#media is my gateway bridge into heaven

[juno0v]

gotta love media

[acquired-stardust]

Anime Spotlight #2: Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door (2001)

Happy Halloween! Acquired Stardust's second anime spotlight caps off our two-part Halloween spotlight special. Join Ash for a look back at her favorite Halloween movie to celebrate the season.

Growing up, September ushered in my favorite time of year. Summer heat began to give way to the chill of an upstate New York fall and before you knew it October was here, the gateway to the holiday season, which meant a constant rotation of Halloween movies on the living room television which my mom would have on at virtually all hours of the day. Little traditions like that have colored my early childhood and remained something I enjoy keeping up and coming up with new ones. Eventually, I was overjoyed to be able to share my own favorite Halloween movie with my mother one year when we sat down to watch this together, and I distinctly remember her enjoying it and especially taking a liking to the lovable catlike hacker Radical Edward, a very popular and enduring character actually based on series composer Yoko Kanno. But perhaps we're getting a little ahead of ourselves.

Sometimes getting the band back together isn't all it's cracked up to be. People change. Sometimes creative desires diverge. For many bands there are distinct before and afters. Cowboy Bebop, with director/creator Shinichiro Watanabe's process of thinking of his works in the context of music, was a hell of a series. Anime conquered the west in several steps, from the college campuses importing laserdiscs to Toonami and then Adult Swim, Cowboy Bebop holds a special place in that movement particularly as a bridge for the uninitiated - because it was heavily inspired by western media and of an extremely high quality people into anime often used it to bring those unfamiliar into the fold to great success. Cowboy Bebop has a pretty enduring legacy of not just being the favorite anime of many, but also being the first anime of many who were turned off by the more battle shonen stylings of Dragonball Z that had swept countless youth up into anime fandom in the early 2000s. It's inspired countless people in their own creative endeavors such as the late Monty Oum of Haloid, Dead Fantasy and RWBY fame, and Adult Swim classic The Boondocks also featured tributes. The recent Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade also features an unmistakable musical allusion to Yoko Kanno's work on the series in a chase scene backed by a several-movement jazz track.

Sometimes it's hard for a band to recapture exactly what made it so special in its heyday, but that's absolutely not the case for Knockin' on Heaven's Door, the movie released in 2001 in Japan. Much of what makes the original series work so well, such as an iconic soundtrack and impeccable script, not just returns for the movie but is in top form. A large cast of distinct characters, including several introduced in this movie, are all utilized very effectively. Iconic anime dubbing studio Animaze knocks it out of the park yet again with not only returning actors reprising some of the most iconic roles in all of English-language dubbing but also impresses with Dave Wittenberg as hacker Lee Samson and even the rare anime role from Jennifer Hale before she became quite as ubiquitous as she is now.

Animation and art direction are in top form as well, with plenty of attractive uses of lighting and the framing of shots. Small details such as the hair or clothes blowing in the wind or the falling of an ashtray aboard the spaceship Bebop manage to be almost as impressive as some of the mesmerizing fight scenes. There are also some extremely dynamic uses of the point of view even in slower exposition scenes. You've also got the soundtrack that sees series composer Yoko Kanno return with plenty of the iconic and bombastic jazz the series is known for along with some other auditory treats, and vocalist Mai Yamane also returns for two tracks that are among her best contributions to the series which really says a lot.

Set largely between Halloween and the day before culminating in a tense action sequence at a Halloween parade, Knockin' on Heaven's Door sees the bounty hunting crew of the spaceship Bebop attempt to catch a large bounty in the wake of a mysterious terrorist attack on a freeway. Each character splinters off in their own direction as is series standard, chasing down their own individual leads through their own processes which helps to illustrate not only why this crew contrasts so well in its very distinct members but also showcases a strength of the series in its oozing of characterization with action and dialogue alike.

