michael lambe

Just a few snapshots from last Sunday. We were too late for the antiques market but we had a bit of a stroll around Toji’s temple grounds anyway.

Then on into town for a light meal at Vanilla (which you can read more about here).

We stayed there for a while and had a bit of a read – I was reading my book about machiya. It was making me a bit sad though reading about how many old machiya have been lost and looking at photos of the destruction unfolding… So we went for a stroll towards Teramachi and on a whim had a go at one of those “UFO catcher” machines. Oddly enough we won!

Only problem with that though was that Mewby had to carry a giant pink Stitch around with her for the rest of the evening – looking a looney. Stitch in toe – we did some purikura. This particular purikura machine puts too much contrast into the eyes so Mewby comes out looking like some kind of strange anime character:

And then on for a nice dinner at Apollo (which you can read about here). Nice place Apollo. We like it a lot.

Here’s “this month’s word” as posted in all the classrooms around my school:

善き友があり善き仲間と
ともにあることはこの聖なる
道のすべてある

yoki tomo ga ari yoki nakama to
tomoni aru koto ha kono seinaru
michi no subete aru

My co-teacher mumbled something about it probably being from some sutra or other, but he basically had no idea. It is obviously old though. Notice the old fashioned よき instead of the current よい for “good”. Also notice the use of the kanji 善 for “good” instead of the alternatives 良い or 好い. To me this suggests a more moral sense of “good”; good as in “right” and “proper”. 聖なる道 literally means “sacred path” but in this case it probably means simply a good way to live – way meaning the Buddhist way of course.
Here’s my translation with vocabulary notes below:

to live the good way
being together
with good friends and good companions
is everything

善き  – よき = good
友 – とも = friend
仲間 – なかま = companion
ともに – together, in company with
聖なる – せいなる – sacred, holy
道 – みち- path, way
すべて – everything, all

Where the Wild Things Are is quite a good movie to watch right after you’ve had a row with someone. Makes you feel very very silly indeed. Quite unlike Maurice Sendak’s original picture book in tone, the movie explores the mood-swings of childhood; the high points of excitement (snowball fights) , the slumps into depression (some big boy smashes your igloo) and then the tears and the rage (tearing up your sister’s bedroom). It’s a familiar pattern and one we all recognize. Becoming an adult is in part learning how to control those moodswings, and learning how to compromise with people when you can’t quite seem to get along. The boy Max becomes leader of the “wild things” and especially friendly with Carol among them. But as children (and monsters) do, soon they are squabbling over petty slights and misunderstandings. Because they are so close – they feel all the more hurt and let down when they argue and the sense of betrayal seems unforgivable. And yet, a simple gesture can suddenly make them forget their argument and remember how important they are to each other again. When the movie was over I asked Mewby what she thought about it. “I’m not a child…” she said smiling, as if to say the movie was too childish for her. But I noticed that there were no children in the audience when we went to see it. And I don’t think this movie is for children really. It’s not particularly “fun”. It is a far more realistic and sombre depiction of childhood experience than one would expect from a popular movie. But it is also a study of those feelings, those moodswings; the hurt, the loneliness, the joy and the rage that we all still have inside us even as adults – whether we choose to express them or acknowledge them or not. Spike Jonze and David Eggers wrote the screenplay for this movie together. It’s interesting what they are trying to do here. I’m not sure it works – but it is interesting.

…from Joao last Saturday evening. Yutaka (right) and his cousin Manabu (left):

Mewby and Me:

I rented this one at the weekend. I figured the subject matter and inevitably sad ending would make this movie heavy and depressing but ultimately the story of Harvey Milk is a positive and inspiring story of a life full of meaning and purpose. On his birthday in 1970 Harvey Milk says to his new lover, Scott Smith, “I’m 40 and I’ve done nothing in my life that I’m proud of.” Scott encourages him to come out of the closet, make new friends and find a new scene in California. There Harvey Milk becomes passionately involved in the world of politics, fighting for gay rights, and ultimately becomes the first openly gay man elected to public office in the USA. I knew nothing about this man before watching this movie. I’m really glad I know now. And Sean Penn’s performance – fantastic. Watch this movie first chance you get!

Get “Milk” on DVD from amazon.com, amazon.co.jp, and amazon.co.uk.

I watched this on DVD last night. It appears to have won lots of awards. Well deserved. This is a gentle romantic fantasy from Ireland about two coma patients who have met only in their increasingly bizarre dreams… and then fall in love. I especially liked it when they suddenly began speaking in Japanese (funny how often that happens in non-Japanese movies).

