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Word Roots and Wandering Minds

So, we were sitting in class watching a documentary about the holocaust and the word Aryan was used several times. 

Etymologically speaking, the word is an English language loan word from the Sanskrit that means "noble".

Today, if you hear the word at all, it tends to be used academically to indicate a relation to the Indic languages and their speakers. Use of Indo-Iranian and Indo European have reduced the call for Indo-Aryan, even though all three are frequently tied into the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language root family.

In a religious sense, it means an individual who has mastered the four noble truths and has entered upon the spiritual path. 

So why did the Nazis decide to use it? 

Because of a guy named Arthur De Gobineau, who postulated that the world broke down into three races-- white, black and yellow-- and the rest was a result of racial miscegenation. From here, it wasn't much of a stretch to tie Aryan to the Irish Eire. That, combined with the writings of several prominent linguists and anthropologists of the time turned into the theory that the Aryan race arose from somewhere in Northern Europe. Because the "Nordic peoples" were possessed of the "purest" appearance, it was believed that they were the originators of the white race and as such deserving of the Aryan stamp.

So. There's that. 

Oddly enough, the Swastika? Also an Indic symbol, though the meaning is a bit more wholesome.Hindus, Jains and Buddhists all encorporate the symbol, though none as prominently as the Jains. 

Hindus hold the symbol as a representation of Ganesha, while Buddhists hold the symbol as a graphic representation of eternity. 

Among Jains, the symbol remains popular, and is featured on both their flag and their main religious symbol. 

This symbol, chosen in 1974, features the swastika prominently, but their interpretation is that: 


             the four arms of the Swastika symbolize the four Gati (destiny): Narak (demon), 
            Triyanch (animal), Manushya (human) and Dev (angel). It represents the perpetual 
            nature of the universe in the Madhya Lok (material world), where a creature is 
            destined to one of those states based on their Karma (deeds). It also represents the
            four columns of the Jain Sangh: Sadhus, Sadhvis, Shravaks and Shravikas - monks,
           nuns, female and male laymen. It also represents the four characteristics of the soul: 
           infinite knowledge (Anant Jnan), infinite perception (Anant Darshan), infinite
          happiness (Anant Sukh), and infinite energy (Anant Virya).

Who'd have though there'd be so much to a word? 

Well, besides me? 

Bare Feet and Broken Hearts

Second volume in a ten volume set.


Whoa.


Just, Whoa.


I struggled to get through this one. The story quick and engaging. It wasn't the narration or the pacing that threw me, but rather the subject material. I tend to approach these sorts of events from the broader perspective of a historian, more concerned with the wider picture. This one thought... It pulls you in to the struggles of a single damaged family as they attempt to pick up the pieces after and utterly earth shattering event.


The transition from husband and wife with three (nearly four) kids going about their daily business to a mother and son struggling with a newborn in a post apocalyptic landscape, this whole story brought to mind so many of the great zombie tropes. 

The art, especially the pages that featured survivors of the blast manages to skillfully portray the horror of the physical effects of the bomb without being overly graphic. By managing to convey the horror without the gore, Nakazawa keeps more squeamish readers (like me) from putting the book down and flipping on an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

As the story progresses, the main character continues his odyssey and is faced by challenges and set backs along the way. Throughout, the weaving of Japanese traditional imagery is used to reinforce ideas without explicitly having to explain them, even to a wider audience.


In a broader sense, the creation of this series may have been another sort of odyssey as the author wrote to avenge the death of his mother in the 1960s. Even though she survived the initial attack, she was still a victim of the radiation and after her death and cremation, the effects of the radiation were apparent in the lack of bone left behind for Nakazawa to enshrine. In this article from 2007, he goes into greater detail about growing up in Hiroshima before and after the bombing.

Yes, I agree whoa.

I was not able to finish this one, not for a lack of trying though. I can honestly say this story gave me nightmares,(probably because I would read just before bed) the rich visual interaction was just too much for me to handle. I know that I am often overly sensitive. With that said, I must admit what I read ,a little over half, was very powerful. Every image causes you to stop, investigate and think about what you just saw. It gives you the perspective of what really happened to the innocent on that day. It is full of strong images, that is what made it so hard for me to get through, had the story been words alone it would have created a buffer to allow me to further separate myself from the story. But, the juxtaposition of words and pictures makes the story that much more intense. Even with the gutters and closure it was just to much for my naive mind.



