Randomness: markers, eyeball-licking, and dull Catholic priests

Because I know more people read LJ on Monday morning than the weekend, I'm just going to renew my plea for anyone around here who reads Japanese well enough to translate it who'd be willing to get art in exchange for translating a few pages from a book on marker techniques - the bonus being that it's about Kazuya Minekura.

That out of the way, yhlee mentioned a bit about pacing in TV shows, and this is from my comment to her reprinted here because I'm not sure I know if anyone on the friendslist has seen Boogiepop Phantom, and I highly recommend it.

Not the same as hour-long episodes, but the anime of Boogiepop Phantom plays long and hard with pacing and revelation. It starts with an episode focused on one character, then spirals out and out, looking at other characters in this area, sometimes a little backwards in time, somtimes a little forwards in time, sometimes jumping madly around. You'll often see the events of previous or future episodes playing out in the background, and sometimes you'll get the punchline of a scene in one episode and two episodes later, get the lead-in to it. You have to watch carefully and piece together not only the story, but the chronology.

I've just read the translation of the novel it was based on, Boogiepop and Others, which does this a bit, but not as much: it's easier to follow.

The novel is interesting, but the anime's better. I've seen the live-action movie, too, which is a low-budget affair whose most memorable point can be summed up in three words: eyeball-licking scene.

And in other news from the literary world: is there out there an action/suspense novel starring a Catholic priest that does not, in fact, involve him breaking his vows of chastity at any point? Not that I've read many action/suspense novels starring Catholic priests over the course of my life, but it seems that it's never a question if if he's going to do it, but when. This weekend I finished Steve Berry's The Third Secret, which according to its press is an amazing tour-de-force of suspense and Vatican insider knowledge. What it really is, is dull. And involves a priest who breaks his vows of chastity, but that's OK because ( Cut for spoilers )

. The plot revolves around the death of a pope and the behind-the-scenes scheming of a cookie-cutter sociopath to get elected pope, while Our Hero, suffering the ubiquitous crisis of faith, is sent on mysterious errands that are involved with the Third Secret of Fatima. Which was released in 2000, by the way and you can read it online, but that's not a problem, because there was really a third page to the text that contains an earth-shattering revelation. Which is ( Cut for dull spoiler )

I only kept reading to find out what the rest of the Third Secret of Fatima was, and once I found out I felt seriously cheated, after having slogged my way through the rest of the thing to get there. This book can just bite Mello's fabulous ass.

Is anyone else as tickled as I am that you can access many texts in the Vatican Secret Archives on CD?

Flash game

An amusing way to spend ten minutes or so...

Don't Shoot the Puppy.

International Saiyuki Week

I don't think coffeeandink quite expected this to happen when she mused it must be International Saiyuki Week, but the meme seems to be hitting the friendslist like wildfire. So - in honor of International Saiyuki Week, change your icon if possible, and post something Saiyuki-related.

ETA: I'm collecting International Saiyuki Week posts in my memories.


So bye-bye Mello for a few days in favor of Mr. Cranky. I do have a Saiyuki-themed picture in the works, but with no idea of if or when it'll get finished. So until then, you're stuck with ...

( ...a Telophase poll! )

If you haven't read Saiyuki, or just want to read about it, there's some essays linked in coffeeandink's post up above and there's an essay about it in rachelmanija's recent post here. If I haven't pimped these fics to you in your own journals yet, edonohana has a small series of lovely Saiyuki fics titled Five Incarnations That Never Happened posted right now.

Contest some of you might enjoy

go_devil_dante and some of her buds over on DeviantArt are holding a fangirl letter-writing contest - you write a letter to your favorite bishounen and you might win a prize. :) The catch is - it's got to be done quickly, since it needs to reach New Zealand before April 13th. You know you want to!