A family my parents know did that with their three small sons when they wouldn't stop fighting in the car - dumped them out on the side of the road and told them to walk home (about a mile). After a bit the oldest and youngest sons (10 and 6) turned up at home, suitably ashamed, but not the middle one (8). Eventually the parents went back out to look for him, but no sign of him anywhere along the road. They got back from the search and decided to put the other two to bed before raising the alarm, at which point they discovered the missing child, in bed, asleep.
He'd decided to get his own back on his parents, so he'd hidden in the bushes outside the house until he saw them going to look for him, then he'd sneaked inside and gone upstairs, relishing the thought of their panic.
He grew up to drive a nuclear missile submarine, which was always a little unnerving.
Speaking of US stand-up, Ron Funches is in the UK next week and I'll be seeing him live for the first time. Very excited.
It's a total dick move to show up after not commenting very much for ages to say "your post title is misspelled", but here we are.
I am sad Louis CK is a creepy sex pervert to female comedians, but on the other hand of course he's a creepy sex pervert.
I sorta knew about the spelling (fixed) but that's what you get when the working man posts from his phone on the train. Deets on Louis perving?
Who is the Japanese kid referred to in the OP? Was there supposed to be a link?
1 is a great story. Is he still driving a nuclear missile submarine? Is that why you had to go Presidential?
I can practically hear "Blue Collar Man" playing in the background.
I thought that story was inescapable. https://www.google.com/m/search?pz=1&tbm=nws&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=yamato+tanooka&oq=&gs_l=news-cc.3..43j43i53.1760.6311.0.7052.14.5.0.9.9.0.173.647.0j5.5.0....0...1ac.1.23.news-cc..0.14.765.DczoYtDKePI
9 is the first I heard of the story.
6: no, he is now safely retired, having risen to high rank.
That's pretty mild creepiness. I will continue to enjoy Louis guilt-free. A funny woman (whose name I didn't catch) opened for him. I should have shouted out a question.
I mean I just assume that all professional comedians are horribly unhappy people who are awful to each other, so from that first premise sure whatever. It's not Cosby-bad.
I don't think it's that mild if he's blocking a door.
I like Louis and I would've thought he'd be too self-aware to creep like that.
There's no way that kid is still the same. Creepy Japanese wood sprites took him in and made him into some sort of paranormal psycho who will grow up to be a mass murderer of some kind. Bob will back me up on this, I'm sure. He's seen Japanese movies about what happens in the woods.
17: That's what I thought, too. But that's the male blind spot, innit? Very disappointing.
Seconding 18. If that kid tries to make you watch a video tape, do not do it.
You should probably be afraid of any contemporary seven-year-old who has access to VHS technology.
I'm kind of glad G and O were mentioned as my fondness for them short circuited my defensive reflex.
17, 19: There's a thought process that leads from "Boy, as a man, I can say with insight into what men are like that men are just terrible. Really, I know what male behavior and thoughts are like, and we're just awful." to "Here I am, a man, about to do something, that is probably terrible. Given than men are terrible, I'm going to go ahead and do it. Wow, I just judge my entire gender for being as awful as I just was." I could totally see Louis CK going wrong like that -- 'self-awareness' turning into low standards for his own behavior.
23 illustrates the problem with induction.
23 rings true to me. I don't buy the "men are awful" line, but I think someone who does might well go through a thought process like LB suggests.
Also, blocking a door when someone asks to get out justifies the use of force, IMO. It's the sort of thing bullies do because people will let it slide as not really coercive, but it is coercive, and once you cross that line I'm willing to say the victim has a right to kick you right in the yarbles, or pepper spray you (on the cock would be great - I bet that shit stings like a motherfucker if it gets near the urethra), or whatever short of lethal force. I realize that the people in that situation may have good reasons not to resort to force (especially if they are smaller and weaker), but if they did go apeshit and start beating him I'd support them.
Also, might one not have thought the same of Woody Allen?
I'd bet Woody Allen wouldn't even survive three days in a Japanese forest.
Not with all those raccoons out there.
Not that I would know of course but blocking a door does ratchet up the panic and make the door five thousand times more attractive to the trapped party than the man will ever be. It's a real loser's gambit. I hope on some level this dude learned from that mistake, but I guess it's exciting enough that you can learn to try again.
