Archive for Reading
December 1, 2007 at 1:21 pm · Filed under Reading
I probably won’t finish the book I mentioned I was reading, In Patagonia. It is supposed to be one of the great “accounts of travels” book but, it’s just not engaging me. I think because of the high content of names: people and places with little sense of “this is going somewhere”. I’m bad with remembering names and specifics and I read the book with anxiety that I should be able to keep track of everything. But…I don’t think I need to. He is traveling, he will meet people, and then never see them again. That’s a beauty of travel. But I can’t shake the feeling that I am supposed to remember it all so that I can understand some point that he might make in the end.
So I pulled a different book from the Kommune library, Nabokov’s Dozen, thirteen short stories by Vladimir Nabokov, famous for writing Lolita. I think I will read that next. I am really enjoying the short stories. I love the style he uses to describe things, and also his choice of extra description / telling of events not necessarily needed to contribute to the sense of the story but they are attractive, you relate to them, and it pulls you in.
Some favorite lines:
It half slipped down from one of those vestibule chairs which are doomed to accommodate things, not people.
He slept badly the night before the departure. And why? Because he had to get up unusually early, and hence took along into his dreams the delicate face of the watch ticking on his night table (…)
September 19, 2007 at 5:32 am · Filed under Reading
Some of you might remember this book from a picture I took way back in November of 2005. Browsing a bookstore during a stopover in Narita and my first “contact” with Japan, I found this book amusing:
Today, looking for a book to read during the flight, I found it again and it seemed fitting to buy. Maybe now I can understand it a little. Hopefully in the future I will understand it a lot more. My NTT supervisor and his wife came to see me off and she explained the essence of the book to me. It is a collection of stories of embarassing, “死ぬかと思った” ~ “I thought I would die” experiences. Fitting.
And it looks like in my hurry I forgot to buy an English book to read on the way back. Some advice: you would think that Narita would be full of amazing shopping past the security check but the Vancouverの方 gates (usually 75 with Japan Airlines)…that area is a ghost town. Do your shopping beforehand. I hope the in-flight movies are good.
June 7, 2007 at 11:31 am · Filed under Reading
Last night I went to a family restaurant near my place in hopes that I could concentrate on some work. Umm nope - too many screaming children. Before heading back home I dropped by a bookstore to see if I could possibly find a manga series I read about in the afternoon. Taken by surprise that I was actually able to recognize the title’s kanji and locate the series, I had to buy the first two books.
Not “new” in Japan but recently written about, “kami no shizuku” is a manga series with two wine connaisseurs as the main characters. Stories intertwined with wine reviews and tasting have made it a sort of “wine textbook” among university students. There has also been notable boosts in the sales of wines featured in the manga (authors’ choices - not advertising).
Got into it last night (with my DS dictionary by my side) and it makes me really want to drink wine (haha of course). No really…the artwork is really good at conveying what a wine might taste like and what the wine drinking experience is.
This is extra motivation to study my kanji!
September 20, 2006 at 10:54 am · Filed under Reading
The other day a new intern arrived in Japan from France/Morocco and he (thinking ahead unlike me) brought a stash of DVDs and books with him. The first day I met him he asked me about my movie preferences and I said “I like Woody Allen” so he lent me a book he just finished - two collections of Woody Allen’s writing…but in French. My ability to read the book was questioned at first, but I figured hey, I only get about 70% of what you can “get” from Allen (gee saying 70% makes me feel like I am gloating…maybe it is a little lower but to make this story smooth we’ll say 70% cause it is an easy fraction to visualize) and I might only get 50% of Allen in French but I’m used to not eating the whole pie anyway so…
I started reading Dieu, Shakespeare… et moi and man, despite missing many jokes because the key punchline word is not in my French vocabulary, I’ve had a number of laugh out loud moments. Even on the train this morning. One particular bit is from a piece titled “Les Parchemins” (parchments…I think) where fragments from ancient history parchments are analyzed and reproduced. One of the stories is as follows:
(I tried to find this in English but I can’t, still want to share so…if you don’t know French get someone to translate this for you. Or go buy the English book)
…Et il advint qu’un homme qui vendait des chemises fut frappé par la récession.Ses stocks lui restaient sur les bras et il ne prospérait point. Alors il pria et dit dans sa prière:
- Seigneur! Pourquoi me laisses-Tu souffrir de la sorte? Tous mes concurrents font de bonnes affaires, et moi pas. Et nous sommes enpleine saison! Mes chemises sont de première qualité, jette un coup d’oeil à ce rayon: cols transformables, poignets mousquetaires, rien ne se vend. Pourtant, j’ai observé tous Tes commandements! Mais enfin, pourquoi ne puis je pas y arriver, alors que mon frère fait son beurre dans le prêt-à-porter pour enfants?
Le Seigneur écouta l’homme, et dit:
- J’ai une idée, pour tes chemises…
- Oui, Seigneur? fit l’homme en tombant à genoux.
- Mets un petit crocodile sur la poche.
- Pardon, Seigneur?
- Fais ce que je te dis, tu ne le regretteras point.
Alors l’homme cousit sur toutes ses chemises un petit crocodile, et voilà soudain que sa camelote s’arracha comme des petits pains, et qu’il y eut de grandes réjouissances dans sa famille, tandis que parmi ses concurrents, it y eut des pleurs et des grincements de dents, si bien que l’un d’eux dit avec amertume:
- Le Seigneur est miséricordieux. Il m’a permis de m’étendre dans ses verts pâturages. L’ennui, c’est que je me suis fait boulotter par les crocodiles.
