Whisper of the heart and a box!

This is a title in the Studio Ghibi Catalogue originally released in 1995 I had very briefly as I had a lot of pausing issues on the original 2006 dvd that proved most frustrating so unfortunately it had to go.

In essence this is a coming of age story around junior high student Shizuku Tsukishima, who is quite popular, has a real talent for writing which can be seen in her new lyrics for the John Denver song Take Me Home,Country Roads which is to be performed for her junior high graduation. She's also a very avid reader taking book upon book out of the library that is just switching from paper card booking systems to a computerized one. 

The change saddens her because she likes to see who took out the book previously and notices a boy called Seiji Amasawa has taken out many of those she reads.

Taking the train to the library one day she notices a ginger lone cat sitting next to her who leads her off onto an adventure introducing her to an antique shop who we later learn is owned by the boys grandfather and although things are awkward between them at first in time, it becomes obvious they are in love with each other and both have self doubts about their talents, Seija with his violin making and playing abilities and Shizuku with her writing whose preoccupation with appears to override her need to get good grades to go the a good high school to complete her education.

Spotting in the antique shop a cat statue of The Baron and its story, this inspires her to work very hard for hours per day writing a story that promises to show Seiji's grandfather first and this leads to her exploring her hopes and fears set out in her book Whisper Of The Heart.

That is really the main focus of this anime rather less than the romance between her and Seiji, looking at what it is she wishes to do in her professional life, and indeed the new lyrics to Take Me Home Country Road, is not only about the personal road upon she is set but expresses a nostalgia for the rapidly disappearing rural landscapes of Japan.

I really enjoyed watching this full length anime for its themes and where The Baron 's sequences inspired Studio Ghibi to make The Cat Returns in 2002.

If you were rather observant you may of noticed something on the top of the first picture that hasn't been on any of the anime entries here before.

 

Er yes two words "Blu Ray" cos after the end of the VHS era circa 2000, we had a dvd player where most of my anime titles were first bought on and I bought my last dvd player April 28th 2014 which was a Toshiba that played discs from anywhere in the world.

Since then a number of things happened such as our main tv got bigger (32 inches) and the market has stabilized somewhat with disc prices coming down so I acquired a Panasonic Blu Ray player.

Mine though has been ahem modified  so the dvd playback is multi-regional which as as well as just over half my dvd's are North American releases while the blu ray section is just Region B (GB and Ireland, Europe and Australasia)

 

It also has RCA sockets for audio output and even composite video which is seriously retro apart from HDMI, the modern does everything including handshake digital standard.

Its reproduction of the anime was extremely good with loads of definition and sharpness on the newer television.

Two different things

There is no great way of putting this but one thing around being the way you are as a adult little gurls is the way people confuse us with "sexual crossdressers" and indeed how those places utterly misrepresent our boyby sex but feminine gender often in really bad way.

We like our biological identity as males, we have no need or wish for any surgery to remove our boy parts cos actually we quite like having them around as much as we may not see ourselves as anything other than either a sissy gurl or gender fluid when it comes to specific gender.

We ARE boys in terms of sex  but we have a strong sense of the feminine in us that present day culture never mind that a good number of us were brought up in regards as being unbecoming to being a "real boy" and so ostracizes us when were are not verbally or physically abused.

We have no gender dysphoria at all as we accept our sissy gurl/jane girl ways.

I loved playing footy as a boy, hung out with a good number and was happy enough to do that but my problem was when I wanted to do stuff or dress more like girls did such as wearing a skirt or a dress or to play girls games.

The boys didn't want that and the girls would not let you join in at least in public so while you might play girls games with a sister or cousin in your home an that cos you just had to by order of The Grown Ups, that wasn't so in the playground or at play dates.

That ability to be and express my feminine side as that child was all I ever wanted and that's what this blog is all about.

I am Feminine little who accepts hur sissy gurl side.

Call me Sissy.

Billy Joel's Greatest Hits

The last time in the evergreen "teenbeat" series of posts I looked at the hugely respected singer-songwriter Billy Joel was in August Second, Twenty-fifteen with the specialist re-issue of his Streetlight Serenade album in part five of a series of posts around his music.

In September second Nineteen eighty-five, the first compilation of his many hits was issued on record, tape plus slightly later as it was CBS/Columbia on compact disc as they were late getting into cd and it was well conceived.

