Sun, 9 June: Weekly Review 14

I started a project this morning sorting through my digital Sweet collection. Yeah, reading that back it looks kinda weird. What he saying? I mean the British rock band The Sweet, who had big glam hits in the seventies like Ballroom Blitz, Fox on the Run, Blockbuster, Action and Love Is Like Oxygen. I’ve written about them elsewhere. I’ve collected a bunch of their songs exclusively on compilation albums, which feature not only the hits, but the b-sides, some album tracks, some post-Brian Connelly songs and other assorted ephemera they thought should go on a compilation album. Thought it was time to tidy them up and put them into some coherent structure. Thus, I’ve got some labelled as ‘early hits’, including things like Wig Wam Bam, Little Willy and Funny Funny. This was their bubblegum era of the early Seventies. Then there’s ‘the hits’, including the aforementioned hits above and some others. There’s about ten in all that could be called hits here in Australia, including my favourite Sweet song, The Sixteens. Then there’s a bunch of album tracks all sorted into their appropriate albums, such as Sweet F.A., On the Level and Desolation Boulevard. Then there’s the ‘post-Brian’ tracks, featuring songs they did after their lead singer, Brian Connelly, left the band. There’s some great stuff here, including New York Groove (cleverly includes a bit of Alicia Keys’ Empire State) and Do It All Over Again. They were such a good band. Now they’re nice and sorted and in their appropriate categories, and the world is a better place, and I’m happy. I know this is all pretty anal and trainspottery, but hey, I’m a library worker. I live for this kind of cataloguing thing!

There was an interesting item in my Anime Underground newsletter today titled 20 Animes That Are So Much Better Dubbed Than Subbed. Some shows it included that I’ve watched were FLCL, Black Lagoon and, most importantly, Cowboy Bebop. I will say straight up that I watched them all in sub, because I’m a sub guy, and enjoyed them very much. But the author of the item, Anna Lindwasser, made some good points in defence of her recommendations. I agree with her that FLCL has such fast-paced dialogue that it’s hard to keep up if you’re reading it. And there’s that crazy sequence when the show turns into a multi-dialogue manga, making it almost incomprehensible in sub form. She makes a good point about Black Lagoon, one of my favourites, when she writes, ‘the characters are not meant to be speaking Japanese when the protagonist has to translate what the Japanese mafia are saying to (another character). It’s kind of hard to buy that she can’t speak Japanese when she was just doing it a minute ago.’ I agree, and will duly check out the dub version next time I watch it. I plan on doing the same with Cowboy Bebop. But I have to say, I’m heavily invested in the Japanese performances of the sub version, especially the voice of Ed, as voiced by Aoi Tada. The English dub for that show always gets raved about, so I guess it’s time I gave it a look/listen. But for all that, please believe, I am a sub man and always will be a sub man!

Still on the anime trail, I bought the DVD of the Makoto Shinkai film Suzume today. Although released in 2022, the DVD and Bluray must have just come out here (I always scan the anime aisle when I visit JB HiFi). I’m such a fan of his previous films, like Your Name and Weathering With You, I can’t wait to see it. I’ve seen previews: there’s a seemingly sentient chair, a possibly evil cat and the title character dealing with catastrophic events that I assume echo the 2011 earthquake and tsunami (a constant theme with Shinkai). Then of course there’s those glorious skies and landscapes that he is renowned for. New Shinkai: life is good.

The highlight for today was watching Suzume, the Makoto Shinkai film I bought the other day. I watched it with the dub, as is my way with anime films so I can enjoy the visuals without bothering with the subtitles. And boy, has this film got visuals! But being a Shinkai film, that’s a given, you already knew that. The story takes the form of a freewheeling road trip, with 17 year old Suzume making her way from the island of Kyushu in the south-west of Japan, to the north-eastern corner of Honshu, via Shikoku, Kobe and Tokyo. Accompanied by a talking and walking chair (that’s right!), she gets help from various people along the way, and is joined by her step-mother for the final leg of the trip. The destination is her old home town, where her mother died in the earthquake/tsunami of 2011. It was a magical, emotional ride and I loved every minute of it. The film also reminded me, in some ways, of last year’s Miyazaki film, The Boy and the Heron. They both share a MC who’s lost their mother, and there are other similarities, but I won’t go into them here. I plan on watching the film again soon, this time with the sub version to hear how the Japanese voice cast faired. The English voice cast for the dub did a great job, but the guy who voiced the main male character, Souta, sounded so generic. I swear I’ve heard his voice a hundred times!

