Crown-of-thorns starfish - Nov 27

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Just ask Toronto’s police force, which was currently on the manhunt for a man who was walking around throwing feces, (hopefully, not his own), at other people. Considering that he is an Afro-Canadian, this is really a PR disaster for everyone involved. What is next?

Nothing much, just a brief admittance that ‘Kings of Pain’ are beginning to grow on me. In this week’s episode, the not-so-dynamic duo continue to follow in the footsteps of ‘Brave Wilderness’… sort of. Coyote Petersen got stung and bitten by harvester ants, (Pogonomyrmex species, but there are several ant genera which are called ‘harvester ants’ by lay people), and so did the ‘Kings of Pain’. Coyote Petersen got stung by a tarantula hawk, (a common name for two genera of so-called solitary spider wasps, family Pompilidae), and so did the ‘Kings of Pain’. Coyote Petersen encountered a crown-of-thorns starfish, and- wait. Here is where the two shows diverge: Coyote Petersen, in fact, was not stung or stabbed by the venomous starfish, while the ‘Kings of Pain’ did. And-?

…Well, geography has gotten the best of the ‘Kings of Pain’ again. See, the crown-of-thorns starfish lives in the Indo-Pacific biogeographic region. ‘Brave Wilderness’ had their venomous starfish encounter off the coast of Hawaii, which is within the eastern end of Indo-Pacific, but ‘Kings of Pain’ caught their specimen, supposedly, off the western coast of Mexico, which… isn’t a part of the Indo-Pacific biogeographic region – in the east it ends around the central Pacific Ocean region, which does include Hawaii, but not Mexican western coast. Put otherwise, ‘Kings of Pain’ have staged their starfish hunt in a way that ‘Brave Wilderness’ didn’t, but-

-But on the other hand, the crew of ‘Brave Wilderness’ didn’t get stung by the crown-of-thorn starfish. The leads of ‘King of Pain’ did, and the look on Alleva’s face after Thorn got stung first – it did not look staged. Last week’s episode, one that featured two scorpion species, (we have discussed them earlier this month, remember?), and a lionfish, (species not established), felt staged, especially at the end, when the not-so-dynamic duo had their banter at the end of the episode. This time, after the starfish encounter, felt more genuine. Maybe the show’s cast is warming up to each other and making it more authentic, simply by default? If so, good for them, because as I said, I am beginning to warm-up to this show and am actually rooting for it to finish its’ first season at least, before it gets cancelled, because so far? Given the lack of authenticity that stuck to ‘Kings of Pain’ as a bad smell, it might well happen.

Speaking of bad smells… yeah, the impeachment keeps on going, the American government remains divided, and the American enemies keep on winning, even though they have their own problems, but they also got stability and endurance, something that the current version of USA seems to lack – but that is another story.

…This is it for now – see you all soon!

Frozen II - Nov 22

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. That said, ‘Frozen 2’ has arrived in the movie theaters. Yippee! Huzzah! And yay?!

…Let’s from the start talk about the big difference between ‘Frozen 2’ and ‘Frozen 1’: if the latter was loosely based on Hans Andersen’s ‘The Snow Queen’ fairy tale of a novella, the former is a completely original movie; though the plot starts in Arendelle, it quickly dismisses the elements of ‘Frozen 1’ and quickly careen into a completely new land with completely new elements. (Obligatory warning: spoilers are ahead, read at your own risk).

…MCU’s AoS TV series constantly recycled, rebooted and redesigned its’ old elements and never really tried to do something truly new. The Disney movie ‘Frozen 2’ went in a completely new direction, following Elsa’s motto of ‘Let it Go’ and let the old film go. There is some sort of symbolism of Elsa and her team leaving Arendelle behind and going into a completely new land, populated by completely new people, with a completely new set of rules… and no traces of civilization per se. This is the reason as to why the critics are divided already in regards to ‘Frozen 2’ – everyone did expect a straightforward sequel to ‘Frozen 1’ and instead got anything but. Disney’s own logic is understandable here, they did not want to spoil the surprise, but the confusion that results from their surprise might be just as bad, proportionally. We will have to wait and see as to what develops from ‘Frozen 2’ as time goes by.

Back in the movie itself… wait. What is ‘Frozen 2’ about, firstly? ‘Frozen 1’ was about the question of man vs. monster, of humanity vs. coldness (inhumanity), of lust for power, of succession of throne, of confidence, femininity and other traditional values, and by ‘traditional’ I mean ‘well-established and well-accepted in the contemporary Western society’. ‘Frozen 2’ touches upon those issues considerably less so than its’ prequel did, it seems to be concerned with the question of civilization/conquest vs. native ethnic groups, but it is a thornier issue than the ones talked about in ‘Frozen 1’, and so that topic is both downplayed and moved past very quickly in the movie into the next act – and what is the next act? In addition, people may be pointing to the destruction of a certain dam in the last part of the movie, and they are right: the message is of a restored balance, (somehow, supposedly), but in real life, this sort of action has very different consequences; they are touched upon in ‘Frozen 2’, but again, this is dismissed very quickly. Disney is all about making money, and that is the complete opposite of controversial issues, so while Disney may tolerate some controversies in SW and Marvel, at least they did in the past -now they are doing their best to kill them – in its immediate domain, especially the Princess movies, just no.