On the train a woman is reading "The Start-up of You", apparently the work of Reid Hoffman. Let us have some fun with this! Chapter One: The 80-Hour You Week. Chapter Two: You Know You're Priceless, But What Are You Worth To a VC? Cahpter Three: SEO Of The Soul. The last chapter will be about walking blithely away from scores of ruined relationships.
Not that I would know of course (from any long-past entanglements), but blocking a door does ratchet up the panic and make the door five thousand times more attractive to the trapped party than the man will ever be. It's a real loser's gambit. I hope on some level this dude learned from that mistake, but I guess it's exciting enough that you can learn to try again.
On the train a woman is reading "The Start-up of You", apparently the work of Reid Hoffman. Let us have some fun with this! Chapter One: The 80-Hour You Week. Chapter Two: You Know You're Priceless, But What Are You Worth To a VC? Cahpter Three: SEO Of The Soul. The last chapter will be about walking blithely away from scores of ruined relationships.
In agreement with 23. It's important to not let good observations lead to essentialism.
Chapter 4: Don't Repeat Yourself
Also, blocking a door when someone asks to get out justifies the use of force, IMO.
It does, if it's true. The blocked the door while whapping it allegation is literally from a four year old anonymously sourced second hand account from Gawker who in their own telling reached out to the victim who then told them they had their facts wrong.
It must be true because it's Gawker and Peter Thiel hasn't paid for a lawsuit about it.
That Japanese kid is hella cute, and man, does his father ever feel like an asshole now. The only thing that I can think of that would make the shame of everyone in your entire country thinking you're a dick even worse is *being Japanese* and having everyone in your entire country think you're a dick.
Louis CK is, I think, the only famous comedian I've ever seen live, and I left the show liking him less than when I went in. Throughout all his various stories during the show, any time he was speaking in the voice of someone else who was supposed to be an asshole, dummy, or otherwise the butt of the joke (in one case an actual child molester), he always did this lispy, quasi-gay-stereotype voice. I don't think it was meant that way and I wasn't all personally offended, but after 2 hours of it coming up over and over, it started to grate.
Louis CK is, I think, the only famous comedian I've ever seen live
Really? Are you not a comedy person or do you just live in a comedy desert?
I wouldn't say I'm not a comedy person, but whereas the added value of a live musical performance vs a recorded one is obvious to me, the value of live comedy vs. recorded isn't so much.
But maybe that means I'm not a comedy person.
I live in maybe the greatest comedy non-desert, but I don't think I've ever seen any famous comedian live. It just seems like it would be kind of grating and unbearable. Filmed stand-up is fine but after a few early visits to comedy clubs going out to see comedy live just seems unbearable. At best its kind of riotous and annoying, at worst awkward and literally unbearable.
Well it depends on the comic. Regardless, I would say that not every live set is recorded, though a) that's much less true than it was 10 years ago and b) it's probably less true in the US than the UK.
whereas the added value of a live musical performance vs a recorded one is obvious to me, the value of live comedy vs. recorded isn't so much.
Heckling opportunities?
I'm a bit surprised that this is the first I'd heard of these allegations. I was a bit surprised, because he comes off as relatively smart about these kinds of issues in his work, but I guess you never know what people are like in private. I was just thinking about buying his recent TV series too.
I wouldn't really be inclined to put too much weight on particular specific details of the Gawker story (door blocking), given how indirect the sourcing is, and Gawker's general reputation. But it sure does seem like there's a decent amount of evidence of the general pattern of masturbating in front of women comics.
Unlike with some of my views, I don't believe people should be murdered for not agreeing with 39. It's just that live comedy always seemed like lowest on the list of exciting entertainment options.
I hadn't really seen live comedy before the past couple years (well, aside from watching a friend at an excruciating open mic night). But last year we saw Tig Notaro on tour, and more recently we saw Hannibal Buress at a smaller venue trying out new material. Tig was great. Hannibal was fun to see but was a bit hit-or-miss since it was very unpolished stuff. RWM recently realized that her Apple Music subscription includes tons of comedy albums, which means she can figure out who she likes. So I'm guessing we'll see more comedy in the near future.
44: And yet people accuse you of intolerance!
