Category: looky

I just found (through the Nichi Bei Times) this cool project: the Japantown Atlas.

The Japantown Atlas maps nearly two dozen communities in California where Japanese Americans lived and worked prior to World War II. Drawing from historic maps, business directories, and photos, we show a variety of Japantowns as they existed in 1940.

Our project both memorializes the Issei (first generation Japanese immigrants) in their first 20-50 years in America – the businesses, churches and schools they established – and documents the hometowns that 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry were forced to leave behind during their incarceration in “Assembly Centers” and “Internment Camps” during World War II (1942-1946).

How can someone see the word “yaoi” (やおい) and get the pronunciation “yowie”? It’s “Ya-Oh-Ee,” or “Ya-Oy.” From the wizards who brought you Carry Oakie. Morons.

Then again, if they were so smart, they’d likely realize the pathetic fantasy they are watching. The two beautiful boys making out with each other… because there is no chance in hell they’d want YOU. Filthy nerd girl.

Compare to “slash” fanfic, which seemingly got its start from female fans wanting to write porn about their favorite character, but getting too jealous to see them with any of the female characters…

On set waiting for makeup to finish, so I’m harrassing the entire world with my supplies shopping…

I’ve been replacing all my batteries with rechargeable batteries, for environmental as well as economic reasons — my fave so far is Eneloop.

One funny thing is that the big pack (which includes a charger) also includes some C and D batteries… however the batteries only come in AA and AAA. The C and D cells are actually plastic bodies for the AA’s !

I was just reading about Stradivarius violins. Almost every one of them ever made has been accounted for, which is pretty amazing by itself.

Dr. Joseph Nagyvary has been trying to study these violins (there are also violas and cellos) to replicate the exact process Antonio Stradivari used.

The most interesting part so far: the wood may have been especially dense due to the source trees having been grown during the “little ice age” lasting from the 16th century to the late 19th century. And that made me reevaluate all the books I’ve read set in those periods, or written in those periods. Example: Dickens’ characters seem on the verge of freezing to death all the time. What is the big deal? Turns out it was actually colder back then, and this is even without global warming.

Another unmined idea: although Stradivarius instruments have been the McGuffin in a number of movies and books, I don’t think any supervillain has ever tried to acquire ALL of them. And yet now, due to our connected world, the whereabouts of all of them can be easily obtained by anyone with an internet connection. It is now possible to find every single “Strad” and acquire it, either through sale or by murder. Or death rays. Whatever.

BLOFELD: You’re too late Mr Bond!

John K is the creator of Ren & Stimpy. He has a blog where he laments the downfall of animation and therefore of western civilization. He’s getting old… or maybe he was always like that.

A recent post has been cracking me up, where he uses Yogi the Bear merch as a metaphor for the decline of culture. I know what his point is supposed to be, but his examples are ridiculous and just make him seem out-of-touch.

It’s true, the merch was better in the 1960’s… but that style looks scary and weird now. Actually it scared me when I got things like that as hand-me-downs as a child in the 1980s.

Secondly, the sort of obvious reason Yogi doesn’t have good merch now is because he is no longer a 1st-tier character. Look at the insane merch for Spongebob Squarepants and you will see what I mean.

Neat little video about the Rosslyn Cipher

perhaps the single most mysterious aspect of the entire building are the enigmatic ‘cubes’ located in the ceiling of the Lady Chapel, or retro-choir, which is located at the east end of the chapel. These cubes, which number in their hundreds, are seen emerging from musical instruments played by angels situated at the top of pillars running along the length of the small retro-choir. The cubes rise in silent tribute to the heavens and each cube carries its own set of delicate carvings on all of the exposed faces, what could these carvings mean? It has been suggested that since they emerge from musical instruments, logically, they must represent musical notes, but how can these odd shapes and patterns have any relationship to conventional musical notation?

Pros: Very true to the book.
Cons: Jack Palance is ridiculous. Lucy is not that hot.

Also, in the DVD interview, Dan Curtis reveals something that is plain in his version, which I completely disagree with: he says the vampire is a monster, just like a person. That pisses me off. You might as well make one of the Anne Rice books, where the vampire is an immortal gay dude moping through eternity.

In the book Dracula, the entire point is the walking dead is an abomination. Call it going against God, or just the society, or whatever. Dracula’s character has a persona which is nearly impossible to analyse, and this is intentional- he is not a person who has cheated death. A vampire is a walking corpse with only fragments of remembered behavior clinging to it. It is a hideous construct you cannot reason with.

Look at Lucy’s behavior: she is creepy as hell. All her remembered behaviors are inverted. She is an inverted mother ideal, drinking the blood of young children. When she returns to seduce Arthur she uses all kinds of sweet talk, but it’s like if you took a tiger and replaced all its stalking behavior with flirting– it doesn’t like you, Arthur. It wants to eat you. It looks like Lucy, but it’s not.

Here’s another simile: reasoning with the vampire is like trying to talk to a brain damage victim, or someone with Alzheimer’s. All the wires are crossed; you can read meaning into what they are doing, but you are only fooling yourself. The genuine vampire is a walking corpse and has only the illusion of a personality.

These are the somewhat obscure “cult classics” Anisa, Diane and I were talking about over the weekend. All these movies I enjoy watching, and actually I’ve seem them all many times.

