Monthly Archives: January 2017

The Odd Quartet

Posted on January 29, 2017 by Nathan

Hail, Caesar! – I’m actually not sure what the point of this movie was supposed to be. It’s basically a collection of semi-related vignettes about a Hollywood studio, all of which are resolved pretty quickly. Is there a message other … Continue reading →

Posted in Fairy Tales, Humor, Plays, Television, The Simpsons, VoVat Goes to the Movies | Tagged cinderella, coen brothers, hail caesar, into the woods, jack lemmon, neil simon, sleeping beauty, snow white, the odd couple, the warriors, tony randall, walter matthau | 2 Comments

Turtle Whirl

Posted on January 29, 2017 by Nathan

I was looking for information on the Black Tortoise of Winter who played a significant role in Grace Lin’s When the Sea Turned to Silver, and it turns out that he’s pretty closely tied to a god called Xuanwu, a … Continue reading →

Posted in China, Chinese, History, Mythology, Religion, Taoism | Tagged black tortoise of winter, constellations, demons, eight immortals, grace lin, guanyin, immortality, journey to the west, lu dongbin, manchu dynasty, martial arts, ming dynasty, mongols, snakes, song dynasty, when the sea turned to silver, wudang mountains, xuanwu, yongle emperor, yuan dynasty, zhenwu | Leave a comment

Trump and Consequences

Posted on January 28, 2017 by Nathan

I was thinking today how weird it is that many people, including me, have complained both about Donald Trump keeping his campaign promises AND his frequent lies. So he’s damned no matter what he does? Well, sort of, but I … Continue reading →

Posted in Conspiracy Theories, Current Events, Economics, Politics, Prejudice | Tagged alternative facts, antisemitism, donald trump, lies, misogyny, racism, remorse, trust | 1 Comment

Coping with Totalitarianism

Posted on January 27, 2017 by Nathan

The Table of Less Valued Knights, by Marie Phillips – There have been many parodies of the King Arthur mythos, but this one covers some ground that I hadn’t seen before. It introduces another table at Camelot for the knights … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Arthurian Legend, Book Reviews, British, Chinese, Christianity, Current Events, Feminism, Fundamentalism, Humor, Mythology, Politics, Religion | Tagged grace lin, king arthur, lady of the lake, margaret atwood, marie phillips, starry river of the sky, the handmaid's tale, the table of less valued knights, theocracy, when the sea turned to silver, where the mountain meets the moon | 1 Comment

Sizing Up and Down

Posted on January 26, 2017 by Nathan

Characters changing in size is a pretty frequent occurrence in the Oz books. It’s sort of a transformation, but not entirely, as someone exposed to such magic keeps the same shape. At least, that seems to be the case for … Continue reading →

Posted in Characters, Eric Shanower, John R. Neill, L. Frank Baum, Magic, Magic Items, March Laumer, Melody Grandy, Oz, Oz Authors, Phyllis Ann Karr, Rachel Cosgrove Payes, Ruth Plumly Thompson | Tagged baffleburg, big wigs, blinkie, bucketheads in oz, bunnybury, doorways, dwindlebury, ev, frogman, giants, glegg, glinda, growing, jack breton, jack pumpkinhead of oz, kabumpo in oz, larry breton, little dorothy and toto, little wizard stories of oz, loxo the lucky, magic muffins, mombi, nome king, ozma, peg amy, percy and the shrinking violet, percy the personality kid, polychrome, professor nowitall, professor wogglebug, rabbits, red jinn, red rogue, reddies, shrinking, skosh, snif the iffin, speedy in oz, terp the terrible, the cowardly lion of oz, the disenchanted princess of oz, the eldritch horror of oz, the emerald city of oz, the enchanted island of oz, the enchanted island of yew, the final fate of the frogman, the gardener's boy of oz, the giant garden of oz, the good witch of oz, the hidden valley of oz, the magic of oz, the marvelous land of oz, the ork in oz, the scarecrow of oz, the seven blue mountains of oz, the tin woodman of oz, tippetarius in oz, waddy, wag, witches, wizard of oz, zim greenleaf | 3 Comments

