Griff's Village

Ernest Cline's novel  Ready Player One is a love-letter to nostalgia. As the name implies, it focuses on gaming, but all types of popular culture--from movies to music--are lovingly referenced. I didn't read it when it came out in 2011, nor have I seen Spielberg's 2018 adaptation, but I've always been aware of the story. I've recently decided to borrow a copy of the audiobook (narrated by Wil Wheaton) from my local library. I was sceptical; having heard so much about the nostalgia, and so little about the characters, story, and prose, I began to suspect that the nostalgia was all the book had to offer. Still, this book did resonate with a lot of people, so there must be something worthwhile about it. Even if it might not be the sort of book I'd love, it might at least be the sort I'd like--something with a few fun scenes that'll help pass the time. And that's exactly what it was. Cline's novel takes place in 2045, in a society that revolves aroun...

When I first started this blog, my intention was to write about other people's creations--the books and movies and video games that I have read or watched or played, and that I felt compelled to discuss. This post is going to be different, and it's going to be more stressful, because it's about something that I created myself. For the past several years, I've been spending a portion of my spare time in RPG Maker creating a game. That had always been a dream of mine, and I knew that I wasn't going to be satisfied until I made it happen. And now I have. Song of the Enchantress has finally been completed and released. You can download it for free here . I am very aware that this is an amateur effort, but it is one that I worked hard on, and I think that I achieved what I set out to do. I wanted to design a Dragon Quest -style game that is full of secrets. Every medium has its own strengths and own quirks, and the advantage of video games is that they allow you to exp...

I've loved animation for as long as I remember, and the cast of Looney Tunes have always been my favourite animated characters. Heck, they've always been some of my favourite fictional characters, period. As much as I love Disney and Ghibli, there's no seven-minute stretch of time in all of animation history that means as much to me as  The Great Piggy Bank Robbery or Rabbit Fire . However, as much as I love the Looney Tunes' short films, their theatrical  features 1  are a mixed bag. Both Space Jam movies have their moments, but neither are very good overall. Back in Action is the best dedicated Looney Tunes theatrical feature I've seen yet, but it's still not as good as the original shorts. I grew up in an era when these cartoons were easily available and the characters were on every piece of merchandise imaginable, from video games to T-shirts. Looney Tunes wasn't just a series of short films or a TV series: it was a property. These were beloved...

The Life of Pi originated in 2001 as a novel by Yann Martel. In 2012, the story returned, this time as a movie. I read the book about twenty years ago and saw the movie about ten, so I went into Lolita Chakrabarti's stage adaptation (performed at Toronto's Mirvish Theatre, and directed by Max Webster) knowing what to expect. My only question was how well this story would work on the stage. I had high expectations going in, and I'm happy to say the show met them. Life of Pi is about Pi, a young Indian kid (originally a boy, though Pi was played by Riya Rajeev and rewritten as a girl for the performance I saw) who is stranded on a boat with various dangerous animals--most notably, Richard Parker, the Bengal tiger. The original book is very philosophical, dealing with issues relating to religion, truth, and storytelling. Yet, like Moby Dick , it also functions as an adventure story. The movie turned Life of Pi into a visual spectacle, and the stage version follows suit by u...

I'm a huge fan of old black-and-white silent comedies. In that world, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd cast such a large shadow that it can be almost impossible to notice anyone else. Nonetheless, I'm always open to discovering new gems, so I recently purchased and watched Flicker Alley's 2019 release, The Extraordinary World of Charley Bowers . These movies--a collection of short films, both animated and live-action and predominantly comedic--are a delight, and it's a shame that their star isn't more well-known. Bowers--or Bricolo, as he is known in France and in the French-language intertitles included in this collection--had worked as an animator before becoming a screen comedian, and he continued to use his skills during his live-action career. He loved stop-motion the way Keaton loved stunts, and used it to create effects that hold up surprisingly well almost a hundred years later. Some of his earlier live-action shorts only make use of stop-mot...

I've always been interested in folklore. I remember falling in love with Greek mythology while watching  Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess  as a kid, and this passion steadily grew throughout my teens. I'm especially fond of mythical creatures, and have been for as long as I can remember.  Many of my favourite mythical creatures are yōkai. If you're into Japanese entertainment, then you've almost certainly seen at least some. You probably know what a kappa is, or you've heard the term "oni" before, or you know that racoons (or "tanuki") keep shape-shifting in video games and anime. Those are all yōkai, and there are many more that the average westerner has never heard of. This passion brought me to the works of Toriyama Sekien, an 18th-century Japanese artist and writer who is best known today for his illustrations of yōkai. Many of the creatures he drew were taken from Japanese folklore, but he'd also made up his ow...

I love food, unfortunately. I'll look at a restaurant menu days before I eat out, then spend those days fantasizing about how the food will taste. I like chocolate, I like cheese, I like sandwiches and chips and fries and burgers and pizza and all the stuff that's worst for my body. I don't much care for exercise, either. I am getting better at portion control, though. I used to get an appetizer and dessert whenever I ate out. I almost never get an appetizer now, and I only sometimes get dessert. I haven't given up soda, but I almost exclusively drink diet. (I know this still isn't good for me, but at least it's bad in a less fattening way.) I haven't given up any of my favourite foods, but I am more restrained in terms of how much or how often I eat them. And I'm getting better at physical activity. I walk all the time, and I have a miniature pedal bike under my desk so that I can pseudo-walk while I'm working. (I'm doing it right now, while ed...