Dept. of Music

Sunday, 23 June 2024 10:07 pm
kaffy_r: The TARDIS says hello (Default)
No, Not Stray Kids

Instead, it's this perfectly gorgeous piece from the anime "Made in Abyss." 

The entire soundtrack of all the series' seasons was created by Kevin Penkin, and I think he's brilliant. This, though; this is transcendent and always brings tears to my eyes. 

Also, when I was reading the Icelandic lyric, it suddenly occurred to me that Icelandic might be related linguistically to the language spoken in the Faroe Islands, (possibly because of 
[personal profile] elisi , who doesn't quite live rent free in my brain, but does have a guest bedroom there) My google-fu tells me that's the case. 

Anyhow, I'm tired and kind of burned out, so I'm heading to bed. Here's the music.


kaffy_r: The star poet from the SJ Adventures (Star poet)
The Music of "Made in Abyss"

When I have more intellect and command of language than I have tonight, I may talk about one of the most brilliant anime I've seen for a long time: "Made in Abyss" (short form: brilliant, gloriously alien, unbearably sorrowful, with silver glints of hope insistently growing in the corners, artistically stunning, a gorgeous and frightening world, characters that hug your heart so hard it threatens to burst, and oh, did I mention brilliant?) 

But right now, I'll just put its Season 2 OST here. It's pretty glorious. 


kaffy_r: (Happy Kyouso Giga daughter)
Scattered Thoughts
  • If you and your spouse/significant other can build shelving units together without killing each other, yours is a relationship blessed to last. I know this is true.
  • If you and your spouse/significant other can have wildly divergent thoughts about The Green Knight, and still love each other, (me: a glorious masterpiece; BB: boring, repetitive pretension), the same applies.
  • If you can watch anime together, and agree on what's brilliant, what's good, what's trash and what's fun trash year after year after year, the same applies, 

Dept. of Saturday

Saturday, 12 June 2021 05:26 pm
kaffy_r: (Kyouso Giga family 2)
Sun, Rain, Thunder, Then Sun Again - Happy Chicago!

It is about 36 hours after Chicago (and the rest of Illinois) opened up, and I'm still conflicted about whether I'm going to enter places without a mask in hand, or on my face. I've gotten a copy of my vaccination record laminated and it's in my purse, but I keep remembering news stories about douchecanoes boasting about having fake vaccination records, and I don't want anyone to side-eye me suspiciously. So for now, I'm going to be wearing my mask everywhere.

I haven't been outside today, except to take out the garbage, and I'm glad I didn't go out thereafter. Even the short trip to the dumpster was uncomfortable. At that point, the sun was shining with a will, and it just got warmer and warmer until we got a relatively quick thunderstorm in the middle afternoon. And then the sun reappeared. 

*checks outdoor temperature at 7:30 p.m.*

Ah. It's 81F. Yay.

I really do miss the ability to be out in the sun and imitate salamanders. I used to have that ability, and I used to love the heat. These days, not so much. 

Today, I did manage to get at least two sentences done on both of my fiction endeavors. I count that as a win. I also found some "Zombieland Saga" fics on AO3 - and that's definitely a win. *stans for Best Girl Tae-chan like a stanning thing*

Hmm. Alright, I'll end this by saying I love discovering music on YouTube. I am still luxuriating in my discovery of guitarist Gabor Szabo.  Here's some information about him, and here's my favorite album of his (thus far at least.)





kaffy_r: (Deficiency weekly)
Goodness, It's Hot

The headline really says it all, since we're hovering in the high 80s and low 90s in Chicago, but I suppose I can find a few other things to say. Or maybe just one?

BB and I watched the first episode of "Loki", and were pretty happily impressed.

It didn't shy from the fact that movie Loki, at least the one from 2012, was a charming but murderous asshole. heavy on the murderous part. In fact, it kind of rubs this Loki's face in it, thanks to the character of Mobius, played very well by Owen Wilson.

