Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Same Actor, Same Role, Different Language
Gérard Depardieu played what is essentially the same role in the 1991 French movie Mon père, ce héros and its 1994 remake, My Father the Hero. And Penelope Cruz played what is essentially the same role in the 1997 Spanish film Abre los ojos and its 2001 remake, Vanilla Sky. These are the only two incidents I can think of in which an actor appeared in the same role in both a movie and its remake, barring those appearing in short films that were ultimately allowed to grow to feature-length ones. Can anyone else think of actors who have done this? I’m sure I’ve heard of others and I’m sure there are many I’ve never heard of. Please inform me if you know of any.
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group brain power needed,
movies,
pop culture minutiae,
translation
Sunday, December 27, 2009
At the Bottom of Night
Sleepy time for the Chrono Trigger crew in a poster I received with my copy of the game.
For the diehards: the other poster.
For the diehards: the other poster.
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chrono trigger,
die wunderkammer,
video games
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
The Timberdrake
A promo poster that arrived with my copy of Secret of Evermore
If only the game had been as good as this stained glass design. Oh well — nostalgia nonetheless. Again, excuse the pinholes and tears, as this too spent some time on my bedroom wall.
If only the game had been as good as this stained glass design. Oh well — nostalgia nonetheless. Again, excuse the pinholes and tears, as this too spent some time on my bedroom wall.
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die wunderkammer,
video games
Saturday, December 19, 2009
With Their Noses High in the Air
It being so close to Christmas — and this post likely being the last word-of-the-week one before December 25 comes and goes — you’d think I’d try to find something holiday-related to put up. No such luck. I won’t be regurgitating the story behind mistletoe or nog or poinsettia. Instead, I’ll just be sharing with you a word that I just recently learned and thought was cool, if only as a means of saying three syllables what might otherwise need more.
This is why nosism might be practiced by monarchs or the monarch-minded, since they would have reason to keep up the appearance of being authoritative or, as the Wikipedia page on pluralis majestatis notes, speaking on behalf of the whole country. And this is also why a newspaper editorial might be written in the plural first person, even if the text itself is typed out by just one guy: to give what’s written the weight of the entire editorial board. The trouble is, of course, that anyone with a brain is wise to this practice, so rather than making the we-speaker seem like a bigger deal, he just seems like a bigger dick, especially when taken out of the royal and newspaper contexts. It’s also noted on the Wikipedia page that we can also be used in an educational sense — “If we add three plus three, we get six.” — and a patronizing one — “How are we feeling today?” as a doctor might ask —
As noted on A.Word.A.Day, nosism comes from the Latin nos, meaning “we.” Whee.
Previous words of the week:
nosism (NOS-iz-em) — noun: the use of we in referring to oneselfAlso known as the royal we, the editorial we or the stuck-up jerkass we, the use of the this plural pronoun by an entity that’s more on the singular side — that is, too wee to be a we — seems like something you’d do to make yourself seem more powerful. The opinion of just a me is one thing, but the shared opinion of an us is a bit more threatening.
This is why nosism might be practiced by monarchs or the monarch-minded, since they would have reason to keep up the appearance of being authoritative or, as the Wikipedia page on pluralis majestatis notes, speaking on behalf of the whole country. And this is also why a newspaper editorial might be written in the plural first person, even if the text itself is typed out by just one guy: to give what’s written the weight of the entire editorial board. The trouble is, of course, that anyone with a brain is wise to this practice, so rather than making the we-speaker seem like a bigger deal, he just seems like a bigger dick, especially when taken out of the royal and newspaper contexts. It’s also noted on the Wikipedia page that we can also be used in an educational sense — “If we add three plus three, we get six.” — and a patronizing one — “How are we feeling today?” as a doctor might ask —
As noted on A.Word.A.Day, nosism comes from the Latin nos, meaning “we.” Whee.
Previous words of the week:
- adulterine, ageusia, ambeer, anosmia
- barrack, bissextile, breastsummer
- catholicon, cecaelia, couvade, cranberry morpheme, cummingtonite
- deasil, decussate
- eidolon, epeolatry, epopt, espalier
- fabiform, fissilingual
- gallinipper, grandgore
- hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, honorificabilitudinitatibus
- itaiitai, ignivomous
- jamais vu, jehu, jumentous
- kaffir, kakopygian, knipperdollin
- leman, lemniscate, limnovore, linsey-woolsey, longicorn
- malacia, milt, mongo
- nihilartikel, nobiliary particle
- ooglification, orchidectomy, ordured, orf
- pareidolia, pavonted, petrichor, pismire, pong, puggle, purse
- quacksalver, quagga, qualtagh, quidnunc
- ronion, roynish, rubirosa
- salmagundi, scrutator, seneschal, shebang, sinople, stevedore
- tergiversate, thon, tiffin, tittery-whoppet, toby, tyro
- ucalegon, ultramontane
- veneficial, verdigris, vespertilionine, vinegeroon
- williwaw, witzelsucht
- xenodocheionology, xyster
- yazoo, ypsiliform, yoink
- zanjero, zenzizenzizenzic, zinnober, zugzwang
Read more:
all things verbal,
grammar,
strange and wonderful words,
words
Friday, December 18, 2009
Questions Posed to the Hard-to-Shop-for Gift Recipient
“You have Netflix already, right?”
