Stole this from Frontier Editor, who got Dublin. I figured I was a shoo-in for the same, for genetic reasons, but it musta been my choice of “Cosmopolitan, yet quaint, and a little snobby” that made the difference. Either that or it’s that I said I’d write a novel. Which I’m supposed to do starting in five days. Gah. Meanwhile, anybody got a passport?
You Belong in Paris
You enjoy all that life has to offer, and you can appreciate the fine tastes and sites of Paris.
You’re the perfect person to wander the streets of Paris aimlessly, enjoying architecture and a crepe.
I first saw Matango aka Attack of the Mushroom People at the long-lost and much-lamented Vancouver B Movie Festival. It was, without a doubt, the finest evocation of the Gilligan’s Island mythotype (Ginger, Professor and all!) in an hallucinogenic, nuclear-aware Japanese context that I have ever seen, then or since. In fact, since it appeared a couple of years before GI did, it can be considered the immediate predecessor thereof. Both are, apparently, descendants of William Hope Hodgson‘s short story, The Voice in the Night. There also exists the possibility that the whole thing resulted in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. There, don’t say ya never learned nuthin here.
I also recall the goofy first mate’s habit of greeting every surprising twist of events with his signature “Huh? Oh.” After the fourth time, the audience just chanted it along with him.
Just how freaky was this flick? Let me put it this way: the following video actually makes more sense than the film itself does, and here’s the vid writeup:
“Down With The Sickness”Can you feel that?
Ah, shitDrowning deep in my sea of loathing
Broken your servant I kneel
(Will you give in to me?)
It seems what’s left of my human side
Is slowly changing in me
(Will you give in to me?)
Looking at my own reflection
When suddenly it changes
Violently it changes (oh no)
There is no turning back now
You’ve woken up the demon in me
[Chorus:]
Get up, come on get down with the sickness [x3]
Open up your hate, and let it flow into me
Get up, come on get down with the sickness
You mother get up come on get down with the sickness
You fucker get up come on get down with the sickness
Madness is the gift, that has been given to me
I can see inside you, the sickness is rising
Don’t try to deny what you feel
(Will you give in to me?)
It seems that all that was good has died
And is decaying in me
(Will you give in to me?)
It seems you’re having some trouble
In dealing with these changes
Living with these changes (oh no)
The world is a scary place
Now that you’ve woken up the demon in me
[Chorus]
(And when I dream) [x4]
No mommy, don’t do it again
Don’t do it again
I’ll be a good boy
I’ll be a good boy, I promise
No mommy don’t hit me
Why did you have to hit me like that, mommy?
Don’t do it, you’re hurting me
Why did you have to be such a bitch
Why don’t you,
Why don’t you just fuck off and die
Why can’t you just fuck off and die
Why can’t you just leave here and die
Never stick your hand in my face again bitch
FUCK YOU
I don’t need this shit
You stupid sadistic abusive fucking whore
How would you like to see how it feels mommy
Here it comes, get ready to die
[Chorus (last line changed to “Madness has now come over me”)]
This is an alternate ending from the 1965 Japanese B classic Frankenstein Conquers the World (Frankenstein vs Baragon), and it is predictably schlocky, amusing and poignant. I always cried when the monster died in these old movies, even if it wasn’t a Harryhausen.
But I still have no idea why Frankenstein grew to enormous size, nor how that Giant Land Octopus got to the top of Mount Fuji.
Already this year, Japan‘s embassy in Paris has had to repatriate at least four visitors — including two women who believed their hotel room was being bugged and there was a plot against them…cases include a man convinced he was the French “Sun King”, Louis XIV, and a woman who believed she was being attacked with microwaves…
Ch’yeah, it’s Paris’s fault. Look, I may not be the best example in the world, so don’t look at me (can you believe I just said that?) but lots and lots of people go to Paris every year and don’t end up baying at the moon or invading Russia. It don’t matter what the Journal du Dimanche says, Paris is infuriating, but it does not have quite the same effect as an overnight in Innsmouth. Let’s talk about pre-existing conditions, here.
Around a dozen Japanese tourists a year need psychological treatment after visiting Paris as the reality of unfriendly locals and scruffy streets clashes with their expectations, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
“A third of patients get better immediately, a third suffer relapses and the rest have psychoses,” Yousef Mahmoudia, a psychologist at the Hotel-Dieu hospital, next to Notre Dame cathedral, told the newspaper Journal du Dimanche.
Has anyone considered the possibility that Japan is simply offshoring a lot of unstable people recently?
I first saw 
[Chorus]
raincoaster 