Sun, 29 June: Weekly Review 68

I dived into my literary collection and started reading a book called Tolstoy’s Major Fiction by Edward Wasiolek. I went straight to the chapter about Anna Karenina and started there because it’s the only Tolstoy I’ve read. This is part of an ongoing project I’ve set myself wherein I read critical commentary about classic novels and stories in a bid to improve my own writing. I’ve been neglecting it lately, and I woke up this morning thinking about it, so it got the nod. I think it had something to do with the Jane Austen documentary I watched last night, which got me thinking about it.

I finished reading the Anna Karenina section of that book on Tolstoy’s writings. Can’t say I agree with the author’s line that Tolstoy was writing about his own sexual hangups through Anna. A really obvious Freudian analysis. I tend to go with a (equally obvious?) Marxist analysis, that Anna represents the problems of bourgeois privilege. She has a husband, a son, a lover, and an easy life, but she’s not happy with any of it. She’s so out of touch with reality, so corrupted by bourgeois attitudes that her only way through and out is suicide. Even though the author seemed to dismiss the Levin story, which makes up half the novel, early on as ‘conventional’, I was glad when he brought it back into his analysis near the end. It’s clearly meant as a contrast to Anna’s story, and as such is meant to show how Levin, who is actually an aristocrat (though still part of bourgeois society), avoids Anna’s fate. An intriguing aspect of this thesis is that the author thinks Tolstoy offered Levin’s resolution as a comforting though false conclusion. He believed, given the forces against her and that she manufactured, Anna’s end was the more realistic one. A gloomy conclusion! I much prefer the Levin story, which I guess puts me in the ‘conventional’ camp.

I started watching my K-On anime bluray. This was such a brilliant adaptation of the manga, it really puts new flesh on the bones with songs, voice talent and movement. A manga like this one was really meant for an anime treatment to bring it completely to life. The voices for all the girls are so perfect and the songs are so good. The mangaka, Kakifly, must have been beside himself when he saw this.

I’m still watching my K-On bluray. I have to admit, some of it’s not as good as I remember it. The humour often feels forced and not especially funny. The Christmas episode was particularly lame and unfocused. But I love the animation style from the Kyoto Studios team. The K-On girls have the most adorable big oval eyes, and their personalities are so warm and sparkling. For me, the drummer Ritsu is Best Girl. I love her boundless enthusiasm and quirky tomboyish ways. When teamed with the equally quirky Yui, they’re an unbeatable duo. One of the fun things about the series and the manga was always the way the members treated the club as a place to hang out and have snacks rather than to practice. It was like, what sort of band is this? But clearly the after-school tea time aspect is an important part of their bonding which gives them strength and confidence to be the band they will be. But the introduction of Asuzan, the fifth member, brings a welcome shift in the dynamic of the group that emphasises their need to finally take the club and their band more seriously. I think I liked the second half of this first season better because of this.

I finished watching my K-On season one anime. It was a pretty solid show, ending on the usual high of a performance at the School Festival, but this time featuring new member Asuzan in the band. I loved how they did an encore of Fwu Fwu Time with Mugi starting them off on keyboard, then Ritsu joins in on drums, then Mio on Bass, then Asuzan on rhythm guitar, and finally Yui on lead and vocals. Very cool. In the end not much really happens, which is classic Slice of Life genre, but you enjoy spending time with the characters, watching them do their thing and being extra kawaii. They’re what makes the show. I’m thinking I must re-watch the film now, because yes I have a bootleg copy.

I also had the usual Youtube session and saw some nice clips. There was another music video for the song Beatdown from Kpop Demon Hunters featuring my Twice girls Jeongyeon, Jihyo and Chaeyoung. I’m definitely wanting the soundtrack, when it becomes available. For some reason YT’s algorithms also threw up a short interview with actor Keith Carradine discussing his involvement in one of my favourite films, the Ridley Scott film The Duellists. He was full of praise for all involved, especially Scott and his co-star, Harvey Keitel. One interesting factoid for me was the detail that Cristina Raines, who plays his love interest later in the film, was actually his girlfriend at the time. Carradine alludes guiltily to the fact he recommended her to Scott, who figured their real life relationship might result in on screen sparks, which they did. An amazing film that feels and looks like they actually transported everyone back to France of the early 1800s in a time machine and filmed it.