“Oh, well, have you already purchased that coat you had your eye on?”
“Model train set? Yes?”
“Okay then, do you already own heirloom chickens, by any chance?”
“And would you have any interest in owning a vintage cricket uniform?”
“Are you lacking at all in the ninja star department?”
“Why would you think these are strange questions for me to be asking?”
“Well, now that that’s behind us, have you ever felt like your life would be better if Toni Basil choreographed a hip hopera based on your life?”
“What about pickles? Do you like pickles? Because I am pretty close to just buying you an economy jar of Vlasic dill spears? Is that what you want? A gallon of dill spears?”
“Oh, well, have you already purchased that coat you had your eye on?”
“Model train set? Yes?”
“Okay then, do you already own heirloom chickens, by any chance?”
“And would you have any interest in owning a vintage cricket uniform?”
“Are you lacking at all in the ninja star department?”
“Why would you think these are strange questions for me to be asking?”
“Well, now that that’s behind us, have you ever felt like your life would be better if Toni Basil choreographed a hip hopera based on your life?”
“What about pickles? Do you like pickles? Because I am pretty close to just buying you an economy jar of Vlasic dill spears? Is that what you want? A gallon of dill spears?”
Thursday, December 17, 2009
The Second Truth From the Left
Scanned: The poster of Secret of Mana.
A thought: What the hell was the secret being referred to in the game’s title?
A thought: What the hell was the secret being referred to in the game’s title?
Read more:
die wunderkammer,
secret of mana,
video games
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Who Put the “P” in the P-Wing?
Like many kids, I played Super Mario Bros. 3 until my fingers hurt. During all that time spent in front of a television sent, fingers a-twiddling, I had an opportunity to think. One of the things that has bugged me about that game is a very special item called the P-Wing that allowed Mario to fly over a given stage, avoiding injury and the certain death that bottomless pits bring. But why was it called P-Wing? What does that “P” stand for?
These are questions that seemed quite pressing to a child. Now, as a 27-year-old, I’ve finally gotten the answer. (Though I kind of forgot I was looking for this answer for roughly seventeen years. So there’s that.) Wii.com has a regular feature called Iwata Asks, in which Nintendo president Satoru Iwata talks to the people who develop Nintendo games and has them walk him through the history of a given franchise or staple video game element. It’s basically as close to director’s commentary as video games can get. The release of New Super Mario Bros. Wii last month prompted a discussion on the history of the Mario franchise that yielded some cool tidbits, including that Mario’s creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, initially wanted to call him Mr. Video and that the Goombas — those ambulatory mushrooms, quietly villainous and so easily stomped — are, in fact, shitakes. (That latter bit might be kind of a “no duh” to anyone with eyes and a basic understanding of what mushrooms look like, but the Japanese name for the critter translates more or less to “chestnut people,” leading some to think they were chestnuts with legs. Chestnuts with legs! The insanity of it!)
I might not have even had a look at these interviews had I not seen a tip-off at game blog Destructoid, which noted that the P-Wing was to Super Mario Bros. 3 what a new function called the Super Guide is to New Super Mario Bros. Wii: a means of helping unskilled players clear difficult levels and proceeding with the game. For the former, it allowed them to flit right over the hard parts. For the latter, it allows the computer to play through the level, demonstrating how to clear obstacles.
Destructoid didn’t note it, but the article also answered how the P-Wing, this item for baby players with clumsy little starfish hands got its name. Nintendo veteran Toshihiko Nakago is explaining the physics of flying in Super Mario Bros. 3 — which, by the way, involves a raccoon tail and ears, just like we now use today — and how normally Mario would need to get a good running start before he could take off.
The funny thing about the “P” behind the P-Wing is that it’s probably a coincidence that this explanation of its name ended up working out sensibly in English. In Japan, the Paratroopa is called Patapata, which comes from the Japanese onomatopoeia for a pattering noise — usually of feet but apparently in this case for the flapping of wings. It just so happens, then, that the Japanese and English names for this thing happen to start with the same letter. The rest of the characters’ Japanese and English names don’t, by the way, and those translating the original game clearly didn’t take initial letters into account when they dreamed up English-friendly names for the characters.
Regardless, that settles that about that “P.” Eight-year-old me would be so satisfied. Current me: slightly less so, I suppose, but happy nonetheless.
So… What, then, does the “P” on the balloon power-up in Super Mario World stand for?
These are questions that seemed quite pressing to a child. Now, as a 27-year-old, I’ve finally gotten the answer. (Though I kind of forgot I was looking for this answer for roughly seventeen years. So there’s that.) Wii.com has a regular feature called Iwata Asks, in which Nintendo president Satoru Iwata talks to the people who develop Nintendo games and has them walk him through the history of a given franchise or staple video game element. It’s basically as close to director’s commentary as video games can get. The release of New Super Mario Bros. Wii last month prompted a discussion on the history of the Mario franchise that yielded some cool tidbits, including that Mario’s creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, initially wanted to call him Mr. Video and that the Goombas — those ambulatory mushrooms, quietly villainous and so easily stomped — are, in fact, shitakes. (That latter bit might be kind of a “no duh” to anyone with eyes and a basic understanding of what mushrooms look like, but the Japanese name for the critter translates more or less to “chestnut people,” leading some to think they were chestnuts with legs. Chestnuts with legs! The insanity of it!)