Repo Man:
Slacker / punk rock voice of our generation. Highly quotable and anarchic… It’s a very meta movie, with the flimsy plot simultaneously developing and getting more irrelevant as the movie continues… by the end it’s completely insane, but the main character (Otto, played by Emilio Estevez) sort of transcends everything.

The Wicker Man:
1960’s crime/horror movie about an upright, anal-retentive Christian cop investigating a kidnap/murder case way out in the skerries of Scotland. The twist is, the village is entirely pagan/wiccan and is steadily making him lose his mind.

Phantom of the Paradise:
“Faust” crossed with “Phantom of the Opera” done as a 1970’s rock opera. Nerdy loser Winslow Leach sells and then loses his music to luciferian rock star Swan, and then exacts ghastly revenge by terrorizing the production company. Awesome!

Rock and Rule:
Extremely odd 1980’s cartoon about an aging rock star (sort of patterned after David Bowie) who is attempting to steal the voice of a younger rock star, and also summon a demon by sacrificing an entire crowd of concertgoers. Blondie and Lou Reed perform the music. This movie was too weird for audiences; it sunk the production company.

Bugsy Malone:
A gangster movie, with children playing all the parts and shooting each other with “splurge guns,” which are Thompson machine guns that shoot wads of whipped topping. Oh and it’s also a musical. Scott Baio and a pre-Taxi Driver Jodie Foster star. Watch to appreciate its insanity and wonder to yourself “who thought this was a good idea?!”

Faster, Pussycat, Kill, Kill! :
Russ Meyers’ greatest movie, it is definitive of his genre: black and white, tall, powerful, large-bosomed ANGRY women beating up on men. I recommend self-medication while watching this movie, it’s one of the more “challenging” of the movies I’m listing here.

Zardoz:
perhaps the MOST “challenging” film I’m listing here… it’s the future and the elites live in a bubble where they are impervious to aging or death. Outside the bubble, the rabble are constantly terrorized by horse-riding gladiators (one of whom is Sean Connery), who worship ZARDOZ, a flying stone head the size of a castle, who regularly vomits his gifts of guns onto them. Everything I described happens in the first ten minutes, and it gets crazier from there. You’ll be saying “what the FUCK!?” a lot during this movie, but on repeated viewings it makes more sense.

Kung Fu movies:
some people aren’t into kung-fu movies. But I am!

Master of the Flying Guillotine:
The movie the “Street Fighter” games were based on. There’s a martial arts competition, and warriors from different countries all show up, exhibiting their particular styles. The Indian guy can stretch his arms. The Japanese samurai is a badass, never smiles, and of course cheats. And the villain: the Master of the Flying Guillotine, a blind monk who is actually an assassin come to kill the protagonist. His weapon is a beanie on a chain that yanks the victim’s head off. Stolen soundtrack by Neu!

The Bride With White Hair:
1980’s kung-fu magic realism. In a fantastic setting, clans of kung-fu masters (representing “order” here) defend against blood-drinking barbarian hordes (representing “chaos”), led by a hermaphroditic warlock tyrant. The main character is a maverick disciple of the clans, who falls in love with the “wolf girl,” the unbeatable hatchetman for the blood cults. It’s like Romeo and Juliet with flying, Jedi-level kung fu, potions, and demon magic.

I just saw Iron Monkey (the 1993 version). I liked it; he fight scenes were good and it followed what I think of as the Hellraiser plotline– just as the protagonists are getting used to dealing with the villain, a bunch of tougher, meaner villains show up!

Something I didn’t get is the kid is supposed to be Wong Fei Hung, who is sort of a folk hero… Much as Iron Monkey is sort of a folk hero, except Wong Fei Hung was a real historical person.

How did I make this connection? I totally didn’t; I watched Quentin Tarantino’s commentary on the DVD. And it was actually pretty informative! It sounds silly but it’s easy to confuse Tarantino’s annoying on-screen persona with his actual identity, and his interview will do a lot to clarify the difference. Dude knows his kung-fu movies.

One element I liked in Iron Monkey is the use of poison. Sorta like Jade Fox in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But you know, the direction and romance of the characters in Crouching Tiger make that a superior movie, in my opinion. I can’t help but imagine hypothetical movies, like what if the kung fu in Iron Monkey had the story and direction (and budget) of Curse of the Golden Flower?

Part of this is unreachable for a single movie. Not only did you get a director in CTHD who specializes in romances (Ang Lee), but you also have a rich backstory which is only hinted at in the course of the plot. The Crane-Iron pentology is, yes, FIVE books, and CTHD is only the 4th one.

So you get the love story, which is the love that can never be which has apparently spanned decades. But my favorite plotline is the saga of Jade Fox. Not only is she the big baddie they must fight, she’s also extremely sneaky. She’s killed and betrayed the old master, so we know she’s a snake.

Jade Fox is also a “tragic villain” if there is such a thing… she did everything she could to be the best, even betraying people who trusted her (the old master). But in the end, she’s just not good enough– unable to decipher the stolen kung-fu manual, she can only ape the motions of the master. In the end she is surpassed by her own student, doomed to mediocrity. And her anguish is visible in her face, her venom stems from a deep sense of failure and a frustration that has become a seething hatred.

There are even crazier elements in CTHD. You have exotic poisons, stolen kung-fu manuals, spies, a princess posing as a man, rebel chieftains, a magic sword, implausible kung fu weapons… damn!!

Anyway inspired by Tarantino, I’m listing a bunch of Woo-ping Yuen movies on my queue now.