Archive for May, 2007
May 15, 2007 at 2:47 pm · Filed under Photographs
I should not be writing right now. So much to do. A day that has no end unless I declare “this is enough I can’t take it any further”. Tomorrow I demo something to somebody (maybe sometime I will talk about my work but for now I like being mysterious) and I am a little uncertain, not a little – completely uncertain about how the demo and presentation will progress. Going for the second party of last night’s work party was probably not the greatest idea. I didn’t even talk much, have much to socialize about. The nihonshu was just going back to easily. Possibly stress? Anyway, during golden week oh so long ago one of the things I did was go to a little town close to Tokyo (in Saitama) called Kawagoe. I went with another intern here, Martin, to see a few temples and shrines, old Edo style buildings, and a street lined with candy shops. Prior to going I was worried that I might lose photo taking opportunities due to worry that my travel partner would get annoyed. But then we arrived and Martin pulled a huge black camera (insert brand and model name here…I call them huge black cameras) out of his backpack and I knew it would be a good photo taking day. At one point we turned down a side street to escape a crowd of tourists and I think we both experienced a heart leap into the eyes when we saw a woman’s blue balloon posing for us because it knew how good it looked again the background wall:
That scene made my day.
May 10, 2007 at 10:33 am · Filed under Art
I mentioned that I would be going to the digital public art festival last weekend and that I did. The most impressive piece was まばたきの葉 (mabataki no ha = wink or winking leaves roughly). Hundreds of paper leaves were scattered around the base of a high white tower. Each leaf had a picture of an open eye on one side and a closed eye on the other. We picked up piles of the white leaves and fed them into the two slots on the tower around chest height. The tower ate our leaves and blew them out from the top with a phffft! sound. The leaves floated down, twisting and twirling, winking to us as we craned our necks to watch them. It really scratched my itching to stuff paper into a tower that would immediately spew it back out. But I didn’t realize that I had this itching until after I experienced まばたきの葉.
May 9, 2007 at 2:15 pm · Filed under It's Science
berns said: “Ever considered how pigeons look _exactly_ the same everywhere in the world?”
Man you are so right. That is weird. A little spooky too. Worth keeping an eye on those guys. Like they were all “sent” from the same place. Totally weird.
May 9, 2007 at 11:42 am · Filed under Mundane
Just came back from the can on the 2nd floor and they have a new Toto apparatus installed. The controller for this one (for the bidet, massage, heated seat, etc.) indicates the time. I looked at that time…11:30am…and realized that I never see the time from the can. I not only do not see the time, I don’t think of it and in fact, I think of the bathroom/washroom as a timeless space.
Ok so maybe that doesn’t completely work because over the time the washroom is the room that becomes the most noticeably dirty (to me). It is the blue stripe on the toothbrush or that band on the battery telling you when time is up, something needs to be changed, cleaned, done.
But – we can put clocks in anything computer controlled so why not? It is cheap and it adds an extra function to advertise. But when is time an uninvited guest? Like in the bathroom stall where the time reminds me of the world outside almost like it is a person standing outside the door making sure that I come out in due time.
May 7, 2007 at 6:34 pm · Filed under Japan
I might have mentioned spending some time in the park near my dormitory (umikaze koen) this past week. We had beautiful weather – blue skies and in the mid-20s – for most of golden week and it was definitely taken advantage of by those with tents and bbqs and children. The masses you see in the picture below – they come early to get their spot. Some do not leave. One morning around 8am I jogged through to see some young men crawling from their tents, rubbing their eyes, examining the boxes and coolers and tarp around them to remember what they were doing the night before.
The children are too cute.
A drum circled played some beats and girls were dancing in bare feet.
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