The House

In two days, we will be moving to our new house.
The feeling of excitement didn't emerge until this month after we started attending details such as choices of curtains, furniture and lighting. It has been a long and tedious search, yet as the list of to-do's is getting short, the more colorful the image of the home becomes.

A couple of months ago when the house was still under construction, I did 3 sketches for the parking space outside the garden. The original plan that came with the project was rather plain and uninteresting: the entire space would be simply covered up underneath a thick layer of cement. I understand the convenience that a cement space would promise: much time would be saved from the labors of, perhaps, weeding, cleaning, watering, etc. However, I quite reisit the idea of living next to a lifeless space of cement for the future 30 years. My obstinacy then invited a challenge to visualize what I wanted.

Giving colors and shapes to ideas on paper was certainly much more affordable than making them real in reality. In the end, a fourth choice was made after budget and practicality were considered. When we visited the house last week, it was pleasant to see a bit of nature between plates of cement that we could afford to preserve.

None of the sketches was in use in the end, but it was from that moment my imagination about the home was set free.

Photo: National Geographic

Ball Lightning

News about natural disasters has been flooding in since the beginning of the summer (or much earlier). I have just seen some pictures of a wildfire in Russian, which ravaged the landscape before anyone could possibly react.

I suddenly recalled a natural phenomenon that I learnt from my Russian colleague: ball lightning. We were talking about weathers in the countries which we had visited. Her preference to minus 30 degree Celsius in Siberia than 30 degree Celsius in Japan was quite unbelievable to me. She then went on talking about a natural phenomenon, ball lightning, that is exclusively Russian. The cause and the formation of a ball lightning remain enigmatic to most scientists even today. It looks like a fire ball, basically. Its appearance, itinerary and explosion are never predictable, but dire consequences can easily be imagined. She once witnessed a ball lightning flashing into and exploding in a chimney, and the iron chimney immediately melted into a small solid chunk.

I then remembered a film that I saw with my brother about 10 to 12 years ago, Burnt by the Sun, a Russian film. Throughout the film there is a mysterious fire ball floating around in the air; no explanation is provided and no function is specifically depicted. I remember my brother simply ignored my attempt at understanding the fire ball from a psychoanalytical viewpoint. We were fairly puzzled, or perhaps just me.

When I brought up this experience, the colleague confirmed my speculation: the fire ball in the film is a ball lightning. She then suggested that the unpredictability of the ball's presence and its trajectory seems to serve as a metaphor for the surveillance of the Soviet Union under Stalin's dictatorship. No one knows what is going to happen, and everyone is watched closely.

It really made my day to have a long-term mystery solved. I can't wait to go back to the film to see how this new piece of information would shape a new understanding of the story for me.

The Cement Garden

by Ian McEwan
Vintage, 1997.

Raphael's 'Portrait of a Lady with a Unicorn'

Shortly before the beginning of the new academic year of 2010, we went to a exhibition featuring the collection from Galleria Borghese in Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. One of the major artworks of this exhibition is Raphael's 'Portrait of a Lady with a Unicorn'. Before seeing it in person, I was not entirely sure if I would like it, or if it would just be another painting by a Renaissance master to me.

It is an oil painting of 67 * 56 cm, hung on a corner in a subdued light. It was an immediate amazement when I turned around the corner to see it.
The azure color of the sky in the background (which cannot be seen in the picture here) was alluring, and the immaculate and rather expression-less face of the young woman was equally mysterious.

The artwork also had an interesting history itself. Before 1935, it was accredited to another painter, and the unicorn, which was invisible then, was covered up by another image of, as I could recall, books. After the 1935 restoration, the unicorn was revealed, and such a discovery has led scholars to believe that it was done by Raphael.



There was a steel ball outside the museum.
I miss the big bean in Chicago!

House Hunting

Our house hunting adventure began at the end of March and concluded in early May. Considering the nature of the purchase, it was a quick decision, so quick that it took much longer afterwards for the feeling of excitement to emerge.

