The Barer Cave

In my last post, I mentioned the regional Hello Kitty merchandise sold in gift shops in Japan. Here's the piece I brought back from Japan: Kyoto Hello Kitty on a tin that was originally filled with chocolate crunch candy. (The candy has been absorbed into the American system.)

The art features several trademarks of Kyoto, such as the shop-lined street running up a steep hill toward a temple; the black pagoda; and the cherry blossoms that come every spring (or so the guide told us; we visited in the dead of winter).

An interesting (well, to me) cultural point: The tin phonetically spells out the words "Hello Kitty" (or, more specifically, "Haroo kiteii") in hiragana -- the sound alphabet used to spell out native words -- rather than katakana, the sound alphabet used for foreign words.

Hello Kitty is truly ubiquitous in Japan. During our 2004 trip there, every gift shop we visited carried HK merchandise, tailored to the particular region and its local folklore. Appropriately enough, HK's masters, Sanrio, celebrated HK's 30th birthday by licensing a robot of her. Further, a temp agency in Nagoya is renting out Robo-Kitty as a cybernetic receptionist for a fraction of the cost of her flesh-and-blood counterpart.

To hear her eerie, tinny, piping voice, click here ; click on the furthest square to the left in the bottom menu; and then click on the page where indicated.

If the robots are taking over, let them at least be kawaii.

Marvel Comics guru Stan Lee's heroic effort to unload his 1991 Benz on Ebay has, alas, been foiled by the sinister hosts of Low Bidders. The auction ended early this morning at a measly $5,800.77 -- lower than the reserve. I'm surprised that high-roller collectors who would pay tens of thousands for a vintage Spider-Man or Fantastic Four comic book written by Lee aren't willing to cough up the Benjamins for a Mercedes owned by The Man himself.

I know it seems odd for someone who has spent an aggregate of 20 years in Southern California, but until this past weekend I had never visited Las Vegas. It's even odder considering that family members who live in Washington State have visited Sin City, and I've never gone. Part of it is that gambling is a habit that I never picked up (and I'm probably the better for it). But Amy is at a work-related event there this week; and I flew out with her and stayed there for the weekend.

I had a blast. Las Vegas is a spectacular desert mirage, a gloriously elegant cheeseball where all the world's arts and culture, its visual spectacle and audio enchantment, are all bent to the task of separating suckers from their bucks -- whether at the tables, in the bars, or in overpriced shops. Part of the charm is that Vegas has branched out into entertaining non-gamblers like me.

We spent the first night at the Stratosphere. On Saturday, we took in a couple of trademark Vegas cheap buffets (one at the Stratosphere, one at the Flamingo); headed up to the tower of the Stratosphere, and bought drinks at the highest Starbucks in the world; headed over to Star Trek: The Experience at the Hilton, which we enjoyed immensely (despite the cosmic price); and ended up at Caeser's Palace, where I sipped a martini in a lounge while a jazz duet played. On Sunday, after a continental breakfast (a must after all those buffets), we went over to the incredible Bellagio, a treat for the eye throughout.

Amy still has the digital camera in Vegas, so some photos I took with my cell phone are below.

A piece of Caeser's Palace. 

Caeser's Palace -- or one part of it. 

My cellphone camera can't do justice to this neon display at the Flamingo. It's actually mulitcolored. 

Chillin' in the Galleria Bar at Caeser's Palace, near the lobby. 

A shot from Caeser's Palace (where we stayed Saturday night) of the Stratosphere (where we stayed Friday night). 

Somehow we managed to score a gigantic suite for our first night at Caeser's (before Amy moved to a room with her co-workers). Here's a shot of the bathroom. 

Shot from our hotel room of the fountains at Caeser's Palace. 

Food court at Caeser's Palace. 

One of the casino ceilings at Caeser's Palace. 

Since Elton John's "The Red Piano" tour is playing the Colliseum at Caeser's, the casino features this EJ gift shop. 

Merchandise at the Elton John gift store included hot pants with the word "BITCH" stitched on the bum. Insert your own joke here. 

From our hotel window: a courtyard at Caeser's Palace. 

One of the ceiling domes at the Bellagio, with what appear to be cherry blossoms hanging from it. 

At the Bellagio, a Chihuli basket in the window of a menswear store. 

The entrance to the Fine Art Gallery at the Bellagio. This was one of the best parts of our trip. They had a fantastic display of Impressionist paintings from the Boston Museum, with lots of Renoirs and Monets, a Gauguin, and a generous sprinkling of Van Goghs. 

