subdee

Six Words: stories told in...guess!

Now this one I can do.

( Jojo not-even-ficbits, shamelessly reposted from elsewhere )

And on and on and on.

I might think I'm addicted. Help!

*flashes back to another word game* XD.

Eighteen days since my last post! A new record. I've been (mostly) keeping up in school and (sort of) looking into post-graduation stuff -- you know, the usual. And I've been going out. ^^; I saw the cast of Grey's Anatomy! At a bar past Main Street. They were so ordinary-looking I half-suspect the emcee was just messing with us.

I have fic ideas but no time. Completely unrelated to that, do we know anything about the ruler of En before Shoryuu? By we I mean the people who've read the 12K novels.

Linkblogging:

• Mashups. I like Numb Phone Core (Jay-Z vs Linkin Park vs Cake) and With or Without Glycerine (Bush vs U2).
  
• McMurder. The new socially-responsible site is nice, but the old one is hilarious. Consiracy theories FTW!
  
• Stranger than Fiction. A movie about Will Ferell discovering he is actually a character in Maggie Gyllenhaal's novel.
  
• Crack Death Note AMVs: One and Two. (These uh, are only funny if you know where the music is coming from.)

Backlog Meme
I've read a number of books and comics over the past few months that I've really been meaning to talk about, but somehow never got around to. That's where you come in! I'm going to list of everything I've read and watched in the last few months. If you see something you're curious about, please ask about it in a comment and I'll give my opinion. (In fact, please ask even if you aren't interested, because I should really talk about these before I forget them.)

( BOOKS/COMICS )
( MOVIES/TELEVISION )
( To read/to watch lists )

( RL nonsense )

It's hard out here for an undergrad. With no marketable skills. XD. (I finally signed up for the general GRE! I was waffling, wondering whether I'd need it and whether my parents would pay the registration fee and whether it'd be better to sign up for something a couple weeks in the future or whether I should give myself more time, when I saw that I could take the test on Friday, October 13th. HOW COULD I RESIST.)

Far and away the best class I'm taking this semester is Politics and Community Organization of Detroit. Today we had guest speakers from the committee to save Tiger Stadium. I was afraid their panel wouldn't be very good, because the last panel, with Lolita Hernandez, wasn't very good. But it was great. From left to right:

( Panelists )

This journal has a new colorscheme, from here.

Sorry I haven't been around much, I've been been pretty busy. (This will be an ongoing theme of posts here for the next few weeks.) If you are overcome with curiosity, you can read the rl journal.

Above all I don't, don't, absolutely don't have time to attend talks solely because they remind me of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. -_-; it's terrible, last week there was one on the Attica prison uprising of 1971 I thought I'd go to for part 6 (though this is also a fascinating event which, more than anything else, is responsible for current prison conditions in this country). And next Wednesday there's a kind of mock-pilgrimage through the Arboreum meant to mimic the Camino de Santiago, of course this reminded me of Steel Ball Run.

Saw two Japanese movies this week. The first was the animated Tale of Genji, this would make such a good drug movie. I MEAN. Start with the Tale of Genji. Take out all the parts that explain how all the scenes and actors are related to each other. Then take out all the funny parts. Then take out all the parts where Genji shows human emotion. What you'll be left with is something like this movie, a very beautiful, very stylized exercise in aesthetics that doesn't make any sense. Watch as Genji runs prettily through the fields, Murasaki in arms! Watch as he attempts to exorcise his inner demons through traditional archery! Watch twenty-minutes of fan dancing, again a symbolic representation of...you know, I'm not really sure. Oh yes, and! Cherry blossoms. LOTS AND LOTS OF CHERRY BLOSSOMS. (I laughed. Then I felt bad. Then I laughed again. Really, everything is so serious in this movie, it's hard not to laugh.)

