Trane has
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| # | cover | title | author | isbn | isbn13 | asin | num pages | avg rating | num ratings | date pub | date pub (ed.) | rating | my rating | review | notes | recommender | comments | votes | read count | date started | date read |
date
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date purchased | owned | purchase location | condition | format | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4861522463
| 9784861522468
| 5.00
| 1
| Apr 10, 2010
| Apr 10, 2010
|
This is a wonderful short book about traditional Japanese kokeshi dolls. The book is almost entirely in Japanese, but it's a picture book and almost e...more
This is a wonderful short book about traditional Japanese kokeshi dolls. The book is almost entirely in Japanese, but it's a picture book and almost every page is characterized by beautiful photography (albeit of pretty much the same subject — kokeshi dolls). The book flap features just about all the English the book has to offer: "Kokeshi dolls originated in northeastern Japan as wooden toys for children. The techniques used to produce kokeshi dolls are principally rooted in districts in the northeast and evolved into a folk craft that reflects the characteristic designs of each district. During the postwar reconstruction from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s, kokeshi dolls were produced as souvenirs for visitors to recreational spots and as momentos for tourists and rapidly became well-known throughout Japan. This book introduces traditional kokeshi dolls, the origin and roots of kokeshi dolls, along with the districts where traditional kokeshi dolls are produced and designs endemic to each district." The kokeshi featured in this book are not the cute contemporary kokeshi that are often found at airport tourist shops, but rather the more colorful, more alien, and altogether cooler traditional-style kokeshi in all of their rudimentary, highly-stylized glory. These kokeshi are hand-turned on lathes and then hand painted, so they sit right on the border between traditional handicraft and small-scale mechanized production. As such they are remarkably similar, and yet minor differences in decoration — minor differences in the style of painting the eyes, noses, mouths, and hair of these dolls — makes each of them appear startlingly unique. The book contains a section on the different names of stylized facial features (a long thin nose is a たれ鼻 and an eye that looks like a fish is a 鯨目), a section on "modern" (i.e. postwar) kokeshi, a section on antique kokeshi, and a section called "kokeshi, etc.," which is exactly what you would expect it to be. If you like kokeshi you won't be disappointed with this book, even if you don't read a lick of Japanese. This is a book made for the kokeshi enthusiast by people who are clearly themselves kokeshi enthusiasts. (It's probably not for the kokeshi specialist, who probably knows everything in this book already anyhow.) Highly recommended for kokeshi maniacs.(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Sep 30, 2012
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Sep 30, 2012
| Paperback
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| unknown
| 5.00
| 3
| Jan 01, 2012
| 2012
|
This beautiful book is full of consciousness thinking the world into existence, and then abolishing it at the next turn of thought. Sometimes almost a...more
This beautiful book is full of consciousness thinking the world into existence, and then abolishing it at the next turn of thought. Sometimes almost a lyric being born, but then suddenly a swerve into a register that resists the clichés of lyric voice. Slow movement through the drift of words is full of unexpected delights, like having the kind of dream that takes you from trick to trick so that you wake up laughing. "The idea is / the music makes / your somewhere else face for you." Reading this book closely will allow your somewhere else you to be your somewhere else you. It's a chapbook (i.e., short), but perfectly paced, with just enough alternations in tone, style, and form to keep things interesting, but not so many that it starts to feel like a rogues gallery. It will leave you perfectly satisfied, and wanting more.(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Sep 30, 2012
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Sep 30, 2012
| Hand-Stitched
| ||||||||||||||||
| 1591160596
| 9781591160595
| 3.91
| 339
| Sep 06, 1999
| Oct 29, 2003
|
I'm stealing the series description just to get the basic plot elements out of the way on this one: "Part science fiction, part fantasy, and completely...more I'm stealing the series description just to get the basic plot elements out of the way on this one: "Part science fiction, part fantasy, and completely engrossing, this provocative manga stars sensitive high school student Alice Sakaguchi, who has a recurring dream that she's part of a team of alien scientists on the moon. She doesn't really believe it, until new evidence arrives. Now even her eight-year-old neighbor is acting strange. Alice's dreams of being a lovely woman living on the moon are a respite from her job babysitting the holy terror Rin. When he goes one step too far, she slaps him, causing him to fall off a balcony and into a coma. When he awakens, he seems changed — and strangely connected to Alice. Meanwhile, at school, Alice meets a pair of boys with an oddly close relationship. Soon she learns they too have dreams — of living on the moon." That pretty much sums up the plot, which is interesting in itself but not really what makes this series such a draw. What holds the series together are the thematic threads that are woven between the two different stories being told at the same time — the story of Alice's alienating experiences as a newcomer at her high school and the group of dreamers that she meets (many of whom later turn out to have special powers), and the story of the people living on the moon that unfolds slowly like a mystery, or like an almost forgotten dream that returns bit by bit during the day. The first theme that comes into play is the theme of existential homelessness. Alice is out of place at her new school, but that's just really an expression of the out-of-placeness that most adolescents work with on a daily basis. Alice's family has moved because her father has a new job, a circumstance that calls attention to capitalism's tendency to create rootlessness and destroy tradition. Alice finds herself adrift in a plastic urban landscape where locality has no meaning except as a place of residence and where the bulk of immediate relationships available are either constituted by meaningless obligation or the brutal group dynamics of the high-school clique. The desire for home, for a feeling of belonging, is foregrounded in the opening pages: “The moon ... full and bright — a mystery. It makes me feel ... homesick. I want to go home. I want to go home ... all I want ... is to go home.” One of the ways this desire for belonging plays out is in the classic opposition between natural space and urban space. Alice has moved from the countryside to the city where concrete dominates. Alice has a special relationship to the natural world — a spontaneous ability to communicate with plants and animals — that clearly symbolizes a type of spiritual and unmediated oneness with the universe itself. In the city however, concrete — and the forms of negative sociality that it represents — prevents Alice from having this kind of deep contact with the world. The opening image, of a cosmically large Alice embracing an aura-encircled Earth while floating in a space shower of cherry blossoms, is the apotheosis of the desire to belong, a complete absorption into universality. The desire for belonging plays out in another way too, however, in the classic style of outsiders banding together. Jinpachi and Issei, two students in Alice’s class, have been having identical dreams about having once lived a different life on the moon as different people. In sharing these dreams together they form a bond that’s completely their own, and completely outside of the normative types of bonding that define high-school sociality. In a way it’s almost like the fantasy worlds that children create and share, or the worlds of fantasy and science fiction that are consumed and shared among the geeks of the world, who are often equally as ostracized. A really important element here is, of course, the idea shared by Jinpachi and Issei that they are not really only themselves, but also the aliens Gyokuran and Enju. This highlights the desire we have to inhabit identities other than the ones we already exist as (one of the very reasons we read fiction), and sounds very much like the common fantasy that Freud identified among children of having secretly been adopted. In this fantasy you discover one day that your parents are not really your parents and that instead you come from a family with a great lineage. