"In reality it was just what is usually seen in the houses of people with moderate means who want to appear rich, and therefore succeed only in resembling others like themselves: there are damasks, dark wood, plants, rugs, dull and polished bronzes--all the things people of a certain class have in order to resemble other people of that class"--"Death of Ivan Ilyich"
Tonight was going to be the Short Story Meetup, but it got cancelled at the last minute. And I'd spent the morning and afternoon reading the whole of "The Death of Ivan Ilyich"! Oh, well--I'm proud that I could read a novella of almost 70 pages that quickly. (It was a revelation, oddly life-affirming.)
What with the coronavirus, I'm being a homebody just now--not that I'm not often a homebody at normal times. The local No Frills supermarket had a queue of people waiting to get in! (They've run out of bananas.) I've been feeling a bit under the weather, so I went out and got some huge pomelo grapefruit on Sunday morning when it was less crowded.
I heard about all the untruths Doddering Joe was telling Bernie in their debate last night. A liar says things he knows aren't true; a bullshitter doesn't care whether he's telling the truth! I think Biden's a bullshitter, just like Reagan. (Rob Reiner Tweeted, "Sanders is an advocate. Biden is a President." I commented, "Sanders is a leader. Biden is a weasel.") Hard to believe they haven't delayed tomorrow's voting in the current emergency...
Which brings me to Sailor Moon, which I've been binge-watching again. The other day I started the second half of the first season, when the show's quality sharply increased. The turning point came when Molly fell in love with Neflyte the Negaverse villain, standing in front of him to protect him from Sailor Moon's tiara, and Neflyte died protecting her, achieving a certain redemption. Now I'm watching the Zoisite arc, which is about how seven innocent people--six people and one cat, actually--have the spirits of Negaverse warriors inside them and nasty Zoisite uses the Star Crystal to awaken the spirits and turn the innocents into monsters for Sailor Moon to restore with her Moon Healing Sceptre.
If Neflyte is the best first-season villain, Zoisite is a strong second. (In addition, she was female in the manga, male in the Japanese anime, and female again in the DiC English dub!) When the monsters come forth, they also produce seven Rainbow Crystals for the Sailor Scouts, the Negaverse and rescuer Tuxedo Mask to fight over. These are "filler" episodes that weren't in the manga, but like the second season's Doom Tree arc, it's darn good filler! (The seven McGuffins device, of course, was also used in Dragon Ball.)
Of particular interest to me just now was the third episode, "Mercury's Mental Match." (It's one of the ones animated by Masahiro Ando, where the characters look a bit different with more rounded faces, the sort of difference us Moonies notice.) It involves Greg, a schoolboy with psychic powers that he used to ace school exams just ahead of mousy brainiac Amy, whom he has a crush on and wants to meet. Amy, of course is also Sailor Mercury, the one with the defensive Bubbles Blast. But he's also one of the crystal carriers, and with his psychic powers he knows that Zoisite wants to awaken his inner monster!
There's a scene where Greg is talking to Sailor Mercury, who he knows is Amy because he's psychic, and asks her to promise to destroy him when he becomes a monster because he doesn't want to become a Negaverse tool. But Mercury urges him not to give up but to fight against the evil. Then Zoisite comes along and turns him into a monster, but even in monster form he manages to turn against his master! Sailor Moon heals him, and the Sailor Scouts even get his crystal. (Zoisite gets it back in the "Tuxedo Melvin" episode, but that's another story...)
I was thinking about this because of the Sanders-Biden debate. Progressive Democrats mustn't give up; they have to keep fighting for Sanders and not succumb to being Biden's tool!
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