Fine Distinctions

*TRAMP. In the U.S.A. 'there are three types of the genus vagrant: the hobo, the tramp, and the bum. The hobo works and wanders, the tramp dreams and wanders, and the bum drinks and wanders,' Dr. Ben L. Reitman; St. John Tucker, however, says, 'A hobo is a migratory worker. A tramp is a migratory non-worker. A bum is a stationary non-worker.' And Godfrey Owen cites an experienced 'knight of the road' as saying that 'Bums loafs and sits. Tramps loafs and walks. But a hobo moves and works, and he's clean.'



--Eric Partridge, The Wordsworth Dictionary of the Underworld.

And What Is A Kappa?

Recently my brother and I visited an antique store in New Braunfels and ran across a few strange little ceramic figures, of the sort that were very popular in the '50's. They were in the shape of froggy little creatures with turtle shells and a monkish fringe of hair. I was able to identify them as kappas, mythological Japanese creatures that inhabit ponds, streams, and other bodies of water.

Kappas are about the size of a human child (kappa means "river child"; it's alternate names are kawataro "river boy" and kawako "river child"). Their bodies are described as monkey- or frog-like, with a turtle's carapace. Their faces have been described as apelike, but often have a turtle's beak or duck's bill. They have scaly skin, webbed hands and feet, and are green or blue in color. What they all have is that fringe of hair, and in the middle of that fringe a bowl or depression filled with water.

The kappa has been described as a sprite or water imp; in the Shinto religion it is considered one of the suijin, or water gods, not unlike the nymphs of Greco-Roman mythology. In Japanese popular use they are Nursery Bogies, like the English Jenny Greenteeth or Peg Powler, warning children away from bodies of water in which they would be in danger of drowning. Kappas are said to be fond of eating little children, but also occasionally adults; the way to placate them is to throw cucumbers with the names of family members etched into them into the water. Cucumbers are the only things kappas like eating more than humans.

The other way to overcome a kappa is to bow deeply before him. A kappa is so traditionally polite he will bow in return; this will spill the water from the top of his head, and without this water he is powerless. In this state he will remain until you fill the bowl again, and then he will be your friend and might even give you help. In this manner, according to old tales, the Japanese first learned the art of bone-setting from the kappa. Besides being learned in medicine, the kappa is said to be fond of engaging humans in contests such as sumo wrestling and shogi ("Japanese chess").

In the old days kappas were more threatening figures, but their image has mellowed in modern times, and they pop up all over the place in popular culture. The turtle-like Koopas in the Mario games are said to be based on kappas; there is a cucumber-stuffed sushi called kappamaki; they have appeared in numerous anime series. As a matter of course Hellboy encounters a kappa among the other traditional Japanes creatures in Hellboy: Sword of Storms. Knowing what a kappa is has helped me understand what was otherwise an inexplicable image in a lot of anime shows.

On A Vulgar Error: Favorite Poems

ON A VULGAR ERROR



No. It's an impudent falsehood. Men did not

Invariably think the newer way

Prosaic, mad, inelegant, or what not.

Was the first pointed arch esteemed a blot

Upon the church? Did anybody say

How modern and how ugly? They did not.

Plate-armour, or windows glazed, or verses fire-hot

With rhymes from France, or spices from Cathay,

Were these at first a horror? They were not.

If, then, our present arts, laws, houses, food

All set us hankering after yesterday,

Need this be only an archaising mood?

Why, any man whose purse has been let blood

By sharpers, when he finds all drained away

Must compare how he stands with how he stood.

If a quack doctor's breezy ineptitude

Has cost me a leg, must I forget straightway

All that I can't do now, all that I could?

So, when our guides unanimously decry

The backward glance, I think we can guess why.

--C. S. Lewis, 1898-1963.

Blankety Blank's Thisity That

I recently had occasion to watch Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland. It was an interesting experience. Visually lush, technically proficient, and full of interesting performances, it annoyed the hell out of me by grossly embodying so many of my pet peeves. This essay may only be peripherally about the movie; it's mainly a jumping off spot for my rambling concerns.

First of all, I applaud Tim Burton for putting his name on the product, otherwise incautious people might mistake it for Lewis Carroll's actual tale. But even so the title is misleading. Besides mingling elements from both Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and Through The Looking-Glass (a habit just about every film adaptation of Alice indulges in), TBAIW is more in the nature of a sequel, with the grown-up Alice returning to her dream-world to work out her real-life problems. A more forthcoming title (Alice In Underland has been suggested) might have been better, but Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland is a lot more honest than, say, Bram Stoker's Dracula, which was all kind of wrong.

That being said, why is Burton playing with this particular cast of characters, with these images? With their actions and personalities so severely different from the originals (think of the buzzwords for this type of "re-imagining": "darker", "more adult"), why must he use them rather than create his own characters to tell his story? As it is, Burton's tale seems to exist as something as a parasite on Carroll's original tale, sucking "name-brand" recognizability and even affection off of Alice. Somewhat more original re-workings are possible: Woody Allen's Alice leaps to mind, where the old story lies under Allen's movie like a skeleton, unseen but providing form and structure.

And to what end does Burton do this? To have a galumphing adventure tale with the moral (that would have been timely in the 1860's, when Alice was first published) that Girls Are People Too And Should Follow Their Dreams No Matter What Society Thinks. Burton's Alice triumphs by using the Vorpal Sword to cut off the Jabberwocky's head (they call it a Jabberwocky, not a Jabberwock, as it is in the book); Carroll's does it by being gentle, kind, and polite. These virtues are not so popular with modern audiences.