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" by James Thurber both engage with a similar theme — the impossibility of being heroic in an age in which social pressure pushes the individual to conform, be a good subject, and get to work on time without complaint. When the option of become a hero is foreclosed, the next best thing is to fantasize about heroics, to fantasize about being someone completely different than you are. (Of course, in Please Save My Earth, the point is that everyone really is completely different than they are, but it is a fantasy, after all.) A final theme that plays a major role in this series is the theme of identity. Almost all of the characters in this series have multiple identities (a bit like Dax from Deep Space Nine), and the series spends a lot of time playing around with what it means to carry multiple selves inside. Of course, this is also a major theme of adolescent life, in which a high-school student might present one way at home, one way at school, and one way within a particular peer group. Hiwatari approaches this question on a much deeper level, however, basically asking what it might mean to have a particular type of ‘soul’ in a world in which you’re not allowed to be that soul. In the first issue this plays out as a question of gender identity: in their past lives Enju (a woman) was in love with Gyokuran (a man), but in this life the personality Enju is made manifest in the body of Issei, which means that Issei is in love with a part of Jinpachi (Gyokuran), even though both are boys and neither is gay. It’s complicated, but it’s a complexity that is perhaps more representative of the selves we really are, rather than the fictional unities we convince ourselves must exist. I’m making it sound like the series is all theme and no action, but this isn’t the case at all. Rin (a nine-year old with special powers who is in love with Alice) is a brat and a cipher. He also survives a nine-story fall, is able to predict the immediate future, and he can fly. There’s a scene at the end of the first book where he confronts a tough on a motorcycle that’s almost like a shojo take on Akira. There are dreams, disembodied states, and a base on the moon. The dinosaurs at the beginning of the book may or may not be involved in all this. Highly recommended, though many comic readers may have trouble getting past Hiwatari’s somewhat naïve style (I myself love it) and/or the stylized melodrama that is part and parcel of the shojo genre. (less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Sep 27, 2012
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Sep 26, 2012
| Paperback
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| 1934287180
| 9781934287187
| 3.73
| 199
| Nov 1971
| Aug 26, 2008
|
**spoiler alert** I loved the first two volumes of Dororo, especially for their yokai (a style of Japanese monster) weirdness. The third volume has so...more
**spoiler alert** I loved the first two volumes of Dororo, especially for their yokai (a style of Japanese monster) weirdness. The third volume has some good yokai too — demonic sharks, a ghost horse that returns for revenge after it's foal is taken from it, and a giant demon turtle that sends its spirit out to enter into the belly button of a rich rice hoarder. The problem with the third volume is that it ends so abruptly that it's jarring. The first two volumes set up quite a few interesting plot threads and fields of thematic development, but the third volume closes without wrapping up any of these, almost as if one were to come home to one's spouse of a decade to find them packed and ready to go without any prior indication whatsoever. Okay, so what goes unresolved here? First, there is a map tattooed on Dororo's back that should lead to a treasure laid down by his bandit prince father that was intended to be given away to poor farmers (the class that Dororo's family comes from). There's a long sequence involving triple betrayals and an enormous battle, but when they finally find the spot where the treasure is buried, it's empty. Dororo's bandit father didn't trust his underlings, so he hid the treasure somewhere else. Okay, but then why tattoo the map on your son's back? Also, why let the storyline die out like this? Then there's the secret that Dororo is really a girl. This comes up early on in the third volume, and it's clear that Tezuka has been setting up this reveal for a long time. But the fact that Dororo is really a girl never amounts to anything, and is barely mentioned again. Why even bring it up? Although Hyakkimaru does end up finally confronting his father and seemingly winning, it's in a fairly unsatisfactory manner. He also meets up with his mother, who begs forgiveness. Normally this would be the place where a story should end, but Hyakkimaru still has demons to fight to become whole and the last story ends with a kind of "further adventures of Hyakkimaru" feeling, except that there are no further adventures. Finally, Hyakkimaru decides to divorce himself from Dororo at the end of the volume, but this feels completely incidental and unmotivated. The volume ends with the unsatisfying line, "It is said that fifty years hence, the flames of war burned down the Hall of Hell that housed the forty-eight sculptures. Where Hyakkimaru went from there, no one knows." The final story in this volume really feels like Tezuka's editor phoned suddenly one morning and said, "Hey, Tezuka — we've decided to end the Dororo series, so you've got one more story in which to wrap it all up. Good luck." Of course the artwork is still brilliant, and if you have the other two volumes it's worth having the third one as well. As a way to end the series, however, it's a real disappointment.(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Sep 20, 2012
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Sep 19, 2012
| Paperback
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| 5.00
| 1
| May 17, 2011
| May 17, 2011
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Here's the blurb that I wrote for this wonderful book: Jane Joritz-Nakagawa’s Notational puts consciousness through an egg slicer and allows the slices...more Here's the blurb that I wrote for this wonderful book: Jane Joritz-Nakagawa’s Notational puts consciousness through an egg slicer and allows the slices to slip away and initiate poetic investigations within the environments that have come to define the fractured backdrop of the everyday: empty buses, the repletions of consumer overload, bamboo groves, eyes that gaze at each other (untranslatable), the horrible vivisection of animals, selves that melt and bend through a social stage in which the locus of identity is always the center of multiple controls. This poetry is timely, intelligent and beautiful — and though the investigations involved often move through deeply unsettling territory, the ingenuity of the poetry itself displays the imaginative promesse de bonheur that keeps the loophole opened. “grim tasks of survival do not bring happiness / yet the wind”(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Sep 15, 2010
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Aug 27, 2012
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||||
|
| 4901068016
| 9784901068017
| 2.67
| 3
| Jan 01, 2002
| 2002
|
2002 was the first year that I watched the World Cup from end to end. As far as was possible, that is: I was living in the US and the Soccer Channel w...more
2002 was the first year that I watched the World Cup from end to end. As far as was possible, that is: I was living in the US and the Soccer Channel was yet to make its debut, so to watch several of the matches we had to tune in to the local Spanish-language affiliate (which was actually fortunate, since Spanish-speaking announcers blow American announcers away when they yell "goal"). I remember how exciting it was to watch the Japanese and Korean teams play. Japan had the most rampantly awesome hairstyles, and there was Tsuneyasu Miyamoto's protective facemask that made him look like some kind of superhero manque. On the South Korean side you had Ahn Jung-Hwan's golden goal against Italy and some of the most dedicated fans it's possible to imagine. The final between Brazil and Germany was stellar, with the winning goals for Brazil coming from Ronaldo (sporting the worst haircut ever), who only had to beat Oliver Kahn, who was widely considered to be among the best goalkeepers in the world at that time. The 2002 World Cup has always been my emotional entry into soccer, and my love for the sport has grown ever since. I've also moved to Japan since that time, and was incredibly excited to find Simon Moran's book about the 2002 World Cup — a book written from the point of view of a longtime resident of Japan and a diehard soccer (football) fan. Moran meets up with a crew of four fans who live in Japan: two Japanese fans, a former professional goalkeeper from Germany, and a Zainichi Korean fan with split loyalties. He travels from match to match, keeping up with a brutal schedule during the incredibly hot and humid Japanese summer. His match reports consist of well-placed observations about the local residents, how soccer culture fits in with Japanese culture, the views of the fans (both local and international), and interesting and entertaining accounts of the matches themselves. There's a lot of very good research that's gone into this book in relation to how precisely the Cup ended up being split by FIFA between Japan and Korea, as well as about the construction of the individual stadiums, and — perhaps most importantly — the way the Cup played out in terms of the complicated and often antagonist relationship/rivalry between Japan and Korea. The on-the-ground account that Moran gives of the daily experience of being in Japan during the 2002 World Cup is full of brilliant detail and he's in an almost perfect narratorial position — he's writer steeped in football who just happens to be a cultural insider and a cultural outsider at the same time. If you're a football (soccer) fan and you have any fascination at all with the 2002 World Cup, you won't be disappointed with this book. I give it five stars, with a couple of provisos: 1) This is a soccer (football) book. If you don't like the sport, you're not likely to like the book. 2) I wish the book were longer. Especially toward the end, it starts to feel a bit rushed (some of the chapters at the beginning are fuller and more fleshed out). This isn't to say that the final chapters are bad, but rather to say that the things I liked about the book were so likeable that I wanted more of the same at the end.(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Jun 17, 2012
