~~~~~~~
FROG LIT
Last night after dinner, having dived under the table to catch the frog, the frog that in the froggy hoppy way kept hopping froggy just out of reach (the crafty cold-blooded creature having earlier managed to hop out of the rain and into the house when the door was held open for a moment to shake a raincoat), I was just about to grab him (most frogs I write about are male for some reason) when all at once His Greenness stopped and, forelimbs akimbo in a forthright pose, gazed earnestly upward at the towering stack of books under the table.
I stopped too, intrigued by this amphibian's sudden intellectual attitude as he virtually sought to grasp the ungraspable in all its glory, gazing much as we gaze at the stars, arrayed there before him like a cosmos of knowledge, drawn perhaps by titles that had nothing whatsoever to do with frogs, which no doubt was a first for him. Or perhaps he felt dwarfed by the multifrog size of a stack of a literature comprising other than endlessly intoned repetitions of ribbet; in any case, he froze at the grand sight, obviating the need for me to call upon my boyhood-acquired amphibian-outsmarting wiles; I captured him no problem.
He squirmed coldly and damply in my hand, seeking a way out as though eager to get on with his studies; but I, sensing that his time had not yet come, particularly in my kitchen, put the knowledge-hungry beastie outside into the damp dark where countless of his fellows were intoning repetitive but earnest ancient songs about frog life in damp darkness. The story of his adventure will likely be a source of some humor in froggy academic circles.
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
~~~~~~~
UNLIKE ONIONS
Spent most of yesterday firewooding, having the day before bucked about a half dozen large trees up in the forest gift.
Interesting challenge, working with chainsaw in the wild natural tangle of strangler vines (mostly wild wisteria) and thorny undergrowth, all compounded by the fact that the trees in this cluster had been felled toward one focus, creating a pyramidic interlacing of vines, branches, trunks, stumps roots and under/overgrowth, the resulting tensions so complex that when I cut something I never knew which way it was going to suddenly whang: in my face or at my shin, or just fall on my foot or maybe kick back into the general area of my existence, as the trimmed branches left spearing the air now and then lifted my hat off, caught my hair or maybe poked me a good one in the eye, or just tickled my neck in arboreal mischief. Makes you wise and cautious, up there among the woody limbs and trunks just waiting to get their own back. Trees can be devilishly clever, especially when they work in concert.
Then at last it was all bucked and in sections on the newly sunlit ground, which I dampened with gallons of additional sweat as I tossed the sections as far as possible toward the van, then again and again, thus toss-marching them some distance, then loading them, then unloading and carrying them to the chopping stump, where they piled taller than me, a pleasant intimidation, the 10-inch-diameter lengths splitting to a fine whiteness that turns to gold after its been stacked in the air and sun awhile, and indeed it is gold: same thing. Ask any woodster. Burns better, though. And another pleasure: unlike onions, it's of no interest to monkeys.
UNLIKE ONIONS
Spent most of yesterday firewooding, having the day before bucked about a half dozen large trees up in the forest gift.
Interesting challenge, working with chainsaw in the wild natural tangle of strangler vines (mostly wild wisteria) and thorny undergrowth, all compounded by the fact that the trees in this cluster had been felled toward one focus, creating a pyramidic interlacing of vines, branches, trunks, stumps roots and under/overgrowth, the resulting tensions so complex that when I cut something I never knew which way it was going to suddenly whang: in my face or at my shin, or just fall on my foot or maybe kick back into the general area of my existence, as the trimmed branches left spearing the air now and then lifted my hat off, caught my hair or maybe poked me a good one in the eye, or just tickled my neck in arboreal mischief. Makes you wise and cautious, up there among the woody limbs and trunks just waiting to get their own back. Trees can be devilishly clever, especially when they work in concert.
