manga stuff

Words cannot express how bummed I am at Love Manga shutting down. As both a hobbyist and someone currently employed as a bookseller, I will miss David's number-crunching and lists like a white pizza misses tomato sauce.

One side effect of that, though, was that it prompted Pata to reopen Irresponsible Pictures, which linked me to MangaBlog, an interesting new source of manga news.

I was amused to see, as I scrolled down older entries, her response to to the accusation, aimed at Americans at large, that the American current love of sushi and manga is bereft of cultural context (and therefore, presumably, a sin against Asians--I may be reading too much into that, but that's always been the point whenever I've seen this argument made before): "Cultural purity is for losers." What's not to love?

As long as I'm on the topic, I feel the need to pimp out David Welsh again. Weekly column here, personal blog here. I warn you, the man's manga reviews at very good at parting you from your money. I don't agree with him on every editorial point he makes on manga and the general goings-on of the manga world (one of these days, I will have words with this fellow regarding the laughable notion that Death Note is more morally sophisticated about death and evil than Monster), but he's always an interesting voice on the subject.

April is National Poetry Month!

I missed yesterday, so today you'll get two.

Today! Couplets you can't stop reading. Creepy, yet pithy phrases I find myself repeating at odd moments ("...and I choose / Never to stoop." CREEEEEEPY.) Someone who's awfully eloquent in his explanation for why he had his wife murdered, given that he claims not to have skill with words... I first read this in a high school English class, and I have been more taken with it each and every time I read it since then.


"My Last Duchess," Robert Browning.

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
"Frà Pandolf" by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps
Over my Lady's wrist too much," or "Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat": such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart -- how shall I say? -- too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace -- all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men, -- good! but thanked
Somehow -- I know not how -- as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech -- (which I have not) -- to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark" -- and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
--E'en then would be some stooping, and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

April is National Poetry Month!

I just...like this one. It's fun to read aloud. And mangle. I can't do that accent at all. Speaking of wanderlust.


"Sestina of the Tramp-Royal," Rudyard Kipling.

Speakin' in general, I'ave tried 'em all
The 'appy roads that take you o'er the world.
Speakin' in general, I'ave found them good
For such as cannot use one bed too long,
But must get 'ence, the same as I'ave done,
An' go observin' matters till they die.

What do it matter where or 'ow we die,
So long as we've our 'ealth to watch it all --
The different ways that different things are done,
An' men an' women lovin' in this world;
Takin' our chances as they come along,
An' when they ain't, pretendin' they are good?

In cash or credit -- no, it aren't no good;
You've to 'ave the 'abit or you'd die,
Unless you lived your life but one day long,
Nor didn't prophesy nor fret at all,
But drew your tucker some'ow from the world,
An' never bothered what you might ha' done.

But, Gawd, what things are they I'aven't done?
I've turned my 'and to most, an' turned it good,
In various situations round the world
For 'im that doth not work must surely die;
But that's no reason man should labour all
'Is life on one same shift -- life's none so long.

Therefore, from job to job I've moved along.
Pay couldn't 'old me when my time was done,
For something in my 'ead upset it all,
Till I'ad dropped whatever 'twas for good,
An', out at sea, be'eld the dock-lights die,
An' met my mate -- the wind that tramps the world!

It's like a book, I think, this bloomin, world,
Which you can read and care for just so long,
But presently you feel that you will die
Unless you get the page you're readi'n' done,
An' turn another -- likely not so good;
But what you're after is to turn'em all.

Gawd bless this world! Whatever she'oth done --
Excep' When awful long -- I've found it good.
So write, before I die, "'E liked it all!"