Age has given Wilson's physical presence a little gravitas, and I think that's allowed him to step ever so slightly out of the Owen Wilson box he's been in. He plays the character as unexpectedly tough, and very likeable. And what he does with Loki allows the writers to immediately address Loki's murderous past. They don't woobify Loki - at least not in the first episode - but they do hint that perhaps this version (the "variant" Loki from 2012 who hasn't gone on a voyage of self-discovery and at least some minimal conscience growth the  the way our main timeline Loki has) might do a little self-discovery himself. 

So yes, impressed, even if I laughed to see the 1960s-Madman-era feel of the TVA so closely resemble the headquarters of our villains from "The Umbrella Academy."

Right now, I'm going to sit down and watch some more anime. Thursdays are the days that my current fave anime, "Zombieland Saga Revenge" drops, and I hate the fact that there's probably only three more episodes in this cour. I loved the first cour, which dropped in 2018, but which BB and I only saw this year, and I'm hoping that they get another cour, and one that arrives a little more quickly than 2.5 years. 

Why do I love Zombieland Saga? Maybe I'll talk about that in another post but for now I'll just say "Zombies! Japanese Idol Groups! Zombies who start an idol group!" and leave it there. God, I love it ....
kaffy_r: Snark about fanfic (Adulthood? It's fanfic)
Monday Regrets

TFW you're sure that someone's written fic for Ingress: The Animation, because it's open-ended and has a three-sided relationship crying out for OT3 storytelling ... and there's nothing. Zip, zilch, nada. 

Don't look at me. I have my hands full with Who, S&S, Vorkosiverse, MCU, and Goblin Emperor. And y'all know how slow I am. 

Yes, I know I shouldn't bitch if I'm not willing to write it.

Yes,  I know no one's been watching the anime.

I'll show myself out. 

*slinks away, disappointed*

Dept. of Argh

Monday, 8 April 2019 08:38 pm
kaffy_r: The llama from Polar Bear Cafe (Llama-san)
Pearls of Wisdom

God, adulting is hard. You'd think that, at 63, I'd have gotten it figured out. 

Ha. 

*Goes back to watching YouTube coverage of newborn kittens and retrospectives of Seasons 1-7 of Game of Thrones.*

Then again,
I posted twice today. And got some questions answered about cremation pre-planning. And yes, that is rather grotesque, but necessary. And I'm going to watch some new anime. And I'm going to hug my Bob, because he is absolutely the best thing in my life, closely followed by my son, who I can't hug right now because Seattle. 

Shut up, 
[personal profile] kaffy_r . Go watch anime. 

kaffy_r: Fan art of Bleach characters (Bleach Set the World on Fire)
So, Perhaps Some Music?

So there were two days or so of stomach bug, two days or so of unhappy response to the supposed Mueller report findings, a couple of days of BB being hit by various ailments, and all of a sudden, I"m back to ghosting myself. That's particularly sad, given all the interesting questions folks gave me to answer. 

I'll return to posting answers to those questions, possibly tomorrow. Today I'm going to indulge myself with music, specifically the opening tunes to two of my favorite anime titles in the current cour; Dororo and The Promised Neverland. Not only are both series fantastic to watch, but their opening musical pieces rise to the same level as the stories and art in both. 

Dororo

This most recent anime remake of an Osamo Tezuka manga (an original anime was made in 1969 - 50 years ago, which threw me for a loop) tells its fantasy story of Warring States Japan, and a mercilessly ambitious daimyo who sells his firstborn to demons in order to gain power and luck, with beautiful art and a remarkably stately pace punctuated by well-developed action. The music for the first opening captures the story's feel as far as I'm concerned. Queen Bee, the English name for the group that performs the theme has a longer version here, and I've liked their other work.




