From Peacock Pie to Christmas Cake

Preparing to talk to students about Christmas, I found my thoughts turning to Washington Irving whose Christmas stories in his 1820 book, The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, were so instrumental in forming our modern notions of Christmas. I delighted in reading them again but I had to pause and ask myself if Japanese junior high school students would really be interested in it. Japan has its own ideas about Christmas, which is widely celebrated in the country but without any particular religious connotations for most people. The aesthetics of ritual and ceremony seem to matter more. So one family may make regular visits to Shinto landmarks, have a Buddhist shrine at home, and have Christian style weddings. There are customs surrounding Christmas that are based more on how people in Japan perceive it as a western holiday than for any extrapolations from religion or cultural belief, aside from a general good will towards one's fellow human beings.

But I was surprised to learn that the reason so many people in Japan like to eat KFC and Christmas Cakes on Christmas is because it's generally believed that people in America do the same. I told some students that KFC wasn't particularly popular in the U.S. on Christmas and immediately felt sorry I did. The reaction of anxious disappointment I saw made me feel like I'd told them Santa Claus isn't real.

The popularity of KFC on Christmas in Japan goes back to a very successful ad campaign in the '70s. The Christmas Cake is a bit older, going back to 1910. A custom originating in Europe, people in the U.S. don't usually have something referred to as a "Christmas Cake". Britain and Germany have had a few different Christmas Cakes. Japan's is distinguished by usually being strawberry shortcake--here's a little one I bought at a konbini this evening:

I didn't find much in The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon useful to tell the kids although I did talk about the peacock pie. A pie made from peacock, this is how Washington Irving informs his reader about it:

I could not, however, but notice a pie magnificently decorated with peacock’s feathers, in imitation of the tail of that bird, which overshadowed a considerable tract of the table. This, the squire confessed with some little hesitation, was a pheasant pie, though a peacock pie was certainly the most authentical; but there had been such a mortality among the peacocks this season that he could not prevail upon himself to have one killed.*

* The peacock was anciently in great demand for stately
entertainments. Sometimes it was made into a pie, at one end
of which the head appeared above the crust in all its
plumage, with the beak richly gilt; at the other end the
tail was displayed. Such pies were served up at the solemn
banquets of chivalry, when knights-errant pledged themselves
to undertake any perilous enterprise, whence came the
ancient oath, used by Justice Shallow, “by cock and pie.”

The peacock was also an important dish for the Christmas feast; and Massinger, in his “City Madam,” gives some idea of the extravagance with which this, as well as other dishes, was prepared for the gorgeous revels of the olden times:

Men may talk of Country Christmasses,
Their thirty pound butter’d eggs, their pies of carps’ tongues;
Their pheasants drench’d with ambergris: the carcases of three
fat wethers bruised for gravy to make sauce for a single peacock!

Irving mentions some Christmas games I thought I might be able to introduce to the kids but none of them would really be conducive for social distancing--or even really appropriate for kids in any circumstance. Hot Cockles involves putting one's head in someone's lap and guessing who the person behind them is tickling their hands while Snapdragon involves eating raisins in burning brandy in a dark room to admire the glow inside people's mouths. It's just possible such a game could lead to accidents.

Boxes are Too Small

Intrigue continues in the distant future and I finished watching the decent three new episodes of The Expanse from last week. Mostly the show at this point seems to be about convincing people to set aside factional loyalty for the good of the solar system. Convenient how all problems have the same solution.

Avasarala, no longer president, is trying to get Earth's government to stop looking at the Martians as enemies so they can see the threat of a new Belter terrorist called Maurcus. Naomi is trying to get her son, Filip, to set aside loyalty to Maurcus in order to save his life. Amos is trying to get a gangster to look past his own rules and greed. Drummer is trying to be a simple pirate instead of managing the affairs of all Belters.

The third episode was directed by Thomas Jane, who played the dearly missed Miller from earlier in the series. He does a decent job as a director. He gives us a scene of Drummer and her crew waking up naked together.

There must be really good heating on that little pirate ship.