The captivating push and pull of dialogue between characters that the series is known for is never stronger than in this film, which is a real testament to not only the talents of the late frequent Watanabe collaborator Keiko Nobumoto but the returning writer-voice director duo of Marc Handler and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, respectively, along with the incredible voice cast. There is a reason that Cowboy Bebop is widely believed to have one of if not the strongest English language dubs of any anime, and while other examples in that upper echelon come to mind for me I find it hard to disagree with anyone who finds it to indeed be the finest. Remarkable parity between the television series and movie is a common thread, and the movie even features a number of long running cameos, at least one of which pays off in a big way.

For anime fans of a certain age, Cowboy Bebop is held with an extreme reverence and often tops the list of favorites. While it may not be my personal favorite, it's pretty high up there. Regardless it's impossible to dispute the sheer quality in every single aspect of the series, and Knockin' on Heaven's Door exemplifies so many of the strengths of the series at an impressive feature-length runtime. It's also a tradition around our house to watch this every Halloween in celebration, inspired by all the movie marathons around my house growing up. The stunned silence I watched this film in for the very first time as a child will be something I never forget, and it goes without saying that it's my favorite Halloween movie pretty easily. Hopefully it will be an experience you don't forget any time soon either.

A gem hidden among the stones, Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door is undoubtedly stardust.

-Ash

[pcttrailsidereader]

FEAR

Michael ‘Pause’ Meyer, a former Newsweek editor and author, is dean of the Graduate School of Media and Communications at the Aga Khan University in Nairobi. This necessitates him periodically leaving the trail and flying back to Kenya and then returning.  Despite the logistical nightmare of a global commute, he is hiking as much of the PCT in 2018 as he can. This is an excerpt from his journal entry from the last day of May shortly before a return to East Africa. 

As you would expect, his writing rises far above most of the accounts written from the trail.  It is a delightful and refreshing read. His blog is:  https://pacificcresttrail2018.com/

Facts versus feelings, science versus psychology.

Ask a PCT thru-hiker where the desert ends and the mountains begin, and the answer will be unequivocal: Kennedy Meadows, gateway to the Sierras. That’s where alpine peaks, glacial streams and pine forests supplant sand, sun and cacti.

Scientists, however, will tell you differently. Geologically, the Sierras begin at Tehachapi Pass, bisected by Highway 58. To the south is the Mojave; to the north, the foothills of the Sierras. We hikers may find they look a lot like what we’ve been walking through for the past 500 miles. But in fact, Tehachapi marks a new beginning, a climactic and geological fresh chapter. Which is great. Because, psychologically, I am done with desert. So is everyone else.

The hike from Cottonwood Creek to the Tehachapi – Willow Springs road is 23 miles. I start a bit after 6 am. In the soft sand beneath Cottonwood Creek bridge, hikers are rousing themselves from tents and sleeping bags, preparing to start the day. As predicted, a weather front has rolled through. Temperatures overnight were in the 40s. They will not rise much above 70, according to forecast. This could not be more welcome.

Like many, I’ve been anxious about this last stretch of desert, almost to the point of not wanting to do it. The heat is one reason, the long carries between water sources another. But none of this is new. There have been hotter days, including the very first from Campo. So why the uncharacteristic jitters?

Maybe I sense it’s the end of something. We are all so eager to have the desert behind us. And yet, it has been wonderful — surprising in its austere beauty, even more in its diversity, from featureless scrub to high alpine meadows and those beautiful oak glades in-between.

There’s also fear of the new. The Sierras are still bound by snow; stream crossings can be dangerous in the spring melt. Trail angel Mary, driving me from the train from LAX to Hiker Heaven just a few days ago, warned me against venturing in too soon. Within the past ten days, she said, there was as much four feet of fresh snow around Mt Whitney.

Last year at this time, she gave rides to a pair of Asian girls, Tree and Buttercup, one Chinese, the other Korean. Both died in stream crossings. “I had a terrible premonition about them,” she told me on the road to Agua Dulce. “They were so small, not even five feet tall.” And they seemed over-confident. “Don’t go alone. Don’t cross those rivers without other hikers,” she told them. As it happened, neither listened. “We’ll be ok,” each said. The Korean girl hadn’t told her family she was hiking the PCT. They learned when informed of her death.

