Yon & Mu

I wanted to write a back story about how I received a book in the mail from some friends.  It was going to be epic, but then I realized I would take too long and I really wanted to write about the book I just read. So, I am going to do that in stead and save the story of Dave and Crista for another time, when I can put it into a proper iambic pentameter it deserves. 

I just finished reading Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu and now I need to go hug my cats.  It is an incredibly sweet story from a well known horror manga artist.  The art style is exactly what you would think a horror artist should look like, and it completely adds to the charm of story in a weird way.

After my husband finished the book, vet appointments were required for both of our cats and mandatory cuddling. (The vet appointments were to verify that both of the boys are in good health and will live a good long time, and not because there is anything wrong with them.  This is a prime example on how books influence life.) 

IF you love cats, I would highly recommend this manga.  It is balm to a cat lovers soul and in some ways it  really illustrates what it is like to share living space with furry divas. The art is creepy but that is part of its charm, and it immortalizes the relationship between cat and human and how ownership works.  In some ways I felt like I was reading out the adventures of my own two fur beasts.  

I don’t think a blog post about a manga about the adventures of becoming a cat owner would be complete with out me sharing a couple of pictures of Dib and Iggins.  

Delilah Dirk and the King’s Shilling

Picture from Turkish Lieutenant, (My computer is being disagreeable) 

I am making my way through my To Be Read graphic novel stack.  I just finished up Delilah Dirk and the Kings Shilling by Tony Cliff. It was everything that I had hoped that it would be.  

There was action, adventure with a flair of drama coupled with the need for a really good cup of tea.  If you read the first book, Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant, you will not be disappointed with where this one continues in the story.  The art and design of the the novel flows well with the story, and some of the panels were an absolute joy to sit and look at the detail. 

I look forward to hopefully more adventures of Delilah Dirk. Until then I think I am going to brew myself a cup of tea. 

Read or Die

Manga R.O.D.

There is a fine line between a manga and anime. You may like one and not the other.  I have watched a good bit of anime in my life, but the number of manga novels I have consumed I can count on one hand. In the depths of my to be read pile was volume one of R.O.D. Also known as Read Or Die. 

Years ago, I had watched the anime by the same name and had enjoyed it. This manga is the inspiration for the anime, which is what made me want to read it. There is something fun about having a protagonist called The Paper  or Agent Paper that loves books. I think it speaks to me.  It is like if I had a super power, it would be something that I would pick. 

Anime R.O.D

R.O.D. is a fun read. The beginning of the story is a little weak, but I think it only seems that way to me since I am comparing the book to the show I know you aren't supposed to do that, but it is hard to separate the two, when the show is why you wanted to read the book in the first place. Anything can seem slow when you are trying to build anticipation.  I didn't dislike the manga and it was only volume one, but it didn't really inspire me to see what happens next.  

The insanity of it! 

There were some things that I had really enjoyed that gave me pause to chuckle, such as having a book as a literary weapon, and that reading it will drive a person insane.  A little Lovecraft nod, but something that amused me. There are a few other literary nods in between that pages that kept me entertained.  This is certainly not a serious read. 

I will have to check my book stack to see if I picked up more than just volume one and see if it gets better.  The story (so far) made me want to go an reread all my favorite books and immerse myself in a good story with a hot cup of tea and forget about the world for a little bit. I don't think think that was what the manga was trying to convey, or maybe it was. There is a certain amount of love and adventure that can be gained when you are reading for pleasure, and this volume reminded me of that. 

Bad Machinery

A Review: Bad Machinery

My stack of comic to read has been overflowing for a while now, and I decided to do something about it.  In the deep abyss of things I should read, I found Bad Machinery Volume 1: The Case of Team Spirit by John Allison.  This is published by Oni and can be found at your local comic shop or at least ordered by them if they don't have it in stock.  This is one of those comics that my husband picked up for me, thinking that I would like it.

He was wrong.  I don't like it. I love it.  It cracked me up laughing several times.  The story flow is fun and inviting.  There are jokes that adults can appreciate, but not so over the top that I would feel uncomfortable having my niece read it. In fact, if my niece did read it, I could see me ending up with more than one wet leaf in my pocket. (Hailey, I do not want a wet leaf in my pocket. This not an invite to put wet leaves places.)

If you are looking for a series that is off beat, fun and has nothing to do with super heroes, you might want to check this out. This is definitely a book worth giving, and a fun read to pass an afternoon with.

Power of Suggestion

My dad came out to visit me for the winter holidays. It was great, I hadn't seen him in years, and despite being a bit under the weather, we had a great time. One morning while he was out here and over a cup of tea, he asked me about the lady doing ironing. I had no clue as to what he was referring to.  My blankness must of shown on my face, because he explained that at the foot of his bed it looked like there was a lady doing ironing.  I inquired about what she looked like, and all he could tell was that she was in a long dress and she was ironing and paying no mind to him.  I do not have any hired help at all. I do not iron if I can help it, and I certainly would not be ironing in the guest room where my father would be sleeping in the early morning. I asked him if his cloths were pressed, and sadly they were not, so we joked that she wasn't doing a very good job at ironing and we went on with our morning routine.

It is now a couple months later and I am seeing stuff out of the corner of my eye. At first I wrote it off as the cats. I have two healthy cats that some times treat the house as their own personal play ground and it would be really normal to see the cat move out the corner of my eye.  Then I noticed it started happening when the cats were not in the room or  when they were directly in front of me.  Just a little something off to the side the would move quickly and be completely out of focus.  The thoughts of the "Lady Doing Ironing" came to my mind.  And I started to think about it in more detail.