45:Howl is another really good source of (US) comedy albums.
Filmed stand-up is fine but after a few early visits to comedy clubs going out to see comedy live just seems unbearable. At best its kind of riotous and annoying, at worst awkward and literally unbearable.
I can see that being the case sometimes at a random comedy night - I've been to plenty of bad ones - but for an established act at a small theatre type venue where it's just that person's set? Why would it be awkward or unbearable or even necessarily riotous? Why wouldn't it just be people listening to someone and laughing and clapping every so often?
Why wouldn't it just be people listening to someone and laughing and clapping every so often?
I guess, as long as no one is trapped in the room.
Not just hundreds of movies, but hundreds of anime series and over a hundred books, including a few on Japanese folklore and the supernatural give me the impression that the Japanese just don't find the forest or wilds all that scary. There are real bears in the North, and snakes and killer bees, but the old legends of tricky fox spirits for instance usually have the encounter under disguise in the city. There are of course dangers of kids out alone, falling into rivers (kappa pulled them under) and such. There are tengu high in mountains.
Rewatch Totoro and see what's scary. Ruins and ghosts in abandoned buildings. But she just blithely runs into the woods, and that is mostly what I have seen little kids, and everybody else do.
Now cities on the other hand...
34: I'd missed that it was a Gawker post. Those assholes have the integrity of wet toilet paper. That makes me feel a little better about it.
Ok, what's dangerous is the Asian Giant Hornet, but the subs usually translate the words and warnings when they are encountered as "bee"
ōsuzumebachi (おおすずめばち（大雀蜂、大胡蜂）?, literally "giant sparrow bee").
Why would it be awkward or unbearable or even necessarily riotous? Why wouldn't it just be people listening to someone and laughing and clapping every so often?
Cause crowds + alcohol. Watched 15 min lifetime of Louis CK, and don't watch standup. Or bars at all.
Did watch a college production of Real Inspector Hound, and I was the only one not laughing when they killed an audience member onstage.
Crowds and alcohol applies equally to live music, which is surely much more likely to be "riotous".
54.3: I could be wrong, but I'm thinking that they didn't actually kill that audience member.
Forests in Japan are divided into satoyama, areas close to human habitation that are exploited for foraging and hunting and even partly cultivated, and okuyama, the scary deep forest that is where the bears and evil spirits hang out. The landscape in Totoro is satoyama and so familiar and semi-tame.
Bears, boars, monkeys, and yes, suzumebachi hornets are all genuinely dangerous in Japanese forests, but kids do go through them anyway. I have a friend in rural Kyushu whose children had to walk several miles to and from school every day over a boar-and-monkey-inhabited mountain, whatever the weather, with the oldest making the journey by himself from the age of 6. The first day of school, he didn't come home at the expected time. His parents (absolutely terrified British mother, blasé Japanese father who'd walked the route himself from the same age) eventually found him sheltering in a disused shrine half-way down the mountain, having lost the path.
The area of forest this kid was left in last week wasn't an area where people normally go, though, and he was bloody lucky not to encounter a bear (two people have been killed in bear attacks in another part of Japan and several others mauled just in the last month).
I saw Tig Notaro open for jens lekman. She was very funny which makes me think that I should go see comedy but I never do.
Crowds and alcohol applies equally to live music, which is surely much more likely to be "riotous".
Definitely true, for sure. The difference is ... I dunno. I guess for me the problem is mostly the potential unbearableness of a not good comic, which feels like an order of magnitude harder to endure than sucky music. Not totally sure why. I find terrible live theater unbearable for somewhat similar reasons and as a result mostly don't go to theater at all -- unless something has been absolutely guaranteed in advance to be awesome bad theater isn't just not great, but affirmatively awful, same thing for comedy.
Definitely true, for sure. The difference is ... I dunno. I guess for me the problem is mostly the potential unbearableness of a not good comic, which feels like an order of magnitude harder to endure than sucky music.
I wouldn't disagree with this at all. But it's easily avoided by, you know, only going to see good comics. Which is not even remotely hard to do in LA.
There was a short period of time a few years ago when I spent a lot of time watching amateur standup. The performer-audience relationship is really interesting -- at the outset, there's a kind of compact where the comic will try to entertain the audience, and audience will try their very best to be entertained. As soon as it's clear that the performer isn't going to hold up their end of the bargain, the audience's cooperation immediately dissolves and the crowd can become hostile fast.
