BLAZING TOILETS

The serene Japanese art of toiletics has always been something of an aesthetic experience for those who could afford it; as for example back in the 16th century, Takeda Shingen's lacquered box with gripping bar, set in the floor at the center of a large, calm tatami room (when his task was completed, Shingen shouted "Finished!" to a retainer just outside the door who in turn shouted the command onward like a voice brigade to another retainer who, holding a big bucketful of water, stood at the ready before a lacquered chute and upon hearing the word, dumped the water into the chute, thereby flushing the contents of the lacquered box out into the serene pond in the lovely garden, which may be one reason Shingen changed residences a lot.

Anyway, now that modern Japanese can fork over several thousand bucks for a top-of-the-line shoutless toilet that looks like it could get you to Mars and back (the popular Z series - not sold overseas; you don't know what you're missing over there - features a pulsating massage spray, a power dryer, built-in-the-bowl deodorizing filter, the “Tornado Wash” flush and a lid that opens and closes automatically), and now that so many households can afford at least a simulacrum of the Toiletship Enterprise "To boldly go," etc. (which topic I touched upon in a much earlier post regarding my foray into the Japanese toilet market -- we settled on a Model A), competition for multi-accessory toilet marketshare is steadily intensifying. Is it any wonder then, that in this mad rush to be first in the nation's bathroom - as though this were a house full of teenagers - a manufacturer might overlook a small safety problem that could lead to flaming posteriors?

In hindsight, so to speak, it's easy to criticize Toto, pioneer in hi-tech toilets and a name known to all toilet users in Japan (especially males, who get to stare at the logo) and the maker of the unfortunately blazing toilets, who are offering free repairs to 180,000 toiletships across the nation, after 26 of their sanitary craft overheated and three burst into flame, fortunately while not in use, but it's only a matter of time...

As for me, I'm really not interested in getting to Mars.

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Second Japanese Toilet Maker on 'Hot Seat'

GIFT OF THE CRAZY BIRD

The crazy bird yelled his extended and manically repetitive klaxon call from a tree branch right next to my open window before dawn this morning (I've never seen a crazy bird, they only scream at the dark edge of morning while I'm sleeping), levitating me to such a height that I gave up and got up earlier than I would have, so was privileged to stand at the loft railing just as the sun was clearing the mountains across the lake and filling all that water with molten gold. It was like looking into an outdoor-sized gold foundry, while at the edges the distant reaches of Shiga were taking on that hazy gray-blue you run into at the far side of imagining, which is always a good place to be, especially before breakfast, which I ate while watching the rest of the gold get poured into the mold of the day. Thanks, crazy bird. But maybe you could yell somewhere else tomorrow morning?

EIGHT VIEWS OF MT. FUJI BY NTT LIVE CAM


Just click on thru...
(Too cloudy this morning, but
hourly images in boxes below view.)

w/thanks to Achikochi

under the village cherry trees
I've never looked
so up

OMIKOSHI ROCK ON...

Yesterday being a fine afternoon, Echo and I went to see latter part of the multi-phased Sanno-sai festival, one portion of which I described in Omikoshi Rock, in which the several omikoshi from the splendid mountain precincts of Hiyoshi Taisha are brought down for "birth" in the Yomiya otoshi ceremony, but we hadn't yet gotten to see the subsequent phase of the multi-day festival (the entire ceremonial proceeding actually takes about 6 weeks).

I'd previously noticed the big torii that was standing by the lakeside on some otherwise empty land next to a nice little park beside the road into Otsu, but I hadn't known how the place was used, never connected it to the Sanno-sai. But yesterday being the afternoon it was, Echo and I went to see this part of the festival and that's where it was held. The day after Yomiya otoshi, the seven large and heavy omikoshi were brought down to the shore and loaded onto a barge by the young muscular guys who were doing all the extended rocking the night before.

Pumped full of energy from last night and ready to go, the fundoshi-clad groups rocked and loaded the heavy omikoshi onto the ceremoniously decorated barge that was moored at the torii (on the barge, note the four bamboo poles at the corners, linked with straw rope hung with shide that sacredize a space), then when all omikoshi were boarded, the barge pulled away and ceremonially sailed on the lake for an hour or so. The photos below show from loading to departure.

Free basic and intermediate Japanese lessons from NHK online

AND SO IT GOES...

"I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center."

Kurt Vonnegut 1922 - 2007

Neighborhood Shinto shrine in Otsu at cherry blossom peak

THE LORD PROCLAIMS HIS DOMINION

This morning as I was gazing trainwaitingly over the same lakeside strip of land regarding which last week I posted about the ducks landing and feeding there (today the ducks were feeding further to the north on the strip), my blurgaze was suddenly focused by a loud squawk from right out there in the golden stubble of the Spring wildfield, the 'there' concurrently advertised by a bright flurry of flashing wings.

