Thunder only happens when it's raining

The regular reader may be disappointed, or relieved, to learn that there will shortly be a hiatus, or series of hiatii, in output, due to the relocation of Dekoboko to a remote farmhouse/ruin somewhere up a mountain in southern Europe, for the remainder of the summer - where shooting stars, wolves howling at the full moon, barking deer, gruffling wild boar, and eagle shrieks will be savoured, along with fresh organic produce from the garden (I hope), bracing spring water showers from the mountain, and large quantities of Chianti from the local hardware store - where the son of the owner looks uncannily like Boris Becker and the wine comes in 30 litre flagons - the type that fashionable people grew miniature gardens in in the late 60s.

I want to be one.

How can you? You haven't got a womb!

Having just packed up my entire belongings in Japan (and dumped them at my very good friend's house), I am now left in an empty room, sitting on the tatami, with my last few luxury items around me. Apart from the obvious necessities like a futon and a change of clothes, I have this laptop, beer, and my guitar - which must say something.

Actually I have been practising a bit lately as I know I shall be shortly sitting round a campfire up the mountain and someone might say 'Go on! Play one we all know!' or some such - so I have been dredging up one or two basic tunes that involve as few simple chord sequences as possible. The easiest so far is 'Dreams' by Stevie Nicks - just two chords (F and G) repeatedly endlessly. Perfect for the dekoboko guitarist:

Now here you go again
You say you want your freedom
Well who am I to keep you down
It's only right that you should
Play the way you feel it
But listen carefully to the sound

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Of your loneliness
Like a heartbeat.. drives you mad
In the stillness of remembering what you had
And what you lost...
And what you had...
And what you lost

Thunder only happens when it's raining
Players only love you when they're playing
Say... women... they will come and they will go
When the rain washes you clean... you'll know

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Now here I go again, I see the crystal visions
I keep my visions to myself
Its only me
Who wants to wrap around your dreams and...
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
Dreams of loneliness...
Like a heartbeat... drives you mad...
In the stillness of remembering what you had...
And what you lost...
And what you had...
And what you lost

Thunder only happens when it's raining
Players only love you when they're playing
Say... women... they will come and they will go
When the rain washes you clean... you'll know

Another of that ilk is 'She moves through the fair', just C and D (if you skimp a bit).

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Peggie Lee's 'Fever' is more or less just E and A, and then you're into a whole load of E,A,D blues/rock and roll numbers - Chuck Berry is rich is simple chord songs: Roll over Beethoven, No particular place to go, Johnny Be Goode...

That should shut the wolves up for a while.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

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I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all aglimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

WB Yeats

Bardot to Beethoven

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Fantasy leaves nothing to the imagination.

Creativity is real life; imitation is what most of us settle for.

When the garbage truck (dustbin lorry) came to pick up the rubbish this morning, and the truck is idling in the middle of the road, it emits Beethoven's Fur Elise, the first few bars thereof, repeatedly, as a safety warning - do not come near. When I phone up the truck rental company a few hours later (not a garbage truck you understand - a moving truck), I am put on hold, and get precisely the same tune piped into my ear - do not hang up. Wonder what Ludvig would have made of that, had he known, as he scratched those famous notes onto his parchment with his goose quill pen.

Friday night, in a bamboo beach bar, the reggae Beatles CD is on as usual, the semi-naked chef has retired to the couch, clearly exhausted by the heat in the kitchen, the Pacific is lapping the sand 20 yards away, it's warm, balmy, with a slight sea breeze, the three bargirls are truly delightful, and I am totally alone - the sole punter in the bar. Where on Earth is everyone?


"Beethoven is the friend and contemporary of the French Revolution, and he remained faithful to it even when, during the Jacobin dictatorship, humanitarians with weak nerves of the Schiller type turned from it, preferring to destroy tyrants on the theatrical stage with the help of cardboard swords. Beethoven, that plebeian genius, who proudly turned his back on emperors, princes and magnates - that is the Beethoven we love for his unassailable optimism, his virile sadness, for the inspired pathos of his struggle, and for his iron will which enabled him to seize destiny by the throat."