Lovely movie. I recommend it. The Japanese title (god knows why) is 夜更かし羊が寝る前に.

Over the past few years I’ve gotten into the habit of buying The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror as December approaches. It’s a great big fat hunk of a book, about 40 stories and poems, and lots of chewy meat and potatoes in there. I always enjoy it. It’s reliably really good. So I thought I’d do the same just before last Christmas. Didn’t work out that way though. There was no Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror in 2009. And after a bit of internet research I discovered only this: after 21 years of compiling and winning awards the editorial team behind it were “on hiatus”. No reasons given as to why… What a pity.

However, I also discovered that Ellen Datlow, one member of the aforementioned award winning editorial team, had gone it alone and started her own new series with The Best Horror of the Year Volume One. A slimmer volume this one, only 21 stories and poems, and the fantasy element seemingly ditched… “Well, why not?” I thought, “Now’s the perfect time to read it!” I like a bit of spine-spooking tingliness in the dark corner of the year… So I ordered it. And over the winter break I read it through. And I enjoyed it (mostly) too. There’s a lot of fine crafted and deeply absorbing stories in there. Some absolute gems in fact. It’s a good compilation. I just have one teeny tiny (and perhaps pedantic) quibble about it and that’s about the use of the word Horror. A fair percentage of the stories didn’t strike me as being particularly scary,  – or even trying to be particularly scary.  A horror story in order to be a horror story should do more than just evoke a vaguely creepy atmosphere, it ought to evoke feelings of shock, or fear, or foreboding, or revulsion – it ought to horrify you. But a fair few of the stories in this collection didn’t really do that at all. At best they might be described as Dark Fantasy… but not Horror.  They were still good though mind you – they just didn’t inspire the level of dread that I was expecting from the cover title. It is a pedantic point though because I found only one story in the collection disatisfying, most of them praiseworthy and there were maybe three in there that were absolute classics of the genre.

Steve Duffy’s The Clay Party, describing a misguided journey into the wilderness (and into madness) has a Lovecraftian feel to it, though the horror in this tale comes from the vile actions of men and not monsters (in fact the monsters are alright). R. B. Russell’s story Loup-garou is perfect. Starting with a seemingly mundane tale of a run-of-the-mill guy  going to see an old movie, by the end of the story everything has been turned on it’s head in shocking disorientation. Memory, identity, reality… nothing seems certain. Genius. And my favorite in the collection Adam Golaski’s The Man from the Peak, in a sense is an old story, but told so well. It lulls you in, then gradually dreamily and  subtly creeps you out, and finally brings you face to face  with – pure unadulterated bloody HORROR in the truest sense of the word. That one story alone is worth buying the collection for. It’s gruesome yet… DELICIOUS!

Buy The Best Horror of the Year Volume One from amazon.co.jp, amazon.com, and amazon.co.uk.
Buy The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror from amazon.co.jp, amazon.com, and amazon.co.uk.

I’m not sure how this got started or whose idea it was (probably Yutaka’s) but we (Betty, Mewby, Yoshida-kun, Yutaka and me) had a kind of impromptu takoyaki party at my house last Saturday. A lot of booze was consumed. And a lot of octopus balls.  And then the experimentation began… Shrimp balls were quite popular. And Mewby’s chocolate banana cake-mix balls were an absolute hit. My cheesy tomato pizza balls were not so well received however. Here are some pictures:

It’s a wonderful thing to know that there are people in this world prepared put so much love and effort into creating 5 and half minutes of perfection – and then offer it up online for free! Watch this! Just watch it!

Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.

It’s January 6th already – Twelfth Night no less – and time to take down the Christmas tree. Back to work the day after tomorrow – but still, only two more months till Spring vacation. (sighs -  thinks, “What an awesome job”) Here’s a couple of piccies of our Mewby at Shimogamo shrine last Sunday.

It is of course the year of the Tiger.

The Shimogamo area is one of my favorite places in Kyoto – a great place for a stroll in the woods and lots of great cafes and restaurants in the area. We went to antighseinsse for dinner and had one of Horie’s handmade pizzas – he puts the basil into the dough. And I had two pints of delicious chocolatey-rich tasting Tokyo Black real ale. But we didn’t like the gormless and charmless twit Horie has working with him now,  so we retreated to Sheeps and I had a savoury pint of Yona Yona real ale followed by a glass of Jamesons (as the beer was getting heavy). And then we felt like seeing Se-chan so we went to Kisui and I started on nihonshu… And then I woke up the next day with a sore head. Silly me.

Now yesterday I went to the Kampo museum to look at some super psychedelic Huichol yarn paintings – but if you want to read about that, you’ll have to click here.