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Aug 23, 2012
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| 0679735739
| 9780679735731
| 3.62
| 2,654
| 1995
| Mar 19, 1996
|
This is one of the darkest, most consistently funny novels that I've read for a long time, but there's something about it that just doesn't ultimately...more
This is one of the darkest, most consistently funny novels that I've read for a long time, but there's something about it that just doesn't ultimately all add up for me. On the plus side, you've got Amis's exuberantly baroque writing style, bloated full of alarming and disarming wit that's always as entertaining as it is clever. There's also Amis's absolutely cutting satire of the cult of the celebrity writer, and an equally damning take on the self-important seriousness of co-protagonist Richard Tull's purist modern experimentalism. The problem with the "new unpleasantness," however, is that ultimately the ends of the 'unpleasantness' on offer — narcissistic self-delusion, blind misogyny, tacit racism, the pleasures of random violence and dissociative sex — remain unclear. I had a boss once who, when asked whether or not he had seen a particular movie recently, replied, "No. I don't usually go to see movies about people with fucked up lives. I know enough of them already." I feel much the same about a lot of the "new unpleasantness" — I already see too much of this type of thing for the thing itself to be either informative or titillating. Unlike a book like The Jungle which functions as an anatomy of the social violence inherent in industrial food production as well as a novel about the working class, The Information seems to add nothing to the general pool of unpleasant knowledge except the idea that middle-age writers can be really fucked up people who function within a larger social formation that's equally as fucked up. Even a film as difficult to watch as Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark at least contains an implicit critique within its formal construction so that the scenes of violence and tragedy in the film are always more than merely scenes of violence and tragedy. Of course, it can be argued that Amis deploys unpleasantness in the service of black comedy rather than in the service of social critique, and this would be a perfectly valid claim — there is, after all, nothing wrong with wit for the sake of wit. However, the novel becomes so dark at points that it undermines even the pleasures of its own satire; perhaps a bit like what watching a Sacha Cohen movie would be like if Cohen, every now and then, were to cut someone's face with a knife and force us to watch it bleed. In other words, there's a sense in this novel that what's going on, at least at one level, is the kind of hip one-upmanship that can happen when a group of friends is sitting around telling unpleasant stories. As the game progresses and the stories get more and more unpleasant, there's a kind of pleasurable frisson that grows in intensity. The winner of the game is always the person who can tell the story that breaks the frisson of pleasure because the winning story has simply overstepped the bounds of nastiness. The game is over because no one feels like playing any more. There are points in this novel where the urge to outdo itself in unpleasantness destroys the very pleasure of unpleasantness that makes the novel worth reading in the first place. However, that much said, it's almost impossible not to enjoy the quick intelligence of Amis's writing, the self-referential mise en abîme of his meta-commentaries on fiction, the deeply funny narration of his deeply unreliable narrators, and the occasional stab at profundity that stands out all the more because it feels so displaced within the high-cultural squalor of the literary world that he presents to us like a head on a platter. In the end, a bit like cotton candy. You eat and eat and eat, feel a bit sick afterward, wonder why you bothered, and then next time you go to the fair you'll probably do it all over again.(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Mar 05, 2010
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Mar 19, 2010
| Paperback
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| 0393316009
| 9780393316001
| 4.00
| 1,533
| 1996
| Nov 17, 1996
|
I liked a lot of the stories in Andrea Barrett's Ship Fever, and I generally liked the conceit of the collection as well —i.e. a group of stories cent...more
I liked a lot of the stories in Andrea Barrett's Ship Fever, and I generally liked the conceit of the collection as well — i.e. a group of stories centered around the world of science, many of which take place in the 19th century. The stories involve, in one way or another, Mendel and genetics, Linnaeus and his followers, experiments to disprove the hypothesis that swallows hibernate under water during the winter, Alfred Wallace and the speculative collection of biological specimens, and the Irish emigration during the potato famine. My favorite stories all seemed to involve altered states of consciousness in one way or another: "The English Pupil," a story in which a sick and delirious Linnaeus thinks back on his relationship with his students; "Birds with No Feet" in which Alec Carrière follows Wallace to Asia to collect specimens (and contracts fever, naturally); "The Marburg Sisters," about two sisters who lead distinctly opposite lives — one a clinical scientist and the other a weed-smoking wanderer who believes in spirits; and "Ship Fever," the final story of the collection, which has quite a few scenes involving typhus and hallucination. The one major downside of this set of stories is that they often feel a bit programmatic — i.e. science history + plot device = story. After reading a few of these in a row you can almost imagine Barrett digging through science texts, or surfing from site to site, looking for a scientific/historical hook upon which to hang a story. All too often the hook also forms a structuring metaphor and sometimes this can be a bit heavy handed. However, I wouldn't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater — there are some very fine stories in this collection and it was enjoyable to read. (less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Nov 04, 2009
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Feb 02, 2010
| Paperback
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| 1934287288
| 9781934287286
| 4.19
| 408
| 1974
| Nov 18, 2008
|
With the second volume of the Black Jack series, Vertical is continuing the same good work they did in volume one. Lovely graphic design and layout, q...more
With the second volume of the Black Jack series, Vertical is continuing the same good work they did in volume one. Lovely graphic design and layout, quality paper, and a decent translation all serve to highlight Tezuka's excellent storytelling. This volume contains some great stories including "The Ballad of the Killer Whale," a story in which a killer whale pays the doctor in pearls for surgery; "Emergency Shelter," a story that serves as comeuppance for a rich braggart who builds a skyscraper that is so technologically sophisticated that it becomes an inescapable fortress of death; "Dirtjacked," in which a grade-school teacher and her students get trapped under a landslide while lava from the volcano they were visiting seeps slowly into the area that they're trapped in; "Stradivarius," the story of a plane that crashes in the Arctic Circle and the violin player who refuses to abandon his violin, even at the risk of losing his fingers to frostbite; and "Hospital Jack," in which the doctor performs surgery in the pitch black because masked gunmen have taken over the hospital and cut the power. The most important story in this volume is "Where Art Thou, Friend?," the story that reveals the origin of Black Jack's appearance. It turns out that the the dark patches of skin on Black Jack's body were donated by his friend Takashi when he was young. Although Takashi is half Japanese and half African-American, Black Jack refuses to replace the patches of skin that have been donated by him: "Forget it!! This patch of skin belonged to a dear friend! If I replaced it, I'd be rejecting his gift to me." Although Tezuka, like other manga artists of his era, is sometimes guilty of trafficking in some pretty gross stereotypes (the depiction of the Inuit people in "Stradivarius" is none too flattering), in general his political stance is deeply egalitarian and it's that egalitarianism that comes out in this story. (less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Dec 18, 2008
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Dec 13, 2009
| Paperback
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| 1584350806
| 9781584350804
| 3.68
| 792
| 2007
| Jul 07, 2009
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I love a good revolutionary polemic and The Coming Insurrection certainly fits the bill with its fierce rejection of mainstream Left political solutio...more
