Author Archives: Anna

Tom Yum Goong

I felt I had to watch Tom Yum Goong, because Nat and Jon have seen it, so I was ending up last on the list of bloggers I know who like martial arts movies who have seen this Tony Jaa movie. I watched the Chinese edition of this movie, so since I don’t know Thai or Chinese I probably missed some of the plot. But the storyline isn’t very essential to understanding a movie like Tom Yum Goong. In Ong Bak, Tony Jaa had to leave his rural village to beat people up after they stole a Buddha head. In Tom Yum Goong, Tony Jaa has to leave his rural village to beat up people after they steal his elephants. If there is one important lesson to be learned from Tom Yum Goong, it is this – don’t come between a Thai man and his elephants!

Baby and Papa elephant are taken to Australia, so Tony Jaa must follow in order to find and protect them. I’m guessing that the Australian setting was chosen to make the movie appeal more to an international audience, and there are plenty of snippets of English language dialog. Unfortunately I couldn’t understand much of the English. I’m sure part of it is due to my lack of ability to understand Thai accented English, but I honstly had no idea what Petchtai Wongkamlao was saying in his role as a cop who doesn’t play by the rules.

But dialog doesn’t matter in a movie like this! I have to say I was slightly disappointed in the action scenes in this movie when I compared them to the action in Ong Bak. Ong Bak conveyed a bit of manic gleefulness in showing scenes like Tony Jaa dive through a circle of barbed wire – just because he can! There were wonderful explosions! Although there were plenty of great action scenes in Tom Yum Goong, I wasn’t seeing the sheer joy in the ridiculous action scenes that I loved so much in Ong Bak.

Still Tom Yum Goong had many of the elements that you’d expect from a great action movie. One of the things that I like about the few Thai action movies that I’ve seen is they aren’t too prettied up by CGI or an excessive amount of wirework. Tony Jaa’s kicks to the head are still a thing of beauty. He runs up walls. He leaps into frame. He jumps up and kicks a streetlamp. There’s a great scene with a capoeira fighter. There’s a fight scene in a house of worship! There’s fire, water, and a climatic bare-chested fight involving improvised symbolically resonant weapons. Although it isn’t as sublime as Ong Bak, Tom Yum Goong is the next best thing.

All Ages Comics

I’m sort of bummed that the All Ages Blog doesn’t seem to be updating anymore, because when it was active it did a good job of rounding up news about all ages comics.

Tegan points to the news that Castle Waiting is indeed coming back from Fantagraphics, more info at Studio Olio.

Review of all-ages comic Mouse Guard at Precocious Curmudgeon and another one from Focused Totality, it looks like it is well worth checking out even though it sounds a little similar to the Redwall books. Be on the alert for the collected editions of Mouse Guard and Polly and the Pirates, they seem like great comics to add to a library collection of comics for kids.

This isn’t a comic, but you can download the trailer for the anime adaptation of Earthsea at Ghibli World {via} Here are some screencaps if you don’t want to download the trailer.

SMAP = Gatchaman, Samurai Seven on IFC, ES by Fuyumi Soryo

I’m not sure what to think about this series of commercials starring SMAP as Gatchaman (link may try to install weird active-x thing on your browser), but it makes a strange sort of sense that the boy band who used to wear feathered outfits would protray anime heroes with bird shaped helmets. I guess the commercials used to be online a few years ago, and now they are making a repeat appearance on the web.{via}

Samurai 7, one of the anime shows that I’m currently watching, is going to start airing on IFC. It is a groovy adaptation of The Seven Samurai set in a dystopic future.


Here’s the March manga release list from Love Manga
. I’m looking forward to the new title ES (Eternal Sabbath) from Del Rey Manga. I liked Mars a lot and ES is another series by Fuyumi Soryo so I’m going to at least check out the first volume. It sounds like the storyline is fairly dark, with a focus on creepy genetic engineering. Here’s a web page about the Italian edition of ES and this page has a scan of a couple pages.

Sharon Shinn Young Adult Novels

I’ve been on a bit of a YA literature kick. Earlier this month, I read three of Sharon Shinn’s young adult novels, and liked them very much.

The Safe-Keeper’s Secret and The Truth-Teller’s Tale are the first two books in a series that will conclue when The Dream-maker’s Magic is published in May. The Safe-Keeper and the Truth-Teller have complemetary roles in society. In The Safe-Keeper’s Secret, Fiona and Reed the children of Damiana, the woman who listens to people’s secrets without ever disclosing the information entrusted to her. Reed’s birth is also a secret, as he was brought to town just as Fiona was born and Damiana adopted him. Fiona grows up expecting to be a Safe-Keeper like her mother, but Reed doesn’t seem to be able to settle on any particular direction in life. As they grow older, the secrets that surround their family start to unravel. The Truth-Teller’s Tale focuses on the story of twin girls who are nothing alike, Eleda is a silent safe-keeper and Adele is a talkative truth-teller. A truth-teller can detect when someone is lying, and is incapable of telling a lie. Although one can see why a village might need a safe-keeper to act as confessor, Shinn shows how it might be handy to have a Truth-Teller around – if you need to find out the truth it would be quite handy to ask someone who will never tell a lie. Eleda and Adele’s grow up as the daughters of innkeepers, but their best friend Roelynn is the daughter of a merchant who aspires to reach nobility. As the three girls grow older, truth-telling and secret-keeping will set a chain of events in motion that change all of their lives. Of the two books, I liked The Truth-Teller’s Tale more because the confusion caused by identical twins in opposite roles seemed to drive the plot forward in a slightly less predictable fashion than the events in The Safe-Keeper’s Secret.