Igor Stravinsky

"His attitude to the princes and nobles who paid him was conveyed in a famous painting. The composer is shown in the course of a stroll with the poet Goethe, the Archduchess [Archduke surely?] Rudolph and the Empress. While Goethe respectfully gave way to the royal pair, politely removing his hat, Beethoven completely ignored them and continued walking without even acknowledging the greetings of the imperial family. This painting contains the whole spirit of the man, a fearless, revolutionary, uncompromising spirit. Suffocating in the bourgeois atmosphere of Vienna he wrote a despairing comment: “As long as the Austrians have their brown beer and little sausages, they will never revolt.” "
"His personal life was never happy. He had the habit of falling in love with the daughters (and wives) of his wealthy patrons – which always ended badly, with new fits of depression. After one such spell of depression he wrote: “Art, and only art, has saved me! It seems to me impossible to leave this world without having given everything I have felt germinating within me.” "

http://www.marxist.com/beethoven-man-composer-revolutionary190506.htm

Don't want to haggle?

I should like to concur with that little girl, whoever she was, back in the mists of time (Gracie Fields? Shirley Temple? someone of that ilk), who said that every day, in every way, things are getting better and better, or her life is, or some such - in other words we can learn a new lesson every day and move on to better things. Well today's lesson is humidity - that's humidity with a d - although actually it involves a fair bit of humility too.

I am moving, again, for the 397th time, and as is the norm I have little idea where I am moving to, other than my belongings will find their way to a friend's garage some time over the next couple of days. This has involved extracting a phenomenally large amount of clothes and bedding from the immense wardrobe-type thing in my room (who has been putting them in there?), and discovering where that odd smell has been coming from - mould. Mould caused by humidity. Particularly unpleasant was the (re)discovery of my leather trench coat, which has not stirred for some considerable time, and which reminded me somewhat of a Kuwaiti picnic.

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This is his gourd!

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Kuwaitis, amongst other people, enjoy their picnics, and habitually (at least when I was there, 20 years ago) drive down en famille of a Sunday morning (which is Friday in the Middle East) to the livestock market to pick up some grub for their Sunday (Friday) lunch. The livestock market at that time was an expanse of sandy car park next to a very large oil refinery (which, by the way, looked quite nice at night, lit up like a Christmas tree, from the Indian restaurant on the top floor of the block over the road).

They haggle over a sheep, and then stick it, live, in the boot of their Cadillac, then drive off into the desert, string it up by the side of the road on one of the few bushy trees, butcher, cook, and eat it, then drive home again, air-conditioned, leaving the inedible bits in a pile for the flies and other bugs to swarm over.

This is what my coat looked like.

Erm - actually it's not my cross.

I have spent the afternoon washing and trying to dry copious quantities of mouldy bedding and clothes- so if you have not aired your mattress recently, or those clothes lying in the corner, then I strongly recommend you do so now.

By a happy coincidence, it was announced a couple of days ago that the rainy season is now officially over, so we have a window of opportunity before the typhoon season hits.

See? Not so bad once you're up!

Hypocrisy/contradiction, irony/paradox

I have the pleasure, and it is a pleasure, of teaching a small group of ladies of more than a certain age, once a week. I say 'teaching', but perhaps accompanying would be more apt. We have tea, and various biscuits and so on, for an hour and a half, during which time they chat cheerfully amongst themselves, while I enjoy the tea and biscuits. But occasionally they direct comments my way, and sometimes in a form of English - I mean there are recognisably English words interspersed among the Japanese, albethey in Japanese word order. As I regret to say I don't understand Japanese, there is a great deal of mileage to be had in the cross-cultural and linguistic confusion, nay, mayhem. The simplest, cognitive and linguistic concept can be spun out for a good half an hour. We tend to start with the news - our own individual news - and go round the table. Seiko, when she's here, has usually been playing golf. Kimoko has very often spent part of the weekend at an onsen, while Keiko has as often as not been praying at the shrine of one of her forebears. Takashi, a young man, and employee/apologee of the absent Seiko has usually spent the weekend sleeping - a couple of weeks ago he managed to sleep through 18 hours of a particularly nice Sunday, got up, ate, and went back to bed. Thoughts of Peter Cook.