I love a good revolutionary polemic and The Coming Insurrection certainly fits the bill with its fierce rejection of mainstream Left political solutions and its cry for revolutionary anarcho-communalist insurrection. There are several incisive critiques leveled in this text — though they don't really break much new ground if you've mixed a bit of the anarchist canon in with your Adorno, Marcuse, Foucault, Debord, and etc. The Coming Insurrection is at its best when critiquing the way in which organizations associated with leftist politics have allowed themselves to be co-opted by larger political structures of economy and control. It's not so hot when it begins to offer up solutions — banlieue rioting may indeed be both a sign of formations of community outside of the control of the state and a model for communal formations, but it offers absolutely no vision of what those communities should do, or be for, other than resistance. There's also a strange kind of tension in this text between a desire to be universal — "the coming insurrection" is portrayed as an event that will happen on a worldwide level, though perhaps not all at once — and a desire to reject universal forms via the specificity of place and community. There are also some laughable misapprehensions about some of the 'structures of feeling' that exist outside of the French milieu that cast some doubt on the authors' grasp of the conditions on the ground outside of the borders of la belle France. When the book states that in the United States "they revere work," that seems like a bit of a stretch. Similarly, when Japanese otaku culture is given as a model of work resistance, you have to wonder what sources The Invisible Committee has at hand. In any case, a worthwhile read and a great conceptual hammer, though as an actual manual of insurrection it's vague enough about tactics that I'm surprised the French government has gone so far as to deign it a manual for terrorism. For a more concretely conceptualized model of the potential form that an anarcho-syndicalist society might take, I recommend Ursula Le Guin's novel The Dispossessed.(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Dec 05, 2009
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Dec 09, 2009
| Paperback
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| 1897299400
| 9781897299401
| 3.27
| 184
| Jan 01, 2000
| Jul 22, 2008
|
Seiichi Hayashi's Red Colored Elegy is one of the saddest and most beautiful comics I've read in a long time. The story is so simple that there's almo...more
Seiichi Hayashi's Red Colored Elegy is one of the saddest and most beautiful comics I've read in a long time. The story is so simple that there's almost no story at all — in fact, the book is almost anti-narrative in form — but the basic 'plot' involves a young comic artist and his girlfriend, who is an animator. They're broke, living together, and trying to think about their future (as individuals, together), a future that's stuck through-and-through with the knives of family obligation, economic necessity, love and desire for others, and the need to have space alone to produce art. But the real story is about the representation of emotional states through a series of aesthetic techniques that cross manga conventions with the emotional violence and surreal force of German Expressionism: black lightning bolts attack from the sky while the scattered leaves of cherry blossoms drift through a rainstorm; the main character has a conversation with his umbrella, which speaks with the voice and face of Ebisu; a pointed finger poses as a gun and kills a lover, who lies in a pool of blood; there's a moth that may or may not have emerged during the act of vomiting. But the tone of the comic is also noirish and cinematic at times, and at other times touchingly intimate — pages of casual conversation as the lovers roll around their mostly empty apartment floor, or the detail of Sachiko warming herself over an electric burner while snow drifts through the night outside. Sad, surreal, beautiful, full of emotional violence and moments of dark quiet. Breaking glasses; ink splatters like blood, flies, and flowers; cigarette smoking, moths, despair; drawing comics and animation cells and coming home drunk with branches full of cherry blossoms. What's not to like?(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Dec 07, 2009
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Dec 08, 2009
| Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 1421519720
| 9781421519722
| 4.40
| 820
| Sep 13, 2006
| Jan 06, 2009
|
This series has finally lost me. The beautiful thing about the best manga (unless it's purely episodic, like Tezuka's Black Jack) is that there's usua...more
This series has finally lost me. The beautiful thing about the best manga (unless it's purely episodic, like Tezuka's Black Jack) is that there's usually a finely plotted story arc that builds over the course of several volumes to a tightly scripted and deeply satisfying climax. And then the series ends. Nana has begun to feel like a series that had an initial story arc all planned out, but then decided to extend its run beyond all natural limits. Kind of like all of those Mulder-less episodes in the final couple of seasons of the X-Files. As I wrote in an earlier review of volume 13: " I'm starting to get bored with this series. Plot and character development have been in stasis for about two books now. Reading this volume kind of felt like eating soup meant for two people that's been watered down so it can feed ten. There's definitely some entertainment to be found here, but it's a lot of sweet nothings. The soap-operatic dilemmas that the characters are currently encased in are the painfully uninteresting products of their entry into the 'real' world. Things w...more I'm starting to get bored with this series. Plot and character development have been in stasis for about two books now. Reading this volume kind of felt like eating soup meant for two people that's been watered down so it can feed ten. There's definitely some entertainment to be found here, but it's a lot of sweet nothings. The soap-operatic dilemmas that the characters are currently encased in are the painfully uninteresting products of their entry into the 'real' world. Things were much more interesting when they were on the outside, living in a naive dreamworld. This is even mirrored by the changes in Yazawa's drawing style for the last few books. While initial volumes had loving multi-page spreads that were fawning centerfolds of affection for the characters she was bringing into being, the last two volumes feature pages full of closed panels that mainly just move the plot along. Even though the plot is being moved along, however, the story itself isn't being advanced at all. If things don't return to business as usual within the next couple of volumes, this series is in danger of losing me."(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Jun 09, 2009
|
Dec 07, 2009
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 1579121519
| 9781579121518
| 3.36
| 33
| Oct 02, 2000
| Oct 01, 2000
|
I've been reading a lot of books lately about "tiny" houses and microtecture, but I think this has got to be one of the best. This book rises above th...more
I've been reading a lot of books lately about "tiny" houses and microtecture, but I think this has got to be one of the best. This book rises above the others for several reasons, including the fantastic (and usefully explanatory) photography; the inclusion of plans and diagrams that are actually easy to understand; the generous attitude that author Lester Walker takes toward a wide variety of architectural practices and forms; and the interest that he's able to generate about each building by providing an appropriate history or backstory, as well as a 'reading' of the significance of the building under investigation. The book covers just about everything including vernacular dune shacks, Thomas Jefferson's "honeymoon cottage," refugee housing for victims of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, ice fishing huts, prefabricated houses, roadside motels, and several more experimental designs. And of course Henry David Thoreau's cabin at Walden Pond and George Bernard Shaw's writing hut are amply represented. (less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Oct 2009
|
Dec 07, 2009
| Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 1897299745
| 9781897299746
| 3.99
| 1,078
| Dec 2008
| Apr 14, 2009
|
This is an incredible account of Tatsumi's apprenticeship as a manga artist in post-war Osaka. As the blurb says, "Using his life-long obsession with...more
This is an incredible account of Tatsumi's apprenticeship as a manga artist in post-war Osaka. As the blurb says, "Using his life-long obsession with comics as a framework, Tatsumi weaves a complex story that encompasses family dynamics, Japanese culture and history, first love, the intricacies of the manga industry, and most importantly, what it means to be an artist." If you have any interest at all in the history of manga or in the culture and texture of life in post-war Japan, you owe it to yourself to pick this up. There's even a special guest appearance by Osamu Tezuka. The only reason this book doesn't get five stars from me is that the draughtsmanship doesn't quite live up to the standard of his amazing gekika masterpieces. Also, the book ends just as the student protests against the 1960 signing of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security are beginning; it's a bit sad that such an important era gets what seems to be a bit of a truncated treatment. On a personal note, I live quite close to where most of the events depicted in Tatsumi's memoir took place and it's really great to be able to see images of downtown Osaka in the 1950s, and of the Toyonaka area when it was still fairly rural. (less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Mar 11, 2009
