A naked eye 3D pterosaur installation at Shanghai Natural History Museum
(The guide is describing the exhibit and talking about the various "flying dinosaurs" and their appearance through history as they emerge from the fossil displays)
A place where I can find happiness;
A place close to your loveliness.
Some where to rest my aching mind, oh…
Where there’s no time.
Your love is divine.
Women and girls are performing yinggewu/yingge dance
Yinggewu英歌舞 is a traditional Chinese street deity procession dance popular in regions like eastern Guangdong's Chaoshan area. It is a branch of Chinese Nuo dance culture, often themed around revered heroes from folklore. The dance is commonly performed during festivals and ritual occasions such as the Spring Festival and temple fairs. People perform Yingge Dance to ward off evil, pray for blessings, and safeguard peace, while also strengthening community bonds, fostering collective spirit, and preserving the cultural memory rooted in local traditions. There were no female performers in the past, but now there are, just as in the past, female lion dance performers were rarely seen, but they are now gradually emerging.
What are some of your favorite poems/pieces of writing?
general disclaimer that im much less well-read as my carefully curated internet persona might lead on... but these are some pieces of writing that make up the mycelium network of my mind’s undergrowth:
tim riggins speaks of waterfalls - nico alvarado
as from a quiver of arrows - carl phillips
what the dragon said: a love story - c. valente
hunting season - steven chung
yes, think - ruth stone
from blossom - li-young lee
psalm - dorianne laux
sleeping in hte forest - mary oliver
percy wakes me (fourteen) - mary oliver
here there are blueberries - mary szybist
try to praise the mutilated world - adam zagajewski
de profundis - christina rosetti
new bones - lucille clifton
morning love poem - tara skurtu
forfeiting my mystique - kaveh akbar
that kind of good - natalie wee
the mower - philip larkin
valentine - carol ann duffy
happiness from paul schmidtberger’s design flaws of the human condition
we ate the birds - margaret atwood
i want to tell you yes - kallie falandays
ode to buttoning and unbuttoning my shirt - ross gay
not the beloved from anne carson’s erso the bittersweet
after the movie - marie howe
accident report in the tall, tall weeds - ada limón
in tennessee i found a firefly - mary szybist
when i put my hands on your body - david wojnarowicz
the mystery of grocery carts - john olson
your night is of lilac - mahmoud darwish
a dead thing that, in dying, feeds the living - donika kelly
please read - mary ruefle
dudes, we did not go through the hassle of getting these fake ids for this jukebox to not have any springsteen - hanif andurraquib
On revolver ocelot and the spaghetti western genre: LONG POST like 2k words long warning.
Ocelot is a western fan but specifically, he is a spaghetti western fan, and i think there’s a lot of confusion as to what that even means and what the point of making that distinction is. Games specify him being into spaghetti westerns specifically. ...So you might ask, what’s the point? Why differentiate? and what does this mean about Ocelot?
They’re separate genres. They do not have as many similarities as you might assume from the names. They do share locations and time periods. (but even then, spaghetti westerns are much much more likely to be set in Mexico compared to their American counterparts. Like by a very large amount.) They aren’t filmed the same (in terms of blocking, camerawork, editing, scoring- etc), and the type of characters present are very different between the two. Tl:dr, there's not really optimism and heroes in a spaghetti western. Overall they are a lot more nihilistic and theatrical, which I think fits ocelot heavily.
I would argue that Ocelot fits the spaghetti western convention magnitudes more than the an American western. To generalise, spaghetti westerns are really comical, so while American ones tend to have grounded characters, they like to talk about “good guys” and “bad guys”, there's an underlying level of seriousness and rightness present. (also, budget and scope and just the quantity of movies out there, spaghetti westerns are largely outnumbered by American ones. And had much smaller budgets.) (and Ocelot is Russian, European film was probably more culturally relevant to him and rather accessible.)
These aren't really present in spaghetti westerns. As a genre, things are often very theatrical, there's a lot of flourish and “coolness”, the main character is basically never a moral good guy, he's usually mysterious and self serving, you never quite found out what his deal actually is. And basically everyone is dirty and sweaty at all times for some reason. The main character being “cool” often comes from them being mysterious anti-heroes, not speaking a ton (or at all), and stuff like gun tricks (so Ocelot…) or just looking cool and being framed well.
Sometimes there’s some kind of romanticism in the old west present, and the directors are obviously inspired by American westerns, the genre is a response to them, but its distinct in the way that it is presented. Of course a movie about the old west written by Hollywood, and a movie about the old west written by Italians/Europeans are going to present differently and treat the concept of a “cowboy American hero” differently. - with the latter really ignoring the hero part of it.
There’s a lot of playful over the top elements, things like the gun fights tend to be more common, and sometimes there's such an excessive flourish in the way that it is presented which really makes me think of Ocelot. its silly and showy! theres so much gun action and this sense of fun in there, like its the most badass thing in the world. I think he's a sucker for it, and it's something he genuinely believes is badass. He's based his entire personality around it after all...
They as a whole tend to be more bloody, have a focus on torture, or violence for revenge, as opposed to killing the baddies and saving the day. To be honest I don’t think ive ever watched a spaghetti western where there's an “and then they saved the day and lived happily ever after.” ending, especially not in a generic hollywood sense. A lot of times the shooting does even appear for narrative purpose, its because the guns are cool. Its for spectacle. Not to say that the movies cannot be extremely serious, but there's a difference in how they are dealt with, and the topics which are addressed. I cannot stress the amount of absurdity and comedy is present in the genre. They can be rather silly.