I watched the latest Media Watch and there was a story about ABC reporter Laura Tingle’s recent comments about Australia being a racist country. It seems the comment predictably got the Fox media up in arms and sparked the usual pile on from them, accusing her of showing bias. Just why host Paul Barry was indulging them I don’t know. Seemed like a waste of time. And there was no mention of the complete hypocrisy of the Murdoch media and its own obvious right-wing bias. They like to be the only ones who can tell people how to think, and don’t like it when others, and other ideologies, get in on the act. It’s just as well its media is only consumed by a dwindling amount of old codgers.

LGBTQI issues are big in the library system I’m a part of. We’re supportive and we’re anti-censorship when it comes to material about them. The teenage section is where a lot of this material can be found in a library. But it can be challenging offering it to parents of teenagers as potential reading material. We need to tread carefully here in the times when we get to do a reader’s advisory for them. One such incident happened to me today whilst on my book run out to the country. I have a patron called Heather who likes to borrow teenage graphic novels for her early teens daughter. When I found myself avoiding selecting novels for her that had a trans or gay theme, I figured it was time I asked her if she was okay with it. She was. She said her daughter has friends who have gay parents, and is constantly exposed to the topic at school, so she may as well read about it. It’s one thing to let patrons borrow whatever books they want off the shelves, but when you’re selecting for them this question has to be asked. Whether we like it or not, it’s still controversial and we still need to be sensitive about it. Still.

I was reading through one of my Tarot books today, called The Tarot Directory by Annie Lionnet. It’s a beautiful ring-binder style book full of illustrations of the many amazing Tarot decks that are out there. I really want to get a Japanese Ukiyoe set, it looks amazing. The different sections are indexed according to Tarot Basics, Major Arcana, Minor Arcana, The Reading and Case Histories, which look at the different spreads. I’m up to the section on Preparing For a Reading. It’s all about setting the right mood, creating a ‘sacred space’. Choosing the right deck is important too. It must be one you feel a special affinity for. In my case, the Buffy deck I bought recently would definitely be the one. I’ve even ‘cleansed’ it by the light of a full moon. It’s apparently a no-no to use someone else’s deck, because ‘It’s not possible to imprint your own psychic vibration on the cards and make them personal to you if someone else has already colored them with their own energetic imprint.’ Isn’t that great? This also means if you buy a second hand deck, you can admire the cards, but you wouldn’t use them for a reading.

I also did a little study of the second card in the Major Arcana, The Magician card (I plan to study them all). According to the book it emphasises Guidance, New Opportunities and Creative Initiative. I was particularly struck by its association with creativity. It ‘acts as a mediator between the divine and human realms and symbolizes the link between the conscious and the unconscious mind’. In practical terms it invokes for me the energies I feel I have to muster when I’m beginning a creative project, even just in sitting down to write these humble Diary entries. The Magician card indicates ‘a huge reservoir of power and energy is available for both creative and intellectual pursuits’. Incidentally, I love this David Bowie Magician card I found on the net. So cool. Must check out the deck.

I read more about the Tarot from the Tarot Directory by Annie Lionnet. This time it was last section about Case Studies and the different spreads. These include the Celtic Cross, the three card spread, the Horoscope spread, the Triangle, the Star Spread and five-card Horseshoe spread. The three card spread might be a good one to start with, simply featuring as it does past, present and future. The readings for case histories featured seemed a little obvious but made their point of illustrating how readings of spreads can be applied to people’s situations. It doesn’t look easy. I also checked out the next card in the Major Arcana, The High Priestess card. This one’s about intuition and working with our subconscious drives. It inspires stillness and contemplation. It has a female power and is associated with the moon and dreams. I interpret it as the thing I’m looking for when I’m not sure about something or how to proceed, and I search for signs to show me the way.

I saw a post on Twitter/X that advertised the coming COD3 OF P3RFUM3 Z0Z5 Asia Tour 2024 by Japanese group, Perfume. I so want to see it – they’re one of my faves – but the closest they’ll be to Australia will be at the Bangkok concert in Thailand next month. I had the thought that it wouldn’t stop me: I’ll buy a ticket, take a plane to Bangkok and see them. I could do it. People do do that kind of thing, you know. The only problem is the concert tickets have been sold out. I’m still thinking of it though. Maybe I can get resale tickets. Should I be applying for leave from work for those days now? Can I afford it? I dunno. The Fool is strong with this one.