The Promised Neverland

I may personally like Dororo a hair's breadth more than this elegant marriage of (largely unseen) horror and thoughtful coming of age, but it is only by that hair's breadth - and The Promised Neverland is arguably a slightly better title (I can, in my old age, occasionally differentiate between my personal tastes and the potentially objective reality. The Promised Neverland is never less than fully engrossing; the premise is horrifying, the characters are well-drawn and nearly always heart-breaking. The opening music theme is an infectious forward rush underlaid with ominous basso whispers, and, as in the case with the Dororo theme, perfectly captures the feel of the story. 

 
kaffy_r: The TARDIS says hello (Daryun & Narsus)
Alive and Somewhat Cold

There are so many things I want to talk about. But I'm going to curl up on the couch, under my TARDIS blanket, and turn off my mind by watching one of the following: 

a) What we technically call a shit-ton of anime.
b) One episode of the first season of Legion. Just one. One at a time is all I can take of this brilliant but intense series.
c) A couple of episode of The Umbrella Academy. It's brilliant without taking my brain and putting through a shredder, then trying to glue it back together.


Dept. of Birthdays

Sunday, 9 July 2017 04:20 pm
kaffy_r: (Porco Rosso friends)
Natal Felicitations to [personal profile] masakochan !

It's always so much fun to know someone online that shares not one, but many of my particular affections, and 
[personal profile] masakochan  is one of those people. She's a fellow traveler in the Whoniverse, and she knows and loves anime and manga; she shares many of my real world sympathies, and can therefore put up with my intermittent rants about the world. 

She loves animals as well as anime, is determinedly making her way through life even when it gets rocky; she's really a lovely person to know, and I'm glad she's part of my online world. 

I hope your birthday has been good so far, and I hope it signals a good coming year for you. And one of these days I'll rope you into a discussion about Shingeki no Kyojin's second season. You don't have to spoil me about what's coming, I just want to squee with you over the art (which has gotten even better this season), and the pacing and ... and ... well, this is a birthday wish, not a fangirl squee, so forgive me - and Happy, Happy Birthday!
kaffy_r: (Clara didn't ask for this)
Things I Did This Weekend

Saving bandwidth, because that's how I usually roll. )

My vacation begins Friday. I can hardly wait. 

Dept. of Music and Joy

Wednesday, 17 May 2017 08:46 pm
kaffy_r: (Sen Waits)
 July in May

The last couple of days in Chicago have been in the mid-80sF, although tomorrow is supposed to be only in the 70s.  I didn't mind it; I was able to drive to an assignment, and to a doctor's appointment, with the windows down today. (Yesterday was warm enough that I had to put the car's AC on - and I have to get the AC refrigerant topped off, probably when I'm on vacation week after next, because it wasn't very cool.)

I spent four hours yesterday being trained on the new editorial program the Trib is using. Our trainer said we'll have to get trained on yet another system later this summer; apparently they had to go to this interim system first, but it's a lot of training for very little return. 

The newspaper company I used to work for, the Chicago Sun-Times, is about to be swallowed up by the newspaper company it sold my chain to back in 2014. I have very conflicted feelings about that, none of them good, but they're complex enough that I'm not going to go into them now. Maybe later. 

Another thing I may want to go into at another time: how impressed I've been with the second season of Attack on Titan. 

But for now, have this Bob Mould song. It's gorgeous. 




Dept. of Friday

Friday, 10 March 2017 10:03 pm
kaffy_r: (Rabbit Mom 2)
Gintama Is Weirdly Addictive When It Turns Serious

I'll just leave that out there.  

Dept. of April

Friday, 1 April 2016 07:24 pm
kaffy_r: Japanese building w/flowers on blue ground (Blue Nippon)
This and That

As 
[personal profile] selenak  says, April's Fool Day is a bit pointless in a world where Donald Trump has a serious shot at the White House, isn't it? In slightly better news, Bernie stands a chance of winning the Wisconsin primary next Tuesday, and appears to be closing the gap between himself and Clinton in New York, supposedly her home territory. I await those primaries with great interest.

I am so very pleased that  Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū is getting a new season. This anime, which sort of re-introduced me to the Japanese art (some consider it a minor art; I don't) of rakugo, is for me the best anime of the past season, and it may just be a tiny masterpiece. So, hurrah!

Got through this week, and I'm grateful for that!