I might not have even had a look at these interviews had I not seen a tip-off at game blog Destructoid, which noted that the P-Wing was to Super Mario Bros. 3 what a new function called the Super Guide is to New Super Mario Bros. Wii: a means of helping unskilled players clear difficult levels and proceeding with the game. For the former, it allowed them to flit right over the hard parts. For the latter, it allows the computer to play through the level, demonstrating how to clear obstacles.
Destructoid didn’t note it, but the article also answered how the P-Wing, this item for baby players with clumsy little starfish hands got its name. Nintendo veteran Toshihiko Nakago is explaining the physics of flying in Super Mario Bros. 3 — which, by the way, involves a raccoon tail and ears, just like we now use today — and how normally Mario would need to get a good running start before he could take off.
I’m not sure who came up with the name, but we all referred to this as “the runway.” So at that point, we looked again at the maps and completely reworked the levels so that Mario would have places where he could take off from. In the end, we made it so that if you got an item called the P-Wing, which was the Koopa Paratroopa’s wing, you could fly through the whole level.So there you go. The item — a wing with an otherwise mysterious “P” on it — comes from the Paratroopa enemy, hence the initial. The Koopa Paratroopa — a winged turtle whose name is a pretty obvious pun on paratrooper — has been airborne ever since the original Super Mario Bros., and it’s his wing that makes the P-Wing-powered Mario so ready for flight… even though he’s still flying with raccoon parts.
The funny thing about the “P” behind the P-Wing is that it’s probably a coincidence that this explanation of its name ended up working out sensibly in English. In Japan, the Paratroopa is called Patapata, which comes from the Japanese onomatopoeia for a pattering noise — usually of feet but apparently in this case for the flapping of wings. It just so happens, then, that the Japanese and English names for this thing happen to start with the same letter. The rest of the characters’ Japanese and English names don’t, by the way, and those translating the original game clearly didn’t take initial letters into account when they dreamed up English-friendly names for the characters.
Regardless, that settles that about that “P.” Eight-year-old me would be so satisfied. Current me: slightly less so, I suppose, but happy nonetheless.
So… What, then, does the “P” on the balloon power-up in Super Mario World stand for?
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
This Place Is Death
A photo:
Horrifying, I know. I found this photo — my own, on my own Flickr account, taken about five years ago — bookmarked on my browser under the title “This Place Is Death,” for reasons I don’t understand. The title is shared with an episode of Lost. No other clues.
Happy holidays!
Horrifying, I know. I found this photo — my own, on my own Flickr account, taken about five years ago — bookmarked on my browser under the title “This Place Is Death,” for reasons I don’t understand. The title is shared with an episode of Lost. No other clues.
Happy holidays!
Read more:
death,
die wunderkammer,
mysteries,
photos,
things creepy and/or horrifying
God Bless Vespuccia
A few years ago, I saw the play Pentecost, which features a lot of characters going on in different languages and, often, talking about language itself. At one point, while being held hostage, three characters talk about how life would be different if the continent of America had taken after Amerigo Vespucci’s last name and not his first. It would make sense, really, for the continent that I’m currently typing this post on to be called Vespuccia, since historically people have things named after their last names. In the play, the characters briefly imagine how life would have been different with a more traditionally named continent, with people singing “God Bless Vespuccia” and “I Wish They All Could Be Vespuccian Girls.”
But why the hell did this landmass get named after his first name?
According to this news article and a wealth of other historical resources, German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller was the first person we know of to use America in description of any chunk of the New World. He chose Vespucci’s first name, presumably, because it rendered into a feminine Latin-style word more easily than did the dude’s last name. “Europe and Asia have received names of women,” Waldseemüller wrote. “I see no reason why we should not call this other part Amerige, that is to say the land of Americus, or America, after the sagacious discoverer.”
Of course, what Waldseemüller didn’t know at the time was that Vespucci would not be remembered at the discoverer of the New World but as the person who helped explore South America — specifically what is now Brazil. (By the way, the two women from whom Europe and Asia allegedly got their names, by the way, are Europa, who in Greek mythology was abducted by Zeus in the form of a bull, and Hesione, a seemingly minor character in Greek mythology who happened to be married to Prometheus. There’s a lot of speculation that Asia actually got its name from other sources, some of it pretty damn sure that the source is actually Akkadian.)
Although the Vespucci-Waldseemüller story is the widely accepted one for explaining how America got its name, other theories exist — some plausible, some not, and some placing the coinage of the word at long before Columbus or Vespucci ever sailed across the sea.
Here, then, are a few of them:
In any case, alternate theories about the origin of America — even ones that aren’t generally accepted as being correct — make for fun reading for onomastics wonks like me. I can only guess that the multitude of educated guesses as to where America might result from the notion that it came from someone’s first name just seems strange, even if that explanation is the one that the majority of people educated in this matters agree to be correct. (I mean, Waldseemüller did put Vespucci’s portrait in the 1507 map, so he at least seemed pretty sure of what he was doing.) I’m glad that it worked out how it did, because the notion of singing “Vespuccia the Beautiful” just doesn’t sit right.