At first, we were looking for a flat, a 'mansion' in Japanese or 'apartment' in America, for a combination of reasons, such as price, security and convenience. It was my first-ever experience to visit property sites, and every small arrangement that was employed to present the properties was simply fascinating. The visits usually began with a video-viewing session in small cinemas located in the reception halls. The videos presented an imaginary narrative about an ideal life that was to be shared by every household. Usually, it told a story of a young family: the father returned to the house in time from Shinjuku through a conveniently connected railway, he then enjoyed a fun time with his families in a nearby enormous space of nature, parents and child shared a fun time together in beautiful sunny days. Enchanting and appealing such a life was portrayed, but idealized view as such could be difficult to appreciate when an detached viewpoint was taken. Sometimes, I couldn't help smiling at the over-polished images of life and kept wondering if that was 'the' happy ending, or why it was the 'only' ending for every one.

However, I have to admit that this 'happy ending' thing has also enchanted me since I was little. In my childhood, I was always very fascinated by posters and fliers from estate agents; the neat and clean space that was drawn in advertisements always managed to seize my attention. I remember searching through piles of newspapers, collecting fliers, cutting the images of beautiful houses and apartments, and pasting them onto my sketch books to create my own ideal home. I love dolls' houses, too! Making doll's houses and creating familial relationship between the small figures that I possessed was always a pastime that I tirelessly turn to in quiet afternoons. Before I could afford to purchase model houses for the toys, I made cardboard houses and paper cars for them; I cut and tailored old clothes into dresses for their parties. That was my obsession before I was old enough to understand the concept of happy ending, and before some of my imaginations took form in reality.

Among the flats we saw, one was in a residential complex that contained more than 700 units; another, 500. Despite the fact that they were all fashionably designed, modernly furnished, and popular among first-time buyers in Tokyo, the thought of living together with another 699 or 499 families itself was somehow unthinkable to me. Living within such a big community perhaps guarantees a constant companionship; however, to make such a gigantic community machine function probably involves far more complicated orchestration that I would want to face.

Consequently, we said goodbye to the flats and redirected our search to detached houses. We were accompanied by suit-wearing agents to a variety of properties, houses still under construction, houses completed but yet sold, and houses refurbished for a second owner. I found it a peculiar experience to be regarded as 'valuable' customers. Most of the time, we were driven around, and the cars that we got on varied depending on the range of house prices that we had requested to see (I guess). One time, we had asked to see some items in a favorable residential area, which was a little bit beyond our means. We were picked up right in front of our flat by a posh-looking car, and the agent drove us around in a beautiful neighborhood. It was a quiet and sunny day, perhaps the first summery day this year. While I was sitting in the car listening to the conversation of a unfamiliar language between K and the agent, all of a sudden I recalled a Czech film, Autumn Spring.

For all these eight years after I watched this film, I have been remembering the way that the hero kept himself entertained in his retirement life. Putting on suits and ties, the hero and a friend, two retired gentlemen, pretended to be interested and wealthy buyers of expensive castles or villas. They succeeded in fooling estate agents around with props of expensive limousines, costumes and meals that they hired.

Although we meant to search for a property, I couldn't help feeling amused at the mischief of the gentleman, drawing a rather far-fetched parallel between the pleasure that he obtained and the amazement that we were thrown into, linking his desire to seek for fun in a monotonous life and our wish to compose a new rhythm for the life in the future. The time that he stole from the estate agents was devoted to his secret enjoyment; our agents' time was spent to no avail if we abandoned the choices that they had offered. I am probably too sympathetic with the estate agents at this point, given that they are usually known to be voracious. Whenever I tried to suppress my own amazement and astonishment at the high prices or luxurious interior furnishing in order to maintain an integrated look of a 'potential' buyer, I felt little difference from the mischievous gentleman.

On Chesil Beach

by Ian McEwan
London: Vintage, 2008.

On Chesil Beach is the second Ian McEwan book that I have read; the first one is Atonement.

On Chesil Beach is a short story (160 pages) about a long night, telling about the mental and physical struggles endured by a newlywed couple on their wedding night.
Their respective anxiety over, resistance to, fear of, and longing for, physical intimacy, are narrated in a voice that feels quiet and calm but powerful and enchanting. The pace of the narrative is very steady and peaceful so that the climax simply catches one off guard. After a space of several lines of the climactic moment, the narrative flow resumes its normal pace, but the narrative impact is overwhelming.
McEwan's prose is a amazingly crafted tapestry of memory. Every moment is intricately intertwined with a long lost moment in the past; every thread of thought and doubt now is interlaced either with a unnamed cause in the past or a unknown consequence in the future. The hero and heroines are trapped in a uncomfortable moment in the history of sexual revolution and torn between their own selves and the world that has made them.