Eh…I hope it is legal to copy that…cause I credit the source…so it is okay right? But hilarious…it still makes me laugh.
August 25, 2006 at 4:24 pm · Filed under Reading
I am currently reading Personal, Portable, Pedestrian - a collection of writings on the mobile phone in Japanese life. A big focus of the book is the keitai (mobile) and youth culture. Adoption of texting started in the 90s with girls sending messages coded in numbers via their pagers. This method of communicating short, mundane messages helped young people stay connected to their friends throughout the day, no matter how shallow the message content may have seemed. (Like, “what are you doing”, “good morning”, etc.) The messages being coded and sent / received with a personal device also helped create a communication space among groups of teenagers - their private sphere away from “the others” (ie. adults, the man).
It is quite remarkable how pagers and then the keitai were adopted and I enjoy reading about studies of the kids in Shibuya and Harajuku. At the same time, my mind was wandering off to experiences of my own youth and the “methods” we used to hide things from adults and maintain connectedness when we felt that our teachers and parents only wanted to drive us apart. (Okay so I’ll admit that when I was younger I had a bit of that “the world is against me” complex…I’ve grown up…a bit). I think that everyone used these things - coded notes, secret languages, signs, etc. I still use some…like the special signal for when the person on the other end of the phone brings something up and it is not exactly an opportune time to talk about it.
I still like to keep that connectedness, but it has been slipping away as I age. I haven’t missed Canadian food so much but I miss being able to send SMS messages to the girls and I miss receiving them even more. I still remember my last hours in Vancouver, sitting behind the airport security gates, sending texts back and forth knowing that those were my last moments for that kind of communication. The texts are saved in my phone which has not been turned on since coming here. That phone is now this artifact of going to Japan memories. I’ll have to save it for a long time.
*sigh* Just kidding. Super pumped for the weekend. Hope I take a lot of pictures : )
December 26, 2005 at 2:19 pm · Filed under Dreams, Reading
I’m not a boxing day person. Only once in my life did I spend the day at the mall. Boxing day is sleep day. I would like to crawl in a box and sleep and read and sleep some more. At my grandmother’s in Humboldt. Everyone here is drifting off, taking there time, slumbering, napping, dozing…it’s the Deutscher way.
So I am thankful that my dreams are starting to get interesting again. Last night I was at a pizza parlour and then suddenly we were up in a small plane flying over Vancouver. The pilot was insane though, and a coke dealer I think. He laughed madly and the plane started to descend. We thought we were going to crash. But he gracefully landed us on South Granville street and we ran away terrified. I was trying to catch a bus back home. I knew that I had to pack my bags for a trip to Belgium or Bulgaria or some other place starting with a “B”. I missed my flight of course and then woke up.
I think my dreams are being influenced by the book I am reading, “House of Leaves” (see side column). Quite amazing. It’s a maze of a book. I think the author is borrowing from film theory to “frame” his story. I don’t really know anything about film theory, but it’s what I’m guessing. Please go read this book. I need someone to talk to about it.
October 6, 2005 at 7:51 am · Filed under Reading
Andrew was telling about this Bernhard fellow for quite some time. On Friday he brought one of his books out with him, I read the first page and was interested. I picked up two books on Saturday. The first I took on, “the Voice Imitator”, was chosen because it is a book of 104 short stories in 104 pages. I was told that Bernhard’s other books are hard to read given that he does not use paragraphs, chapters, or any other breaks in telling his story.
I started reading it while I was walking to the lab from the library and became completely immersed. The guy definitely has an obsession with death and mortality but in a funny, ironic way not an ‘I want to shock you’ way. The book was wonderful.
I started reading Yes two days ago. The first sentence is 2 pages long. I read in multiple times, wanting to savour what he wrote. Getting into the book now, I’ve adjusted to a different rhythm of reading necessary to take it all in. He is very repetitive but it better paints the picture of the main character’s (told in first person) obsessions. I have never read something that depicts so well a state of anxiety and not panic anxiety, but the anxiety that we all have day to day. It is like reading the own voice in my head, but this time it is questioning and worrying and thinking in another time and place.
Will reading this make me feel insane? Probably not. Through the thoughts of the main character he is painting a story. Painting not telling because it is not linear and ordered. It is like he is adding stroke after stroke wherever and whenever he feels more colour or information is needed.
It’s a hard one to put down. I can’t say, okay just one more chapter.
September 11, 2005 at 8:53 pm · Filed under Art, Reading
I’m horrible for starting them and never finishing. I wanted to get this done very much. The goal of it was to paint a picture I could stare at for a very long time and not think about. That and to not use much colour. Yes there is colour, but usually my paintings scream RGB and it makes me sick. I really need to take classes. This is a little closer to what I want to do. Must practice more.
This painting last was started last summer - only the background and windows. It took this summer’s passing to “inspire” me to add the bottle. A few days later I decided the finishing touch would be a wine coloured stain, Ralph Steadman style, around the bottom. I just finished reading Steadman’s Doodaa and have been thinking about his illustrations a lot. I love their sketchiness and appreciate them even more now because it is hard to create something in messy abandon without making it look forced. Maybe I should have finished it drunk. That seems to be the style of Doodaa’s Gavin Twinge. But then it may have become overdone…I wouldn’t know when to stop painting. But then maybe that holding back is just what makes it look forced.
