The Gates to the Garden of the Green Man

I'm loving a shoujo fantasy/horror manga called Selected Pandemonium (in japanese, Hyakkiyakou Shou or Tales of a Hundred Ghosts Traveling by the Night) made by Ima Ichiko, who also made some interesting shounen-ai manga. I love the mangaka's watercolored art (www.aestheticism.com/visitors/gallery/imaichiko/index.htm and www.gallery.aethereality.net/list/artist/98/) and the way she tells her gothic ghost stories. Selected Pandemonium (www.manganews.net/forums/showthread.php?p=23453) is the tale of Ritsu's encouters with ghosts after the death of his grandfather, who was a summoner of demons. The manga isn't too violent and it's more fantasy than horror. This's one of my favourites (it's a shame it's not more popular) and there's even a japanese series based on it (www.jdorama.com/drama.1156.htm).

Since we're talking about japanese ghost stories, there's a good shoujo manhwa called Ban Hon Sa or The Spirit Returner (www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=1458), with very fairytale-like stories and many dokebi or other korean spirits. The manga Tales of a Midnight Sun (www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=4192) is also a very good recommendation with a beautiful artwork and creepy stories.  

January 11, Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mount Everest, died at 88 (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/01/10/edmund.hillary.ap/index.html). Sir Hillary was an adventurer and a philanthropist, and I'm sure his death will leave us so much poor inside. :-(

Me and Miriette watched the silent sci-fi movie Metropolis (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_%28film%29). This was my first silent movie and I liked it very much. Metropolis is Fritz Lang's masterpiece and was influenced by the German Expressionism (www.greencine.com/static/primers/expressionism1.jsp). The film is set in the futuristic citie of Metroplis, where the society is divided in two groups: the ones who think and live in luxury (the Head), and the ones who work (the Hands) and live in the underground. The son of the city's ruler falls in love with an angelic woman who advises the poor workers and starts to understand the injustice of his society. Only with the Mediator's arrival will the two groups unite. 

I'm reading the fourth book in Asimov's Robot Serie (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov%27s_Robot_Series), The Rest of the Robots. One thing I love about Asimov is the way he expresses the positronic robots's psychological traits while always explaining them throught the Three Laws of Robotics (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics). It reminds me of a shoujo manga called Milky Way(www.dragonvoice.org/dv_milkyway.html), written by Princess Kaguya's mangaka Reiko Shimizu. It tells the story of a robot called Jack who's immortal but lonely until he meets another robot, Elena. Reiko Shimizu's art and plots are always creative and interesting. The first chapter was scanlated by www.dragonvoice.org.
 

Things are going on pretty well, for a change! :-) Past Friday, I decided I'll enroll as a History major and a Culture & Religion minor on a portuguese college! My first choice was going to be Languages, Literature and Cultures - Portuguese Studies, but I thought more and came to the conclusion that History would be better (specially because my minor will be Religion!).

I'm having a lot of fun listening to Blasted Mechanism (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasted_Mechanism and www.blastedmechanism.com)! They're my favorite portuguese musics and my favorite alternative rock band of all time! They're just so alternative and their music is very tribal! There's nothing like that in Portugal. I like writing poetry and listening to their music is like listening to singing poetry. There's one part in one of their musics, "All the Way", that goes on like this:

"Unite your brothers, unite your tribes
Unite yourselves, yeah just tonight
Unite the sun, unite the child
Unite in one, unite and fly
Unite the sound, unite the light
Unite in truth, unite and fight
Unite your world, unite tonight
Unite yourselves, yeah just tonight".

Go watch them:

I stumbled upon various cool posters from www.guerrillagirls.com! They're funny and serious at the same time, while expressing the situation of women in arts. They're here:
www.guerrillagirls.com/posters/venicewallc.shtml
www.guerrillagirls.com/posters/venicewalld.shtml 
www.guerrillagirls.com/posters/venicewalle.shtml 

Things aren't working very good for me. First, one of my cats disappeared for about five hours yesterday night. Luckly, my father found her in my neighbour's barn. Apparenty, she was locked accidentally by my neighbour while she was playing inside his barn. Well, this is what we get when we have an excessively playful cat.