However, it's good for my listening practice. One word which comes up several times a minute is 'wakanai' (dunno), followed lower down on the frequency scale by 'wakaranai' (I dunno) and 'wakarimasen' (I don't know). Then there's 'shiranai' (dunno and don't care - haven't got the foggiest), 'nantoka' (wotsit), and so on.

As a colleague used to say in Qatar, several times a day, God help us.

Eh up - another earthquake - that's two big ones this week....

Piero della Francesca: Battista Sforza, Federico da Montefeltro

1472

Success

"Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get."

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"The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure."

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"The expression a woman wears on her face is far more important than the clothes she wears on her back."

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"When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion."

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"Your purpose is to make your audience see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt. Relevant detail, couched in concrete, colorful language, is the best way to recreate the incident as it happened and to picture it for the audience."

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"Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours."

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"Keep on raging - to stop the aging."

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"One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today."

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Dale Carnegie

"I’ve always preferred mythology to history. History is composed of truths that become lies, mythology of lies that become truths. One characteristic of our age is that it creates instant myths in every field. The press is responsible for inventing people who already exist and endowing them with an imaginary life, superimposed on their own. Brigitte Bardot is a perfect example of this odd concoction. It is likely that fate set her down at the precise point where dream and morality merge. Her beauty and talent are undeniable, but she possesses some other, unknown quality which attracts idolaters in an age deprived of gods." – Jean Cocteau

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Photos of Andrew Carnegie and David Bryce, Jean Cocteau, Hawaii, Wittgenstein with Hitler, and Brigitte Bardot.

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http://lc911finalcut.com/

Tower of the Sun

A friend just introduced me to the work of Taro Okamoto. His two most famous works are the Tower of the Sun, which was made for the 1970 Osaka expo, and was once in a building which has since gone, and the Myth of Tomorrow, a massive Guernica inspired mural depicting the moment of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

I really must see a bit more of Japan!

http://www.antonraubenweiss.com/expo/webimages/osaka08.jpg

Omoshiroi

Party in Odawara last night - my ex-hometown in Japan. Omoshiroi. Met a whole bunch of people I've now known for, hell, almost 18 months - my ex-students at a language school, many of them even older than me. A reminder of the ties that one can and needs to build up in a community - and the contrast with our relationship with our students at university, mainly - by the end of term we have finally got all their names (up to 35 in a class) and maybe have some idea of what they are doing here, but then they are gone, back into the milieu/morasse (?) of the 6,000, perhaps to bob up again somewhere along the line.

Today was spent largely in a wet suit and often in the sea, snorkelling off Izu. Sugoi tropical fish of all shapes, colours and sizes, as were the snorkellers and divers; voyeurs who seemed to be attempting to outnumber the voyees, it being a long weekend at the end of July.

Amongst us were a small group of large Finns, yes, wearing fins, who work at that Finnish telephone company.......... you know - Nokia? Omoshiroi that there are 400 or so company employees in Tokyo, only 30 or so of whom are Finnish, but they all communicate by email in English - even Finn to Finn (the rest are Japanese). An email in Finnish may later have to be translated (plus the back-up) into Japanese, so to make it easier they just write everything in English - the common world tongue.














By the way, yesterday I had to endure/enjoy a listening test invigilation (the correct term)/ proctoring (American), which was entirely US culture-based/biased, so I raised this with someone responsible later with the hope that the next test, and teaching materials in general, move quickly away from the presupposition that 'English' is American. During this excruciating endurance test I spotted and noted with mild interest the curious slogans on the students' T-shirts:

"Pleasant the beauties of nature passing fancy live in a world fantasy"

"It's a sick world and I am a happy girl"



The above-mentioned test was multiple choice - choose the best answer, A, B, C, or D, eg.

1. Someone takes you to an art exhibition of post-19th century painting. Is your response most likely to be:

a. It's just a load of squiggly lines.
b. A child could have done a better job.
c. It's kind of interesting but I have no idea what it's about.
d. Isn't it amazing how someone can produce such a fresh reaction to life?


2. Someone takes you to a jazz concert. Is your response most likely to be:

a. Sleep.
b. Bloody awful noise.
c. I liked the bits at the beginning and the end when I could tell what the tune was.
d. Isn't it amazing how some people together can produce such a fresh reaction to life?