However, if we move past the more controversial and socio-aware issues of ‘Frozen 2’, (and there aren’t many – Disney is saving them for Marvel, apparently, just look at the upcoming Sam & Bucky show on Disney+), what is there left?

Various mythos and mythologies, that is what. First, in order of appearance, the Northuldra. 

Regardless of what they are in ‘Frozen 2’, their racial designation is a portmanteau of ‘North’ and ‘Huldra’, with the latter being counterparts of elves and fairies in Scandinavia. According to one legend, when the Lord came over to Adam and Eve for a visit, they were able to clean-up and otherwise prepare only some of their children, which they propped for an introduction; the rest they hid. The Lord was not fooled, however, and he made a proclamation, stating that ‘what is concealed shall not be revealed’ or something to this extent; the result were the first Huldra or Uldra. They look mostly human; however, they have hollow backs and animal tails, usually fox, dog or cow. Unlike their troll and Jotunn cousins, they were not as hostile to humans or as physically imposing; however, they were still strong enough to manually bend horseshoes and were often magic-users as well. Most of stories including the Huldra, (or the Hulder) involved their women marrying human men; usually it ended badly, (especially for humans), but sometimes the pair made it work and even had children, who were usually human, (no tails or any other animal features), but who, again, were often magic-users of one sort or another.

Now, you may argue that the Northuldra that appear in ‘Frozen 2’ are not anything like that; rather, they are a more derived version of the ‘noble savage’ cliché that plagued Disney during the 1990s and the earlier periods. Fair enough. Unlike the people of Arendelle, the Northuldra live in a forest with no sign of human civilization or its’ trademarks, (especially by the Western standards) and they seem to be using no steel or other metals and they live in apparent harmony with nature; the old clichés die hard if at all. That said, the same could be said of elves, especially those that are more like Tolkien’s than Disney’s, Marvel’s or DC’s, for example, so there is that.

Beyond the Northuldra, there are the various elementals, one of whom, the fire elemental, is the salamander; Disney’s ‘Frozen 2’ went with a classical depiction – that of a fiery/fire-breathing lizard rather than something D&D. Again, in European history, the salamanders were some of elemental nature spirits – they did embody fire; when it came to the other elementals, then the earth was represented by the gnomes, (think D&D dwarves rather than D&D gnomes), water – by undines, (variant mermaids), and air – by sylphs, which are often depicted as graceful winged humanoids. Here ‘Frozen 2’ shifted from this concept; the air elemental in particular seems to be shapeless and invisible instead; a variant D&D invisible stalker?

The earth/stone giants, however, bring us back to the Norse myths – they were the Jotunns or the trolls, they are the frost and stone giants of Marvel’s Thor. They are embodiments of a primal, untamed nature, and they did not like humans or their civilization; just watch them demolish the dam at the end of ‘Frozen 2’. They also live in the same forest, past the magic veil, where no civilization exists at all – and they are hostile to Anna and co. for no given reason, straight from the start. True, having stone brains probably doesn’t help, and Anna and co. were able to maneuver them into bringing down the evil dam… that was raised by the grandfather of Anna and Elsa, by the way… but hey, the balance between civilization and nature was restored! Go, Greta Thunberg! Wait, what?

…Since the 1970s, USA tried to make itself into a utopia, and after winning the Cold War, they accelerated their movements, and on some fronts, such as the social integration, they have achieved some success. On the other – such as the environmental issues – not so much. True, without the U.S. interference things aren’t rosy either; just look at Canada and its’ continual mishandling of the oil pipeline; but the problem? During their last peak – the early 1990s – US tried to do and solve everything through sheer physical force. Before long many people, countries and governments were sick of it; president Putin’s anti-US stance is not very healthy or sane…but again, he is an American creation, just as the Taliban had been, that broke free to US’ detriment. These days, many countries are still pro- than anti-US, but they do not appreciate American meddling in their affairs either. Just look at what happened when the ex-president Obama endorsed the Canadian PM Trudeau. The Canadian media were very professional, they freely admitted that this was nothing like the (fictional) Russian meddling in the previous US elections, but they were just as firm at pointing out that the ex-president Obama (and the rest of the US) should stay out of the Canadian elections as it is right and proper. The end. These days, Trudeau is still the Canadian PM, but whatever is going on down in the States, he wants no part of it.

And what is going on down in the States? Why, yes, the impeachment of the Donald, but also the upcoming presidential election. The former is going on more or less; the latter even worse than that. The Donald was never the best president of the United States, but who are the alternatives in the 2020? Fine, he is impeached and out of the way; who is left? Don’t forget, the US is a true democracy, its’ president is elected by all the people, and not a smattering of oligarchs, top army brass and various other strongmen as it is in the RF; in America, the presidential candidates have to win-over their electorate and its’ votes, and right now? The American government is involved in a soap opera called ‘The Donald, his life, family and impeachment’. Once 2020 comes around, both of America’s main parties may find themselves flat-footed and unsupported by America’s proletariat…and that is a problem that will not be fixed quickly or with the blame game on the Russians…

Back to ‘Frozen 2’… yes, at the movie’s end it did become some sort of a utopia, where civilization and nature can coexist. It also features a sea horse called a Nokk. It is better known as Nix or Nixie; it is a water spirit, similar to the Kelpie, as well as to the Grindylow and the Merfolk. Rowling’s Grindylow was some sort of a goblin-like creature, inferior to the merfolk of her universe; in real-life folklore, both the Grindylow and Nokk/Nix/Nixie were water spirits that were man-eaters; just look up Theodor Kittelsen’s depiction of the latter: it is more humanoid than equine, but judging by its eerily glowing eyes, it is clearly unfriendly towards humans.

