Backblog Conclusions

Just to sum up:

• I posted things, most of which were no good
• I didn't like them, and am not proud of them
• I promoted a couple of them, but got embarrassed
• Doing this didn't spur me on to start writing again
• So I guess this is the end of the blog. Goodbye.

Idiot

I like The Idiot.

But enough about [YOUR NAME HERE]!

No, but seriously, folks..

I like the book The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Maybe you've heard of it?

For Christmas, I got a DVD of Akira Kurosawa's film adaptation from 1951.

It's pretty faithful, but apparently there was loads of stuff cut out of it, so it's a bit choppy. This version is 165 minutes long, but the original version was 265 minutes. That's pretty long. A minute for every day of a madman's year.

The original version is lost in a warehouse somewhere.

I liked this version, though. He seemed to 'get' the characters, which is the main thing.

Toshiro Mifune is in it. You might remember him from a billion other Kurosawa films. He's great.

Anyway, there's a scene in the film where Mifune looks incredible. I think the film is set in contemporary Japan, but I can't work out what he's wearing.

I have a theory that Kurosawa, or Mifune, or the wardrobe department, had a weird premonition of all male pop culture icons of second half of the twentieth century and amalgamated them into one bloke.

He's wearing a dressing gown - I'm not sure if it's a normal kimono - and his hair is all quiffed-up.

He looks like ALL of the following:
Elvis Presley
Clint Eastwood (who ended up pretty much playing Mifune in A Fistful of Dollars - a remake of Yojimbo)
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Wolverine (who's pretty entrenched in Japanese culture)
Harrison Ford
Bruce Lee
Al Pacino
John Travolta
James Bond (who loves dressing gowns)
Tom Selleck
Sylvester Stallone

And this is 1951, remember.

I think Mifune was an early choice to play Obi-Wan Kenobi (George Lucas loved him), so he has that going for him too.

Pretty impressive.

Anyway, here's a picture:

Yes, maybe I oversold it. It's possible. But it seemed like an interesting insight.

I have too much insight. And there's no hope insight. I think that's the saying.

There's no hope in sight.

There's no hope in insight.

There's no hope in insight in sight.

There's no hope in sight of insight inside.

***

The word "insight" looks weird to me now.

(in)sigh(t)

Drip drip drip

“Tell him what you said,” said Nick, grinning.
“About what?” Asked Jordan.
“About Walter!”
“Oh!” Jordan grinned too, looked at me, and then licked his lips before continuing. “We were talking about Walter, right? And how boring he is, yeah? So boring. And I was like, ‘hanging out with him is so bad you might as well call it Chinese Walter Torture!’”
I didn’t say anything.
“Get it? Like Chinese Water Torture.”
I got it.
“I got it,” I said. “ But it’s a bit racist.”
“How is it racist?” Asked Jordan, aghast.
“Yeah, how is it racist?” Asked Nick, another ghast.
“Chinese Walter Torture,” I said.
“What?” Said Nick. “His name is Walter. He is Chinese. Talking to him is torture. Fact, fact, fact.”

“He’s Japanese,”I said.

“Yeah, well…” Jordan convulsed, bemused.
“Yeah, well,” Nick picked up the baton. “There’s no such thing as Japanese Water Torture. It wouldn’t make sense.”

“How do you know?” I asked, and we spent the next minute googling “Japanese Water Torture” and the next three minutes regretting it.

“Walter’s dad’s in the Triads,” said Jordan, out of the blue.
“No he isn’t,” I said.
“He is,” said Jordan.
“Even if he was – and he isn’t – Triads is Japanese. If anything, his dad’s in the Yakuza.”
“Now who’s being racist?” Said Nick, for what turned out to be the first of a dozen times that day. We never agreed on now who was being racist, but he really wanted it to be me.
“He’s got tattoos,” said Nick. “Walter’s dad, I mean.”
“So has my mum,” I said, “ and she isn’t in the Yakuza.” Both true statements.

“Walter isn’t a very Japanese name,” said Nick.
“It’s not his real name,” said Jordan. “His real name’s Toshihiro or Toshihiri or something. Walter’s just his Western name. They got it from Walter White in Breaking Bad. His dad loves Breaking Bad. He’s obsessed with it. Walter’s sister’s called Jesse. And his dog’s called Barking Bad.”

“You know, it actually doesn’t sound like Walter is that boring,” I said.

They seemed to agree and we all went out to buy ham.

Caspar David Friedrichie Rich

I was going to do a photoshop of the Caspar David Friedrich painting Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, with a young ghost looking out at the mountains.

It would have the following caption:

'Caspar David Friedrichie Rich'.

It would be a play on Caspar David Freidrich and the cartoon character Richie Rich.

But then I realised that Richie Rich wasn't a ghost, no matter what the Simpsons might say:

Somehow, probably because of this Simpsons joke, I'd conflated the ghost and the rich boy.

I must have been further confused that the painter's name contained both Caspar and Rich. My brain had mixed it all up.

It's confusing.

I think the whole thing is muddied beyond repair. Of course, I could do a couple of things.

I could Photoshop the ghost onto the painting and put something like 'Caspar David Friedrich the Friendly Ghost' (or just 'Caspar the Friendly Ghost' for the intelligentsia).

Or I could Photoshop the wealthy child onto the painting and do the original 'Caspar David Friedrichie Rich'. But is Richie Rich recognizable enough from behind to make that obvious?

I really don't want to google "Richie Rich from behind" to check. Especially not at work.

It's a shame, because it seemed like such a perfect comedy idea at the time.

Oh well.

Also, I don't have Photoshop.