Then at last it was all bucked and in sections on the newly sunlit ground, which I dampened with gallons of additional sweat as I tossed the sections as far as possible toward the van, then again and again, thus toss-marching them some distance, then loading them, then unloading and carrying them to the chopping stump, where they piled taller than me, a pleasant intimidation, the 10-inch-diameter lengths splitting to a fine whiteness that turns to gold after its been stacked in the air and sun awhile, and indeed it is gold: same thing. Ask any woodster. Burns better, though. And another pleasure: unlike onions, it's of no interest to monkeys.
Sunday, March 28, 2004
Saturday, March 27, 2004
~~~~~~~
FACTS PAIN DR. RICE
"I don't think anybody could have predicted that those people. . . would try to use an airplane as a missile."
It has always stuck me as odd that a couple guys in a cave could come up with an idea that was beyond the furthest ken of the entire US security apparatus. But then Dr. Rice didn't get where she is today by telling truths.
(Subscription required, but avoidable via the very useful bugmenot.com)
FACTS PAIN DR. RICE
"I don't think anybody could have predicted that those people. . . would try to use an airplane as a missile."
--Condoleezza Rice
It has always stuck me as odd that a couple guys in a cave could come up with an idea that was beyond the furthest ken of the entire US security apparatus. But then Dr. Rice didn't get where she is today by telling truths.
(Subscription required, but avoidable via the very useful bugmenot.com)
Friday, March 26, 2004
~~~~~~~
Thus begins the foreword to these epics for our time, from The Rage of George through Ichor of the Gods to Denouement, translated from the original English by Victor Littlebear.
"As vividly described 2,500 years ago in Homer's epic poems of the battle of Troy and the struggle of one warrior to return home, The Iliad and The Odyssey, war is the product of powerful, ambitious, often insecure men who have difficulty separating their personal motivations from those of the state..."
Thus begins the foreword to these epics for our time, from The Rage of George through Ichor of the Gods to Denouement, translated from the original English by Victor Littlebear.
Over breakfast, Sly Ashcroft, who taps into
George's mind much as he does his phone,
Lays down his counsel to this Prince, this
Leader risen through his family's honor to
Take his place in hallowed history,
And wield the presidential scepter.
George's mind much as he does his phone,
Lays down his counsel to this Prince, this
Leader risen through his family's honor to
Take his place in hallowed history,
And wield the presidential scepter.
With a tip of the shield to Ken Rodgers...
~~~~~~~
JAWBONES
Humans evolved big brains to deal with small jaws say the scientists, who in their scramble to support and refute this hypothesis are overlooking the one key evolutionary factor they're exemplifying, that came with smaller jaws: the ability to talk endlessly. Why just this morning on the train...
As to where the ability to jaw endlessly in many realms will lead us, just attend any political rally, go to any religious revival, crash any rap concert, if you want to see some full-blown jawboning; at the other end of the mandibular spectrum there's literature, a quiet form of jawboning, but even small jawbones aren't really made for reading...
As for finding any meaning in all this, jawboning duration is proportionately inverse to its substance, as all sapient beings know, thanks perhaps to the size of their jaws, which in affording room for their brains to expand, enabled humans to evolve to a level of intelligence sufficient to refute their own jaw-given hypotheses.
JAWBONES
Humans evolved big brains to deal with small jaws say the scientists, who in their scramble to support and refute this hypothesis are overlooking the one key evolutionary factor they're exemplifying, that came with smaller jaws: the ability to talk endlessly. Why just this morning on the train...
As to where the ability to jaw endlessly in many realms will lead us, just attend any political rally, go to any religious revival, crash any rap concert, if you want to see some full-blown jawboning; at the other end of the mandibular spectrum there's literature, a quiet form of jawboning, but even small jawbones aren't really made for reading...
As for finding any meaning in all this, jawboning duration is proportionately inverse to its substance, as all sapient beings know, thanks perhaps to the size of their jaws, which in affording room for their brains to expand, enabled humans to evolve to a level of intelligence sufficient to refute their own jaw-given hypotheses.