I finished the first volume of the K-On manga. This made up the entire first season which I just watched. The manga ending is different and much less dramatic than the anime version. In the manga Yui makes a hash of her performance at the school festival because she hasn’t had enough time to practice due to her cold. In the anime she rushes home to get her guitar and the teacher Sawa-chan plays the first song in her place. She gets back in time to play a triumphant finale. The anime also had an enjoyable filler episode featuring the girls playing with some other bands at a live venue. Now I’ve got to read the second volume, which became the second season of the anime.

Have to say, the manga’s a lot more pervy than the anime was. Sawa gives off some downright predatory vibes towards her charges, even grabbing Mio’s breasts at one point. It’s clear her penchant for designing skimpy outfits for them stems from her predilection in seeing young girls wear revealing costumes. I suspect Sawa is simply a stand in for the author Kakifly here.

I listened to that Taeyeon album To.X I bought yesterday. It’s really fine and laidback. I really like the song Melt Away, which has a nice bossa nova feel with horns. I also like the final song, Fabulous, which is yeah, fabulous. It’s the most commercial moment on the album. The lyrics are in English and it’s worth quoting some of them: ‘Darling, I’m a masterpiece, a work of art. Hi, my name is Fabulous, your favorite star. Diamonds on my wrist, come blow me a kiss.’ I think maybe they’re satirical. Not really sure…The title track was originally titled Fuck Around and Fall In Love, but they cleaned it up.

I’ve grabbed some copies of the magazine Britain as research for my upcoming trip to England. There’s some great travel ideas in here, especially for literary-minded people like me. One copy featured a story about Sussex and the woods that inspired AA Milne to write the Winnie the Pooh books. I so want to go there.

I’ve been doing the Warm Winter Read thing for library at the moment. It’s mainly to get an idea of what it’s about so I can answer patron questions about it, but it’s kind of fun too. I registered with the Readbooks site (called myself Mina Twerk!) and have been logging my reading. I’ve also started putting up some book reviews based on the ones I’ve been doing here. I put one up for the novel Nova, and I’ve just put up a re-write version of the one I did for the Bangles book, Eternal Flame. I’ve added it here as well. This all puts me in the draw for some goodies, including book hampers, Sony earphones and a Kobo ebook reader. I already have one of these, but another one wouldn’t hurt. The main point of all this is to encourage people to keep reading during winter, which surely isn’t hard.

Had a Youtube session that included the latest 2wiceDate plus the new Aespa song and music video for Dirty Work. This song has quickly burrowed its way into my ear, as has the video. There’s a great shot in it that’s weirdly artful, featuring member Winter styled to within an inch of her life and chanting the word ‘work, work, work’. There’s something strangely retro about the shot (it gives me a sense of deja vu), but it’s undeniably an arresting image. A dream of an image – and Winter looks completely different.

The 2wiceDate ep featured Nayeon and Jeongyeon, the group’s two oldest members, doing a fun driving lesson. Jeongyeon, who has her license and drives well, was training Nayeon, who doesn’t. The lesson was given further drama by occurring on a rainy day. Jeongy displayed the patience of a saint, playing her role with humour and good sense, whilst Nabong proved herself a quick learner. The camera coverage for this was insane, with a bank of cameras on the dash, plus cams in a lead car and a rear car as part of a convoy. Safety was clearly a priority, and there was never any real sense of danger; even so, I felt a little apprehensive for my Twice unnies. Some of the comments were funny, with many Onces wondering what this would’ve looked like with (the famously impatient and stern) Jihyo as the trainer.