I live in an old house. It was built early 1900's and has had a fair number of occupants prior to my husband and I purchasing it. It still has a lot of original woodwork and stain glass windows along with the pocket doors and hardwood floors. I do not use the guest room that my father stayed in. I have never slept in that room the entire time I have lived here. My husband and I sleep in the room across the hall that is slightly bigger and gets the morning light.  As far as I know there is nothing wrong with the guest room. It has plenty of windows  for natural lighting and bed is comfortable seeing at it was our old bed before we upgraded to a bigger bed. The few people that have slept in the room, have normally done so out of exhaustion or out of excess of libations and aren't able to be aware of the their surroundings. The "Lady Doing Ironing" certainly could be there, but not a person would know, and my cats could care less unless the "Lady Doing Ironing" unless she turned to the "Lady That Feeds Cats"

I will admit that I am open to the suggestion of ghosts, mostly because I know that I don't know and understand everything and I am not going to in this lifetime. Who really knows if there are ghosts or displaced dimensions that over lap? I have been on several ghost tours, and I have a love for interesting history. I have never noticed anything strange about my house. No strange noises that can't be explained by cats and old hardwood floors. My dad is one of the few people that I can just talk to about all sorts of stuff including ghosts, astral travel, and parallel dimensions and not worry about offending his delicate sensibilities on religion and philosophy.  It probably comes from spending a lot of time with my dad watching the SiFi Channel and reading science fiction and history novels and just throwing a bunch of "what ifs" into our conversations.

It struck me today as to what was going on and why I was seeing things out of the corner of my eye. It was because there  really was something moving in peripheral  vision. I was in the kitchen chopping cooked chicken for a meal I was making and the cats are positioned in their usual begging positions for scraps. A couple of months ago I cut my hair fairly short to frame my face. It has been slowly growing out, and I am not to the point where I can pull it in a pony tail and have just some bangs framing my face. While I was moving around more of my hair slipped from its tie since it was still a little short to be pulled back, but I need to have my hair pulled back when cooking. I hate getting hair in my food.  It wasn't until about five minutes later that I needed to fix my hair, because it was getting in my way that I realized that what I saw was my own hair and not anything supernatural.

Part of my feels really silly, that because my dad suggested that I might have a ghost in my house, that I came up with ways to prove that he might be right and in the process spooking myself at a little bit of nothing in my own hair. The other part of me is amazed that how a small comment can get a persons mind turning in all sorts of direction and it is always the comments that you never expect that stick with you.

"The progress of the natural sciences in modern times has of course so much exceeded all expectations that any suggestion that there may be some limits to it is bound to arouse suspicion."-Friedrich August von Hayek

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: A Short Reveiw

      I use to read real books all the time. Now, I have excuses as to why I don't read as often as I did. Some of them are really good excuses. "I have to be up early for work." "I am tired."  "I have nothing to read." I took a good look at the lot of excuses I have been feeding myself and decided that I deserve better then the lot of rubbish that I tell myself. It doesn't matter if I have to be up early for work, I can always just read a chapter or two before bed.  I am always going to be tired. That isn't going to change, what does change is what a person does about it. I can be tired and anxious about work, or I can be tired and relaxing with a good book.  I have nothing to read is a whole pile of manure. I have a stack of books on my bed side, and they are awesome books. I know that they are going to be awesome books, because I took the time to research them and get recommends, and have been putting them on Christmas Wish Lists and Birthday Gift Lists for as long as I can remember. I know exactly what type of books they are and I am fairly confident that I will enjoy them.

  Having run out of excuses, I picked a book from the bunch and decided to start reading.  Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs was  on the top of the file and figured that it would be an excellent point to start.  The book itself is eye catching. The cover of the book ha a little girl in a crown with a face that often reminds me of my grandmother disapproving at me over something real or imagined. What a person doesn't see unless they really look at it, is that the little girl is levitating. My intrigue was up. Why did I pick this book? The only way to find out was to read it.

Making myself comfortable on the couch, tucking my legs beneath me and squashing a few pillows behind me, I dove into the book, while my husband provided that much needed background noise of video games. (You would be surprised at how unproductive I can be with no background noise, because without the noise, I am my neurotic cat. I jump at every sound I hear.) The first thing that I discovered while getting into the book is that the interesting pictures are not just on the front and back cover, but scattered through out also. The amount of pictures makes the speed of reading a lot quicker while giving the story a body and a face.

I really liked this book.  I was surprised. I don't put a lot of stock in New York Times Best Sellers, because some of it very predictable. You can flip to the end of the book and not be surprised by the ending. I have my faults, and I am human, so I get to a point in almost any book that I read, that I will flip to the back to see how it ends. Reading the last page, did nothing for me.  It did not give me a predictive look as to how everything was going to come to a climax. In fact it really gave me nothing, but a picture of people on a boat.  Reading the last page, didn't really do nothing for me, what it did was make me finish the book. In one day, in one position on the couch, while my husband sat as company, I finished the book.

I want to say that I saw the ending coming, but I didn't. The end of the book was everything and more than I expected. Part of me wanted to laugh at the silliness of me trying to figure out the ending in the middle of the book, and the other part of me want to cry at the complex of emotions that it brought me. Over all I think that it was a wonderful adventure for the mind and for the emotions. If you need a beach read, or perhaps something to get you through a few hours at the airport, I would recommend Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.