I developed a new drink for the weekend, involving a frozen strawberry in a martini glass, over which I pour .75 shot of Sayuri brand nigori sake and 1.25 shots of gin.
I call it a strawberry blossom, and in my un-Japanese that comes out as hana ichigo. I'm having one now.

I did some more work on Hearts & Moons, but need to sit down and do more serious plotting (with a map of my setting) than I normally do. I have an ACTION! SCENE! at the heart of this chapter, and I need to know just what I'm doing - and more importantly, what each of my characters is doing - to make it read believably. I am, however, very pleased to have come up with the winning stroke for our heroes. So it's buckle down this weekend, 
[personal profile] kaffy_r . (I won't let the oven cleaning come between me and my writing, although I swear to god, I'm going to get that damned oven cleaned.


kaffy_r: Hayao's realistic Pompoko raccoons yawn in our faces (Pompoko yawns)
A Good Weekend

With the exception of my sore left foot (short version: did something to it back on June 27. It's not a stress fracture, but there's some sort of cyst on one of the bones, I'm going to a podiatrist too many days from now, my body, what a laff riot, blah-blah-fishcakes), this weekend has been a good one. Spent time with Bob, got a few hundred words more done on Chapter 25, made a blueberry pie and entirely too many stuffed poblano peppers for supper today. Well, we have lots of stuffed peppers for lunch, etc., on Monday and Tuesday. Watched some more anime, and came to the sad determination that this latest season's offerings are not nearly as strong as last season's. Watched two more episodes of Defiance and continue to love it. 

Tomorrow? I have an appointment with my gastroenterologist; the next day, I have one with my rheumatologist. I am such an old fart. 

Still, the weather was lovely, I got to listen to an album of piano rolls created by Scott Joplin, and that was lovely, too. I guess I'm going into the week as refreshed as I could ever be. 


kaffy_r: Mid-afternoon view from the spirit world train. (Train view)
Well, The Bread May Not Rise ...

... but, based on previous bread making attempts, I know it will be good-tasting brick bread. Given that I've not made a loaf in months, I'm quite satisfied that a) it's my own fault, not the fault of materials or tools and b) that people will enjoy it (and also c) that once I get back in the swing of bread-making, this problem will disappear.)

In the meantime, while the bread is sadly, not rising, I'm making peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips, whilst sipping on a lovely chilled champagne tulip of asola prosecco. It's the last day of my mental-and-physical-health vacation, and the sun is shining outside. Afro-Caribbean Latin music is filling the house with very danceable rhythms, and a tulip of frosty prosecco is definitely called for. 

Oh, and later, we'll enjoy more of a very nice chicken and biscuit stew I made yesterday, before enjoying (for very skewed values of "enjoying," I'm willing to acknowledge) the final few episodes of Attack on Titan, and perhaps something else.

I'm enjoying AoT far more than I expected to; then again, I enjoyed Kill la Kill more than I expected to. I think it presses a couple of specific buttons I have. One is the button of "living in the shadow of imminent war," specifically "living in the shadow of imminent war in which I, as an active combatant, stand a better than 50 percent chance of dying." I often have dreams about such scenarios. I have no idea why, but I've had them for years. They are not positive dreams, and it's not a positive button, at least not positive in the commonly-held way. But it's a very intense thing, a very alive thing.

The other button is Zombies! Mindless Zombies! Mindelss Zombies With Beatific Smiles! Fourteen-meter Tall Mindless Zombies With Beatific Smiles .. Who Eat People Because They Like To, Not Because They Need To! Did I Mention Mindless? Zombies With No Brains? Yesssssss!

It's a button that's key to a roiling stew of complicated fear and attraction to scenario that takes my Zombie Button reactions, force feeds them steroids and yeast, then puts them in an oven to watch them grow like the unholy beasts they are. 

Put the two buttons together - and then introduce Intelligent Fourteen Meter Tall Zombies Who Might Be The Cure For The Other Ones ... yeah, I'm hooked. 

