shush!

The times screen works forget they aren't books. Don't wake them up.

[cheap-slaw]

Learn to walk again

[shushbang]

In both the book and film versions of Project Hail Mary (full of Grace, Phil Lord is with thee), teaching is home and destination. As a big, overaged lover of school, H totally went "fist my 'p'ump" on spotting the "Landed" status on the flight information board for the adaptation.

The details are thoughtful too. As redditor Smart_Medium9544 observed, onscreen Grace teaches the concept of sound waves—the Eridian medium of communication, to human students—before the voyage, and then light—humans' distinctive medium of communication—to Eridian students after the voyage, becoming a sort of bidirectional interstellar ambassador. But honestly, H would still be over the moon at the affirmation of K-12 teaching as a worthy ambition even if the only thing he's shown teaching in both works is bean counting.

[soscout]

From the planets’ perspectives, Grace landed on Erid around the same time that the beetles got back to Earth. I thought about Earth racing to launch the taumoeba to Venus at the same time that Erid was racing to save Grace from starvation. Grace was healing his starved body at the same time Earth was healing her desecrated lands. Even if they didn’t know it for so many years afterwards, they were healing together. When Grace was well enough to start truly living on Erid, Sol had already begun to shine again.

[almondcroissantsandink]

one laundry night they definitely start discussing how many Earth-named constellations are based on Greek myths, and then that definitely brings up the Odyssey (and how it relates to their current journey to Erid), and they spend the next week or so spinning tales and having Mary read the poem aloud and Rocky makes miniatures so Grace can act it out

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This nerdy customer who insensibly ditched the food for the food brand label with handsome calligraphy must have been H in a previous lifetime. He must also have been some tycoon in some other lifetime. According to an old tale, a jeweler from the ancient state of Chu ventured to another state to sell pearl. Their marketing effort was hands down top-notch, because the pearl was enclosed in this resplendent box made of magnolia wood, scented with cinnamon and pepper plants and adorned with rose and jade. The buyer paid a huge sum of money for the box but returned the pearl. This anecdote from a philosophical text was later condensed into the idiomatic saying used to condemn misplacement of value—"buying a wooden box and returning the pearl (買櫝還珠)," which probably inspired the Pursuit Of Jade scene above. The point of the storyteller was that his audience, none other than the king of Chu who was wondering about the dullness of a philosopher's prose, should not let stylism distract himself from the substance of discourse.

Here's the catch: value can be subjective and unstable. The rise of pearl cultivation has diminished the aesthetic rarity of pearls, such that natural pearls are not as essential to completing particular looks and so matter less to casual fashion consumers uninterested in reselling them or collecting art. As for food, maybe the calligraphy enthusiast was a vegetarian and not at risk of hunger anyway. What about philosophical prose then? Some potential rewrites of fate promise to be anything but dull—time can prove the premises of your arguments wrong. Great style may have a longer lifespan than great substance. So continue prioritizing substance over style, but also let one's style be something one can be proud of, whether that's exuberant invitation into your artistic world, dispassionate writing that prevents emotion from clouding logic, or acts of service for your hardworking butcher wife at the food stall. The customer's expression of cultural snobbery? Give his head a warm little paper bag with an elegant calligraphic script spelling the Chinese characters for "Jerk."

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Pig Butcher Xi Shi in a Rembrandt-worthy moment, the original Xi Shi being one of the Four Great Beauties in Chinese history and referenced in innumerable writings across the ages. Because what's the spirit of the super hustle culture all over the globe manifesting as involution, infinite credential stacking, supercurriculars and more if we don't update classic beauties so that brawn augments their delicate visages that stroke male ego? Overextension sucks one dry, yet one-dimensionality stifles potential. Can we hang this scene in a cavernous gallery? Make that a full-fledged high-end art museum dedicated to real-life weightlifting fairy Tian Xiwei's action scenes.