My favourite plot, though, is Alex and Bobbie trying to track down arms dealers. I like how we see Frankie Adams pumping iron. She and Gina Carano on The Mandalorian are doing a good job of reversing the trend of tiny, rail thin ladies somehow being able to clobber Goliaths.

The Expanse is available on Amazon Prime.

Fur Thoughts

Oh, for some of the furry outfits in The Ribos Operation. The 1978 Doctor Who serial always felt very Christmasy to me, though it originally aired in September.

And such pretty furry costumes, too. There were so many nice costumes in Tom Baker's last three seasons.

I'm dealing with winter for the first time now that I live in Japan so I'm particularly envious of the fur. I've bought two furry blankets and they do seem to retain heat very effectively. Nothing competes with Mary Tamm's fringe, though.

Romana I seems so much more innocent than Romana II. I'll always prefer II but I is so cute pondering the Doctor's statement that a crook wouldn't be very successful with a dishonest face.

I love the pair of thieves in this serial. I wonder if Douglas Adams contributed to their dialogue at all. The serial is credited to Robert Holmes but the two feel so much like one of Adams' double acts.

It goes without saying I'd like a gigantic scarf and a velvet frock coat, too. Have you ever looked for a velvet frock coat? They're so hard to find. I saw a guy wearing one at Comic Con, doing a wonderful Fourth Doctor cosplay. I should've asked where he got it.

Twitter Sonnet #1425

The darkest drink has dropped the table edge.
Another book supports the severed leg.
A stout and hearty port was off the ledge.
The morning jogged the brain to eat an egg.
A candle carried plates of snacks away.
The empty hall was cold and full of gas.
Another cloud produced the snowy day.
The waiters all were built of rusty brass.
The purple tree alone awaits the brush.
A sweater fell apart before the cat.
And all through twinkling snow's a sacred hush.
Returning mouser steps to take the bat.
A million legs conduct the carapace.
A hundred feet decry the precipice.

Final Round Boss Fight: Mandalorian

Despite some surprisingly bad special effects, The Mandalorian delivered a solid season finale last night. When I got to the end of the episode, I felt powerfully compelled to watch Return of the Jedi again, which I think was a good sign. Though, throughout the episode, I was mainly reminded of my experience playing video games like Dark Forces and TIE Fighter.

Din (Pedro Pascal) meets up with Bo-Katan (Katee Sackoff) again, which pleased me just for the fact that this gave her an opportunity to appear in an episode with a decent director. And indeed, as Peyton Reed showed earlier in the season, he's a director who knows how to inject suspense into an action sequence. Jon Favreau's teleplay helped a lot, too, especially in how effectively he and Reed established the threat of the Dark Troopers, who turn out to be droids.

Something could've been made of the fact that Din had childhood trauma related to battle droids but it was still a good fight scene. Then, of course, there was the final boss fight with Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito).

One of the most common criticisms I've heard for this season is that the show felt too much like a video game with Din being given quests in each episode. I don't see this as a bad thing in itself--video games now are part of the living experiences of most people, why shouldn't art imitate the experience? The only issue I had with the "quest" format of this season is that stories sometimes felt rushed. Last night's finale was good but it would have been better spread over two or three episodes, allowing character relationships to develop. Fennec's (Ming-Na Wen) motivation was still much too vague last night, as much fun as it was watching her and the three other ladies take the cruiser.

I also liked the confrontation between Cara (Gina Carano) and the Imperial pilot at the beginning of the episode. It was pretty bold of Favreau to have the pilot refer to the Rebels as terrorists. One of the things that made Rogue One the best of the Disney era Star Wars films is it suggested not everything the Rebel Alliance did was clean and pure. I really hope the upcoming shows pick up more on this idea.

The episode ended with a big surprise that nonetheless made perfect sense within the story. Sadly, the moment was hampered by surprisingly weak special effects in an area where Disney has excelled in the past. This may have also been why the moment felt a bit rushed. Din's relationship with Grogu had a nicely emotional payoff, though.

I wonder if next season we're going to see Din join Bo-Katan in retaking Mandalore? It's an idea with potential.

