Stick-Figure Anime

I was hanging out with ZMaro today, talking about random stuff, when the topic of anime emerged. I've never cared for anime-style cartoons or video game cutscenes, because they're so.......weird. The way characters don't move their mouths in accordance with their speech, the manner in which they move their bodies, the corny "camera" attention and facial expressions -- ugh. And when they are fighting and zoom at each other, yelling like drunk teenagers as the world streams by in multi-colored lines, the sweat drips down their faces, and there's a close-up of a guy whose eyes are growing bigger and bigger as his mouth twitches in the same spot for five secondsandthenBAAMMMM!!! the guy flies 40 feet backward and slams into a wall so hard the bricks shatter and he's stuck there; that is, only until he's through acting totally unrealistic for a short piece of dialogue, at which point he flies off the wall and does the same to his opponent. Who would watch such stuff??

ZMaro said he finds anime hilarious because it's so dumb. It's only good purpose is being an object to make fun of. I jokingly pointed out that it also serves as proof that we who can only draw stick-figures are better artists than many Japanese people. "Anime? Blech. I can draw STICK-FIGURES!"

When we began making silly doodles as a result of that conversation and ZMaro drew a stick man planting a gargantuan fist into another stick man, I suddenly had a brilliant idea: stick-figure anime! If we ever become good enough artists to make good animations, we'll create a series with characters doing all those stupid anime moves and pulling those corny expressions in what is supposed to be some great, dramatic moment -- in STICK-FIGURE STYLE!!

A brief mention of religion and science ...

"... the elements will be dissolved by fire ..."

These words were heard in the second reading on the second Sunday of Advent (and are, regrettably, the only subject for blogging that I can remember now that I can actually blog again...). When I heard them, I couldn't help but laugh inwardly at what I began thinking: what would the ancient Greeks have thought of this? They believed fire was one of the elements! "Let me get this straight: fire will destroy earth, water, and air, and then it will burn itself out? That's a rather meloncholy way to end the world."

With today's science, on the other hand, this passage kind of makes sense. Fire is a combustion reaction in which molecular (and sometimes atomic) structures are broken down and re-arranged. So when the day of the Lord comes and Heaven and Earth pass away... Um, how will fire destroy Heaven? I guess I'll leave this up to St. John.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make here is that religion and science are not enemies. This is very limited example, to be sure, and perhaps St. Peter was being metaphorical, but take it for what it's worth.