The next Saturday I have to go to a consult with my ophthalmologist. I hate it when I have to go to the doctor, but I really need to. Besides, my glasses are becoming too small for me and I need to change them. One thing I hate is that I need to always choose glasses with dark frames, because my skin is very light.

Me and Miriette just finished reading Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokohama_Kaidashi_Kikou and www.users.skynet.be/mangaguide/au180.html), also known as Quiet Country Cafe or Cafe Alpha. This is the manga that make me like the slice of life genre so much (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slice_of_life). The sci-fi elements are very rare and the quiet life of Alpha and her friends is very engaging. This is truly one of my favorite manga of all time! It's because of it that I found other slice of life manga; like the sci-fi Aria (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aria_%28manga%29), a story about a girl trying to be a gondolier in the planet of Neo-Venezia, and the historical Emma (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_%28manga%29), that tells the romance between a victorian maid and a member of the gentry.  

Science fiction Arthur C. Clarke turned 90 this Sunday(www.edition.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/books/12/17/people.arthurcclarke.ap/index.html). I don't belive I just found out about this today. Arthur C. Clarke is one of my favorite writers (he wrote what I think it's the greatest movie of all time - 2001: A Space Odyssey) and he's still writing! :-) I'm a big fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_%28film%29). The film is highly realistic when compared with other sci-fi movies of his time (and even today!), the use of classic music as the soundtrack is perfect, the lack of dialogue (the first and last acts of the movie - almost 45 minutes in the total - don't have any dialogue) only deepens the unconventionality of Kubrick's masterpiece and, specially, the symbolism and allegory of the movie (www.kubrick2001.com). 2001's perfection owns a lot to his openness to interpretation (www.metaphilm.com/philm.php?id=449_0_2_0_M). To watch as the man (the last monkey) reaches the Nirvana (his higher evolution) and literally transforms into a baby is one of the best moments in the movie. 2001's themes about the Omega Point and the evolution of mankind (like the Instrumentality in Neon Genesis Evangelion) are also reminiscent of another Arthur C. Clarke's book: Childhood's End (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood%27s_End). My favorite quote is when Bowman proclaims: "The thing's hollow — it goes on forever — and — oh my God! — it's full of stars!". This is why 2001: A Space Odyssey is truly a masterpiece. 

This, ladies and gentlemen, is ART!

On another subject, Erica Friedman reviewed the three first volumes of Applause,  a yuri manga by Swan-mangaka Ariyoshi Kyouko. It tells the story of two girls in a private Catholic school in Belgium. The first arc (the one in the school) is pretty obvious and shoujo, but when the action switches to New York, it becomes a realistic josei. With all my yaoi overdose lately, I'm skipping my yuri! :-( Unfortunately, there aren't any scanlations of this manga yet. It's a future project of Lililicious (www.lililicious.net), but my curiosity is killing me! Well, I know I'll love it when Lililicious releases it. Erica's reviews are here:
www.okazu.blogspot.com/2007/06/yuri-manga-applause-volume-1.html
www.okazu.blogspot.com/2007/07/yuri-manga-applause-volume-2.html 
www.okazu.blogspot.com/2007/10/yuri-manga-applause-volume-3-japanese.html

Since past Friday, I have been so sick! #-( I didn't have time to do anything and I have been in a forced "healthy diet" by my mom (a rather tasteless one, I must say). Fortunetly, I'm feeling much better today (this is why I'm posting right now). Today, Miriette will have to do all the Christmas shopping by herself. I should be with her, but I don't feel like going. The shopping list isn't very long and it should take her just one morning (a photographic camera, some baby clothes and a pair of trousers for my mother). 

