What's with All the Freakin' Ninjas?

[Jasper Fidget]

http://www.realultimatepower.net/

(never been able to resist passing this link along)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
> Behalf Of monroe at mpm.edu
> Sent: Monday, May 10, 2004 1:31 PM
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: What's with All the Freakin' Ninjas?
> 
> From Chuck Klosterman, "What Warren Sapp, Darryl Hannah, and Dave Eggers
> Have in Common: Or, What's with All the Freakin' Pirates?," Esquire, Vol.
> 141, No. 2 (February 2004): 56-58 ...
> 
>    "Maybe you haven't noticed, but we are compltely immersed in a pirate
> renaissance.  At the moment, there is nothing cooler than pirates.  This
> sort of thing happens periodically; you may recall the ninja reniassance
> of
> the mid-eighties.  That was a dynamic era, punctuated by films like Ninja
> Academy, American Ninja, and Ninja Phantom Heroes, not to mention the
> popularity of the G.I. Joe action figure Storm Shadow, a supercool
> white-clad snow ninja who worked as a terrorist for the sinister Cobra
> regime.
>    "Now, the reason behind the rise in ninja power was always completely
> clear: The faceless stealth and absolute freedom of the 'rogue ninja'
> symbolized the last bastions of counterculture within the bloated
> commercialism of Reagan-era autocracy.  We loved ninjas for the same
> reasons
> we loved Husker Du, the USFL, and the early work of Jason Bateman
> (particularly his NBC sitcom It's Your Move).  The ninja could never be
> tamed; the ninja gave us hope.  However, things aren't so cut-and-dried
> with
> this pirate rediscovery ...." (p. 56)
> 
> http://www.keepmedia.com/pubs/Esquire/2004/02/01/348727