August 2008 log

This is a better attempt than last month’s log; I think it covers everything, though I did get distracted late in the month. I still fail at cleaning out drafts; I’m up to nineteen (not counting this), and the next thing I post won’t be one of those (xxxHOLiC DVD 4, partially because the xxxHOLiC posts are the ones that get the most hits, probably due to the cover art). August was my second-best month, hitwise, and the last week was the second best week (three behind the best, and three ahead of the third-best). I want to poke at the stats and see how many of those were images and how many were actual page views; I wish wordpress counted them separately.

Summary: read 7 (2 fantasy, 3 science fiction (2 borderline romance), 1 alternate history, 1 manga (fantasy)); 2 started but chose not to finish (one regency romance, one fantasy/romance); 3 reread (+ 1 started but unfinished). I need to start paying more attention to librarything, too; every time I go to add books, I notice there are all sorts of nifty new features, but never actually try to take advantage of them. I was also failing to add things there while I was failing here, so at some point, I’m going to have to take all of the loose books lying around and double-check them there.

Ju-ken, fall and winter, 2008

I’ve been keeping up with the 2008 activities of the Japanese bassist Ju-ken (just finished touring with VAMPS and occasionally playing with Anna Tsuchiya, will be in Gackt’s upcoming tour, has toured with Tomoyasu Hotei for the last few years, and occasionally performs with a variety of other artists); that post is getting large, so I’m giving the upcoming information (mid-November onwards) its own post, but anything in here will also be there. There’s some information about the bands he’s actually a member of (Hellmetz, Quintillion Quiz) and some other general information in that post as well. There’s not a lot of upcoming events beyond Gackt’s tour.

Releases:

• as a member:
• Quintillion Quiz: their second single was sold at their August 12 show and is being sold via mail order; the disc itself has a picture from Ju-ken’s birthday, but no song titles have been mentioned.
• as support:
• probably on some part of Anna Tsuchiya’s album Nudy Show (CD and CD+DVD), released 2008.10.29; few songs had performance credits. The band composed and arranged and were credited with performing “Blood on Blood”, though. The DVD had PVs and some backstage clips; he was in some of those.
• in part of Gackt’s 「nine＊nine」 set (2008.10.29, live CDs from all concerts + an extra DVD + mini tour pamphlets)
• in the PV for Gackt’s “Jesus”, but didn’t record on the single (CD+DVD is Dears-only; regular version available 2008.12.03)
• in the VAMPS live DVD to be released in February

TV:

• Nov 1, CDTV with Masaharu Fukuyama
• Nov 14, Music Station with Anna Tsuchiya (also with Jun-ji on drums; Muta had a conflict)
• Nov 21, Music Station with Gackt
• Nov 29, Music Fair with Gackt
• Dec 4, Music Japan with Gackt
• Dec 19, Music Fighter with Gackt

Live:

• Gackt, December – April 2009, “Requiem et Reminiscence II ～再生と邂逅～” (dates and information)
• Anna Tsuchiya, Dec 31 at Shibuya DUO Music Exchange
• Several dates with Quintillion Quiz in January and February (details; generally they update the original post instead of making new ones): January 7 at Omotesando FAB: 【TRANSMISSION ‘09】 QUINTILLION QUIZ/Obiwans/JOVO; January 14 at Meguro Live Station with 遠藤一馬 (Kazuma Endo) and KING; Jan 20 at Takadanobaba Club Phase: マンスリー企画 BULL ZEICHEN 88 Presents [BULL ZEICHEN QQ] (sold out!) ; Jan 28 at Nagoya ell.SIZE: QUINTILLION QUIZ/INSIDE TOWN MONKEYS/The stAnd/他; Feb 8 in Osaka: 霊-kotodama- 4manLIVE!! w：LUTE・LOSTONE・nex-tage; Feb 11 in Tokyo (tba); and Feb 21 “主催イベント！Welcome to the FUCKIN’QUIZ　VOL.６!!!QQ１周年PARTY！!” (one-year anniversary party)

Other:

• new goods: a new T-shirt (commemorating Gackt’s tour) and a new set (“あなたの日常のお側セット” — hand towels, coaster, mousepad, pen, pencil) (the set is sold out); selling via mailorder and on Gackt’s tour; information and pictures are on the main page of his site
• jewelry with CRAFT: a ring (“friend of the eternity”), a pendant (“guardian of the eternity”), and a chain (“bond of the eternity”); the pendant and chain are both listed under necklaces (site is flash, so no direct links). These are the items he was referring to in an earlier blog entry
• was in the October 2008 issue of Bass Magazine (on sale Sept 19); the article is about the relationship between singers and their bassists, and includes five bassists, two with singers (including Ju-ken and Anna Tsuchiya). The cover itself is Robert Trujillo of Metallica, but there is a small picture on the cover for this article of Ju-ken x Anna.
• was interviewed in Monthly VAMPS #3; will probably be in any recording/live/backstage reports in future volumes (was definitely in #2, #3, #4, #5)

Mercedes Lackey: The Snow Queen

The world of the Five Hundred Kingdoms is a world ruled by the fairy tale traditions; there are Godmothers who oversee parts of the kingdoms and make sure that the Tradition is followed in such a way that everyone gets what they deserve; if necessary, they can nudge events to follow a different traditional path or create new traditions. People who find themselves in Traditional situations often have a buildup of magic around them, which can attract the wrong sorts; the Godmothers often use that magic to ensure a satisfactory resolution. This is the fourth in this series, but it’s not really connected to the others beyond being in the same world; the Godmother Elena (from the first novel) is a character in this, but her being a Godmother is more relevant than her history. Instead of being a straight fairy-tale retelling, the books take bits and pieces from various stories and attempt to create a cohesive story from them. This book had its flaws, but overall was an enjoyable bit of fluff; she actually addresses that in an author’s note, that there is a place for escapist literature and happily-ever-afters.

Aleksia, Queen of the Northern Lights, the Snow Queen, etc., is the Godmother for some of the Northern Kingdoms. She lives alone in her ice palace in the north, with a revolving group of brownies as servants; one of the main things she does is take men who are in danger of becoming overly obsessed to the point of becoming at least amoral if not villainous and keeping them until they remember the important things; usually they have a woman following to attempt rescue. The current one is Kay, who has the potential to become a Clockwork Artificer (intent on creating life, no matter what cost), if an evil magician didn’t find him first; his girlfriend Greta is searching for him, and at one point is captured by bandits and given to the chief’s daughter as a servant. Aleksia is keeping an eye on her as well; she is good but selfish and may end up taking over the bandits and leading a revolution in her kingdom in a few years (the current king is a bit of a tyrant).

Nearby, but not really under Aleksia’s purview, are the Sammi; they are a loose confederation of nomadic reindeer herders instead of an actual kingdom. The Wise Women read the runes for the children and the runes decide what path the children should take in life. Kaari has the unusual rune for Heart, which makes everyone love her; she somehow manages to become engaged to Veikko, the son of Annuka, the village’s Wise Woman, without causing too much chaos of disgruntled suitors. Veikko had the runes of Warrior and Mage; there was no one in the village who could train him, so he left in search of teachers. Eventually word gets around among the Sammi (and also to Elena) that the Snow Queen is killing villages overnight and taking men; Aleksia is not happy to hear this and ends up taking a role in the story itself instead of just overseeing others. Kaari has a silver cup that shows Veikko’s health, and it turns mostly black, so she and Annuka end up searching for him; eventually they meet Aleksia and later Veikko’s teachers and they all end up working together.

I liked this book better than the previous volumes, possibly because it was more fantasy and less romance than the others; Gerda and Kay and Kaari and Veikko were pre-existing couples, and the other characters only met possible romantic prospects near the end. This book does have its flaws; she does have a distinct style, and all of her characters have similar thought processes and speech patterns. The ending seemed a bit anti-climatic, but I can’t put my finger on why; the final confrontation followed normal fairy-tale logic (taken straight from some tale that I can’t immediately identify), and the motivations of the various characters were fully presented, but it wasn’t entirely satisfying. The story of Gerda and Kay seemed tacked on instead of integrated into the main plot; their story was resolved partway through and I halfway expected them to show up later, but they did not. It seemed to be there more for a source of exposition as to how the Godmothers worked and why Aleksia was different than to actually contribute towards the story; I do wonder if the bit with the bandit’s daughter and the Tyrant might be hooks for another novel. It’s an interesting world, and I like the concept, but there was a bit much infodumping and explanation in this book. I was vaguely annoyed that random animals were capitalized: Bears, but wolves; Swans, but geese. There was also a bit of an editing issue, with two slightly different versions of a scene (the aftermath of Annuka and Kaari and the bandits) appearing; Annuka and Kaari were cleaning up after dealing with the bandits, the action shifted to Aleksia, and when it shifted back to Annuka and Kaari, they were cleaning up after the bandits again with enough repeated actions that it was obviously a different version instead of slightly later.