3. Someone plays you a Springsteen concert. Is your reaction most likely to be:

a. Can't stand American men.
b. Can't stand Americans in general.
c. Actually he's got some good tunes.
d. Actually if you take the time to listen to what he's saying you'll realise he's a great artist.


4. Your partner says they want to go away for three days hiking in the mountains with a friend.

a. Good riddance. Break your neck.
b. Good riddance. Thank God I'll be able to do what I want for three days.
c. That's cool. I respect you and I know you love me. Enjoy!
d. That's cool, but I wish you'd invite me along.


5. A friend suggests you go to the ballet next weekend. Do you say:

a. Actually I'm thinking of proctoring something/one that day.
b. Swan Lake? Seen it before.
c. Omoshiroi - but how about the latest Rambo movie?
d. Why do you need to ask?


6. You are given a book of poetry for your birthday. Is your reaction most likely to be:

a. Poetry is a series of meaningless random words.
b. Great! I'll give it to Oxfam.
c. I quite like the one about stopping all the clocks in that Hugh Grant movie.
d. Omoshiroi.


7. Someone suggests you go to a Radiohead concert:

a. Their music is a series of random notes - what happened to good old fashioned tunes?
b. Why does he seem to be in so much pain?
c. I'll have to check my diary...
d. Bloody marvellous - very omoshiroi bunch of artists.


8. You win a ticket to a post-19th century classical music concert:

a. Can't stand modern classical music - it's just a series of random notes.
b. It always sounds like they are in such pain.
c. People just pretend to like it - they'd all much rather hear some proper music.
d. Great! I don't always understand it, but it sounds omoshiroi.


9. You are given an Amy Winehouse CD. Your reaction is:

a. Didn't she train dogs? Sit!
b. She's the one who's always in the news for taking drugs.
c. Mind you, Louis Armstrong smoked marijuana every day.
d. Once in a generation they come along, thank God.


10. Your partner tells you you are going to a family get-together. You do not speak your partner's language, and the rest of the family do not speak yours. You know from previous experience that this will involve sitting extremely uncomfortably for up to 5 hours in a room full of people who may or may not be talking about you, but will every now and then turn to you and say "Isn't that right?", and when you are unable to respond will then laugh in your face as you are such an imbecilic token foreigner, and then carry on talking to each other. Do you:

a. Refuse, with the proviso that you will go once you have learnt the lingo.
b. Tell your partner you regrettably have to proctor an exam that day.
c. Go along with it but insist that your partner translates every 5 minutes.
d. Go along with it as you know that they don't know what it's like to be in your shoes.

etc.


http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9616

Going native

Spent the last 24 hours doing a few of my favourite things, which included a welcome return to the great fish/sea food restaurant/izakaya at the bottom of the road that M and I went to last week, but this time with three Japanese, who all agreed that the food was very good - so that was reassuring. We had a fantastic spread that went on for a couple of hours, and I just realised included a dish that until a few months ago I might have thought more than twice about, but not any more - flying fish sashimi - the whole recently deceased fish sitting there on a plate staring up at us while we sampled its flesh. Oishikatta!

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H and I sang quite a lot of classical tunes, like the 1812, and a number of classic movie theme tunes, like the Great Escape, and so on, which may have bemused the other locals.

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Also got to the local art gallery by the sea, which has an extensive Matisse and Bonnard exhibition of oils, water-colours, photos and sketches, at the moment - I am determined to do at least some sketches before I leave.

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Henri Matisse

'Open Window'

1905

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Word of the Day for Friday, July 18, 2008

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tatterdemalion

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noun:1. A person dressed in tattered or ragged clothing; a ragamuffin.

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2. Tattered; ragged.

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'Last time peasant blouses surfaced, in the 1960s and '70s, they were part of an epidemic of Indian bedspread dresses, homemade blue-jean skirts, Army surplus jackets, Greek bookbag purses and love beads, the whole eclectic tatterdemalion mix meant to express egalitarian sentiments and countercultural solidarity with underdogs everywhere.'