First off this it was planned as double lp and double play tape because it would of been hard to have fitted every single hit into a single album even though on the first issue they used mainly singles edits which was changed with the Nineteen ninety-eight remaster to album versions.

By this point the album was only available on tape possibly MiniDisc and cd and with these formats disc or tape side lengths are less of an issue than lp record sides.

They also had the sense to program it chronologically, so you saw how he developed  from Cold Spring Harbour to An Innocent Man lyrically and stylistically rounded it off with a series of special recordings just for the album.

 Over the last few years the specialist cd and record company Mobile Fidelity Sound Laboratory of Illinois, U.S.A., have been re-issuing his recordings from the original master tapes rather than copies using high quality equipment to get the very best sound of his best loved albums on record and also on Super Audio CD and after quite a delay from advertising their intentions to tackle this compilation finally it emerged late July Twenty-seventeen. 

Inside the slipcase the disc itself is sandwiched in a Mini lp gatefold sleeve that my plushies are reading!

Also in the slipcase comes a song book with all the words to featured songs in order of appearance on high quality paper which is a lovely touch and one that was unexpected by many of us who buy these discs.

The disc features the singles mix of Tell Her About It, You're Only Human (Second Wind),The Night Is Still Young issued as singles in nineteen eighty-five and a version with re-recorded sax of New York State Of Mind.

The remastering which is unique was done by Shawn R Britton and is exceptional for the depth and atmosphere he's managed to get from those recordings  making this version of the classic double album most worthwhile.

 
Technically this is a hybrid Super Audio cd (sacd) with a thin top layer for playing in super audio cd players like my new one for improved fidelity and a second layer for regular cd reproduction or copying to a portable music player and so is 99.9% compatible with all players.

Memory stick musings

 

I'm just getting on with writing up this blog over the weekend where I have been a bit low in spoons which happens at times with me.

Over the last week or so I've  been thinking a bit about the difference in where I am now and where I was at a good eight to ten years ago which may seem only like yesterday to me given how my brain is wired but actually is a significant amount of time.

For one thing, that was the post breakdown period with me where I hit the buffers trying to play a role I had been encouraged to by a lot of so-called disability experts who today I see as people who fundamentally were trying to deny the major part disabilities play in my life and to a large extent shape by denying the impact and in effect having me do slot into their idea of what a 'successful' disabled person was supposed to be - an achiever showing academic abilities despite disabilities rather than a person who is may well be capable but with significant functioning issues that require constant support.

The other stemming from the same place was they also denied how those limitations mean in terms of mental development, I was functioning several years younger having the overview, language and mindset of a more junior child at high school and several years further on at the same point but being expected to perform at an adult level.

This simply isn't and hasn't in a number of decade hasn't occurred because however good I may be at filling in some gaps, the larger ones remain and to an extent even the fact I do fill the minor gaps leaves me the more vulnerable because people focus on that 'achievement' rather than what I cannot cope with and why I struggle making my way through adult life and situations.

Another of the things around this period was discovering networks sometimes websites sometimes hubs and it was one these that caught my eye Monday when looking through a  memory stick with more of an eye to pictures of my old monitor and its Charmmy Kitty screen saver, I spotted some screen prints done off it from a site I spent quite a bit time on.

Yahoo 360 for the youngsters, was a giant hub where lots of groups had spaces on, you could message and blog and your blogs were interactive, you had a update stream from what your friends were doing  and at the time I was looking around  littles and Tg/'sissy' groups, talking with people, exploring that side of life which I enjoyed until it shut down around July 2009.

That lead to a blog being started *cough* to collate what old posts I originally had on Yahoo 360.

That was a part of my coping mechanism back then as I have been recently explaining a little to people about bringing life back into line with what actually works for me, what meets my actual needs not least the 'little' side of me cos not wishing to sound like a record it's not so much age play as being in an actual age regressed by anyone else's standards headspace without an off button.

One difference between now that period is the likes of Facebook, Tumblr etc fulfill what we had circa 2007-9 with dedicate sites being more niche affairs and in some respects for me Tumblr fills the Yahoo slot although for more dedicated needs the likes of DDLG World cover more group and have a better focus. 

Imho, Tumblr if it built in proper Communities support rather than groups who squabble of tag rights and alleged misuse of could easily be a total 2017 Yahoo 360 replacement.

The other is I do feel more stronger in myself to pursue the life that makes more sense and especially to ensure I'm in those settings that respect my real needs  being prepared to engage with me on the level I'm at, helping me to do what I can for myself while while accepting my child-like vulnerabilities prepared to just step in as needed to deal with any situations I land in.

