MONDAY MORNING

NAMES OF THE MONTHS IN HEIAN JAPAN

The following are literal translations of the names of the months used during the Heian Period (794 - 1185) in Japan

1) Sprouting Month
2) Clothes-lining Month
3) Ever-growing Month
4) U no hana Month (the u no hana was a pretty white shrub)
5) Rice Sprouting Month
6) Watery Month
7) Poem-composing Month
8) Leaf Month (i.e. the month when leaves turn)
9) Long Month (i.e. the month with long nights)
10) Gods-absent Month
11) Frost Month
12) End of the year

(From The Pillow Book of Sei Shonogon

Penguin Edition, trans. by Ivan Morris)

Monday Morning

MANGA MANIA: THE KUROSAGI CORPSE DELIVERY SERVICE VOL 4, by Eiji Otsuka

Each volume of this series finds out heroes desperate to make some cash and willing to accept most any work that will bring in a paycheck. In Vol. 4, they are signed on to help a destitute Japanese village become the Roswell, New Mexico, of Japan. While the three guys make crop circles litttle Makino checks out the supposed mummified alien corpse discovered by villagers fifty years ago. It is clearly the corpse of a monkey, but Kuratsu discovers an alien being trapped in the corpse, and so the teams sets to work.

As usual with this series, each episode takes on topical subjects in outrageous fashion, One of those touring exhibitions of plasticized human bodies leads the team into a hotbed of perverted science relating back to Unit 731, the WW II Japanese biological warfare initiative whose existence the nation denied until the 1990's. The wildest story involves the illegal imports for the exotic bug market which is causing an outbreak of suicides among collectors infected by a parasite that lives in a particularly desirable and illegal snail. The parasite does quite a number on its host's eyes and makes them want to fly. The results are predictably disastrous but it is all just nature taking its course.

The dialog throughout is profane and funny, and the visuals are consistently grotesque. Unfortunately I could find nothing from Vol 4 on the internet to reinforce that last statement.

MONDAY MORNING

PHILIP K DICKATHON 20: THE CRACK IN SPACE

Regular of readers of Philip K Dick would not expect him to write a novel exploring social issues, but in this case that is what he seems to think he is doing. The result is a muddle of ideas that try to stay topical while medium level PKD weirdness circles around them.

The setting is the late 21st century, and overpopulation, combined with a shortage of jobs, has become the major problem facing the human race. The solution has been to warehouse those who request it in suspended animation with the promise of awakening them when social conditions change. This is also a racial issue. "Cols" are now the majority population, and also the least employable. "Caucs" maintain the systems of government while millions of Cols become "bibs," -- the name given to those warehoused sleepers. (I never quite figured out the "bib" allusion. Also in the book are "Jerries," the older generation that can still remember the way things used to be.)

It is a presidential election year, and the Republican Liberal Party candidate for the first time is a Col. Jim Briskin wants to be president and in his brilliant speeches is willing to say what he thinks the people, and the Col majority, want to hear. He promises to close the warehouses and find a way to resolve the bib situation. He proposes pursuing some outdated technology called planet wetting to create habitable colonies. He will also close down Thisbe Olt's pleasure satellite The Golden Door, an orbiting brothel with thousands of working women and a enormous clientele. Thisbe's operation has been legalized as a means of keeping the population down. (Question mark. Exlamation point. WTF)  None of Briskin's ideas are really feasible.

Then there are the Jerry Scuttlers, devices that are intended to transport their owners anywhere they want to go. Unfortunately they have design flaws. One owner complains that his always delivers him to Portland, Oregon. A repairman, however, discovers that the machine has a rent in its fabric that delivers one to a verdant, apparently virgin land that could solve the immigration problem.

So PKD has his usual half dozen plots in play, but much centers on that flawed Jerry Scuttler and the fact that Briskin may be able to come through with his promise of closing the bib warehouses. But when the new land is discovered to be a version of Terra itself that has followed a different evolutionary path than our own planet, new racial problems arise with how to treat the inhabitants there.  They are not homo sapiens but intellectually capable offspring of hominid strains removed from our history.

The Crack in Space has subplots that go nowhere and  either resolve themselves almost as soon as they are introduced or need quick sentence summaries toward the end of the novel.  Nothing about it addresses in any coherent way the social issues it raises. It is at its best when played as farce, with characters traveling the planet in their Jet Hoppers and scrambling to put together a winning presidential campaign, But it remains a muddle and, unusual for a PKD novel, manages to become somewhat dull. This despite that fact that one character is the unicephalic twin George Walt -- one head, two bodies, two personalities. He is the proprietor of the Golden Door and is briefly worshipped as a god by the inhabitants of the parallel universe opened by the defected Jerry Scuttler.

MANGA MANIA: PARASYTE Vol 7 by Hitoshi Iwaaki

Another volume, another blood bath. This time it does not involve a high school. Humans are onto the parasyte infiltration of municipal government, and they plan a raid to determine just who is infected. For some reason they think it is a good idea to bring in a necrophiliac serial killer with a talent for spotting aliens to help. But you just can't trust those necrophiliac serial killers. 

We also learn that not all parasytes are created equal. Some are tougher than others, especially those who look like a G.I. Joe. They can absorb bullets and spit them back at you. 

In the concluding portions of this volume, at last love comes to Shinichi. And Migi, the parasyte inhabiting his right hand, has been sleeping more than usual but wakes up to work out a spectacular escape for the climax.