Mercedes Lackey: Foundation

This is the first Valdemar book she’s written in a while; it’s the start of a new series (The Collegium Chronicles) set a few generations after Magic’s Price (there is a Bard who learned a song from his mentor who had Stefen as his mentor). The timeline at the beginning has Magic’s Price as occurring during the reign of Randale, beginning in 798 AF and this set a little after 850 AF (no specific date). The Herald’s Collegium is currently being built; previously, trainees were trained individually or in very small groups by a mentor, but there has been a sudden influx of trainees and the number of Heralds who can safely have trainees (either based in Haven or on less-dangerous circuits) is not enough to cope. There is a general air of unease underneath everything in Haven, but the reasons aren’t really clear. Part of the unease is because some of the Heralds are not happy about the new Collegium; they think that the trainees need more personal supervision or the old ways were best or don’t like that there are enough trainees to force a change in training from mentor-apprentice to school-based or aren’t happy that there are trainees from more diverse backgrounds than previously. In the background, but only mentioned in passing, is that a sudden influx of trainees generally means a sudden need of new Heralds, often due to loss of existing Heralds due to war or other catastrophe.

Mags is a thirteen-year-old boy working in a gem mine along with a number of other orphaned or otherwise abandoned children; they are all underfed and overworked and there was a threat of murder for disobedience (people occasionally died in suspicious cave-ins; there were a few more blatant instances as well). He is eventually Chosen and taken to Haven to begin his training. Left alone at the Collegium at midwinter (his friends and most of the other Trainees went home), he attracts the attention of Master Builder Soren (ran into him at the market and advised him that the jewelry he was considering buying had flawed gems), and finds himself invited to one of Master Soren’s midwinter open houses. He meets several others around his age there and becomes friends with them. They are all the children of notable people and spend time spying (looking for signs of trouble; there are vague indications of unrest) under the direction of the King’s Own.

I thought this book was all right and I will read the next, but it is very generic Lackey and in some ways a retread of earlier books; there are parallels between Mags and Talia and also Mags and Skif, and there were also a couple of scenes that distinctly reminded me of other books, though in one case it was a generic sort of scene and I’d just read another book with a similar event. My biggest problem with the book was the complete lack of conflict or drama or action, even (except for a small amount at the end); I like escapist fluff, but I want a little more substance than this book had. Once Mags is at the Collegium, everything falls into place for him with very few problems (see below for a full description); he has no problems adjusting to the changes in his life, no problems controlling his Gift, and no one really cares about his upbringing. The one thing that actually bothered me about the book was that after he was first Chosen, his Companion kept him calm and accepting without telling Mags that he was controlling him. Mags was not bothered when he found out that his Companion could control his mind, either. Despite everything, I did find myself caring about the characters somewhat and wondering what the foreshadowing with Mags signified and what would happen next.

Mags is Special: Even at the mine, he is the best miner; most of the truly horrific parts of the experience are told later and most were seen, not experienced (not that being underfed and overworked and underdressed isn’t horrible). He somehow managed to teach himself to read and write sentences while all the other children were still struggling with simple words. The change in his situation is never too much for Mags to deal with (though his Companion was keeping him calm at first). He learns to ride quickly, though he does have some problems at first. Once at the Collegium, he gets a room to himself away from the other trainees. He is a natural with weapons, despite an early reluctance to raise a weapon against another person. No one cares that he has an extremely low-class background. He does relatively well in his classes (not the best, but not the worst), despite his almost complete lack of education; he does have a tutor for some subjects (history, especially) and he ends up with a friend as his tutor instead of an actual teacher. He has an extremely strong Mindspeech Gift, and has no problem controlling it. He and his Companion are closely linked enough that Dallan spends a lot of his time telling Mags what he should do in any given situation, so Mags doesn’t commit any social errors. He doesn’t make friends that easily at first, but he doesn’t make enemies either. He does spend a lot of time alone and just kind of avoiding company, but once he realizes that he is lonely, he acquires friends (not deliberately); Lena is a Bardic Trainee and the daughter of a high-ranking Bard, and Bear is a Trainee Healer without the Gift but with the best knowledge of herbal medicines of anyone at the Collegium. He attracts the attention (positive) of various high-ranking people and ends up with the King’s Own as his unofficial mentor.

