenes where Gesicht befriends the wife of a robot who was killed in a seemingly random encounter. She is also a robot, and her pain and suffering is detailed with exquisite pathos and compassion. The very impressive second part delved into the relationship between a solitary misanthropic old musician called Paul Duncan and his servant, a special robot called North No. 2, who has served in the military. At first the old musician rejects the robot’s overtures of friendship, but a friendship does develop, to the point where he gives the robot piano lessons. At the story’s end North No. 2 is called by the person or phenomenon (it’s hard to tell at this stage) that brought on the deaths of the other robots, and he also is killed. This section was a brilliant two-hander, beautifully voiced (especially the robot – I watched this with the English dub) and told with nuance and poetry. The episode ends with the introduction of another special robot seemingly earmarked for murder, a boy called Atom (AKA Astroboy). This show will be my thing for the next week or two, that’s for sure.