Ducks in a Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle has claimed many victims, among them Scrooge McDuck and his triplet nephews in a 1987 episode of DuckTales called "Bermuda Triangle Tangle". I watched it a few days ago, sort of celebrating the cancellation of the poorly written reboot series. As I did, I found it seemed oddly familiar.

Why do ships keep disappearing in the triangle? Many stories have provided explanations ranging from time loops to evil fog. On DuckTales, it's a continent of seaweed.

Seaweed that, when eaten, extends your lifespan so the place is populated by people from various periods of history. And then I remembered the 1968 Hammer horror film The Lost Continent. It has the same premise though with a very different plot--maybe the DuckTales episode is modelled on the source novel.

There are plenty of good jokes, though, I doubt were in the book. Huey, Dewey, and Louie wanted to go fishing before Scrooge decided they were all going off to look for one of his missing cargo ships. So the boys decide to try fishing anyway, in the ocean, from Scrooge's fast moving passenger ship.

They are, unsurprisingly, disappointed in the results.

Scrooge ends up in a power struggle with the leader of the seaweed people and there's stuff involving a sea monster. It's fun.

DuckTales is available on Disney+.

Expanding, Big and Small

The new season of The Expanse premiered last night on Amazon Prime with three episodes and I watched the first one. For a season premiere, it has a pretty subdued tone. Most of it involved Amos and Alex as they return home--Amos to Earth and Alex to Mars. It was a good episode with solid writing from Naren Shankar.

The new season premieres amid some bad press. Cas Anvar, who plays Alex, won't be back for season six due to an investigation into allegations of sexual assault and harassment. No news story has said he was convicted of anything. One story links to a Reddit thread as though it contains all the evidence we need but all the quotes from named cast and crew are very litigation-conscious variations of "We take these allegations seriously" and quotes from accusers come with no direct evidence. Many of the claims of harassment hinge on interpretations of texts and tweets.

Maybe he is guilty, I don't know. I saw him in person a few times at Comic Con and was always surprised by how accessible he was for someone on a currently popular show. I used to see him in an autograph booth upstairs in an area normally occupied by stars of shows that ended at least ten years ago or bit players from a crowd scene in a Conan movie. That kind of accessibility could make him vulnerable to opportunists who could easily provide a context for their allegations but maybe it was a sign he was a predator on the prowl. I won't pretend to know.

He was always one of the best actors on the show, one of the very few decent ones from season one. The new premiere shows it, too. After confronting his estranged wife he gets grilled by Bobbie (Frankie Adams) for his persistently positive attitude. A thread throughout his subplot in this episode are signs of an economic change on Mars, culminating in him pondering a series of vacancy and "Going Out of Business" signs.

This struck a cord with me, as did his wife matter-of-factly telling him how her rent had gotten too high for her to continue living in her previous apartment. That's the California I know. That's how it was when I left, which must have been not long after the fifth season of The Expanse wrapped filming. After so many years of people in the media pretending like it wasn't happening, it's nice to see it acknowledged.

Meanwhile, Amos has a nice fight sequence, beating a few thugs trying to shake down passengers on a transport. Then he shares a scene with Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo) in which they have this memorable exchange:

AMOS: You and I have very different life experiences, Prissy.

AVASARALA: Don't call me that. I'm a Member of Parliament, not your favourite stripper.

AMOS: You could be both.

Is he really flirting with her? Considering the recap reminded us she's broken up with her husband, could she actually have a relationship with Amos this season? I'd certainly like to see it, despite Avasarala's outfit in the premiere falling well short of her usual standard. Hopefully her wardrobe improves over the course of the season.

Twitter Sonnet #

On storage lists the mammals make a home.
Collected seeds deny the soil pines.
From verdant needles, cones discreetly roam.
The evergreens forever clog the lines.
Forgotten albums sound the pocket bell.
The speakers broke to fish for diamond gills.
We wandered aft to drain the cabin's hell.
The varied clams were hiding mollusc wills.
The optic ears were shifting round the head.
The darkness spot a nose and eyes became.
For Mickey's buttons white attached to red.
The tiny beast expands as Mouse was named.
The bigger show contracts against the mind.
The sketchy cloud endorsed the melon rind.