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Dec 04, 2009
| Softcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 1585427179
| 9781585427178
| 2.95
| 97
| Mar 19, 2009
| Mar 19, 2009
|
I was really disappointed in The Scavengers' Manifesto, which is not helpful at all in terms of practical information or concrete examples. At the sam...more
I was really disappointed in The Scavengers' Manifesto, which is not helpful at all in terms of practical information or concrete examples. At the same time, it's far too diffuse and soft in its attack to generate the emotional force of an actual manifesto. Here are my three main issues with the book: 1) There is a serious lack of detailed information about scavenging. Unlike a classic alternative lifestyle text like Shelter, which includes photographs, building details, concrete accounts written by individuals, etc., this book deals in generalities that are almost impossible to use as a basis for practical action. A single online entry about jugaad, the Indian practice of ingeniously recycling objects for other uses, contains more actual examples of scavenge and reuse than the entire manifesto. 2) The philosophical basis that underlies The Scavengers' Manifesto is confused and imprecise. I think the authors wanted the book to feel like it could be everything for everybody (everyone can be a scavenger!), but in fact they made the idea of 'scavenging' so all inclusive that the term loses any meaning it may have once had. In a section called "MANY TYPES OF SCAVENGER, ONE SHARED MIND-SET," for example, Rufus and Lawson write, "These days, more activities count as scavenging than you might imagine. To us, scavenging means any way in which goods can be acquired for less than full price. This could mean thrift shops. Flea markets. Metal detecting. Freecycling. Coupon clipping. Plain old sales. All of these and more are forms of scavenging. And all remove us from that soulless, processed, debt-provoking standard retail cycle." If coupon-clipping and going to sales count as scavenging, than it's intellectually dishonest to pretend that scavenging is somehow anti-consumerist. Coupon clipping and sales are a central part of the consumer ethos — in fact, bargain bins are a classic way for retail outlets to get people to part with their money by buying things they don't really need. 3) A straw man argument is set up at the beginning of the book that is ridiculous on its face: "Most non-scavengers — we call them standard consumers — recoil at the very thought of not buying things brand-new at full price." I don't know on what planet these 'standard consumers' might exist (perhaps in the realm of the ultra-rich elite), but every middle-class family I've ever known, including upper middle-class families, has been more than happy to buy at bargain prices and even trumpet the "great deal" that they've gotten on something they've bought. Not a lot of recoiling going on there. This depiction of the 'standard consumer' is followed up by the creation of the category of 'scavenger as radical': "No matter how or why you do it [scavenge:], even if you're just re-using Christmas ribbon or picking fruit in a vacant lot, you are a radical." Reusing Christmas ribbon does not make you a radical. (less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Sep 2009
|
Nov 06, 2009
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 1421518805
| 9781421518800
| 4.42
| 812
| Jan 01, 2005
| Nov 04, 2008
|
I'm starting to get bored with this series. Plot and character development have been in stasis for about two books now. Reading this volume kind of fe...more
I'm starting to get bored with this series. Plot and character development have been in stasis for about two books now. Reading this volume kind of felt like eating soup meant for two people that's been watered down so it can feed ten. There's definitely some entertainment to be found here, but it's a lot of sweet nothings. The soap-operatic dilemmas that the characters are currently encased in are the painfully uninteresting products of their entry into the 'real' world. Things were much more interesting when they were on the outside, living in a naive dreamworld. This is even mirrored by the changes in Yazawa's drawing style for the last few books. While initial volumes had loving multi-page spreads that were fawning centerfolds of affection for the characters she was bringing into being, the last two volumes feature pages full of closed panels that mainly just move the plot along. Even though the plot is being moved along, however, the story itself isn't being advanced at all. If things don't return to business as usual within the next couple of volumes, this series is in danger of losing me.(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Dec 15, 2008
|
Dec 16, 2008
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 193428727X
| 9781934287279
| 4.08
| 1,130
| Jul 13, 1977
| Sep 23, 2008
|
**spoiler alert** These new Vertical editions of Tezuka's Black Jack are really nice — thick cream-colored paper, great reproduction fo the drawings,...more
**spoiler alert** These new Vertical editions of Tezuka's Black Jack are really nice — thick cream-colored paper, great reproduction fo the drawings, and fantastic covers. In fact, the cover of volume one features an embossed indentation that highlights the image of a set of hook retractors opening a surgical incision to reveal the guts inside. Clever as a cleaver. If you're only familiar with Tezuka's Astro Boy, then you may not be prepared for the glorious blood-and-guts grotesquerie of the Black Jack series, a series that flaunts its polymorphous perversity at the level of the medical. The usual synopsis of the Black Jack saga goes something like this: "Black Jack, the world's greatest surgeon, roams the world without a license curing those who deserve it and applying his own sense of moral justice to the unjust and hypocritical." That's my own summary, but you can see summaries like this everywhere. Here's from Wikipedia: "Most of the episodes involve Black Jack doing some good deed, for which he rarely gets recognition—often curing the poor and destitute for free, or teaching a capitalist fat cat and his pompous colleagues a lesson in humility." And here's from the back flap of the Vertical publication: "Black Jack chronicles the travails of an enigmatic surgeon-for-hire who is more good than he pretends to be." Basically Black Jack is generally cast in the role of the benevolent outlaw, the individualist who carries within himself an ethical and moral sense that always turns out to be far superior to the world of corruption that surrounds him. While these descriptions definitely describe one of the moods of this series, they completely miss the mark when it comes to what makes this series distinct, disturbing, and wonderful. Let's examine some patients: 1) "The First Storm of Spring." A schoolgirl falls in love with a man that she keeps having visions of after she's gotten a cornea transplant. But the man turns out to be a murderer and the cornea is from his last victim. Luckily Black Jack shows up at the right moment to scalpel the guy in the side. 2) "Teratoid Cystoma." (Look that one up!) A woman is dying from a tumor but no doctor can come close because of the psychic force that the tumor unleashes whenever anyone gets near. It turns out that the tumor is actually a (mostly) unformed twin who has been living within the woman's body. Although the twin has no body proper it has enough organs to have developed a life and consciousness of its own. Black Jack convinces the twin to allow the operation and he builds a doll body for her and carefully installs all the organs after removal, in effect creating his living doll/daughter sidekick, Pinoko. Pinoko, who talks with a coy lisp that is more annoying than it is cute, is referred to by Black Jack as his 'assistant' even though she calls herself "the Wife" and insists that she's 18 even though she's stuck in the artificial body of a child. If only Papa Freud had lived long enough to see this case study. 3)"Confluence." Black Jack meets up with a young colleague of his who works alone as a ship's surgeon. Later it turns out that Black Jack was at medical school with this doctor and that the doctor was once a woman, but now presents as a man. Black Jack saved her life in medical school by removing her uterus and ovaries to save her from cancer. She has always been in love with him and just before the surgery Black Jack reveals his love for her and kisses her. Then Megumi begins Kei (different readings of the same Chinese character) and signs on as a ship's doctor and now Kei and Black Jack can only meet from time to time and dream about what could have been. And I haven't even mentioned the sores that appear on a person's body in the shape of a face, the scalpel covered with calcium like a pearl, the painter who is the victim of an atomic test much like the one that took place at Bikini Atoll and demands that he be kept alive long enough to finish his masterpiece, as well as severed limbs galore, at least two full body transplants, and a hand transplant so that a sushi chef can continue to make the most delicious sushi in all of Japan. Not to mention the building-sized computerized surgeon-bot that develops a mental illness. These. These are the joys. (less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Sep 15, 2008
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Nov 14, 2008
