#like we were EXPLICITLY told it was an item deeply important to him

[littleeyesofpallas]

So, there's some neat context to this, albeit it some of this is also just my weird connecting dots between other subjects, but hear me out...

Tsukumogami[付喪神]: "Tool Gods." (keeping in mind that the Japanese concept of "kami" really isn't specifically analogous to ""Gods"" in the Western sense, so much as they're just the broad concept of "spirts" in which the most powerful kami are the equivalents of gods.) are a fun staple of Japanese folklore that fall under a fairly broad umbrella of what constitutes Shinto belief/ and cosmology. They are spirits manifested in discarded tools, or just generally manmade objects: umbrellas, paper doors, lanterns, hair combs, hand mirrors, broken plates, etc… In some cases it's supposed to be when an object that reaches 100 years old that it develops a spirit, but in others it's specific to objects that have strong emotion attached to/invested in them; in a sense, being "well loved."

On the one hand this falls very neatly into the understood category of "fetish objects" in the actual anthropologic sense (and not as a shorthand for a "sexual fetish") as it describes a specific object assigned spiritual significance and power; that has its own system of understanding and both spiritual and meta psychosocial functionality. But I actually find it more pertinent to relate it back to the psychological idea of Object Attachment, which explores the idea of creating a "relationship" between a person and an object, how it happens, why it happens, and the ways in which is parallels relationships between people, among other things…

An example that I always turn to is in the event that a kid loses or breaks something like a toy, or a balloon, and you tell them "it's okay we'll get you a new one" to which they are very likely to reply "but I don't want a new one, I want mine." That distinction between a personal possession vs a functionally identical substitute. We sort of handwave it as a kid thing, but no doubt we all have those things of sentimental value that we can't easily part with, as if we're afraid it would upset the thing, or as if it would be a betrayal.

So, naturally, in a society not predisposed to dismiss superstition or to seek explicitly scientific explanations, the feeling like you've lost a friend when you throw away the hair brush your mother gave you? The most readily available explanation is that, it feels like losing a friend because it is losing a friend; it has a spirit, it feels and gives love and loyalty like anything else, plain and simple. And certainly not every man made object has a spirit, but through constant use, reliance, investment and indeed a kind of "love" any object can obtain one.

(And in this same broader category of Shinto beliefs, some youkai or mononoke are things like grudges or "vengeful ghosts," which are not always ""ghosts"" in the Christian sense of a person's immortal soul and thus self left lingering after death, but the resentment itself divided from the person by their death. That is to say, when a person dies cursing someone, and that someone still feels uneasy and threatened by that person despite the logical understanding that they are dead and can't hurt htem, the rationalization of that sense of impending doom is to accept that the person is dead, but acknowledge that their grudge lives on, granted autonomy and a spirit of its own by virtue of it persistence --them being dead and them still wishing you ill are not mutually exclusive facts. So, just as love persists in an object that has outlived its uses, hate can persist in a grudge that outlives the person it came from)

So when they talk about Fullbring, even though it's left kind of vague and broad enough to encompass natural spirits like with Ginjo's walking on water example, there's a noticeable focus on the man made: clothes and accessories, toys and games, a book mark, a weapon, and even the general examples like asphalt and whiskey. So even if Ginjo's personality doesn't seem to gel with the idea of him ""loving"" his tools, he does rely on them in a working relationship; he trusts the road under his feet to take him where he needs to go, he is intimately familiar with the weapon he wields, and he appreciates a good malt of whiskey.

I think that perspective might help frame the idea of "love" as it relates to Fullbring. Or maybe I just come across like a gibbering madman, i can never really tell...

A small coda here pushing back on Riruka’s “love” theory…after all, when Ginjo was describing the Fullbring he said nothing about “love”, just that it was something “compatible” and that he’d learned to master.

So to take it back to the metaphor we’re establishing, it may not be attachment in the sense of “love” here, necessarily, but attachment in the sense of “identity”. What do you have that defines who you are? Or, is at least, symbolic of that?

[asknarashikari]

minific idea: Gai asking the Kyurangers for their powers

To be honest I’m not really sure how their powers even ended up in the prime universe since they’re explicitly from another universe... oh well

“Whoaaaaaa! You guys are the Kyuurangers aren’t you?” the man enthusiastically cried out, going to each member and shaking their hands vigorously. “I finally get to meet you guys, this is so amazing!!!”