I finally wrote my to-do list in LiveJournal. I didn't think I would need one, but it's quite handy and more pratical than writing down in notebooks (my 2nd brains, as I like to call them). When I finished it, I reached a conclusion: I'm reading too much sci-fi! I need to read some fantasy!    

Now that I'm much better, I can continue reading Haru wo Daite Ita! :-) I first found out about this manga through Winter Cicada's OVAs (www.boysonboysonfilm.com/anime/wintercicada.html). I watched the three OVAs and loved them, without even knowning that it was a story within a story. When I discovered that there was a main plot, I watched the two OVAs anime (www.boysonboysonfilm.com/anime/haruwodaiteita.html) and my curiosity was aroused. I started reading the manga and I'm now in volume 10! The manga is 14 volumes long, which means that I have four more books to read. Haru wo Daite Ita or Embracing Love (www.boysonboysonfilm.com/manga/embracinglove.html) is a romantic drama about two AV actors, their  relationship and the movies industry. I love Nitta Youka's masculine style (we're talking about adult biseinen and not some teen bishounen) and the way she characterized Iwaki's and Kaito's personality. Haru wo Daite Ita is one of the most popular yaoi series. I don't know why, but I'm always picturing them in a live-action movie. Well, who knows? 

This past saturday, we decorated our Christmas tree (an artificial one, to be more eco friendly, of course!). This year, we decided to have two Christmas trees: a bigger one in the living room, like always, and a smaller one in the balcony. Even if we don't decorate the inside of the house this year, the house still looks so... Winter-like!  

When I was browsing LiveJournal, I found a post that maked me quite mad: a certain person was saying that feminists were a bunch of stupid women and men haters. As a feminist (an eco-feminist, actually), there's nothing that hurts me more than to see ignorant people making stupid comments about things they obviously don't know. Ignorance is really a man's worst enemy. :-( First; I'm a proud feminist and I don't hate men. Why should I hate them? Even if some man had hurted me, judging the entire masculine sex for something that only one person did is pretty stupid. True feminists don't do that and they aren't men haters, either. Second; this person implied that the feminist's work is done in our society, that "real" women didn't cared about things like that and should be moving on. Of course we don't have the same level of discrimination women in Africa have, but we STILL aren't equal and we STILL need feminism (www.ideasforwomen.com/news/womens-issues/2007/04/03/132/). How many women politicians do we have compared to men? And women in the Army or in the Police? And what about the number of women that are raped, killed and abused? There is far more women sexually assaulted than men and the criminal system is still failling these victims. There's still a lot to be done, a lot. That person also said a thing about how transgendered FTM were stupid and sexist (for some people, apparently, ignorance is really a personality trait). I bet Brandon Teena's murderers (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Teena) thought the same thing. :-( All of us have to be modern warriors and fight against things like that. It's our duty as women and men in today's society.

I also found this list:

Homophobia and You
I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.
I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.
I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.
We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.
I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.
I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me.
I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. I survived the attack that left me in a coma for three weeks, and in another year I will probably be able to walk again.
I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.
We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.
I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.
I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.
I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.
I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.
I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.
I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.
I am the woman who died when the EMTs stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.
I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I didn’t have to always deal with society hating me.
I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.
I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.
I am the person who is afraid of telling his loving Christian parents he loves another male.

If you also think homophobia is wrong, please post this in your LJ/blog/site, etc.

Lately, I'm having less and less time to meditate propely (www.freemeditations.com). Maybe I'm afraid that, because I'm so sleepy, I'll fall asleep while meditating. I know that, if I don't meditate with the eyes closed and while I'm lay down, I should be fine, but I think I'll wait a little more before I start meditating daily.
I started meditating almost three years ago, when my philosophy teacher put a New Age music playing and challenged us to try to meditate. Almost everyone of my classmates said that they almost fell asleep, but I didn't. I became more curious and started doing it at home. My first experiences were positive, so I continuated. Meditation is so healthy for our body and our mind and everyone should do it. And it's EASY (www.freemeditations.com/pink_bubble_meditation.html)! 

