Two Excuse Posts In A Row

Became intensely sick this morning. I can't write complex sentences. I'll be better soon. Watch this instead:

Stopgap Post

I had a difficult and busy week, so I decided to shift out of blogging for a bit. But I'm back and so is this blog. I don't know how successful the decision to do reviews has been. My idea was that they would be good excuses to get words written without doing a lot of research, but I found that the process of watching, taking notes and writing to take almost as much time and is less rewarding.

I won't do too much today. Tomorrow will be a review of an Orson Welles movie, followed by a return to schedule. Until then, take this advice:

Cowboy Bebop Review #2: Stray Dog Strut

 
Can a show start with both a kickass theme and a cold open? The answer is yes, because the "beginning" of a story is often a more fuzzy concept than you might think. Today's episode opens with an enormously tall man taking off bandages in a bathroom. He's ambushed by thugs dressed in scientist smocks, but effortlessly takes them out. Needless to say, this is today's bad guy, Abdul Hakim.

 Melfina from Outlaw Star

Abdul Hakim has a strange metal box with him. This lets us know that the episode is going to play with the Girl In A Box anime cliche/trope. In this episode, the joke is that the girl in the box is, in fact, a dog. That's too weak to string a whole episode on, so it's good that this episode doesn't end with a big punchline, like "Ooops, it's a dog! Wackity Schmakity Doooooo~". But the episode still plays with the usual conventions and expectations, using the basic themes as riffs and jumping go off into more advanced harmonies.

That being said, this episode is a comedy.

Tantei Monogatari

This episode seems more like a tribute to Detective Story, an old Japanese detective show that was a big influence on Bebop. True, both today's episode and the semi-unaired pilot are driven by variations of "Spike fights a space badass", but the first episode played the tune in a unique way by bringing us into the perspective of a woman whose dreams were dependent on that space badass. Also, it was really violent. This episode plays similar themes for laughs. Abdul Hakim is impossibly tough and demands respect by his sheer, but he is a professional dognapper. Throughout the episode he is humiliated and put in absurd situations, but he tries to ignore them. He's even our first caricature, in this case of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

"Notorious Serial Pet Thief"

This episode was written as second first episode, since it was meant to be the first in the proper timeslot. As a result, the writer of this episode was a lot happier in introducing series standards. TV shows, more recurring characters, a new crew member, and even the series main location - Mars. And, going back to the tone, the comedy is a lot more indicative of what the series would be like. Bebop is not a comedy and I don't want you to think that this episode is Bob Clampett wacky. It The first episode played it's bloody brawls straight, and this episode is the first sign that this show is going to mess with us.

The Martian Gate

After Hakim's one-sided fight, the episode proper begins. The Bebop and her crew are returning home to Mars. As you can see above, Mars is the Chinese planet. Martian culture and food is Chinese, people from Mars - such as the series lead - are implied to be Chinese in culture if not necessarily ethnicity. At the moment, Spike is half paying attention to the hilarious plot device that is "Big Shot - The Show For Bounty Hunters".

Shucks Howdy!

Listen, all stories require exposition. The more alien or complex a story is, the more exposition is required. Partly this is just to make the story comprehensible, but there is a deeper reason. Exposition creates expectations, and fulfilling/subverting/playing with expectations is where the flavor of a narrative comes from. Even in sports, which are definitely a form of storytelling, the announcers provide exposition on the evolution of a game. The audience needs to know that Player A failing to complete a pass is not just bad - that is obvious - but out of character. By creating expectations in the audience, announcers heighten the drama of a game.

If there is one thing that turns people off SF, it is clumsy exposition. Chapters of space elves telling underdwarves their dark history does not heighten the drama of the story. But exposition needs to be there all the same. "Big Shot" is Cowboy Bebop's answer to this problem. The show's stars Judy and Punch (yeah, yeah) tell the audience what is publicly known about the bounty of the week. Obviously, the writers of "Big Shot" are not well informed about their subjects, or else the exposition would 1) go on too long and 2) not be funny. "Big Shot" is a perfect way of saying what needs to be said fast and with a smile. In this episode it is used for that purpose.

And don't worry. As Bebop evolves, their relationship with "Big Shot" changes too.

Abdul Hakim looks for a buyer

Once in the city, Abdul Hakim is dealt his first humiliation of the episode. A pair of thieves distract him and steal his case. As he tries to track down the thief, Spike buys a bit of choice information on Abdul Hakim from a doctor he thrashed. Basic detective story stuff, nothing that would be out of place on The Martian Rockford Files.

But hey, Spike has a doctor friend on Mars. I wonder if that will come up again?

Spike tracks down the thief, thinking that he's caught Abdul Hakim himself. He refers to Abdul Hakim as just "Hakim", which to my memory is not proper Arabic, but the thief doesn't know that. The thief apparently knows Abdul Hakim by reputation, because he brought the mysterious briefcase to an old Korean lady who buys rare animals.

This lady is, without a doubt, the best

The lady identifies the "rare animal" as a Welsh Corgi, a typical dog. Her acting in this scene is great. Her suspicious eyes as she opens up the case and joy at seeing a cute little dog are great comedy. This episode was storyboarded by Watanabe himself, and it has his characteristic range. The comic stoicism of Abdul Hakim and the silliness of these characters embody different approaches to comic acting without becoming hacky or unrealistic.

 Ein

Let's talk about the cute little dog. This is the first time a character joins the cast, and yes Ein is a permanent addition to the Bebop crew. Metafictionally, I like to think of Ein as a self-imposed challenge on the part of Watanabe - the answer to the question "How intelligent can you make an animated animal without humanizing it at all?". It's a challenge that the storyboarders and animators of Bebop live up to wonderfully. A running gag is that Ein is consistently right about everything, but few pay attention because she's a dog. It's never stated anywhere in the series, but Ein barks once for yes and twice for no. This is the closest that the animators allowed themselves to a cheat. For an example of this idea done wrong and cliche, you can look up the terrible Bebop manga. But still, in the show, it's an impressively creative idea and brings a welcome light heartedness to the proceedings.

