To Ponyo, Or Not To Ponyo
I don’t just watch films; I research, listen to commentary tracks, read biographies of the authors or directors, learn about the production and trivia, immerse myself in the context of the work. You might say I’m addicted to DVD (now Blu-Ray) extras. Or that I’m a research geek at heart.
Another habit I enjoy is following a director’s or actor’s ouvre. At home we’ve started on some Akira Kurosawa films, intending to watch them in (more or less) order. (Though as in this Slate article on keeping discs for forever, we’ve had Seven Samurai languishing at home for months. I even carried it to England and back.)
But slightly easier to digest than the the above “existential cinematic vegetables” are the works of Japanese animation Studio Ghibli.
We’re following this list of “Films and specials (Excluding short films or Ghibli Museum releases)”. So that is, in order, with ones we’ve watched so far in italics:
Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
Laputa: Castle in the Sky
Grave of the Fireflies
My Neighbor Totoro
Kiki’s Delivery Service
Only Yesterday
Porco Rosso
I Can Hear the Sea/Ocean Waves
Pom Poko
Whisper of the Heart
Princess Mononoke
My Neighbors The Yamadas
Spirited Away
Howl’s Moving Castle
Tales From Earthsea
Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea
So far I have been completely blown away by the films we’ve watched, and am lucky to re-watch several with new eyes.
Each Ghibli story is radically different, but they’re joined together by the same loving, creative spirit. The art is amazingly detailed, and the worlds they portray are unique but familiar, interweaving modern settings and mythology. And I love that many of Ghibli’s films deal with relationships between humans and the planet (the ones touching on harmonious, respectful co-existence often turning out to be the most profound and beautiful).
My favorites so far are Nausicaä and Totoro.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind takes place a thousand years after a war that destroyed the ecosystem of the planet, which is only just starting to heal itself. Every generation contributes its various pollutants to the atmosphere (just think of the Victorians and their coal burning! sheesh) and frets about its impact on the planet, so the film feels timely even though it was created in 1984 — the year I was born, and during the Cold War. In the film, a new war is about to break out, so there’s quite a bit of combat and fiery exploding stuff, but there’s also a truly epic plotline about the insects and toxic forest that are slowly covering the surface of the planet.
My Neighbor Totoro was a welcome balm after viewing Grave of the Fireflies, which is a beautiful but deeply haunting film about two children starving to death during war and famine in Kobe, Japan. Totoro is about two siblings who meet a giant, furry troll (it looks like a cross between a cat and a bear) who lives in the nearby forest. Early on in the film the children and their father enter the forest to visit an ancient camphor tree, to thank it and ask it to continue watching over them. Throughout the film — without getting too specific or spolier-y — they rely on the tree, forest and its inhabitants for help and guidance as they grow from children to young adults, physically and spiritually.
Like plenty of classic literature, lots of the Ghibli films feature children as a way to channel the magic of the world, a sense which fades as one grows older. (In Totoro, Granny explains to the children that she used to be able to see the house’s resident soot sprites, when she was their age.) Also given that there are strong mythological and earth-spirit elements, it makes sense that they’d use young people as vehicles:
“Animism in the widest sense, i.e. thinking of inanimate objects as animate, and treating them as if they were animate, is near-universal. Jean Piaget applied the term in child psychology in reference to an implicit understanding of the world in a child’s mind which assumes all events are the product of intention or consciousness. Piaget explains this with a cognitive inability to distinguish the external world from one’s own psyche. Developmental psychology has since established that the distinction of animate vs. inanimate things is an abstraction acquired by learning.” (via)
Totoro is also one of the most joyful films I’ve ever seen. According to Wikipedia, Totoro is as familiar to Japanese children as Winnie the Pooh is to British kids. I believe it, and I will also show it to my nearly-three-year-old nephew.
Last night’s Kiki’s Delivery Service was excellent as well. It features a young witch-in-training who leaves home at the age of 13 for a year of training in the real world. It’s about finding what you’re talented at, and then discovering what inspires that talent, and keeps you going. Inspired by Kiki, I have left this post as a long, rambling screed instead of trying to edit it down (or just cutting out parts completely), since I’m mostly just relieved I seem to have so much to say about it all.
Anyway, Ponyo is due out in American theatres on August 14, so now we have a dilemma — try to watch the remaining 10 films in 18 days and risk losing details in the rush, and not appreciating each film as a separate entity…or see Ponyo on its release, supporting the box office efforts and helping ensure the future of such films, but also ruining the order of our viewing schedule and the experience of seeing the films chronologically to witness the evolution of the studio.
(Though to be completely honest, we’ll probably see it on opening weekend AND watch when we’ve finished the others. Best of both!)
[WILT] Where confiscated items go
Apparently, when you forget to take a corkscrew out of your luggage and the airport security guards take it away from you, they don’t just chuck it into the nearest bin. Though it varies from state to state, most often those contraband items are auctioned off or sold in storefronts. And according to this MSNBC article, you can get some serious deals on huge lots of knives and…okay, mostly it looks like you can buy tons and tons of knives.
But at least you have options. Check out this auction lot from the the Texas State Surplus ebay store:
In tangentially-related news, William Gibson shared earlier this story about cigarettes manufactured in Russia specifically to smuggle into Western European countries with high tobacco taxes.