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Patricia McLaughlin, "The peasant look", Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, April 25, 1999

All the white horses have gone to bed

Perfect sailing day - we rowed out to Endeavour soon after 9, at anchor overnight off the sambashi, and headed off through the summer morning haze towards Oshima, the volcanic island 20 miles or so offshore. The wind gradually picked up till we were belting along at 7 knots and had to reef both the main and the jib - all quite exciting in a heavy swell with quite a chop and a man at the front throwing buckets of water over us every now and then. White horses and sea cats all over the place. Changed tack and shot down to the southern tip of the Miura peninsula, Misaki, for lunch - an impressive spread that included tuna Chinese dumplings - maguro manju. Back across Kamakura bay to Enoshima on a broad reach, with the Sun slowly heading towards the yard arm while the Captain and his mate sat on the side looking south, singing and laughing all afternoon. Quite a privilege, as well as a joy and inspiration to see two people who have been together so long but still as happy now as they were way back then, if not more so.

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Beken of Cowes..

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When you gonna make up your mind?

When you gonna love you as much as I do?

When you gonna make up your mind?

'Cause things are gonna change so fast

All the white horses have gone ahead

I tell you that I'll always want you near

You say that things change my dear

Never change

All the white horses

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Tori Amos : Winter

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http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9574

Ichi go, ichi e

Got off the train about 9 and headed like an automaton to the long line waiting at Stand 2 for the bus to take me home, squashed in with sweaty, weary workers. Became aware of the fact that there were loads of girls in colourful summer kimono, and boys in yukata - there's a festival going on. So walked back along the coast through throngs of youth and colour, and walking from Zushi to Hayama realised the importance of location. From the sea they look pretty much identical - small towns with a beach and green wooded hills behind. But Zushi has a station, the main road runs along the back of the beach, the other side of which are a series of brightly lit bars, clubs and restaurants. The beach is covered with bamboo bars, and drunken kids who pour in on the train, letting off fireworks, shouting and screaming while the cars stream by on the main road behind. There is rubbish everywhere. Hell.

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Walk half a mile round the corner and you are in Hayama - no train, no road, no screaming kids, just the beach, the waves, a couple of relatively calm bamboo beach bars, frequented by locals with respect. As I sit and watch the Enoshima lighthouse flash across Kamakura Bay, a girl sits in the sand a few yards away and plucks her ukelele - man-made sounds complementing the natural.

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Made me realise how lucky I am, generally speaking - I often seem to end up in great places - like our valley in Italy - my marai.

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.Turner's Slave Ship, 1840

What are we?

'Cook and his men were among the few Westerners even to glimpse the old religion. But the English couldn't penetrate much beyond the surface of what they saw. "The Misteries of most Religions are very dark and not easily understud even by those who profess them," Cook wrote. Later, on his second voyage, Cook had a revealing exchange with a Raiatean chief he'd befriended.

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"He asked the name of my Marai," Cook wrote, "a strange quistion to ask Seaman." Cook interpreted the query in its narrowest sense: the chief "wanted to know the name of the place where our bodies were to return to dust." He replied with the name of the parish his family occupied in London: Stepney. Cook's second in command, Tobias Furneaux, was asked the same question and answered: "No man who used the Sea could tell where he would be buried."

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Neither man grasped that the chief may have sought something more than the name of a London churchyard. Cook's biographer J.C.Beaglehole, a New Zealander who also studied Polynesian culture, describes the marae as " an essential part of a man's social existence, and his relationship to the gods: the question was really, What place are you particularly identified with?" For a man as rootless and secular as Cook, there wasn't a ready answer to this question, even if he'd understood it.'

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From Blue Latitudes by Tony Horwitz.

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Photo of Gauguin by Mucha (?).

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Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?

Knock me down with a Feather

Don't know who William Feather was, but I find this very encouraging:

"No man is a failure who is enjoying life."

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Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

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WB Yeats

Frolicking

Whizzed down to the beach on bikes and found our way into the water for a quick dip, along with a myriad of locals frolicking al fresco in the summer heat and humidity.

That was about it for today.

Dekoboko seems to be morphing into Poetry Please this week - send your requests to jinseidekoboko@gmail.com




Fern Hill

by Dylan Thomas
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Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.
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And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.
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All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.
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And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.
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And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace,
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Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
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http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15597

Henri Matisse and Dylan Thomas

That's entertainment

Went up to Tokyo the other night - last night in fact - for the first time in a couple of months, and was reminded of why I don't go up there very often. Got out at Shibuya to change trains at 6 pm, every carriage packed to the gunwhales, but managed to squeeze in a doorway - and was then impressed by the technique used to squeeze and squash a few more sweaty bodies in to the sardine tin. They spot an empty space in the doorway large enough to put one foot in, pirouette and heave backwards - if we hadn't all been so tightly packed in the first place we would have fallen over.

