Chooch at the shiny post

I took this photo a couple of weeks ago when we were out for an evening stroll. It was taken by the express way close to Tokyo bay and the docks at Hinode where the ferries for the Tokyo islands leave from. I quite like the innocence of Chooch’s expression, as well as the shiny silverness of the lamppost.

The Gift of Reading

With his own face,
as it had been in his youth,
though his mother’s look
was also there-transforming,
illumining.

He had a pang as he saw the two
at the close of his meeting filtering
out into the great retort of the
world.

Then it was that he had the impulse
to go to the woman’s home,
express his sorrow,
and in some small sense
wipe out his wrong by
offering her marriage.

He had not gone.

He knew of Carnac’s success in
the world of Art; and how
he had alienated his reputed father
by an independence revolting
to a slave of convention.

He had even bought, not
from Carnac, but from a dealer,
two of Carnac’s pictures and a statue of
a riverman. Somehow the years
had had their way with him.

He had at long last realized that material things
were not the great things of life,
and that imagination, however productive,
should be guided by
uprightness of soul.

One thing was sure, the boy had never
been told who his father was. That Barouche knew.
He had the useful gift of reading
the minds of people in their faces.
From Carnac’s face, from Carnac’s
mother’s face, had come to him the real story.

He knew.

He has a blog here, if you read German and want to check it out: http://www.stern.de/blog/94_extreme-couch-hopper.

Canadian literature (or CanLit, as some insist) has gradually become a genre of its own- one of books that are bleak, desperate, *meaningful*, and above all, dull.

New DIY publisher The Workhorsery aims to do something about that by releasing You and The Pirates, Jocelyne Allens’ superfun debut novel.

The book dares to star you (a snarky prairie-girl expat) in its second-person wackjob tale of terrorists, cats and pirates in modern-day Tokyo. Check it out!

Free chapter (PDF)

We look forward to reading that!

Quite surprisingly, Japan has a lot of space per person. I guess all the mountainous regions and forest Japan has preserved add up to a bit more room than is imaginable when one is living in a city such as Tokyo.

You can read about how this was put together here: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/01/30/charts-3.html

Any country is a “diverse beast” and Japan is no exception. Surfing the web this morning I came across the following articles which cover a couple of the multitudinous faces of Japan – technology, tradition and ecology.

So lets start with cute technology. Geekyblog has a post featuring a very cute robot: Postkun – Limited Edition Japanese Robot.

They have this to say about the robot:

This funky looking robot is the creation of Tokyo based company Kyosho, he is called Postkun, which means ‘Little Postman’ in Japan.

Postkun will be available in a limited edition of just 10 robots, and only available in Japan for about $3,500.

That price seems a bit steep, so I don’t think I will be getting one unless my boss starts paying me more – a lot more!

You can read more about Postkun here: Postkun – Limited Edition Japanese Robot.

Treehugger – a website I quite enjoy reading, has an interesting piece on Paco House. A long way from Le Corbusier, Paco House is an alternative to dome housing, offering the possibility of a second house that is just gorgeous.

Doesn’t that just look idyllic? Especially from the midst of winter in Tokyo.

They add:

Let’s say you needed a really small house, perhaps a Dome Home, to put on a secluded place on a beach, somewhere far off and away. Schemata Architecture Office Ltd. is a group of designers showing a concept small second house that you could build yourself, or perhaps help to develop. I like the freedom of this. You could put it anywhere. If no-one complains, you are ok to go. Are there laws against second house freedom?

Indeed, who would complain! You can read more about the Paco House, and see some more pictures here: Small House Design “Paco” From Japan.

And finally the traditional – Men at Work: Artisans of Old Japan. No not an Australian 80’s band trying to make music using the remains of last nights dinner, but a well researched article from Slate Magazine. There are three parts up at the moment, and it looks like more are on the way.

The writer June Thomas kicks off:

Every language attracts a special kind of student. Spanish speakers are lazy and charming. Those who have mastered French are sometimes chic and always sybaritic. Hebrew attracts the committed; Turkish, the committed and complicated. Adventurers are drawn to Arabic, and Mandarin is for brainiacs who love a challenge—so much so that they often abandon the language altogether once they’ve got it down. And Japanese? Japanese speakers are serious, serious people. Of course, all languages demand tedious, diligent study, but there’s something about Japanese that calls out to those who are quiet, kind, and, often, spiritual. People who would rather kneel on a tatami mat contemplating a calligraphy scroll than, say, slump on a sofa watching Gossip Girl.

I always fancied myself too frivolous for Japan. Going there would be like visiting a library—a quiet, orderly place where nothing much happens. A world unto itself with lovely things to look at but nothing much to do. I love libraries; I just didn’t want to spend my vacation in one. All that politeness stressed me out. There seemed to be a million rules—take your shoes off here, wear these slippers in the bathroom and nowhere else—and I didn’t understand any of them.

You can read the rest of the article here: Men at Work: Artisans of Old Japan. That should keep you going till lunchtime.

It is a Japanese manga. Pink Tentacle posted it. Therefore it must be good.

It says:

GIRL: Are they really going to do it?
BOY: I’m telling you, they’ll do it. Watch.

Therefore it must be good. Or did it just say that?

Welcome to the Fifth Dimension by Tatsuya Tanaka.

Living in central Tokyo it is quite easy to forget that one is living in Japan at times, so I wanted to do something Japanese and improve some of my skills at the same time. I am not really into Japanese swords – although I can see how people appreciate them as art forms, and I don’t find the idea of Japanese martial arts that appealing (I mean really judo gear stinks!) so I thought I would give shodo a try. And now that I am a bit more settled into work (must tidy that site up soon!) I have time to try some new things.

Another reason is that I would like to get better at writing Japanese. I write a bit in Japanese at work, business emails and the like, but it is all done on a computer (good old Ubuntu!) so I forget how to write the characters by hand – I think this happens to a lot of Japanese people to. And, earlier this year, we sent a wedding present to a friend in China who got married. She wrote back saying I write Chinese like a primary school student. Ouch!

Much more difficult than it looks would have to be my first impression of this Japanese art form. I think I can now draw a simple line. The idea basically is to become one with paper and brush and there is a long way for me to go to achieve that.

The image is from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Haruichiban.JPG. Calligraphy by Ishizaki Keisui, uploaded with author’s permission, http://www.sho.ne.jp/artists/a/html/ISHIZAKIkeisui.html.

Something to aim for!

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Basic_Batch/

A great example of a Catch 22 though!

I mean if you can understand what they have written, you don’t really need the page do you.

Apparently this McDonalds Hamburger was bought in 1996 and still looks as good as the day it was sold! You can read more about it here: 1996 McDonalds Hamburger.

Think I would rather stick with a decent felafel pita from Pita the Great.