LIKE A ROLLING STONE

One day recently, with Keech at my side here in Japan while FaceTiming with Kasumi and the Trio in CA, upon seeing my image in the corner of the iPad screen I remarked with some surprise: "As I get older, I'm looking more and more like Keith Richards..."

At that, two  sibling voices from opposite sides of the globe responded as one: "WHO?" 

            --- Commence extended freezeframe of deep intergenerational awareness ---

As had happened at several recent instances in my life, what had been cultural Everests were suddenly shown to be current divots. Our family's earlier Western-flavored musical component had been more of a dylan-zappa-doors-nirvana-pixies blend, so this reaction was not so big a surprise, but one does accumulate a certain mindfill of beloved cultural debris over the decades, in contrast to which a more youthful perspective -- however chronically misguided -- can come as a shock. Thus marches history and its icons backward across the stage and beyond the wings, out of sight but to those who remember...                  Exeunt big time...

As to book affairs, the Simple Vegetarian Recipes 1-9 series from The Big Elsewhere will begin their shared appearance on Facebook any day now (long-term PLM readers please FB friend me), as soon as Kaya has completed her art work and the computer stops fritzing around. 

 Also, I can now fully extend my right arm.

 

BULBUL GETS OUTPLAYED

I was outdoors just now hanging some CDs over my strawberries. I do this because of the hiyodori. That's the brown-eared bulbul, who with his small tribe has been ravaging the tsubaki flowers for the past couple weeks there beside the garden, where he can keep a good beady black eye on my strawberries as they flower and swell into the sweet redness that he so loves.

He got squawkingly upset when he saw me doing something near his strawberries: I was putting up some old CD copies to dangle spinning and flashing in the breeze above the deluxe fruity enjoyments that are in fact as mine as anything can be that does not involve monkeys (regarding whom all bets are off when it comes to outdoor mineness), but this was the hi-tech, teachable me vs. a one-track bird who, working on this small portion of my vast ignorance, last year got my strawberries.

This year will be different. He can't read worth a damn of course, so for all he knew this could be anybody from Dylan to Beethoven to Miles Davis to Frank Zappa to Lou Reed; this could be Fiddy Cent, this could be Lady Gaga. Take that, bird. Boy did he screech, so clearly not knowing which was what.

My strawberries look sweeter already...