I watched the trailer of the new Beowulf movie (www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgK2OMUP8t8). I was quite interested in the movie, because I knew that Neil Gaiman would take care of the script. Unfortunately, I'm not so interested now. Well, I like the special effects and the actors, but I think they took too much liberties with the source. Yes, the "horrible" poem that nobody, except me, seems to have liked. :-( In the movie, Grendel's mother is an erotic creature (Angelina Jolie), while in the poem she's described as a  “monstrous hellbride” (Heaney, line 1259) and a “swamp-thing from hell, / the tarn-hag in all her terrible strength” (lines 1518-1519). Hardly the beautiful figure that the movie makes her be. I know I'm starting to talk like a literature purist, but couldn't Hollywood make, for once, a good adaptation without all the male fanservice?

I also watched the first two episodes of Patalliro (www.aestheticism.com/visitors/manga/patarillo/), the adaptation of the longest shoujo manga still running, fansubbed by AarinFantasy. It's an adorably twisted shounen-ai slapstick comedy about the boy-king Patalliro and his bodyguard, the English MI6 agent, Major Bancoran ('The Bishounen Killer'). It's a very funny anime that I'll, definitely, see until the end (if they ever finish the fansubs!). ;-)     

Last Christmas (OMG, it's almost Christmas AGAIN!) Miriette gave me, among other thinks like a godess tarot deck, a dream diary. I like it very much (www.nemesisnow.com) and, even if I'm not a diary person, I still managed to write all the dreams that I remembered and their possible interpretation. However, in the last months I haven't slept very well and, when this happens, I can't remember my dreams! It's almost a whole month since I updated my dream diary. :-( If this keeps going on, I will never get a lucid dream in my whole life (www.dreamviews.com)! My sister is very good at lucid dreaming, but it seems that I can't manage to do it. Well, I just have to keep trying.

Now, with a more serious issue: the Burma crisis. Thousands of Buddhist monks have been marching in peaceful protest against the military dictatorship in Burma. The regime has responded with a violent crackdown against monks and other non-violent protestors. They have beaten and arrested hundreds of people, and reportedly killed at least 200 people. MTV is organizing a campaign to free Aung San Suu Kyi (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aung_San_Suu_Kyi) and support the monks. I believe that Aung San Suu Kyi is the only hope to free Burma and that we have to pressure companies to severe business ties with Burma's dictatorship. Please, send an email to the UN Secretary General calling for urgent action. You can do it in www.mtvburmaaction.com. It's easy and it's free. We have to do all we can to stop the hatred and suffering in Burma. 

In my country, there's a five years old girl that lived all her life with her foster parents, but now her real father want her to live with him. Unfortunately, the Justice system gave him reason and the little girl has to be delivered to her father and leave her foster parents the day before Christmas! What kind of crappy system is this? :-(    

I just finished watching Trinity Blood! I really liked Ion and Abel and I'm sad that the anime ended. I desesperatly want to read the light novels and the manga! :-) I know that http://community.livejournal.com/tbtp/profile is translating the first novel, but they don't update in some time.

Now I'm watching, among other series, the Legend of the Galactic Heroes (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Galactic_Heroes) . I only watched six episodes (the anime have 110 episodes), but I'm already loving it. It's a classsic seinen sci-fi (I love old school animes!) and it's very military and political. It tells the story of two intelligent officers,  Reinhard and Yang Wen-li, each one in another side of an intergalactic war while they try to overcome one another. I really need to get my hands at the translations of the light novels. ;-)

I also have a deviantART account (www.anfitere.deviantart.com), but I won't post any of my writing there, because I only know how to write well in my language. A deviantART artist called hades-daughter (www.hades-daughter.deviantart.com) used and claimed Jim Warren's painting "Stairway to Heaven" as her own (www.jimwarren.com/fine_02_stairway.html). I was browsing the deviantART gallery when I found the painting. Jim Warren's one of my favourite artists and I recognized his painting at first sight. There's nothing worse to an artist than an art thief and, frankly speaking, to see someone so shamelessly plagiarizing a talented artist like Jim Warren is just too much horrible. Fortunately, the situation was settled: I made a complaint about her and she was banned.