What is wanting more and desiring for just enough?
How can we say what we want to say? How can we avoid being driven by what has been said?

In a scene of reasoning/arguing, the heroine tries to sum up how she has felt but fails, perhaps, to grasp the entire picture of what has been going on in her mind.

She was not sure, but she knew it was the route she was taking. 'You're always pushing me, pushing me, wanting something out of me. We can never just be. We can never just be happy. There's this constant pressure. There's always something more that you want out of me. This endless wheedling.' (p. 145)

Is it still possible to feel certain about ourselves, when every moment of being is heavily ridden with memory, laden with feelings and emotions?

The last few pages of the novel quickly numerates what then has happened to the couple over a course of 50 years after the wedding night. The life of the total 50 years flies across the pages, so rapidly and so forward-moving, as if nothing is worth mentioning after that key moment of the wedding night. How true it is, sometimes, that many of the lives are pinned down at a certain moment/second of loss and regret despite that the course of time relentlessly continues.

What I saw, had, and enjoyed these days

Eryngii has been a recent favorite on our dinner table. This type of mushrooms is full of texture and flavor either fried with asparagus or just simply baked with butter.
I also love the way that it is presented in the supermarket. They always come in a pair: one is always bigger than the other. They are always presented with a taste for elegance in a black container wrapped up nicely with film. The two eryngii are always placed side by side, as if they are just inseparable.

The ground coffee is a nice surprise from C in the beginning of the year. The green can is such a beautiful object for gaze itself, reminiscent of the beautiful Easter and St. Patrick's day in spring and the aroma of coffee late at night on Siward street.







This is a public art, entitled 'Three Piglets', that I found in Ueno station in Tokyo. I was attracted to the colors and the piglets (one of my favorite object for research and curiosity), but a close-up view might provoke unpleasant imagination.

Mercer Art Gallery in Harrogate

I was reminded of a small city, Harrogate, the other day. The lady and I talked about Durham, York and a city nearby which is know for its hot spring and the Betty's tea house. We couldn't recall the name even after the afternoon tea came to an end. I asked K what the place is called at the breakfast table, and, to my surprise, he came up with the word, Harrogate, without any effort. The lady friend also texted me to say that the place name popped up in her mind around midnight.

Recently, I became very cautious of the situation that some terms and names that were used and encountered daily during my stay in the UK are no longer familiar. Last week, coincidentally, it took me almost two days to remember the name of the debit card that overseas students use in that country: Solo card.

My memory about Harrogate started to take shape after the place name was recalled.

In 2007, C and I made a day trip to the Mercer Art Gallery in Harrogate to see the exhibition of William Powell Frith, a Victorian artist painting his contemporary world. It was my first and last visit to the town, but a good time was spent there with a beautiful and nice friend.

Another play by Shakespeare

BBC

'Double Falsehood', a play that was discovered around 300 years ago, was recently credited to William Shakespeare. It is believed to be a work of collaboration between Shakespeare and another playwright, John Fletcher.
'Double Falsehood' is now included in, and published, by the Arden Shakespeare.

I am still waiting to see more debate about this 'discovery', but the news itself is exciting enough for people who enjoy the bard's talent and wit.

Treasures of the Imperial Collections: Splendor of Japanese Art
皇室の名宝ー日本美の華

01/10/2009~03/11/2009
Tokyo National Museum


At the end of last year, K and I went to an exhibition of the collections by the imperial family of Japan, an event that commemorated the emperor's 20th anniversary of coronation. The showpieces all belong to the Museum of the Imperial Collections (三の丸尚藏館) in the imperial palace.
The event was very well-advertised and much anticipated by the public.
The day of our visit was, as expected, another busy one in the museum. It was not easy to appreciate beautiful details of paintings when viewers jostled against each other. However, I did manage to see things that I had never seen, imagination that I had never encountered, colors that I had never thought of, and the nostalgic taste of the past that I have always enjoyed.

