Humanities Archives | Otaku No Culture

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After finally being able to watch William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill multiple times, all I can tell is that this documentary presents a different side of this actor that few rarely see. It had a very limited theatrical run, but back then, I didn’t have my notepad in hand. Within the fandom community, some may say he has quite the ego and outside, others wonder why is he a big deal? Here, the best segments concern his youth, what his upbringing was like and what made him decide to be an entertainer.

Anyone who knows his resume will say Twilight Zone or Star Trek is what made him a star. Prior to those appearances, he was in a few Westerns. Although his most famous episode concerns a gremlin, to recognise “Nick of Time” is just as important. While parts of his television career are quickly referred to, namely T.C. Hooker and Boston Legal, I’m curious why TekWar wasn’t mentioned? Although it was ghost-written by Ron Goulart, the ideas were his.

Continue reading “After Star Trek and Boston Legal, You Can Call Me Bill in this Enlightening Documentary”

Available to view on TheNFB

In Oana Suteu Khintirian‘s excellent documentary, Beyond Paper, she looks at why the written word is important, and what’s the method of preserving it. Without pen and paper, all the world is not a stage to chronicle the best of times, and even the worst of times shaped not only literature but also the passing of culture from one generation to another. While that sounds like a very loaded introduction, not every bit of knowledge can be passed down orally. And when it’s a document, will it be easily accessible?

Here, she is not only looking at how to preserve her own Romanian and Armenian heritage, but also humanity’s collective history. It’s not as easy as digitising it to the cloud, a digital version of what some may call the collective consciousness. Some nuances will get lost. For example, calligraphy is a craft few can master, and those studying Chinese style will know there’s a lot to consider when allowing those splashes of ink outside the line to exist! Sometimes examining how that stroke was made is significant.

When considering creating comics involves lettering, even this branched aspect of the literary to sequential art deserves equal preservation as well.

Continue reading “TheNFB’s Beyond Paper. From Print to the Cloud, Why Studying Matters of the Heart & The Humanities Matters.”