Thursday, February 12, 2004
Magnatune is a new record label with a simple catchphrase: “We are not evil.” Here’s why the label was founded; essentially, it’s an attempt to create a sane, good record label for the New Musical World. Half of all music revenue goes to the artist. You can buy and download the music directly off the site (in MP3, OGG, WAV, FLAC, or MP3-VBR), and you choose how much you want to pay for each […]
February 11, 2004
New poll. Do you read the VR story? I watched Jungle Emperor Leo last night, which is a brilliant film with a tortured history. After kicking off the anime genre with Astro Boy, Osamu Tezuka created the first color anime series, Jungle Emperor (known as Kimba the White Lion in America). In 1966, they even retold several major events of the series in a feature film, Jungle Emperor Leo. […]
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
The difference between a bad blog and a good blog lies in commitment and purpose. Some bloggers blog daily, and it seems to be natural for them to do so (see Lileks’ Bleat). Some blog at least a few times a week. But most bloggers are wildly inconsistent. Why? I think it’s partly a matter of commitment. Most people aren’t committed to their blogs. That’s fine; bloggers don’t have to be committed to their […]
Monday, February 9, 2004
What separates good entertainment from great entertainment? I pondered this as, this weekend, I watched Animation Runner Kuromi 2, which is a comedic anime about the production of anime. It’s by the brilliant director Akitaroh Daichi, who also created the fan-favorite spastic comedy Kodomo no Omocha and the powerful SF drama Now and Then, Here and There. In ARK2, Kuromi is doing her best to juggle three production schedules, […]
Saturday, February 7, 2004
Quick update: the Rintaro lecture was great, and a little surreal; one of anime’s greats talked about anime and Japanese art for 2 hours, right there in front of me. Wow.
Friday, February 6, 2004
Well. After feeling rather down yesterday at work, I got home and had the best evening I’d had in weeks — cleaned dishes, did a load of laundry, wrote 300 words, added a feature to Cronan, and watched more of my MST3K collection (“Hamlet,” in this case). There’s one unfortunate aspect to the MST3K collection, namely, each movie is introduced by Mike Nelson. But each introduction is about fifteen seconds long […]
Thursday, February 5, 2004
I’m in a bad place right now. I don’t know why. I think my cold set everything up: I’m constantly tired, and I can’t stop an annoying cough. This has left me without the energy to write, which depresses me every time I think about it. On the other hand, I only woke up two hours ago, and I’m still not quite awake yet (again, I blame my cold). Last night, I stopped […]
Wednesday, February 4, 2004
Instead of writing about Janet Jackson (and her now-legendary right breast bared in the Superbowl halftime show), I’m going to write about her brother Michael. I have a theory about Michael Jackson. I think that his fundamental problem is cluelessness. I mean that in a nice way. I think Michael is quite out of touch with mainstream society. Whether or not he’s a pedophile, I think he literally doesn’t see why […]
Monday, February 2, 2004
Saturday was completely unexpected. I’d intended to catch up on my writing, since my cold had kept my brain fogged all week. But my landlady lent me Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and after cracking the cover at 2 p.m., I didn’t put it down until I’d finished it. Which is not to suggest that The Order of the Phoenix is a mind-boggling book of staggering genius. It’s definitely good, though; a rolicking […]