So there's that. 

Now I need to get back to the peanut butter cookies, and back to getting the pans ready for the not really buoyant bread-to-be. 

All in all, not a bad way to head into the working week. 

Dept. of Awesome

Thursday, 16 April 2015 10:55 pm
kaffy_r: (NaruOMG)
 OMG You Guise ....

Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood!!




kaffy_r: (See the Sky)
 Just A Few Things

We finished watching Shigatsi wa Kimi no Uso (Your Lie in April) tonight. It's been a while since an anime made me cry at the same time it made me happy, at least in the way this did. The key scenes, where Kousei plays the Chopin (I think it was Chopin) were inspired visually, audibly, artistically, in every possible way. This one jumped to my all-time top-whatever; it jumped to BB's list as well. Damn. Now I have to go looking for icons. 

A passing )In completely happier new, I am panic-stricken to realize that I have forgotten to wish a happy birthday to [personal profile] james_davis_nicoll  back on the 18th. Is there some portmanteau wherein we can mash up "laconic" and "loquacious"? No? Then [livejournal.com profile] james_nicoll will have to do. 

And dear lord, [livejournal.com profile] minnehaha K - you are another year wiser today, no? Yes! Many happies to you, with much travel, enough rest when needed, lovies, reading, historical societies, good food, plants and plantings, friends and life lived in full!

Also, Agents of SHIELD continues to be, as far as I'm concerned, awesome.

Dept. of Positivity

Tuesday, 17 March 2015 10:16 pm
kaffy_r: (Porco Rosso friends)
Good Thing for Tuesday

The Girl Standing in the Light of the Dawn, aka Akatsuki No Yona.

The anime is pure, unadulterated pop melodrama history, with a mystical kingdom standing in for, as far as I can see, Korea. That in itself amuses and/or impresses me, given that it's a Japanese anime. The story is so full of anime tropes that I should be bored out of my gourd, but I'm not. I love the slow (oh, so slow) unveiling of the real story, which is Yona's growth as a person and a leader, with the added fun of unexpected chibiness when it's least expected or, probably, appropriate. The art style isn't even one that I normally go for. In fact, everything about this signals that it's the kind of anime I should just yawn and avoid. 

And yet, it's the one I wait for every week. Tuesday is a big day chez Casa KaffBB, because it's Agents of SHIELD Day.  And it's Yona day.

Someday, I should examine why I love this thing so much. But for now, I'm just going to love it. 

(Well, one reason I love it, is some of its music. Its first opening musical theme, and its second closing musical theme, are so very unlike most anime themes, and kind of glorious. At least, I think they're glorious. Here - have cheesy, glorious anime music!

Oh, so wonderfully cheesy .... )
kaffy_r: Hayao Miyazaki's Kiki scrubs the floor in animation (Kiki scrubs)
 A Good Monday, and a Busy Tuesday

Yesterday I kept meaning to sit down and post, because I had exciting news to tell you (well, for various pedestrian powers of exciting.) Remember my tale of pedal woe regarding winter boots, and the supposed loss of the one that didn't need to be fixed, just after I got the other boot fixed? Well, I found the other boot, hiding in a dusty corner of our rear stairwell. You have no idea the amount of rejoicing this engendered. Or perhaps you do, if you know my ability to be chuffed with the slightest positive happening. 

snow and more snow )

kitchen stuff )

In more fannish news, we watched more Korra last night.


We're in the middle of the third season; both BB and I are wondering at the lack of closure from the end of Season 2 ... strike that. Argh: just discovered that we didn't watch the last episode of Season 2 because we somehow didn't acquire it. That explains a lot. How embarrassing. 

We're also well into Durarara, and I can say with certitude that I have never disliked a character more, never solemnly yet feverishly wish for a character's downfall, more than I do Izaya. (I do occasionally remain amazed at my ability to become emotionally connected to 2D characters, but only occasionally. It's me, and that's that.)