Etymology, previously:
But why the hell did this landmass get named after his first name?
According to this news article and a wealth of other historical resources, German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller was the first person we know of to use America in description of any chunk of the New World. He chose Vespucci’s first name, presumably, because it rendered into a feminine Latin-style word more easily than did the dude’s last name. “Europe and Asia have received names of women,” Waldseemüller wrote. “I see no reason why we should not call this other part Amerige, that is to say the land of Americus, or America, after the sagacious discoverer.”
Of course, what Waldseemüller didn’t know at the time was that Vespucci would not be remembered at the discoverer of the New World but as the person who helped explore South America — specifically what is now Brazil. (By the way, the two women from whom Europe and Asia allegedly got their names, by the way, are Europa, who in Greek mythology was abducted by Zeus in the form of a bull, and Hesione, a seemingly minor character in Greek mythology who happened to be married to Prometheus. There’s a lot of speculation that Asia actually got its name from other sources, some of it pretty damn sure that the source is actually Akkadian.)
Although the Vespucci-Waldseemüller story is the widely accepted one for explaining how America got its name, other theories exist — some plausible, some not, and some placing the coinage of the word at long before Columbus or Vespucci ever sailed across the sea.
Here, then, are a few of them:
- According to what are described here as “fanciful theories,” the name is alleged by some to have come from the arrival of Eric the Red’s son at a land of “wheatfields and vines” in the mid-thirteenth century. A Scandinavian word amt meant “district” and combined with Eric the Red’s name to form Amteric, or “The Land of Eric.”
- The same site notes that others — Christian white supremacists, according to the author — advocate that America got its name from Norse sailors arriving at the coast beginning in the eleventh century. They called the land Ommerike, meaning “the farthest outland.” The author, however, goes on to note that the Norsemen’s adventures to the New World weren’t known beyond their “teeny, fancy hat-shape part of Europe” until much later in history. (What I’ve written of Scandinavia in that last sentence may not represent the author’s original intention.)
- An 1888 article in The American Geographic Society of New York discusses the possibility that the name could come from Amerique Mountains, a gold-rich area in Nicaragua that both Columbus and Vespucci allegedly visited.
- Finally, as this BBC article notes, still others claim the name comes from a Welsh-descended Briton named Richard Amerike (also Richard Ameryk, or, in a less Anglicized form, Richard ap Meurig). Wikipedia notes that Amerike may have financed the John Cabot’s voyage to the New World, which resulted in the discovery of Newfoundland.
In any case, alternate theories about the origin of America — even ones that aren’t generally accepted as being correct — make for fun reading for onomastics wonks like me. I can only guess that the multitude of educated guesses as to where America might result from the notion that it came from someone’s first name just seems strange, even if that explanation is the one that the majority of people educated in this matters agree to be correct. (I mean, Waldseemüller did put Vespucci’s portrait in the 1507 map, so he at least seemed pretty sure of what he was doing.) I’m glad that it worked out how it did, because the notion of singing “Vespuccia the Beautiful” just doesn’t sit right.
Etymology, previously:
Read more:
all things verbal,
etymology,
names,
things american
Sunday, December 13, 2009
I Love Tina Tina Shanooz
Saturday Night Live last night continued its trend of leaving the goofiest but most creative sketch for last. This week, it was “New Doorbell,” which, unless I’m mistaken, is the first sketch Jenny Slate has led since she said accidently said fuck during the season premiere. Happy to see her getting the screen to herself once again. Here’s the sketch:
Why I like this sketch:
Points for “Potato Chip”:
Why I like this sketch:
- For one, it’s good to know that Slate can lead a sketch without blurting profanities.
- For another, this sketch reminds me of In Living Color, especially if a Fly Girl were to have hijacked the stage and tried out her own sketch. Or if some entrepreneuse Fly Girl hijacked the stage and tried pitching her new personalized doorbell company.
- A simple concept well executed, with a character we have not seen before.
- Girl’s name is Tina Tina Shanooz.
- I feel as though I must have met women like Tina Tina, though I’m pretty sure I haven’t.
- The sketch began with Nasim Pedrad as the woman answering her door and then jumped to Slate as Tina Tina, allowing me to differentiate one from the other, finally.
- Slate’s character kind of reminds me of Amy Poehler’s impression of Rosie Perez, and that’s a good thing.
Points for “Potato Chip”:
- It gave Lively more to do than most of this episode’s sketches did.
- And it really reminded me of a sketch that I would have seen in a rerun of one of the SNLs from the first seven seasons of the show, though perhaps that’s just all the wood grain.
- The line “This did not end the way I imagined it, in my undry dreams. So I shall collect my hemorrhoid donut and bid you adieu.”