On the other hand, the same man painted another two paintings, depicting the brook-horse – a subtly different water spirit, one that did usually appear as a white horse on land; it would entice people to mount and ride it, where upon it would jump back underwater, drowning its rider. The Nokk from ‘Frozen 2’ combines the elements of both of those real-life folklore beings: it is shaped like a horse rather than as a merfolk or something anthropomorphic, but it has the glowing eyes of Theodor Kittelsen’s Nokk as well.

Finally, there is Idun, Idunn or Iduna. Yes, this is the name of one of the characters from the ‘Frozen’ franchise, cough, but it is also the name of one of pagan Norse goddesses – she was the divine distributer of Asgardian apples of youth that kept the Norse deities eternally young, and she was the wife of Bragi, the Norse god of bards, skalds, and poets. Neat, hah?

…Trivia aside, what can be said of ‘Frozen 2’ as a whole? It shows a clean break from the events of ‘Frozen 1’, which brings us to Hans. He is not in the script at all. Overall, that is not really a problem; just look at MCU’s AoS (and also AC, especially at S2), where not only the actors had their roles remade and repositioned, but their characters (especially Grant Ward and Kara Palamas, but honestly – all of them) disrespected, abused and discarded. Compared to them, Hans’ fate is mild and perfectly acceptable, except for – Elsa.

Let us recap the first ‘Frozen’ – Hans, regardless his moral compass, was very much a part of the main cast and was a rather more complex character than, say, Gaston from the B&B franchise, (regardless of the version). You would expect him to be back in the second film, simply because he had not died unlike most of Disney’s villains, but instead there is no mention of him at all – and that changed the team’s dynamic; there’s only Anna and Kristoff now, (Kristoff’s relationship with Sven is something else), and Elsa is happily single and unattached – Emma Watson must be so proud! On a more serious note, you can find a video online, where Disney chief Jennifer Lee says that Elsa ‘will ‘tell us’ when she’s ready to explore her sexuality’. Except that Elsa is a fictional character, drawn in CGI, and she will do what the owners of her franchise, (i.e. ‘Frozen’) will want her to do.

In Hollywood, which includes Disney, sexual minorities are treated even worse than racial ones, (unless they are The Rock. As ‘Hobbs and Shaw’ shown us, you do not mess with The Rock) – both OUAT and TBBT rather flirted with having same-sex characters on their shows, but in the end, it had amounted to nothing concrete – and Disney wasn’t even a part of either of those franchises. And here we have Elsa, whose sexuality was hotly debated ever since her first movie was aired six years ago. These days, the initial passions died down some, but Disney is quite sure that by making Elsa officially heterosexual will annoy a large fraction of ‘Frozen’ fan base, and by making her officially homosexual – ditto. So instead they’re keeping her asexual…and now that she’s no longer the queen of Arendelle, but rather the protector of the forest, (what, did the previous one die, or get turned into a tree, or something?), Elsa is no longer a part of the more civilized, humane part of her world, (well, the world of her franchise), but of the primal and less humane one instead. If this is her happy ending, (and we have no reasons to believe otherwise), then it is certainly an atypical one, especially by Disney’s standards. As both the first ‘Frozen’ film and ‘Moana’ showed, Disney is trying to break the mold that it made during the ‘Disney Renaissance’ of the 1990s, but it does so on its own pace and settings. Yes, there is probably wokeness in ‘Frozen 2’, but as Tom Holland’s ‘Spider-Man’ movies showed, if done correctly, that is a good thing, and secondly? If the elections of 2016 showed that mass media’s influence over the American populace is great, but still has limits, then ever since ‘Frozen 1’ and ‘Moana’ showed that while the public opinion over the decisions of media companies such as Disney, (and Sony, etc.), is also both great and finite. What will come out of this is anyone’s guess.

…This is it for now, see you all soon!

Call of the Wild 2020 - Nov 20

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and sometimes you have no idea as to how to fix it. On the other hand, maybe you do, but not entirely sure if it will be worth it, especially in the long run. Sometimes things are just stacked in your favor, though you do not know it, and your actions, possibly, are making it worse. Now onto the movies!

…No, we are not talking about the ‘Frozen 2’ film; it has not come out yet, so we will talk about it later. What we are talking about here is the trailer for 2020’s version of ‘Call of the Wild’ film, made by Fox, (cough Disney cough). Based on Jack London’s novel of the same name, the movie again features real life dogs (and wolves?), albeit augmented by CGI.

…Yes, it clearly seems to be influenced by 2019’s version of ‘Lady and the Tramp’, but even from this initial trailer it can be seen that this movie will be much more original content than the adaption of L&T has been. How so and why?