If you think about it the subject of what happened to the people after the bomb dropped is mostly nonexistent. Why you ask, well its simple the Americans did something horrible and if we don't really discuss it then no one will know how bad it was and how horrible we were for doing it. However, there is quite a bit in Japan, but I think that makes scenes. We hear about how we helped this country or that how we did this or that. But they are all positive; how we saved the Jews, landed on the moon ect.

Granted this is only my opinion and I have no evidence to back it up, but that doesn't make it wrong, just not right.

Three Rules

                 There was once a comic strip.

Part of a larger series and fairly popular in its own right. But then...

One specific image was picked up and became a new standard to which movies were held. In a comic called Dykes To Watch Out For, Allison Bechdel outlined a rule with three parts that determined whether or not a movie was worth seeing. The rule is:

1. There must be two female characters (later versions clarify that the women should be named characters)
2. They must speak to one another
3. About something other than a man

Simple enough.

But here's the scary thing: It's pretty rare that a popular movie actually succeeds in meeting all three criteria.

I looked through the movies listed on the Bechdel test website, and I gotta admit, there were several I expected to pass that failed miserably.

Movies based on comics did especially poor. Of the 13 I could think of off the top of my head, only two passed. 

Iron Man 2 and The Dark Knight both passed while Iron Man, Captain America, The Avengers, X Men, The Amazing Spiderman, Dark Knight Rises, Adventures of Tin Tin, Green Hornet, Green Lantern, Watchmen, and American Splendor all failed.

Some failed because they only had one named female character (American Splendor, Captain America) while others satisfied the first test, but failed the second (most of the rest). Iron Man, Watchmen and The Amazing Spiderman satisfy the first two but fall on the third.

So what does this say about Hollywood?

The same thing it says about mainstream comics. The movies don't pass because female characters aren't central to the plot. Rare indeed is the comic with a female central protagonist. One of the few (Wonder Woman) continues to sell, but with lower and lower numbers each year. Of the few female characters that exist, most serve no higher function than providing someone for the protagonist to save or ,if they are unsaveable, someone to angst over.

And before this devolves into a rant, I'll just direct you here, and leave it alone.

Sometimes a Lasso is Just a Lasso

Admittedly, there is something to be said for being able to find things worth celebrating in any character but I recently finished reading Do the Gods Wear Capes?: Spirituality, Fantasy, and Superheroes and I have to admit, it was well worth cramming it into the nearly nonexistent free time I have. The essays covered Superman, Spiderman, Wonder Woman and Ironman but the one that struck me the most was the essay that dove into the connections between Wonder Woman, Sexual freedom and identity and  the multitude of organizations  that have used her as a figure for their movement.

The things I didn't know about her creator: He was a highly educated WASP with degrees in Law and Psychology. He lived in a happily polyamorous relationship for years (until his death in fact). He could be considered one of the first "public professionals" ala Dr. Phil. He was sincerely committed to women's rights and women's liberation. He also saw the comic as a way to advance his own belief in a broader approval of alternative forms of sexuality.  

Now, this isn't to say that he used the comics as a way to create prurient pieces that would stir the libidos and lusts of all the adolescent (and not so adolescent) boys that read them. No, it seems as though he advocated an acceptance of a higher level of equality in general; the birth of a new order where men could be submissive and dominant women weren't seen as "odd" or "deviant". It was a fairly impressive burden to place on even the amazonian shoulders of his main character, who is presented with an amazing amalgamation of mythos and suspended belief responsible for her creation.

In some ways, I think it worked. She became a well known character, and even if her comics aren't selling as well, the character continues to live in the cultural consciousness. My problem with the author's assertion is not the assertion itself, but perhaps the wider insistence on reading into a character in so many ways that are sometimes too contradictory to work well. I know there is a desire to choose role models and identify with them as a way to feel less alone in the grand scheme of things, but I sometimes feel like the characters we choose for these exercises lose something in the process. Wonder Woman is an amazing character and she is responsible for some really awesome adventures, but what is gained by making her take on so many roles (mother, lover, savior, temptress). When I began thinking about his, it seemed so much clearer in my head, but now it's just muddled. I don't dislike the act of interpretation when applied to literature-- it's the point of this class after all-- but sometimes I think that we must be careful not to apply the interpretation so heavily as to lose sight of the thing underneath to which we pin everything.