Thankfully it was only one stop to Ebisu, where I found myself on the 4th floor of a shopping block in a British pub - British/Irish beer, pub grub, the Clash on the video, British bar staff. Dark, smokey - so not so British these days. My friend is playing - starts off on acoustic guitar solo, is joined by a Japanese singer for a couple of numbers, then a lead guitar and drums for some ZZ Top/U2 type stuff, then a wannabee John Otway type singer. All good stuff. Find myself mulling over just what it is to be an artist, versus an entertainer, versus a self-publicist, not for the first time, and come to little conclusion - other than an artist is someone who somehow sings for us, on our behalf, somehow, as well as for him/herself. Someone who touches something in the core of our humanity. Take Wreck on the Highway for instance, by Springsteen - he may never have witnessed a road accident, and nor may we, but we can all empathise with such a tragedy, which is what he puts into a few simple words.

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Last night I was out driving

Coming home at the end of the working day

I was riding alone through the drizzling rain

On a deserted stretch of a county two-lane

When I came upon a wreck on the highway

There was blood and glass all over

And there was nobody there but me

As the rain tumbled down hard and cold

I seen a young man lying by the side of the road

He cried Mister, won't you help me please

An ambulance finally came and took him to Riverside

I watched as they drove him away

And I thought of a girlfriend or a young wife

And a state trooper knocking in the middle of the night

To say your baby died in a wreck on the highway

Sometimes I sit up in the darkness

And I watch my baby as she sleeps

Then I climb in bed and I hold her tight

I just lay there awake in the middle of the night

Thinking 'bout the wreck on the highway

Spent today jungle-hiking up a streambed through semi-virgin forest, thence to a spectacularly excellent fish restaurant at the bottom of the hill, not five minutes from our door - one of the best meals I have had here - thence to the bamboo beach bar, with its beautiful smiling bar staff, the Pacific lapping the shore 20 yards away, fireworks... a semi-naked chef.

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Painting by Gauguin

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=evsektY_zRA

Not talking but slurping

Funny how social norms develop. Here in Japan there are so many fine tripwires for us gaijin to stumble over. I was often severely admonished, for example, by my Japanese ex-wife for sneezing loudly, a simple natural reflex action, as if I were deliberately attemting to be rude, like induced belching or farting. Another Japanese friend told me that my sneezing was a subconscious attempt to draw attention to myself, as I am naturally somewhat shy.

Eating techniques are particularly puzzling - the polite way to hold one's rice bowl, where to place one's chopsticks etc. If one slurped one's miso soup it would be considered indecorous. On the other hand, I stopped off for a quick bowl of noodles at the cheap and cheerful cafe at the station last night, where an unbelievable racket was going on all around me as four men slurped their udon down. Like I was in candid camera, or the Loudest Noodle Slurping Contest 2008. Reminded me of dogs howling across the valley, winding each other up, determined not to be drowned out by the others. If I hadn't been so hungry I might have walked out. Quite off-putting.

Robert Louis Stevenson, his wife Fanny, and friends, 1889, South Pacific.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9547

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7485331.stm

Not sailing but drifting

Had lunch in the middle of Sagami Bay surrounded by a myriad of sea birds - what the Japanese call ume-neko (sea cats). A myriad, I believe, is 10,000 - what the Japanese call man, so 10,000 is ichi-man - one myriad. One million would be 100 myriads. They were also having lunch, the birds.

The sea was flat calm but we got as far as Oiso, opposite the hotel where I'd had so much fun the other day going down water chutes with girls in bikinis - although regrettably not at the same time. From the calm of the bay, the layers of hills behind and beyond - the Tanzawa ridge, Hakone, Izu as far south as Ito, were a perfect study in greenish-blues and greys. No wind though, so we motored back. Ended up with H outside a bar run by a professional female snowboarder in Enoshima, singing our favourites from Fiddler on the Roof and the Sound of Music, well, the first lines thereof - the rest being babble-doobie-doo... . Then tried teaching a somewhat bemused lady a few dance steps on the pavement by the train station.

