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October 29, 2004
Nationalism and the Devil
I bet you thought from the above title that this might be about the upcoming US elections. But no. The "nationalism" part refers to a news article I just read that talks about Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara's order for schools to display the Japanese flag and play the national anthem even though the emperor himself has come out against forcing schools to do so. Of course, if you follow Japan and Japanese politics even in the slightest, you know how much of an ass Ishihara can be. (There was an NPR story on Japan that aired on All Things Considered yesterday titled "Japan Considers New Global Role" that contained a choice remark or two from Ishihara.)
Oh, and the "devil" part is about another story I just read about the new Devilman film, which is an adaptation of Go Nagai's manga from the 1970s.
Posted by brianruh at 06:49 AM | Comments (1)
October 20, 2004
MSNBC Hentai Hack Job
This is the kind of thing that really irritates me: MSNBC is running a pair of articles (part 1 and part 2) on what it's calling 'toon porn.' Of course I wouldn't really expect much less from such this 'legitimate' news source, but the author trots out some well-worn stereotypes and makes me wonder if he knows anything about animation or anime. (I guess this falls under the "Well, it's just cartoons so anyone can write about it, no real knowledge of the subject required" category.)
Posted by brianruh at 06:46 AM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2004
Weekend Life
I just got back last night from this year's meeting of the Society for Literature and Science, where I gave a paper on technology and anime fandom. (I wasn't so sure about the paper at first, but I think it turned out better than I thought. This is certainly a topic I'm going to have to revisit.) I was disappointed by the fact that we didn't have more of an audience -- there were only seven people or so out there in the chairs. Of course, our topic had been pushed to the periphery of the conference, as we had to present at 8:30am on the very last day, when most everyone else was packing up to leave.
On the plus side of things, I did get to meet up with a lot of people whom I hadn't seen in a while, like Marc, Frenchy, and Brent. I also got to meet Tim Perper and Martha Cornog (who were on the panel with me and who wrote a long paper on manga in the journal Sexuality & Culture) as well as author/filmmaker Ruth Ozeki (who was one of our few audience members; I've been meaning to check out her books like My Year of Meats but have not yet gotten around to it).
On my way back to Indiana yesterday, I found one of the greatest things ever: a used bookstore at an airport! Frenchy and I spent a good chunk of time looking around the store, called 2nd Ed. Book Sellers, in the Raleigh/Durham Airport. I picked up an interesting tome called The Book on the Bookshelf. I've been thinking a lot about the organization of books recently because 1) I really need to do some organizing of my own, as all my books are barely contained by the many inexpensive MDF bookcases we've purchased from Target in the last few years and 2) the library at IU is really quite disorganized and it's ofter very difficult to find things in there (it looks like they're running out of room, as there are almost always books that have been shelved sideways on top of other books because they won't fit anywhere else).
But now I'm back after my brief adventure.
Posted by brianruh at 10:43 AM | Comments (0)
October 11, 2004
Destroy All Monsters' Stray Dog of Anime review
The website Destroy All Monsters now has a great review of my Stray Dog of Anime up. This begins what site editor Musashi calls a monthlong Oshii-fest -- definitely a website worth keeping up with!
Posted by brianruh at 07:44 AM | Comments (1)
October 10, 2004
"Thank you for the flowers and the book by Derrida..."
I've never been a big fan of deconstructionism, but it's certainly worth noting the passing of distinguished French philosopher Jacques Derrida.
According to the BBC article linked above, "Jacques Derrida could claim to be one of the few philosophers of the late 20th Century who people other than students of the subject had actually heard of, says Paris correspondent Hugh Schofield." Indeed, I just mentioned a little while ago on the Anime and Manga Research Circle mailing list that Derrida was casually mentioned in a recently-broadcast episode of "Lupin III" on Cartoon Network.
Posted by brianruh at 08:33 AM | Comments (0)
October 09, 2004
Anime Arrests
The Mainichi Daily News is reporting on the recent arrests of five people in two separate incidents in Japan for selling pirated versions of Doraemon and Dragonball films online.
Posted by brianruh at 04:16 PM | Comments (0)
October 06, 2004
Indiana Student Paper Profile
The Indiana Daily Student has their profile of me up on their website. Cool. I'm at home right now, but I'll be sure to pick up a bunch of the papers when I go in to campus later this morning.
Posted by brianruh at 06:43 AM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2004
Herald Times Feature
There was a big feature on me and my book in yesterday's edition of the Herald Times, Bloomington's local paper. It was really cool -- it ran on the front page of the "Attractions" section. (Does this officially designate me as a local attraction?) I would include a link to the article, but unfortunately the online edition of the paper uses a backward system that allows only paid subscribers to access the full articles.
Posted by brianruh at 08:24 AM | Comments (0)