The other one was Moon and Cherry. The description of this is totally wrong, actually it's a comedy. ^^; Tadokoro, the main character, finally gets into college on his third try. He joins the erotic literature club, which has six male members and only one female. But Mayama totally makes up for this by being amazingly forward and accomplished, the only one of them who's a professional author. She starts sleeping with Takadoro as research for her new book, which is about a defenceless 14-year-old virgin who is seduced by an experienced older woman. XD these scenes are so hilariously gender-reversed, even including the nervous, skitish way Takadoro clutches at his towel, and his facial expressions during the act.

Although Takadoro is only being used, under Mayama's instruction he becomes a master in the art of the bedroom, totally in contrast to his un-preposessing appearance. He then gets a cute normal girlfriend, who I liked mainly because she was very easy to understand. XD Meaning, she doesn't use big words and only speaks in simple sentences. Her actions are completely incomprehensible to Takadoro, who wonders why there isn't more to her? He finds out that Mayama has slept with every member of the erotic literature club (except Sakamoto, who's 57 and a grandfather). After she finishes her serialization -- culminating in a scene where she hires a call girl and then watches from the closest as she and Takadoro have sex -- she dumps him, but naturally he wins her back in the end. SORT OF. (Their relationship is based entirely on sex. And porn writing. IT'S KIND OF HILARIOUS.)

The thing that really stumped me about this movie was the Japanese erotic literature industry. Apparently it's dominated by men? Women authors are seen as totally strange, which is why Mayama writes under a male psuedonym. It also seems to be written mostly for men. Coming from the US, where 99% of romance is written by women for women, I found this pretty strange myself.

So that there will be more fandom content in this post, here are my answers to worldserpent's Jojo survey.

( spoilers )

TO BE CONTINUED, right now I'm heading out into the rain for Big Ten Burritos (actually, I don't care about the burritos, but this is an excuse to walk around with people (person) and I should really get back to homework anyway ;_;).

Right, so, Jojo. I can only talk about the first two volumes, because otherwise I'd be working from summaries (meaning I'd only be repeating what others have said already).

Part 6
The protagonist of this part, Jolyne Kujo (only her mom is allowed to call her Jojo), is Jotaro's daughter and generally a good kid, though she was involved in some minor gang stuff in middle school. She and her boyfriend run over this random person and he talks her into dumping the (she thinks) dead body in a nearby swamp. (I like the part of this scene where the boyfriend says if she really loves him, she'll help him hide the evidence, and she protests that loving him and thinking they should notify the police are two different things. She capitulates eventually, though, after he lays on some more emotional blackmail.) Jolyne is only an accessory to involuntary manslaughter (with a side of conspiracy to hide the evidence), but Romeo (this is really his name!) refuses to tell the truth at the trial, and Jolyne refuses to accuse him, and she has an evil lawyer, so in the end she's sentenced to fifteen years in a maximum-security prison.

( more summarizing )
( random commentary )

Steel Ball Run

What is there to say about this? I am still waiting for the Joestar genetic predisposition toward righteousness to manifest in Johnny. If you have seen signs, plz tell me.

***

It occured to me that more people might read this series if linked to where the scans are.

Boxtorrent for Part 1
Boxtorrent for Part 2
Or you can download parts 1 and 2 direct from here
I got Part 3 from angrybabble without her knowledge. ^^; It is also availible in English!
Site with Parts 4 though 6
Steel Ball Run

Summaries of the parts I can't read (because they haven't been translated):

PART 6 (petronia)
One
Two
Three
STEEL BALL RUN (worldserpent)
Volumes 4-5

***

I am no longer in General Relativity because I no longer need it for my major, which no longer exists. :O! Luckily it's been a replaced by a new, EASIER major whose requirements I have already fulfilled -- and then some. Of course, what the hell I'm going to do with a History/Interdisciplinary Physics double-major and no work experience is a totally different story. Beg my father to put in a good word, I suppose. XD; I'd like to go on to grad school because I'd like to NOT LEAVE SCHOOL anytime soon, but I can't think of any program I am actually qualified to apply for.