WELL BITE MY STEM AND TAKE MY PUMPKIN!

Anyone who visits PLM regularly, or even irregularly, for that matter - even just a couple times a year would do - will likely be aware of my bitterly earned expertise in bedevilment by monkeys, who, if proof be needed, recently visited my garden while I was out and chewed all my shiitake buds off the oak logs, actually BIT OFF CHUNKS OF THE BARK, leaving my formerly pristine logs all imprinted with monkey teethmarks ideal for monkey criminal forensic experts, were there any, and while I'm on the subject a simian prosecutor would be nice too, but to get to the point here, some scientists spent several years on a tropical island (ah, the experimental ardor!) studying the monkeys that lived there to learn, basically, whether monkeys are sly creatures or what. (Those scientists certainly are sly creatures, aren’t they?)

Anyway, after several years of day-in, day-out slaving over hot monkeys, the nicely tanned scientists’ conclusion is twofold: Rhesus Monkeys Make Clever Thieves, and Monkeys Steal When No One's Looking! (Well bite my stem and take my pumpkin!) I could have saved those poor overworked beach-burdened scientists several years of tropical island living, if they had just visited my house for a couple of weeks, or even simpler, read my little simian diatribe It Ain't No Picnic, in which I said, and I quote, just to save you a trip: "Still, his [the alpha male] wanting me to think he wasn’t watching my every move told me he knew he was in the wrong - but only as long as I was there. When I went into the house, i. e., disappeared from his reality, he’d be back in the right again, quicker than you can say Garden of Eden. Thus operates the simian conscience, which still has its ancient echoes in our own..." or my various earlier monkey rants in which I specifically state that monkeys check their watches while waiting around for me to leave before plundering my estate.

"Until now, we didn't know that rhesus monkeys could do these things, and in fact there are many scientists who said they couldn't," said one doctoral candidate. I suggest they come and monitor my garden while I'm away.

BUDDHIST STATUES

(via Gabi of the Daruma Forum)

AS TO THE BARON TANGOING ON MY RADISHES

As to The Baron tangoing on my radishes, which chagrinifying event I posted about earlier, and re the numerous suggestions on how to put an end to it without access to lion toilets, I finally resorted to my old rule of trying the least expensive approach first, which in this case involved hooping local bamboo I get free from the mountain (the two ends are stuck into the ground about a meter apart) along the raised beds, making a low but sturdy and visually confusing fence. So far it seems to work, although the Baron himself may be distracted at the moment, as it appears he has a new va-va-va-voom ladyfriend, who was seen recently nibbling daintily in the finest local dining spots other than my garden...

FOR RED-HOT FIREWORKS FANS

For local residents or travelers who love fireworks and are interested in seeing the world's best fireworkers show off their state of the art on the night's fine canvas, the International Symposium on Fireworks Society will be holding the 8th International Symposium on Fireworks at the Biwako Hotel during the day, from April 18 to 22 (Mon-Fri), then each night in a different location along the Lake various of the Symposium participants (Italy, England, Spain, Japan, China et al.) will show off 3000 of their latest firework designs - should be some very impressive fiery chops up there in the night sky and in some select locations. (The previous Symposium was held in Valencia, Spain, in 2003.) Unfortunately the above link is available only in Japanese, though the dates etc. can be extracted by all. [Contact me if I can be of help.] There's a link there to the Biwako Visitors' site, which has an English version, though - also oddly - no mention thus far of the Symposium. These folks should get on the ball, if they really want to merit their "international" claim.

For an intro to Lake Biwa in English, take A Journey to Lake Biwa.

HIRA HAKKO

On Saturday we went north a bit to see the Hira Hakko, a local festival we hadn't yet made it to that's been happening every Spring around this time for 1500 years or so, held for the safety of all who live and work on Lake Biwa and its shores. Priests from a distant affiliated downlake temple, a dozen yamabushi, a squad of shakuhachi players and several beautiful young women in kimono come sailing to Omimaiko, along the way throwing paper prayers on the wind and ritually pouring other blessed waters into the Lake. After they land at Omimaiko they walk the long road, stopping to pray at a local statue of Kannon.

From there they and the whole mob of us that had gathered by then, everyone Lake-related and their families and friends, relatives, tourists, mobs of photographers, walked out into the pine groves that cover the central axis of the small and anciently famous peninsula, toward loudening multidrum music pounding like the theme drums from The Seven Samurai.

