Hallowe'en price check and NGE completionism
Spent most of yesterday in Burlington: the Hallowe'en stuff store in one of the empty store fronts behind Kohl's is now open for business, so I had a blast browsing the costumes and the yard haunting stuff. I priced some LED candles/candelabra, including some LED pillar-type candles which had been molded to look like they'd melted down at the top.
Also found that I need to avoid Newbury Comics like the plague: I keep finding cool tchotchkes that I like, every time I pop in. This time, I discovered the Vertigo Tarot, which I'd been trying to track down for years. I utterly love the artwork (Dave McKean = genius; that's Card 0, the Fool -- recast as John Constantine -- in the icon for this entry); and to my surprise and delight, the introduction on the accompanying manual is by Neil Gaiman. Also got "Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth" for a bargain price; I know, most of the footage from it has been recut into the series to become the Director's Cut version, but I have an especial place in this movie: It's what inspired what has become "Neon Enoch Evangelion".
It started with D&R's framing device: ie. the string quartet of the four kids, Asuka as first violin, Kaworu on second violin, Rei on viola (there's something funny about Rei playing viola, maybe because it's the oddball of the string family, but I digress...), and Shinji playing cello. Towards the end, the kids play Pachelbel's famous Canon in D, but this is where it gets interesting:
The recording used in the soundtrack has a harpsichord continuum (ie. bass line with harmony), but there's no harpsichord player that we can see. That bugged me in a good way: I started asking myself "Who's playing that harpsichord/keyboard? Kaworu's out of camera range twin sister Kaori?" At that point, I had this mental image of a fifth kid (or maybe a Sixth Child) scurrying in, joining the other four, carrying in a Casio ToneBank and a stand, "Sorry I'm late!" And this was the genesis of Sabia Valiant. I saw her as a Grigori, especially since Kaworu has Grigori-like propensities (fond of humans and human culture, may or may not be "getting cozy" with a human), so I called the sketches I came up with "The Grigori Continuum" (hence the title of Part One of Neon Enoch Evangelion).
She's changed since I started writing her: she started off Japanese, then she was Irish, now she's Irish-born but grew up in the United States (or she's been lead to believe she was born in Ireland...). Following Hideaki Anno's naming convention, I gave her the last name Valiant after a Victorian-era British battleship which was constructed in a dockyard in Dublin (she was almost going to be named Kennedy, after the US aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy, but I thought that was too obvious and too commonplace). She went through several first names: first she was Kaori, but I decided that was too close to Kaworu. Then she was Midori, but that didn't feel right. At one point she was Maia, but that's Ibuki's first name (or a spelling variation, anyway). Then she was Mara, but I discovered the "new girl" in the Rebuild movies is called Mari, and I wanted to avoid more confusion. So I held a mini-naming contest and the winner came from nightofcydonia. Her personality has changed a lot as well: she was a lot more clumsy and socially awkward, now she's a lot more poised and even gently snarky at times, but that hides the fact that inwardly, she senses there is something Not Right about herself. I'll admit, aspects of her are based on me, but she's not me, nor is she a self-insert (though she does do some things I'd like to do, ie. helping Fuyutsuki gently quench the torch he's been carrying for Yui).
Also found that I need to avoid Newbury Comics like the plague: I keep finding cool tchotchkes that I like, every time I pop in. This time, I discovered the Vertigo Tarot, which I'd been trying to track down for years. I utterly love the artwork (Dave McKean = genius; that's Card 0, the Fool -- recast as John Constantine -- in the icon for this entry); and to my surprise and delight, the introduction on the accompanying manual is by Neil Gaiman. Also got "Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth" for a bargain price; I know, most of the footage from it has been recut into the series to become the Director's Cut version, but I have an especial place in this movie: It's what inspired what has become "Neon Enoch Evangelion".
It started with D&R's framing device: ie. the string quartet of the four kids, Asuka as first violin, Kaworu on second violin, Rei on viola (there's something funny about Rei playing viola, maybe because it's the oddball of the string family, but I digress...), and Shinji playing cello. Towards the end, the kids play Pachelbel's famous Canon in D, but this is where it gets interesting:
The recording used in the soundtrack has a harpsichord continuum (ie. bass line with harmony), but there's no harpsichord player that we can see. That bugged me in a good way: I started asking myself "Who's playing that harpsichord/keyboard? Kaworu's out of camera range twin sister Kaori?" At that point, I had this mental image of a fifth kid (or maybe a Sixth Child) scurrying in, joining the other four, carrying in a Casio ToneBank and a stand, "Sorry I'm late!" And this was the genesis of Sabia Valiant. I saw her as a Grigori, especially since Kaworu has Grigori-like propensities (fond of humans and human culture, may or may not be "getting cozy" with a human), so I called the sketches I came up with "The Grigori Continuum" (hence the title of Part One of Neon Enoch Evangelion).
She's changed since I started writing her: she started off Japanese, then she was Irish, now she's Irish-born but grew up in the United States (or she's been lead to believe she was born in Ireland...). Following Hideaki Anno's naming convention, I gave her the last name Valiant after a Victorian-era British battleship which was constructed in a dockyard in Dublin (she was almost going to be named Kennedy, after the US aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy, but I thought that was too obvious and too commonplace). She went through several first names: first she was Kaori, but I decided that was too close to Kaworu. Then she was Midori, but that didn't feel right. At one point she was Maia, but that's Ibuki's first name (or a spelling variation, anyway). Then she was Mara, but I discovered the "new girl" in the Rebuild movies is called Mari, and I wanted to avoid more confusion. So I held a mini-naming contest and the winner came from nightofcydonia. Her personality has changed a lot as well: she was a lot more clumsy and socially awkward, now she's a lot more poised and even gently snarky at times, but that hides the fact that inwardly, she senses there is something Not Right about herself. I'll admit, aspects of her are based on me, but she's not me, nor is she a self-insert (though she does do some things I'd like to do, ie. helping Fuyutsuki gently quench the torch he's been carrying for Yui).