Read more:
blake lively,
jenny slate,
nasim pedrad,
saturday night live,
tv
If Her Daddy’s Poor, Just Do What You Feel
While every blog operating on the Gregorian calendar may be busily compiling end-of-year countdowns for the best, worst or otherwise most memorable things of the past decade, I have instead to offer you all something else as we rocket at breakneck speed toward a year that doesn’t look like it has eyes in its center. Yes, I’m choosing to inflict upon you all something that I’ve bouncing around my head for some time now: Drew Mackie’s three catchiest yet most annoying pop songs in the history of recorded music.
Simply put, once I hear one of these, I won’t be able to not hear it for days. They’re irritating, for sure, but I will stop short of calling them outright bad, as they each have a staying power that has to be respected. Whether it’s deceptively good songwriting or something accidental about the beats that bored into the brain wrinkles, these will not leave you soon. I’m interested to hear if any readers have a similar interactions with any of these lingering wonders.
Mungo Jerry, “In the Summertime”
Melanie, “Brand New Key”
David Dundas, “Jeans On”
(Personally speaking, Dundas is probably the most notable of these three, as he later went on to do the score to Withnail and I, although I doubt that many people walk away from that movie talking about the score. In any case, the opening to “Jeans On” was sampled in “Sho Nuff,” a Fatboy Slim song that I encountered back when I thought it was cool to encounter Fatboy Slim.)Melanie, “Brand New Key”
David Dundas, “Jeans On”
Simply put, once I hear one of these, I won’t be able to not hear it for days. They’re irritating, for sure, but I will stop short of calling them outright bad, as they each have a staying power that has to be respected. Whether it’s deceptively good songwriting or something accidental about the beats that bored into the brain wrinkles, these will not leave you soon. I’m interested to hear if any readers have a similar interactions with any of these lingering wonders.
Read more:
bad things pop music did,
music
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Mega Man Reclaims His Masculinity
Disclaimer: No, I won’t be exclusively writing about old video games, new retro-style video games, or specifically Mega Man 10. However, it just occurred to me that I got something to say.
Coming off the giddy high of learning that an evil sheep robot will feature prominently in the upcoming exercise in eight-bit nostalgia that is Mega Man 10, I have come across additional information that I like a little less. It’s being reported on various gaming blogs that another one of the game’s eight bosses will be a fairly uninspired robot named Commando Man. (Lamely military-themed. Does not derive power from shedding his underwear.) Also, unlike Mega Man 9, which broke decades-old gender barriers by pitting Mega Man against a mass of pixels that we players were told was supposed to be female on some level, Mega Man 10 will feature no female villains. “So what?” asks the practical gamer. “Pixels is pixels and it doesn’t make a lick of difference in the long run.” And Mr. Practical Gamer would be correct. However, thinking about this news in light of what I know about the production of Mega Man 9 makes for an interesting look into the brains of the people who make these games (dudes, mostly), the people who play them (again, mostly dudes), and the process of deciding what the former group thinks the latter will enjoy.
As I wrote about earlier on this blog, another Mega Man 9 boss, Hornet Man, was initially conceived of as also being a ladybot, Honey Woman, until the production team decided that two female Robot Masters would just be too big a departure for loyal Mega Man fans. The result of this was Honey Woman getting morphed into Hornet Man and Splash Woman — a mermaid-tailed robot whose attacks included singing — the sole do-badder who would have to squat instead of stand. (If robots urinated, that is. And since Splash Woman lives underwater, I’d imagine she’d just do it wherever she wanted, the slob.) I find this line of logic a little strange. Veteran gamers, who grew up controlling Mega Man and pew-pew-pewing through level after level, were delighted to have a new, old-style game to play through. The realization that two of the game’s bosses were gynoids instead of androids wouldn’t have exactly made them throw their controllers to the ground and stamp them into little pieces in disgust.
So there’s that. But there’s also the odd decision on the part of the Mega Man creative team to pigeonhole how these female robots would function and appear. Roughly half of the series’ bosses have names that imply some degree of badassness — Tornado Man, Shadow Man, Blizzard Man, Napalm Man, Knight Man. The rest range between slightly odd — Spring Man, Dust Man, Magnet Man, Time Man — to vaguely pornographic — Hard Man, Wood Man, Plug Man, Top Man — to fairly wussy-sounding — Plant Man, Crystal Man, Ring Man, Bubble Man.
Note that the two female Robot Masters, Splash Woman and the nixed Honey Woman, fall squarely into that last category, with honey being about as innocuous a substance as you could find and a splash being second only to dewdrops and fine mist in terms of dinkiness. I mean, in the universe of these games, robots can and are made to do anything, so there’s no reason the female-looking ones couldn’t be made to be as fierce as the male-looking ones. For example, the series has never had a Tsunami Man, so there’s no reason the designers couldn’t have made Splash Woman a little more imposing by avoiding Daryl Hannah references and calling her Tsunami Woman. Instead, the final product seeks to remind anyone looking at her that she’s not only a girl but the girl — at least so far, at least for the bad guys.
See?
It’s not surprising, given that the majority of the video games I grew up playing had female characters designed and named to seem sweet, small, pretty or otherwise benevolent. But it’s interesting to think about, especially in the sense that while current video games are getting more progressive, as far as sexual politics, this throwback Mega Man game still goes for some of the old stereotypes.