Waylaid Migrations

Trading one's soul doesn't always involve a Faustian bargain or similar, single dramatic event. Too often it may be gradual and inexorable, as in the case of 1953's The Wild Geese(雁), the story of a beautiful young woman whose reluctant decision to be come a mistress sends her down a route of unexpected, terrible consequences. How much freedom she really has, though, as circumstances worsen, is tortuously ambiguous. Directed by Shiro Toyoda and starring Hideko Takamine, The Wild Geese comes off as a slightly more melodramatic version of a Mikio Naruse movie. It never hits quite as hard as some of Naruse's best movies but it ably conveys an existential hell.

Otama (Takamine) is worried about her aging father (Eizo Tanaka) who supports her and himself by selling candy in the street. She's been married before, to a man who turned out to secretly have a prior marriage with children. So, despite being beautiful, eligible suitors stay away from her. Her father's health and her poor reputation are both used by a woman named Osan (Choko Iida) to persuade her to become the mistress of a widower kimono merchant with children. Osan reasons that, in these circumstances, Otama will be a wife in all but name.

Except it turns out the widower kimono merchant is neither a widower nor a kimono merchant. Suezo (Eijiro Tono) is a moneylender with a living wife and children--and Osan is in debt to him.

He places Otama in a separate home and she gets comfortable there before she learns how things really stand. You could say this is an edifying example of why, "if he wants it, he better put a ring on it."

Except, did Otama really have a choice? She's in no position to embark on a career capable of supporting herself or her father.

Things take a turn for the more melodramatic when she falls for a young medical student, Okada, (Hiroshi Akutagawa) who saves her caged bird from a snake (pretty clear symbolism there). They both lack means to support themselves, the only difference is he has opportunity and she doesn't--opportunity she might jeopardise if they become involved.

The outdoor scenes with Okada are strangely pretty next to the more realistic indoor scenes with Suezo who, in spite of everything, is a more complex and interesting character than Okada. People around Otama point out he's kind to her, another thing that makes her situation more ambiguous. Takamine, as usual, gives a wonderful performance with a desperation that gradually turns into despair over the course of the film. Her love for the medical student gives a slightly noir-ish shade to this piece of mono no aware.

The Wild Geese is available on The Criterion Channel.

Snow and Weird

It snowed to-day on my way to the school where I work! To my untrained San Diego eyes, they looked like little flecks of dust. I durst not hope I was actually seeing snow but then I heard the students walking ahead of me saying, "Yuki!" One student told me the last time it snowed around here was seven years ago. It probably won't pile up but it was still a nice thing to see in December.

To-day was the last day of art club this year at my current school--starting to-morrow, there are parent meetings and tests until the winter break. So I brought home some of the surreal doodles I've been doing with mechanical pencil lately.

The challenge is to see how much I can draw without making a mistake. So far I've avoided using an eraser.

This was maybe my most ambitious:

It's supposed to be the Seventh Doctor and Ace. Among other things, I think I drew the Doctor too small. But it could've been worse, I guess. Goodness, it's hard to type when my fingers are this cold. Maybe I ought to buy a heater.

Leaves Still Falling

It's getting pretty cold around here, at least by my standards--under 50 degrees Fahrenheit some days. I hear it'll be colder in January. It still mostly looks like autumn, though many leaves have changed from orange to brown.

There are an extraordinary number of flowers about, though:

Another Kit-Kat flavour has turned up, too:

This is Onsen Manju flavour--apparently they're meant to taste like the manju--a sort of pastry--typically served at the hot springs resorts called onsen. These places are traditionally associated with New Years.

And monkeys. It seems monkeys really enjoy the hot springs as much as people do.