The intensity of that relationship (at least in my experience) distinguishes standup from other types of performance, like live music or theater. It's a lot like watching magicians, except that magic audiences (at least in venues I frequent) are far more polite.
The performer-audience relationship is really interesting -- at the outset, there's a kind of compact where the comic will try to entertain the audience, and audience will try their very best to be entertained. As soon as it's clear that the performer isn't going to hold up their end of the bargain, the audience's cooperation immediately dissolves and the crowd can become hostile fast.
On the other hand, there are comics who play with that implicit contract - in the UK, your Stewart Lees, your Jerry Sadowitz's, and the humour comes at least in part from the deliberate antagonising of the audience. How far can they lose the room before bringing them back?
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From near the Japanese kid links
Star Wars actress has "Japanese Obsession" because she has seen three Ghibli movies. Gets excellent voice over job for Disney, along with Dev Patel.
You know, dubbing is a fucking skill, and there are dozens of pros who don't get paid very well.
Only Yesterday some peoples favorite Ghibli, is a little special because Takahata animated the mouths and faces to the voice actors, in reverse of usual process. IOW, soundtrack was recorded before animation if I wasn't clear. The article also doesn't mention that Disney demanded the menstruation scene be cut, so wasn't imported for 20+ years.
Could mention that Takahata is the important Ghibli director, cause in 1979 he did the definitive any media version of Anne of Green Gables. 52 episodes. This revolutionized anime because he wanted to be as realistic as possible, and avoid most of the tricks anime used to convey emotion with the limited facial detail. The toolkit he developed to show internal states with limited lines and body language was pure genius, and created a visual language that was fast, economical, yet opened up options for more serious and adult animation that has been available ever since.
Everything you like about Miyazaki's female characters he learned from Takahata. Won't go into why, spoilers, but Only Yesterday is fucking beloved.
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Could mention that Takahata is the important Ghibli director, cause in 1979 he did the definitive any media version of Anne of Green Gables. 52 episodes.
I'd like to see this. Well, maybe not all 52 episodes, but at least a few. I've always been intrigued and somewhat baffled by the Japanese love affair with Anne.
Re: the 7-year old boy, I'm amazed by his resourcefulness. He kept himself alive for a week! He must have been terrified, though. His parents are very lucky he didn't die of exposure (or of a bear attack). Will the parents face charges for neglect?
Aaaaand it gets worse. Or possibly better.
"A burro is an ass. A burrow is a hole in the ground. As a journalist, you're expected to tronc. Tronc, tronc, tronc."
65:Of doubtful legality;subtitled
To be honest, I haven't watched it yet, just know the reputation. So I watched this one thru. Besides the usual craft, I did notice that Anne looked more expressive and stronger than the other children. The green irises with more detail (everybody else has black irises), the thicker and darker lines for her eyebrows and nose, freckles, tricks like that. This is good stuff, on a tv budget.
This has partly to do with my tastes. I don't necessarily find older stuff, black and white or silent films, better; but I do find them and foreign films more interesting. Watching a lot of French New Wave and Herzog Wenders Fassbinder.
Found the rest;you should be able to find what you want from these pages.
Episode 50 Finale SPOILERS
Watched this one too. At 16:40 the couple moves into the camera and out of the frame, unusual. Never mind.
After giving the matter some thought, I decided that what "tronc" most sounds like is some off-brand orc/troll/goblin/what-have-you in a third-rate fantasy novel and/or game.
A 'tronc' is clearly the proboscis of a Russian elephant. The Tribune therefore has been bought by Republican oligarchs; the Putin-Trump era slouchs to Chicago to be born.
68: Thanks, bob.
In the summer of 2012, I visited Prince Edward Island for the first time in many a year (for the first time since I was a 7-year old kid, basically). And at Confederation Centre in Charlottetown, there was a "sugar house" of Green Gables, created by Japanese cake designer Mrs. Keiko Sakaguchi, which was unbelievably intricate, and just exquisite. And all made of sugar! how could this be? The attention to every last detail from the novel just amazed me, and I couldn't stop looking at it.