Firstly, what is the original novel about? Jack London wrote two great novels about people and dogs in the north: ‘Call of the Wild’ and ‘White Fang’. ‘White Fang’ tells the story of a dog, or a dog-wolf hybrid, which is born in a wild, gets captured (alongside his mother) and raised by Native Americans, has a lot of adventures of a savage kind, and eventually is brought to the mainland U.S. by his last and kindly Anglo-American owner, where he lives the rest of his life. ‘Call of the Wild’ goes precisely in the opposite direction: we have a Saint Bernard dog that gets kidnapped and brought to the Yukon, where he goes through a slew of owners, good and bad, until he gets adopted by a kindly old hermit, who likes dogs much more so than he does people, (and who apparently will be played by Harrison Ford in the 2020 film), and who… eventually gets murdered, alongside his dogs, (except for the Saint Bernard in question), by Native American savages, cough. And what does the Saint Bernard do? He takes over a local wolf pack and wages war against the Native Americans in question for the rest of his life.

…Now, a question about just how much Saint Bernard dogs are compatible with wolves, both in behavior, (that’s malleable, true), and in anatomy – humans have modified dogs from their initial wolf, jackal, coyote and wild dog stock a lot. That said, we must keep in mind that human knowledge and attitude regarding wolves, dogs, and wolf-dog hybrids has changed a lot between the times of Jack London (and his works) and the modern times on one hand, and on the other? In the upcoming 2020 film, the titular dog will actually not be a pureblood Saint Bernard, but rather a Saint-Bernard/Scotch Collie mixed breed instead. Is it because it will also be revealed to be a rescued (from a shelter) dog? It is anyone’s guess. Between this revelation and the glimpses of Buck the dog and Harrison Ford’s character rescuing a Native American woman, (something that didn’t happen in the novel), odds are that the 2020 film will be very different from the original novel, because reasons. Anything else?

On the plus side, I watched a NatGeo special, ‘America’s Greatest Animals’, where NatGeo and four of its hosts oversaw twelve of North America’s best-known iconic animals and selected the top five out of them – the gray wolf, the grizzly, the polar bear, the moose and the bison. It was nicely done, (though the hosts’ comments subtracted rather than added to the show’s enjoyment) and its’ script was smartly written, actually. Even the grading system was well designed…and this brings us back to ‘Kings of Pain’, even though we would rather not.

The show’s hosts, and actually the show itself keeps on imitating ‘Brave Wilderness’, and they are not succeeding even here: judge for yourself. On one episode, Coyote Petersen got stung by two North American scorpions, (this is important), and in another, he got stung (or spiked?) by a lionfish. And what do we see on this week’s episode of ‘Kings of Pain’? They travel to – South Africa, where they get stung by two scorpions and a lionfish. Cough.

Now, there is another episode, where Petersen actually gets himself treated for the lionfish stinger, for example; it is product placement, true, but it does balance-out nicely the process of him actually getting hurt. We are getting nothing like this in ‘Kings of Pain’… on top of the mess with the scorpions.

…Let’s talk about the scorpions. In this week’s episode, Mr. Rob Alleva and Mr. Adam Thorn got stung by two South African scorpions – one is a ‘bark scorpion’, and another one is an Uroplectes, aka a lesser thick-tailed scorpion. That is not the problem, the problem is that normally the moniker ‘bark scorpion’ applies to several North American species – the Arizona bark scorpion, the striped bark scorpion, and the Baja California bark scorpion. They all belong to the Centruroides genus, which is found only in the Americas… which hasn’t prevented an article – you can find it here, right now (https://meaww.com/kings-of-pain-rob-alleva-adam-thorn-stung-two-scorpions-lionfish-389378), from calling the ‘not-Uroplectes’ scorpion a ‘South African bark scorpion (Centruroides vittatus)’. End quote. There is such a scorpion indeed – it is the previously mentioned striped bark scorpion, which is found in the U.S. and northern Mexico. Supposedly, it is the most frequently encountered species of scorpion in the U.S., so some confusion can be accepted, especially since there is also a scorpion species known as Uroplectes vittatus instead, but still. The words Uroplectes and Centruroides are completely different – intentionally different, as to prevent confusion that can arise when only lay-names such as ‘bark scorpions’ are used instead. Someone is being unprofessional in the ‘Kings of Pain’ cast, crew and associates, and that really is not good. Seriously, we’re ripping-off ‘Brave Wilderness’, whose double-scorpion episode was set in the U.S., where the various bark scorpion species, (or rather, the scorpion species that are most commonly known as bark scorpions by the American populace), live. Can we at least put-in some extra effort to ensure that we got our scientific names and geography straight? The continents of North America and Africa are distinctly separate from each other, and so are their respective animals. Real life sucks already, but it does not mean that we should make it dumber as well.

…As for the lionfish…fair enough. There currently are 12 recognized species of those fish and they all resemble each other closely enough for lay-people (such as you and me) to honestly confuse them. No problem there, good luck to Mr. Alleva and Mr. Thorn as well as their entourage – they will need it.

…This is it for now; see you all soon!

Cassowaries - Nov 18

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Just ask the cassowaries, Austrian/Papua New Guinean relatives of the African ostrich. (For a while, the ostrich has also lived in Middle East, but it is practically extinct there now). According to the ‘Seven Worlds One Planet’ TV series, right now the cassowary is on the ropes because of the invasion of the feral hogs/wild boars into its’ jungle kingdom. And?

