Sun, 4 May: Weekly Review 60

Had a listen to one of the albums Lui recently gave me. It was Bob Dylan’s Love and Theft. I have an electronic version culled from a friend’s collection, but it’s nice to have an official version. This one’s a special edition, including an extra cd of just two songs, one a song from 1961 called I Was Young When I Left Home, and the other an alternate version of The Times They Are A-Changin’. I remember hearing the full album when it came out in 2001 and being surprised how much Bob’s voice is shot at this point. It had really deteriorated. But somehow he makes it work. The musicianship and songs are stellar. Dylan’s going for a spikey, home-timey feel with a lot of the songs, and it feels right. His cracked voice fits like a glove. I like the way he looks on the cover, too. That little pencil moustache makes him look like an elderly louche lothario.

I watched OVAs 8 and 9 of my Urusei Yatsura collection tonight. Number 8 was called Goat and Cheese, about a curse placed on Lum and the gang when they are photographed in front of a cursed goat statue. One of the more out there premises. Mendo’s father tells them the goat will appear and eat the picture and they will all die, just as his ancestors did. What he doesn’t tell them till the end, after they’ve all panicked needlessly, is his ancestors all died after living out their normal life spans. BOOIINNNG! Number 9 was called Catch a Heart, and was another love spell type episode where Lum comes into a bag of magical candy hearts that, when one is eaten, causes a heart to appear above the eater’s head. If a person grabs the heart, then they immediately become the target of that person’s love. The usual chaos ensues when everyone at Lum’s school finds this out, leading to some bizarre love combos: such as Mendo falling in love with Onsen Mark and, briefly, Lum falling in love with Megane – a dream come true for Megane. But when the moment comes to receive her kiss, poor old Megane, who is Lum’s biggest fan, has a heart attack (but he lives).

Watched the last two OVAs of Urusei Yatsura. These were Terror of the Girly Eyes Measles and Date With a Spirit. In the first Ataru gets infected by said measles and develops ‘girly eyes’, which present as shiny and sparkly anime girl eyes, if you know what I mean. They’re the sort of exaggerated eyes that were used for female characters in certain animes of the time, like Rose of Versaille. It was funny how the episode played with that convention. Of course, inevitably, all the male characters end up with it and all look very ridiculous and funny.

Been listening to some Otis Redding in the car on the way to work and back. It’s leaving me a bit underwhelmed, to tell the truth. It doesn’t help that the cd is an old thing I picked up at an op shop and doesn’t play properly. There’s a black spot on the disc I can’t get off, so tracks 7, 8 and 9 don’t play. That includes the song Shake, which I think is one of his better ones. His voice is somewhere between a growl and a bark. No pun intended, but his voice does have some bite in it, which I like. It starts with his own Respect, but it will never hold a candle to Aretha’s version. He has a go at the Temptations’ My Girl, but it’s not as good. Much better is Coffee and Cigarettes, a bluesier number. And, have to say, I prefer Andrew Strong and The Commitments version of Try a Little Tenderness.

I watched another two episodes of To Your Eternity. It continues to be kind of annoying the focus on characters other than the MC Fushi. The tenth episode was the return of the shadow creature Fushi encountered in an earlier episode, but most of it dealt with Gugu, the boy who wears a mask to hide his disfigured face, getting help from other to fight the shadow. He gets it in the end, and saves Fushi, but it’s a long wait. In the eleventh episode five years have passed and Gugu is a well-built man and Fushi an older boy beginning to grow stubble on his chin. It’s as mundane as that.

Well it was election night and Labour romped it in. I expected as much, but still happy to see it confirmed. Dutton was unelectible from the start, that much should have been obvious to the Liberals. We have another three years, and possibly six considering how much the Libs have to claw back. Plenty of time for Labour to get good things done. The sense of schadenfreude is strong with me at the moment.

Watched Ep 2 of Time To Zzimbangz, the Twice reality show featuring Jihyo, Jeongyeon and Nayeon. It was sillier and more unfocused than usual. Not sure if I’m supposed to watch this because they seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel, but I do because it’s Twice. I’m not sure if we really needed an ASMR segment wherein the girls slurp and crunch noisily on food and drink either. Same goes for the segment where they had to guess what type of drink each of them drank from a selection of similar-looking beverages. There will be more episodes. I hope they get better, because my patience is waning.