“Uh... thanks?” Hammie asked, snatching her hand away from the stranger. "Who are you, exactly?"

"Ah, I'm sorry for my rudeness!" he apologized with a bow. "My name is Ikari Gai! Gokaaaaaai Silver!" he introduced with a flourish.

"Gokai Silver... So you're friends with Marvelous..." Stinger said, relaxing visibly.

"Ah! You must be Stinger-san! Marvelous-san told me about you!" Gai said. "Wait, I should get your autographs-" he said, reaching into the satchel he was carrying.

"Autographs?" Balance nudged Naga at his side. "I didn't know we were that famous!"

"Of course you are! You are the ultimate saviors of the universe, who defeated the evil Jark Matter empire, the Uchuu Sentai!" Gai said, shoving the pen and book he opened to a collage of various magazine clippings and photos of the Kyuurangers into Naga's hand.

Naga blinked at the collage, then shrugged, signing his name on it, before passing it on to someone else.

"Um... sorry to ask this but..." Kotaro tilted his head at Gai. "You said in your message that you wanted to talk to us about something important?"

Gai gave him a confused look for a beat, then suddenly slapped his hand to his forehead. "That's right! I almost forgot!" He abruptly sank to his knees, leaning on his palms, causing the Kyuurangers to stare at him in shock. "May I have your Grand Power!" he shouted, then bowed deeply. "Please!"

"Whoa, whoa, what's with the dogeza... And what do you mean, our Grand Power?" Spada questioned, trying to get Gai up to his feet.

"Every Sentai has one! It's their ultimate power!" Gai explained. "We Gokaigers seek out the Grand Powers in order to unlock the Greatest Treasure in the Universe!!!"

"The Greatest Treasure in the Universe...?" Raptor pondered. "I've never heard of such a thing before..."

"And what would be our Grand Power anyway?" Champ questioned. "The Kyutama? We can't give those to him..."

"Of course not, don't be silly." Lucky said. "The Kyutama isn't our Grand Power." He turned to Gai and placed a hand on his shoulder. "For us... our greatest power... is our luck!"

Gai stared at him for a long while, the smile frozen on his face even as he asked, "...Eh? Your... luck?"

"Of course it is! There's nothing else it could be!" Lucky said, looking towards his teammates. "Right, everyone?"

"I don't know about that... but, heh, that's our Lucky for you!" Garu said, cheerful and loyal as ever.

"I- I'm not sure I understand, but..." Gai looked down, and gasped as he saw something from inside his satchel sparkling. He hurriedly opened it, and shrieked as he pulled a handful of glowing items out. "It worked! We have the Kyuuranger Grand Powers now!"

"Hey, that's us!" Lucky said, pointing at the little figure like things Gai held- twelve in all. "I guess it's your lucky day, Gai-san!" he said, as Gai practically squealed, hugging the Ranger Keys to his chest.

Hammie groaned, shaking her head in disbelief. "I can't believe that actually worked..."

[angelfishreveal]

FRANKFURT UPDATE / DISORGANIZED RANT ABOUT TRUTH AND ART AND FASSBINDER

by Camille Clair

I spent the strict quarantine following my arrival in Frankfurt studying German in the mornings, and watching Fassbinder in the evenings. The time between morning and evening was spent...nervously. 

I watched so many Fassbinder films during my quarantine that I began to feel his cabinet of actors were my companions (quarpanions). We were all crying and grinning and swallowing our pills together. 

I am one of those people that believes that pain/discomfort/anxiety is necessary, important, a catalyst. That is one of the reasons I left, have left in the past, will leave again. Sometimes the next best life move involves ripping your heart out! Sometimes it isn’t quite so abrupt, and your heart will sizzle in the pan for months. You may even grow to cherish the sensation because it means you are working toward something. You may recognize your true self in that pain. And in that truth, your mission, which may, or may not be, your art. 

I do believe that, as an artist, you have to be a bit of a masochist. Your life is sustained via chopping yourself into bits, and, if you’re lucky, stowing those bits in the pockets of the wealthy, the devious. And though you may consider yourself an orthodox Marxist, this seems to be the only way to keep the axe swinging. I would never say aloud that I believe suffering produces great art, but I also must admit I understand the desire to drag oneself across shards of glass a la Chris Burden in Through The Night Softly. I relate to the impulse to bear it all. I want to be torn apart! For art. 