These are published by Luna, which is an imprint of Harlequin; I was not aware of that until after I had read the first two, and felt that that explained some of the issues I had with them. The first (The Fairy Godmother, the Elena who is a recurring character) had more of a focus on romance (and more sex, though it was the only one with much) than I really expected; I felt the ending of the second (One Good Knight) was a bit of a cop-out and it would have been better with lesbians; and I don’t really remember the third (Fortune’s Fool) at all; I think it was the book that I felt needed more conflict or suspense or something; happy endings are nice, but some trouble along the way would have been nice as well. This one had more of a focus on the action than the romance, and the focus on the action added a little more conflict to the story.

Agatha Christie’s Marple: Series 3: Nemesis

This is disc two of the third series; it was the last aired in the UK, but the second in the US. For some reason, this series has aired in its entirety in the US (summer 2007, with the DVD release in the fall), but has not yet or only just completely aired in the UK (two September 2007, two August 2008; Nemesis is listed with a generic August airdate on wikipedia (page has cast lists and very vague spoilers about changes)); the cast list is also on imdb.

There are probably spoilers here; it is difficult to talk about the differences without them. I had seen the cast list and was aware that it was not a close adaptation; very few of the novel’s characters are in the cast list (the murderer, the accused, the victim, and a supporting character; all might as well have been different people, and the supporting character didn’t even have the same function as in the novel). I also had watched the first series and had seen how far they strayed from the novels as time went on; the first two were relatively faithful, the third had some characterization changes and extra added angsty subplots, and the fourth had what was essentially the same plot with different characters. I had at one point decided to watch this one next because it looked so different, but had decided to continue in order; I failed to change my queue or check it until after this one had shipped, though. Netflix does have all of the first three series, but the second two are listed under the book name only, not as part of Agatha Christie’s Marple as the first was.

The basic plot was the same: Jason Rafiel has died and left a sum to Miss Marple, under the condition that she investigate an unidentified past event (identifying the event (a murder, of course) was part of the investigation); he arranges for her to go on a house tour through the relevant area. The murderer’s motive and eventual (generic, not specific) fate are also the same, but everything else is different. It is not clear how Mr. Rafiel and Miss Marple met (in the books, previously in A Caribbean Mystery; here, unspecified, though I skipped some and don’t know if he was written into one of those), but his personality and history are completely different. The amount of the bequest was also changed (£20,000 in the book vs. £500 here), but that may be because they moved the story into the past; the novel was one of the last she wrote (published in 1971), while this was set in 1951.

Miss Marple receives instructions (via gramophone) and two tickets for a tour, she decides to take her womanizing nephew Raymond West along. It becomes obvious early on that the other tourists were hand-picked by Mr. Rafiel, though none of them knew it; everyone received tickets from some source instead of deciding that this tour was a good idea. The book had a mix of tourists, and the ones that Mr. Rafiel sponsored knew it. The tour guide is named Georgina Barrow, but she bears no resemblance to the Georgina Barrow of the book.

This adaptation had a World War II-era backstory, including Nazis, a convent, nuns, wounded soldiers, amnesia victims, heiresses, servants, landlords, blackmail, a missing girl in the past, and two murders in the present; the book had school headmistresses and professors and other random people, mostly around the same class as Miss Marple (with maybe a title somewhere), a murder and a missing girl (I think; it might have been two murders, though) in the past and one in the present, with a someone convicted of the murder. One of the Netflix reviewers complained about extra added lesbians, but I didn’t see any difference in that particular relationship between the book and its adaptation.

The overall plot seemed very contrived: eleven years later, Mr. Rafiel somehow managed to track down everyone who knew Verity around the time of her disappearance; it’s possible he managed to find out about her last landlord, but unlikely he would have found the ex-soldier significant unless he knew her eventual fate, and if he knew her eventual fate, he could have gone through more normal channels. I think the tour in the book was a normal tour that happened to go near the relevant area; Mr. Rafiel arranged for Miss Marple to stay with a family who knew Verity (the missing girl/murder victim) during part of the tour. This tour was probably planned by Mr. Rafiel to go to all of the relevant locations, including a forced overnight stay at the abandoned convent. He also gave Miss Marple more relevant clues in this than she had in the book; staying with the relevant family (three sisters, either widowed or never married) led to a more natural exposition of the backstory in the novel. In this, Miss Marple didn’t really do anything beyond ask loud questions and listen to the answers. I’m not sure why the killer tried to poison her at the end; it seemed very abrupt.