The lobby of the Bellagio features an unbelievable Chihuli installation hanging from the ceiling, with 2,000 stylized glass flowers. This photo really doesn't do it justice.

The Bellagio solarium features gigantic flowers with glass petals. Here, they catch the sun. It's like something out of a '60's psychedelic movie. 

The Bellagio solarium: Red tulips in a field of white ones. 

Big pest problem at the Bellagio solarium. 

Close-up of the red tulips in the solarium garden at the Bellagio. 

The solarium at the Bellagio. 

The interior of Cafe Bellagio, from our table. 

The Solarium at Bellagio. 

The Strip skyline (including the Eiffel Tower) as seen from the front of Caeser's. 

The Strip skyline, as seen from the front of Caeser's. 

Eight-Faced Buddhist shrine in front of Caeser's. 

Angelic trumpeters in front of Caeser's Palace 

Last night, Amy and I attended cousins Linda Woods and Karen Dinino's (nee Linda and Karen Goldberg's) first book signing for their new how-to volume, Visual Chronicles, at the Westwood Borders. The two sisters held a good-sized crowd spellbound with their tales of unleashing creativity by creating visual journals and abandoning fear of failure. Here are some photos.

The highly-commercial Wizard World Los Angeles convention, sponsored by (who else) Wizard Magazine, is currently heading into its final day at the LA Convention center. It's smaller-scale and certainly less exciting than the fan-run Comicon International: San Diego, but Amy and I visited it yesterday and found it a diverting way to spend a Saturday. Unfortunately, I neglected to bring my camera, so the photos are from my Treo 650's built-in camera.

From the top, we have:

• The Marvel booth, with Marvel Editor-in Chief Joe Quesada at left (face partially obstructed) and star writer Brian Bendis (the bald gentleman).
• A panel on the upcoming BLADE TV series, debuting in June on Spike TV. From left, comics/TV writer Geoff Johns, an executive from Spike, and another from New Line.
• Old friends Vince and Kim Moore. The first comic book under Vince's editorship has been released from Alias Comics.
• A statuette of X-Men Colossus and Wolverine, executing their trademark move: The Fastball Special. (Essentially, Colossus chucks Wolverine at someone.)
  
• A banner celebrating the upcoming SUPERMAN RETURNS movie (and hawking advance SR merchandise ).

Showing that for some the Dark Ages never really ended, an Afghan man is being tried for the Afghani crime of being a Christian. Further, if found guilty, he could be executed. Apparently, he was given the choice of converting back, but he refused.

Anyone who says that religion should not be separated from state should consider the results when the two are united.

Last night, we finally purchased the Hellsing Ultimate OAV (Original Animation Video -- a made-for-video animated work, which the Japanese pioneered in the '80's) that Amy has been anticipating ever since it was announced last year. (It was released last month in Japan, and is due to be released this fall in America. We got an imported Region 2 copy from our favorite Japanese Bookstore, Asahiya Express.

Hellsing is an ongoing manga series (seven volumes have been collected so far in Japan, and all of them are available in America in translated editions) that was previously adapted into a 13-episode animated TV series in 2001. That series was released on DVD and shown on the Action Channel in the US. Although it was quite stylish, and garnered several fans (including us), the series suffered from two problems: First, Japanese TV, although its standards were far more permissive than American broadcast TV, did not permit the full violent vision the manga version displayed. Second, since the TV series was made while the manga story was still in its relatively early stages, the TV series' story strayed from the manga storyline, and created its own early resolution of the saga.

Now the manga story is being retold -- from the beginning -- in this OAV. That in itself is not so unusual. Just as American TV and movies will adapt a popular story several times (think of Peyton Place and MASH, books adapted into both movies and TV series), Japanese media will repeatedly adapt manga stories into both animated and live action forms. For instance, the ongoing manga series Ah! Megamisama, which has been running for about 18 years in Japan and has been adapted into English (as Oh My Goddess) in the US for about 12 years -- was adapted into an OAV series in the early '90's; a movie in the early zeros; and most recently, into a TV series which retold the manga story from the beginning.

The Hellsing OVA is slightly unusual, in that the Hellsing TV series was reportedly not as popular in Japan as it has been in the US; and it is the promise of American dollars that persuaded a different animation studio (Rondo Robe; the TV series was produced by Gonzo Studios), and a new creative staff to pour money into an incredibly faithful adaptation of the manga original.