So, then, since this seems to be the pattern that the female Robot Masters should follow, here are my predictions for the villainesses that may appear in future retro-style Mega Man games:
Coming off the giddy high of learning that an evil sheep robot will feature prominently in the upcoming exercise in eight-bit nostalgia that is Mega Man 10, I have come across additional information that I like a little less. It’s being reported on various gaming blogs that another one of the game’s eight bosses will be a fairly uninspired robot named Commando Man. (Lamely military-themed. Does not derive power from shedding his underwear.) Also, unlike Mega Man 9, which broke decades-old gender barriers by pitting Mega Man against a mass of pixels that we players were told was supposed to be female on some level, Mega Man 10 will feature no female villains. “So what?” asks the practical gamer. “Pixels is pixels and it doesn’t make a lick of difference in the long run.” And Mr. Practical Gamer would be correct. However, thinking about this news in light of what I know about the production of Mega Man 9 makes for an interesting look into the brains of the people who make these games (dudes, mostly), the people who play them (again, mostly dudes), and the process of deciding what the former group thinks the latter will enjoy.
As I wrote about earlier on this blog, another Mega Man 9 boss, Hornet Man, was initially conceived of as also being a ladybot, Honey Woman, until the production team decided that two female Robot Masters would just be too big a departure for loyal Mega Man fans. The result of this was Honey Woman getting morphed into Hornet Man and Splash Woman — a mermaid-tailed robot whose attacks included singing — the sole do-badder who would have to squat instead of stand. (If robots urinated, that is. And since Splash Woman lives underwater, I’d imagine she’d just do it wherever she wanted, the slob.) I find this line of logic a little strange. Veteran gamers, who grew up controlling Mega Man and pew-pew-pewing through level after level, were delighted to have a new, old-style game to play through. The realization that two of the game’s bosses were gynoids instead of androids wouldn’t have exactly made them throw their controllers to the ground and stamp them into little pieces in disgust.
So there’s that. But there’s also the odd decision on the part of the Mega Man creative team to pigeonhole how these female robots would function and appear. Roughly half of the series’ bosses have names that imply some degree of badassness — Tornado Man, Shadow Man, Blizzard Man, Napalm Man, Knight Man. The rest range between slightly odd — Spring Man, Dust Man, Magnet Man, Time Man — to vaguely pornographic — Hard Man, Wood Man, Plug Man, Top Man — to fairly wussy-sounding — Plant Man, Crystal Man, Ring Man, Bubble Man.
Note that the two female Robot Masters, Splash Woman and the nixed Honey Woman, fall squarely into that last category, with honey being about as innocuous a substance as you could find and a splash being second only to dewdrops and fine mist in terms of dinkiness. I mean, in the universe of these games, robots can and are made to do anything, so there’s no reason the female-looking ones couldn’t be made to be as fierce as the male-looking ones. For example, the series has never had a Tsunami Man, so there’s no reason the designers couldn’t have made Splash Woman a little more imposing by avoiding Daryl Hannah references and calling her Tsunami Woman. Instead, the final product seeks to remind anyone looking at her that she’s not only a girl but the girl — at least so far, at least for the bad guys.
See?
It’s not surprising, given that the majority of the video games I grew up playing had female characters designed and named to seem sweet, small, pretty or otherwise benevolent. But it’s interesting to think about, especially in the sense that while current video games are getting more progressive, as far as sexual politics, this throwback Mega Man game still goes for some of the old stereotypes.
So, then, since this seems to be the pattern that the female Robot Masters should follow, here are my predictions for the villainesses that may appear in future retro-style Mega Man games:
- Bunny Woman (fires carrots, procreates profusely)
- Lipstick Woman (traps you in slicks of caked-on make-up)
- Stove Woman (hefty, yells at you for treading into the kitchen, is made of pastries)
- Waitress Woman (throws dishes, spills drinks on you, cries when you ask to see her manager)
- Scented Candle Woman (weaker but pleasant-smelling version of previous fire-based bosses Heat Man, Flame Man, Burner Man, etc.)
- Flower Woman (is not a robot but is actually human woman selling flowers; tragic case of mistaken identity)
- Hysterical Woman (follows no discernable pattern, cannot be defeated)
Read more:
gender issues in video games,
mega man,
mega man 10,
video games
Blue and Different Kind of Blue, for Fancy People
Word of the week! Times two! Words of the week, if you’d rather! And both of them chromatically themed! And in the same one-sixth of the spectrum, no less!
Beyond the sixteen members of your typical Crayola starter set, there exists a more sophisticated set of colors and corresponding vocabulary. Unfortunately, most of these words are of use only to artists, interior decorators, people who want to sound smart and people who’d rather bystanders didn’t understand what they’re talking about. Appropriate though incarnadine, ponceau or minium may be to describe a given shade of red, these words overshoot the intersection of accuracy and pomposity and land square in Asshole Territory. However, in case the appropriate situation comes along, I’m offering you these two fancy terms, both of which refer to specific shades of blue. Consider this the third in a growing series of color-related words of the week, behind sinople and zinnober.
First:
Second:
So there you go: two obscure but potentially handy words to describe shades of blue you may encounter. Use them wisely.