Along the way the crowd discovered a group of young female art college students all dressed up in fantastic costumes who were quietly and privately (or so they had expected) making some kind of strange art/music video on the beach when suddenly this mob came along and they were at once the center of attention from a growing throng, being asked what they were up to by everyone, who thought they were some new strange and unsettling part of the ancient ceremony - which the poor girls repeatedly and heatedly denied - they were so embarrassed at being seen dressed so strangely out here and doing these odd things, they had utterly not anticipated any vast swarm of observers to descend on them, it put a major cramp in their artistic intentions.

They finally tried to hide under a tarp from the photographers and crowds streaming steadily toward the beach out on the point where, in a big square made sacred by bamboo poles strung with rice straw rope stood a large pile of green cedar boughs that, after extended ceremonial praying and mythodramatizing, the yamabushi set afire; the singing and music went on, wafting across the Lake with the prayers, like the smoke...

There was a generous variety of weather to go along with the intensity of it all, which is as it should be, the weather being a big factor in comprehensive Lake safety: rain was there in bursts, and wind was steady, there was lakespray and sun and scuds of mist, some wannabe snowflakes showed up and anything else that can be called weather was likely around there somewhere.

Folks from way young to max elderly in all states of health huddled around, kids running free and taking part in the drumming, folks in wheelchairs there to get some of the sacred smoke unto themselves to cure their ills. And it seems to work, for since then I've been feeling better in all respects.

NATURE'S WISDOM

The 2005 World Exposition opened yesterday in Aichi. "Nature's Wisdom" is the theme. You know, Nature. The stuff that used to be where Expo is now?

NEW INSECT SPECIES FOUND IN MUSEUM

Wooster Collective : A Celebration of Street Art
Banksy Hits New York's Most Famous Museums

PURE LAND MOUNTAIN ORIGAMI

THE TANGO CONUNDRUM

After a long Winter of carefully pondering the matter, during the beautiful days of last weekend I fashioned two large raised beds in the garden, carefully added compost, minerals and a bit of needed sand, leveled the beds off smooth as the finish on a loam Ferrari and planted some vegetables monkeys don't like (radishes and lettuce), watered them and stood back to enjoy my handiwork as I began the wait for some good Spring eating.

You can therefore imagine the huff of my flustery bluster when early yesterday morning I walked out of the house into the garden to dump some wood ash from the stove onto my next raised bed and there across the surface of the two new beds trailed the raking tracks of the cloven-hoofed Baron, who it appeared had been silently practicing the cervine tango till the wee hours.

I had thought that as the weather warmed, by now he'd have drifted to greener dance floors further upmountain; I hope this doesn't mean he's going to hang around here all year long.

Does anybody know how (without building a tall fence) to keep deer from dancing all over vegetables monkeys don't like?

THE NOSE OF DAMOCLES

Those kind and discerning visitors who may remember my earlier brief take herein on the profound and highly cultured lack of noseblowing in Japan may also remember in that post this deathless quote: "...if the Japanese have a runny nose they wear a gauze mask. That's right, they let their noses run free."

Well that is true (we post no lies), but it's not the entire truth (in some cases half-truths are preferable), as was brought sonorously home to me on the train this morning, in fact on many occasions that never really registered other than as part of the myraid minor annoyances of daily life we simply filter out with that delicate screen of tranquility we seek to build about our lives, but there are times when those little annoyances rip right into that flimsy jerry-built contrivance like a giant nose into a tiny Kleenex.

The fact is that there's another school of mucus management practiced by the younger set in Japan, and I don’t mean the sniffles of a two-year-old, I’m talking professional level here, 15 ~ 25 years old, predominantly the high school years, when who really cares anyway since it’s all temporary (the donning of a formal salariman suit seems to make the wearers dry out a bit).

Today’s mucosal management alternative was brought upon me, so to speak, in a manner that evoked the impending destruction of the Seven Gorges Dam (when completed, of course): it was a high schooler standing right next to where I was seated, his nose right above my head, which nose would, about every 15 seconds, with surprising regularity - determined I suppose by the volume and nature of the material being kept in check; one ponders such things when seated beneath the Nose of Damocles – give a great snort and so retain the entire mass, at least for another 15 seconds. This went on for 30 minutes or so, which, as in the case of the renowned Chinese Water Torture, is equivalent to about a year in real time.

When he finally took his nose off the train and a more tolerable regularity returned to life as I know it, I felt once again the joy that surpasseth understanding like a pair of empty nostrils.

FOR ALL YOUR BEAT NEEDS!