My girls Kpop band Twice have been in the Philippines shilling for The Man. That is to say, they’re there to do some fan meet/promotional performance thing called OishiSnacktacularFanmeet courtesy of a snack company called Oishi they’ve been dragged into by their company, JYPE, to promote. There’s nothing unusual about this in the Kpop world where commerce and art go hand in hand, and commerce often wins out. The recent music video for NewJeans‘ How Sweet is actually a Coke ad, for example. It and the song are so good that it’s really art transcending commerce, but it grates when we know what a scumbag company Coke is. As for Twice, it’s still a little embarrassing and depressing to see your favourite band performing like silly marionettes because their company has committed them to it. I take solace in the fact that the girls have gamely taken on the task with their usual winning enthusiasm, professionalism and sense of fun. As long as they’re all together it’s alright. I’ve been watching some of the highlight footage some fans have filmed of the events and it does look like a good time – at least for the audience. It’s not unlike a live, chaotic, real-time version of Time To Twice. They’re wearing silly costumes, participating in silly games, singing a little bit here, dancing a little bit there, interacting with each other and the audience in various cute ways. It does look like they’re having fun, but I wonder how much of it is show and they’re really just gritting their teeth through it all. Damn!

The novel I have on hold, Rewrite by Gregory Benford, happened to come into the library I was working at today. I redirected it back to this library on the system, scanned it, and it was mine. Yay! Having a closer look at the blurb I saw it was not actually a sequel to his much earlier novel, Timescape, which I read recently, it was what one reviewer called ‘a thematic companion’ to it. Meaning, like Timescape, it’s about time travel. But the time travel mechanic in this one is far less scientific. Our hero Charlie Moment (what a damn literal Dickensian surname!) travels back in time when he gets hit by a truck and dies. Yes, Benford actually uses that old Isekai trope from so many Japanese anime and manga stories. So it seems more isekai than scifi at this early stage. Benford’s clearly having fun with the idea – his character wakes up in his seventeen year old body in 1968. I hope I do too.

I watched my Passengers rebuild in aid of some research for a blog piece I’m doing. It’s a film that came out in 2016 starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence and has them stranded on a star ship headed for a new settlement planet. There’s a moral dilemma or betrayal at the heart of it that I won’t go into here, but going by some reviews I’ve read, it’s really got the hate because of it. Most people seem to object the fact the betrayal is forgiven in the end, some calling it more ‘male white privilege’ (yes, it’s Pratt’s character that does the betraying). They want the film to go into some darker area (they seem to be out for blood), but they forget, this is a Hollywood film, and Hollywood values rule. I say look at the wider context surrounding the betrayal (it’s a unique situation) and show some forgiveness; or if you must hate, hate the character, not the film. At the very least, it looks stunning.

I watched the first episode of Yellowstone, the Kevin Costner series I borrowed from my library recently. It seems to be a kind of modern update of the old High Chaparral show with Kev playing a cattle and land baron. I mostly liked the episode, with some reservations. The storytelling was a little obscure at times. The opening scene where Kev’s character attends the scene of a truck crash is one example. Presumably, hopefully, the meaning of the scene will be revealed later. My main gripe with the show is it seems to glamorize Capitalism, like we need another one of those. There’s a scene were Kev debates with a rival land developer, and the developer says ‘There’s winners and losers’, and Kev replies, ‘That’s the first thing you’ve said I agree with’. Think I’ve had enough of Capitalist power struggles and shows that legitimize them. Most of the characters seem pretty unlikeable too. Maybe the youngest son of Kev’s character’s alright, he seems to have a good moral compass. And I like the actress who plays his wife. Woah, she’s hot! I could stick around for her or see if there’s any element of actual criticism or irony about the glamorized Capitalism, but I don’t think I can be bothered.