And here I just want to elaborate on the case of the cassowary, (cough. Sorry about the alliteration). Firstly, there are three species of cassowaries, not just one. However, only one species out of them – the southern cassowary – is found in Australia proper, and so it is the one known best, especially by the lay public. Ok.

Second, as far as ratites go, the cassowaries are atypical, for they live in jungles slash rainforests. The ostrich of the Old World, the rhea of South America, even the emu of Australia – they all live in open spaces, on open plains and among the scrubland. Not so the cassowaries, which are distinctly jungle birds. They are also some of the smaller modern ratites; only New Zealand’s kiwis are smaller than the cassowaries are.

However, the kiwis are a special case – they are survivors of an earlier age, when they lived in shadows of much bigger ratites – the moas and the giant moas, which were among the biggest birds of the Cenozoic, (known ironically as the Age of Mammals instead). Then the humans arrived, and hunted the bigger ratites (and many other species of New Zealand birds) to extinction. The plucky little kiwis survived. (The fact that humans themselves found the kiwis not to be tasty helped though). Where does it leave the cassowaries?

In the same place as the kiwis, ecologically speaking: both genera are shy, retiring birds, especially by ratite standards. (There is nothing shy or retiring about the African ostrich or the Australian emu, for example). However, while the kiwis are small, the cassowaries are not; the southern cassowary, in particular, is almost the size of a human and they have their attitudes, especially the sexually mature males. They also have really sharp, needle-like claw on their feet, with which they can wound and kill, even humans; certainly, it is always the right thing to do – to use some sort of a protective armor – when dealing with cassowaries in captivity or in stressful situations. As a result, the cassowaries are often called, or considered to be, the modern analog of the Mesozoic raptors. That is incorrect.

Before Michael Crichton utilized and popularized the word ‘raptor’ for certain carnivorous dinosaurs – i.e., deinonychus and co. – it was used to define modern birds of prey: eagles, hawks, falcons and owls, to name a few. Even in this capacity, the term was not very proper – all of those avians (avian dinosaurs?) are not very closely related to each other; already, in the 20^th century people realized that owls were a group onto themselves, separate from the rest of birds of prey, and by now – 2019 – people have reclassified the birds of prey into several separate families and genera, so by now the word ‘raptor’ is used primarily for carnivorous dinosaurs such as deinonychus, utahraptor, and dromaeosaurus, and not for any of modern birds. That said, while the term ‘raptor’ is no longer truly appropriate for any of the modern birds, the various birds of prey, (including the owls), have several shared characteristics, with the carnivorous way of life being the most obvious one. There are some exceptions, but ‘exceptions’ is the key word here – all birds of prey eat meat in one capacity or another, and as such they all have talons on their legs and hooked beaks. The cassowaries do not have that. Their ‘killer claw’ is actually a…specialized but primitive characteristic, as far as the ratites go.

Here is the thing. Ratites evolved as herbivorous animals… okay, birds. There were flightless carnivorous birds – the terror birds – but they were not related to the ratites; it is somewhat hard to establish just who their relatives are, but most scientists claim that it is the seriema, a family of South American birds; initially, they were considered to be relatives of cranes and the like, but now scientists believe that they connect the terror birds to such modern avians as the parrots, the falcons, and the passerines instead. (Yes, the falcons are not very closely related to other birds of prey such as the hawks and the eagles – live with it). The ratites have nothing to do with them; their closest flying relative is the tinamou – a different order of South American birds; they are this continent’s analog of the game birds of the rest of the world – but we digress.

The point is that the ratites evolved from an ancestor that resembled a tinamou closely and the various gamebirds superficially, and was never a pure carnivore at all. At best it was an omnivore, but aside from the kiwis, (which are very specialized birds, when you think about it), most ratites prefer to eat plant matter to animal. This includes the cassowaries, which eat primarily fallen fruits, (not unlike many other jungle bird species), not animal matter, as deinonychus and its’ relatives did – and on the other hand, they are smaller and weaker than the African ostrich is, (proportionally speaking), and also are less efficient runners than the ostrich. The African ostrich is the only modern bird, (I think) that has only two toes on each foot. This makes the African ostrich the bird version of the modern horse, donkey and zebra – an open-spaces running specialist, who had sacrificed manual dexterity for speed. Horses, donkeys and zebras are much less ecologically flexible than the antelopes are, for comparison, and the ratites are also less flexible than the flying birds are.

…However, ratites themselves are a varied bag, they consist of several families, and if the African ostrich is the most derived of them all, then the rest of them are less so. This includes the cassowaries, which are the biggest jungle-dwelling ratites (and probably the biggest jungle-dwelling birds, period). They may be big as some of the bigger mammals, (include modern humans and wild boar), and they can take care of themselves, (theoretically), but they are nowhere near as formidable as the ‘true’ raptors of the Mesozoic had been, and they probably do need human help and intervention, if they are to survive the 21^st century and beyond. Of course, there is also the matter of how to do it – begin to exterminate all of non-native Australian mammals? This was once tried with rabbits – not the most formidable members of that bunch. The result was an epic fail for humans, so obviously something different must be tried – but what? So far, there is no idea, but then again, if there were, then real life would not suck so badly, now would it?

…Well, this is it for now, see you all soon!