In a Fistful of Dollars (you may know it as the first movie in the trilogy with the good the bad and the ugly in it.) (spoilers), the main character is passing through a town in Mexico, there is an ongoing conflict between two sides and he settles himself in the middle, being employed by them both and selling them false information for his own financial benefit. So I call it an Ocelot movie because I can see him watching it when it came out in 1964 and being like “he's so me.” (this film was a pretty foundational spaghetti western at the time, really helped to launch the genre. Revolutionised the concept of a western back then. so. Yeah.)
There's this scene where a character looks at the unnamed* main character and says (paraphrasing) that in a shoot-out, he would win every time, because he has a rifle, and the mc just has a revolver, he could have gotten a newer gun, or a different kind but he refuses. Of course later, the mc confronts him and says "When a man with .45 meets a man with a rifle, you said, the man with a pistol's a dead man. Let's see if that's true. Go ahead, load up and shoot." and he outsmarts him and wins, killing the other man (and four others in the gang). And idk it just feels Ocelot-y to me. With the self serving main character, double crossing two sides of a conflict and pushing them into war, showing off his gun tricks and sharpshooting skills, while being incredibly confident in them. Also, unsurprisingly there's quite a few torture scenes, so it really just checks a lot of boxes for him imo. The 1 vs 5 shoot-out scene at the end, where the main character is outnumbered but doesn’t need to worry, he's got 6 shots, there's only 5 of them and he's prepared. I think that that’s the kind of scene Ocelot would like dream about being in because he thinks its the coolest shit in the world. I think films and movie moments like that are kinda why he is the way he is.
I didn’t know what Corbucci movie to put in here to make my point to be honest. He is one of the foundational directors of the genre, a lot of his movies are seen as some of the greatest in the genre, so his contributions are pretty important here. Ive been writing Ocelot as a really big fan of his movies for years at the point to be honest. The mercenary (1968) is a satirical and nihilistic take on revolution and being a gun for hire, men who value profits over principles.
The Great Silence (1968) is a complete opposite tonally, a subversion of both the American and spaghetti western. It is bleak, hopeless, masochistic, and an allegory(Its really direct, I don’t even know if I can call it just an allegory.) for authoritarianism.
It is incredibly bloody and, I shan't spoil it, all I am going to say is that it is sadistic, grim and miserable. Its about the hopelessness of it all, moody, atmospheric and cold. There's this cruelty and humourlessness present throughout, a grim acceptance of the state of the world and the pointless struggle to be both a law abiding citizen and someone good. While not directly applicable to Ocelot, I still think its worth bringing up. I like the movie. Its a deconstruction of the genres and as a big fan of the genres, hey I think he would appreciate it in all of its bluntness. What would there be for him to hate?
Ocelot does not believe in any cause and he is rarely genuinely himself, natural considering his like quadruple agent role 99% of the time. I think as a character he was designed with the genre in mind, like obviously he was written for metal gear, but he could very easily be transplanted into a movie like this and fit as either the protagonist or antagonist. (especially with there often being no heroes, only self serving individuals and groups, and a sort of trend where there is often very little character development occurring, the characters are rather static, but the re-contextualisation of their actions throughout the movie is what makes the audience change their opinions on them.) His flamboyance and flourish are also so typical and such a highlight of movies like this, he really feels grounded in this sort of thing, and moreso as the timeline progresses and he ages. As a person he only gets more and more into the whole enigmatic and morally strange cowboy badass thing, and I think it is really grounded in the genre. As corny and silly as his introduction in Twin Snakes is for example, it feels so strong in the context of a spaghetti western. Hes in so deep, he wishes he was in a movie like that soo bad and it shows.
I’ve seen people in the past liken Ocelot to the type of character like, Van Cleef would play in this sort of movie (like in death rides a horse, a few dollars more.) and I think there's some basis in that. Personally i think ocelot watched a lot of his movies and thought the characters he played were the coolest guys ever. And to be honest, i believe his screen presence and typecast role probably really influenced ocelots character and how he was written. Ngl.
There is also this trope of injury in the third act, where the main character suffers a major (usually hand) injury which renders them disabled and unable to be such a good shot. (Django comes to mind first personally.) this literally happens to him at the start of mgs1. I don’t have a ton more to say on it, I just think its an observation. Theres also just a general theme of torture scenes and the like, he would get such a kick out of that. As a lifelong torture enthusiast, why wouldn't he be drawn to movies of men getting tortured and spinning their revolvers around, smoking cigars and lying.
Ocelot is primarily self-serving, not tying himself down to any sort of loyalty (except when it comes to Big Boss of course ^__^), like politically I think Ocelot’s stance is that any actions are acceptable as long as it brings out the end result of big bosses will. And he is prepared to do whatever it takes to get there. Because the end result will retroactively justify and make everything else worth it. That's not unique or anything but I'm biased I like Ocelot and his motivations/all consuming obsession. and in this context i just think it fits it really nicely.
Also, much like with anime theres a massive subs vs dubs vs original language war with fans of the genre, often the movies arent dubbed too well. Like they were kinda unpopular b-movies in the 60s, the English dubbing is less than stellar, obviously. I’m saying this because its a foundational piece in my “Revolver Ocelot speaks Italian” headcanon and I might as well include it. There are some just. Movie ruining dubs out there.
Anyway so that’s my general overview on the subject. Goodnight.
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