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petroniaHelped sororial unit move today. Life's been kicking my ass in non-subtle ways recently (don't ask; I'll get around to it), and frankly I'm not good at understanding or describing my own feelings when they're set off by situations outside my daily-living norm, so it's going to be a struggle not to let the fact that I'm alone in the house trigger five-hour brown studies. Like a computer churning away at top CPU usage even when you don't have any windows open, running god-knows-what in the background. XD;; At that rate one would rather go on the Internet.
Notes on a few things I've watched and read:
Yumemiru Koto (Romance of an Ancient Dreaming City): In which Hoshino Lily does Erotics F, although idk if one can exactly say that this is to her BL work as Ristorante Paradiso is to basso. For one, I'm not sure Erotics F has a house style, least of all one that's erotic; for two, Hoshino Lily is like Ono Natsume in that their shoujo is typically much like their BL... but this isn't a typical Hoshino Lily story. One explicit rape, one attempted, both meant to be harrowing: sensuously drawn, but not sensually depicted. Arguably the art is too drenched in dreamy fairytale prettiness (Alone In My King's Harem is the obvious touchstone) to be harrowing, but that's the point of the thing - the fairytale princess's awful lack of personal and sexual agency, under the pretense of magical rule. I keep mentally circling back to Michael Moorcock's Gloriana, and to Utena of course. The funny thing is, if you excise the dark feminist stuff, you're left with a perfectly regular Hoshino Lily story about a snippety, slightly naive uke/heroine and unselfishly devoted seme/hero. XD;
Will be interested in finding out what happens. Alone In My King's Harem was always my fave, so I'm glad to see Hoshino up her game in that respect.
Steel Ball Run, volumes 13-19: This the first time I have heard anyone suggest that Jesus sailed across the Pacific from Japan to the New World, but that's why we love you, Araki.
Also loved: the psychological roundedness of all the characters. Once you stare past the stylistic filter it feels quite literary. XD; Johnny has a jagged edge that none of the other JoJos have, not even Giorno: he's the only one who doesn't care if he's in the right or not, in contrast to Gyro's unassailable fundamental sanity. Even dudes like Wekapipo are given psychological motivations, rather than just a backstory (hey, remember when JoJo characters didn't get backstory??). It's dark as hell, really: the characters come from all over the world to race each other across a continent, all of them trying desperately to go home - erase the past, fix mistakes, seek absolution for sins. But you can never go home.
Not so loved: what the plot ended up doing with Lucy, even though it was stunningly obvious once one got the full backstory on her and Steven Steele. = = Also, I doubt even Araki can extrapolate what follows in SBRverse from the reg'r Jojoverse if Dio dies here.
Truly epic: it's canon, guys - Gyro is this universe's Caesar Zeppeli. XDDD
The version of Hamlet with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart: Brain-dead truism alert, but Shakespeare is kind of awesome. I have Hamlet mostly memorized, but every time I see the story played out it gets better - more relatable - instead of becoming boring. Which means it was a successful production, because I'm aware that Shakespeare can be boring. XD; And to be honest I perceive the language as a stylistic filter not unlike that of... JoJo... XD;; in that it defines the oeuvre in pop imagination but my experience of the actual work involves staring past the filter, or at the filter until it goes transparent. I remember, quite vividly, first reading Shakespeare, sitting in the bathroom with Henry IV, which kicks off with a sizeable chunk of blank verse. By the time I hit prose I could see through the curtain. (Cue two-three years of mind-numbing boredom in high school English class crawling through plays line by line, at the end of which everyone still seemed to be staring at the damned curtain.) But over the years it turned out that the warm-up time is set in stone, so with Henry IV I still can't immerse until Falstaff shows. With Hamlet, I'm sorry to say, it takes me most of Act 1, and meanwhile I'm thinking about stuff like: how come the first thing Horatio does when he gets to Elsinore is go paranormal hunting, before so much as letting his BFF know he's in town - did he get into this debate with the guards as they carried his luggage in? Will someone eventually put on a production in which Horatio runs a hoax-busting website from Wittenberg and Marcellus's email reaches him at the nadir of his PhD thesis avoidance? It makes as much sense as Hamlet being a Super-8-clutching hipster, no? Not that I'm gonna lie, every era has its vision of Hamlet and I love the early 21st century's ironic-tee-wearing, video diary-recording, wannabe-director emo trust fund baby (did Ethan Hawke start this?), because I am a product of my time. Besides, David Tennant's hair gets way better once he goes faux-crazy and expunges prep from his wardrobe.