[shushbang]

Dreams of a peach blossom sanctuary. A war-free secluded paradise born in the tumultuous era of the Six Dynasties in the mind of author Tao Yuanming, populated only by contented, hospitable peasants. His outsider narrator is unable to locate this land of refugee descendants again after returning home to report his discovery. Yu Wanyin gets a touch of the textbook fairyland in her cloistered palace garden in the tale she lives within a tale in How Dare You!? in the halcyon days before she has to swap her diaphanous princessy robes for combat armor. Shrimp Encounter's warring factions have the crustacean-blessed fortune to revisit it, though it never literally blossoms for them and the peasants they meet are homely but also sardonic and passive aggressive, all "Have a lovely look at the devastating trouble you've foisted on us. BUT—we're such super nice folks we won't trouble you with clearing it up. Oh god, we'll just humbly go to great lengths to trouble ourselves!"

Props for a crowd with brains and some psychological complexity in a low-budget slapstick comedy. A question that occurs to H, on the other claw: Is the mental warfare unrealistic for people habituated to niceties and simple living? Hypothetical answer: These other peasants are not as geographically far removed from mainstream society as Tao Yuanming's peasants. Even so, are the mental warfare scenes acted out too smoothly by everyone when this is overall still a population who distance themselves from the outside world? It depends.

How realistic are Tao Yuanming's one-dimensional peasants in the first place? Unlike what some filmmakers imply, politics is not some frivolous invention engaged in by power players with nothing better to do. This irksome exercise is borne out of scarcity. Can any paradise be eternally untouched by turbulent geological history or meteorological threats? Competition for limited resources, along with Nature's fondness for genetic experimentation, beget psychological diversity. However uniformly virtuous his starter population might have been, cheaters and schemers can emerge in the long run and look for openings to get their way.

The idealism-soaked snapshot delivered through the Tao short essay "Record of a Peach Blossom Spring" is a goal. We may never arrive at perfect peachiness, only hopefully venture closer and closer. For that, we need Yu Wanyin's role versatility and pragmatic courage to face the irksome, not reject all political talk.

[shushbang]

Bumbling military strategist is so bored watching his bumbling military general colleague's fight with bumbling political foe and bumbling love rival (okay, the last two are really the same bumbling jerk) he pulls a Matrix move by retreating into the screenwriting synapse network where his real form resides. Man then scrolls idly through the repository of memes there, schadenfreudianly perks up at the "Kong Yiji literature" phenomenon in which 2020s Chinese youths morose about career prospects self-mockingly compare themselves to the eponymous early 20th-century story character too proud of his book knowledge to settle for low-status work, and heads back to Bumbling Land to re-enact a Kong Yiji scene to prove his own finesses at erudite bumbling for self-amusement.

"Do you know there're four ways to write the first (Chinese) character for fennel?" Boy in all fictional universes sulks and moves away.

That's sci-fi framing of the real fight-watching to unrequited-child-mentoring drama sequence, imaginably sponsored by Bumbling Brands.

[shushbang]

Centuries-old mystery for dreamy romantics: Who's the elusive figure found in dim light, away from opulent crowds and glittery scenery, in Pursuit Of Jade's OST lyrics dating back to the Song dynasty? Theories abound—beloved woman, ideal woman, ideal human, the emperor, the fallen old capital, the composer-poet Xin Qiji himself. One's choice affects how likely one pictures the figure as initially moving along with the crowd. According to the last theory, the scenario was a metaphor for Xin Qiji's principle of retaining his integrity by choosing humble solitariness over mixing with bad political actors.

But his figure is ultimately passive. The print version of The Fundamental Law Of Genius / The Heart Of Genius subverts this in the conclusion of its main text by modifying the last line of the lyrics, describing how (SPOILER) its non-time-traveling overachiever male lead, originally onboard a plane to overseas graduate school, "cloaks himself in dim light" as he makes his way to the mission-accomplished time traveler heroine standing in her mundane street-side environment.

Treasure the pockets of time we can in perfect conscience stand apart from bustle all around, alone with those we care most about. Pursuit Of Jade's main theme song is virtually contesting the romance theme song above when it croons, "When the homeland is going up in the flames of war, who can lead an independent life away from the vast world?"

