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Revelation

Movies

A couple Christmases back, New Wife admitted to #2 Son that she had no idea what animé was, whereupon he gasped in shock.  I was a little scornful, because my only  exposure to the genre had been the kiddie junk seen on TV during the kids’ childhood.  And New Wife can hardly bear to watch cartoons, of any kind.

But the thought obviously rankled him, and being a thoughtful and considerate boy (okay, man:  he’s now 31), when he came on Monday to visit us for his birthday week (family tradition, don’t ask), he brought New Wife an animé movie to watch.  And so we watched it together last night.

What a revelation.

Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress  is an absolute tour de force.  The story is compelling, the time/space continuum jumps are seamless — the latter are better than any other movie I’ve ever seen, in any format — and the plot is faultlessly written.  It is, quite honestly, a perfect movie.

#2 Son also revealed to us that his favorite Christmas (?) movie is Tokyo Godfathers  (also directed by Satoshi Kon), which means it’s high on my list.

If you’re a fan of the animé genre, you’re probably laughing at me right now (and that’s okay);  but if like me you’re an ignoramus of the genre, then you owe it to yourself to watch it — just as much as if you’d never seen a black-and-white movie before, you’d have to watch one of the classics made by Ernst Lubitsch, Elia Kazan or John Ford.

He’s left us a few others, carefully selected because he knows my taste in movies.  I can’t wait to watch them.

Afterthought:  I have to admit that this is not the first time #2 Son has done this to me:  he also turned me on to Archer  and Arrested Development, to name but two  Needless to say, I trust his judgment a great deal.  Oh, and one of his Christmas presents to me, many years back, was the boxed set of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers’s dance movies.

News Roundup

Bad News

News even sillier than normal — whatever “normal” means.


…like nobody saw this coming.


…and that’s  because there is no specific plot.  Actually, the violence will come from either the Biden Administration or its paramilitary groups, like Antifa or the FBI.  There’s far more evidence of that.


…they should send it all to Africa, where it will rot in warehouses without ever reaching the people who need it most — like most aid sent there.


….and only our State Department couldn’t see this coming:


…proving once and for all that we should have just nuked the place instead of invading it.

On a related note from another Muslim shithole:


…ah yes, that “Muslim enlightenment” shows its face.  Likewise:


,,,

And now, a Corona break:

 
…and:


…meanwhile:


…the next funeral for Irony will be held at a time TBA.


…although I always thought Robin was just Batman’s rent-boy, so this might actually be an improvement.


…my question is:  when the hell did 11-year-olds start having proms?

From the “You’d need a heart of stone not to laugh” department:


…I guess temper tantrums  sometimes have consequences.  Key word: Russia.

Now comes the time for sex:


…yup;  once he got his cherry popped, the government lost all interest.


…Dr. Kim sez:  sometimes a threesome can be beneficial.


…surprisingly good advice.  Cue feministical outrage in 3…2…1…


…for those who missed it, her “abs” are that little bit under the overhang.

And on the same topic, more or less:

Ellen Davies, now 21, from London, decided to change her lifestyle aged 16 when she was forced to travel two hours to find a prom dress that would fit her

…but trust me:  you really don’t want to see the “Before” pics.

Here’s a better example:

Quote Of The Day

QOTD

Brit teenagers have just learned the final grades of their A-level studies (no exams because WuFlu), which are important because it helps determine much of their future prospects of getting a decent job, placement at universities (except as in the post below) and so on.

And then you have Clarkson’s take:

(The “U” basically says, “He did the exam”.)

He left out one detail, however:

The man is a national treasure.

Unequal

Education

Ah yes, using inequity to try to achieve equity:

Universities ‘will give poorer pupils priority’: Private school teenagers will get short shrift in admissions as colleges look to prioritise the disadvantaged

This time, it’s not choosing Blacks over Whites, but poor over wealthy.  Yup, I can just see how this will help the poor overcome the “systemic bias” of the British education system.  It’s the academic version of the “magic dirt” theory:  that somehow, exposing the poor to better education will somehow raise all of them into successful careers after graduation.

Now, I agree that the earlier system of admissions — whereby the son of Lord Snotnose-Dribbling was guaranteed a place at Oxbridge simply he was the future Earl of Dunfartin.  But let’s be honest, here:  private school education tends to produce better students than state-managed warehouses do.  And yes, it’s unfair that a scion of a wealthy (or titled) man should have easier access to places like Eton or Harrow than those of a fishmonger in Whitechapel, ergo  a better chance of getting into, say, Cambridge.  But denying the “privileged” a place at university in favor of poorer individuals whose grades are worse than the former isn’t much better, is it?

Once again, they’re expecting equality of outcome by “equalizing” admission, when any fool will tell you from experience that it’s a fool’s pursuit.

But the Left have never allowed commonsense, history and logic to interfere with their stupid philosophy, have they?

#MeToo

Travels

Here’s Salena Zito, talking about the most famous highway pit stop in America:

Everything about Wall Drug, arguably the most iconic and long-lasting drug store in America, exemplifies a doggedness. It took persistence not only to survive but also thrive against insurmountable odds in a place few thought a small business had any business starting an enterprise in the first place.
In 1931, when Ted Hustead and his wife Dorothy were looking for a place to open a drug store, he told the local paper years later he picked the thinly populated town of Wall because the local doctor told them he’d give them all his prescriptions.
Despite all their hard work, though, most of their potential customers passed their little prairie town along the highway, rarely noticing the store.
The Husteads’ dire future all changed one hot summer night when Dorothy Hustead could not sleep. Irritated that the parade of cars along U.S. 16 was keeping her awake, she wondered how could they make all of those people at least stop at their store and maybe buy a thing or two.
Out of that mild irritation came a plan: Plant signs along the highway offering free ice-cold water to weary travelers. And not just any signs, but clever ones like the humorous Burma Shave signs that were famously posted all along small highways in the 1920s.
Her idea was both simple and genius. More importantly, it worked.
Within a year, they went from no employees to eight, and the signs went from a handful to hundreds of billboards. And today, Wall Drug is a 76,000-square-foot, multimillion-dollar slice of Americana where you can still get your prescription filled, but you can also get hand-crafted moccasins, divine homemade donuts, out-of-print books on the American West, cowboy boots, clothing, ice cream, western art, homemade pies, and bumper stickers. If they don’t have it, it’s probably not made.

I’ve been to Wall Drug.  And unless it’s fallen off the display, you can see my picture (along with thousands of similar ones) inside.

That was taken in September 2004, in the Luxembourg Gardens, Paris.

By the way:  I bought some gun gear at Wall Drug, and when we stopped at the Cabela’s store in Mitchell SD, I saw exactly the same stuff — only priced about 20% higher.