daniel filan 🔎 @dfilan@schelling.pt

I think the thing I mainly like about Japanese literature and film is that it comes from a culture that has continually had to seriously reckon with the tension between preserving a national culture and achieving greatness/abundance/excellence by Westernizing, which tends to produce interesting stuff IMO.

Anyway as you can see I haven't actually watched all that much in the grand scheme of things so do let me know if you have recommendations. (5/5)

This film combines a depiction of some of his novels with a quasi-biographic take on his life, focussing on the day he attempted to start a coup, failed, and killed himself. As well as doing AFAICT a good job at depicting Mishima's aesthetic vision, I think it also helps you see Japanese ultra-nationalist violence as part of a broader phenomenon that includes modern-day Islamic terrorism. (4/n)

- Departures (Takita, 2008). Part of a genre of Japanese films that are about returning to the country, getting back to one's roots, and becoming more engaged in the basic facts of life.
- Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (Schrader, 1985). Context: Yukio Mishima was a novelist who was entranced with the beauty of national tradition, the male physique, and death. (3/n, this dot point TBC)

- Ran (Kurosawa, 1985). Grand cinematic vision of war destroying all that is good. Very Buddhist.
- Pom Poko (Takahata, 1994). Ghibli's most explicitly environmentalist film. Miyazaki tends to handle environmentalism in a Marxist way where he clearly appreciates the value of industrial progress, Takahata handles it in a way typical of himself.
- Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop (Ishiguro, 2021). It's very cute.
- Our Little Sister (Koreeda, 2015). Slice-of-life, but a tender drama. (2/n)

Here's a thing I like but don't talk much about - Japanese films! I have a taste that makes me slightly more refined than an entry-level weeb, but not super refined. Films I've watched in the last two years and recommend (plus one I watched further back but is quite good): (1/n)

How likely do you think it is that on the 18th of January, Mastodon will be more active than Twitter among people you follow on social media?

On the 18th of January, how active do you predict Mastodon to be relative to Twitter among people you follow on social media?

@ciphergoth My caricature of the Aztec religion is that they did human sacrifices so the sun would keep rising.

@ciphergoth try searching for @Lovelybug in the search bar?

@WHALEINFO Remember when Bush said "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully"? People mocked him for that but I genuinely believe that it's a beautiful hope.

@WHALEINFO hello whales if you can read this I wish to live in peace

Good MR post IMO https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/12/should-the-united-states-ban-tiktok.html

To say something nice about the platform, as a writer I prefer the 500 character limit.

I think it's kind of annoying to be sitting here waiting in case twitter fails, but that's basically my status/plan. Three reasons:
1. don't actually know any ppl on this platform.
2. Twitter + FB + slack are using up my social media attention budget
3. It's kind of annoying to do a cross-posting thing IMO if you only check one source.

@niplav I guess I'd have hoped that would happen automatically, but thanks for letting me know. (I only followed like 7 people so I just did it manually)

that said, it's the sort of thing I could get over in return for a good community.

In general there's a bit of clunkiness around here. E.g. I see a toot I like, click on the account's name, click the follow button, then learn that oops I can't follow someone on the website of their instance, I have to do that on my instance's website.

... except I don't think the list of people I follow has crossed over.

OK, migrating instances works!