Not Waving But Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

Stevie Smith

Games

Everyone is into games at some level.

There may be better games than the Men's Singles Final at Wimbledon.

I hope so - and I look forward to seeing it.

George Eliot

"An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. "

"Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas".

"I like trying to get pregnant. I'm not so sure about childbirth. "

"I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out. "

"In every parting there is an image of death. "

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."

"It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them."

"More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us. "

"Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love. "

"The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone. "

"The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men. "

"The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down. "

"What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other? "

"What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined - to strengthen each other - to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories. "

"O May I Join the Choir Invisible"

Longum illud tempus, quum non ero, magis me movet, quam hoc exigium.—CICERO, ad Att., xii. 18.

O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence: live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge man's search
To vaster issues.

So to live is heaven:
To make undying music in the world,
Breathing as beauteous order that controls
With growing sway the growing life of man.
So we inherit that sweet purity
For which we struggled, failed, and agonised
With widening retrospect that bred despair.
Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,
A vicious parent shaming still its child
Poor anxious penitence, is quick dissolved;
Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies,
Die in the large and charitable air.
And all our rarer, better, truer self,
That sobbed religiously in yearning song,
That watched to ease the burthen of the world,
Laboriously tracing what must be,
And what may yet be better— saw within
A worthier image for the sanctuary,
And shaped it forth before the multitude
Divinely human, raising worship so
To higher reference more mixed with love—
That better self shall live till human Time
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky
Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb
Unread for ever.

This is life to come,
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven, be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardour, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty—
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense.
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.

George Eliot 1867

Mirrors

Japan is a great place for getting a mirror on the reality of your culture - unless you are Japanese, in which case this is reality.

We are all reflections.

Atsuko

Overwhelming, astonishing, mind-boggling. Just been to see Atsuko Temma again, again in the small auditorium of a music school - just the 70 or so seats. Her passion and technique are extraordinary - she manages to squeeze the whole of human experience, and our reactions to it, out of a small wooden box, just four strings and some horse hair, although it is a fairly unusual wooden box, being a Stradivarius.

Came out feeling somewhat drunk and dizzy - all a bit much.

Vikings, puffer fish, and the Milky Way

Today was the Official Opening of the Pools day, so after our Viking breakfast we headed down to beat the rush. A Viking, by the way, pronounced Biking, is an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet - so I had a goodly sized three-stage breakfast with lunch in mind mixture of sausages, fruit, miso soup, fish, croissants, kameboko fish cakes etc etc.

9 a.m. and we are in the main advance party to the pools, the rest of which consisted of 50 or so scantily clad 19 year olds, a half dozen of whom were in knee-length leather boots. It turned out that this event was being filmed as some kind of promotion/news item, including from an overhead helicopter, and before we could get wet we had to experience a boy band J-rapping on the diving platform, while rent-a-mob screaming girls waved ecstatically, followed by a J-Spice Girl outfit, they of the knee length boots, gyrating and crooning - I have to say that the girls got my vote.

When we finally got in, I was almost immediately told by one of the several hundred lifeguards watching our every move that I couldn't swim in my glasses, as this was dangerous. I thought about pointing out that a partially blind middle-aged swimmer might be more of a health hazard, but decided against it. I was then persuaded to go down a very high, and to my mind dangerous, water chute/tube thing, which woke me up no end, and thence into a simulated surfing chute-jobby, which was without a doubt far more dangerous than me and my glasses could ever be.

We moved on to a simulated wave pool surrounded by large rounded rocks, one of which I sat on to admire the waves. I was immediately told by a lifeguard that sitting on the rocks was dangerous, as I might slip off, and could I therefore move immediately, please, sumimasen.

Spent the afternoon whizzing about the bay in a dinghy, clambering over dangerous rocks, and generally frolicking in a hazardously liberated manner. Came across a small rocky inlet out on the island in the bay, full of killer puffer fish, fugu, swimming ecstatically in circles in what looked like milk. Was informed later that today is the one day a year that these little chaps meet up for sex. Which brings to mind the Tanabata Star Festival in Hiratsuka, which I passed through last night. Up to 3 million people (that can't be true) gather in Hiratsuka over a 4 day period, many dressed in summer kimono, and the guys in yukata (light cotton dressing gowns, type thing). The streets are full of various kinds of food stalls, and the tanabata decorated bamboo are everywhere.