If I were Russell T. Davies, and had gone to see this during its stage run, I think I would have found it very difficult to resist the temptation of cribbing from the best. XD; And so he did, I suppose.
Notes on a few things I've watched and read:
Yumemiru Koto (Romance of an Ancient Dreaming City): In which Hoshino Lily does Erotics F, although idk if one can exactly say that this is to her BL work as Ristorante Paradiso is to basso. For one, I'm not sure Erotics F has a house style, least of all one that's erotic; for two, Hoshino Lily is like Ono Natsume in that their shoujo is typically much like their BL... but this isn't a typical Hoshino Lily story. One explicit rape, one attempted, both meant to be harrowing: sensuously drawn, but not sensually depicted. Arguably the art is too drenched in dreamy fairytale prettiness (Alone In My King's Harem is the obvious touchstone) to be harrowing, but that's the point of the thing - the fairytale princess's awful lack of personal and sexual agency, under the pretense of magical rule. I keep mentally circling back to Michael Moorcock's Gloriana, and to Utena of course. The funny thing is, if you excise the dark feminist stuff, you're left with a perfectly regular Hoshino Lily story about a snippety, slightly naive uke/heroine and unselfishly devoted seme/hero. XD;
Will be interested in finding out what happens. Alone In My King's Harem was always my fave, so I'm glad to see Hoshino up her game in that respect.
Steel Ball Run, volumes 13-19: This the first time I have heard anyone suggest that Jesus sailed across the Pacific from Japan to the New World, but that's why we love you, Araki.
Also loved: the psychological roundedness of all the characters. Once you stare past the stylistic filter it feels quite literary. XD; Johnny has a jagged edge that none of the other JoJos have, not even Giorno: he's the only one who doesn't care if he's in the right or not, in contrast to Gyro's unassailable fundamental sanity. Even dudes like Wekapipo are given psychological motivations, rather than just a backstory (hey, remember when JoJo characters didn't get backstory??). It's dark as hell, really: the characters come from all over the world to race each other across a continent, all of them trying desperately to go home - erase the past, fix mistakes, seek absolution for sins. But you can never go home.
Not so loved: what the plot ended up doing with Lucy, even though it was stunningly obvious once one got the full backstory on her and Steven Steele. = = Also, I doubt even Araki can extrapolate what follows in SBRverse from the reg'r Jojoverse if Dio dies here.
Truly epic: it's canon, guys - Gyro is this universe's Caesar Zeppeli. XDDD
The version of Hamlet with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart: Brain-dead truism alert, but Shakespeare is kind of awesome. I have Hamlet mostly memorized, but every time I see the story played out it gets better - more relatable - instead of becoming boring. Which means it was a successful production, because I'm aware that Shakespeare can be boring. XD; And to be honest I perceive the language as a stylistic filter not unlike that of... JoJo... XD;; in that it defines the oeuvre in pop imagination but my experience of the actual work involves staring past the filter, or at the filter until it goes transparent. I remember, quite vividly, first reading Shakespeare, sitting in the bathroom with Henry IV, which kicks off with a sizeable chunk of blank verse. By the time I hit prose I could see through the curtain. (Cue two-three years of mind-numbing boredom in high school English class crawling through plays line by line, at the end of which everyone still seemed to be staring at the damned curtain.) But over the years it turned out that the warm-up time is set in stone, so with Henry IV I still can't immerse until Falstaff shows. With Hamlet, I'm sorry to say, it takes me most of Act 1, and meanwhile I'm thinking about stuff like: how come the first thing Horatio does when he gets to Elsinore is go paranormal hunting, before so much as letting his BFF know he's in town - did he get into this debate with the guards as they carried his luggage in? Will someone eventually put on a production in which Horatio runs a hoax-busting website from Wittenberg and Marcellus's email reaches him at the nadir of his PhD thesis avoidance? It makes as much sense as Hamlet being a Super-8-clutching hipster, no? Not that I'm gonna lie, every era has its vision of Hamlet and I love the early 21st century's ironic-tee-wearing, video diary-recording, wannabe-director emo trust fund baby (did Ethan Hawke start this?), because I am a product of my time. Besides, David Tennant's hair gets way better once he goes faux-crazy and expunges prep from his wardrobe.