All of Western literature can be seen as a long, long conversation. Homer produces The Odyssey, and Virgil answers with The Aeneid, and Dante chimes in with The Divine Comedy. There are influences, and inspirations, and complete quarrels with various viewpoints. It has always been the authors' way to ring the changes on all the myths and motifs. But we have been plagued recently with a spate of work that verges on plagiarism, parody, and sometimes downright theft. All art, all really good art, challenges everyone. It challenges creative people to produce a creative answer to it. Some people merely draw moustaches on it. And Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland (while being generally enjoyable) comes dangerously close to a moustache.

Great Illustrations Edition 2

1. Professor H. M. Wogglebug, T. E.

2. The Man Who Lost His Head

3.Mrs. Raccoon

4. The Gump

5. The Straw Ox

Great Illustrations Edition

After spending the afternoon walking the hallways of the past, my mind was dwelling again on old influences, and I decided to make a few scans from some great old books from my youth. Here for consideration are five of them. Click on the pictures for closer looks.

1. From Thaddeus Jones and the Dragon, written and illustrated by Jerry Hjelm. Dudley writes a letter to the King.

2. From The Visitors From Oz, by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by Dick Martin. The Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, Jack Pumpkinhead, and Professor Wogglebug consult the Map of Oz and its surrounding countries. These are all established from later books after The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

3. From The Sea Monsters Around Us, by Lois and Louis Darling. Nessie emerges from the loch.

4. From Thaddeus Jones and the Dragon again. Meteoras checks his recipe for Instant Magic.

5. From Walt Disney's The Adventures of Mr. Toad. Adapted by John Hench, illustrations attributed to "The Walt Disney Studio." Some really good artist has been fiddled out of his credit. Mr. Toad waxes eloquent on the grandeur of his home.

10 Books A Day: Supplement On July 6

A list of books bought and (mostly) read since my last update, entered for the record.

The History of Middle-Earth Index, by Christopher Tolkien. An index co-ordinating all the names in all twelve volumes of The History of Middle-Earth. As such a rather dry reference tome, but absolutely necessary for a Tolkienut.

The Chronicles of Chrestomanci Volume I: Charmed Life & The Lives of Christopher Chant; The Chronicles of Chrestomanci Volume II: The Magicians of Caprona & Witch Week; The Chronicles of Chrestomanci Volume III: Conrad's Fate & The Pinhoe Egg; Mixed Magics; by Diana Wynne Jones. All the books (so far) in her stories of the nine-lived enchanters called Chrestomanci. The Chronicles contain two books each, and Mixed Magics is a collection of four short stories.

Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones. Sequels to Howl's Moving Castle.

The Unseen University Challenge: Terry Pratchett's Discworld Quizbook, by David Langford. Fiendishly nitpicking trivia challenges for smartypants who think they know all about it: it took me down a peg or three.

The Black Hole of Carcosa, by John Shirley. A little paperback that has intrigued me a long time because it contains Ivan Stang and J. R. "Bob" Dobbs as characters.

Lovecraft: A Look Behind The Cthulhu Mythos, by Lin Carter. A snapshot of the state of Lovecraftian studies as they appeared at the beginning of the 70's, by a great fanboy.

Videohound's Dragon Asian Action And Cult Films, by Bryan Thomas. Big thick brick of a book got for two bucks in HalfPrice's clearance section. All one needs to know on action films, anime, and big rubber monster movies from the inscrutable East, up to about 2002.

Into Hot Air: Mounting Mount Everest, by Chris Elliott. Another "novel" (as he puts it), this one mixes mountain climbing, celebrity causes, Yetis, Buddhist monks, and insane adventure into a heady brew of yucks. One of the few books that I actually laughed out to loud while reading.

Defining The World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary, by Henry Hitchison. Another book on the perennially interesting topic (to me) of Dr. Johnson's world.

Dickens' Fur Coat and Charlotte's Unanswered Letters: The Rows and Romances of England's Great Victorian Novelists, by Daniel Pool. A sort of sequel to his What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew.

The Firelings, by Carol Kendall. The third in her Minnipin books, a sort of prequel, I guess, but it's kind of hard to tell, because the world seems so different. Unless someone had told me it was part of the series, I wouldn't have known.

The Stones of Green Knowe, by L. M. Boston. The last in her Green Knowe books, this is the one that explains how the old house actually comes to be built, and the magic that infuses it.

Four Freedoms, by John Crowley. His latest novel, totally non-fantastic, telling about life in WWII-era America in a plane building complex and the company town that supplies it.

The Ebb Tide, by James P. Blaylock. The latest of his Langdon St. Ives books. It's more of a longish short story, but it includes good illustrations by J. K. Potter, and the introduction of a winning new character, young Finn. In an afterword, Blaylock introduces the conceit that he is merely publishing the St. Ives book from manuscripts he found in a garden shed in England.

Wizardry And Wild Romance, by Michael Moorcock. "A Study Of Epic Fantasy." Moorcock's opinions on the genre he made his name in and now seems to mostly despise. Famous for the chapter "Epic Pooh," on why he thinks Tolkien's work to be pernicious to True Art.

El Borak and Other Desert Adventures, by Robert E. Howard. Pretty much what it says it is.

One Half of Robertson Davies; The Enthusiasms of Robertson Davies; A Voice From The Attic; and Discoveries: Early Letters 1938-1975, by Robertson Davies.

Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, by Sabine Baring-Gould. Published in 1894, and since used as a mine for ideas by authors from James Branch Cabell to Tim Powers.