What a way to spend a birthday. . .

Well. . . I'm 28 now. I know that by any objective standard, I'm still a young man, but. . . I guess I'm starting to feel old. For one thing, I don't like modern pop music, and only know about its various more popular figures (Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Taylor Swift) from other people talking about them. . . hell, the only reason I know about the latter two is because of that thing they were involved in that all the influential media people wanted us to believe was a big deal.

(Hey, at least I still hate The Man. . . that makes me young, right? Right? No no, I don't wanna hear about decrepit hippies. My hatred of institutions stems from the fires of youth and nothing else!)

Another thing that makes me feel old? As of this coming July, I'm a college instructor. I've been hired to teach Physics 115, which is basically Physics 12, but more. . . University-y. This means that I'll be serving as the wizened mentor to a bunch of 18-year olds who will end up hating me because I'm now The Man and every young person hates The Man!

I'm. . . The Man?

Oh God.

Seriously, though, teaching Physics 115 is a great opportunity. I've already started writing down a draft version of my notes. In a lot of ways, teaching physics properly is a lot like writing a story. Okay, it's a little like writing a story. Still, I'm treating the notes to Phys 115 like my first novel.

And speaking of stories. . .

I'm at an impasse as far as Sailor Moon is concerned. When I started this whole screenplay idea, I like the idea of taking a revisionist approach to Sailor Moon. Since then, my "revisionism" has taken on a life of its own, to the point that. . .well, maybe I really should just stop calling it Sailor Moon. Maybe I should just start approaching this not as an adaptation but as an original creation that pays obvious tribute to old-school shojo, particularly Sailor Moon.

Maybe I should start calling it Pretty Girl Awesome.

I like it. Catchy, dumb, and reminiscent of shojo titles like Cutey Honey, Pretty Cure and, of course, Pretty Guardian/Pretty Girl Soldier Sailor Moon.

But if I do start treating this more like an original creation (like I should have been anyway. . .) that means I may not be able to keep posting, lest I give too much away. I'll have to think more about that. In any event, it's out there, for anyone who cares.

But wait, you're wondering, what does the title of this blog post have to do with anything you've just written?

Yesterday I invigilated the final exam for Physics 150, the course I've been marking this past semester. University regulations require that I get the exam marked within 72 hours of the invigilation, which means that I have to spend my birthday, and weekend, marking exams.

So, yeah. . . see title.

But, hey, Katsudon! And Source Code! And maybe new socks!

Things are suddenly looking up!

Talk about bad timing

The Japan Times reports that Keiko Kitagawa, PGSM's former Sailor Mars actress, is taking part in the anti-government protests in the middle east.

Okay, she's not. That was the April Fool's Day prank idea that crossed my mind this morning.

I think it could have worked, if I had more time to properly write it up. However, as it's already 11 o'clock and something like this would take a great deal of research and editing to get right, I decided to just leave you with the pitch. Maybe next year I'll plan something on the same scale as last year's DC Comics to Release Sailor Moon Comic post.

If I say "Don't think about elephants". . .

If I Wrote the Sailor Moon Movie #22: Oh, that? That's my pet elephant, Fukushima. Yeah, he craves attention. Just ignore him and he'll go away.

Christ, I'm already regretting this.

It's been less than three weeks since the earthquake off of Japan's coast. I discussed it here already, but it's becoming ever more clear that this event is going to have consequences far beyond anything a single blog post could deal with. In many ways, the Japan that existed before the earthquake-- the Japan where I lived for three months-- has vanished.

It's the height of selfishness to look at a tragedy like this and ask, "how does this affect me?" In no sane, meaningful does this affect me. Or rather, the ways in which it DOES meaningfully affect me are either so abstract that they don't hold any emotional meaning-- Canada's economy will have to readjust as Japan invests in cleanup and reconstruction efforts! Leaders will have to reconsider future energy plans following increased concerns over nuclear power!-- or are so separated from me, in the Kevin Bacon sense, that any emotional connection seems shallow and somehow. . . insufficient: my teacher had family members in Tokyo during the quake. . . my friends have family somewhere. . . a distant acquaintance was teaching English in Kansai. . .