If I were Russell T. Davies, and had gone to see this during its stage run, I think I would have found it very difficult to resist the temptation of cribbing from the best. XD; And so he did, I suppose.
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-03 03:22 pm (UTC)Oh my yes. XD
no subject
Date: 2010-05-03 07:07 pm (UTC)repost, missing word
Date: 2010-05-03 05:20 pm (UTC)You think Araki's gotten more into psychology in his old age, or he's gotten less into the genre conventions of pulp comics in his old age?
Will someone eventually put on a production in which Horatio runs a hoax-busting website from Wittenberg and Marcellus's email reaches him at the nadir of his PhD thesis avoidance?
That would be awesome!
Speaking of Shakespeare, I'm watching Slings and Arrows (the one about the Canadian Shakesperian Theater troupe) with a high school friend, and we've been stalled on the third season for like three months because it's just so depressing, we can't work up the enthusiasm. ^^; The worst thing we ever did was go straight into the third season without pausing to savour the second season climax. The cast finally triumphs over season-long economic adversity only to have everything they accomplished taken away within the first five minutes of the third season. Also, not to spoil things too much, but major themes this season are old age, dementia, cancer, insanity, psychiatric counselling, and heroin addiction. -_-;;;;;; At least the show producers learned from the second season that you HAVE to have an upbeat sub-plot to leaven the seriousness of the main plot.
Sorry to rant, it's just really gotten to me. ^^; The first season is about Hamlet though, and it's not nearly as harrowing. Have you seen it?
Shakespeare can definitely be boring: witness the scene in Romeo+Juliet where the William Shakespeare character is mocked for only writing really boring plays that no one wants to read. That was when I knew I didn't want to watch Romeo+Juliet.
Re: repost, missing word
Date: 2010-05-03 08:01 pm (UTC)I think he's definitely gotten more into psychology. Or religion, what's scarier: obviously one assumes that Stand User Jesus is just hilariously random, except it isn't - the plot is about the power conferred by the remains, but some of the characters are serious Catholics, and most of them are seeking redemption. So it's as much about Jesus Christ in the standard manner as anything.
I haven't seen it, and I have to say you're scaring me... XD
Re: repost, missing word
Date: 2010-05-03 08:12 pm (UTC)If I was a serious Catholic, would I become more or less religious if I knew there were relics that really conferred magic powers on their owners? ....More, of course. Though the randomness of the powers might make me wonder about God's sense of humour.
It's a great, great show. But also, you genuinely fear that it'll all end very badly. XD;;
Random rec seconding r us
Date: 2010-05-03 08:44 pm (UTC)this is only tangentially relevant to yr post but
Date: 2010-05-03 07:13 pm (UTC)what the shit is this XDDDD;;
~
Hope things improve re: life preferably to be kicking yr ass less. ¬_¬
Re: this is only tangentially relevant to yr post but
Date: 2010-05-04 04:00 am (UTC)Thanks! Nothing to do but bugger on, as Churchill said in the other Doctor Who ep. XD;