I don’t always want this, but fresh out of my Frankfurt quarantine - following a confounding summer in Los Angeles - I want this. I really, truly want to exhaust myself. 

Though Fassbinder himself may have been a bit amoral, he was, at the same time, so undeniably invested in all that is human. Many of Fassbinder’s characters seem to cave inward, unable to stand erect under the weight of the social, the political, the bureaucratic: the simultaneity, and responsibility of it all. Fassbinder’s characters give into their truth, or they parish. No time is wasted on the performance of goodness, because salvation was never in their cards to begin with. 

What I desire and revere most in art is truth. I want my “self” and my “art” to be inseparable, the same. I want my body to vanish in the company of my art. I don’t really want to exist. I repeat variations of a line from Reena Spaulings in my head all day long: Where does my (boyish, jaunty, smooth, freckle-dusted, foxy, stiff, screen-like) body end and a real event begin, for once? I do a little dance in the mirror. I have never been this alone. Some days I feel stiff with sorrow, so I remind myself that I am a character, and the director expects a performance, and then I stretch. 

Walking home in the rain, I envision Margit Carstensen waiting for me in my flat. I am her aloof lover. Or she is mine. I’ll fall through the door with a sigh, she’ll pour me a little glass of schnapps, and we’ll heartfully console one another. I sometimes play The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), which starts Carstensen, in the background while I go about my tasks. I speak my favorite of Petra’s lines back to her as part of my daily Deutsche practice. Maybe by Spring, I’ll have the entirety of her central monologue memorized. I love to fantasize about the spring, it’s become one of my favorite pastimes. It is possible to imagine nearly anything happening in the spring because real life has become so severely abstracted. 

I lament…

What is real? Now? And in hindsight, what was ever real? Is it, or was it, ever recognizable or is it just whatever you put into your head on a given day? I scroll through Contemporary Art Daily on acid and feel confused about what it is I am supposed to want. My eyes linger on words that used to resonate, and it stirs some sort of longing. I want it to be physical, I want to get dirty and injured in the process. I want to be so involved it’s disgusting. But for now, nearly everything I want is impossible. Maybe it's a symptom of the current situation, but I want to be overinvolved. I generally find most performance excruciating, but now I feel I would do anything for an audience. I desire an audience. 

I envy Fassbinder’s overinvolvement. In Beware of a Holy Whore (1971), a film about making a film, Fassbinder seems to play himself. He doesn’t play the director, he plays Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Often fussing around or yelling in the background, it’s unclear exactly what his role is in the production, but as a viewer one is intensely aware of him at all times. Upon first watch, I felt envious. I want to be present in that way, shrieking for the sake of, and within, my art. The ringleader, and also, the eager participant. In the opening scene of Germany in Autumn (1978), Fassbinder, dials a call, and says “Ich bin es Fassbinder” into the receiver. We know of course, who the man on the screen is, though we aren’t immediately sure who we are meant to recognize him as. 

In a 1997 eulogy for ArtForum, Gary Indiana writes, “what can you say about a fat, ugly sadomasochist who terrorized everyone around him, drove his lovers to suicide, drank two bottles of Rémy daily, popped innumerable pills while stuffing himself like a pig and died from an overdose at 37? [Fassbinder was]  a faithful mirror of an uglier world that has grown uglier since his death”. Fassbinder knew truth, and truth is as beautiful and precious, as it is vile. 

My sister, who is 17 and only just got drunk for the first time last week, told me she could never watch The Shining (1980)  knowing how much Shelly Duval was tormented in the making of it. I felt I couldn’t argue with her but I also wanted to argue with her. “So you will never watch what is widely considered one of the greatest films of all time?” 

“No,” she said. 

“Okay,” I said. 

Perhaps we are reaching an age in which you really cannot separate the art from the artist. Maybe it’s never actually been possible. But then again, there are so many things that seem to be art by mistake, and so many artists who die without recognition.

In the eulogy, Indiana goes on to say, “there is nothing you can say about Fassbinder that he hasn’t already said about himself”. This line again brings to mind Fassbinder in Beware of a Holy Whore, berating everyone in the vicinity, utterly repulsed by a multitude of things never made explicitly clear. Fassbinder lying dead in the train station after an overdose in Fox and his Friends (1975). Fassbinder lying dead, with a cigarette between his lips and notes for an upcoming film lying next to him, from an actual overdose. A parallel that reveals art is just as intertwined with death, as it is with life.