The lyrics and translation of the romance theme song again, for convenient reference:

[shushbang]

Who would have fathomed hearing Song dynasty poet Xin Qiji's exquisitely cinematic lantern festival lyrics in a scene set in a dilapidated tiny shed? Cue the long concatenations of exclamation marks and scream emojis H is too hoity-toity to insert into this particular blog. The moral of the story? Characters who regularly put their brains to good use generate an aura of enchanted festivity wherever they go. The basis for the moral of the story? You see what you like to see. Cue smiley H wants to lock away in the shed with Marquis Wu'an.

Curiously, too, the title of the Tencent OST video uses the pronoun "她" (her) even though the subtitles within, show credits and Xin Qiji himself use the pronoun "他" (him), which used to be gender-neutral, for the same line ("I search for him among the crowd over and over again," from which the search engine Baidu got its name). "她" became a female pronoun only during the early 20th century, eras and eras away from that original composer's time.

In any event, the overall prose further contributes to the concentration of Song dynasty-like elements in the drama set in a fictional period. That's a fourth hide-and-seek game, the first three being (episode one SPOILER) searches for runaways, cutie sister decoy, and —[update] depending on which interpretation you follow—technically gender-unspecified beauty disappearing into the festival crowd. Oh, and of course, show's title Pursuit Of Jade intimates more. Mercifully, they didn't name it Blossoms Of Jade, Glory Of Jade or Journey To Jade. That spared the invisible scream emojis overtime work.

The Tencent video, complete with English subtitles of the song, which is a simple rearrangement and repetition of the ancient lyrics:

[shushbang]

“To assemble a ship is not to weave the sails, to forge the nails, or to study the stars, but to inspire a passion for the sea, which is undivided and in whose light there is nothing contradictory, but only a fellowship of love.” « Créer le navire ce n'est point tisser les toiles, forger les clous, lire les astres, mais bien donner le goût de la mer qui est un, et à la lumière duquel il n'est plus rien qui soit contradictoire mais communauté dans l'amour. » —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Citadelle; *human-verified and extensively human-edited AI translation (now often adopted for long lines due to experiences with stubborn plagiarists)

Boss Pei ought to have believed in the numerous blue-sky arguments he improvised to rouse employees into loss-making action. Thankfully for us and for them, his corporate drone soul from his earlier days prevents him from recognizing his own brilliance.

*Yes, French is yet another item, albeit a rusty one, in H's linguistic warehouse. There are also online crates of dictionaries and research resources. See the edifying wonderland those slobs miss out on when they just drag and drop content?

[shushbang]

…

Stars sigh with feeling. Neon lights gathered around look on. Careful — dreams are folded into sails. Courage blows the waves away from the bay. The Milky Way churns, The city lights thin and fade — Leaving my solitary figure behind.

Who overturned the fairytale boat?

…

…

星星感叹 霓虹围观 小心把梦叠成了帆 勇气把浪吹离湾 银河沸腾灯火阑珊 徒留我孤身影单

谁掀翻了童话船

…

—Fairytale Boat, the main theme and one of the ending themes of Young And Accomplished / No Pain No Gain; 50% AI translation (now often adopted for long lines due to experiences with stubborn plagiarists)

[shushbang]

Poetry-action hero Huang Sibo brings to mind study-group-action hero Yoon Ga-min, a kdrama protagonist, for his wholesome earnestness. This ahjussi, scratch, 28-year-old drastically aged up by a previous job is the golden character of the multi-industry equivalent of Pegasus Market, Young And Accomplished / No Pain No Gain. Soulslike. Souls alike.

It's a concern, however, that No Pain No Gain appears to be romanticizing normalized overtime work through how the character and his closer project partners voluntarily pull self-sacrificing all-nighters for their startup even as it decries the practice.

[shushbang]

Office poetics.

H has more wicked ideas for Boss Pei (not pictured above) for his secret loss-making mission, though. Like, introduce poetry prompts rendered in the oracle bone script or take a leaf from your web novel platform speech by incorporating French and Swahili poem completion challenges. The devil is in the Duolingo.