But Ein does more than be smart, cute and funny. Ein is an important indication that the show is more than ultraviolence and drama. Cowboy Bebop is all about complexity and the unexpected. But as the disappointed readers of Funky Winkerbean know, complexity is not the same as darkness. Cowboy Bebop has a far more rounded and realistic take on life than that.

Trivia time: Ein's voice is a real dog, one of the producers owned a Welsh Corgi. Ein was originally designed with a splotch of white fur on her back, but it was decided that would be difficult to animate. Her designer, Kawamoto, loved the dog so much that he's owned Welsh Corgis ever since.

Seems That Way

So, Abdul Hakim kidnapped a mysterious data dog and its creators (the goons seen above) are trying to get him back. When they use their secret weapon to get it, it even starts a chase sequence set to Yoko Kanno's "Want It All Back". There are two chases in this episode, and the second is set to "Bad Dog, No Biscuits", one of my favorite songs from The Seatbelts. It's a ska/jazz song that is built out of Kanno's radical rearrangement of Tom Waits's instrumental "Rain Dogs" (thus the title). Waits's version emphasizes the raggedness and darkness, Kanno's big band version brings out an an uncontrollable liveliness. Again, Kanno evokes Charles Mingus in the way she develops a call and response structure by going crazier and freer (in the sense of "free jazz") with every round. Kanno also goes Sun Ra crazy with that synth. This one threatens to turn into a Fishbone song after a particularly wild blast, but don't worry, the melody comes back.

Abdul Hakim is trying to coordinate selling it to a buyer, but the buyer isn't being flexible. Every humiliation he receives also pushes him towards missing the buyer, which would mean all the work was for nothing. The increasing stress drives him to make increasingly erratic decisions, . In these first two episodes, Bebop tried to show that the bounties were human beings by showing how they were trapped by more than just Spike's pursuit. It was more successful in the first episode because of the interesting perspective of Katerina's character, but it still works to push Abdul Hakim and the plot forward here.

The dog runs off, shakes of Abdul Hakim and ends up in the possession of Spike and Jet. Spike is tasked with walking the dog, with the duo hoping to get Abdul Hakim to act foolishly. Spike is less than enthused by this. Spike claims to not like dogs and kids - a hint at the future.

In fact, Abdul Hakim is distracted by a fortune teller. This soothsayer uses a bird that draws cards to see the future. This is actually authentic, in that you can find these guys in a lot of big Asian cities. When Peeoko pulls the card that says that what Hakim seeks is near, all the loose dogs in the city run past him. An easy bit, but funny.

This begins the episode's second big chase, which is even bigger and funnier than the first. This chase exposes this episodes biggest weakness: we never see a big duel between Spike and Abdul Hakim. Still, the big Blues Brothers finish is worth it. Like the last episode, this one ends with failure. Abdul Hakim is caught by the police independently and the crooked scientists are arrested. In the end, Ein joins the crew, who are unaware of her special nature.

This episode is much more oriented on introducing concepts than the first and has a lot less music. This is why it is less iconic and this review is not as deep. But it's a much better indication of what the show would become than the brutality of the first episode. In the next episode, we meet another new member of the crew, and this one can talk! See you then, space cowboys!

Unexamined Life: What Have I Learned From Philosophy?

I have read a lot of philosophy, perhaps more than the subject deserves and perhaps less. Philosophy is odd, everything is obvious to a philosopher but nothing between philosophers. Philosophy has been prepped for the trash pit many times, by religious fundamentalists, by over-reaching scientists, by mad governments, by great philosophers and - most fatally - by many bored readers.

Albert Einstein

The Pythia said "No one is wiser than Socrates.". In his day, he could walk up to what we would call a scientist and defeat them - clearly, nobody knew more than him. Much of the disrepute of modern philosophy is rooted in this no longer being true. No matter who you think the greatest living philosopher is (and I doubt that is a definite description), you probably wouldn't go on to say that they are the smartest person in the world. You'd probably admit Terence Tao is at least a little better at math.

But I didn't put Einstein up there because I think he was smarter than Husserl. The disrepute of philosophy comes from another, related source: philosophers aren't our deepest thinkers any more. Einstein has had more influence on us how we think about time than Carnap or Heidegger, more on how we think about space than Bergson or Whitehead. Nietzsche's philosophers of the future don't call themselves philosophers.

I do think philosophy has an important place. What makes humans unique is that they can understand what they do (this, of course, is a philosophical opinion!). In many instances, philosophy is just thinking about what we do. When you read a paper like (Alchian, 1950) or (Krugman, 1996), you are seeing philosophical argument. In this case, there is complete agreement, but I would say - another economist, another philosopher might disagree.

Daniel Dennett

So, what have I learned from philosophy? What philosophers - and "philosophers" - have influenced me? The answer is simple: Daniel C Dennett III. I'm going to leave him to another post as being too important. I will admit I have been more influenced by the technical/logical philosophers of the so-called "analytical" school. It isn't that I think they are smarter, just as a mathematician their work is often more directly relevant to my daily life. They are almost all black & white, dead men. I should include female philosophers such as Susan Haack & Deborah Mayo. In fact, the only reason I didn't include Mayo because I left her book in America. I'm leaving continental philosophers for another post.

Jaako Hintikka

Despite my fascination with intuitionist/constructive approaches, their philosophical views I find less interesting. The math is neat, but the philosophy is weak. The philosopher that has influenced my view of mathematics the most is Jaako Hinitikka. Unfortunately, he was not as cool as the above picture makes it seem. Hintikka developed what are called "Game Semantics" for quantifiers. This is the best explanation for why classical analysis has the structure it does. The reason is that classical analysis is based on non-refutable arguments. It's best explained with an example.

