Pope Thomas died today, which happens to be Easter Monday. Sad to see him go. He was the best Pope the Catholic church has had for a long time. I remember seeing a clip of him at an event where he stopped away from his schedule to minister to a young disabled boy in a wheelchair he’d noticed. The boy’s mother, who was standing by him, was in tears of joy at this unexpected visitation from none other than The Pope. It was very moving. He was indeed a man of the people. The only thing that marred his death was the fact that Trump’s VP JD Vance was the last official to visit him. That’s already got all the jokers and conspiracy theorists wondering if he bumped him off. The memes were all over the net. As if to add to these memes, there is a film coming out starring Ralph Fiennes, called Conclave, which is all about the thing that will be happening next – Cardinals getting together to choose a new Pope. The timing is so perfect, maybe the film-makers are the ones who bumped him off to gain publicity for the film?! Anyway, RIP Pope Thomas.
My sister Glenys and I finally bit the bullet and bought our plane tickets for England. I’m so glad it’s over, because it was beginning to weigh me down. England here we come!
Borrowed a couple of things from the library. One was an autobiography, Chris Hillman’s Time Between, and the other was a cd of Nancy Wilson’s You and Me. She was in Heart with her sister Ann. The timing with the Nancy Wilson album was right coz I’ve just been listening to Anne’s album Fierce Bliss in the car. Had a listen to You and Me in the car. Some good songs. I’m thinking of making a playlist combining the two albums.
Started reading Chris Hillman’s Time Between biog. Chris was an important member of The Byrds, then The Flying Burrito Brothers with Gram Parsons. I went straight to the chapters about Gram, starting with the chapter titled Devil In Disguise. Bought some booze to go with it, so it was a good time. I wouldn’t say the book is a deep dive, but it’s a fun ride. Gram comes off as a loveable arsehole. Chris almost met Robert Kennedy, but bailed. Then he was assassinated. He’s mentioned in Sin City – the friend who ‘came around, tried to clean up this town’. Chris has found God, but he doesn’t hit you over the head with it. I seem to recall he did at least one Christian song when I saw him with Herb Pederson (making it two Byrds I’ve seen – the other being Roger McGuinn). On that note, I noticed when he talked about him, Chris pronounced Gram’s name as ‘Graham’. I asked him about this after the show during a poster signing and he got annoyed, saying, ‘We just called him Graham’ (ie: bug off!). I love that I annoyed old Chris Hillman. Sometimes I can be an arsehole, too! The Byrds chapters are a whirlwind ride. I didn’t know Miles Davis was actually the one who got them their Columbia Records deal – without ever hearing their music. Much of their success, besides the music, was down to connections with people who helped them. David Crosby comes off as a real arsehole. To his credit, so does Chris, who clearly has some self awareness. I wasn’t that interested in the later years (too much Christianity, and he doesn’t recount the story of being annoyed by that Aussie guy while on tour in Australia), but I read till the end out of respect for Chris. His account of the tour he did with McGuinn celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Sweetheart of the Rodeo sounded epic. I wish I’d seen it. I like that, when David Crosby complained he wasn’t included, Mcguinn brushed him off, saying ‘the Byrds were in his rear-view mirror when they made the album’. A good read. Thanks for sharing your story with us, Chris.
Listened to some more of the Nancy Wilson album in the car. I’d say it’s actually a really good album. Maybe even better than Anne’s. The songs are better, though Anne beats Nancy in the vocal stakes. She does some interesting covers, including Pearl Jam’s Daughter, Bruce Springsteen’s The Rising, Simon and Garfunkel’s The Boxer and The Cranberries’Dreams. I’m especially liking a song called The Inbetween, a nice power pop number.
I retweeted a funny Twice-themed post I saw on Twitter/X by yeowobeep today. They simply joined the members’ names to various ‘woke’ concepts and made puns out of them. Thus ‘Woke Twice be like…Biyeon, Transjeongder, Mononbinary, Gendertzuid,’ etc. Other posters responded with more fun combos, like ‘Gayhun’ and ‘Sanapphic’. Interestingly, the original poster had Chaeyoung just as Chaeyoung. Is that because she’s already woke as she is?
