Happy New Year! I know we had ourselves a little hiatus there, but I’ll tell you all about it in the following paragraph. Also in this post: some other weird projects, Angela Carter, and possibly more pathos than you were expecting.
This is it! In a few bare days the bones of the dead will shift from their earthen beds to crawl into our homes and tell us how boring it is to be buried in the ground all the time. Maybe we could put them somewhere interesting, like a Native American sky burial or the goddamn ocean or space or something. While you wait for this, turkey in the oven, you should read some spooky stories! Here’s a good one: “The Colour Out of Space!”
Once again it is the greatest holiday-month-season in the land: Halloween! We have a storied history here, we do, with the season. It strikes me, sitting here, watching the light drown in the approaching night, that I’ve never talked to you about the Evil Dead movies. What’s wrong with me?
My original interlocutor made a comment on my last piece, so we have some more to go on this week! Pontifus’s original question (which, shamefully, I have not even approached answering), was about the connection between magic as practice and magic as plot device. Specifically, magic as practice is the use of metaphor et al to reconstruct oneself, the world, and everything else. Magic as plot device is a way to produce a metaphor for something else. Therefore, highly systematized fictional magics are pointless if not actively stupid, since they systematize what’s meant to be interpreted.
It’s part two of my inquisition on the confluence of magical practice with fictional magic!
I’m fulfilling requests now, in a way. Pontifus has asked me about the difference between magic in theory and practice and magic as found in fiction of all sorts, particularly when it’s a plot device. My knee-jerk answer was that there doesn’t have to be an effective difference, but there does usually seem to be. So here’s another of those exploratory posts I know you love so much.
So this is a little different, even for what I’m used to. Tuesday I finished watching the Chojin Sentai Jetman, one of the odder entries in Toei’s sentai pantheon. This is going to end up being primarily an exploratory post, as I use writing to find my own thoughts and feelings on something. With that said, this post is about the ending to the show, which is (contrary to popular wisdom on sentai shows), eminently spoilable. If you haven’t seen the ending, don’t read this (unless you don’t care, I suppose).
So this weekend (which was Labor Day in America – yay arbitrary holidays!) I got the opportunity of finally watching a Kamen Rider product. It was Kamen Rider the First, which I gather is a pretty recent bit of the franchise (though it has a second, called, what else? Kamen Rider the Next). I’ve been getting slowly into sentai shows, but haven’t watched enough to really blog about it (maybe next week), so I’ll just do something related and talk about Kamen Rider.
So this weekend (which was Labor Day in America – yay arbitrary holidays!) I got the opportunity of finally watching a Kamen Rider product. It was Kamen Rider the First, which I gather is a pretty recent bit of the franchise (though it has a second, called, what else? Kamen Rider the Next). I’ve been getting slowly into sentai shows, but haven’t watched enough to really blog about it (maybe next week), so I’ll just do something related and talk about Kamen Rider.
I’m back after a long hiatus with another entry in Ye Olde Longe-Boxe! First, the hiatus part: I went on vacation, then I moved, then I started teaching. I was busy. But I haven’t forgotten you, dear reader. And so to celebrate my return from the abyss of joblessness to the lighted realm of gainful employment I give to you a turning point in the famous Knightfall saga: Batman #500!
Wondrous Windows 