Off the Cliff

AMLA has disappeared from yahoo groups. Or possibly I, the list maintainer, have somehow been bounced from AMLA. But so far it appears to be gone.

In other news, I have two Hasui calendars hanging on my walls. Well, four, actually, because 2009 and 2010 have been turned to my favourite prints therefrom. The other two, 2011 and 2012's, arrived from kickinpants earlier this week, which is commendably fast (it usually takes two weeks plus to get anything here from Seattle.) I suppose it was because she sent them traceable and requiring signature. She also gifted me with a personally dedicated volume of Connie Willis short stories (where have you been, TTG?) and Havemercy. I take it this is Lady Jaida turned pro? It is all very lovely and I am extremely happy, especially with Hasui's Meiji Iris Garden and the rainy hot springs. This outfit rather tends to fixate on Hasui's snow and temple scenes-- there's four each in both calendars-- which I think is a mistake. Seen one red temple in snow with umbrella-carrying kimono-clad woman and you've seen them all.
( Cut for earworms )

Not the Cavafy poem. My own instant time travel. Down in the comments people stroll along the Memory Lane of the late 90s. YuYu Hakusho! Sailor Moon! FF7! Xenogears! Those storied names, those fragrant memories... though I never played any of the games. The ones I didn't hear about from deepfryerfire I knew from the photocopied doujinshi that Fearless Leader sent me for translation. Seeing the original pixellated chibis was a shock when I finally did, many years later. And now 2004 makes me feel nostalgic as well.

(Memory has cancelled what happened to those translations after the paper Aestheticism went online. No one, in fact, seems to remember what form the zine took before 2000. Did we ever have FF7 dj scans? )

I wish paleaswater would blog more- even as much as she used to do on pitas. Have just been reading through past entries to find her perfectly worded summation of what I don't like about Barry Hughes.

It is amusing in its own way, but it's so... chinoiserie. There's no denying that this author did tons and tons of research. Left no popular tale unturned in fact -- I can identify a lot of his references, from the blood-thirsty duchess to the proper method of cooking porcupine. But taken altogether the effect is rather grotesque -- reminds of me of these chinoiserie rooms in European palaces where the owner never saw a piece of porcelain or jade that couldn't be improved by a gold chased cover. And it wouldn't be so objectionable if the author wasn't thinking that he was doing such a clever job. Erghhh...

Add that to her remarks about Snake Agent and I think we're left with the dispiriting conclusion that round-eyes shouldn't try to write Chinese stuff unless they've lived there. Or are actually referencing the western tradition of getting it wrong, Fu Manchu and Terry and the Pirates のよう.
( Thoughts on cultural appropriation )

Spent yesterday translating, which left me exhausted as translating will. Slept badly with twinging body parts and woke today with the concrete neck o' doom, which isn't quite concrete enough to take a muscle relaxant for; achy shoulders, twinging elbows (perennial and nothing works on them: maybe it's tendonitis after all) and general blahs. I am a baby-hefter, not a desk-sitter. I should go heft some babies to get things back in order.

But instead I'm contemplating the Twilight Zone feeling of another Vanishing Review. Years ago paleaswater lent me a manga about a bunch of, uhh, architect detectives, wasn't it? I remember writing a review of it. She remembers reading my review of it. There is no trace of a review to be found anywhere on my computer, which has everything I ever wrote . ( And now it's happened again )