I've always been intrigued and somewhat baffled by the Japanese love affair with Anne.
How could anyone be baffled by an appreciation for Anne? I cried like a baby upon reading the first couple books recently with the kids. Not all the time, but sometimes, obviously.
And then even more when I continued reading the rest on my own. Especially when Walter died.
I cried like a baby upon reading the first couple books recently with the kids.
Yeah, I cried like a baby at the death of Matthew Cuthbert. I mean, I was openly sobbing and stuff. I hear you.
Yeah. Maybe I can sell the fam on PEI for next summer's vacation.
I expect they'll insist on going to visit family in Oregon, actually.
The area of forest this kid was left in last week wasn't an area where people normally go, though, and he was bloody lucky not to encounter a bear (two people have been killed in bear attacks in another part of Japan and several others mauled just in the last month).
Wow. That is... a lot of bear attacks. Is this a typical frequency, or was the last month unusual? (For comparison, Alaska typically sees about one bear attack every six months or so.)
77: I didn't find the current frequency, but some indications attacks have been more frequent in the past 15 years - possibly climate change, storms and heatwaves reducing the food supply in the bears' regular stomping grounds.
I suspect a big part of it is also just a large human population in relatively close proximity to bear habitat.
72 gets it right.
Anne of Green Gables is amazingly popular in Japan, and it was a post-war phenomenon. The translator, Hanako Muraoka, was a woman who'd been educated in a Canadian missionary school, then married a radical leftist Christian (who was related by marriage to Toyohiko Kagawa) and worked in a publishing house in the 1920s, very unusually for a Japanese woman at that time. She was given a copy of the book in 1939 by one of her missionary teachers as a keepsake when the latter left Japan, and translated it in secret throughout the war as a personal act of defiance.
Once the war ended, it was perfect for publication in US-occupied Japan: the scrappy heroine starting from nothing who is determined to overcome hardships struck a chord, as did her romanticism, and there was also a rush to learn about and adopt North American culture (Christianity and baseball boomed at the time too).
A few years ago NHK even broadcast one of its long-running morning dramas"based on a biography of Hanako written by her granddaugher, though it was highly fictionalized to make her life appear more like Anne's.
Should have remembered to check closing tags on preview. Sorry.
77: Bear attacks are mostly in spring and autumn. Spring because people go into the forest to dig bamboo shoots and pick mountain vegetables, autumn because the bears come down to forage in orchards and fields. There's always a few deaths a year, and yes to 78, attacks are becoming more frequent, with more bears coming down into residential areas.
65: I doubt the parents will be charged with anything, though they'll probably undergo some sort of investigation. Leaving kids on their own isn't regarded as abuse in Japan - locking them *out* of the house is a common way of giving them a time-out - and the parents didn't intend to abandon Yamato. They told him "If you don't behave, we're going to leave you in the forest," and when the threat didn't work, they pretended to follow through - drove up a quiet road, put him out of the car, drove 500 yards down the road, stopped, and went back for him straight away. They would have thought he'd either have stayed put or been running afte the car. I can't imagine how horrible this week has been for them, or how awful the next few years will be.
Doesn't it seem likely that they're lying?
I don't have much sympathy for the parents. Parents always give each other advice along the lines of "Well, my parents did psychotic thing X to break my will as a child, and I turned out great!" I'll be sure to bring this story up the next time I'm forced into one of those conversations.
86: I thought they might have been lying before he was found, but now I do find them believable. Seven-year-old Japanese boys can be incredibly badly behaved - they get indulged, and I can't remember how often I was told "Boys are supposed to be naughty" (otoko no ko ha yancha no ho ga ii yo!) by older women. At the end of a long day out with a hyper kid who keeps pushing the boundaries, I can easily imagine the parents just snapping and saying "Right, that's it, we're leaving you" without actually meaning it.
He must have been a feisty little kid to have disappeared in a few minutes, rather than just sit down and cry, or start walking. Can you imagine how spoilt he's going to end up, being able to throw "you abandoned me in a bear-infested forest" at them for evermore?
Can you imagine how spoilt he's going to end up, being able to throw "you abandoned me in a bear-infested forest" at them for evermore?
I'm half-expecting him to murder his father, about 7 or 8 years from now, and get away with it...
89: yah, something to do with bears