Sorry-ology

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...

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 immed...

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 imag...

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 o...

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 fut...

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 m...

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...

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 20 th 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 scree...

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 intro...

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...

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 suff...