Let's say that I claim a given function, perhaps the angle of a shower knob and the equilibrium temperature of the water coming out of the shower head, perhaps the solution to a DE, is continuous. What does this mean? One might say that it takes on the value of the limit on that point. But this is not the point of view of classical analysis. In classical analysis, the important thing about my claim is that you can't disprove it. Let's say we know the function takes on a value at a certain point - we know by, say, measuring the heat of the water when the knob is at a certain angle. When I say it is continuous, that means you can't truthfully say it doesn't get close to that value when the angle is close. If it could, you could say it's getting near some over value. We can call the difference between the measured value and the "error". But any given amount of error is too much, I can always just sneak by it. You can't prove that there is a jump, therefore the function is continuous.

Hintikka gave formal rules for interpreting any sentence from classical mathematics like this. That is by itself a huge deal.

Wittgenstein

The first philosopher to genuinely fascinate me was Wittgenstein. I spent a month reading and re-reading his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trying to find the meat hidden on its austere bones. On the technical side, Wittgenstein co-invented the truth table within it. On the more philosophical side, it pointed to a metaphysical semantics of the new logics and set theory. On a deeper level, it pointed to a world beneath language and made sense of the idea that there was more on Heaven and Earth than in our philosophies. In his later work, Wittgenstein would attack the metaphysical parts of the Tractatus, on the grounds that even if the metaphysics was true they had nothing to do with why we believed that they were the case. This attack, laid out in Philosophical Investigations, naturalized language in a way nobody had seen since Hume. Only after this book could we go back and see how wise Hume was. I don't think that the attack affects the value of the Tractatus metaphysics as a semantics of set theory, but certainly no one will take them without a grain of salt anymore...

Thomas Schelling

Thomas Schelling's Micromotives And Macrobehaviors is one of the greatest books on social philosophy I ever read. Along with the Tractatus, it took me apart and put me back together a smarter and wiser person. It is hard for me to summarize, but I don't feel bad - it is hard for him to summarize too. Often we associate game theory with rigorous mathematical analysis - on the grounds that if Von Neumann was doing, so must everyone else. Schelling was given a Nobel Memorial Prize for contributions to game theory, but he never used math in any deep way in his work (contrast with the other winner, Robert Aumann). The important thing for Schelling was that game theory forced the user to consider the effects of his actions on others, and theirs on himself. What mattered to Schelling, in other words, is the notion of an "equilibrium". Game theory then is as much Hume & Kant as Luce & Raiffia. There is no formal "game theory" in Micromotives and Macrobehaviors, but there are hundreds of examples of equilibrium arising from social interactions giving results paradoxical and straightforward.

It was perhaps Hegel who was the first to recognize the importance of self-negating equilibria. Every society comes with it a set of norms & expectations. But every society so far has had some norms that force in conflict with the expectations. Eventually society adjusts its norms to remove this contradiction. Each society is out of equilibrium and therefore history matters to it. Unfortunately, in Hegel, these notions are tied to a history that is, in most matters of fact, false. I will give the Marxist version: In perfect competition, the wages to labor will be subsistence wages (this assumption was common to all classical economists) and technical change will tend to deepen capital (this is a norm). Capitalists expect capital deepening to profit them (this is an expectation), but will find in the long run they can't all deepen against each other (this is called fallacy of composition). Instead, capitalists will be paradoxically trapped underneath a mountain of less profitable goods. This is a Hegelian contradiction, a self-negating equilibrium. Marx's proof used the labor theory of value instead of the fallacy of composition, but it amounts to a different gloss on the same thing. Marx might have been smart enough to make that argument by himself, but I needed Schelling.

David K Lewis

I feel kind of odd putting David K Lewis on this list. He's too important to me to ignore, but my disagreements with him are part of what made me keep reading philosophy. He was the first academic philosopher that I liked, not just the philosophical aspects of a scientist or economist. Lewis made permanent contributions to mathematics, but I have to say - I basically am completely uninfluenced by them. I've never once started a proof with megethology in mind. Lewis is most famous for his adapting Wittgenstein's "The world is everything that is the case" classical logic semantics for modal logic - the so-called "possible world" semantics. They nearly single handedly brought metaphysics back into academia. Lewis (and, to a greater extent, his ally Daniel Dennett and, to the optimum extent, linguist/mathmatician Noam Chomsky) helped bring analytic philosophy out of behaviorism. But Lewis's solution was Bayesianism, which is not to my own taste (though it is important and I'm glad someone was working on it).

Of his ideas, his concept of a coordination game has been the most important and influential. He claimed to have been inspired by Thomas Schelling above. I first read about it in his book Convention, which is also where it was invented. I've gone over this before. His definition of value as what we "desire to desire" is something I've been thinking about recently. I like the way that it reduces the theory to preference theory (for the classic reference on preference theory, see Debreu's Theory of Value - Debreu's "Value" is value in another sense) without impoverishing the value part of the apparatus. The words of Kant are very comprehensible: what we should desire to desire is those desires that are coherent for the population. The words of Bentham too: what we should desire to desire is the satisfaction of the most individual desires. Hegel (and Marx) pointed out: our desires generally conflict, society is out of equilibrium. You could, if you want, do all social philosophy this way.

In fact, one reason I like Lewis is his congenial approach to formalization. Formalizing philosophical concept of value by putting it in terms of (in some sense "reducing" it to) the preference theory of economics allows us to sharpen and clarify the philosophical differences of old - but shouldn't try to artificially "solve" them. This seems to me to be a right way to go about things.