The book didn’t have as much action or random subplots as its adaptation; it had a bit more of an aura of menace and a bit of creepiness, though. It was obvious that something was not quite right, but was not obvious until the end who was responsible. I am unfortunately hazy on the book’s details at this time, but may go back and write a longer comparison later; I did write a long plot synopsis of this adaptation for future reference. This might not have been a bad murder mystery on its own, but it bears no resemblance to the book it takes its name from.

Rosemary Edghill: Two of a Kind: an English Trifle

This is one of her Regency romance novels, long out of print, borrowed from the library. I’ve read and liked several of her other works (her mysteries and some of her fantasy), including one of her other romances (also from the library), and wanted to like this one, but could not finish it. I like her writing, was interested in the characters, and was curious how everyone would get their happy endings, but did not like and could not get past most of the characters’ attitudes towards Lady Juliette (the lead). I’ve already returned it, so will have to be vague with names.

Lady Juliette is an only child of a wealthy man; her mother died when she was very young, and her father essentially raised her as his estate agent. She planned to go to London for the Season under the sponsorship of family friends, but they could not go for some reason. She ended up hiring a companion and going anyway, but was not particularly successful despite her fortune; this was probably due to a combination of her hired companion, her personality (very managing), and her clothes. Her maid was her mother’s, and she took her advice on the matter of fashion, resulting in an extremely out-of-date wardrobe in unflattering colors. This was actually my first stumbling block; she does not see much difference between what she wears and what everyone else is wearing, despite the fact that her styles are much more ornate and the colors much brighter. I could accept not caring, but not seeing is a different matter.

The story begins after the Season; Juliette is attending house-parties in an effort to avoid a summons to her great-aunt’s house. The current house has a marriageable son and a hopeful mother, though Juliette and the son are aware of his mother’s hopes but are not interested in each other. The son is very easygoing and not particularly discriminating about his friends; one of his friends (invited to the party) is someone with a deservedly bad reputation (was disowned and decided to ruin himself further). Among the other house-guests are Juliette’s friend Althea, her sister Isobel and their family; Juliette’s cousin Anthony arrives later with instructions to take Juliette to her aunt. The rake meets Juliette while she is out riding, and kisses her; they are surprised to meet again as fellow house-guests. He was not planning on staying more than a night, but decides to stay longer because of her. Complications ensue, mostly due to money and expectations of money and relationships forming occasionally because of those expectations, but mostly despite them.

I was interested in the plot; at the point where I stopped, I didn’t see how any of the projected couples could have ended up with a happy ending. Everyone’s thoughts of Juliette include mention of how ridiculous her wardrobe is or how badly she interacts with people or other negative thoughts (varying from mild to scornful); this was the reason I could not continue. I cannot read or watch things where everyone is mocking the lead behind their back. If it hadn’t been overdue, I might have kept at it longer (a chapter here and there), but I didn’t care enough to renew it. I might try it again some other time, though.

not a July 2008 log

I realized halfway through the month that I’d failed to keep any sort of track of anything, and so have absolutely no idea what I might have read or watched this month. Despite the lack of updates, July was my best month for hits ever; sadly that’s probably at least in part due to people hotlinking images, though the related posts are also getting a significant number of hits. On the one hand, hotlinking images is stealing bandwidth; on the other hand, it’s not my bandwidth and wordpress doesn’t seem to mind; on the other other hand, it’s skewing my stats a bit, since they don’t distinguish between image hits and actual page hits. If I can actually sleep properly, maybe I can get my drafts cleared out and start posting more often. I have fifteen drafts; a couple are notes-to-self, one is waiting for more information (either I find the relevant discs or wait for the official release), but the others are all things I wanted to post at one point. The earliest is from last November and was abandoned until I got the next book of the series (last Christmas), and at this point may wait until the next is released. I don’t know why I don’t think that brief thoughts are OK as posts, but I’m going to try to convince myself of that; I’d like to post more here (oddly, I’ve been posting on lj a lot lately, mostly musician-related ramblings, though).