Summers at Castle Auburn was my favorite out of the three books. Corie is the bastard child of a nobleman, and she spends most of her time in a small village learning herbalism and from her grandmother, the village Wise-Woman. In the summer she goes to visit her half-sister Elisandra at Castle Auburn. Elisandra dotes on her half-sister, but she doesn’t always have time to visit because she’s engaged to the future king of the country, Prince Bryan. Elisandra seems a little cool about the prospect of becoming queen, perhaps because even though Bryan is very cute and all the girls in the castle (including Corie) have a crush on him, he happens to be a vain, spoiled, and narcissistic idiot. During her visits Corie begins to change her opinions about castle life. Her beloved Uncle Jaxon delights in the hunt for Aliora, who are mystical people bound to serve the nobility. Prince Bryan grows more and more obnoxious, and some of Corie’s noble relatives seem determined to marry her off to cement some political alliances. Corie’s sense of humor and training as a Wise-Woman helps her navigate society as she begins to find out who her true friends really are. I’d recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading Robin McKinley books like The Hero and the Crown.

ALA email and a Refgrunt

I’m really tired of some of the e-mail I get from ALA. I have my communication preferences set to official communication only, which on the ALA site is defined as “I only want to receive official membership communication (ballot, renewal and membership card, American Libraries and division journals and newsletters specified in the ALA Handbook of Organization).” Maybe my problem is that I don’t understand what exactly “official membership communication” is. I don’t see why a notification about a partnership with and contest in Women’s Day Magazine is in the same category as information about ALA voting. I already knew about the Women’s Day Magazine library thing before ALA sent me spam, because my Mom told me about it. She happened to spot a display about it at the Urbana Free Library. On the bottom of the e-mail message I got I had an option to opt out of getting more messages, but the form it linked to would opt me out of all e-mail communications from ALA, instead of opting out of marketing campaign e-mails, which all I’d really like to do.

On to the refgrunt portion of the post:

A student needs quotations about family. I show her the cool quotation dictionaries in XreferPlus.
Reserve books are over there, you can check them out for three hours.
I attempt to give a student an impromptu lesson in RefWorks, only to be foiled when I realize that I’ve forgotten my password. I give her a handout, ask about her project, and point out how she’d export to RefWorks in the databases she’d likely use for her topic. Then I figure out my refworks password.
You can put money on your copy card over there….Oh, both machines are out of order? You can also try putting money on your card in the computer lab.
Paper Jam!
BR books (Christianity) are over there.
The writing tutors aren’t here right now, but here are their drop-in hours.
I try to help a visitor figure out which building their seminar is in. Unfortunately the flyer for the event has no street address, and the building name listed is shared by three different buildings on this campus.
Someone is diligently setting off the exit gate alarms near circulation. Repeatedly he walks back and forth. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!
KF (Law. United states) and KN (Law, Asia and Eurasia) books are going to be over there.
We don’t have a subscription to that particular journal, but you can request a copy through interlibrary loan. This is the web page that you can use to register for an account, and it really comes in handy if you might be requesting more articles later on.
If your professor put that answer key on reserve, it should be over at that reserves desk.
I think the reserves desk should have a giant neon blinking animated sign. not only would it help people find it, it would make the library seem much more festive and Vegas-like.
I wonder if I should bring yummy cookies from the Italian bakery near my house to the meeting I have tomorrow for the working group I chair.
The bound periodicals for medicine are going to be over there.
I check back in with the student who was using RefWorks.
I wander around, cleaning up debris from the computer area.
I help a student use our electronic journals list to find online access to The Economist.
I show an engineering student some of the databases he can use to track down conference proceedings, and show him how to narrow down searches in INSPEC. I give him the contact info for the engineering librarian in case he has any follow-up questions.
Reserve books should be over there at that desk.
A student walks up and greets a girl at one of the computers by burping at her. Classy!
I show a student how to ILL a book.
HM (sociology) books are over there
I show a student how to find film criticism in Film Literature Index, Expanded Academic ASAP, and the MLA bibliography.
Here is a stapler.

Go Kinky!

There has to be something good about reality TV if it results in a show that documents author and musician Kinky Friedman‘s campaign to become the next Texas governer. In the course of the first couple shows he argues with Dwight Yoakum, calls for the unconditional surrender of the current governer, gets his hair cut by his Palestinian hairdresser and campaign advisor Farouk, and promises to make Willie Nelson the next head of the Texas Rangers. He says things like:

“Governer wants a bagel!”
“When I’m governer I’m only going to leave the mansion to go to Vegas”
“First rule, no meetings. Put it on an index card and give it to me like they do with George W.”
“Save yourself for Kinky.”

I’ve always been amused by Kinky. I’ve read a few mystery novels by him which feature a detective named Kinky. I also think that anyone who writes songs like “They Ain’t Making Jews like Jesus Anymore” should be a governer.