Archive for July, 2007
July 31, 2007 at 10:23 pm · Filed under Sweet Finds
Waiting for a bus outside of work today my workmate spotted a praying mantis.
I saw this guy (or a friend or relative) a few weeks ago hanging out on a wall a few metres from this location. They are amazing to watch. It’s also really cute if you hold down one of its back legs and it tries to run away and its leg stretches like an elastic band but maybe don’t do this because it is too cute and I feel sorry for it. I really wanted to hold it but those front arms look a little prickly and I was scared.
July 30, 2007 at 1:02 pm · Filed under One tear wipe
Actually I probably won’t. I can see myself playing ignorance to the fact that I have to return to Canada up until the very end. But there are reminders. Like just now when I called JAL to change my flight. It had been booked for September 4th but for a while I’ve known that I will stay for a couple more weeks. I enabled me to be vague when asked about my return date. “Oh…sometime in the middle of September…” Now it is set and it’s written in my agenda book and I added a note to my workgroup’s calendar. I will be leaving on Tuesday, September 18th - arriving in Vancouver that morning.
I don’t have a countdown but I have a total count. If I am correct after leaving in September I will have been in Japan for a total of 509 days.
July 30, 2007 at 1:05 am · Filed under Mundane
This is my spider friend:
I think I told you about him. I’m trying to learn that spiders are good because they balance out insect ecosystems in homes. So he lives. Every morning for the past week he has come out of hiding while I get ready for work. He crawls along the same path on the wall over my desk. Hangs out by the keyboard for a bit and then some days makes it to the curtains. My questions:
What does he think of me and does he see me mostly or hear me?
What should his name be?
Why do I assume it is a male spider?
Will he grow?
Where does he go when I cannot see him?
While I am here - how is everyone in Vancouver doing with the trash deal? Is it…a bad situation?
July 29, 2007 at 12:14 am · Filed under Spend spend spend!
Today I my Japanese teacher in one of our usual spots - FANCL Garden. FANCL is a cosmetic/beauty company in Japan that has branched out (I think) to some other lifestyle stuff and they have a cafe in Lumine, a department store attached to Yokohama station. The cafe serves Chaya Macrobiotic food - and coffee. It just occurred to me that - is coffee macrobiotic? I guess if you drink it with soy milk and maple powder it is. Yes - everything in the cafe is sweetened with maple powder not sugar because it is better for you………………………………………………?
Anyway, the coffee tastes like acid so today we ordered ice cream or “ice kutte”. Made without dairy products, eggs, or processed sugars (except for the maple powder maybe?). It was actually pretty good. I had the strawberry - very fruity, no fake sweetener tastes, no fake thickener tastes - I would order it again.
What I found interesting was how it was served: on a plate, in its plastic container, with the lid placed on the side, brand name facing up. It reminded me that is it important that I know I am eating Chaya Ice Kutte, recommended by the staff at FANCL Garden according to a sticker placed on the menu.
July 27, 2007 at 7:22 pm · Filed under Experiences, Japan, Toys
Off the boat and to the combini to buy fireworks. We bought Hello Kitty and an Anpanman sets full of sparklers and squealers and mice hanabi that spin in circles on the ground. Crap those things are packaged! You need 10 minutes of unpacking before you can set anything on fire.
But they do include the coolest thing - special effect glasses. Actually in Japanese they are “不思議メガネ” (fushigi megane) - mysterious or wonderous glasses. Put them on and アンパンマンの頭がいっぱいあるよ！(You can see a lot of anpanman’s head). Actually in our case it was Uncle Jam’s face that we could see when viewing bright light sources. These glasses are the coolest. Watch someone with a lit sparkle and it looks as though they are holding a magic wand spewing forth cascades of anpanman heads. Don’t worry - I will bring some back to Canada because they are that cool.
A very special kind of hanabi for the Japanese is “線香花火” (senkou hanabi). You light these small, thin hanabi from a candle included with the fireworks set. They are held pointing downwards and if you are lucky you will get a small, beautiful, humble display of fireworks. They are different from sparklers - not so quick and high energy. The flickers of light almost seem to be dripping from the end. They are very special for people in Japan, said to represent the emotion of summer. Some friends told me that they are a good finale to hanabi parties at the end of summer - being small but beautiful they are symbolic of that end of summer happy-melancholy feeling. Oh and Wikipedia tells me that they say you can get the best fireworks if you hold it at a 45 degree angle downwards.
We ended with senkouhanabi and cleaned up but I don’t think I am done with hanabi for the summer. I see a few more bright nights ahead of me.
July 27, 2007 at 10:15 am · Filed under Experiences
Despite previous experiences that left me with nothing good to say about participating in boat parties, I went to a boat party last night. But this time it was actually enjoyable. We had a small 10-person karate club party on a ferry from our side of Tokyo Bay, to the other (somewhere in Chiba) and then back again. The women all wore yukatas for a discounted ferry ticket and to participate in a raffle. Four out of the 7 women who came in yukata won and I was one of them - yay! But knowing that I will go back to Canada soon, I gave away most of my prize - except for the detox tea. That could be useful.