~~~~~~~
DOJ ASKED FBI TRANSLATOR TO CHANGE PRE-9-11 INTERCEPTS
"Attorney General John Ashcroft told me 'he was invoking State Secret Privilege and National Security' when I told the FBI I wanted to go public with what I had translated from the pre 9-11 intercepts.
I appeared once on CBS 60 Minutes but I have been silenced by Mr. Ashcroft, the FBI follows me, and I was threatened with jail in 2002 if I went public."
DOJ ASKED FBI TRANSLATOR TO CHANGE PRE-9-11 INTERCEPTS
"Attorney General John Ashcroft told me 'he was invoking State Secret Privilege and National Security' when I told the FBI I wanted to go public with what I had translated from the pre 9-11 intercepts.
I appeared once on CBS 60 Minutes but I have been silenced by Mr. Ashcroft, the FBI follows me, and I was threatened with jail in 2002 if I went public."
Full article at Tom Flocco.
~~~~~~~
FREE JAPANESE LESSONS ONLINE.
With sound files, and in later lessons, kana. Math lessons, too.
FREE JAPANESE LESSONS ONLINE.
With sound files, and in later lessons, kana. Math lessons, too.
Thursday, March 25, 2004
~~~~~~~
IN DEFENSE OF ANKO
Attentive readers of these chronicles of irregular quality will have noted here and there postings of varyingly sour degree relating to Japanese desserts, as they are called, despite their obvious disparity from the Western conception of that term. There are many Westerners here in Japan who, though they can't talk at the moment because they have something neither here nor there in their mouths, would argue that in terms of flavorsavor, traditional Japanese desserts are definitely from, shall we be circumspect, elsewhere on the planet.
In defense of traditional Japanese desserts I must say that at this point in the discussion I usually stand there quietly kicking my shoe in the dirt and studying the distant horizon, because as long as I've been in Japan, I've been unable to come up with more than a mere trifle of an argument in defense of anko and its myriad manifestations. Who could like yokan, for instance, who was not born here? And even then? Take a large containerful or so of agar, add three large containerfuls or so of sugar and two large containerfuls or so of adzuki bean flour, let it set for a while and there you are. Why you are there, however, beats me.
As the facts plainly indicate, the Japanodessert plaintiffs lining up around the block to get into this moot court do have a point, and since those individuals have been rendered temporarily inarticulate perhaps because they just got dumbsided by a chunk of yokan they thought was some kind of chocolate fudge, or a jelly donut that was in fact filled with adzuki bean paste, I will serve as their spokesman pro tem; they can take over whenever they recover; it varies.
Let this brief puffery be the shot across the bow of the Good Ship Amanatto.
And for dessert, there's beans...
IN DEFENSE OF ANKO
Attentive readers of these chronicles of irregular quality will have noted here and there postings of varyingly sour degree relating to Japanese desserts, as they are called, despite their obvious disparity from the Western conception of that term. There are many Westerners here in Japan who, though they can't talk at the moment because they have something neither here nor there in their mouths, would argue that in terms of flavorsavor, traditional Japanese desserts are definitely from, shall we be circumspect, elsewhere on the planet.
In defense of traditional Japanese desserts I must say that at this point in the discussion I usually stand there quietly kicking my shoe in the dirt and studying the distant horizon, because as long as I've been in Japan, I've been unable to come up with more than a mere trifle of an argument in defense of anko and its myriad manifestations. Who could like yokan, for instance, who was not born here? And even then? Take a large containerful or so of agar, add three large containerfuls or so of sugar and two large containerfuls or so of adzuki bean flour, let it set for a while and there you are. Why you are there, however, beats me.
As the facts plainly indicate, the Japanodessert plaintiffs lining up around the block to get into this moot court do have a point, and since those individuals have been rendered temporarily inarticulate perhaps because they just got dumbsided by a chunk of yokan they thought was some kind of chocolate fudge, or a jelly donut that was in fact filled with adzuki bean paste, I will serve as their spokesman pro tem; they can take over whenever they recover; it varies.