Star Trekkin’ Across the Universe

Posted on January 22, 2017 by Nathan

I’ve seen the original eight Star Trek films at least once each, but it’s been a while for some of them, and I thought it would be interesting to view them in order. I’m also going to include the last … Continue reading →

Posted in Star Trek, Television, VoVat Goes to the Movies | Tagged captain james t. kirk, captain william decker, carol marcus, david marcus, gene roddenberry, khan noonien singh, kirstie alley, pavel chekov, spock, star trek the motion picture, stephen collins, the wrath of khan, voyager 6 | 5 Comments

This God Plays Dice

Posted on January 22, 2017 by Nathan

One of the blogs I subscribe to recently had a post on Indian casinos, and it makes reference to how some Navajo in 1997 were against casinos on the reservation due to the myth of the Gambler. This was a … Continue reading →

Posted in Games, Mythology, Native American, Navajo | Tagged casinos, chaco canyon, gambling, nohoilpi, noqoilpi, pueblo alto, qastcealyci, tklehanoai, tsohanoai | Leave a comment

Make American Carnage Again

Posted on January 21, 2017 by Nathan

There’s still a part of me that can’t believe Donald Trump is actually President of the United States. The guy is basically a Saturday morning cartoon villain, and not even one of the wisecracking ones. Actually, I was thinking about … Continue reading →

Posted in Corporations, Current Events, Education, History, Language, Politics, Prejudice, Religion | Tagged america first, bane, charlie sheen, donald trump, inauguration, lies, outsourcing, racism, the dark knight rises, world war ii | 2 Comments

Kondo’s Kompositions

Posted on January 20, 2017 by Nathan

As with other aspects of video games, the music used in them has become much more complex and intricate. Game music has also become more generally mainstream. I’ve been to pretty packed concerts of both Zelda and Final Fantasy music … Continue reading →

Posted in Cartoons, Mario, Music, Super Mario Bros. Super Show, Television, Video Games | Tagged captain lou albano, do the mario, gustav holst, koji kondo, super mario 3d world, super mario bros., super mario bros. 2, super mario bros. 3, super mario rpg, super mario world, yoshi | Leave a comment

A Space Ozyssey

Posted on January 19, 2017 by Nathan

I’ve examined the possible location of the Land of Oz and its surrounding fairylands in the past. To sum up, the earlier books seem to place it in some hidden part of our Earth, while more recent ones tend to … Continue reading →

Posted in Characters, Chris Dulabone, Gina Wickwar, L. Frank Baum, Oz, Oz Authors, Places, Rachel Cosgrove Payes, Ruth Plumly Thompson | Tagged anuther planet, argo, big dipper, cancer, demon of electricity, gump, james howe, jupiter, kass stone, kenneth gage baum, man in the moon, mars, mister tinker in oz, moon, mother goose in prose, neptune, ozma of oz, ozmapolitan, polaris, professor wogglebug, queer visitors from the marvelous land of oz, saturn, scarecrow, sky island, smith and tinker, speedy, stars, stratovania, the dinamonster of oz, the hidden prince of oz, the hidden valley of oz, the man in the moon, the martian invasion of oz, the master key, the silver princess in oz, the yellow knight of oz, three-headed elvis clone found in flying saucer over oz, tik-tok of oz, tin woodman, uranus, ursa minor, yankee in oz, zodiac | 1 Comment

Monthly Archives: January 2017

The Odd Quartet

Turtle Whirl

Trump and Consequences

Coping with Totalitarianism

Sizing Up and Down

Star Trekkin’ Across the Universe

This God Plays Dice

Make American Carnage Again

Kondo’s Kompositions

A Space Ozyssey

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