Robert Nozick

Okay, so if I felt odd about David K Lewis, I have to say this about Nozick: I've never read his big book on political philosophy. I've read an article attacking Ayn Rand and another one attacking "Austrian" Economics, but hey, easy targets. I'll come out and say it: Nozick tried to make a philosophical explanation of what we call "libertarianism" or "classical liberalism". I won't address whether his argument fails since, again, I haven't read it. I kind of doubt that reason/philosophy alone can make a political argument look good - logic shorn of evidence tells you nothing about reality.

What I find most interesting about Nozick is his last book, Invariances. In this book, Nozick develops a novel explanation of what is "objective". The usual philosophical gloss is that something is "objective" iff we could conceive of a completely physical description. This does not match what we usually mean by the word. When someone is pointing a gun at me, I would say they are objectively being a menace. I do not mean that there is some physical description of him being a menace. What I mean - according to Nozick - is that their being a menace is invariant over the variations relevant to the conversation. This ties down the notion of objectivity to Wittgenstein/Lewis idea of language games.

Nozick is interested in the implications for ethics - Could there be "objective ethics"? This is less interesting to me, but I'll go through it nonetheless. Nozick tries to build up from a libertarian state to a democratic state using the idea that some values (desired desires) can be better served by democracy/market mixture than a "pure" market. Rawls, another ethical/political philosopher, proposes his "veil of ignorance" argument as basically Nozickian objective ethics. I think that shows that there are, in fact, too many Nozickian objective ethical systems. These examples can be multiplied until and beyond one reaches the count of ethical philosophers. Nothing says that one definition of relevant variations is the right one.

My plan now is to do three more posts like this. One on Daniel Dennett, the philosopher who influenced me the most. Then a third post on classical and continental philosophers, who are important and deserve mentioning even if they haven't struck my fancy.

First color picture of the post

Also, you may or may not see a review today. I've been having internet troubles and am having a hard time watching videos.

Bureaucracy Bites

No review today. I have to be at the immigration office ASAP to turn in proof of insurance. If I go at 5 AM I can get a good spot and have time to take a nap. In the meantime we can dream of a world without bureaucracy:

Steven Universe Segments 7 and 8: All New, All Similar Steven Universe

Influence mongering is a weakness of critics. You see, if a show is a sum of influences, then criticism of those influences is sufficient to criticize the new show. After all, original thought is difficult enough that it should always be avoided by a critic. Plus, claims of influence are a dangerous speculation onto the innards of a strange human's mind. I recall writing a story once, a story about a man who turned off all the lights in his house. When I looked back on it, I could see through the poorly worded garbage the influence of Edgar Allen Poe, Nicolai Gogol and Joseph Conrad. I had read all those works, but when I wrote I didn't think of them once. Are they an "influence"? What does that even mean?

That being said, the obvious biggest influence on Steven Universe is The Simpsons. Steven Universe is too original (uh oh) to just be The Simpsons, but with more action, but the point remains. In this episode, we meet the young woman who seems to be in the Lisa Simpson mode, Steven's first love interest Connie. I say all this hoping that long time fans are laughing.

Connie

Okay, even if The Simpsons is the biggest influence on Steven Universe, and it is, Connie could be just as influenced by Khannie from King of the Hill. I don't know. She's obviously going to be Important (TM), because she is given such prominence in the opening credits. I suppose of I'm gonna be a hack reviewer, I might as well go full hack and give an overview. In this episode, Steven inconveniences his love interest Connie briefly but is so sweet about it that she forgives him.

 
Simple descriptions don't imply simple writing. This episode had to jump through so many hoops its amazing they could fit it in 11 minutes. This episode had to: advance the metaplot (meeting Connie, establishing that yes all the monsters have a gem, introducing Steven's bubble), have a coherent internal plot ("Steven inconveniences his love interest Connie briefly but is so sweet about it that she forgives him"), have a straightforward emotional thrust (Connie learning to trust Steven) and maybe even some comedy ("funky flow"). If Steven Universe has a weakness, then it is that in stretching out to do so much, comedy is often sacrifice. This episode should have been full of physical humor and I was in a mental state likely to appreciate physical humor. Yet this episode fell flat. Connie seems like a nice girl, but she isn't quick with a quip and this episode isn't any quicker with laughs. This isn't a murder mystery, we are meant to laugh at Steven's ineptness. But there just ... isn't that much to it. The episode looked good, the music was alright... But why? Did these people really have to work so hard to make this?

Serious Steven

Segment 2 was "Serious Steven", a Steven and Garnet episode. Steven and the other Gems find an dungeon they have to defeat in a strawberry field. Yeah Beatles. Garnet is usually a font of hilarity, what could be funnier than someone who takes our absurd world seriously? This episode suggests "Anything" as an answer to that, it is as funny as buggery.

Of course, buggery is pretty funny and this episode provides a couple laughs. The characters in this episode claim that this is Steven's first mission. Apparently the superior episode "Cheeseburger Backpack" just doesn't count. My guess is that these were written out of order and "Serious Steven" was supposed to be a precursor to "Cheeseburger Backpack". The lesson here is identical: Steven's unorthodox POV is actually helpful on a mission in small doses. One could argue this episode makes that lesson sticks better by giving Steven and the other Gems a straight ending, if you liked to be wrong. The ending of "Cheeseburger Backpack" cut through the treacle, "Serious Steven" lies at the bottom of the Dormouse's treacle well.

Albert Einstein

Also, why couldn't the other Gems notice they were in a non-inertial frame of reference? Are they just supposed to be so tough they don't notice the forces around them? And the strawberry fields were very over-the-top, but Pearl implies this is part of Earth. Do strawberries just grow as big as watermelons in the SU Earth?