Previous words of the week:
Beyond the sixteen members of your typical Crayola starter set, there exists a more sophisticated set of colors and corresponding vocabulary. Unfortunately, most of these words are of use only to artists, interior decorators, people who want to sound smart and people who’d rather bystanders didn’t understand what they’re talking about. Appropriate though incarnadine, ponceau or minium may be to describe a given shade of red, these words overshoot the intersection of accuracy and pomposity and land square in Asshole Territory. However, in case the appropriate situation comes along, I’m offering you these two fancy terms, both of which refer to specific shades of blue. Consider this the third in a growing series of color-related words of the week, behind sinople and zinnober.
First:
perse (PURS) — adjective: dark blue or grayish purple.According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the word comes from the Middle English pers, which in turn comes through Old French from the Medieval Latin Persicus, meaning “Persian.” The word came to me, however, after I read Cintra Wilson’s September 23 Critical Shopper article, in which Wilson reviewed Maxfield, a high-end vintage shop on Melrose that has ties to the Perse family. As she always does, Wilson finished the article with three squibs set off with verbally related kickers — in this case Perse, Purse and Perverse. Wilson meant the family Perse, but her use of the word nonetheless led me to learn that it would also be a color. (It actually led me to learn a lot of fancy color words, thanks to this list, which appeared on the resulting Google search.) I’d guess that the Perse family is more likely to have ties to what we now call Iran than the color, but I’d guess that the Perses know the chromatic sense of their name, given that they’ve trafficked in fashion retail for so long.
Second:
pavonated — (PAV-on-ay-tid) — adjective: 1. peacock blue. 2. like or colored like a peacock.Finding much about perse was tough, but pavonated was even tougher. Pavonated, like pavonine, comes from the Latin pavo, meaning “peacock.” (Never would have expected that I would have reason to use pavonine more than once on this blog.) Pavonated apparently originated as a heraldic term referring to a peacock close — with close referring to a bird depicted with its wings at the sides of his body instead of distended, as if in flight. (The same website that defines a peacock close also notes, however, that close should only refer to birds that might be depicted in flight, such as an eagle or falcon, and not the ones that more often strut around on their legs, so peacock close is apparently bad usage.) At some point, the term apparently lost its associations with the bird itself and instead came to imply bird’s color. Oddly, it seems to only exist as an past tense participle adjective — that is, as something that looks like a verb but isn’t. The verb to pavonate doesn’t seem to be have been used enough to appear in any dictionaries known to Google. Not unheard of, given current English words like disgruntled.
So there you go: two obscure but potentially handy words to describe shades of blue you may encounter. Use them wisely.
Previous words of the week:
- adulterine, ageusia, ambeer, anosmia
- barrack, bissextile, breastsummer
- catholicon, cecaelia, couvade, cranberry morpheme, cummingtonite
- deasil, decussate
- eidolon, epeolatry, epopt, espalier
- fabiform, fissilingual
- gallinipper, grandgore
- hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, honorificabilitudinitatibus
- itaiitai, ignivomous
- jamais vu, jehu, jumentous
- kaffir, kakopygian, knipperdollin
- leman, lemniscate, limnovore, linsey-woolsey, longicorn
- malacia, milt, mongo
- nihilartikel, nobiliary particle
- ooglification, orchidectomy, ordured, orf
- pareidolia, petrichor, pismire, pong, puggle
- quacksalver, quagga, qualtagh, quidnunc
- ronion, roynish, rubirosa
- salmagundi, scrutator, seneschal, shebang, sinople, stevedore
- tergiversate, thon, tiffin, tittery-whoppet, toby, tyro
- ucalegon, ultramontane
- veneficial, verdigris, vespertilionine, vinegeroon
- williwaw, witzelsucht
- xenodocheionology, xyster
- yazoo, ypsiliform, yoink
- zanjero, zenzizenzizenzic, zinnober, zugzwang
Read more:
all things verbal,
colors,
strange and wonderful words
Friday, December 11, 2009
Feed Your Family Bugs for Christmas
This Christmas, why give your loved ones presents they’ll just forget in a week? Why give your wife a diamond ring she’ll just end up throwing in the gutter? Why give your children toys they’ll just trade for drugs? No, make this Christmas one to remember by giving the important people in your life bugs — specifically those holiday time favorites, honeypot ants, those magical insects so gorged with food that their abdomens swell, rendering them crawling Tupperware containers filled to the brim with sweet, sweet candy.
Ah, yes — picture the looks on your family members’ faces as they partake in a tradition beloved by the Australian Aboriginal people: biting into the unnaturally enlarged midsection of these unfortunate creatures (which are used by other members of their species essentially as dessert carts) and savoring the sugary goo that flows out. Honeypot ants make for a memorable addition to any holiday gathering. Your children will say, “Christmas was never as good as when you fed us bugs.” Chocolate fudge what? Gingerbread men who? In the Australian outback, these ants would normally spend their days regurgitating their delectable stores for other members of their colony, but think of how much those in your human colony will appreciate stealing this precious, life-giving fluid and eating it as treats, when they’re already full of so much other food.
Remember: This Christmas, make your family eat bugs.
(Totally serious on this one. Proof below.)