Twitter Sonnet #1423

Returning arcs complete a coffee ring.
A morning frost contains a growing plant.
The lady bug's convinced the aphids sing.
The varied slopes of winter build a slant.
A slice recovered pie completes the chart.
The varied fruits combat the greenish leaves.
The slender duchess throws a pallid dart.
From ev'ry station locomotive leaves.
The empty blimp recalls a rising thought.
For times of soup the crackers suck the broth.
We stashed the phones behind the heavy pot.
A freezer section conjured planet Hoth.
A press of wool and leather hold the lift.
The light of waltzing ice compels a drift.

It Takes All Kinds

Ah, for the days when a vampire slayer could do her work in a teeny tiny dress. I miss the '90s. The second episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's second season, "Some Assembly Required", is a nice Frankenstein pastiche about a couple boys trying to assemble one attractive teenage girl from the parts of several.

Honestly, though, the most implausible part of the episode is when Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) jumps into a dumpster because she thinks a guy is following her.

I feel like the writers failed to consider how much time and effort--and noise--is required for a person to stop, lift the top of a dumpster all the way back so it stays open, lift herself over the side, jump in, and then pull the lid shut. Angel (David Boreanaz) ought to've been caught up with her for about fifteen minutes by that point. Added onto this the unlikelihood of Cordelia panicking so much from a guy being in the parking lot, her surprising choice of hiding place is only the cherry on the top of the implausible sundae.

But it's nice to see the two of them are already so friendly nearly two years away from when they'd be starring in a spin-off together.

The episode's concept seems like it could easily be a male gaze deconstruction story but a clear difference is drawn between Xander (Nicholas Brendon) lusting for women and the guy actually wanting to construct one by killing several. The episode's Frankenstein monster, a dead high school football star brought back by his brother, has an altogether different motive than the pervy kid doing the reanimation. He commissioned the project in much the way the monster in Mary Shelley's book demanded a bride, feeling such a one would be the only companion willing to accept him. Whether or not this is true isn't entirely clear. In the case of both the Buffy episode and the original book, it seems more like a projected self-image, like the monster requires a mate with a similar level of self-disgust. Which is a pretty lousy way to set out creating a new life though, sadly, that does sound like a lot of parents--as well as people who like to assert a dominant role over their romantic partners.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is available in a lousy cropped format on Amazon Prime.

The Wages of Imperial Remnants

I didn't have high expectations for last night's new Mandalorian, knowing it was written and directed by Rick Famuyiwa. But, while it was certainly not among the better episodes this season, it was much better than Famuyiwa's work in season one and it featured another case of a season one character returning with better writing.

As soon as I saw the jungle planet with a big truck trundling through I thought, "Hey, looks like Sorcerer." Then it turned out that Din (Pedro Pascal) and Mayfeld (Bill Burr) were going to be driving a truck with volatile explosives and I knew it was a very conscious homage to Sorcerer or Wages of Fear, movies about a gang of misfit criminals of diverse backgrounds driving trucks carrying volatile explosives through South American jungle. But it's not exactly a retelling--the plot quickly pares down the characters to just Din and Mayfeld driving the truck, leaving Cara Dune (Gina Carano), Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen), and Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) sidelined for most of the episode. Though Fett has a nice moment near the end where he uses one of the sonic charges from Attack of the Clones.

Of course, driving a truck on uneven ground with volatile explosives doesn't make much sense when there are hover cars and ships that can take them. The episode's biggest flaw is its many glaring logical problems, the biggest being the facial scan Din is required to undergo to access an Imperial terminal. Storywise, it's good to have a reason to put Din in this position--where he has to choose between keeping his helmet on and saving Grogu--but it doesn't make sense that he would need a facial scan when apparently it doesn't matter at all to the computer if his face is in the records as an Imperial officer or trooper. Famuyiwa is one of those people who evidently doesn't think this kind of thing matters but of course it does--the crucial thing here is Din's motivation and if his motivation doesn't make sense it seriously undercuts everything. We have to have a clear idea of the stakes he's weighing in his head.

