I’m kind of thinking that the Sacred Pentacle of 80s Rock is made up of U2, REM, X, Husker Du, and Metallica. The Arena, the Alternative, the Punk, the Hardcore, and the Metal. But everyone flirts with everyone.
Month: December 2004
Kinji Fukasaku is infamous in the United States for Battle Royale, a painfully cynical Lord of the Flies turned up to eleven. Among the actors in that movie, we find Chiaki Kuriyama, who later appeared in Kill Bill: Volume 1. Tarantino’s grindhouse epic draws strongly on Kinji Fukasaku’s Yakuza Papers, a series of five movies which begins with Battles Without Honor and Humanity — which, of course, is the title to the Tomoyasu Hotei song on the Kill Bill soundtrack. No mistake, that. Despite this circular dance of interconnections, the IMDB page listing movie links for Kill Bill does not list Battles Without Honor and Humanity as of this moment. Such is the fallibility of voluntarily edited databases.
I watched Battles Without Honor and Humanity because I’d heard it was a seminal moment in Japanese yakuza films, and I liked Battle Royale a lot. Now that I’ve seen it, there’s a clear electric connection between Fukasaku’s desperate gang epic and the brutal yakuza movies of Takashi Miike. I can’t imagine how liberating it must have been to see a movie as direct and honest as this at the time, in 1973. It casts a shadow.
When I step back and consider the movie as a whole, I’m left with a sense of a profound anger. Image one: the atomic bomb exploding in the heart of Hiroshima. Image two: American soldiers raping a Japanese woman. Then we’re plunged into the tensely muted world of the yakuza, but the bomb stays with us. It’s the original sin which informs this new generation of yakuza.
Not much else does. There’s a scene where Bunta Sugawara, the protagonist, decides he must cut off part of his little finger as atonement. He doesn’t know how to do it; he’s new to this business. Neither do any of his friends. In the end, the only person who can help is the wife of the boss — “I saw it done once in Osaka.” The final scene powers home the point, as Sugawara literally shatters the symbols of tradition. “Do you know what you’re doing?” Of course.
I never link to viral marketing, at least not on purpose. (What, never? Well, hardly ever.) But. Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah to you.
In the future, everyone in Boston will have parasols for fifteen minutes.
There are many more vintage Boston postcards here, and I suppose some might want postcards from elsewhere.
If you believe in curtailing the civil liberties of Muslim-Americans, you’re not alone. In some ways I’m encouraged by these numbers; only 22% of those polled approved of racial profiling. I would have guessed that percentage would be higher. On the other hand, 27% of those polled wanted all Muslim-Americans to register where they lived. Which is atrocious.
Now, I was kind of curious as to what “curtailing civil liberties” meant, so I dug up the original report. I got distracted from that question by worse news: only 27% of the respondents believe that Muslim values are similar to Christian values. 31% said that the media should not report criticisms. 37% don’t think people should be allowed to protest at all. Welcome to America.
I did finally get to the civil liberties question. The infringements in the poll involve the aforementioned registration, closely monitoring mosques by law enforcement agencies, racial profiling, and infiltrating Muslim organizations to keep watch on their activities. Plenty of support for all of those.
Hat tip to Malnurtured Snay.
Blah blah Tom Wolfe writes bad sex scenes blah. Well…
I Am Charlotte Simmons is not a great book. It’s not a lousy book either. In any case, though, there’s nothing wrong with the sex scene in context. It’s written as clinically and as awkwardly as it is because Wolfe is using Charlotte Simmons’ voice in that scene, and from the first time we meet her it’s exceedingly clear that she uses dry, clinical language to separate herself from aspects of her life which make her feel awkward. It’s not Tom Wolfe writing uncomfortably about sex, it’s Charlotte Simmons thinking uncomfortably about sex.