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 0936070331
| 9780936070339
| 4.56
| 155
| Apr 20, 2004
| Apr 20, 2004
|
Home Work is the followup to Shelter, Lloyd Kahn's influential 1973 guide to alternative living and DIY homebuilding. In Shelter Kahn advocated a retu...more
Home Work is the followup to Shelter, Lloyd Kahn's influential 1973 guide to alternative living and DIY homebuilding. In Shelter Kahn advocated a return to the hand-built house, emphasizing traditional building methods over the high-tech solutions that had been advocated throughout the 40s, 50s, and 60s (culminating in the dome house, a form that he initially helped to pioneer, but eventually rejected). Home Work covers a lot of the same territory as Shelter did, but unlike Shelter is full of beautiful full-color photographs. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of alternative living situations detailed here and the hand-built houses — from around the world — will make you wish that every last suburb was burned to the ground so that the world could be remade in the image of this book. The examples that Kahn presents in this book are invariably made from recycled and natural materials and all are works of art in themselves. Furthermore, many of these houses are off the grid and rely on solar power, composting toilets, etc. This is not, however, a book full of expensive designer architectural 'solutions'(it's safe to assume that Kahn abhors yuppiedom); instead these are DIY projects that rely on personal sweat equity, ingenuity, and the ability to think small. The amazing structures in this book include Louie Frazier's astoundingly beautiful hand-crafted home in Mendocino, various takes on the yurt, driftwood houses constructed on the beach, shacks made from found materials, stone houses, adobe houses, rammed-earth houses, straw houses, bamboo houses, tepees and tents, the ubiquitous converted school bus, and — yes — even a few domes. There's also an incredible array of houses from around the world, many of them in configurations/situations that radically challenge the notion that the household and the nuclear family should be in any way synonymous. If this book doesn't have you thinking about, and desiring, ways to live differently than you probably deserve the box that you're already ensconced in. Here's what I don't like about the book: 1) There's way to much of an emphasis on back-to-the-land hippie-style living, which I suspect has a lot to do with Kahn's social network. I've got nothing against the back-to-the-land movement or hippies in general, and I'm glad to see all the builders (and their beards) that are represented here. However, it would also have been nice to see more of the possibilities of what can be done in terms of hand-built shelter within the urban setting. These places do exist — I've seen plenty of reconfigured warehouses in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland that function as amazing live/work spaces. And how about urban squats, etc.? 2) While the pages in this book are still holding together (stitched, thank you), the cover itself fell off after the first reading. Of course, I can always glue it back on myself, but covers simply shouldn't be falling off so soon after purchase. Highly recommended. (less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Sep 14, 2008
|
Nov 12, 2008
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 1421518791
| 9781421518794
| 4.39
| 946
| Dec 05, 2005
| Sep 02, 2008
|
While I like the Nana series in generally, this one is a big disappointment. Pure filler, and not particularly enjoyable either. Reading this volume k...more
While I like the Nana series in generally, this one is a big disappointment. Pure filler, and not particularly enjoyable either. Reading this volume kind of reminded me of what the experience of eating a slightly stale creampuff might be like. Let's hope the next volume kicks everything back into gear with more plot development, more character development, and just enough movement toward the melancholic/redemptive ending that is sure to be coming somewhere down the pipeline.(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Oct 29, 2008
|
Nov 12, 2008
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 1573226882
| 9781573226882
| 3.63
| 14,130
| 1992
| Mar 01, 1998
|
I have to admit that I'm not the biggest fan of Nick Hornby's writing style and his poses of cynical masculinity often bore me, but I do get hooked on...more
I have to admit that I'm not the biggest fan of Nick Hornby's writing style and his poses of cynical masculinity often bore me, but I do get hooked on his subject matter (even if it's posing as cynical masculinity). Fever Pitch is exceptional bait for a reader like me since I've relatively recently become both a convert to the game of football (that's 'soccer' in the U.S. and Japan) and an Arsenal fan. The book itself is an autobiographical account of Hornby's obsession with his chosen team (Arsenal) and it essentially follows the parallel development of his life and team, pretty much in chronological order. This is, in many ways, a book about desperation and the search for meaning and Hornby spends a good deal of time analyzing the abject condition of the football obsessive. This book is most successful when Hornby stays autobiographical, but occasionally he likes to try to use football as a stepping off point for disquisitions on 'life lessons' and other pseudo-philosophical claptrap. It's here that the book takes a few steps offside. While Hornby doesn't go too far afoul here, his occasional attempts to make larger points through the medium of football end up sounding a bit stretched and thin. Like stamp collecting, football may mean the world to obsessives, but that doesn't mean that it contains in miniature crystalizations of eternal truths that lie outside of the stadium. Indeed, it's the ultimate meaninglessness of Hornby's kind of obsession that is the most interesting thing about a book like this. As a fellow obsessive what I found most interesting were not the ham-handed attempts to bring life's great mysteries into the game, but rather the personalized accounts of the experience of sitting through particular games and the alienation that comes with trying to make your object of obsession seen by those who simply have no idea of what you're going on about. If you're a football fan or an Arsenal fan you'll love this book (even if you completely disagree with Hornby), and if you like sports writing in general you'll probably like this book as well. If you're anyone else, however, I would recommend staying far, far away from this volume.(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Oct 22, 2008
|
Nov 11, 2008
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 1421517477
| 9781421517476
| 4.40
| 866
| 2004
| Jul 01, 2008
|
**spoiler alert** What can I say about the eleventh volume of Nana? First of all, it's one of the best volumes of Nana in an age and it manages to ret...more
**spoiler alert** What can I say about the eleventh volume of Nana? First of all, it's one of the best volumes of Nana in an age and it manages to return to the gloriously deep melancholy that is the philosophical underpinning of this series, as far as I'm concerned. The counterparts of this melancholy are the acts of generosity that are so self-subsuming, so biting in intensity, that they're almost devastating in their quiet softness. It seems that I'm a sucker for faux-punk rock New Romantic melodrama. Scene stealers: 1) Ren sleeps in the bathtub, surrounded by the dead bodies of countless cigarette butts. 2) Blast gets thrown into a secret hotel to keep them out of the public eye while they prepare for the triumphant release of their first single. Nobuo starts to fall for Myu, a young actress who lives right next door. 3) Nana Osaki starts having panic attacks and needs to breath into a paper bag to calm down (um, does that REALLY work?). 4) An immense moment of lonely distance mixed with fantastic triumph as Nana K. watches Nana O. and Blast perform in Shinjuku without the prospect of any contact between them. 5) Trapnest and Black Stones (Blast) release singles at the same time and get booked to play on the same entertainment program. 6) Takumi is going to marry Nana K., but nobody really seems to think this is a good idea. 7) Nana K. and the members of Blast get nostalgic and decide to go watch fireworks together like they'd always wanted to. The only way they can go out in public without being recognized is to go out in disguise. Ironically, it's precisely these disguises that allow them to leave their newly fixed (and stultifying) professional identities behind. It's the old story all over again — the rock star life promises freedom and a kind of pure unrestrained experience of the id, but instead all the players involved keep getting trapped in smaller and smaller rooms, until finally the only space left to breath in is the size of a paper bag. Next issue will, undoubtedly, be filled with the glamorous sadness of fireflowers bursting slowly in the air while the past slips away. "Hey Hachi ... they say people realize the value of something only after they lose it ... but I think it's when you face it once more ... that you truly recognize it. If I could see everyone now ... I'd depend on them again for sure. I'm scared of that. That's why I can't move from this spot."(less) | Notes are private!
| none
|
1
| not set
| Aug 07, 2008
|
Oct 09, 2008
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| unknown
| 5.00
| 9
| 2008
| 2008
|
None
| Notes are private!