But what was best about the party was after getting off the ferry. We bought fireworks from the combini and made a lot of light. Pictures next post.
July 26, 2007 at 10:49 am · Filed under Dreams
A phone conversation about weddings with a friend before going to sleep might have had something to do with it but, last night I dreamt of a wedding, my wedding - I was marrying a guy from highschool. I won’t say who it was but he was a nice, funny, popular guy who I probably didn’t talk to a single time throughout those four years. Why him I don’t know.
Anyway, we met again in Japan and for some reason that my dream didn’t bother showing, we really hit it off and decided that we should marry before either of us went back to Canada. One day after work two friends took me to a large, dark church and I was really nervous because I didn’t have anything to touch up my makeup with and my hair had not been cut in a while. They took me to a dark hall in the basement - low ceilings and izakaya tables. My fiance’s friends were already into the beer. In a side room I met him, he was wearing a gray tuxedo and also looked a little nervous but determined. “My mother came”, he said. “Oh wow - mine didn’t can I borrow yours?” She came into the room and after introduction we talked about all the places we might have met before.
I didn’t dream about the actual ceremony. I don’t know if there was one. There might have just been some introductions, drinking, the signing of a document and then suddenly I was in a large kitchen helping my new mother-in-law prep things for dinner. I was cutting something, I can’t remember what, into small cubes but it seemed to me an endless impossible task because no matter how many times I cut piece after piece in half, they seemed to stay the same size.
“When is he coming back?” I asked my mother-in-law. “I don’t know”, she responded, “but this is very important to him”. I then came to know (my dream-self knew this already) that immediately after the wedding my husband left for Alaska. He was Jewish and in Alaska a sacred mineral or scripture related to the Jewish faith had been found. The journey was dangerous but they said that he who comes into contact with this mineral or cave or scripture or stone or whatever it was will have something amazing happen to them. That I also can’t remember even though my mother-in-law talked about it with great detail and reverence while washing vegetables.
I understood that he had to be gone and I understood that maybe I would never see him again. Until he came back or until I received papers confirming his death or a request for divorce, I would stay in the kitchen cutting food endlessly.
I woke up thinking about how I can divorce him. He was a really great guy but we were just an odd couple.
July 24, 2007 at 10:30 pm · Filed under Art, Theeeeeeeeeeesis
I am reading about Myron Krueger’s “VIDEOPLACE“. Myron Krueger is the guy who coined the term “artificial reality” and VIDEOPLACE was one of his artworks from the 1970s that is sort of labeled as “the first” in interactive artwork. I don’t know if that is too accurate but I guess the point is that the work was/is very influencial, especially for video- and camera-based interactive systems that track participant movement and gestures.
VIDEOPLACE is an artificial reality environment consisting of a video camera and other sensors to track a participant’s movement in front of a projection screen. Video displayed on the projection screen responds to participant gestures with over 50 compositions that include the person’s shadow as a base. The compositions manipulate participant silhouettes, create graphical worlds around them, and produce virtual objects and lively organisms that interact with the silhouettes. A participant in turn can interact with movement of their whole body as well as direct manipulation with elements of the compositions.
I’ve read about VIDEOPLACE a lot but I think that tonight is the first time that I’ve really looked at imagery from the video compositions and I must say that they really attract me. I kind of want mini VIDEOPLACE aesthetics on my computer at work. Some images from this guy here (who took them from some of Krueger’s publications I think so we both apologize if they were copyrighted):
…and from a Golan Levin paper…
Graphics from the 70s - simplistic shapes but amazing colour schemes. It makes me nostalgic for a time before I was born. A time when people who experienced this artwork would be absolutely amazed by the technology. It would be like magic for them.
From what I read VIDEOPLACE is still up and running somewhere but I don’t know where. I would really like to see it. I imagine that it could still be a really engaging experience given the playfulness of the interaction compositions.
Why are similar video/camera interactive pieces made nowadays not very engaging? Is it because the experience is convolved with social, political, environmental, etc. messages and it is no longer based on pure interaction with the media and reflection of the participant?
UPDATE: I woke up in the morning thinking about what I said in that last paragraph. About pure interaction with the media…Well that was in a day when the technologies used were not woven into the fabric of life. When what was being confronted was the technology itself and what it meant for our future. Now many of the same technologies are still used in artworks but in an exploration of current-future issues such as our social networks and behaviours as constructed with current communication technologies and environmental consequences of current human practices (much supported by computing devices).
July 24, 2007 at 12:21 am · Filed under Photographs
July 23, 2007 at 8:30 pm · Filed under In the Kitchen and Foodstuff
A great thing about Japan is that wherever you go you can find some place that will show you how to make something. Experts will have the lesson down to a T so you’re thrown an apron, given the supplies, pulled through the steps and in 50 minutes out the door proudly holding your finished product.
