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2011-03-12

It's Gloria Vanderbilt, Out For Revenge



Hmm...maybe it wasn't such a bright idea to build to many nuclear power plants on the world's most active fault line.  The engineers apparently never planned on what would happen in the event of a major earthquake.  It's the 21st Century.  Why is Japan getting its power from barely-controlled nuclear reactions?  Why isn't everything powered by water, solar, wind?  Instead, silence. Let that factoid sink in for a little while.

This being The Ghibli Blog, I'm immediately reminded of the elder Miyazaki's hatred of Man's industrialized civilization, and Nature's inevitable revenge.  And that's the key to understanding his scenes of apocalypse and destruction.  He's not on the side of Industria.  He's on the side of the Ohmu.

An event like this should force us, as a collective species, to critically examine and question the values of our culture.  The very tools and machines that have built this great civilization will also lead to its destruction.  And Man's arrogant belief that he has conquered Nature, that the world is his to plunder, pollute, and destroy, will inevitably lead to Nature's revenge.  And as you can see, Nature is heckuva lot bigger than you or me.

2 comments:

Oops3 said...

Sorry for being dense, but I don't understand the reference to Gloria Vanderbilt.

Daniel Thomas MacInnes said...

You'll notice that I'm trying to be more clever (emphasis on the word "TRY") with my titles. "Buddy, can you spare 20,000 dimes" is a reference to an old Depression-era song, "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" That's one example.

The Gloria Vanderbilt line comes from The Simpsons. I originally was going to use a different line, as I was thinking about mankind's civilization and the frightening power of mother nature. Searching for a Ghibli-themed angle, since I don't want to turn this into a political news blog (I can do that and be politely ignored on Daniel Thomas Vol 4, heh), I was reminded of Miyazaki's depictions of nature's apocalyptic revenge...things like the Ohmu.

And this, of course, leads me into my coming blog posts about the newly-released Nausicaa Blu-Ray, which I would have already written if I wasn't playing outside and buying records. Ahem.

I'm a painter in the abstract-expressionist style, with a hip-hop, grafitti bent, so that probably explains a few things about my creative process. My writing does move in a few odd angles now and then, and that especially comes out in the titles.

It's a tricky balance between being descriptive (yet boring), and being clever (yet too goofy). But I've always considered all of the elements - title, art assets, and text - as part of the overall discussion

Anyway...heh heh. I know you didn't expect me to write this long essay on the topic, but I just came inside and my brain is all warmed up. Which means I'm going to talk your ear off. Thanks for the comments and for visiting.

If you really want to see some abstract titles, you should visit my art gallery at danielthomas.org.

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