The biggest and most immediate effect that this earthquake has had, on me, is to inconvenience a hobby, to complicate an overambitious creative writing exercise. And that is nothing. I know that.

That having been said. . . any story that takes place in Japan after March of 2011 will have to deal with the earthquake in one way or the other. It's just too damn pervasive to ignore. Everyone in Japan, literally or not, felt that quake. The people of Tokyo definitely did. Even if it's never mentioned, the earthquake will hang in the air for years to come.

So how will it affect the screenplay? I don't know yet, except to say "as little as possible". It will never (or almost never) be spoken of in the story; to mention it explicitly would not only be exploitative, but would ring false-- even after a disaster, people have their own lives to focus on, and THAT'S what they'll be talking about on a day to day basis. At the same time, it would be just as wrong to ignore the quake outright. People may not speak of it, but they will remember it. It will live on in daily rituals, in the economic and political fallout. It will live on in the memories of the characters, and to one degree or the other it will affect their behaviour. For one, it may even become an unspoken turning point, one that affects her up until the beginning of the film, in ways that even she doesn't understand. . . or doesn't want to accept. I'm gonna keep that to myself for now, partly because it dovetails with another plot thread I was already developing before the earthquake (and thus don't want to spoil) and partly because of how much I still have to figure out.

More is coming, though. I've been at this too long to give up now. I considered not posting any new screenplay snippets, but a talk with my sister has convinced me to keep going with the first draft. Expect the next part of the screenplay. . . sometime.

Oh, and bonus points for people who get the joke about the picture.

Shut the fuck up, you piece of shit.

Tokyo governor and ultra-rightist loon Shintaro Ishihara calls the March 11 earthquake "punishment from heaven" for Japan's greed (source).

Other gems of Ishihara's wisdom(from wikiquote):

On the Naking Massare: "They say we made a holocaust there, but that is not true. It is a lie made up by the Chinese."

Speaking of the Chinese:

"The Chinese are ignorant, so they are overjoyed. That spacecraft [Shenzhou 5, which carried China's first astronaut] was an outdated one. If Japan wanted to do it, we could do it in one year."

"China holds no value at all for human life and can start a war without any concerns. . ."

On Terrorism:

"A bomb was planted [at the private residence of Deputy Foreign Minister Hitoshi Tanaka]. I think it was deserved."

Asshole thinks he's hot shit because he used to hang out with Yukio Mishima.

3/11

I feel obliged to say something about the earthquake that has hit Japan, but I really don't know what. Honestly, I've never known what to say in the wake of tragedies like this, and have preferred instead to say nothing at all. This hasn't been so much out of overwhelming emotion as it has about simply feeling like I have nothing worth saying. Do I wish for the continued well being of the survivors? Offer condolences to the families of the dead? If I do, so what? What could the obvious platitudes of a distant observer possibly matter?

But for me, this is different than the Indonesian tsunami, or hurricane Katrina, or earthquakes in Haiti or New Zealand, or 9/11. I lived in Tokyo for three months. I used to walk by the skyscrapers which can now be seen swaying "like palm trees in the wind" on videos all over the internet. One of the cities I most wanted to visit was Sendai-- my M.Sc. thesis work on molecular quantum tunneling is based on research that began at Sendai's Tohoku University. Now it looks like that city, like New Orleans and Port au Prince, has been more or less destroyed. I have friends and teachers from Japan-- thankfully, though, their families seem to be alright. I was connected to all of this, in my own very minor way.