Ok the fact that it is so assembly line makes it a bit frustrating for us creative types who like to add our own finishing touches but it does make everyone leave happy and then you can show your friends and they gush “oh you are skillful aren’t you?!”
When I was in Niigata we went to such a place and learned how to make sasadango.
sasa = bamboo grass
dango = sweet dumpling
To start at the end, this is a sasadango:
But what is inside? Well, we started with glutinous rice flour and added what I think was a water and mudwort mixture to get a doughy rice paste.
Then we took the rice paste in chunks and wrapped it around balls of sweet red bean paste.
Then came the complicated part - wrapping the dumplings in bamboo leaves and tying them up. Unfortunately my hands were so busy, I couldn’t take pictures. But there is a method and next time I see you I can demonstrate with some kleenex, string and golf balls.
After getting wrapped the sasadango were taken away from us for steaming and returned on a large plate below:
Actually this was the really great part - eating one hot. A lot of Japanese sweets are made from combinations of bean paste and rice paste and they do manage to do a lot of different things with the same ingredients plus variations but you get used to the taste and texture after a while. Eating a fresh sasadango was very different. The inside was very warm, almost hot and the bean paste was not liquid-y but almost and the flavours of bean paste and rice paste melted together so well.
Mmmm….I want dango now.
July 22, 2007 at 11:15 pm · Filed under Evil Things, Japan
Japanese mosquitos are ninjas. Compared to the Saskatchewan variety. In Saskatchewan mosquitos use numbers as force. The ones here travel alone and you rarely see them. But they are there and they bite and they leave a big mark.
Just…if you ever come here…watch out!
July 20, 2007 at 1:23 pm · Filed under Theeeeeeeeeeesis
Gosh! I did the smartest thing that I could have done a long time ago yesterday. So technically, I can’t really claim it being a smart idea given the lateness of its actual implementation. Darn - why DIDN’t I start doing this a long time ago? I think I kind of did in the guise of other collect your note tools like citeulike and del.icio.us and google notebook but…it just never worked out. I was working within the confines of those sites.
So yesterday I finally started a blog to collect my thesis notes and thoughts. Again - why didn’t I do this before? Ugh.
Anyway it is making me happy. Totally helping me collect and organize my thoughts and it makes it easier to get back to my thesis work after breaks.
I included a link up there if you are interested but…I guess it is worth noting that I am writing purely, entirely for myself. Those notes are not meant to be coherent, contributive, etc. Maybe they could be to someone in the future but for now, I am pretending to myself that no one else is looking.
But * joy * this makes things fun!
* joy * joy *
July 19, 2007 at 7:58 pm · Filed under Lists
…k I am going to be morbid. This is a list of the top 5 most probable ways that I will die (in no particular order):
- skin cancer
- choking on a spoonful of sugar
- banging my head on the way down to a basement (then blacking out, falling, twisting some important stuff)
- voluntary poisoning (there will be some population control by then, I will take mine in chocolate fudge)
- something to do with the brain (possibly a stroke)
Not to say that those are my perfect deaths, just given my current lifestyle, probably deaths. I really need to watch out for those low ceilings over basement staircases.
What is probable for you?
This picture is of fish roasting over an open fire at the fishing park. We went there on Monday for lunch. Didn’t catch our own fish due to lack of time but we bought fish which we cut, gutted, and cleaned ourselves. It felt a little weird for me and I wasn’t sure I could do that. Because they gave them to us alive in a bucket. But I guess I can…then the fish tasted really good. It might have helped that I was humming the fishheads song in my head while doing the dirty work.
July 19, 2007 at 5:11 pm · Filed under Things Found Online
More from Pink Tentacle: writes about a mini documentary on the guy who makes the tape signs in Shinjuku station. Construction in large stations can be HELL and involve a lot of redirection signs. The man making these ones does an incredibly beautiful job at it.
Links to video:
Part 1
Part 2
They are in Japanese (with Japanese subtitles) but watch it for a bit at least to see this man’s work. Reminds me of something I love about this country: people take pride in their work and people take pride in other people’s work. But I guess pride is not the right word because people are humble. Maybe…”put importance”…please replace that for me I’m leaving early….
July 18, 2007 at 8:37 pm · Filed under Theeeeeeeeeeesis
I am sitting here staring at my thesis. Ok maybe not at this moment right now I am staring at Word Press software but either way I want to cry. I genuinely want to work on my thesis, want to try. But I don’t know what to do. I will try to write something and then feel like there are all these things I don’t know that I need to know to write. So I will stop and half search for them but feel like the search could go on forever. And then I will sleep and the next day I won’t have time to get back. And then the next day I will forget where I was. How do I do this? My head hurts. My stomach hurts. But I really really need to get this done.
AND when I do try to figure out where I am at I read what I wrote and it seems utter crap. How am I going to do this?
Next entries »