One of the biggest stars in the exhibition was the Chinese Lions by Kano Eitoku (狩野永徳)

source of picture

The weighty presence of the painted screen itself was amazing enough. I have always thought that traditional Japanese paintings seem to have already started to cultivate a manga culture which is in its full bloom now. Circular shape and curvy lines render the 2 lions playful big cats rather than fearful kings of the forest.

Another highlight of the show was the collection of the 30 paintings of living creatures by Ito Jakuchuu's (伊藤若沖). The 30 items are presented in an array of vibrant colors, which give flesh and bones to the painter's amazing observation on the world of animals. Ito's work has found great popularity both inside and outside Japan. Although he has been more or less considered to be an artist appealing to a popular taste, the confidence and eaze behind the strokes is very compelling. His works are also tainted with a comical sense, a style which I tend to associate with the art trend in a much later date.

One of my favorite among the 30 items is The Fishes.

Source:「魚群図」

In the centre, the mother octopus is swimming to the right against a school of fish aiming toward the left. On the far end of one of her legs, a baby octopus clings tight to her. I was very amazed at the detail indeed, over-joyed with such an unexpected thought! The addition of the baby cleverly balances the organization of the painting in which the weight of attention concentrates on the space on the right side. Although the baby is on the far left, its small presence redirects the attention to itself. The mom's long leg connects both sides, serving to lead the gaze of its viewers. A clever and comical touch that Jakuchuu added to the work!

I was also very fond of Sakai Houichi's (酒井抱一) paintings of the twelve months,

Source

If Jakuchuu's style is imposing, the quietude and harmony in the 12 months calm the excitement in the viewers who came out of Jakuchuu's showroom.

Another highlight, I reckon, was the "Watermelon" by Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎）.

At first sight, there were a strange feeling of ill-proportion and a awkardness of suspension (the knife). The color and style seem to be too modern to be traditional. However, the immediate thought of a splashy watermelon and the cooling air that the smell of the fruit could produce are all beautifully felt in the piece of white damp cloth, which is damp with the juice of the watermelon.

How to Japan: A Tokyo Correspondent's Take
by Colin Joyce

Alice Walker
In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women
London: The Women's Press Limited, 1984.

Nine Stories

J.B. Salinger
Back Bay Books (2001)

We bought a new rice bowl in a sale.

A rabbit waits to reward the person who enjoys a nice meal.

Cinema at Home

ちえ(Chie)

M, my course mate in a Japanese course, is a big Miyazaki fan. He recommended Chie to me, a Gibly studio-associated production.

The style of drawing is not typically Miyazaki, and the reality setting, in spite of the appearances of 3 superpower cats, is far from the colorful and unconfined imaginary worlds that Miyazaki's works usually feature.

I watched it in French (M's DVD only provided 2 choices: French or Japanese) and managed to understand most of the story, but, inevitably, I must have missed some details that are only disclosed in dialogues . Some episodes and transitions remained unexplained to me, I am afraid.
I like the story which develops along with Chie's simple and everyday life, especially when she struggles to run a barbecue business in order to support herself and her lazy father, and when she acts her optimism when being faced with her parents' divorce. Yet, I don't quite understand another story line which introduces a family feud between 3 cats. Their presence is funny for sure, but I am not yet convinced that they are in any way essential to the narrative.


The Nightmare Before Christmas

I watched this film for one of my classes before Christmas.
K's brother loved the film as a tragedy. He told me that the story is about the fate that one can never be someone else.
What he said is interesting, I think. Does it mean that someone else is always closer to one's ideal self? Isn't it more difficult to just be oneself?
Or is one's own self always an inconvenient fact that s/he wants to avoid?


Ponyo

Ponyo is very much a Miyazaki film, presented in vibrant colors and structured by an incredible imagination.

I am not particularly fond of the story itself. What I have enjoyed most in Miyazaki films is the feeling of texture that he can accurately create: the textures of bubbles, jelly fish, ocean waves, and nature. I remember when Ponyo's goldfish siblings try to release their elder sister from a bubble that confines her, they gnawed at the bubble with their toothless mouths. The sound effect and the image work perfectly together that it creates a wonderful sensation of itchiness on the skin as if one's also experiencing thousands of gentle kisses.