Princess Zelda, Navi the fairy and commoner adventurer Link

I did like the set piece in "Serious Steven". It was an inverted pyramid that worked according to Legend Of Zelda logic, but with puzzles that aren't quite so creative. Is Steven like The Hero Of Time? Probably not, I couldn't imagine Steven going around stabbing folks as is the main occupation of our man Link. Steven and Garnet solve these puzzles non-conventionally, but not so non-conventionally as to be independently interesting. I guess it is nice to know that Garnet is over-leveled for these missions.

The reviews for these segments are overly negative. They were the first segments to just be kind of okay, which makes them look bad in comparison to - for instance - "Cheeseburger Backpack". Really, I shouldn't intervene in SU's funky flow. As the number of constraints on these episodes goes down, the episodes themselves will likely improve. Though I'm not giving numerical ratings, I think you can tell I didn't like these as much as the last ones. What can I say but "strawberry fields forever~"

Jimmy Rushing & Dizzy Gillespie

Taking it easy today. I had a busy day, and that last post took a lot more work than its shoddy craftsmanship suggests. Have some music instead.

Cowboy Bebop Review #1: Asteroid Blues

"Asteroid Blues" was designed as an advertisement for the rest of the show. It was to be shown on a talk show instead of the scheduled time slot. The voice actors were to be interviewed, a whole production.

The talk show nixed the whole thing. Too violent, they said. The entire show was in jeopardy from day one.

Again.

Miles Davis

That being said, "Asteroid Blues" is a perfect introduction to Cowboy Bebop as it is misleading as hell. This episode lets you know what Bebop aims for beautifully, but it uses a lot of misdirection over how it plans to go about it. You see, this episode pitches the show as a violent show for adults interested in animation like AKIRA or Ghost In The Shell, but with a cool, hip attitude. Aiming for cool, real, Miles Davis cool, is an unusual goal in animation. Nobody had ever done it before. Sure, GITS was emotionally detached, but that's because Oshii can't act (I love the guy but as a fan, you know it to be true), not because it was playing it off legit. The episode begins with not one, not two, but three music montages. The first is a wordless, sepia toned sequence that condenses every Yakuza movie into one minutes as "Memory" plays on a Celeste.

Memory

... Yes, I recognize the original songs. I kind of like this show. There's also a ballad version with vocals, because Yoko Kanno ain't no half-stepper.

The second musical montage is the world famous, genre defining, amazing opening credits. For once, I'm not being ironic. This features the song that became the series signature - "Tank!". This song is an homage to Charles Mingus or I'll eat my damn hat. It features a frankly oversized big band with an extra bongo player, electric keyboardist and I'm pretty sure that's two bass players. The main bass line is awesome by the way, as befits an homage to one of the world's great bassists. Like many Mingus songs, the music is call and response style, each call and response getting bigger and more out of control until the frentic solos come screaming at you. This is an edited version, so there's only a short Sonny Terry burst at the end, but the spirit is still there.

Hey, while we're talking about the opening credits, let's mention "series creator" "Hajime Yatate". Yatate does not exist. Instead "he" is the manifestation of the Bandai marketing department. If ideas come out of marketing, Hajime Yatate gets credited. We can all remember Yatate's one word contribution to this series. Actually, Sunrise has had to credit Yatate for several series that were largely the idiosyncratic creation of one man to the mythical marketer. The most important of these step-children is Mobile Suit Gundam, in many ways the first giant robot show that tried to be anything but glorified pro-wrestling.

I ought to talk about the postmodern typeface that litters the opening credits, since when compiled it is hilariously Engrishy and also gives a fair assessment of the show's goals. Unfortunately, I can't find a version with all the Engrish except my old DVDs in America. I'll reproduce the declaration of purpose here anyway:

"Once upon a time, in New York City in 1941... at this club open to all comers to play, night after night, at a club named "Minton's Play House" in Harlem, they play jazz sessions competing with each other. Young jazz men with a new sense are gathering. At last they created a new genre itself. They are sick and tired of the conventional fixed style jazz. They're eager to play jazz more freely as they wish then... in 2071 in the universe... The bounty hunters, who are gathering in the spaceship "BEBOP", will play freely without fear of risky things. they must create new dreams and films by breaking traditional styles. The work, which becomes a new genre itself, will be called... "COWBOY BEBOP"

Okay, this is postmodern typeface, meaning it isn't meant to be read but rather is meant to be part of the artistic piece overall. But the declaration of purpose is clear. Cowboy Bebop is gonna be a show that creates a new artistic level for animation in the same way that Charlie Parker/Dizzy Gillespie/Thelonious Monk/Bud Powell/Max Roach/etc. created the original bebop. It wasn't about cutting Louis Armstrong or anything, it was about making ones own kind of music. For series creator Shinichiro Watanabe, who risked his career several times over to make this show, it was a declaration of purpose. This was gonna be the kind of show you risked your career on...

What did you expect from the episode "Asteroid Blues"?

After the delicacy of "Memory" and the hard charge of "Tank!", we get the third and final music montage. This time, it's the heartbreaking folk-blues of "Spokey Dokey". As the harmonica gently weeps, there's a montage of various gargantuan space objects over Mars. We see our heroes careening through space, cooking dinner and training.

Okay, so I need to say this before I move on to the plot. Editing is really hard. Timing in animation is really hard. This episode does it so masterfully that it is easy to forget that it is a really non-trivial task. The great director Friz Freleng would time out gags on a music sheet, and he had the advantage of a fully original score on every episode. On Cowboy Bebop - and most modern shows, likely - Watanabe had to time out the scenes not just so that they worked, but they also had to work with the music. The timing of the scenes and the dialog had to fit. You can't end a song in the middle of a bar unless you're doing it for effect. You can't match the beat too closely or you'll look as phony as a hacky french mime (old cartoons are often funny because they break this rule so ignorantly). It requires incredible planning and expert timing to make these montages look natural.