And now it's back to the kitchen, although I'm going to move my laptop to the dining room so that I can post throughout the day. And I hope to trawl through my friends' list to find out what y'all have been doing. 
kaffy_r: The TARDIS in snowfall (Christmas TARDIS)
Snowmageddon? Or Snowpocalypse? Hmmm ....

Not compared to the mugging Mother Nature performed on the East Coast just a few days ago, but Chicago and the rest of Illinois are making a valiant come-from-behind effort. We've got 13" 16" on the ground, with more than five hours to go before the blizzard warning is lifted, and we just hit white-out conditions in sections of Cook County. Chicago's apparently the center of this weather system. And also the epicenter. Yay, us!

I'm enjoying the second true day of vacation (my first days of vacation, Friday and Saturday morning, were spent trying to get one last story into my boss on the new NewsGate editorial platform we're using. I shouldn't do that, but I have a new editor - again - and I felt bad not getting as much in to him as possible for while I was gone. So, yeah, real vacation didn't start until Saturday afternoon, although I did escape from the house on Friday.)

Ruminations on cooking )

2D fun )

kaffy_r: (Big Barakomon grin)
I Can Haz Japanese Curry!

Which I made myself, with home-made Japanese curry roux that took about 25 minutes to properly make (butter and flour cooked very slowly, constantly stirring, over low heat for about 22 minutes, and then curry, garam masala and cayenne pepper dumped in and mixed in. I can see why Japanese cooks make extensive use of ready-made curry roux (and I've used it myself), because making it from scratch is time consuming. But I've done it, and I know how to do it now, and that makes me very happy.

Sort of food porn )
Hmmm. Also, in non anime news, BB and I have started watching Legend of Korra. We are greatly impressed, and FB tells me it just keeps getting better. Woo-hoo!

Also, we finally took down the tree and got it to the park district for mulching. Less about what I truly think was about a quarter-pound of needles. That was a very, very, very dry tree by the time we took it out of the house. A vacuum full of needles. I even had to get needles out of the toaster. (Don't ask.)

Off to have a BAM and watch more anime. Because that's how I roll. (Did I mention that I made the curry while dancing around to Brazilian bossanova? I didn't? Well, that's what I did.)

kaffy_r: Hayao's realistic Pompoko raccoons yawn in our faces (Pompoko yawns)
Positivity and Me

Many of my online friends have been having fun with the ultimately wonderful positivity meme, and it makes me smile to read the things they read (even as I, sadly, am monotonously predictable in my lack of response.) Thank all of you for having fun with the meme. It's more than fun, actually; it's a fine and necessary exercise in fighting everything from the mild greys, to the ordinary blues, to the goddamned Black Dogs. So, yes, it's good to see others do it.

We got the condo building basement cleaned up by about 80 percent, and I am very, very happy with that.

I' finally posted the MCU fic that has been bouncing around my head ever since I first saw the movie way back in 2012. Wrote it in one day plus an hour or so - for me, these days, that's fast. The only time I've written faster, or even as fast, is during Fandom Stocking, and I am reasonably pleased with it, as unedited and self-indulgent things go. Now, back to the other story.

Enjoyed reviewing two anime movies that BB and I watched over the past couple of years; Welcome to the Space Show, and Summer Wars. If I wasn't battling a bit of an uncomfortable headache, and was not, therefore, heading to bed in order to have any hope of a productive Monday - I'd talk about why I like them so much. I hope the links are at least a bit informative, although they don't really capture why I truly like the movies.

Going to bed now - have a wonderful Monday!

Dept. of Brainzzz

Wednesday, 16 July 2014 09:19 pm
kaffy_r: Two elegant dancers (Dance)
Scattered Thoughts

I haven't been around for several days, largely because I've been trying to keep up with my work day story minimums. Since I actually haven't been able to do that very well (I will not be surprised if I get hauled in for a disciplinary meeting sometime in the next month or so, but I'm not overly fussed about it) I figured I'd just do a bullet point list on miscellanea, just to keep my oar in.

Under here because bandwidth )

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kaffy_r: The TARDIS says hello (Default)
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