Robin McKinley’s Sunshine is much like a Laurell Hamilton book, except that it’s suitable for people with good taste. The territory is familiar: more or less modern day, except there are creepy-crawlies (including vampires) running around and everybody knows it. Sunshine is set right after the war that occurred when that particular fact became public knowledge, I think — the timing is never made clear. There’s a young spunky heroine, there’s a vampire, there’s romance (not necessarily with the vampire), and so on.
The good: the prose is solid and Sunshine, the eponymous protagonist, is a fairly good character. Also good: the background doesn’t get drawn into place with a straight-edge. You have to pick up on what happened by paying attention, and I like a book that makes me think a bit.
The bad: weakish plotting in which characters don’t have to make choices. Inchoate ending, somewhat anticlimactic. It feels as though McKinley came up with an awesome setting concept and then wrote a documentary about it.
I liked it. The good is pretty good and the bad is forgivable.
In a futile effort to save Chris, show off for Brant, and feed my own ego:
Texcatlipoca Has Come From The North: a companion game to Huey Long’s Men of Action, set in AD 1000 or so in the Yucatan. Brave Byzantine warriors and their Viking allies battle the hordes of the god-king Quetzalcoatl. It uses D20 psionics rules, either Mindshadows or the WotC offering, depending on which is better. No magic. Plenty of Cathars.
The Seven Familes: there are seven great familes in the shadows of the world, struggling for dominance. Mystic flavor — perhaps stealing a little from GURPS Cabal. Ritual actions have subtle effects, so that getting married at the proper time with the proper flowers could provide luck for the family in certain endeavors for the next year, but there are no fireballs. One could think of this as roleplaying humans in the world of Nobilis, if one liked. Maybe use the Window system.
St. Cuthbert’s Men of Action: full-blown pulp adventure in a fantasy world. Despite the title, I wouldn’t actually want to use D&D. I don’t have a preferred pulp system yet… but I digress. The setting is Victorian in the cities and pulp as heck out in the jungles. Think Tarzan here. Humans and dwarves and elves are picking themselves back up again after a lengthy Dark Age; researchers are rediscovering old principles of magic, and the remnants of the First Age lie in the center of the forgotten cities, where mystical defense grids still wait for intruders. Good fun. At least one NPC named Hector.
The Legion: Trinity imagined as space opera. Described in detail here. Takes place in the Aeon Universe, but tilted somewhat to get the classic Jack Williamson space opera feel — not as grandiose as E. E. Smith’s books, but very steel-jawed. This is almost heresy, but since Trinity D20 makes it more attractive to play non-psions, I might use that over the original.
Ki-ki-ki-ki-ki: There is no magic in the world because the dolphins took it all to fight the good fight against the horrendous Cthulhoid creatures that live beneath the sea. As countless Call of Cthulhu scenarios prove, humans cannot be trusted with esoterica. There are two components to this game. In one, a small cadre of trusted human librarians retrieves copies of the Necronomicon and other such tomes from surface libraries. In the other, elite dolphin magickal squads combat Rl’yeh’s minons and the Mi-Go (who have long since eradicated and/or enslaved the native denizens of the Hollow Earth). The players take on one PC on each side of the water. Uses Call of Cthulhu mechanics.
Happiness is 300 megabytes of cult, SF, fantasy, and horror movie posters thanks to, um, sources. Samples inside, cause I can’t resist the pretty pictures.
In SI today, Peter King asks “How lucky are the Patriots to have Troy Brown (third interception vs. Cincinnati) to ride to the rescue of their secondary?”
Not lucky at all. The Pats have Troy Brown in that position because Bill Belichick has a policy of taking advantage of his best athletes whenever possible; this is why Mike Vrabel caught a touchdown pass in Super Bowl XXXVIII, and it’s why you see Richard Seymour lining up as fullback from time to time. Thus, Belichick asked Troy Brown to play a little defense during the pre-season this year, way before there was any hint of trouble or injury in the secondary. People thought it was a risky idea at the time. You’d think we’d have learned not to try and outthink Belichick by now.