It was Lord Pheasant atop one of the many low promontories that stud his realm, a wild Chanticleer every few minutes briefly proclaiming his dominion over all the lands hereabouts in no uncertain terms, brooking no argument and getting none. Strutting, preening and gleaming like any natural tyrant, he paraded the pinnacle of his eminent worthiness as his harem fed invisibly in the bent grasses of the lower places around him.

In the last couple of years several houses have gone up here and there on the Lord's vast territory and encroached on the necessary wildness of his birthright, but he doesn't seem to mind since he owns the houses as well, to say nothing of the sky, the lake and the railway, all of which his worship graciously permits us unfeathered, earthbound creatures to employ in getting cumbersomely from here to there for all the incomprehensible purposes we seem to have.

He would not be amused to learn that these creatures have named him the national bird.

FIFTH ANNIVERSARY

It's hard to believe that this month marks the fifth anniversary of Pure Land Mountain. Seems like only a year and a half ago it all started here...

DAYTROTTER MUSIC

"These fine people – as they're traveling through America's heartland – take two hours out of their travels between shows to stop in for a Daytrotter Session at Futureappletree Studio One in downtown Rock Island, Ill... What they leave behind is a pile of ashes, sometimes a forgotten stocking hat and four absolutely collectible songs that often impart on whomever listens to them the true intensity that these musicians put into their art, sometimes with more clarity than they do when they have months to tinker with overdubs and experiments. These songs are them as they are on that particular day, on that particular tour – dirty and alive. We want you to make this your new home as it is ours. We promise that you will love it here."

Daytrotter

I've just begun to explore all the free music at Daytrotter, so far I particularly like The Seedling by Bonnie Prince Billy; good music, good lyrics, uniquely sung...

via Metafilter

THE CURSE OF SANTAYANA
Now that I've lived this long, I can say one thing for certain: those who cannot remember the past are condemned to hear that damned Santayana quote for the rest of their lives.

RAINGUTTERS et seq.

Today was a just-right sunny day with a bit of cooling wind so I decide to take a break from hauling and splitting, and clean the rain gutters instead, this time in advance of rainy season; usually I do it in severe downpours, which says a lot about my character.

My old character, that is, since now that I'm doing the task ahead of time, I've clearly turned a new leaf. But I've done that before, so I'm not really fooled - though it feels good nevertheless - and at the next heavy storm I'll enjoy staying inside and watching the downpour instead of cursing and wondering where the hell I put my poncho last year.

So it was that from early this morning I was climbing ladders and dangling from various eaves around the house, working to foil the collaborative attempts of the wind and all these trees to jam their leaves and needles (oaks, cherries, cedars et al.) into the narrow rain gutters, which they do with impressive ingenuity. I've devised a series of stepped screens in the gutters, but I can see that the elements and the forests are evolving hard to get around my tricks and clog up the main downlet.

So I have to be the Edison, the Einstein, the very Argus of raingutterists if I am to have anything I can rely upon to gutter the rain, I muse as I hang one-handed from a corner eave with one foot on the ladder in a stiffening wind, bending a gutterscreen into place, but how does that differ from anything else in life I muse a moment later as I reach barehanded into the sludge-filled gutter and scrape the contents out onto the ladder, the deck, myself and some laundry Echo hung out there that I didn't see. Have to tweak the system for that, and stay alert.

Our jerry built rain-drainage system also relies on some ground culverts: one in back into which the rain gutter empties, and one in front to catch front eave runoff, the whole then emptying via underground pipe into the culvert that runs down the roadside. But since the grade of the road is so steep, all the rain runoff flooding down the road toward us hits our road culvert and there deposits much of the upmountain sedimental downwash from paddies and forests, with hydraulic effect sufficient to lift the culvert grates high and shove them on downward or just bury them in place.

This sediment, though a curse, is also (with a lot of work) a blessing, because each Spring it provides me with wheelbarrows full of superior and naturally composted soil, with lots of earthworms who came along for the ride, made the culvert their home and began to raise their families in that ideal environment.

So as part of my rainguttering I have to clear the road culvert of its rich soil into the wheelbarrow and roll it back to dump on the garden, which believe it or not, brings me to my point, such as it is. I was getting out the soil using shovels of varying sizes and clipping off the long rootcables of bamboo that love to snake for meters along the culvert bottoms to new places, when I cleared a shovelful of soil and saw the back end of a hibernating frog sticking out of the soil in the bottom of the culvert.

Thinking I might have injured him with my huge metal monster of a shovel, I pulled the frog out of the muck and set him on a nearby rock in the sun to look him over. But in his desire for hibernation he was so sleepy and groggy he hadn't noticed a thing, and still didn't. At least he was still intact. The look on his face reminded me of the face I used to see in the mirror the morning after a fraternity party.

At least he'll get an early start this year, with whatever his equivalent of raingutters is.