Hotei and the Wanderers Funky Punky Tour 2007-2008

The DVD is from the January 27, 2008 concert at Kawaguchi Lillia. I preordered this and watched it in early May and at least once since (was watching random songs, and eventually sat down and watched the whole thing). It’s been sitting as a draft since then because I wanted to do a full report with screencaps, but couldn’t get motivated for that; I may eventually do a longer review (track by track, with pictures), but this will just be an overall impression.

I liked this well enough, though I kind of regret paying full price for it; I don’t think it’s worth that much, and it’s already showing up for close to half price on ebay. I don’t like the front cover; he looks a bit smug; the back cover has individual member pictures along with the details. The DVD came with an eight-page booklet; the covers had a picture of the group on one side and the member names on the other, and there were two-page spreads of several pictures, a group shot and the track list, and an overhead shot and the credits. The extras included member interviews and a slideshow, which was all Hotei.

The performance itself sounded decent; I didn’t notice anything off musically (which means nothing, really, since I wouldn’t notice unless it was very bad); Hotei’s voice was a little off in a couple of places, but was fine otherwise, and there were a couple of instances of slightly off-key backing vocals. Any MCs were not included, though there was a long band introduction sequence. Many of the songs were rearranged to include solos from the various members. The energy level was decent (nobody looked bored, at least); the main part didn’t show much of the audience, but they were shown more in the encore and did seem to be enjoying themselves.

The stage was fairly small, with two levels: Ju-ken (bass) — Hotei (vocal/guitar) — Takuya (guitar) in the front and Steve Eto (percussion) — Tatsuya Nakamura (drums) — Ken Morioka (keyboards) on the higher level in the back. For the acoustic parts, most of the members came down to the front of the stage.

The band, normally

One variation of the stage during the acoustic songs

The camera annoyed me to no end; the main concert had too many artsy camera angles and effects (random body parts (not the parts playing instruments), focus on the person behind with a blurry part of a person in front, too much love for the overhead camera; I spent too much time trying to figure out what various pieces of equipment were and why Ju-ken seemed to have a black on white setlist while everyone else had green on black). The encore was more straightforward. I have a general issue with concert DVDs and solos; I would like to see the soloist, and they weren’t always shown.

This concert was billed as “Hotei and the Wanderers”; I (correctly) expected Hotei to get the majority of the screen time, but expected the others to be shown more-or-less equally. My biases may be influencing my perceptions of camera time per member, so this might not actually mean much; I am not anal-retentive enough to go back through and time the amount each member had on-camera. I was satisfied with the amount of Ju-ken (though more is always better) and Ken Morioka (though that may be because I don’t find keyboard players that interesting visually; a fan of his might have a different opinion), but was not satisfied with the rest. I was surprised that Takuya wasn’t on screen more. Steve Eto was not shown much, which was a severe disappointment; I wasn’t familiar with him, but I like watching percussionists in general and was looking forward to there being one.

Tatsuya Nakamura seemed to have his own camera, which was surprising; it seems that in general drummers are either ignored because they are just the drummer or have an abundance of camera time because they are stationary, but this also had two other members who were mostly stationary and on either side of him who didn’t have the time on camera he did. This was extremely obvious in the two songs that were performed with a three-piece band, and especially in the one where they were all in the front; the camera time was mostly split between Hotei and Nakamura. I didn’t mind watching him; he was enthusiastic and interesting to watch (and I have fallen in love with Losalios, and never would have heard them without this), but wish his time hadn’t been at the expense of others. One thing I did notice was that most of Nakamura’s screen time came from the camera on Morioka’s side; I don’t know if there was a technical reason for that, but it might also explain the lack of Steve Eto; it also seemed that the camera on Ju-ken was mostly from that side as well (when not from the front or overhead). It doesn’t explain why the camera seemed to be on Nakamura more than Morioka, though.

Members (profiles on Hotei’s site):

Tomoyasu Hotei (布袋寅泰) — vocal and guitar
Tatsuya Nakamura (中村達也) — drums
Ju-ken — bass (new site)
Ken Morioka (森岡 賢) — keyboards
Steve Eto — percussion
Takuya — guitar

Everyone except Tatsuya Nakamura provided backing vocals; Morioka had the falsetto-ish backing vocals; Eto had the bass-ish ones (surprisingly; his speaking voice wasn’t that low).

recently watched

where recently = late spring and onwards; I have far too many half-finished drafts that have been sitting long enough that I couldn’t finish them properly without rewatching but hate to delete the parts I wrote. These are mostly the impressions that were left and not thoughts at the time.