| none
|
0
| not set
| not set
|
Aug 30, 2008
| Chapbook
| ||||||||||||||||
| 1421509741
| 9781421509747
| 3.87
| 38
| Mar 18, 2008
| Mar 18, 2008
|
Although I absolutely love Tezuka's Phoenix series, I have to say that this volume, labeled "early works," is definitely only for the collector/comple...more
Although I absolutely love Tezuka's Phoenix series, I have to say that this volume, labeled "early works," is definitely only for the collector/completist. The artwork is early-phase Tezuka (the more Disneyesque phase) and displays little of the incredible graphic and cinematic qualities that make his later works so enticing. The story as well is lacking — especially in terms of the exploration of the (relatively) deep philosophical questions that seems to be the hallmark of the rest of the Phoenix series. In fact, it reads more like a Saturday morning cartoon than anything else. Of course, Tezuka can't really be blamed for this since every artist/writer has an early phase that pales in the light of later glory. This book is definitely fascinating as a chronicle of Tezuka's progress as an artist, but as a work in itself there's a lot to be desired here. Of course, since it is still Tezuka we're talking about here, there are a lot of fascinating tidbits on offer for the reader. Not the least of which is a strange progression through Egyptian, Greek, and Roman myth/history.(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Aug 24, 2008
|
Aug 30, 2008
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 1934287172
| 9781934287170
| 3.93
| 232
| Nov 01, 1971
| Jun 24, 2008
|
**spoiler alert** The second volume in Tezuka Osamu's Dororo series is just as good as the first. Of course we have Hyakkimaru, the freakish swordsman...more
**spoiler alert** The second volume in Tezuka Osamu's Dororo series is just as good as the first. Of course we have Hyakkimaru, the freakish swordsman born missing 48 body parts, and Dororo, the miniscule child thief who he protects. As Hyakkimaru kills demons, his missing body parts are replaced with the real deal. That's all well and good, but how about the yokai (Japanese traditional monsters) that we get in this volume? That's the most important thing after all, isn't it? First of all we get a horde of demon night foxes, led by a powerful nine-tailed fox (apparently the most evil and powerful type of fox found in yokai legend). We also get a fantastic demon that poses as a Buddhist Fudo Myo'o in order to lure unsuspecting ascetics so he can steal their faces when they train themselves by meditating under a powerful waterfall. Then there's the singular ghost who stands in for a murdered multitude of children and a demon moth woman who has hypnotized a local lord so that her and a host of other moth women can propagate their species. But what about the family drama? There are two things that appear repeatedly in Tezuka's works, and one of them is the constant appearance of bizarrely dramatic family relations that would give Freud enough material to write case studies for 100 years. In this particular volume (spoiler alert!) Hyakkimaru comes face to face with his brother (who he never knew existed), his father (who sacrificed him to the demon world and wants to seem him dead now), and his mother (who still loves him). And at a critical moment he needs to decide whether or not he needs to kill his brother. The other element that often shows up in Tezuka's works is a kind of populist notion of revolution. Tezuka himself was obviously more of a humanist than a genuine revolutionary, but his humanism often leads to an identification with oppressed classes and the revolutionary ethics of the 60s are sometimes evident in his works. In this particular case it turns out that Dororo's parents, who were peasant thieves that stole in order not to starve and who acted as a classic redistributive banditry, have marked his back with a map that leads to their hidden treasure cache. Before her death Dororo's mother urged him to return to this treasure cache and use the treasure to lead a peasant revolt. Let's hope we see that peasant revolt in Volume 3! And some more great yokai too, of course.(less) | Notes are private!
| none
|
1
| not set
| Aug 19, 2008
|
Aug 22, 2008
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 1934287164
| 9781934287163
| 3.96
| 456
| 1971
| Apr 29, 2008
|
Osamu Tezuka's Dororo is great. First published in the late 60s, the story involves a wandering swordsman, Hyakkimaru, who is missing 48 body parts be...more
Osamu Tezuka's Dororo is great. First published in the late 60s, the story involves a wandering swordsman, Hyakkimaru, who is missing 48 body parts because his father gave him up to 48 demons before he was born in order to gain personal power. Born without arms, legs, ears, eyes, etc., Hyakkimaru is set adrift on a river to die, but is instead found by a kindly doctor who takes the infant in, trains his psychic senses so that he can 'see' the world, and makes prosthetic body parts for him (including arms that come off to reveal hidden swords inside!). Whenever Hyakkimaru kills a demon he regains one of his body parts in a painful exchange where the old prosthetic limb comes off and a new limb grows in its place. Hyakkimaru ends up running into, saving, and befriending a child thief called Dororo and the two of them travel through Japan together, encountering and defeating demons. Dororo, which is a childlike pronunciation of dorobo, the Japanese word for 'thief,' is tiny, doesn't like to bathe, has a violent temper, throws tantrums, and gets into a lot of scraps that Hyakkimaru needs to save him from. One of the things that's most appealing about Dororo is Tezuka's yokai (Japanese monsters) illustration work. In this first volume Hyakkimaru and Dororo encounter a monkey demon, a froggish lizard demon that grows a beautiful woman's body from its tail like a wart, a money spirit that has a head straight from Jack Kirby's New Gods, and a demon sword that craves blood (kind of like Stormbringer). What's not to like? Vertical, who did a fantastic job with Tezuka's Buddha series, have also done a great job with Dororo. The cover is beautifully designed, the paper is a thick cream-colored paper, and the ink has been laid down really nicely. The only minor downside of the Vertical publication is that some of the translation already seems dated to me. Dororo likes to refer to Hyakkimaru as his "bro" (as in, "I didn't want you to know, bro!"), which makes me think of a couple of wannabe California surfer dudes that I used to know who already sounded dated way back in the 80s when they were using 'hip lingo' like this. I realize that the translators wanted to convey the casual sense of Dororo's language, but I think there are better ways to do this. On the plus side, the translators include excellent notes on some of the puns involved in the text, and they do a good job of including footnotes about important cultural information when it's necessary.(less) | Notes are private!
| none
|
1
| not set
| Aug 17, 2008
|
Aug 18, 2008
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 1904859771
| 9781904859772
| 3.45
| 60
| May 01, 2008
| May 01, 2008
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Chris Carlsson's Nowtopia is an excellent exploration of DIY culture and organizing. Carlsson concentrates on several movements and presents them as p...more
Chris Carlsson's Nowtopia is an excellent exploration of DIY culture and organizing. Carlsson concentrates on several movements and presents them as proleptic visions of the types of social forms and networks that may become the basis for a post-capitalist society based on meaningful work, direct participation, and far more localized versions of production and self-governance. The central question this book focuses on is whether and how we can alter the social systems of power so that we can turn to an unalienated relationship to our labor, and to the social, cultural, and political world that we should be producing (rather than being produced by). In order to discuss the potential of DIY culture Carlsson concentrates on several different DIY communities: urban gardeners; radical bicyclists; biofuel collectives (especially concentrating on biodiesel); open source programming; and the Burning Man festival (this is the least satisfying chapter, as far as I'm concerned). Not only do you get a lot of fantastic interview material in these sections, as well as a sharp analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of these community movements and the benefits and contradictions of each type of DIY action, but Carlsson gives fascinating histories of the rise of each of these groups. Some of this history is really interesting, and relatively buried when it comes to mainstream media accounts; for example, did you know that localized "victory gardens" provided up to 40% of the vegetables eaten in the U.S. by 1944? Or that there were 70,000 victory gardens in San Francisco alone? Carlsson brings a host of theoretical tools to bear on his analysis of DIY culture, including a healthy engagement with Marxist analysis that uses Marx's general critique of the forces of capitalism, but also queries the usefulness of some of the classic Marxian categories (including the "working class"!!!!) as theoretical tools for dealing with contemporary conditions. Carlsson also usefully explores the concept of alienation, the notion of the "general public intellect," the idea of reclaiming the Commons for public use, the question of capitalist co-optation, questions of scarcity and abundance, and the importance of sustainability. This book is a must read for anyone who is currently thinking about new ways to organize and new modes of life, and for anyone who is seriously querying why it is that we seem so unable to make history for ourselves and how we might start living up to the promise of self-production (at all levels). My only complaint about this book is that though there is a ton of useful information provided, I sometimes felt the book could have had more of a gustatory relationship with the DIY cultures that were written about. Although I know a lot more about outlaw bicyclists than I did before, I still would have loved to have read a concrete description of what it's like to ride along with a Critical Mass event. Similarly, DIY biodiesel is often described, but I would have liked to hear more about the actual process of transforming fry-cooker fats into diesel gold. I think this was, ultimately, why the Burning Man section was so disappointing to me. It did a fine job of discussing the philosophical, political, and communitarian issues that are a major part of the Burning Man experience, but I didn't actually get much of a sense of what it's like to be there. For a book that spends so much time discussing DIY movements in which people use their bodies to try to create a sense of direct participation in the world, this book feels a bit disembodied at times. Finally, check out the excellent link to on-line resources that Carlsson provides with his Nowtopia website, which you can find at www.nowtopia.org Also, apparently I'm part of the "Lorax Generation," a term I hadn't encountered until reading this book. Certainly much better than that lame old "Generation X"!(less) | Notes are private!