On a similar theme, at work yesterday I encountered two patrons in the library who were a lesbian gay couple, very much a ‘femme’ and ‘butch’ combo. In fact, when I asked if they needed help I called the butch one ‘mate’ before I realised she was a woman. Awkward! They asked if we had a LGBTQI specific section in the library. We don’t, although there’s lots to be had in our Young Adult and Graphic Novel sections. One of them, the femme, said she knows of other libraries where they use rainbow-themed stickers on the spines of books to identify them as that genre. I told her that’s a great idea and we should do it here. An interesting interaction. I’d like to recommend the rainbow idea to management, but I wonder if it would ever be implemented.
Watched the latest Twice game show, Time to Zzimbangz Episode One. Unlike other TTTs, this one only features Jihyo, Jeongyeon and Nayeon – the 3Mix combo of main vocalists. They’re holed up in what I assume is a Korean spa service branded as Zzimbangz. It’s probably another sponsorship endorsement, but who cares when it’s this much fun? The three started off by playing games against each other (for snacks), the first being one where they had to guess a film or tv series based on the first word. Most were pretty adept at this, though at one point Nayeon got her answer so wrong she left Jeongyeon in tears of laughter. Really the whole point of the show was to watch the members tease each other mercilessly. It’s wholesome fun and I’m here for it. But I wonder will any of the other members show up in this series?
Had another listen to the Jim Croce Collection, then listened to Dylan’s Blood On the Tracks for the first time in a while. It was kind of illuminating listening to them back to back. I think I liked the Croce album more! There’s more melody there, more emotion, and it’s more direct, and I think the music’s so much better. Blood is still a great album, but I’m finding I get annoyed now at the way Dylan shouts that line at the end of every verse in Twist of Fate, and the way Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts never slows down. I still think Meet Me In the Morning is pretty dreary. It’s kind of the album’s New Pony, if you know what I mean. I can’t help thinking that the album’s reputation rests on the ‘legend’ of Dylan, all the good stuff that came before, more than on the merits of the actual album. I think we got dazzled by the wordplay and the honesty. The wordplay gets in the way, you might say (I’m a poet, I know it…)
A Letterboxd review by ‘kyle’ for Working Girl, the Melanie Griffith film of 1988: ‘the sequel is Twerking Girl and it’s me on Harrison Ford’s face’! I was thinking of this film for some reason, maybe because I recalled it being Melanie Griffith’s best film. I remember seeing it at the Drive-In in Croydon. Must have been one of the last I attended before it closed down. The main theme song by Carly Simon, called Let The River Run, is very good, but way over the top. It’s like it’s a song for a different film, something like the reunification of Europe, or the end of South African Apartheid. It’s very celebratory, with lyrics about ‘the New Jerusalem’. Hard to equate to a slight film about a woman finding her place and winning at Capitalism.
Having written up my reviews of all the Urusei Yatsura films, I’ve now started on the OVAs. The first one, titled Ryoko’s Autumn Tea Party, was a rather disappointing clip episode. Mendo’s spoiled sister Ryoko is bored, so she invites Lum and some of her friends to a tea party and gets them to talk about themselves and their stories. Cue flashbacks. It’s as simple as that, and not especially well done. The flashbacks are pretty random, although we do get to revisit the classic episode where Ryoko invited everyone to a Christmas party that involved them climbing a giant Christmas tree which turned into a rocket that sent them all into space. I watched the second one, and it was also a clip show. Damn.
I watched the Urusei Yatsura OVA episode titled Inaba the Dream Maker. A really stunning short film based directly on the manga from Rumiko. Finally, a good OVA, after the first two, which were bad clip shows. This was Rumiko’s version of Alice In Wonderland, which was later re-done for an episode of the Urusei remake anime. I must rewatch the reboot version to see how it stacks up to this early version, because it’s excellent. At nearly an hour in length it gets in just about everything from the manga. The animation is terrific and the story well-told. A lonely Shinobu encounters Inaba, a boy in a rabbit suit who is actually from a dimension that creates multiple futures for Earthlings. With Lum’s help, Shinobu and Ataru enter this dimension and chaos ensues. They all encounter many futures, most not to their liking. Ataru wants a harem, Lum wants marriage and a home with Ataru, and Shinobu just wants to meet someone nice. Lum and Shinobu in Playboy bunny costumes will forever be cute. I love that Lum finally does find a future where she and Ataru get married. The sight of a deliriously happy Lum in her wedding dress gladdens my heart. I really liked the end theme song called Sorry too. Don’t think I have that one on my UY cd. What a wonderful episode this was.