Monster Drive Party, Tomoyasu Hotei, 2005 tour — a very intense performance, but it did not translate well to DVD (or at least wasn’t what I want out of a tour DVD); dark and murky; uneven camera (I hate to say too much Hotei (and I wouldn’t have bought this if I didn’t like him), but would have liked to see more of the band in general, and specifically the left side, which was under-represented).

Aurora Madturn, LOSALIOS — solo project of Tatsuya Nakamura (中村達也, drums, ex-Blankey Jet City); core band was Tokie (bass, unkie and support) and Takashi Kato (カトタカシ, 加藤隆志, guitar, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra); some songs featured Asuka Kaneko (金子飛鳥, violin) and/or Masami Tsuchiya (土屋昌巳, guitar, ja.wikipedia). I love this (music and performance and all), but it’s probably not for everyone. The music is instrumental and occasionally a bit repetitive and/or formulaic; the performance is not the most exciting as everyone stays in their own spot on stage (involved and interested and intent on their playing, just not moving around much). The focus is on Nakamura; Tokie and Kato are playing as much to him and each other as to the audience, and when the others appear, they are off to the sides. Mixed in with the performances are some backstage clips and other random footage. (From this, Ghost Club and Three Dog Night are on youtube)

The Avengers ‘66 v1 — a bit much of dated race portrayals; native savages in one (though somewhat poking at that stereotype) and even in black and white, a white person in a dark wig + makeup does not really look Chinese or African. The “Chinese” woman’s wig was particularly obvious and the “African” woman made me think of Hawaii; she was wearing a strapless dress with a large floral pattern and a big flower in her hair. Oddly, most of the men in both episodes seemed to be somewhere near the proper ethnicity for their parts. None of the roles were very large; the “Chinese” woman was only in the beginning of her episode and there was a Chinese man with a small speaking part later, and one of the African men had a brief role as exposition-man (I don’t think the “African” woman spoke; if she did, it wasn’t more than a line or two). Other than the racial issues, these episodes were standard Avengers fare: there is a dust that kills all plants and birds it comes in contact with, and there are carphones and hunting and Mrs. Peel being chased by someone on a horse and generally kicking ass; disappearing physicists, and one reappeared and suddenly hated his Chinese wife, and there is weirdness within a hotel; and one that starts with a man shot by a “native” arrow outside of London and an odd sickness caused by a cult and affecting men who had served in an African colony and drums in the distance that were plot, not soundtrack.

The Avengers ‘66 v2 — I don’t think I took notes and have since returned it; I wasn’t impressed with these episodes. One had Mrs. Peel kidnapped at the beginning, with her substitute acting as Steed’s sidekick throughout the episode, so there was not enough of Mrs. Peel to interest me in this episode. One involved shenanigans at a golf course and was bland. One started with a dead man in a pram and ended up at a dance school and involved a shoemaker and a tattooist.

The Legend of the Shadowless Sword — a Korean attempt at a wuxia-style movie; pretty but extremely predictable. Vaguely historical, set in 927 A.D. The capital of Balhae fell to Georan; the Georans have been killing off all of the royal family of Balhae, but realize they could use one as a public-relations prop; the resistance is also looking for last member of the royal family and find him first (barely); most of the movie is them fleeing and her trying to convince him to be king (and at first, him running away from her because he doesn’t want to be king). A bit gory: geysers of blood, exploding bodies, limbs flying everywhere; visibly and audibly breaking bones were what made me start fast-forwarding through any fight scenes with large groups, though. (movie on wikipedia and imdb; Balhae on wikipedia)

September 2008 log

Fail, again; I was doing well, but then lost track of things halfway through the month, so it’s probably not complete. Despite abandoning this in September, it was my best month ever, hit-wise, though I think a lot of that was from image searches for xxxHOLiC; I had a best day ever that lasted a few weeks (a new best day ever was in October; half the hits were on the various xxxHOLiC pages, more than half on the images themselves). I think I’m going to take my drafts and make a couple of big posts out of them (thoughts only instead of descriptions and details and such) to get them out of the way (20 drafts at this point) and try again to start with just thoughts and not attempts at serious reviews (hopefully smaller posts, more often).