I listened to my Died Pretty compilation, Out of the Unknown, in the car on the way to and from work today. It was a good time. I hadn’t realised it before, but I think their sound, especially Ron Peno’s vocals, owes something to The Doors. They were always a ‘dark’ band and I think that’s where the Doors influence comes in. An argument could be made that bands since the Sixties have fallen into either a dark or a light side, with just a few (maybe The Beatles?) managing to straddle both. I won’t labour the point, I just want to air it. Anyway, the Died Pretty album satisfies my hunger for their earlier stuff, which I don’t have, whilst putting together a nice selection of their later stuff, which I do have. It’s good to have them all together on this compilation that’s getting increasingly harder to find. It was one of those albums I had on my To Buy list and was happy to tick it off when I found it at Dixons. The song Everybody Moves still impresses as DP at their peak. I have the single with picture sleeve.

I bought a bluray at JB whilst at work in Knox today. It’s called The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash. Not the most inspiring title, but definitely on point for this trend in long titles for Isekai type animes. One reason I bought it was because this JB had a twenty percent off sale on blurays. They do this a lot at this store, much more than I’ve seen at other JB’s, bless ‘em. The other is I’ve had my eye on this title for a little while, being attracted to its simple plot – a lowly girl magician called Ivy tames animals and encounters a slime that changes everything and encourages her ‘to start a new journey’. It’s the sort of wholesome, healing Iyashikei story, like By the Grace of the Gods, that I can’t resist.

I watched the first episode and it definitely fits the bill. The animation is quite beautiful. It turns out Ivy did have a past life, like in the typical Isekai, a past which sometimes speaks to her, but the story plants us firmly in the Isekai world right from the start. There’s clearly a lot of back story to get through, which will no doubt happen over the following twelve episodes.

I watched a couple more eps of The Weakest Tamer anime. It continues to charm with little Ivy getting some back story and encountering new friends and continuing her journey to belonging. Her pet slime Sora is adorable. This is a gentle pleasure (well, there’s actually some violence, but not much and pretty mild) with beautiful animation.

I finished watching the Weakest Tamer anime tonight in a bingey six-episode session. I definitely enjoyed it, but the last few eps featured a new storyline about some corrupt organisation that Ivy helps overthrow that felt a bit forced. I feel this was a lost opportunity to give Ivy’s story some proper resolution. An earlier episode planted the information that Ivy’s hometown Latomi Village was now in dire straits due to the corrupt village leader’s ruthless and deceitful ways, which had now been exposed. I thought the story might take Ivy back there, accompanied by the many friends she finds along the way, to confront the leader and her parents, who had abandoned her, and get the justice she deserved. It’s possible the story is headed this way if there will be a second season, but I don’t know if there will be. I hope so, because I enjoyed this.

The latest Librarything newsletter had a link to a nice short story in its awards section. It was a story called Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole by Isabel J. Kim. This was the short story winner for the latest round of Nebula Awards. I was struck by the title, which references the famous Ursula Le Guin story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. I just had to read it, and for some reason, Clarkesworld Science Fiction & Fantasy Magazine online has made it available to read for free. So I read it, and it was great. I thought the premise strange though. Instead of killing the kid, why not kidnap it from the hole and give it a good life somewhere else outside of Omelas? Anyway, I wonder what Ursula would’ve thought of it? I suspect she would’ve liked it. I’ll have check out more of Kim’s work. Big thanks to Librarything and Clarksworld for bringing it to my attention and making it available.

I started watching that Warehouse 13 series I grabbed at Dixon’s the other day. It’s a combination of X Files meets the end scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark (remember, the warehouse where the Ark is taken to?). First episode has an interesting take on the notorious Lucretia Borges of the Venice Borges dynasty. I don’t love the two main characters, who are cookie cutter Mulder and Scully though less interesting, but I like the concept. The fact that the show was co-devised and written by Jane Epsensen, one of my favourite Buffy alumnis, keeps me invested.