No, I'm going somewhere with this, I swear

To explain why that is hard in an abstract way, I've conveniently linked "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)" above. In this Motown classic, The Four Tops tightly perform a song that requires to do many things. I want you to think of the background singers in particular. Most of the time, they just do stuff like "In and out my life (In and out my life)". They can wait for a cue from the main singer or the band. But there are also times like at 0:45 where they have to come before the singer. That way they end the line "I can't help myself" at the same time as the lead singer's line "I'm tied to your apron string". Notice, they can't be cued, because the melody isn't doing anything interesting yet. And they have to hit the beat exactly, because they are three people in close harmony and if one is slightly late the whole thing is gone. This means they have to sing a fairly complex song (they aren't singing the same hook every time, but a sequence of hooks in a pattern), but they also have to dance and count. Try to do it with them, hit every entrance and exit perfectly. Even though you've heard this song a million times, you probably will take several times to do it.

Editing is like doing that all the time.

I want to say this not just because these scenes are masterful that they seem like they couldn't be edited differently, just like The Four Tops make "I Can't Help Myself" seem like it is spontaneous emotion being pouring out of a man whose love is out of control. This needs to be said because it goes to show just how much Watanabe had faith in Yoko Kanno. Her changing a song was a non-trivial thing. It meant that the show was going to be harder to make. But her music was worth it.

Is there gonna be some kind of blues on an asteroid or...

Okay, okay. I won't do as much scene by scene analysis, since even I know that is hack reviewing. In the "Spokey Dokey" montage we're given a lot of information. One, this is the future and we are in space. Two, Mars is gonna be important. Three, this belongs to the genre of used futures, like Philip K Dick or Foundation after the fall of the Empire or ... okay, most written Sci-Fi. The first on the screen SF to use the used future idea was Star Wars. George Lucas used to muddy up the Death Star floors to look like an army walked on, only to have the crew try and clean them! It's amusing now, but at the time it had never been done. In the 22 years between Star Wars and Cowboy Bebop, plenty of used futures had been on screen. You see this and you know this is gonna be more cynical SF.

We meet our main characters, training and cooking breakfast as I said. In classical cinematography, whose perspective is the first question you ask. Here we're looking at lead character Spike from the perspective of Jet. Jet just made his special ...

Spike Spiegel

Oh, I guess I should talk about Spike, shouldn't I? In these first few episodes, Spike is the unquestionable lead character. The episodes are about things that happen to and around him. This is one of the aspects that is misleading about the first episode. In fact, Bebop has a great ensemble that it takes its sweet time introducing. It would be like walking into Minton's and hearing this new cat Dizzy play, then on the second set some drunk looking alto player showed up. Spike is a complicated man and no one understaaaands him but his ...

Anyway, Spike is a genuinely complex character. Maybe if I talk about him in contradictions it will help. On the one hand, he plays it cool as ice in almost every situation (dude, he gets mad at one point in the first two parter and it is scary as hell), but he's impulsive and reckless. Yeah, impulsive and reckless enough that his propensity for destruction is explained and well demonstrated in this episode, yet he's also a very perceptive and gentle person. He's quite good at seeing through the lies that people build around themselves. We know he has a tragic background, but to the other characters he's as mysterious as the stars themselves. He's a bounty hunter - a loose kind of lawman - who is obviously some sort of ex-thief. Most surprisingly, he is all this without being a walking bundle of angst and contradictions (this became the cliche after EVA). Instead, he wears all these as naturally as his green frizzy hair.

Even in design he's an oddity. He was designed with iconic Japanese comic thief's Lupin III's outfit, but has the original Japanese defective detective Shunsaku Kudo's face. For those not up on their 70's Japanese Dramas, think of Shunsaku Kudo as a Japanese Jim Rockford. Spike's got Bruce Lee's body and philosophical outlook, but stretched out into a beanpole like he's gonna take on Captain Harlock. Yeah, Spike's all that and a bag of quips all right.

Bell Peppers and ... "Beef"

So anyway, because Jet is a responsible adult who takes care of business he makes Bell Peppers "And Beef" for breakfast before discussing tomorrow's work. Bell peppers and beef are, of course, eaten with chopsticks. Beef is expensive in Asian countries. This scene sets up the contradictions of Jet's character. He insists on getting the job done honorably even when he really shouldn't. The editing in this scene is worth mentioning. It keeps the characters in their own frame when they are having different conversations and then shows them together when Spike finally forces Jet to acknowledge the unsaid. We'll have to give this guy his own intro. Maybe next episode.

Funny story, the whistling Spike does was actually improvised, at least in the original Japanese. I should have said before that I'm generally going to be watching the iconic US dub, and I am so there. Actor Koichi Yamadera, now in his first day of his first starring role, was actually very nervous improvising a melody in front of musical prodigy Yoko Kanno. Spike's english language voice actor Steve Blum was also nervous. At the time he considered himself a musician dabbling in non-union voice acting and now he was being asked to take on a serious role. Luckily he nailed it. We'll come back to these guys later.

Old Man Bull & Spike

So, after a ... "breakfast", Spike takes off to meet with Old Man Bull while Jet scrounges a police contact. Old Man Bull is a Sioux mystic of some sort (probably Lakotan, because all native Americans are Lakotan). Giving roles to non-Japanese characters was actually a major goal of this series. The ethnicity of the leads is unclear, but I'll mention the clues when I get to them. Old Man Bull (full name: Laughing Bull) says the sooth and gives some nice foreshadowing. You probably know how the series goes, but I'll play it coy and say that it turns out part of the foreshadowing is for the series and not just the episode.