As an aside, I found this while hunting for an unrelated thing and though it worth sharing: Enjoy!

No Good at Dancing

So, I just finished my initial read through of Waltz with Bashir by Ari Folman and David Polonsky and my initial reaction feels like a big ol' 'huh'. Don't get me wrong, it's a great story, and graphics are outstanding, but it didn't really make me feel. Like emotionally. That might just be an issue with me and a poke at the fact that society today is so perpetually tuned in and over saturated in the age of a 24 hour news cycle that its darn near impossible to evoke any honest-to-god emotional response.  Time cites the story as "Exemplary... The message of the futility of war has rarely been painted with such bold strokes." On the grand scale, I get it. The whole story never really resolves anything and the main protagonist isn't able to solve his initial question. His friend's suggestion on page 91 even reinforces that assertion. His memory is only significant because he a) had significance tied to an earlier similar event and b) because the memory is absent. It isn't the presence of memory that spawns the journey, but rather the holes that exist in its place.

Technically, the novel is rendered in a style reminiscent of rotoscoping.If you aren't aware, there's a pretty awesome description of rotoscoping HERE. Yes, it's Wikipedia, but it's a fairly decent run down. There is enough detail to make it feel real,but everything past the characters-- and even some of the background characters themselves-- seem to carry the foggy importance of memory background. I mean, I know that they're 'real' in the sense that they are real places and probably real people, but they aren't the focus. The entire novel is heavily reminiscent of Waking Life, which is a pretty awesome movie that I totally recommend.

ETA (12/4) So, it's not rotoscoping, but adobe stills that are manipulated to make it look like motion. Still, pretty amazing use of technology to create some seriously stunning visuals. Even more amazing when you realize that the movie was first and the graphic novel was made from the movie's storyboard.  

I read this comic twice, I wanted to make sure I did not miss anything. This comic reads like a movie, and the almost photo-realism only adds to the effect. We are taken on a journey with Ari as he tries to find his memory about his part of the war. As the story progresses, we see the various stories of his friends. The transition between these stories is smooth. 

At first it was just a well written and drawn comic, until I heard the story from Professor Solomon. This is the story about the soldier who was able to cope with the war by seeing everything through " the camera lense". When he is looking into the eye of the dead horse the war became real to him. At this point the book became a true story. I can't explain it, but it seemed at this point I realized what I was reading a true story. 

Like with all good novels(for me anyway) you are compelled to turn the page because you must know what happens next. I felt this way throughout the book. I wanted to know who's story was next. Unfortunately the novel has left me feeling empty and annoyed. Don't get me wrong I was not expecting Ari to have some great Epiphany or anything. I feel that it just ended to abruptly, there was just death. Perhaps that was his purpose, but I fell rather cheated.
 

 

Benevolence and Dictation

So if the French are amazing at satire and the Canandians are fairly polite people, does that mean that Guy Delisle does polite satire? 

After reading Pyongyang, I'd have to say yes. The entire story is a trippy cheek-biting exploration of a culture so far removed from the western experience as to be nearly incomprehensible. 

While the story wasn't as intense a read as Black Hole, I still found it worth it. The Author's commune with the trapped Sea Turtles was an especially poignant image, especially when juxtaposed at how frenetic the rest of the story felt. At every turn, the author was being moved from place to place and with every move there were eyes watching. IN the dark of the lobby, there was a stillness that was absent in the rest of the book. 

The section that described the visit to the Friendship museum was clever as well, especially the cheek biting at the absurdity of genuflecting to a wax statue. It brought this to mind:

  

I know, it's Anderson Cooper, but there's just something about the giggles. He does it a lot and every time, it catches me too. 

With Pyongyang, I got caught out by the author's sense of the absurd, and I gotta tell you, it's probably only slightly better to be giggling like a madwoman in a library. 

Pfft. At this point, I should just surrender and accept that I'm incapable of not making a goof of myself in public.

Pyongyang is full of sarcasm. It took a while to get through, not that it was difficult or anything just a little boring. I mean we from Black Hole to Fun Home both are rather intense in their own way, to a simple story of a cartoonist in the overly suppress country of North Korea.I think the author used sarcasm as comic relief, because of how suppressed the country is and how suppressed he must of felt this was the only outlet he had.