The first volume of the OVA is 50 minutes long, and covers all of the events set forth in the first manga collection. Although it changes a scene here and there, it is still an astoundingly faithful adaptation, along the lines of the Sin City movie.

It also looks gorgeous. The look of the comics has been preserved, with far more fluid animation than the TV series. The pacing is completely different from the TV series, with less effort to set forth self-contained episodes and more to create the foundation for the rest of the story. The score is also far more lush. I suspect that when this is released in the US, it is going to cause a fan frenzy.

Because this is a faithful adaptation, it is one of the bloodier anime that I've seen. Whereas in the TV series blood would be shown as white, to make it less disturbing, here great gouts of hemoglobin fly through the air and splatter upon stone floors. I also note what might almost be described as pistol porn: Main character Arucard's long-slide Cassull is depicted in close-up, loving detail, the camera fascinated with the gun's hammer rhythmically pounding and its slide jerking back and forth, spent brass cascading, as Arucard cheerfully shoots ghouls to mincemeat. I bet that since private ownership of guns is illegal in Japan, these scenes have the allure of forbidden fruit.

The deluxe edition of the OAV includes a 12-page booklet and a bas-relief bust of Alucard. Anyone who can't wait for the American copy can order the import edition here.

Annie Proulx, author of the New Yorker short story adapted into the movie Brokeback Mountain, ranted in a British Newspaper about "Crash" winning the oscar instead of the adaptation of her literary baby. With all the wit of a 14-year-old blogging cheerleader, she dubs the rival movie "Trash." She complains that Oscar voters are out of touch "with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days . . . ."

"Yeasty ferment." Maybe it's sourdough, not sour grapes.

Police in LA who were investigating a man for smuggling money into the US reportedly found 250 counterfeit bills in his possession, each in the denomination of ONE BILLION dollars. Billion, with a "B." The bogus billion-buck bills have an issue date in the '30's -- as if anyone had a billion burning a hole in his pocket in the midst of the Great Depression.

How exactly do you pass 250 billion-dollar notes? Head into Beverly Hills and buy, oh, Beverly Hills?

Today was the last day of the Masters of American Comics exhibition held jointly at the LA County Museum of Modern Art (which hosted the comic book art exhibit) and the UCLA Hammer Museum (which hosted the comic strip art portion). While we saw the MOMA exhibit months ago, we waited until the last moment (today) to see the comic strip work.

The Hammer put on one hell of an exhibit, with original pages, color proofs, and newspaper pages from Windsor McCay (Little Nemo), Lyonel Feininger (Kin-Der Kids), George Herriman (Krazy Kat), E.C. Segar (Popeye), Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates, Steve Canyon), Chester Gould (Dick Tracy), and Charles Schulz (you know what he's famouse for).

I thought the most incredible part of the exhibit was the McCay section, with several original pages (many from the collection of Garry Trudeau, and several over a hundred years old), including the one from the legendary walking bed sequence - which might have been the most amazing piece of original art I've seen in nearly 30 years of comics art collecting. And where else can you see an original political cartoon from 1899 about the Spanish-American war? The Herriman Krazy Kat pages were also spectacular, and I really enjoyed the Gould and Caniff pages. One touch I thought was nice was placing the color proof for the final Caniff Terry and the Pirates Sunday page from the '40's next to the one for the first Steve Canyon Sunday, which followed a couple of weeks later. As for the Schulz Peanuts pages, seeing the originals of strips you've seen reprinted numerous times gives a new appreciation for Schulz's artistry.

This came out last year, but somehow I missed seeing one until today. For every little ninja assassin in training comes a Barbie doll version of Frank Miller's tortured assassin Elektra. Although she comes with her trademark sais, I don't think Mattel will be coming out with a Bullseye doll to impale her with one of them -- as he did in both the comic-book and movie versions of Daredevil.

Warner has put up a new website that celebrates the nearly 70-year history of Superman. It includes a great trailer that splices together footage from the character's various TV and feature film incarnations -- which leads into a trailer for Superman Returns.

As a counterpoint to my posts bagging on new Bond Daniel Craig, here's an interview with him and a visit to the set of Casino Royale that both sound promising.