I watched another Urusei Yatsura OVA. This was Raging Sherbet, an episode where Lum’s friend Oyuki plans to make a business out of flying sherbets, little bird creatures capable of quickly reproducing sherbet cones from their beaks. But Lum’s sometime friend Ran persuades Oyuki to let her set up a stand to sell them and her sherbet bird escapes, and the usual chaos ensues. This was a fairly light-hearted whimsical episode, based again on another manga episode by Rumiko Takahashi. Lum’s girlfriends Oyuki and Benten feature a lot in this one, which always makes me happy – especially Benten. Even better, there was naked Benten (and Ran) at the very end. They were in a bathtub being scolded by Oyuki for causing all the chaos. It was a bit gratuitous and surprising, but I’ll take it. Ooh baby Benten….The two theme songs were nice medley versions of many of the UY TV theme songs. Another solid OVA.
Watched another Urusei Yatsura OVA. This was number five, Nagima’s Fiance. I mentioned this one earlier when I read the chapters it was adapted from in the manga. It’s the story that seemed to be the springboard for Rumiko’s next title, which was Ranma ½. Nagima is a ghost who can only pass over to the other side if ‘she’ gets to kiss Ryuunosuke, who was promised to be her fiance by the respective fathers. But Ryu is actually a girl forced by her father to look like a boy. Turns out Nagima is a boy forced by her father to look like a girl. And the father looks very much like what would become Ranma’s father, Genma, with his scarfed head. Rumiko obviously took this gender bending scenario and really ran with it for Ranma ½. It’s interesting that here Ataru and Mendo only seem a little fazed by the idea of Nagima, whom they think is a girl, kissing Ryuunusoke; but when Nagima’s true gender is revealed, they vehemently object. Can’t have another boy kissing her when they want to be the ones doing it.
I watched a couple more OVAs of Urusei Yatsura. These were The Electric Household Guard and I Howl At the Moon. The Electric Household Guards features Shingo, a character who had appeared in an earlier story. Here he tries to marry Mendo’s sister Ryoko over the objections of Mendo and Ataru. Ryoko seems pleased by the attention and, although she’s appalled that he seems as unfaithful as Ataru, she encourages his advances because, well, she loves stringing people along. ‘I will wait for you,’ she yells from her carriage as she lobs hand grenades in front of him. It occurred to me watching this that Ryoko is a stand in for Rumiko the author. All the other characters are puppets to her puppet-master, her hands on all their strings.
I Howl At the Moon was just one chapter in the manga, so here it is expanded to a full episode. Ataru is turned into a wolf when he eats an alien sakuramochi Lum makes him. Then Lum discovers he has until 8pm at night to get the antidote or he will remain a wolf forever. This is brilliant. Ataru makes a hilarious wolf. And it’s even funnier when Lum encounters a dog she thinks is Ataru (it isn’t) and it looks more like Ataru than Ataru/wolf does. And when their teacher Onsen turns into a wolf because Lum gave him leftover sakuramochi, even better. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this. Ataru-wolfboy is a thing to behold. It gets even nuttier by the end when both Ataru and the poor substitute dog have taken Lum’s super-hot antidote and their lips swell up to gigantic proportions.
I’m still working through the short story collection The Best of World SF. A couple more good ones have been The Sun From Both Sides by R.S.A Garcia, and His Master’s Voice by Hannu Rajaniemi. The Sun From Both Sides was a two-part story, first about a woman rescuing her lover from slavers, then second the lover rescuing the woman from the consequences of her actions in saving him, because the slavers had placed a bounty on her head. The writing was dazzling, with the second part employing the language of chess to describe the lovers’ hierarchical society where the woman had been taken and imprisoned. The other story, His Master’s Voice, featured an intelligence-enhanced dog who narrates the story of working with an equally intelligent cat to save their master from oblivion. Again, the writing was dazzling, conveying just enough information to make the story plausible. My only complaint about both stories was that they were both perhaps too ‘efficient’ in their narrative styles. Many details were left out and new words or concepts were introduced but given scant definition so that the reader was left struggling to decipher what exactly was going on. You felt like the author was a lot smarter than you and they wouldn’t dumb down their writing for your benefit. So you’ve got to read ‘smarter’ to catch up. Makes for a brainy but not always satisfying read.