Jin Ling, virtually unknown to the authorities three years ago, has grown so rapidly that law enforcement officials say it now rivals Marlboro as the top smuggled brand being seized in the European Union.
Cats, week one
In which I talk at length about our two cats; read at your own risk.
Last Sunday, Jey and I popped into the pet store down the street to grab some food and litter for Evey.
We emerged with a foster cat.
We’ve talked about adopting a second kitty but had agreed to do it in a month or two, once we’d scoped out some new apartments, had a bit more time to dedicate to the process, once we’d budgeted for the adoption fees…we had lots of reasons to wait. But when we saw Cleo, a tiny gray tabby curled up in her cage, shivering from the loud noises in the pet store, we looked at each other and decided to just go for it. Ten minutes later, the kind women of Texas Pawprints clipped her nails, put on her red collar, and handed us a carrier box.
We already have one cat, Evey, who is also a rescue animal. Because of her background (taken off the streets where she was starving, as she didn’t have the courage to fight for food) she’s always needed some special attention. Basically, she is the very definition of a “scaredy-cat” — she requires coaxing to do just about anything new. But with patience and time she becomes desensitized to new environments (walking around outside the front door, for example) and eventually becomes eager and confident.
Evey chillaxin’
I’ve never seen her around another cat before, and from her kittenhood she’s always been isolated, so we read a lot about how to introduce two felines to each other.
Mostly, the sources say, you have to let them get used to each other. Start with the two cats in separate rooms. NewCat, as a foster animal, is often comfortable with a bathroom or utility closet, as they are used to being in cages and even that small room is a lot of space to them. ResidentCat should be allowed to sniff the carrier, towels that smell like NewCat, or even poke her nose under the door.
As it turns out, Evey was not too keen on having another cat invade her territory. She hissed…a lot. At the cage, at the smell on our hands, at the bathroom door (when she could stand to be around it).
When Evey hisses her face gets wrinkly and distorted. Kinda like the vampires in Buffy.
But we just stroked her and kept talking to her. We also took turns behind the door, helping Cleo adjust, and explore, and not knock anything down.
Cleo is between 8 months and a year old, and she’s already had a batch of kittens (four of the five have been adopted out by Texas Pawprints already), despite still being a kitten herself. She ‘made biscuits’ on just about everything when she first arrived (as is evident in this video).
The first night, Cleo meowed all night long. We didn’t get much sleep.
The second night, Cleo meowed all night long. Our nerves were getting a bit frayed, but we put on some music and tried our best to get a bit of rest.
The meowing…the meowing…
The third night, Evey camped out in front of the bathroom door. Whenever Cleo began yowling, Evey would hiss. Cleo, reassured that she wasn’t alone, would stop meowing. Thanks Evey!
By Wednesday, we let the cats look at each other through a net divider. Evey would creep over, hiss, and retreat to stare menacingly (known in the cat world as ‘posturing’). But the hissing was less angry, more ‘I’m asserting my place in the household heirarchy!’ — progress!
After a couple of days of gentle meetings like this, Evey was constantly trying to get into whatever room Cleo was in (to groom her or swipe at her, we weren’t quite sure). Cleo also had a tendency to shoot out between one’s legs as soon as one opened the door. (This happened with me a lot more often than with Jey…)
Whenever Evey saw Cleo, she’d freeze — but after several attempts at freedom, Evey seemed a lot more chill — so we decided to let them occupy the same room (more or less, as we have a pretty open floorplan). Miraculously, hissing encounters were minimal.
Fast forward a few days, and the pair were actually kindasorta playing with each other!
Now, they both tolerate each other. They hang in the same room, usually within four feet of one another. Evey only hisses if Cleo tries to smack her tail. They aren’t sleeping on the same surfaces yet, but I think it’s only a matter of time.
A gallery of Cleo:
P.S. The kitty’s original name (given to her by Texas Pawprints) was Rizzo, after the character from Grease played by Stockard Channing. We were planning to name our new kitty “Mew”, but found that we talk to them too much (“Hey Mewmew! Come here!”) for that to work as a name. I think kitty has a very Egyptian profile, so her name is now Cleo — short for Cleocatra.
Changes
Things are kind of insane right now. Within a span of four days, we brought home a foster cat, realized that with two people and two cats we definitely couldn’t keep ‘making do for now’ with the amount of space we have, found a new place via Craigslist, checked it out, and secured it as our own.
We move in August 8.
The new place is warm and bright and we could feel its good vibes immediately. We’ll be doing some major purging as we sort through our collective belongings to pack, ridding ourselves of literal and figurative baggage. I’ve been feeling discombobulated for a long time, having trouble focusing and not feeling like I had the time or mental energy to bring to life the creative things that have been banging around in my head. The thought of starting in a physical, mental, emotional space that’s a fresh and clean slate is so freeing, and this is such a huge step toward making the lives we actually want to live, that when I think about it I get a really strong physical reaction – a nervous energy roiling in my stomach, making me nauseated and giddy at the same time.
And like a horrible zombie risen from the dead, this blog is back
How to Survive a Zombie Attack, by Acey Duecy, by Hryck.