ROM Bloodsuckers exhibition - Nov 17

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Regardless, yesterday I went to ROM to see their new bloodsuckers’ exhibit and to see as to why it is presented now, mid-November, rather than in October, (because of Halloween). Ergo, what is the conclusion?

In the past, I have been to another two special exhibits: one was centered on the blue whale – biology, anatomy, ecology; the second showed the Hindu culture and treasures of Jodhpur, and both were much more homogenous than this one, especially the second, which just showed the various cultural treasures of Jodhpur. Yes, ROM showed them from various angles and aspects, but the bottom line was still the same. The first, the blue whale exhibit, was more varied, it included depictions of whale evolution and of whaling industry, off the top of my head, but regardless, the bulk of the exhibit was still centered on the blue whale per se. And the bloodsuckers?

For a start, there was no possibility of it being homogenous – the bloodsuckers themselves, (we are talking about real life animals here) are a very mixed bunch. There are mosquitoes and their relatives, (such insects as the black flies), there are leeches, there are ticks (and chiggers), there are vampire bats – and there are more exotic creatures such as the vampire finch, (and the African oxpecker) and the vampire snail, just to name two. Aside from their diet, all of those animals have evolved in different environments and ecosystems, along different ecological lines and their behaviors are different, their shared diet regardless. Mosquitoes and bed bugs may be both blood-sucking insects, yet they are no more similar to each other than apes and monkeys are with squirrels, for comparison. Combining them all together is a great way to show the biodiversity of bloodsuckers, but… little else. This particular ROM exhibit is about entertainment, not education, though it tries to combine both. What next?

Firstly, to follow with its’ heterogeneous nature, the biodiversity portion of the exhibit itself was quite varied: there were models, (for example, giant-sized heads of leech and mosquito), there were preserved specimens (of kissing bugs, black flies, oxpeckers, fleas and so on), and there were the live animals: the mosquitoes, the leeches, (European and American), the ticks, the lampreys – and there were supposed to be the candirus, the vampiric catfishes from South America. However, because they were blood-sucking catfish from the South American tropics, they were clearly having problems in dealing with an early Canadian winter, so no candirus available to public just yet. And-?

And as Bill Schutt, the author of the ‘Dark Banquet’ book pointed out, the blood-sucking animals tend to be a shy, unobtrusive group, keeping out of sight in dark places, especially during the day, even underwater, as in case of candirus and leeches. After observing the live bloodsucking animals in ROM’s exhibit, I feel that he is quite correct: leeches, ticks, lampreys and mosquitoes are a very diverse bunch, but their behavior was quite similar: they were content to just stay in one place and not go anywhere. At least the mosquitoes are attracted to artificial light…what a surprise, really!

So far so good, but ROM’s exhibit was more than just about biodiversity of bloodsuckers. There was the anatomical breakdown of blood itself…, which brings us back to Bill Schutt and his ‘Dark Banquet’ book. As far as non-fiction books go, ‘Dark Banquet’ itself is a very heterogeneous piece – judge for yourself. The first part ‘No Country for Old Chickens’ (chapters 1-3) covers the author’s personal experiences with the vampire bats, showing how the three species are different from each other. (There were no live vampire bats in the exhibit – they are just as tropical as the candirus are, and much harder to handle, sadly, so we had to do just with models & preserved specimens). The second part, ‘Let it Bleed’ abruptly shifts in its’ narrative: chapter 4 talks about medical bleeding, ditto for chapter 5, but is also talks about blood itself, while chapter 6 turns into a tale about humanity’s interactions with the medical leech, and the chapter’s structure turns from a more-or-less straightforward narrative, into the author’s interview with a leech expert – and the same format continues into the third part, ‘Bed Bug & Beyond’. More precisely, chapter 7 talks about the bed bug, chapter 8 – about the tick, and chapter 9 – about the candiru catfish. (There is also chapter 10, ‘A Tough Way to Make a Living’, but it feels more like an epilogue to the entire book instead). The result is a very interesting, but also somewhat confusing book that may be “Jaunty, instructive, and charmingly graphic” (Natalie Angier, New York Times), but sometimes leaves the reader exasperated: just what exactly are they reading? (These days Bill Schutt seems to be writing sci-fi novels instead). So how does that relate to the ROM exhibit?

The latter seems to be heavily inspired by ‘Dark Banquet’. The book contains information on blood-sucking animals – check for ROM. Information about human blood from an anatomical, rather than a biological viewpoint – check. Discussion about bloodletting – check. Vampires in myth and legend – check. And dealing with real-life bloodsuckers – ditto.

Let’s take a pause and point out the obvious – yes, the exhibit is much more derived than Bill Schutt’s book is, duh, but the people at ROM clearly used ‘Dark Banquet’ as some sort of a guideline in setting up their exhibition.

The next note of worth is the vampires-in-myth-and-legend part of the exhibition. ROM’s stores are vast, and so it is not surprising that they were to produce authentic vampire-hunting kit as well as the various medicinal bloodletting kits, but when they talked about the fictional vampires per se… they might have hit an unexpected snag. Yes, unlike the 19^th century, people know that fictional vampires and real-life vampire bats are two different entities, and they also know, and accept, that there are other cultural traditions regarding blood-sucking monsters of the night than the one established by such European novels as ‘Dracula’ and ‘Carmilla’, (who might be the first true European female vampire as well as the first true European novel about a female vampire). In a Hindu novel ‘Vikram and vetala’, the latter is a Hindu vampire, which is a different entity from Dracula and his kin, for example, which brings us to the chupacabra and the yara-ma-yha-who.