My work colleague tonight, Brooke, had a patron who’s name reminded her of something ridiculous and funny she remembered. He was an Indian and his first name was actually Hardik. She laughed and told me about a time when she saw that name on someone’s car number plate. It was written like HARD1K and she assumed it referred to, well, you can guess. But no, it must have been this poor bastard’s name. In return I told her about my porno name, which is Rock Hardy. She laughed. Everyone should have a porn star name. What’s your’s?

I had an eye doctor appointment today. He gave me a needle in the eye. That’s right, that’s what I said. NEEDLE IN THE EYE. It was needed to help get down the blister that’s formed on my right eye. He put clamps on the eye then jabbed it from the side filling my eye with the liquid that would do its work. I felt a little like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange, only I wasn’t shown a film of ultraviolence. I could see the liquid float across my eye, then there were these black bubbles forming at the bottom of my sight. It was very weird and uncomfortable, and the black bubbles stayed there till later that night.

I watched Miraculous Ladybug and Cat Noir the Movie on Netflix. The three D animation they used for this made the characters look different to the regular series. It took some getting used to. The story is a retelling of the origin story where Marinette and Adrien get their Miraculouses (miraculi?) and become super heroes of Paris. It’s just done bigger, if not always better. They’ve made it part musical too, which I’m not sure is a great idea. The film-makers seem to be really going for that Disney vibe. There’s at least one song, the one where Marinette decides to accept her new-found powers, that’s actually pretty good. It reminds me of Within Temptation, it’s exactly the sort of thing that Sharon Den Adel sings about. I liked that one. I read some of the reviews on Letterboxd, and most were pretty vicious, the main culprit being the songs. I think the main problem was they tried to jam too many elements, from five whole seasons of a show, into what is basically a pretty short film. I gave it three and a half stars.

I bought a nice graphic novel version of Ursula Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea whilst working at Knox today. It’s by a guy called Fred Fordham. Had a read of the first couple of chapters and it’s fantastic. It’s so great to experience a favourite book from a different angle.

I finished the graphic novel of A Wizard of Earthsea. So fine. I love how dark it often looks, and how there are so many wordless panels, the artist simply lets them tell the story. Ursula’s amazing words are used sparingly, and always sound wise. I really hope Fred Fordham gifts us with similar treatments of the next four Earthsea stories, but I’m probably hoping for too much.

I made a cd cover for a couple of my Nmixx albums, namely Stick Out and Forward, and got them printed out at Officeworks. While I was driving around I listened to those albums in the car. Such good albums. I read recently that Nmixx might be coming out here to perform, and if so, I’ve made my mind up to see them, if I can. I guess listening to the albums inspired me.

Watched the first half of the fourth Evangelion movie. I love that whole sequence in Town 3 where Shinji, Asuka and Rei unwind. It ends sadly for Rei, but at least she gets a chance to live a brief but good human life. I’m watching this because I was put in mind of it from my Evangelion purchases, and that ending that includes Hikari Utada’s One Last Kiss keeps running through my head. I must re-experience it.

Watched the second half of Evangelion movie 4. This is where the big mission to beat NERV happens. Shinji kun makes it aboard the Wunder, captained by Misato, and in the course of the action Asuka and Mari head down in their EVAs to defeat EVA number 13. It gets pretty complicated and confusing and, even though I’ve seen the film three times, I still can’t work out everything that happens. But it’s an enjoyable and satisfying ride with some amazing animation and imagery. Shinji kun manages to defeat his father and EVA 13 and seems to reboot history so that everyone gets to live in a new historical timeline. Or, I think that’s what happens. He ends up on a railway station in Japan on a sunny day. He sees Kawaru kun and Rei across the platform from him. Mari comes up behind him and covers his face with her hands, saying, ‘Guess who?’ He guesses the girl with the specs and big boobs. She says ‘Bingo!’, takes his hand and they run out of the station to the opening strains of One Last Kiss by Hikaru Utada. Bliss

I worked with a guy called Zylan today. Yes, Zylan, not Dylan. When I mentioned I like Kpop he said it was unusual for someone of my age to like that sort of stuff. He wasn’t being nasty or anything, but it kind of bummed me out and made me think I might not see Nmixx after all. Stupid insecurities.