I went to the K-Pop Time store and bought some things (I know, I’m buying a lot of things this week!). One was Taeyeon’s fifth mini album, To. X, which was on sale. And I grabbed a nice card holder pouch that I couldn’t resist. Will be handy for placing my overflow of cards. The big ticket item I bought was Twice’s 5^th Best Album with cd and dvd. This is a Japanese release that includes Japanese versions of three of their singles, plus their last five Korean singles. These Best albums also double as a series of Greatest Hits albums. The dvd has the music videos for the singles plus a couple of Making Of Album Jacket vids. I watched it all tonight and especially liked the second Making Of because it included a great dub edit of Talk That Talk with the members all performing it to camera. The only pity was there were no English subtitles. I really wish Twice’s people JYP would put out a Complete Videos bluray. I can watch it all on Youtube, but I want my own High Definition copy!

I managed to have a listen to my Twice Best 5 album. It’s just Japanese versions of Talk That Talk, Set Me Free and One Spark and the Korean versions plus I Got You and Strategy. The Japanese versions always sound weird after you’ve gotten used to the Korean versions. There was a time when the company would provide English language versions of the Korean singles, but that seems to have gone by the wayside. I so wish the songs Moonlight Sunrise and Queen of Hearts were included here, especially with their music videos. But Moonlight was an all-English song and Queen wasn’t ever a single, so they weren’t included. But I’m satisfied with this collection – especially with the dvd of music videos and making ofs included. There was also a spiffy clear plastic picture stand of the members. Shiny!

I watched an episode of Gruen for the first time in ages, and forgot how good it can be. There were terrific discussions about the impact of AI on advertising and the influence of social media platform Tik Tok. Russel Howcroft had a funny story about an advertising pitch his company once did for Stihl chainsaws that was straight out of Get Smart. Todd Sampson said during the AI discussion, by way of defending it I assume, ‘Most advertising is fabrication. It’s actors lying’. Right on. Makes you wonder why he works in the industry!

Speaking of social media, I’ve been reconfiguring how I use my Twitter account. I’m sick of the For You feature that it always defaults to when you first put it on. This always throws up a random sequence of posts by people and companies I’ve never heard of and certainly never Followed. I’m aiming to make it more targeted to my needs. So I just use the Following tab, which shows me only the accounts I’m following. To that end, I’m also updating my Lists, adding more interesting members as I look for and discover them, and putting them into their appropriate Lists. My lists include: Scifi/Fantasy, Politics/Media, Twice, Anime, Writing, Humour, Music, Spirit, History and Library. I’m thinking I might add some new categories, like Pop Culture and Esoteric. It’s time to make this app work for me, not the other way around!

I finished reading my Modesty Blaise book. It was a terrific, brutal read. The author, Peter O’Donnell, really delineates well Modesty and Willie Garvin’s relationship. It’s one based on mutual respect and dependence, but it’s never romantic. Modesty even undresses in front of Willie, who studiously looks away. Not that Willie’s gay as you might suspect – he has a series of girlfriends throughout the book. The main story about a diamond theft featuring a quirky mob boss called Gabriel is beautifully sketched out. Gabriel and his henchmen have taken over an island near Cyprus and use the monks from the monastery there to do their bidding. It’s a great setting and one where the story’s climax happens. Modesty and Willie let themselves be caught and taken there by Gabriel so they can thwart his plans. Here Modesty encounters the monstrous Mrs. Fothergill, Gabriel’s most fearsome fighter, and dispatches her spectacularly. O’Donnell’s handling of this gender switch speaks volumes for how different and more interesting he is compared to that other spy writer and his creation. Speaking of which, I must now read my next Bond book for contrast (this will be Diamonds Are Forever – haha, a thematic equivalence!). Let’s see who’s the best MC, and who’s the best writer!