I find myself contrasting my feelings right now with how I reacted to the 9/11 attacks. Back then, I didn't have friends from New York (hell, I still don't), and to this day the closest I've ever come to the city is spending a night in Albany. Maybe that's why, in the weeks following the attack, the strongest emotion I felt regarding 9/11 was. . . irritation. I was just sick of it. I was sick of the constant news reports. I was sick of the flag waving and the fear mongering and the beating of the drums of war (of which there was plenty in even in Canada). I was sick of hearing that The World Has Changed. I was sick of the "oh! those poor souls" and "oh! what a terrible tragedy" that I kept hearing from people who, like me, had probably never been to New York or Washington, who probably didn't know anyone from those places and were falling to pieces over nothing more than images on a screen.

In other words, I was a cynical prick. A little cynicism is, and was, good thing (there are too many examples of post-9/11 irrationality to list, but one that sticks out for me is the "Death of Irony" that was supposed to have happened. . .and of course, these were pretty appalling too). But when cynicism blinds you to the fact that, maybe, just maybe, there are people out there who really do care and really are trying to help in whatever way they can. . .

Well. . . maybe I'm finally feeling the way I was supposed to ten years ago. Maybe that's what needed to be said.

Some Ami-able Rewrite Ideas

I decided quite a while ago not only that I need to completely overhaul the first act of the Sailor Moon script, but also more or less how I want to do it. The first act differed too much from the introductory events presented in earlier versions of Sailor Moon (manga, anime, PGSM) . The deviations from the "proper" storyline that come into play later on the script will have more impact if everything initially seems to be going "according to plan." So, not only is the cultural festival in the first act going to be nixed (I always hated that idea anyway) but many of the character development scenes involving the supporting characters (Ami, Rei, Makoto, Mamoru. . . and yes, Minako's in there too) will either be omitted, retooled, or moved further ahead in the script.

Another, related, thing that I realized was that the budding relationship between Ami and Tomoe, which was hinted at in this part of the first draft, can be set up quite a bit better than it has been in this draft. So, with that in mind, I thought I'd give a summary of the revisions I had in mind regarding Ami's development in the story up to now.

Ami's Introduction:

When Ami is first mentioned in the script, she's not actually present; rather, Umino is discussing a strange "genius girl" with Usagi and Naru, complaining about how she always gets better grades than he does. When Umino spots her, Usagi turns to have a look and mistakenly thinks that this genius is actually a tall, slim fourteen year old with short hair, much like the Ami we all know and love from earlier versions of Sailor Moon.

Nothing new here so far. Now, flash forward to after school. Luna, still recovering from her injuries, has fallen asleep next to a sidewalk, a few feet away from a pedestrian overpass. She's woken up by a little girl, around eight years old, asking Luna if she's okay. Hardly in the mood to humor some overimaginative kid, Luna ignores her, but as she (the kid) keeps going, it becomes clear she's not an ordinary little girl. Her choice of words is just a shade too clever, her manners just a little too refined. Upon examining Luna, she reveals that she possesses a fair amount of medical knowledge, enough to deduce that Luna has suffered a concussion. She offers to take Luna to a vet, but Luna backs off. The girl acquiesces and leaves Luna be, but not before politely introducing herself as none other than Ami Mizuno.

Ami Tries to be a Good Friend Book (Bonus points if you catch the references):

I'm having a little trouble figuring out how to fit this scene in with the others, but I really want it in here somewhere. Ami is riding the bus, on her way to crams school, when she see a handsome boy, roughly her age, sitting a couple of seats over. They're silent at first, but then Ami (perhaps after hearing some girls from Juuban Junior High talking about her) decides to strike up a conversation. After a moment of small talks, the boy matter-of-factly asks Ami if she would like to see his elephant. Ami politely says yes. . . at which point the boy drops his pants, releasing his "elephant" into the wild. Horrified, Ami runs off of the bus, which leads up to our next scene. . .

Ami v. Bullies:

Almost immediately after running off the bus, Ami is confronted by the same bullies we saw nearly beat up Usagi (indeed, in the second draft, Usagi will not encounter the bullies). Ami makes a couple of surprisingly daring and clever attempts to escape them, but eventually they corner her against a wall. Things go from bad to worse when she sees a tall, mean looking girl approaching the group from behind. But just when the leader to the bullies is about to kick at Ami, he's stopped by the other girl, who turns out to be Makoto. Before Makoto and the bully have a chance to really get into it, a police car pulls up, and Ami makes a break for it.