Also, I watched Tomorrow Never Dies last night, for the first time in several years, and found it had grown on me. I think the pre-credit sequence is one of the best ever. My favorite part is where M, the head of the British Admiralty, and his Russian counterpart are watching Bond on a viewscreen, as Bond refuses to evacuate the arms bazaar despite the incoming Cruise missile and potential nuclear armageddon. "What is he doing?!" the British admiral exclaims. "His job," M tersely replies.

Daniel Craig's response to fan, uh, "concerns" about his portrayal of Bond is a very un-007 whine: He never wanted to be Bond anyway! It's not enough of an emotional challenge for Master Thespian Craig.

The real Bond never whines, even under torture -- except, of course, when M doesn't show him enough respect; or his Dom Perignon '59 is served above 49 degrees Farenheit.

Some danger signs about new James Bond actor Daniel Craig:

-- While filming a fight scene for the new Bond flick Casino Royale, he slipped, fell, and knocked out two of his own teeth.

-- He can't drive the trademark Bond Aston Martin, because he can't drive a stick.

-- He hates both guns and shaken martinis.

I'm willing to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. I enjoyed On Her Majesty's Secret Service, parts of the two Timothy Dalton movies, and the Brosnan movies Goldeneye and The World is Not Enough. (I had more trouble with Brosnan's other two Bond flicks.) But the intelligence isn't good.

When we bought an HDTV last Memorial Day, we rapidly ordered an HDTV converter box from our local cable tyrant. That's because we were smart enough to know that just because a program is on a Hi-Def TV, it's not necessarily in Hi-Def; and we figured we'd be missing out on the benefits of our investment unless we actually saw HDTV programming on the box.

Apparently, not everyone who buys one of these hi-tech idiot boxes is that (ahem) smart. According to a Christian Science Monitor article from last month, more than half of HDTV owners aren't getting HDTV on the set:

-- About 40% know they're not getting Hi-Def programming; but aren't sure how to get it (or just want to use the TV to watch DVDs); and

-- About 17% believe they are watching High-Definition programming -- because they bought a High Definition TV and, dammit, anything on it has to be in Hi-Def!

A pollster interviewed for the article wryly notes that about 80% of HDTV purchasers are men -- who may be reluctant to admit they made a mistake.

Anime Expo, attendance of which continues to grow in leaps and bounds every year (from '90's attendance in the low five figures to 2005 attendance of nearly 30,000), appears to have licked one of its most persistent problems: The long lines of pre-registered attendees waiting for their badges. (I mean, most-of-the-day long.) AX's website announces that it will now send badges out by mail. That doesn't rule out some screw up (particularly if the badge gets lost in the mail), but it's leaps and bounds in the right direction.

I'm willing to cut rock songs some slack, grammatically speaking. I have no problem with "I Can't Get No Satisfaction," or even "'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain." (I do have some problems with "There were plants and birds and rocks and things." Failure of imagination.) But the System of a Down Song currently playing on KROQ just sets my teeth on edge.

Although the song's title is the perfectly fine "Lonely Day," the song persists in constantly repeating the astoundingly ungrammatical chorus, "The Most Loneliest Day of My Life," every other verse.

Just how many loneliest days did this guy have?

Amy and I spent a fun weekend in the desert from Friday evening to Sunday evening, visiting my dad and his wife in Rancho Mirage. We stayed at the Ramada Resort in Palm Springs (a bit run-down, but it had free wi-fi, which carries a lot of weight with me). We maximized our visiting time, because the folks there included my brother Mike and his wife Debra, my Uncle Arnie and Aunt Carol, and family friends Aaron and Anne Epstein. Although the temperature never got above the 70's, I enjoyed some time in the pool; and got in some fine meals. Plus, I helped my dad put links on his blog.

This past weekend, the #4 movie at the box office was the Aeon Flux/Resident Evil-looking film, Ultraviolet, #5 was the Little Mermaid for the Princess Diaries set flick, Aquamarine, and #6 was the Steve Martin remake of the Pink Panther. Ultraviolet, Aquamarine, Pink -- today's movies really cover the spectrum.

Pluses: Good Alpine Mocha Frappe and shakes.

Minuses: Narrow and cramped. Grungy appearance (not cool-grungy, just grungy). Tables are rickety. No electrical outlets for tables. The night we were there, a man at the table next to ours was smoking (illegal in California); not only was the lady at the counter not doing anything to discourage him, she was sitting at his table when there was no line.

Further, there was no wi-fi! Their wireless internet was down the night we were there. (As the partially-scraped-off lettering in the window said, "LESS INTERNET.")