Let this brief puffery be the shot across the bow of the Good Ship Amanatto.
And for dessert, there's beans...
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
~~~~~~~
WHERE BEAUTY GOES
This afternoon, in a welcome respite from shaping sentences with mind chisels, in a sudden hunger for actual heft and palpable rendering I went outside to split logs, and what with the warbler warblings and the jinchoge waftings and the growing stack of fragrant wood (cherry, oak, camphor) it was all I could do to keep from laying right down on the ground and letting all that beauty take me away to where beauty goes, which I eventually did until it was time to break away from beauty and get back to the word chisels. Even now I sit surrounded by growing mounds of semantic shavings... This was just a little break...
WHERE BEAUTY GOES
This afternoon, in a welcome respite from shaping sentences with mind chisels, in a sudden hunger for actual heft and palpable rendering I went outside to split logs, and what with the warbler warblings and the jinchoge waftings and the growing stack of fragrant wood (cherry, oak, camphor) it was all I could do to keep from laying right down on the ground and letting all that beauty take me away to where beauty goes, which I eventually did until it was time to break away from beauty and get back to the word chisels. Even now I sit surrounded by growing mounds of semantic shavings... This was just a little break...
~~~~~~~
ARE YOU A CAUSE OF CONCERN?
Another example of the xenophobia prevailing at the higher levels of Japanese government (of course there is no English version; what would be the point?). All of this has been made easier for the Japanese government thanks to the precedent set by the snitch implications of Bush's Patriot Act. Not surprisingly, this xenophobia is best exemplified in Japan's Department of Immigration. I wonder if I've been reported yet; I'm sure my presence is "a cause of concern" to some of the folks I meet in the course of a typical day.
ARE YOU A CAUSE OF CONCERN?
Another example of the xenophobia prevailing at the higher levels of Japanese government (of course there is no English version; what would be the point?). All of this has been made easier for the Japanese government thanks to the precedent set by the snitch implications of Bush's Patriot Act. Not surprisingly, this xenophobia is best exemplified in Japan's Department of Immigration. I wonder if I've been reported yet; I'm sure my presence is "a cause of concern" to some of the folks I meet in the course of a typical day.
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
~~~~~~~
Zombies Push Jesus from Top of North American Box Office
Zombies Push Jesus from Top of North American Box Office
The discerning movie public moves on...
Monday, March 22, 2004
KEYS TO THE KINGDOM
As we travel the convoluted pathways of life, asking ourselves the myriad questions that characterize intelligent inquiry, such as "Why am I holding this golf club?" or "What did the refrigerator say?" we learn that some information is more important than other information, as indicated in these quotidian examples.
But it isn't the answers we get, it's the questions we ask that set us so far apart from the apes in the forest, who have no idea what it means to come in under par or fill the ice cube tray or what a toilet is; even the concept of leveraging is alien to them. This is why they remain up in the trees, completely uninterested in the captivating issues and time-consuming tasks that fill our everyday lives right up to HERE.
So when we ask these questions, which may at the time seem strangely unimportant, such as "Why is that shoe up there?" we must remember that there is a reason, even though no one has the slightest idea what it is - professors, popes and imams notwithstanding - and even though the apes may hoot at us with increasing volume from the rapidly shrinking leafy canopy in the illusory simplicity of their monotonous, moviestarless, subhuman, fruit-eating, no-bathroom, golfless, godless lifestyle, just because they were here first.
Do not listen to them. Pay them no heed. They are wrong. Go on about your business with the office windows closed and the air conditioning on, turn up the background music and ignore them; in their simian way they envy your commuter ticket, your shoes, your eyeglasses, your pension, your nuclear energy, your nine iron, your status, your bidet, your freezer compartment your vitamin pills your duplex your two weeks in Bali. You've got it all, they haven't; you can hear it in their lack of syntax. Keys to the Kingdom? Don't ask.
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