So, I'm not a political person, but I guess I should say it out loud. Is Laughing Bull a stereotypical Injun Chief? I'd say no, but that's more subjective than we like to admit. There's a fine line between what one might call "representation" and what one might condemn as "stereotyping". Old Man Bull close to that line and might bother you if you want to be bothered. I don't know how much writer Keiko Nobumoto researched this character. He asks Wakan Tanka to guide Spike, which suggests she knew something about the Lakota, but I don't know if the sand thing was just to look cool or what. The show was still finding its way at this point, later episodes will continue to diversify.

I will say this: I think that if every time a native character shows up some white guy says its problematic, there's gonna be a lot less jobs for native actors.

Also, my hero Johnathan Joss (TV's John Redcorn) is an awesome guy in person and should have his own talk show it would be so great.

Oh, and Cowboy Bebop!

No, I'm going somewhere with this, I swear

Meanwhile, in Space Tijuana (this is a serious show for serious people), baddy of the week Asmiov and his "sweet thing" Katerina try to unload the drugs. I'm gonna give it away, Katerina ends up stealing the episode. People talk about "gaze" a lot, because academics like me are too stupid to actually do design, but smart enough to talk about politics (so double stupid?). As shown above, Katerina is gazed at - which is stereotypical direction. Okay, the above shot actually isn't quite fair to call "stereotypical direction", since she is purposefully making fun of the old men, but come on, this is totally a shot of boobs, not some post-avant-feminist statement. As the episode goes on, you realize that the real plot is actually from her point of view. The walls are closing in around her and Asimov, and his addictions are driving him absolutely ape.

The constantly arguing old guys come back and just get better. And yes, he does always say the same thing when he's losing.

Its shots like this kept the show off the air. This is reflected in the victims glasses.

It's a pitched shootout between Asimov and the Mexican... Space Mexican Mob and Asimov wipes the floor with them. The space meth he's dealing makes him superhuman even as it makes him spiral into paranoia and condemns him to a world were everyone but Katerina wants to kill him. Even Katerina doesn't seem to care about him so much as what his ambition represents - escape from this backwoods asteroid.

Spike and Katerina's first and (obvious spoiler) only actual meeting, we see several more sides to them both. Spike, we discover, has fast and sticky fingers, as we'd expect from a guy partly based on Lupin III. But he also is better at listening that it might appear, and he sees through Katerina like an X-Ray. Katerina's ambition to leave Tijuana to go to Mars is the only thing left in her life. Spike, who was born there, can see what a Quixotic dream it is. This is a big part of Spike's cool - he can see what drives you, but you can't tell whether he's joking or not.

But then Asimov chokes him for talking to his "sweet thing", Spike dies right there and the series ends.

It turns out these guys are the leads!

Okay, no, that doesn't happen. She talks Asimov down and they leave. As you can see from this shot, the design is changing. Increasingly we are looking from Katerina's perspective at things. The last thing we see before the eyecatch is Spike's just lit cigarette. Spike is lying unconscious in a way that the cigarette couldn't be seen. The cigarette was the last thing Katerina saw.

Those are the ISSP - the space police. We'll talk more about them later.

When we come out of the eyecatch, we see that the ISSP have set up a blockade for Asimov. At this point we know it is over for them. Even if they could unload the space yayo, they'd be murdered at the border.

Once the red-eyed coyote appeared at the Zona Norte at the far end of town, we get the first action scene of the series, and it's a big one. The Spike vs Asimov fight is just a taste of what the series has to offer. After building up Asimov as an unbeatable god of death for the whole episode, Spike utterly dominates this fight in a way both awesome and cathartic. Words and stills can't capture the awesomeness of this fight, it's truly poetry in motion. Also, the jazz has come back to the soundtrack, which is always a good sign!

Free storyboarding tip: if you wanna add some dynamism to your scene, have a character not quite stumble. It turns out, paradoxically, to be way more visual interesting to acknowledge that a character's crazy stunt is hard than to have them pull it off perfectly. Hayao Miyazaki in Future Boy Conan used this trick constantly to make Conan's superhuman movements even more visually impressive. Watanabe is more restrained in his use, but it is a cool trick that really works, I swear.

Okay, this shot might not be the perfect illustration but we are looking with Katerina at Asimov. He's become an object due to going insane.

Anyway, as things go from bad to worse for Asimov & Katerina, his mental state regresses. Eventually, he's so stressed and high that he's incapable of rational thought and just runs for the border. At this point, we've fully become Katerina from a visual storytelling point of view. The end of her story is the narrative's real end.

This episode had a lot of work to do: bring in the lead characters, establish the world, have epic fights and awesome music, all while telling a sensible story and having a comprehensible emotional thrust. Watanabe's greatest skill has always been  to make complete characters out of materials that others wouldn't even notice. It accomplishes more than this by making it truly Katerina's sad story, a character who easily have been dismissed as background cheesecake - or even left out entirely. Spike might be the lead, but at this point he's still a complete mystery. This episode didn't plumb his soul, instead it showed him seeing into someone else's. He was sympathetic, but there wasn't much he could have done. And you'd have to have a heart of stone not to want to see the space cowboy again.

As I said before, this was a wonderful, misleading first episode. The villain-of-the-week Asimov is knuckle dragging thug whose only vision in the world is physical and monetary power. In the episodes to come - and even within this episode - it would turn out that Katerina is closer to the heart of the series than he is. If you felt today's episode was a little thin, stick with the show. Cowboy Bebop has a lot more magic in it than this cynical, violent episode would suggest. For reasons stated elsewhere on this blog, I am not going to give numerical grades to this or any episode of any show. But I will give you a time: right now. That's when you should check this show out.

Steven Universe Segments 5 & 6: Reckless Power And Father Stuff

If it was pretentious for me to have a Review #0 for Cowboy Bebop, I'll make up for it by starting several episodes into Steven Universe. This means I'm not going to do a post explaining who the characters are, or the setting or ... you know all that "review" stuff. I'm going to pretend it's all been done and start with episode 3. Maybe I'll make a background review eventually, but no promises.