Ah, yes — picture the looks on your family members’ faces as they partake in a tradition beloved by the Australian Aboriginal people: biting into the unnaturally enlarged midsection of these unfortunate creatures (which are used by other members of their species essentially as dessert carts) and savoring the sugary goo that flows out. Honeypot ants make for a memorable addition to any holiday gathering. Your children will say, “Christmas was never as good as when you fed us bugs.” Chocolate fudge what? Gingerbread men who? In the Australian outback, these ants would normally spend their days regurgitating their delectable stores for other members of their colony, but think of how much those in your human colony will appreciate stealing this precious, life-giving fluid and eating it as treats, when they’re already full of so much other food.
Remember: This Christmas, make your family eat bugs.
(Totally serious on this one. Proof below.)
Read more:
ants,
australia,
food,
insects,
things creepy and/or horrifying,
weird animals
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
The Sheep Man Cometh
In what I can only imagine is an effort by legendary video game company to make a nod to my New Zealand heritage — and mine alone — a new sequel to the Mega Man series was announced today, and it will feature among its line-up of evil robot bosses a contraption named Sheep Man.
In true Mega Man style, the weapon you win for defeating Sheep Man is also sheep-themed: something called Thunder Wool.
Those who have kept up with this blog for a while might remember my excitement in June of 2008 when Capcom announced Mega Man 9, a deliberately retro, straight-to-WiiWare installment of the old Nintendo Entertainment System series. The big news then was that the creators decided to make one of the eight Robot Masters female — or as close to female as a robot can get. The result stuck Splash Woman at the end of a list that began with Fire Man, Ice Man, and Elec Man and ran the gamut of every such-and-such-themed robot you could think of. Remarkable though this may have been at the time, today’s news is much bigger. Sheep trumps woman. New Zealand heritage and all.
The announcement — which appeared in Nintendo Power magazine, another fondly remembered part of my childhood that I’m pleased to hear is still around — was accompanied by purposefully off-model concept art. I assume the ram-horned monstrosity in the left corner is supposed to be another interpretation of Sheep Man.
Of course, nothing could be as disturbing as the other sheep-man-hybrid that has appeared on this blog. I’m happy to reintroduce the world to him.
Feel weird about it.
Sheep, previously:
In true Mega Man style, the weapon you win for defeating Sheep Man is also sheep-themed: something called Thunder Wool.
Those who have kept up with this blog for a while might remember my excitement in June of 2008 when Capcom announced Mega Man 9, a deliberately retro, straight-to-WiiWare installment of the old Nintendo Entertainment System series. The big news then was that the creators decided to make one of the eight Robot Masters female — or as close to female as a robot can get. The result stuck Splash Woman at the end of a list that began with Fire Man, Ice Man, and Elec Man and ran the gamut of every such-and-such-themed robot you could think of. Remarkable though this may have been at the time, today’s news is much bigger. Sheep trumps woman. New Zealand heritage and all.
The announcement — which appeared in Nintendo Power magazine, another fondly remembered part of my childhood that I’m pleased to hear is still around — was accompanied by purposefully off-model concept art. I assume the ram-horned monstrosity in the left corner is supposed to be another interpretation of Sheep Man.
Of course, nothing could be as disturbing as the other sheep-man-hybrid that has appeared on this blog. I’m happy to reintroduce the world to him.
Feel weird about it.
Sheep, previously:
- Make Sheep Work for You
- Proper Terminology for Scabby-Mouthed Sheep
- Can I Call Ewe?
- These Lambs Ain’t Silent
- Mary Didn’t Know What the Hell She Had
Read more:
mega man,
mega man 10,
robots,
sheep,
video games
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Three World Warriors
Ryu, Guile and Chun-Li, as they looked back in the days when a certain globe-spanning martial arts tournament had a lot fewer competitors.
Please excuse the pinholes, tears and creases — these were tacked to my bedroom wall at one point.
Please excuse the pinholes, tears and creases — these were tacked to my bedroom wall at one point.
Read more:
capcom,
die wunderkammer,
street fighter II,
video games
Monday, December 7, 2009
Burn! Bobonga!
Another scan: Crono, Marle and Frog take on snarly evilness in one of the two posters that came packed in with my copy of Chrono Trigger.
What’s the Heckran doing in the snow?
What’s the Heckran doing in the snow?
Read more:
chrono trigger,
die wunderkammer,
video games
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Bamboos, Early Winter
A full article scan: the review of Samurai Shodown II by the late, great Diehard Gamefan magazine.
Years later, I am still blown away by how much art this publication fit onto a single page.
Years later, I am still blown away by how much art this publication fit onto a single page.
Read more:
die wunderkammer,
samurai shodown,
video games
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Less Famous Last Words
“It’s totally safe. Watch me.”
“I hope that isn’t poison gas.”
“Hey, aren’t you that guy they keep showing on the news?”
“But you did check the guidebook to see what kind of mushrooms these are, right?”
“Look out for what?”
“I hope that isn’t poison gas.”
“Hey, aren’t you that guy they keep showing on the news?”
“But you did check the guidebook to see what kind of mushrooms these are, right?”
“Look out for what?”
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