Perhaps this is my age speaking. And I am a father of four. In a long career as a correspondent, I have seen wonderful and terrible things — wars, revolutions, the strength and triumphs of ordinary people in the face of danger or adversity, but also their weakness, their capacity for bestiality or mere foolishness. By nature, we behave as though all will be well, however difficult whatever it is we might undertake. But with years, we also learn how badly things can go wrong, often beginning with the smallest things. Like underestimating the force of a small river, perhaps only ten feet wide and three deep.

Whatever my doubts, they vanish on the trail. A brisk winds blows; hikers are bundled against the chill in fleeces and rain jackets. The land is completely featureless — grass and sparse sage — save for the ubiquitous wind turbines, ghostly in the dawn light. They tower above us, in endless rows, emitting a weird whirring noise, their spikey blades miming the even weirder Joshua trees doing their Joshua tree thing. The mountains to the south are cloaked in cloud.

After a steep 3500-foot climb, six miles along, the trail plunges into Tylerhorse Canyon. Three guys who left Hikertown last night are gathering water from the trickling stream and smoking weed. I quickly camel a liter and refill my bottle. “Man, one guy last night was doing acid,” one says. Another: “At midnight, I just sucked down a beer and kept going.” An older guy with a white beard, soft-spoken Bill, listens off to the side as the other three cough roughly after their hit. One hiked 42 miles yesterday and looks wasted.

That turns out to be the pattern. Up one canyon, down another, repeat. All this through the brown, brown hills of southern California where the tallest bush is scarcely knee-high. And yet: even at mid-morning, the day remains cool. The wind blows atop the ridges. With the Mojave and its wind farms stretching far below, it is like walking on top of the world. I gulp huge breaths of air, drinking it in like water.

At 10 am, about ten miles in, I take a break at the bottom of Gamble Spring Canyon. It’s faintly disheartening to walk down the long switch-backs in full view of another set rising 1500 feet on the other side. At the summit ridge of Burns Mountain, there’s an improbable water cache with eight or ten chairs clustered under a red parasol. It even has a name: the “549” Bar & Grill — Fine Dining with a View.” House specials: Lizard Chips, Jack Rabbit Stew, Rattle Snake and Eggs.

Brandon, Penguin Pants, Ranger and Missing Person are there, along with a few others. The talk is of Odysseus, the sacred weight of hospitality in the ancient world and its echo on the PCT. As the Greek mythic hero was blown around the Aegean, he was taken in by various tribes of the Greek islands, like the Lotus Eaters, after their fashion – much as we are by trail angels. “Contrast that to Cyclops, who ate his guests,” says Yoseki. “And look what happened to him.”

Yoseki is one of the few who trail-named himself, a composite of his three favorite places in the world – Yosemiti, Sequoia and King’s Canyon national parks, all just a skip up the trail at this point. Thinking of my own imminent departure, I mention how hard it is to leave the trail, even briefly, and how I (at least) display symptoms of withdrawal, as if from a drug. “We live in Valhalla, everyday day,” Yoseki replies, still in his mythic meme. “It’s a hard place to come down from.” That’s why he recently retired from his legal practice, he adds. “So I can do stuff like this.”

The trail drops down to Willow Springs Road along pine-speckled ridges and field after field of wind turbines in their thousands. The reason they are here by now is obvious: this is one of the most consistently breezy places on earth. At times, the wind is strong enough to knock you sideways on the trail – bam, Bam, BAM! But it’s exhilarating, as well, and I keep gulping in the fresh gusts like someone who has just emerged from a vast desert into a land of cool and refreshing lakes.

It’s another of those very special days, perhaps uniquely common on the PCT, where all feels well in the world, and that deep within the gods are with you.

Where the trail dumps you at the highway, there’s magic. Rodeo happily offers up sandwiches, apples and ice-cold lemonade; the legendary Coppertone, an angel who parks his camper at trailheads up and down the PCT for as long as a week at a time, dishes out his trademark Root Beer floats.  Neither expects anything in return. For the Wandering Wayfarers that R Us, it is the embodiment of that caring-sharing PCT ethos — and the antidote to fear.