GODFATHER TIME

Echo tells me that while I was off at work in the big city on Friday a gang of monkeys came for their vig, a half-dozen mid-level operatives in the simian mafia swaggering around like they owned the place, and when they found out that I had taken all the mushrooms for myself, they swung from the trees in disbelief. This kind of personal insult is very disturbing to a bunch of made apes. It's the image, you know, the reputation, a matter of respect. They were very upset.

Echo chased them away a few times, but they just kept coming back to stare at the empty mushroom logs, turning them over, shaking their heads and screeching at each other, biting the logs in incredulity, scratching their armpits and trying to think, but I guess that didn't work.

After a while they took their frustration and disappointment out on the young lettuce. They even pulled up some heads and bit off leaves of others. They never eat lettuce, who are they kidding. They just wanted to show me who the hell's in charge here, but if they think some hairy illiterate thugs are gonna make me fork over my hard-earned mushrooms, they don't know I'm from Neeyawk.

They try that while I'm at home, it's Godfather time. Fuggeddaboddit.

One of my favorite Kaya fotos,
taken during a winter morning walk
a few years ago, when she'd just turned three.

ALL IN A MORNING'S WORK

This bright blue morning I was standing on the elevated train platform down by the lakeshore, waiting for the train to the big city and gazing out at the lake, when I noticed a flock of about a dozen geese flying by at eye level. They circled and came back low; I watched them from above so could see the light patterns they present to an overhead view while flying, probably very effective against raptor birds, the effect of their rapid wingbeats and light/dark coloration resembling brief glimmers of sunlit water...

They rose and turned as one, flew off and came back, all this time over the dry unharrowed rice paddies by the lakeside, the paddies now greening with the first tender weed buds of Spring. Back and forth the ducks flew, high and low, searching for the ideal spot in all that new softness: a spot rich in breakfast, yet with sufficient distance on all sides from predator hiding places.

They were selecting very carefully: here? no... here? no... It took a while, and a lot of flying energy, but finally they selected a spot right down there in front of me and made their landings. Being used to landing on water, seems they land on land in much the same way. The new grasses being soft, but fluffy, the ducks didn't glide in and water-ski to a graceful halt as usual, but sort of slid a bit on their hind ends, then as soon as their feet got tangled in the grass they flopped forward onto their beaks in a brief three-point landing, all in a morning's work.

From that point the bright males waddled around nibbling buds to their hearts' content; the females, their responsibilities being so much greater, were practically invisible.

Just posted The Salamander Legacy
at
The Blog Brothers

YELLOW DUST

A couple of evenings ago I looked out the high windows from the loft for my usual fading-light view of the Lake and noticed that the air was not only a bit mistier than it often is at dusk in Spring, it was also strangely colored; the unsettling yellowish-orange tint to the air reminded me of LA back in the fifties and sixties, but this had no eye-sting to it, no nose-burning odor.

The next morning I went out to go to work and the morning had a yellow tinge to it; what's more, the black seat of my motorcycle was now yellow. Then I remembered all the yellow days in Tokyo back in the seventies when I lived there, the kousa days that came in early Spring, when the high winds lifted up the dust from the Gobi Desert in China and blew it all the way to Japan. I hadn't noticed it this far south before, but here it was, dusting everything a light yellow, including me. The dust is ranging further lately, reaching all the way to Hawaii this year. And apparently the recent Spring winds from China are carrying more than dust.

TO GET BACK TO GARDENING...

"'These studies help us understand how the body communicates with the brain and why a healthy immune system is important for maintaining mental health. They also leave us wondering if we shouldn't all be spending more time playing in the dirt.'

Interest in the project arose after human cancer patients being treated with the bacteria Mycobacterium vaccae unexpectedly reported increases in their quality of life."

Medical News Today

ANPANMAN SNACK

A popular kidsnack right at kid eye level in the supermarket. The character is the ageless Anpanman (Kaya is a big fan of his). The little baby milk bottle character on the left says "Contains Milk Calcium!" On the right, Anpanman's girlfriend Melonpanna (from melon bread, another "pastry" favorite among kids) says "Contains no peanuts!" as nutitional awareness and increasing allergies find their place in commerce, possibly due to all the off-the-shelf snacks fed to kids...

BRADY 50, MONKEYS ZERO

I don't know where they are these days, all those no-account marauders, they must have jobs or something in the city, because I've been snagging major mushroom output from my shiitake logs for a week now, in the morning I walk to the mushroom sector in complete confidence and find fruition there, nothing says 'Here I am!' like a ready shiitake mushroom, its moist brown round wings outspread in a unique show of deliciousness soon enjoyed.

Amid such largesse I take all the biggest ones, leave the others to grow bigger yet, and even if the monkeys were to come today while I'm not looking, it is as nothing to me, for I'm too far ahead this year for the hairy losers ever to catch up to my score, I'm already many dozens of mushrooms ahead in this lopsided contest, put a big five-oh up on the scoreboard just today, setting a new record for one morning, those turkeys are just gonna have to find another line of work, which I suppose they're busy doing right now. Clearly not much future for them in the mushroom line.