That's come about through the baby steps I took through that period exploring my needs and making appropriate connections to communities where I really belong.

For me then the 00's were where it all came together,

Nancy to the rescue

Seeing this is this month's first post we'll begin by catching up with a series of book reviews that by co-incidence is being printed at the start of the Autumn Term.

Following on The New Girl and Nancy, this installment is set at the start of the Autumn term with Nancy being moved to the Upper Fifth  Form with Desda (Desdemona) Blackett which is seen as being a more dull but worthy form more centred around academic work.

It is soon resolved however to do something about this not least by making a AM. group which is really an Amateur Dramatics and Arts group where they'd study to put on short productions, recitals and undertake some games.

Followers of the previous entries might recall this series started not at Maudsley Grammar school but at St. Brides and this past of Nancy's is a key theme in this edition as we are reintroduced to Althea who we learn has moved to Maudsley in somewhat distressing circumstances, her mothers ill health and given the era we are is the nineteen-twenties there is no Welfare State, they ate in a state of acute poverty where Althea and her mother at at risk of losing their rented home and from which Althea has had to leave St. Brides because of being unable pay the school fees.

Nancy's after school life involves her being in charge of ("Maid of Merit") of the Guildry where the adult Miss Knevitt, is talking about setting up a new unit and that it would involve some changes in unit leaders including Nancy.

It was coming back from a meeting where this was being discussed that Nancy hears a flute being played as it happened rather well and upon coming across her realizes this is her lost friend from St.Brides who is malnourished  and Nancy takes her to a cafe for a drink and food and soon realizes things are very bleak.

Disturbed by this, she takes a long detour to Lord Woodridge a local land owner and 'big cheese' of the town and discussed her friend and mothers plight with him suggesting with his mothers knowledge of nature that an offer of the post of Curator of a museum he is about to open soon be given to her and with it a place to stay.

Like many of her generation Althea's mother would feel they could not just accept a place out of charity, it would have to be seen as being in exchange for her services and this way is accepted by him.

Equally Althea herself needs to continue in her education but there is a stumbling block which is that while a 'scholarship' can be issued for any form it is not generally accepted for 'upper school' which is where she belongs but it is in his remit to award one he does and so Althea now goes to  Maudsley Grammar in the upper fifth like Nancy.

Unfortunately, a small rather voracious group of girls lead by Elma hold to the notion that having a Free Scholar rather lowers the tone especially one held to do something vulgar like play a flute for money even though Althea only did this to raise money where her Mum was down to her last three pence and facing eviction and make things difficult by having so they would not play games with her so she helps the Fourth and lower Fifth out instead and having made a big deal in bring her poverty stricken flute playing out so embarrasses her that an offer to join the AM. for which she has considerable talents is just too embarrassing for her to take up.

In time however Althea joins the Guildry, just at the point Nancy is pondering a change to the 2nd new unit as it's leader so she feels supported although the behaviour of those other girls is really bad.

Just before the Museum is about to open and Althea's Mum has moved in, a mysterious Japanese man comes in a demanding a Cedar tree that her Mum refused to sell, refusing to leave until he's gotten it. Nancy and Althea trap him and just by luck Lord Woodridge comes by and has him arrested. 

It transpires what was so desirable about the tree was a Crystal which was buried beneath it as an insurance against hard times for Althea's Mum.

Althea's new found status as an heiress impresses those who so rejected her as the Free Scholar, the shallow meanness thereof not lost on Nancy and clearly transmitted in the book to the reader.  

A area competition for the arts is held called the Rosebury Festival and Nancy's name is put forward as a soloist but Nancy feels strongly this is Althea's time and so puts forward to the Head Mistress that really a change of entry to Althea is really called for as her skills as flautist are the stronger but she'd accompany on piano.

This is accepted so the pair go in the competition judged at City Hall and Althea wins the gold medal  and Nancy awarded a special commendation for the accompanying so the pair have brought honour upon their form and school.

Although in some respects it's a relatively simple book in the series, I think it's strengths are that it tackles head on social prejudice, and poverty in a compassionate, thoughtful  way that reminds me very much of what it felt like being 14 or 15 felt like, caring deeply about issues and each other, wanting to help in the way Nancy did her friend and mother, trying to make a difference for the good.

Making a stand for decency, treating people fairly are important lessons we need to learn to keep our society holding to civilized values.