[shushbang]

A scene that's practically a statement: a great book heaven is a book grave—as condemned by the commercial imperative for safety. Even as a social media creator, you hear or read it so often in the format "Post what readers need." Except that what readers need and what readers believe they need do not overlap neatly, and it's the latter that the maxim really means. How do you wager that your content aligns with both spheres? You look at what readers have already demonstrated receptivity to. Just sell your soul and replicate more or less what's already at there; maybe drizzle a new dressing over it for a wee differentiator enough to make you stand out but not enough to make you alien, the recipe of many a copycat soul transmigration drama. A technique that's perhaps seen as simultaneously more inferior but still acceptable is to experiment and move on from flops speedily, never giving the public ample time to come round.

And then there's the whole other, more contentious issue of what readers need versus what people around them need: a need to be treated as dignified human beings who deserve empathy and kindness, not as objects of desire or as vessels for other varieties of emotional gratification.

Mixing all three needs, not always in the same works, is a tricky way out. So conservative academics, practitioners of more elite art forms, and consumers wont to talk of pretentious-media-taking-themselves-too-seriously ought to think twice before dismissing pop culture and pop culture content creators.

I died for beauty—but was scarce Adjusted in the tomb When One who died for Truth, was lain In an adjoining Room— He questioned softly “Why I failed”? “For Beauty,” I replied— “And I—for Truth—Themself are One— We Brethren, are,” He said— And so, as Kinsmen met a Night— We talked between the Rooms— Until the Moss had reached our lips— And covered up—our names— —Emily Dickinson

[shushbang]

"It’s very old here. But precisely because it’s old, the lane has a sense of story and legend that those new buildings just don’t have.

That second floor used to be Grandma Wang’s home. I’ve always thought she was the most refined and elegant person I’ve ever met. I heard she was a young lady from a prominent family back in the Republican era. I’ve seen photos of her when she was young—she was truly beautiful.

If you turn into the alley next to it and go all the way to the end, that corner was Uncle Wang’s secret base when he was a child. He told me that his parents worked at a factory and didn’t have time to look after him. That place was like his little cafeteria back then.

And then ... there’s Brother Dazhong. He was incredible at the violin—he even won awards in Shanghai.

[…]

Maybe the children who got balloons today will still remember that balloon from this morning ten or twenty years from now. We’ll then become people in their stories."

"这里很旧了。但正因为旧，所以才赋予了弄堂跟那些新兴建筑不一样的故事感以及传奇性。那个二层以前是王奶奶家。我一直觉得她是我见过最精致最优雅的人，听说以前还是民国时期的大小姐呢。我看过王奶奶以前的照片，年轻的时候可美了。旁边那个弄堂拐进去，最里面那块，那是王叔小时候的秘密基地。王叔跟我说他父母以前在工厂 没时间管他，那里还是他以前的小食堂。还有…大钟哥。大钟哥拉小提琴可厉害了，在上海都拿奖的。

[...]

说不定今天拿到气球这些小孩，十年二十年后，还会记得今天早上的那个气球，我们就成为他们故事里的人了。"

—Acting In Multiple Projects / Love Between Lines; largely AI translation (now often adopted for long lines due to experiences with stubborn plagiarists)

[shushbang]

"I once heard a saying: Humanity kisses the earth through architecture—every angle and curve is our love letter to this world." "我之前听过一句话：人类用建筑亲吻大地——每一道棱角和弧度都是我们写给这个世界的告白。" —Acting In Multiple Projects / Love Between Lines; largely AI translation (now often adopted for long lines due to experiences with stubborn plagiarists)

This scene in the finale is shot at Japanese sculptor Masayuki Koorida's granite block formation, which bear ruler-like markings, in Shanghai Yuehu Sculpture Park. The unpolished, naturalistic facets and simple shapes of the blocks pair perfectly with the line.

Note that the pronunciation of the original title 轧戏 is Gá Xì. The sound of the first character in this context is tricky. Alternatives like Zhá Xì and Yà Xì are mistakes some native speakers themselves have made, so don't feel bad for tripping up.