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"Tanabata (七夕), meaning "Evening of the seventh", is a Japanese star festival, derived from the Chinese star festival, Qi Xi (七夕 "The Night of Sevens")．

It celebrates the meeting of Orihime (Vega) and Hikoboshi (Altair). The Milky Way, a river made from stars that crosses the sky, separates these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calendar. Since the stars come out at night, the celebration is held at night."

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"Tanabata was inspired by the famous Chinese folklore, The Princess and the Cowherd.
Orihime (織姫, Weaving Princess) the daughter of the Tentei (天帝, Sky King, or the universe itself) wove beautiful clothes by the bank of the Milky Way (天の川 Amanogawa). Her father loved the cloth that she wove and so she worked very hard every day to weave it. However, she was sad that because of her hard work she could never meet and fall in love with anyone. Concerned about his daughter, Tenkou arranged for her to meet Hikoboshi (彦星, Cow Herder Star) sometimes called Kengyuu (牽牛, Chinese name of Hikoboshi) who lived and worked on the other side of the Amanogawa River. When the two met, they fell instantly in love with each other and were shortly married. However, once married, Orihime no longer would weave cloth for Tenkou and Hikoboshi allowed his cows to stray all over Heaven. In anger, Tenkou separated the two lovers across the Amanogawa River and forbade them to meet. Orihime became despondent at the loss of her husband and asked her father to let them meet again. Tenkou was moved by his daughter’s tears and allowed the two to meet on the 7th day of the 7th month if Orihime worked hard and finished her weaving. The first time they tried to meet, however, they found that they could not cross the river because there was no bridge. Orihime cried so much that a flock of magpies came and promised to make a bridge with their wings so that she could cross the river. If it rains, the magpies cannot come and the two lovers must wait till next year."

(Wikipedia)

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Ended up in a bamboo beach bar, with pretty waitresses and hazardous fireworks going off around us.

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Starting to empathise with puffer fish and a couple of stars up there, big time.

Great Perseids and the bath

Planning ahead, one of the best meteor showers is the Perseids shower in August - up to 60 shooting stars a minute, apparently. Last year we sat round a camp fire in Italy with an amateur astronomer, who pointed out such things, adding a load of mind-boggling statistics. So I have decided to have a party on Saturday August 14th, 2010, to celebrate my half century. Put it in your diary, if you have one for 2010. That's if I'm still alive - if not please have a he-nearly-made-it-but-not-quite wake. I'll be there this August and next, warming up - one plan is for a large communal bath outside in the ruins - very Japanese.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/11jul_greatperseids.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseids

Jah

That's good - I was just heading off for a solitary supper in one of the 'family restaurants' round here when I spotted a cosy reggae ramen shop, run by a cheerful chap called Kaz, who spent 2 years in the Florida keys as a sushi chef. So there I was having a massive bowl of Chinese noodles, cooked by a Japanese, listening to music from the Caribbean. He also stuck on some acoustic Japanese reggae by a friend of his. As I left he managed to blend his cultures by bowing deeply while smiling broadly and calling out 'Think positive! Enjoy Japan! See you man!'. I'll make that a regular port of call from now on.

While we're on the subject of cross-culturalism, why is it that the Bay City Rollers, Audrey Hepburn and Anne of Green Gables are so popular in Japan?

The Sweet, Mud, Showaddywaddy? Nope - but the Bay City Rollers are mimicked every night in some karaoke bar over here.

Julie Christie? Raquel Welch? Never heard of them, but Audrey Hepburn is regularly cited as 'my hero(ine)' by my 18 year olds, and appears all over the place.

(James Curtis Hepburn, btw, invented a Roman alphabetic writing system for Japanese - coincidence?)

Anne of Green Gables is likewise some kind of superstar here - Japanese housewives throng, or aspire to, the Anne of Green Gables theme-house on Prince Edward Island. Is it because she is cute, but answers back?