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Jun 08, 2008
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| 1421517469
| 9781421517469
| 4.38
| 923
| 2004
| May 06, 2008
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Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! The drama seriously begins dropping in book 10 of Ai Yazawa's Nana series. Stalker paparazzi have figured out that Ren an...more Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! The drama seriously begins dropping in book 10 of Ai Yazawa's Nana series. Stalker paparazzi have figured out that Ren and Nana Osaki are an item and the news breaks on morning television, and all over the scandal rags. Trapnest's handlers go into overdrive trying to keep the scandal on the down low, but clearly the record companies are driving the scandal to sell Trapnest records and the (still unreleased) Blast single as well. This is actually a really interesting installment in the series because suddenly it becomes clear that the power of rock stars is no power at all when it comes to the conglomerates that call the shots for them. Takumi and Ren and flown out to England at a moment's notice so the scandal can cool down leaving both Nanas to fend for themselves emotionally while they try to figure out what's going on and what they should do. Except for the fact that the story is focused on the two Nanas, this installment kind of reminds me of the scene at the end of the Godfather when Michael Corleone shuts the door on Kay Adams (Diane Keaton) to indicate that she's not welcome to participate in "family" business, even though she's his wife.(less) | Notes are private!
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| May 21, 2008
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May 31, 2008
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| 1421517450
| 9781421517452
| 4.40
| 974
| 2003
| Mar 04, 2008
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**spoiler alert** Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! Nana and Nana have "broken up" since Nana (Hachi) has moved in with Takumi since she's pregnant by him...more **spoiler alert** Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! Nana and Nana have "broken up" since Nana (Hachi) has moved in with Takumi since she's pregnant by him (or perhaps by Nobu). Meanwhile, Shin is moving in on Reira, who he's clearly falling in love with (even though Reira clearly loves Takumi, even though Takumi is relentlessly cold and heartless). Does this sound too melodramatic for you? Then you shouldn't be reading Ai Yazawa's Nana! What can I say — I've become addicted to it. In some ways book nine of this series is kind of a placeholder — there's no real new drama here, just a playing out of the dramas that cropped up in book eight — but it's still an essential block in the crescendo that's clearly to come. In a final note, Viz seems to have changed the type of paper it uses in this series to a creamier stock. While I do prefer the creamy look of the creamy stock, I really wish Viz would choose a style and stick with it for the entire first run of a series. Change everything for the second run if you like, but keep the series run consistent! They did this with Ranma 1/2 too, only that was even worse because they changed the cover style as well. It's a bad habit, and they should stop now!(less) | Notes are private!
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| May 09, 2008
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May 31, 2008
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| 0618718761
| 9780618718764
| 3.64
| 664
| Oct 10, 2007
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Chris Ware's 2007 selections for The Best American Comics are as good as I could possibly imagine them to be, though there are few surprises if you're...more
Chris Ware's 2007 selections for The Best American Comics are as good as I could possibly imagine them to be, though there are few surprises if you're already tapped into the underground/alternative comics scene. Work included in this volume includes comics by such luminaries as Art Spiegelman, Crumbs (of all sorts), the absolute genius Lynda Barry, Ron Regé Jr., Sammy Harkham, Adrian Tomine, Ben Katchor, Gilbert Hernandez (but no Jaime!), Charles Burns, Seth, and many, many, much much more. The volume is beautifully printed and the cover alone is just about worth the price of admission. If you're unfamiliar with the amazing underground/alternative comic work that's being produced today, then you owe it to yourself to have a look at this volume. If you're already familiar with this work, then this is a nice collection of disparate pieces that you can turn to from time to time (and you probably don't already own everything by all of these authors). I basically only have two complaints about The Best American Comics 2007: (1) Since the criteria for inclusion is publication between August 31, 2005 and September 1, 2006 this means that none of the comics in the "best of" 2007 are from 2007. Worse still, many of these works were produced much earlier (some of the Regé work is labeled "97"). All of the work is great, but it's strange to see work a decade old showing up in a "best of 2007" collection. (2) Many of the pieces printed are excerpts and because of this they feel (necessarily) incomplete. I don't think there's much that could have been done about this, but I still don't love it. There does seem to be a logic to the order that the pieces were put in, but sometimes the transition between these pieces feels like an unnatural splice rather than a well-planned jump cut.(less)
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| May 24, 2008
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May 24, 2008
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| 0870714856
| 9780870714856
| 3.86
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**spoiler alert** Two Wheels North is a fantastic account of a 1909 bicycle trip up the West Coast. Two friends decide to ride from Santa Rosa to Seat...more
**spoiler alert** Two Wheels North is a fantastic account of a 1909 bicycle trip up the West Coast. Two friends decide to ride from Santa Rosa to Seattle in order to see the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition before it closes. They're sponsored in part by the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, and they send notes back to the paper describing their travels. The book is a compendium of interesting sketches of California, Oregon, and Washington in the era before paved roads and automobile culture. There are fantastic descriptions of farm life, tramping, train systems, ferries, Native-American fisheries, hop picking in Oregon, country dances, desolate wilderness roads at night, and (exceedingly) brief guest appearances by people like Jack London and Luther Burbank. In one of my favorite sections of the book the two riders, Vic and Ray, end up working at a sawmill in Shasta where they learn the local myths about the two cities — Yaktavia and Iletheleme — hidden within the mountain. Also, the two riders carry a Billiken figure with them for luck, so if you're interested in the Billiken this book is worth a read. The biggest downside of the book is that Evelyn McDaniel Gibb, the author, has chosen to write the story — which is based on true events — in the style of her father's naive 19-year old voice. Dialect is extremely hard to pull off, especially when the vocabulary in use has already become historically quaint. There are a bit too many uses of words like "holler," "chum," and "rascals" for the text to ever completely disappear — at some point it always ends up revealing itself as a fabrication and this kept me from being as entirely involved in the story as I otherwise would have been. A better choice would have been to have written a fictionalized diary or a series of letters in her father's voice. This would have allowed Gibb to giver her father's character his own voice, while at the same time tempering the dialect involved by invoking a writing voice rather than a speaking voice. The biggest disappointment of this book is (spoiler alert! spoiler alert!) the fact that the two riders do make it to the Exposition, but there's no description of the Exposition or Seattle at all. The book ends with the two riders at night, looking out over Seattle, but we never get to see the city that they enter. I imagine this is kind of what it would be like to read the Lord of the Rings if when Sam and Frodo get to Mt. Doom we were to get an ending like this: "Sam and Frodo stood in front of Mr. Doom. They knew their quest was finished." Say what? It seems like the cyclists may have made it to the Expo, but perhaps the author ran out of steam a bit at the finishing line. Definitely recommended reading, even if ultimately not one of the great greats.(less) | Notes are private!
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| May 21, 2008
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