Ami at the Hospital:

Still nerved out from her encounter with the bullies, Ami returns home, only to find that her estranged father has left an angry message on voice mail. Worse, Ami's mother has forgotten an important file at home, and rather than come home to get it herself, she's asked Ami to come to the hospital and drop it off for her. Great. So she goes to the hospital, and after a vain search for her mother, she accidentally enters the room of a "sleeping sickness" patient.

So far, so the same. But now, instead of running and crying to her mother, she walks out into the main hall and faints. When she comes to, she's being tended to by a gentle, elderly man. Ami's mother, Saeko Mizuno, soon joins them, and the man is revealed to be none other than Souichi Tomoe, the infamous grand old man of Japanese medicine. It turns out that Tomoe has been visiting Saeko (a former student of his) at the hospital semi-regularly, assisting Saeko in her research into a strange, rare form of cancer contracted by one of her patients. Tomoe has even arranged for Saeko to present the results of her research at a talk happening at his own private school, Mugen Gakuen, a scientific academy which admits only the best and brightest students Japan has to offer.

Ami, having given Saeko her documents, is about to go home, but Saeko asks her to stay for a bit. At first, Saeko and Tomoe discuss their research, but gradually the focus shifts to Ami herself, specifically the only aspect that anyone seems to care about: her intellect. It's at this point that Ami suspects something else is going on here, and her suspicions only grow when Tomoe--casually, but not casually enough-- invites Ami to attend her mother's talk. She realizes that her whole visit to the hospital was a ruse; Tomoe's and Saeko's real intent is to eventually convince Ami to attend Mugen Gakuen.

Ami leaves, but Tomoe catches up with her. He comes clean: the whole thing was ruse-- in fact, he would have disappointed in her if she had not seen through it. Through their conversation, we learn something very important about Ami: she suffered a nervous breakdown a few years ago, a results of her parents' divorce and of the stratospheric expectations heaped upon her. This is why she's still in junior high school, despite her obvious intellectual gifts. Ami doesn't want to be pressured into anything, and Tomoe agrees to leave the matter alone.

But before she leaves, Tomoe asks for a chance to plead his case, straight up. He tells her a story going back to his days working at Princeton University in the 1950's. Sometime during his tenure at Princeton, residents of a nearby New Jersey factory town were showing symptoms of a strange new disease. Tomoe-- in his telling of the story, at least-- realized that this disease was not natural in origin but rather the result of ground water contamination originating from the town's chemical factory, and that the evidence was being covered up by owners of the factory, in collusion with corrupt authorities (he also points out that this was years before Minamata, just in case you noticed the similarity). For Tomoe, this was a seminal moment-- no longer some abstract intellectual exercise or public health issue, this was now a battle, with a hero and a villain. It crystallized, in Tomoe's mind, the moral obligations that come with great intellect, the opportunities to perform acts of genuine good that ordinary people could never hope for. Since then, he says, he has always tried to do good with his intellect, and will keep on doing whatever good he can do, "right up until the end."

It's a vain, melodramatic story, and a deeply ironic one given what we'll learn about Tomoe later on. Nevertheless, it strikes a chord with Ami. Before they part, Tomoe dares Ami to do something worthwhile with her intellect, to solve a great problem. . . whether or not she decides to go to Mugen Gakuen. That last dare sticks with Ami. For the first time in a long while, Ami sees her intellectual gift as a gift, an opportunity rather than an obligation. She will solve a great problem. . . but which one?

Valentine's Day-- 'Cause Nothing Says "Love" Quite Like A Holiday Named After a Catholic Priest Who Had His Head Cut Off.

On this, that highest of high fabricated giftcard non-holy days, let us remember that love is evolution's way of making sure Daddy sticks around just long enough to help raise the kids.



Cynicism on Valentine's Day. . . I'll bet no-one's ever thought of THAT before!