THROUGH A BEE'S EYE

via edgeways at Metafilter

NEWER NEWS

I used to read the newspapers at the office when I went there, scarf them from the company mailbox before the admin folks upstairs got their hands on them, but those sly folks have circumvented that. As a result I haven’t read a newspaper for some time now, and I don’t miss the experience at all. And believe me, this is not sour print.

When I was reading newspapers each morning, I’d find myself looking for a link to more detail, or feeling the urge to enter the phrase in the search box, or wanting to ‘save’ an article or email it to someone I know would like to read it, but the dead tree just lay inert in my hands, spread out all over the desk, sections falling to the floor, the corners getting into my coffee.

Also I’d see items in the paper that were ‘new’ news I’d posted about or read about multiply and in great depth a day or two ago on the net. My news was newer. And a lot more fleshed out, with way more illustration and diversity of local and global varicultural opinion. Now I’m beginning to see stuff I posted or read about days ago on the net showing up as the latest news on tv. Is the tube next?

SPRING IS GOOD NEWS

So this is the first day of Spring. Perfect day for it. All the vegetation seems to be aware of the fact. I was out working in the garden yesterday when Mr. O., one of my up-mountain neighbors, a Kyoto weaver who is presently handpainting silk scarves, stopped by for a visit before going off to look for tsukushi (field horsetail, uisetum arvense), out of which he makes a delicious traditional candy, and mentioned he was planting indigo (my favorite traditional dye) this year for use in dyeing, he’d gotten some seeds from a friend, and I am interested. Turns out there’s also a professional indigo dyer down in the village, right on the other side of the highway, whom I now plan to visit.

Mr. O. later said he couldn’t find any tsukushi, it was a bit early yet he thought, so this morning on our walk we kept an eye out and found several little hidden groves of tsukushi in various stages of early development. Country folks here also enjoy tsukushi as a wild vegetable, and make a healthy tea of the fully grown plant, a concoction of which is also used to condition the hair. Makes a good natural scrub brush, too.

But an indigo dyer in the village. That’s good news. Very like Spring.

DEATH VALLEY-EVEREST CONEY ISLAND RIDE RAMBLE

The other day somewhere on the worldwide web we've made of all our many lives I surfed across someone reminiscing about the musical oldies “back in the nineties” and realized I'd arrived at that psychoscenic spot in life that no one can ever accurately imagine getting to, or knows anything about ever getting to really, because each of us is the first ever to arrive at where we personally age to, in my case especially the earlier me, who figured that because of my variously intense and intensive lifestyle I'd never make it past 40 and lived accordingly but here I am nonetheless - well actually quite a bit the less, age will do that - which goes to show how much I know, though unlike the guy who remains anonymous to me at the moment who said “If I'd known I was gonna live this long I'd have taken better care of myself,” I did take better care of myself, concurrently and commensurately with my utterly wild lifestyle, which I figured might be a smart thing to do under the circumstances, so I became a vegetarian and took vitamin and mineral supplements while living the wild jobless traveler's high life, and have made it all the way to here, what a Death Valley-Everest Coney Island Ride it has been... why, way back in the 50s, when genuine music broke into the mainstream...

THEY GONNA DRAFT RETIRED FOREIGNERS?

"Strange to say, since the end of the Cold War in 1991 and particularly under the administration of George W Bush, the United States has been doing everything in its power to encourage and even accelerate Japanese rearmament."

Very interesting and very expert take on the increasing possibility of a new Sino-Japanese war.

The real 'China threat'
By Chalmers Johnson

I MUST REMEMBER B2Up,

the name of this new Japanese gum that's a big hit, so I don’t buy it by mistake when it hits the convenience stores. Studies in Thailand indicate that it can increase breast size by about 80% (sounds fatal), and I like my breasts just the way they are, a male's naturally developed pectorals. They work, and that's enough for me. This gum may turn out to be another health gimmick, like titanium and germanium (what's next, plutonium?), but I’m not taking any chances. Sounds like it could make me an alto and get rid of my whiskers too...

FRECKLES IN ASIA

When I first came to Japan, and for a long time thereafter, I never saw anybody eat in public; even the yatai had little curtains on them. Eating, like all public behavior, was a matter of discretion. But the longer you are in a culture, the more tacitly and secretly it grows on you. So after I’d been here a while not eating in public, one morning I saw a neoforeign woman walking down the street like an R. Crumb drawing, just nakedly stuffing the wide-open mouth of her unconcealed face with a humungous pastry right out there in the open as though it belonged to her, as if it all were her delight.