I'm also going to apologize in advance, I am barely capable of typing "Steven". My fingers always want to describe the nonexistent show Stephen Universe, which would likely be a BBC docudrama about the beginnings of data driven astronomy. In the many times I will type the simple and common English name Steven wrong, you can sit in silent judgement of me and PJE Peebles.

You can take the standard cosmological models and shove 'em!

The segments I saw today are "Frybo" and "Cat Fingers". (Incidentally, I in no way promise a two segment review every day) These episodes combine in an interesting way. It's dangerous to speculate on artistic motives - on the one hand it takes an incredible amount of thought and energy to make even the dumbest cartoon, on the other human beings are boundless in their ability to hallucinate patterns. Plus, I have no idea if anyone controls the order the episodes come out in - it might be one of those cosmic structures I keep reading about. But given that today's episodes have the common themes of recklessly used and misunderstood power and paternal misunderstanding, I assume that they were meant to be seen together. The humor is getting sharper, but the episodes groan under the weight of their multiple goals. These episodes have to introduce complex characters, forward a metaplot, have a coherent internal plot, have a straightforward emotional thrust and be funny. These episodes feel like the zing at a billion miles an hour to try and hit all those gongs.

Frybo

The first segment is "Frybo". Reckless power: a gem that brings clothing to life / Paternal misunderstanding: What little boy wouldn't want to wear such an adorable costume?. We met the Fryman family back in one of those segments I didn't review, but this one introduces Peedee (P.D.?), who is Steven's age and therefore more interesting. Peedee has an amusingly serious world view, and rambles in an adorable way about the oppression and necessity of being a wage slave. Steven purposefully ignores this, just as he accidentally ignores Pearl earlier and uses a dangerous magical crystal (meant to be an instant soldier by animating armor) to help Peedee get out of his job. At the end we discover that Frybo means a lot to Peedee's father (which nobody understands), which explains the parental misunderstanding. In Mr Fryman's mind, being put inside Frybo is an honor. I like to imagine that Peedee gets his dark world view from his mother, who hasn't been introduced.

As you can see above, Frybo looks kind of like a fusion of Frylock and Master Shake from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Coincidence? Or is it ... Memorex? Also, the Fryman family has blond, fry-like hair. Ha! Peedee's brother also runs a blog called "Keep Bay City Weird", a parody of the pro-local business slogan "Keep Austin Weird". I know somehow that he's a conspiracy nut, another reference to Austin culture. Being so Austin-oriented doesn't make sense in the context of the show, but if he starts playing blues guitar, I'm gonna laugh like a drug-crazed Austinite!

Cat Fingers

The second and final segment was "Cat Fingers". Reckless power: Shapeshifting / Paternal misunderstanding: Surely someone is helping my son with these bodily changes. Crystal Gems have the power to shapeshift. In these early episodes we're going to be spoonfed their powers in an organic way, because the show is 11 minutes long and there's no time to have an "introducing out powers" episode. The series is probably better off for it. This episode introdu-SWEET SNACK CAKES, IT'S JOEL HODGSON!!!!

Joel Hodgson

"I'm not paying you guys for father-son bonding!", haha, classic Mystery SsssssssssTeven Universe. Yes, this episode features the comedian, magician, actor, special effects advisor, writer, creator of Mystery Science Theater 3000, The TV Wheel and many others, yes, TV's own Joel Hodgson in an award winning, scene stealing - okay he's in the episode for like a second.

Hey, did you know some TV shows have plots now? For instance, this segment has one of them! Earlier I mentioned that the writing of Steven Universe, while very, very good, are sometimes pulled apart by having so many goals to reach. I gave as examples: Metaplot (meeting Mayor Bill Dewey, played by JOEL HODGSON, MAN AMONG MEN - oh and introducing the fact that Crystal Gems can shapeshift), have a coherent internal plot (Steven begins using his shapeshifting powers, but without guidance finds that he lacks control), have a straightforward emotional thrust (Steven's father coming through for him despite being way outside his comfort zone) and comedy (this episode is just ... kitten around!). This episode screams forward at a crazy fast pace to hit all those notes, and it has to be admitted - they play a beautiful chord. The Brundle-Fly-esque transformations Steven takes on are great. I like the idea that kids will watch this in 20 years and realize it was actually kind of disturbing. But it isn't cheap disturbing like we see so often nowadays, what with all those kids on my lawn. It's perfectly PG Cronenberg.

It's also good that Peedee is dour in his new job, even though he does respect it more. It's tough to have character evolution without turning it into hackneyed box checking. On a lesser show, getting out of the Frybo costume would have cured all Peedee's ills. On this one, he still finds ways to be put upon, because that's who he is.

Background from "Frybo"

 
I feel the art direction is not as good as the previous segment. The sunset that ended "Frybo" was beautiful. It brought pathos to one character and bathos to the others, which was great. The comically small Crystal Gem Sloop was amusing, but I think maybe going for impressive would have been better? I look forward to seeing them use that sloop constantly, until a crazed monster breaks up the people's trunk and eats all of Steven's corn. Okay, okay, I know they probably won't use the sloop much more, but I'll wait for it. Don't worry, comically undersized sloop, you'll get your day in the sun, just hang in there. Yeah, hang on sloopy!

Wait right there, I want to do this forever.

Steven Universe

Today's episode was very good. I'm not going to give numerical ratings, because a work of art's qualities are a complicated vector and using scalars privileges one choice of utility function over others in a way I'm nor comfortable with. Plus, I haven't seen enough of the series to know how to adjust if it turns out they start getting 100 times better (or worse) at episode ten or something. I will say this: of the segments of Steven Universe I've reviewed so far, these are the top two.


By the way, no I have nothing against P J E Peebles, who is a great physicist.