I discovered a new shop in the shopping center near my library where I was working today. It was a very old-school second-hand electronics shop called CeX, selling old dvds, games, phones and other electronics. Pretty much a pop culture mecca for someone like me, but I don’t like its chances of staying afloat as a business. It’s the sort of store you’d normally see in some dilapidated arcade, where the rent is much cheaper than in a big shopping center. Let’s see how long it lasts. Anyway, I scored a copy of Journey, a fantastic Playstation 4 game I’ve been wanting my own copy of for a long time. I can’t say how much I love this game. I’ve played it numerous times before and obviously it has great re-play value. Even better, it comes with another game by the same studio, called Flowers, and it’s just as good. You play Flowers by tilting the controller, which guides some floating flowers to their various destinations. The landscapes and music are beautiful, and the story it tells is so uplifting, sad and dramatic all at once. I’ve never played any game as visceral and transformative as this. Thank you CeX!

I had a session of playing my new copy of Journey, the Playstation 4 game I bought yesterday. I actually finished it in this one sitting because, since I’d completed it many times before, all the entry point portals were open to me, and I inadvertently chose the final one. That last stretch of the game is pretty amazing, where our protagonist, a be-caped Bedouin with a magical scarf, struggles through snow, wind and winged beasties to reach its destination, the entrance at the top of the mountain. It’s only with the help of some spirit guides that we get there in the end, as they offer us their spritual/kinetic energy for the final flight, which is exhilarating. I like that there’s no great reward when we make it to the end of our Journey. We seem to be reconstituted as a wandering ball of energy, or a star, and we fly back along the path we came to our beginning place. There’s something spiritual and contemplative about this game that keeps you coming back for more. I’m already thinking I’ll replay, but this time I’ll take one of the other portals, maybe the first one.

I played one of the other games on that Journey Playstation 4 collection, a game called Flowers. I’ve played it before and it’s fabulous. You begin by choosing from a row of flowers on a window sill, and as with the Journey game from yesterday, I inadvertently chose the last flower to play. This had me playing the final triumphant stage where our flowers revive the city that had fallen into a kind of industrial torpor. You feel a bit like Mary Poppins, or a fairy, making everything right with the touch of your wand – or in this case, as Lou Reed once sang, you hit them with a flower. I like the physicality of tilting the controller, your thumb on the action button to move them forward, or off to make them pause. It makes for an enormous tension-relieving impact as the flowers hit and destroy metal, complete with musical cues. There’s nothing difficult or even subtle about the game, but it’s enormously enjoyable. Now for a replay, but this time with the first flower!

I finally got around to watching the first two episodes of the anime Yashahime season two. Based on the Rumiko Takahashi manga and anime, Inuyasha, it continues the story with Inuyasha and Kagome’s daughter Moroha, and her cousins Towa and Setsuna in feudal (and sometimes modern) Japan. As a big Rumiko fan I’m heavily invested in this new iteration of her work, and am finding it a pleasant experience indeed. It’s been nice revisiting the show (I saw this series on Crunchyroll a couple of years ago now) and the colourful characters and their ongoing quests. I really liked the second episode, where the girls encounter a seaside village that is threatened by an evil gorgon-like creature. Turns out the creature has its own sad story to tell of how it had once been a benevolent spirit, helping the people of the village, until some village fisherman, including the man she loved, killed her when she assumed the shape of a snake. I’m pretty sure this is an old Japanese or Chinese fairytale that’s been woven into the narrative. Rumiko’s work often features such tales, which is one of the things I like about it. I really love the end credits sequence of this show, featuring a wonderful song by Little Glee Monster. For a mostly wholesome show, it can be surprisingly scary at times.

I’ve been listening to the new RM album, Right Place, Wrong Person, in the car on the way to work. I have to, since I haven’t had much time to listen at home. It seems to have more hard raps than the last one, and there’s not as much sweetening with female vocals, like that great track Wild Flower that was on Indigo. I have to say, rap and hip hop albums are not my forte. I have only a handful of them in my collection, so not one of my favourite genres. I’m liking RM’s stuff because it’s so different to what I usually listen to. Anyway, there’s so much love left over in me from the previous album I’m gonna give this one a good listen, and already the vibe is nice, so I know it’ll be a grower. I also watched a good video on Youtube of RM doing the song Nuts, seemingly with a live vocal as he cavorts around his very organic, cabin-like studio. Very impressive. The man, like the band BTS, has charisma to burn.

Today I was working at a library that’s near one of the old high schools I used to work at as a teacher. It being Saturday (no students around), I figured I’d go and have a look at the old place and reminisce. What I wrote was a little too long form for these Diary entries, so I put it up here as a blog.