http://community.livejournal.com/thepinkpanzer/ just released the first chapter of the yaoi Sherlock Holmes manga Fin de Siècle Detective Club! It was really good, funny and even Arsène Lupin made an appearance. I'll be looking forward to read the next chapters and their future From Eroica With Love scanlations. :-)

My sister Miriette (www.miriette.blogspot.com) is writing a gothic story called "Crónicas de um Fantasma" (Chronicles of a Ghost). She already wrote the first chapter and, if you know portuguese, please check it out.
 
I just finished reading Death Note and, contrary to what some people say, I really liked the end. It ended in a mysterious way (was it Misa the girl praying to Kira?) and also an obvious one. Of course Light would be defeated by Near (I was sad by L's death, but I liked his substitute). On the matter of his dishonorable death, he was just an egotistic sociopath and mass murderer that got what he deserved, like Near pointed. I also loved the way Near explained to Light that he was stronger than L, but he wasn't clever than him AND Mello.  Now, I just have to watch the anime and the movies. ;-)  

Well, I did it! I mean, the pumpkin! :-) I drawed the eyes, the nose and the mouth and my mother carved them. When we lit it on at night, his orange light was really beautiful. I hope next year's Jack-o'-lantern will be better than this one, at least.

A teaser for the new Asterix movie was just released (www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB6QMPt6q98). The movie is called "Astérix aux Jeux Olympiques" (Asterix in the Olympic Games). Of course it's only in french, but the teaser looks great anyway. I'll be looking forward to this new movie!
 
The final trailer of "The Golden Compass" has just been released online for all the fans that weren't at his official launchment (www.hisdarkmaterials.org/news/the-golden-compass/the-golden-compass-trailer-launched). I just have to say that, as a fan of the books, I found the trailer really good. I really hope that the movie keeps up to the book. We all know that, when an adaptation is made, they're certain changes, but the beauty of the book is in his wonderful message. I hope this is one change they didn't made. And all the people bad-mouthing Philip Pullman because "he's promoting atheism and anti-catholicism" should feel ashamed. It's pretty obvious that these people didn't even bother to read the book, or else they would know that Philip Pullman is a great writer that's only promoting kindness, love, courage and courtesy. I love the way the books developed the Daemon's concept and Lyra's femininity role. We really need more fantasy books like this: books that are perfect for kids AND adults alike.

You know what day is today, right? It's Halloween time! :-) If I wasn't feeling so sleepy and sick, I would be making up some scary stories! So: happy Halloween, happy St. Wolfgang day, happy Samhain, happy Reformation Day AND happy Nevada day (I think it's best if I stop for now)! ;-) 

Halloween is a day dedicated to the dead, where we can remember our ancestors and tell old tales. Endicott Studio devoted a whole issue (www.endicott-studio.com/jMA06Spring/index.html) to the theme of death and rebirth in mythic fiction.  

Here in Portugal, Halloween is a recent holiday. Until a couple of years before, no one celebrated it. With the influence of american culture, nowadays everyone knows what Halloween is. Today, my mother said that she would try to carve one of our pumpkins, but I'm feeling too much sleepy to help her do anything (lazy Anfitere!). 

Well, happy Days of the Dead!

P.S.: Right now, I'm listening to Evanescence's "Bring me to Life". How ironic...

When I woke up this morning, my fingers were almost frozen. Uh! :-(

I strumbled up an article after the opening of the Stardust movie where Neil Gaiman explained how he came to write a fairytale for adults (http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2189656,00.html). I really love adult fairytales (specially the feminist ones), they're so full of magic. You can read some of them in the Endicott Studio in my link list.