Both are fictional vampires, both are bloodsuckers, and they got about as much in common as the real-life mosquito and the bed bug do. Question: why were they chosen to be depicted as models and made examples of in regarding fact and fiction? Not to mention that the debunking of a vampire myth – of any modern myth, really, is a thankless and unrewarding job. The yara-ma-yha-who is some sort of a fictional bogeyman, with little to no grounding in reality, (a typical case with Australian Aboriginal folklore), while the chupacabra is more complex. There are, really, two Chupacabra depictions. One is of a four-legged animal, which may, or may not be feral dogs, mongooses, coyotes, and similar creatures with mange and/or similar sicknesses. The second is a biped that looks far less realistic, and is probably mostly imaginary instead. Sadly, people who supposedly ‘study’ the chupacabra don’t usually acknowledge this divide, which makes the entire approach to the chupacabra issue prejudiced or suspect – take your pick, really. These days, (21^st century) when people are disproving fictional vampires, they tend to come across as pompous instead of educated.

…And on the other hand, ROM is also featuring an exhibition regarding posters from horror movies and the like, so the bloodsuckers’ exhibition also had a subsection that depicted posters from horror movies starring both the more contemporary vampires and their more grotesque variants, such as mutant leeches and giant mosquitoes. The result is a dichotomy – on one hand, people still fear death and loss of life that accompanies spillage of blood and bloodsuckers, but on the other, they glamorize it: modern vampires are really augmented and improved humans, a far call from animated corpses of the 18^th century and earlier time periods. They also have nothing in common with real-life bloodsuckers – mosquitoes, leeches, lampreys, (back in 2014 there was a crummy horror movie that showed a town invaded by mutant lampreys), and so on. The result – an even more heterogeneous exhibition of blood sucking. Modern fictional vampires and their more ancient counterparts, real-life blood-sucking animals (and the problems that they cause), plus real life bloodletting as a health treatment, not to mention blood itself per se are connected to each other, but only loosely, and combining them together is ‘a stretch’. Bill Schutt’s book attempted to do just that, but he mentioned the fictional vampires (and other blood-sucking revenants) only in passing, and his transition from part 1 of ‘Dark Banquet’ (the vampire bats per se) to part 2 (human blood, medicinal bloodletting, and leeches) is kind of jarring. It is a good book, but not a flawless one; then again, it was written back in 2008, so maybe it is somewhat outdated too.

Back to the bloodsuckers’ exhibit. Did I enjoy it? Yes. Heterogeneous or not, it has something for everyone, children and grown-ups, fans of animals, fiction, folklore, and even history. Not unlike the blue whale and the Jodhpur treasures’ exhibitions, this one was somewhat interactive, (though this works better for children than for grown-ups). If you are in Toronto, Canada, come on to ROM and look at it. Real life might suck, but sometimes it still works.

…This is it for now. See you all soon!

Knife or Death - Nov 15

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Sometimes it sucks because of your family, sometimes it sucks because you are the Donald, you are the 45^th president of the United States but are getting impeached all the same, sometimes it sucks because you have voted for him but he is getting impeached all the same, and sometimes it is simply hard to pin down a precise reason. Hate to sound self-centered, but look at me – at this moment, (Nov 15, 2019), my life really shouldn’t be that bad, technically speaking, and it isn’t, but yet it feels flat and uninspired – right now I should be honestly writing, creating something, but all I have is a great big zero: I got nothing and I don’t care.

…Only I do. Given our family’s life, such moments tend to be few and far between and are should be treasured, not wasted, yet when I sit down and try to write something down, all I have is nothing. Therefore, in order not to make this blog entry completely self-centered and vapid, I try to talk about what I see on TV…and what is there, but reality shows… and reality sucks.

Oh, sure, I could try to talk about the new ‘Batwoman’ show, (well, new-ish, I suppose), but the truth is that so far it is a gender-bent version of, well, Batman. From what I could glean, the S1 of ‘Batwoman’ the TV show is based on a comic-arc when the titular character went against a villain named Alice because she was sort-of based on Lewis Carrol’s Alice, (from the ‘Wonderland’ duology – read it), which possibly makes her some sort of a female analogue to Batman’s more obscure villain the Mad Hatter, but the truth is that I’m not as big on DC TV shows these days so again I cannot honestly make much of a comment on ‘Batwoman’ or any other live-action component of ‘Arrow-verse’.

With the cartoons it is slightly different: the upcoming cartoon adventures of Harley, Ivy, and ‘their crew’ (Dr. Psycho, Clayface, and King Shark, apparently), seem poised to make the live-action movie about ‘the fantabulous emancipation of Harley Quinn’ redundant at best: the live-action movie and the cartoon series’ aren’t intended to compete, (the top heads of the DC franchise aren’t that stupid), but because they cover the same material, they will be regardless compared and contrasted with each other by the fans. In the DC comics Harley has been ‘emancipated’ for a while now: she is her own woman, (or she is with Ivy) for several years in real life, and so odds favor the cartoon TV series’ format over the single-shot movie; plus, the DC franchise has had problems with live-action films in the past, (the ‘Justice League’ movie, for example), so I’m being pointedly pessimistic here. Anything else?