Ponyo is such an energetic 4-year-old girl! She does not seem to stop running until she gets where she wants, a very typical Miyazaki character driven by her innocent and powerful determination.

Cinema at Home

K and I watched some films together to celebrate the end of the year.

I haven't been to the cinema much after I left York, and much less after busy everyday life and language barrier have inconvenienced my leisure life.

Well, language barrier is just an easy excuse. The main reason is probably that I have tried to avoid the feeling of disappointment that might inflict on me after unsatisfactory viewings.

It is rather a stupid reason somehow, as so many good stories are simply missed. Perhaps, there is no such a thing as 'bad' story, as I have often argued with K in the aspect of literature. The deciding factors to one's enjoyment are his/her preference and interpretive approach. Whatever story gives pleasure, whatever pleasure it is. More precisely displeasure is also a kind of experience, I would think.


The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon is a BBC documentary about Mitchell and Kenyon's business of filming their town people around a century ago when film was just a totally new idea to the world.
I heard about the discovery of the lost trove of M & K's film reels around 2 (?) years ago when I was still in the UK. The news came with a photo of the first-ever filmed official football match. The news was interesting, but seeing the documentary itself was even more fascinating. M & K's business was to propose to film people (mostly the working class) and invite them to pay to see themselves in the theatre.
This business idea fascinated me in that it played with the curiosity of the public about their own images and about this new invention in the world.

M&K seldom made stories (except some attempts), but the everyday-life images that it collected around the Edwardian period are themselves fascinating reflections of a foregone past.

I was amused and surprised.


Changeling

Director: Clint Eastwood

Changeling is an adaption of a real case in 1928 in Los Angeles. The story is saddening, but it was compelling with the dialogues nicely written and acting impressively carried out.

It was probably my first time to see and to remember Angelina Jolie in a film. It is a story about a mom's unending search for her son throughout her life and her fight against the corrupted and dysfunctional police system in the first half of the twentieth century in California. I think AJ's acting is great in general, especially when she is performing the role of Mrs Collins as a determined and clear-minded woman. There are moments, however, when I felt that the actress fails to convince me that she is as attached to her son as she should have been. She does not really show strong attachment to her son, for instance, no hug, kiss, or affectionate conversation is portrayed when Mrs Collins and Walter, her son, spend time together.
Or is it simply my misconception of familial attachment? Maybe it is precisely the reality that the emotional tie between family members is not usually visible and does not need to take the form of physical contact at all.

Frozen Britain

Source: BBC Photo

Recent reads

Jhumpa Lahiri
Interpreter of Maladies
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999.

I have spent the entire new year holiday struggling with a bad cold. Nothing much I could do except sneezing, coughing, blowing my nose and sleeping away the joyous time of celebration. In some moments that I was able to stay awake, I managed to finish reading Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, which I had started reading about a month ago.

I always prefer short stories to fictions or novels as the moderate size of the former is more friendly to my attention which easily loses its power of concentration.

I do enjoy most of the stories in this collection. They do not feature dramatic moments that attempt to astound or impress readers. Instead, Lahiri narrates in a peaceful, quiet, and matter-of-fact style the pain, joy, struggle, failure and survival of Indian immigrants in England, United States, or back in the native country.

The sense of pain and loss that some characters suffer from remains powerful through the narrator's quiet and observatory tone of narration. It engages my thought as if the steady pace of the narrative is stroking my nerve gently and regularly till the end. The author does not try to hammer into readers anything that she writes, but it simply grips attention. I love some of the stories which end with unresolved loss and longing, a kind of incompleteness that stories of immigrants usually share. Some are presented through the viewpoints of children adding humor to or emphasizing the endured suffering. Some are about aspiration, self-delusion, and disillusion.

Of course, there is also a small number of some tuning the song of survival in the end. However, to be honest, I find them somehow unfitting to the collection, a collection of stories about how individuals struggle to fit into their new world. Positive and happy ending is what we need in reality, but sometimes I think a short story is at its best when it does not conclude the plight, and it is more effective when it continues to provoke thoughts rather than to soothe the sufferers.