flemmings: (Default)
flemmings ([personal profile] flemmings) wrote2010-12-25 03:20 pm

Grasshopper mind cannot settle on any one subject

Thinking back fifteen years to Christmas in Japan, a day rather like this. Morning coffee at Chat Noir, the muzak playing 'Past three o'clock and a cold frosty morn', and very nice too. Alas, in a coughing spell at work that afternoon, tore a whole bunch of intercostal muscles, and was very uncomfortable for several weeks after. Glad that's behind me, whatever. Here in TO, I open my present from [livejournal.com profile] incandescens which is I Shall Wear Midnight. Happy holiday reading indeed, and thank you very much. Also the Ikea knife from [livejournal.com profile] deepfryerfire which I'd forgotten about, since shortly after she said she'd buy it for me she fell into a moshpit and broke her elbow, IIRC. Lovely to have-- chopped veg for soup with its intensely sharp blade. Believe I'm supposed to give you a penny for it so it doesn't cut our friendship; shall do that when the PO opens again, some time in the middle of next week. PO employees are indeed the salaried leisure class in this country.

1. "Et in Arcadia ego. I did once indeed inhabit Arcady. Could it be that I too have become an Olympian?"

I never made it through The Wind in the Willows. Fact is, I think I never started. But what I devoured as an early adolescent were the companion volumes in the edition we had at home-- Grahame's Dream Days and The Golden Age. Can't think why I don't have those two books any more, since I absconded with them from the family library at an early age. I'm tempted to buy them second hand online, once I find an edition with the Shepard illustrations and not (sniffs) the Maxfield Parrish everyone this side of the pond wants to sell me. Yes I know the text is available from Project Gutenberg, but one needs the illustrations. It's also Project Gutenberg that's keeping me from ordering. No books from my teens have held up over the decades, and what I recall as sweet melancholy over the passing of time might well read now as cloying sap. (Tried rereading The Treasure Seekers and had to stop. The urge to hit Oswald a clip over the ear 'ole was becoming unbearable.)

2. Book by one David Peace, Tokyo Year Zero. Authorial mannerisms aside, strikes me as very convincing take on Tokyo after the surrender, though a small voice in the back of the mind says Surely the Japanese would have-- well, not exactly 'enjoyed' gambaruing, but been more resigned to it than Peace's protagonists are? The war was no picnic either, after all. Anyway, googled the author and discovered that he lived fifteen years in Tokyo, coming back a year or so ago with his Japanese wife and family because his mother was ill. Found an interview which suggest that he too is someone that Japan defeated, wife and kids or not. And now his wife, who doesn't speak much English, is trying to cope with the Yorkshire version of same, poor woman.

(Also in the course of googling came across an essay on Durrell's Alexandria Trilogy which I always disliked instinctively. The kind of people I've never met myself and wouldn't want to meet, if they did in fact exist and were not just projections of the author's narcissistic self-preoccupation. Essay was also self-indulgent, by someone who looooves Henry Miller and wanted Durrell's work to be even better. Ardent male fans of Henry Miller are best avoided in the first place; and when they devote their essay to being so sad that Durrell was an incestuous child abuser and an anti-semite and they can't loooove him as much as they do Miller... ah well. Enough said.)

3. Mushishi 8 is a marvellous volume. Has a marvellous story set in what looks to me more like China, a string of villages on a river/ canal/ waterway flowing behind the houses. I know that exists in Japan-- Gion's like that, and wherever it is in Kyuushuu, but the pictures I've seen are all of China. The world is melting, indeed.

Turned from that to my Seimei, found a story of monks living in an isolated temple in the countryside, suddenly thought one could certainly do a story of mushi in Heian times, and possibly Yumemakura already has; though he tends more to oni and youkai ie cognizant and directed phenomenon, rather than the semi-sentient mushi.

[identity profile] i-am-zan.livejournal.com 2010-12-25 08:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Yorkshire (as the one in England? ... ah yes yes ) ... yeah that takes some getting used to but once you do it is a lot to love. ^_^

Hubby read 'Wind in the Willows' to the children ...the boy adores it so much and is worried there will be no more copies left when he grows up, so he asked for his own copy from Daddy so he can read it to his children when the time comes. (it was an 'OHhh my sweet little boy' moment definitely)

He sounds an interesting person ...although of course what caught my eye is that Sean Bean (http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=sean+bean&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=hVcWTYGqM8_rrQf9z9G5Cw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=5&ved=0CFUQsAQwBA&biw=1276&bih=823) is in the film of his books. I don't how I go from a bit of (Yorkshire) rough to young looking Japanese idols (http://www.google.co.uk/images?q=ohno+satoshi&hl=en&prmd=ivnsl&source=lnms&tbs=isch:1&ei=R1gWTbaxOsirrAe7nPTECw&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&ved=0CA0Q_AU&biw=1276&bih=823). ^_^ I love them both though

And I've been wracking my brain to think if I'd already thanked you for the card ... and I thought I had but wasn't sure so I'm just going to say again ... thank you for the lovely card, it really brought a smile, and also the kids love Snoopy so it is perfect. ^__^

But I also thought to look back and I found that yes yes I had already done so. (http://flemmings.livejournal.com/424258.html)

Looks like you're having a great Christmas. O I would love such a calm and quiet one, spend it reading hot tea, or hot chocolate and reading. Maybe one day, ^_^ still, it's been ok.

In-laws have gone home, sister has taken over looking after Mum to give me a break from it. She cannot, unfortunately, give me a break from the madness of school holidays. But it's been a good day.

*HUUUG* wrap up warm dear. Its cool even here. ^_~ Perfect sleeping weather.

[identity profile] flemmings.livejournal.com 2010-12-26 05:26 pm (UTC)(link)
I sort of like the sound of Yorkshire English, but it does tend to kerblonx me.

Glad you're getting a bit of a break from family duties. Kids don't count as same, obviously, and anyway breaks from them are built in to the system. Just, not at the same time as the other breaks.

(Googles Singapore weather. Yappari, high 30 feels like 43, low 25 feels like 32. *Cool*, she says.)
incandescens: (Default)

[personal profile] incandescens 2010-12-26 04:32 pm (UTC)(link)
A pleasure, and I'm glad it got there in time. I was trying to remember whether or not you'd already mentioned reading it. (I think I may have stuck a bracelet in there as well, but that was not the main present, more an overflow of jewelry enthusiasm.) Merry Christmas!

[identity profile] flemmings.livejournal.com 2010-12-26 05:20 pm (UTC)(link)
No, I always wait for my Pratchetts to come out in paperback, and then borrow someone else's hardcover when I can't wait any more.

Yes, I did get the brecelet! and wore it yesterday, half-thinking all the time it was my watch and I must be careful when washing hands only why am I wearing a wtach on a holiday? And then to Christmas dinner next door, where my SIL admired it. So thank you very much again!
incandescens: (Default)

[personal profile] incandescens 2010-12-27 07:36 pm (UTC)(link)
A pleasure! It is made using this neat stuff called memory wire, which holds its shape and thus makes very good bangles/cuffs.

(Sorry, wasn't trying to beg for compliments: just wanted to make sure it had got there safely.)

[identity profile] flemmings.livejournal.com 2010-12-28 01:53 am (UTC)(link)
And a good thing to ask, because I *have* missed little presents once or twice in the past.

Also the package came perfumed with your signature scent, as always. ^_^
incandescens: (Default)

[personal profile] incandescens 2010-12-28 04:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Excellent, and very nice. :)