…Jared Leto is apparently out of DC as the Joker and is coming to Marvel/Sony as Morbius, the ‘living vampire’; considering that Mr. Phoenix appears to be content in making his Joker a one-shot movie, this can mean more trouble to DC, because with Leto out, and Phoenix no longer in, DC is left Joker-less again, which just isn’t right; the fact that they got a new Batman coming already in 2021 might put DC back into its’ pre-Wonder Woman days, and that would be just sad. Can we get back to the reality shows?

Last night, (Nov 14, 2019), I got to see ‘Knife or Death’, sort of a special addendum to the previously-discussed ‘Forged in Fire’ show, and all that I can say is… what did I watch? As we discussed previously, ‘Forged in Fire’ itself is a mixed beast, kind of like ‘Chopped’ for bladesmithing, with elements of DW and ‘Man at Arms’ from YouTube mixed-in. It is not a flawless show by far, but it got variety and can be okay to watch sometimes. ‘Knife or Death’ is a different beast of a show: the knives/blades get forged beforehand, pre-show, and the show itself is an obstacle course, or several, where the bladesmiths run through it, hacking and slashing various objects to demonstrate their blades and blade-forging skills. The result is a much more repetitious and monotonous show than the actual ‘Forged in Fire’ show is, and that is not a good thing, in my opinion. Anything else?

A new exhibition is opening in ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) this weekend in real life, so I am off to there to see it. It is supposed to be about bats and the like, so the reason as to why it has opened now, in the middle of November, post-Halloween, as opposed to pre-Halloween escape me for now. Maybe after I will look at it this weekend it will make more sense.

...This is it for now; see you all soon!

Kings of Pain - Nov 13

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Yesterday, (Tuesday, Nov 12, 2019), I went across the entire Toronto for an afternoon doctor’s appointment… only it was not. Somehow, I became bumped to a late Friday morning (Nov 15, 2019), so I am going to do it all over again. I hate this shit. At least, family did not try to make it worse, one way or another. Hallelujah for small mercies is all I can say. Now onto the TV shows.

We are talking about the new live-action show, ‘Kings of Pain’, which has also premiered on Nov 12, 2019, on the History channel, (history-dot-ca on the Internet). We have already discussed a different show from this channel, ‘Forged in fire’, and that is really an AWE me/Man-at-Arms YouTube show meeting some sort of a cooking show, ‘Chopped’, maybe. People forge knives, hatchets, other weapons, using materials provided by the show hosts – some people like it, others don’t, but the show IS original in its’ approach, let’s be honest. ‘Kings of Pain’ – not so much.

Instead, ‘Kings of Pain’ are a clear rip-off of the ‘Brave Wilderness’ YouTube & TV show that stares Coyote Petersen and his cohorts. Just like the latter, the hosts of ‘Kings of Pain’ are getting stung and bitten by various creatures; in the series’ premiere, this went towards the executioner wasp and the warrior wasp. (Admittedly, I am not sure about the goliath birdeater tarantula, but)…

The main difference is that Coyote dedicated an entire episode to each creature – yes, it was only 15 to 20 minutes long on average, but the truth is, the plot of such an episode is actually quite limited: Coyote would capture the insect, it would bite or sting him, he would suffer, the end. Not a lot to proceed on here, and a lot of it was occupied by Coyote’s theatrics – the man is an actor, and the fact that he does gets stung for real does not change it.

By contrast, the hosts of ‘Kings of Pain’ do not do those theatrics as well at all – they get stung or bitten, they yell and flail, the end – and the next shot shows them calmly discussing it at a campfire. Plus, they constantly break the fourth wall by showing their camera crew, medical assistants, and so on – ‘Brave Wilderness’ didn’t do it on such a regular basis. Score another one for ‘Brave Wilderness’.

Am I biased? Well, yes, but the truth is that what ‘Kings of Pain’ are doing? ‘Brave Wilderness’ did it first. The latter show is not without its’ own flaws, and is aimed primarily at children as audience, but grownups can enjoy it too. ‘Kings of Pain’ are trying to aim at the grown-ups instead, but it still comes across as second best – in this week’s episode, (‘Nightmare in a Box’), the show’s hosts were shown to be stung and bitten by two different wasp species and the goliath bird-eating spider, yet somehow it was depicted as a less exciting and a more pompous, (in a pseudoscientific way), version of the ‘Brave Wilderness’ ‘Coyote getting stung’ story arc. That is life for you. Anything else?

In the promo for the upcoming ‘Vikings’ season, we get to see the titular characters face-off against… the Turco-Mongols, (or whatever they are called now). Sigh. In real life, the proper Scandinavian Viking culture vanished quite a while before the Turco-Mongols had reached the lands of Rus and Europe proper, so this ‘clash of East and West’ is historically anachronistic and is about as realistic as GoT’s Dothraki coming to Westeros as part of Dany’s forces – but the ‘Vikings’ historical inaccuracies were discussed at length in the past by much more knowledgeable people than me, so let us drop it. We know that the Vikings are going to win anyhow, simply because it is their show, and not the Turco-Mongols’. Ah well, this is TV for you – whether it sucks or not, it usually is not realistic.

…This is it for now. See you all soon.