I realized this year that many of the artists I respect care a great deal about film, about drama. I have found solace in films, because I am alone nearly all of the time, and I don't know when I will see any of my cherished ones again. I am living vicariously through characters, beginning to think of myself as a character, which is admittedly therapeutic. I am the director. And I chose myself from a lineup of nervous red haired girls. I recognised myself at once, and thus, here I am. 

Some artists, or people!, are overly concerned with their own narrative. It can be irritating, indulgent, abject, but it’s convenient, and it may save your life. Though you’re never really alone you may feel really alone. Allein. Alleine... Sometimes there is nowhere to turn but toward yourself. And, once you begin to think of yourself as a character, you no longer bear the full responsibility of your being. You have been put in place to carry out the artistic vision. So, in a sense, all characters are artists, just as they are products of art. It’s reflexive, and Frankensteinian, in that way. 

Maybe as an experiment, try referring to your dismal flat as “the set”. 

Are you at home? 

I’m on set. 

Complain aloud, but to no one, about the uninspired refreshments. 

Stare longingly at everything. 

There is a misanthropic edge to many of Fassbinder’s films. A bleakness. It is often said that his work is about the fascism at play in interpersonal relationships. The fascism that blooms in all of our hearts.There are instances across Fassbinder’s filmography of, not only an awareness, but a patience, for all that is despicable. Human beings are weak, impressionable, they want to be liked but if it doesn’t work out, they’ll settle for being hated or feared. Often, Fassbinder will have a character do or say something that completely skews, if not, obliterates your previous impression of them. For example, in Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), Emmi who is, up until this point, mostly redeemable, chooses Hitler’s favorite restaurant to celebrate her and Ali’s wedding, stating upon entry that she has “always wanted to go”.  In the scene that follows, she mispronounces the names of menu items, the server scoffs, and one can't help but feel a bit bad for her. Is her desire to eat at Hitler’s favorite spot purely aspirational, a misguided highbrow charade? Or is she a sympathetic fascist? This is another fault of the character, any character, their world view is often contrived, never holistic. 

Fassbinder is the Postwar German filmmaker - generally considered the “catalyst of the New German Cinema movement”. In his films, World War II is often alluded to / background / partial context / a shadow, but it is never the subject, or the main event. A character’s idiosyncrasies, or disturbances, could be attributed to the wartimes, but often, their faults seem too deeply intertwined with their truths. But of course they’ve always had a tremor, a temper. Many of Fassbinder’s characters have a hard edge, or have suffered immense loss. They are either in, or narrowly escaping, crisis. 

In Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980), Franz Bieberkopf, a rampant dilettante, oscillates between political affiliations. When we first meet Bieberkopf, fresh out of prison, he is a bit of an anarchist, sympathizing with soldiers and workers above all. As the series progresses, Bieberkopf is revealed to be immensely impressionable, confused, vindictive. He exhibits symptoms of several political philosophies, albeit meekly. Bieberkopf even briefly wears a Nazi armband, which, when questioned about, he is unable to defend, and from thereon, is never seen wearing it again. Franz Bieberkopf is similar to Tony Soprano in that way. Selfish, gruff, deeply flawed, indubitably human. Tony Soprano bites into a meatball sub and sauce dribbles onto his shirt and you forget, momentarily, that he's a bigot, because he’s the protagonist. And it is the job of the protagonist to represent a spectrum of human strength, and fallibility. It is arguably better, or more redeemable, to be overtly, rather than covertly, self-serving because then at least one is operating in defense of their own truth.

Truth is constructed daily and could easily be mistaken for anything but. Truth is nearly impossible to represent, and harder still to recognize. Truth is a fallacy, and thus, very lonely. Still, it must be guarded, I have been listening to The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as I walk around Frankfurt which, in all honesty, fertilizes the melodrama blooming in my heart. Werther is bitterly alone, consoling himself via drawn out descriptions of his loneliness. “I am proud of my heart alone”, he says, “it is the sole source of everything, all our strength, happiness and misery. All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own”. 

I am alone in Frankfurt, but I have my heart.