The episode still mainly works because of the performances and the ideas. Like the rest of this season, it feels like the writers are much less constrained to show a particular black and white morality. While driving the truck, Burr's very good delivering lines about how there's not much difference to most people between the New Republic and the Empire. Which is developed nicely first by putting the stormtroopers and TIE fighters in a heroic position, rescuing Din and Mayfeld from pirates, and then having Mayfeld confronting an officer, played with savoury menace by Richard Brake.

At the same time, it all feels a little too fast, like these ideas should have been spread out over several episodes. I'd like to see more instances of people actually benefiting from an Imperial presence as, of course, it makes sense that they would in many cases. I suppose you'd rather have pirates? etc. Having Burr do it as info dump only works because Burr is such a good, natural performer.

Having Cara and Fennec hanging around like backup singers reminds me the writers haven't generally been very good at writing female characters. If it weren't for Rosario Dawson's performance, Ahsoka Tano would have been as boring as she was on Rebels.

I've noticed some weird fan worship around Dave Filoni and it seems to be supported by Lucasfilm PR. As I talked about before, I noticed that, on Ahsoka Tano's Wikipedia entry, her credited creator had been changed in 2018 from just George Lucas to George Lucas and Dave Filoni without any cited source. So a couple weeks ago, I put up a "citation needed" tag on the entry, explaining my reasons in the article history--the Clone Wars TV series only shows George Lucas as creator. A few days after I put up the tag, someone found a citation on the Lucasfilm blog--an entry that had been written only two days earlier. It was an interview with Rosario Dawson in which the blogger credited Filoni as Ahsoka's creator in brackets--notably, it never comes up in the interview with Dawson. I've yet to see any instance of anyone officially attached to production on Mandalorian or Clone Wars refer to Filoni as Ahsoka's creator, and that includes Filoni himself. Looking further on the Lucasfilm website, I can find no instance of Filoni being referred to as Ahsoka's creator before 2018.

It makes sense that Lucasfilm would do this. Maybe nothing in Star Wars media produced since Disney bought the property has quite caught fire as well as they hoped. Certainly nothing Dave Filoni has created under Disney has made much of an impression so it's useful to tie him to a genuine success.

Can we, in a real sense, though, call him Ahsoka's creator? He did direct the Clone Wars movie but he didn't write it. If that were enough to make him Ahsoka's creator we'd have to credit Irvin Kershner, director of Empire Strikes Back, for creating Lando Calrissian. Obviously there are many hands at work in any film production in creating a character--the director, the costume designer, and, of course, the actor. But generally "created by" goes to the writer, the person who came up with the concept. Stanley Kubrick drastically reworked The Shining but, still, most people would say Jack Torrance was created by Stephen King. Filoni had early designs for a Togruta girl named Ashla on Clone Wars but Lucas came up with the name Ahsoka and the concept of her being a Jedi padawan to Anakin Skywalker. It really seems like, even if Lucas wasn't sole creator, he had the lion's share. Certainly more than enough to make the numerous articles and interviews referring exclusively to Filoni as Ahsoka's creator look suspicious.

And I say, once again, look to the writers. Before the Disney takeover, Filoni had one writing credit on Clone Wars and it was as a cowriter. All of the stories that brought Ahsoka to life weren't written by him. And in all the stories he's written since the Disney takeover, Ahsoka has been, at best, unremarkable, aside from some decent action scenes.

So, yesterday, there was big Marvel and Star Wars news with many new films and series being announced, one of which was the Ahsoka Tano series. Now basically Disney has to put Filoni in charge of it, they've built him up too much. I can only hope he somehow wises up and gets other people to write the episodes.

Twitter Sonnet #1422

A plate of cheese considered late was good.
A dairy time was marked with creamy pen.
The butter's kept beneath the freezing hood.
A glass of milk completes the cattle win.
Confusion's ghost disturbs a random bag.
The hardened rice was boiled past the soup.
In reckless flight a shirt is sure to snag.
The runners lost returned in endless loop.
A choice explained the faintly darkened eyes.
Behind a row of rocks the rodent bakes.
A meagre coin would scarce requite the pies.
A movie budget's half the funds it takes.
The winding line connects a rounding bird.
The blurry font creates a hazy word.