As a newly reticent resident of Japan I was righteously shocked and repelled, and surprised at being so. Because what, I had to ask myself in my native language, is so shocking and repelling about seeing somebody eat on the street? I’ve done it all my life, but then I realized no I hadn’t! I’d stopped eating on the street for the past certain length of time without even being aware of it, because I knew without knowing that in Japan you do not eat on the street: to do so is considered rude!

Thus can a new culture creep up on you, like freckles. One day you look in the mirror and it’s Our Gang city. Freckles on oneself as well are frowned on (with?) in Japan and must be gotten rid of posthaste, particularly when they're on a woman's face, I suppose as possible evidence of time spent laboring in sunlight as though a member of the lower classes, making freckles a manifestation abhorred by females of all recently decolonized Asian cultures, even though Japan has never been colonized, which evidences not only that colonization is not prerequisite to freckle aversion, but also the comprehensive power of freckles in Asia.

I myself am a former freckle bearer (of uncertain pride in the matter), but I no longer have freckles, they disappeared on their own long before I got here. In anticipation, I guess. I am, though, starting to eat in public again, though somewhat discreetly. One must preserve at least a remnant of one's roots.

Westernizing young Japanese, in contrast, are starting to throw cultural restraint to the winds and eat whatever whenever they're hungry, even if it's on the street, the train, wherever. I guess one must also discard some roots, to make room for the future.

LIVEDOOR SLAMS ON THE DINOSAURS

"Livedoor, the Japanese Internet company at the center of a media takeover battle, has bought more than 50 percent of a radio broadcaster that also is being sought by a major TV network, Japanese media reported Wednesday.

The struggle is widely viewed in Japan as pitting an Internet upstart - led by brash, youthful entrepreneur Takafumi Horie - against the aging, conservative establishment that controls the media industry.

Hostile takeovers are rare in Japan, and the unfolding fight has several politicians worried about Japanese companies being snapped up by foreign investors, although Horie is Japanese.

Last month, Livedoor announced it had amassed a 35 percent stake in Nippon Broadcasting, stunning the nation - and management at a major TV network in which Nippon Broadcasting is the top shareholder.

Controlling Nippon Broadcasting is expected to give Livedoor influence over Fuji Television Network Inc., which is part of a media conglomerate that includes a film studio, record company, daily newspaper and other interests."

Forbes

In the same vein...

WOOD OF THE MONTH


o-o-o-o-h, the cherry...

KNEELING IN THE DRIVEWAY

Past couple days, were you to drive by my house up here on this mountainside in central Japan you might see a very focused foreigner, kneeling in his driveway with a small bamboo rake in his hand, nose close to the ground, peering intently at the soil. That would be me.

I’m kneeling not out of reverence of any standard kind, though reverence should never be very far away no matter what you’re doing, even writing about love hotels, as I was doing before I came out here to kneel in the driveway. No, I’m kneeling in the driveway because we have a new roof. Lately I try to spend a couple hours a day out here, when I can. Because if you’ve recently had a roof put on you can’t really spend too much time kneeling in the driveway.

And what in the world is the connection between those disparately eclectic events, I can hear folks asking from many and varied locations. The connection, if you must know - and if you are planning a new roof it could certainly be to your hoove to know – two flat tires so far: One. Two. Snow tires, too. Actually the same tire. The one that enters the driveway first.

It all began a month or so ago [cue music segue, softly blurred visuals] when we had our first flat tire in 15 years. Took it to the tire shop to have it repaired and the guy said the cause of the severe flatness was a nail: a short nail with a large head. Well, a bit of bad luck, we thought, running over that nail on the road by sheer chance, fell off a carpenter's truck or something.

Then a week later, the same tire went flat overnight. Lousy repair job, we thought. Another guy at the tire shop said no, it was a new leak, caused by a nail: a small nail, with a big head. That was when the 5- yen coin dropped (idioms don't travel well). Roofing nail. ROOF. From when the guys tore off our old shingles and all the tarpaper. A few nails had escaped into the wild, just as tacks often do, there to lie pointedly in wait for soft prey...

So the next day that had any decent sunlight I was out there kneeling where we used to park the van, bamboo rake in hand, going over the ground inch by inch (a square inch can hold about nine roofing nails, points up). After the first ten minutes I was appalled by what I’d found, and amazed that we hadn’t had a flat a minute for the past month. Kind of a miracle, actually. Though the gods aren’t exactly smiling on us, they’re definitely not frowning. More like a smirk. Make that two smirks.

Which is why you see me kneeling in the driveway, honoring the gods.