little irish jackhammer
So I mailed Kumar (Comics Guru) and asked him if he’d seen this:
Silly me! Of course he has!
“Oh, yeah!” writes Kumar, “I can hardly wait! It could be the book of the year.There’s a good interview with Campbell about the book here:http://tinyurl.com/lyfc5… And incidentally a good interview about his Batman book from last year here:http://tinyurl.com/gtmsn“
So there you have it - direct from the Comics Guru. You can get a taster of “The Fate of the Artist” here:
Beautiful day today, bright, sunny, warm… The hills were a shimmering green, the sky a perfect blue, and as the day cooled into night you could hear the frogs chorally burping in the rice paddies that they (the Japanese - not the frogs) somehow manage to squeeze in between office blocks and fast food restaurants.
This week, as the students have to face their mid-term tests next week, we (the eikaiwa teachers) are giving them “jishu” or “self-study” time during our classes - which basically means they can do what they want. Every time I announce this in class, I am greeted by a round of applause. It’s great for me because I don’t have to prepare a thing and I can just wander round the class chatting with any students who don’t feel like studying anything. Some of the third years told me this morning, that I was a dead-ringer for Super Mario and were really pleased when I said “Mama Mia!” I had a look in the mirror later and found myself seeing myself through their eyes: “Yes, my eyes are big and round! My nose is prominent!” I may have been here too long…
Anyway, today’s interesting links are this: http://tokyoblog.livejournal.com/ - I actually stayed in this place! It was many moons ago though, 1998 or 9 maybe, with a young gentleman, a roving player in fact, by the name of Jonathan Bond. Key memories for me are the porn video being played over the reception desk (such a novel use for a bicycle!) and the constant reverberations of burps, farts and snores throughout the night from the capsules about me.
Oh happy days of youth!
And this: http://www.firstsecondbooks.net/LCtrailer/QTlrg.html - Trailers for books! What a great idea!
And this is something we can all relate to: http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail152.html
…up to a point.
And Kumar sent me this: http://board.spawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209328&page=1&pp=35 … and it scared me.
Well, I was very pleased the other day to see that A DAY OF ROCKENING has come to the Eurovision Song Contest. Marvellous stuff from Finland there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY7F84bhNEg&search=lordi
Still don’t want to learn Finnish though.
However, Japanese isn’t nearly difficult enough by itself. I crave more linguistic pain and so being a well hard international type, I’ve started taking lessons in French and Korean too. “Why French and Korean?” I hear you cry. “Why not Spanish and Chinese? Those languages come in respectively at numbers 3 and 1 on the world languages top ten - (number 2 being English), don’t they? Think of the many millions of people you could reach with your sad Doctor Who obsession and your left-wing tendencies. “
You have a point. But, I know a lot of French and Korean people here for some reason, so it seems to make sense. I’ve had one lesson in French so far and three in Korean. Korean is hard. Very hard. However I’m pleased to announce: I can read Hangul! (The incredibly logical Korean phonetic script: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul) Yes! It’s true! I have no idea what it means, and it’s kind of hard to pronounce too… but I can read it! And it only took me an hour! Hurrah! But before I rush out into the night to gorge myself on bibimba and chijimi (check out this recipe by the way - hoohooo! it’s tasty! http://www.koreaneats.com/bibimbap.htm)… here are some more links.
This is brilliant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBXal1GAA4A&search=Star%20Trek%20G4tv%20Spock%20Kirk%20crib%20long
This is an interview with the historian (and Eddie Veder fan) Howard Zinn: http://www.tikkun.org/magazine/tik0605/fredman
Here’s some more historical perspective: http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-04/26chomsky.cfm
And here’s some ANGER: http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-05/06pilger.cfm
And here’s a thought from brother Einstein:
“The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
One cannot help but be in awe
when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life,
of the marvelous structure of reality.
It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day.
Never lose a holy curiosity.”
Just a short one today (that’s what she said).
News from the Big-Pink-People-Factory: One of my co-workers suddenly has to go home to New Zealand for family reasons and so from Friday, instead of teaching 20 wee ungovernables, I’ll be teaching 40 per class. Ha ha ha!
Also: Senior High girls are asking for my autograph!
Why?
And… is that hot?
Also I see none of ye writerly types have taken up my writerly challenge from yesterday’s blog… Where be your writerly balls? Hmm?
And I saw this yesterday and I thought “Ooh!”:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8abAOYtVSIc&search=Bond%20trailer%20casino%20royale
or even better (if your compoota aint crap):
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/casinoroyale/
People have been giving this chap grief for being blond and a bit, erm, “rugged” and for not being Pierce Brosnan and quite possibly for being called Craig, but the trailer looks alright, don’t it? I would have liked to have seen Brosnan in one more outing but I think it’s not a bad idea to revamp the series, take it right back to it’s roots and start it from scratch again… a la “Batman Begins”. Also Daniel Craig was quite debonair in “Layer Cake”…
http://www.sonyclassics.com/layercake/index_flash.html
Dang-da-lang-dang-da-dang! Dang-da-lang-dang-da-dang… Tell me you’re not excited.
So it’s been over a week since my last entry. I am of course back at work which means my life is no longer my own, again. This curious pink building is the people factory I’m at now.
I have to write two lesson plans and a test by tomorrow and naturally I haven’t a clue what to do. So in a brave attempt at putting it off till the last minute, (which is when I get all my best ideas anyway) I’m writing this instead.
Anyway, here are some interesting links:
First an article from the Observer about Ray Winstone, famous for his hard-case roles in “Scum”, “Nil by Mouth” and erm… the beaver in the Narnia movie.
“Maybe, I wonder, he’d fallen in with a bad crowd? The News of the World once ran a photo of Winstone, aged 24, surrounded by a gang of jailbirds, who all seemed to be his best mates. One of them, Joey Pyle (six years for cocaine dealing, acquitted of murder), was quoted as saying, ‘I like to think Ray got a lot out of being out and about with us. He never seemed uncomfortable with what some of us had been up to.’ Did he really mix with all those gangsters? Winstone objects, ‘I don’t like the word gangsters.’ Well, criminals, then? ‘Yes. I went to school with criminals or people who turned out to be criminals. People you’ve liked don’t always do the things in life that you agree with. It’s a funny old world out there, you know? We didn’t live in Surrey. We had a community of people where it was fucking hard. I was born in 1957, 12 years after the Second World War, but there were still bombed houses round where I lived, and it wasn’t till the 1960s that they moved us all out and built those shitholes they call flats. It was just after rationing, the black market and all that. People want what they can’t have, and the only way to get it is on the black market, which creates villains.’”
More of that here: LINK.
And it seems that George Bush has a sense of humour…LINK
Oh, but then again, maybe he don’t…
LINK
Ouch!
And this looked kind of hopeful…(http://www.westpointgradsagainstthewar.org/)
…but there seems to be only three of them.
So I had this idea for all you budding writers. As those who know me are well aware I have a part-time job at a mental clinic on Saturday mornings. What I usually do each week is prepare some flash-cards to teach vocabulary items, then use them in card games and finally get the patients to build stories together using those same cards. So I was thinking, in the spirit of Italo Calvino’s “Castle of Crossed Destinies” (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0156154552/sr=8-1/qid=1147668522/ref=sr_1_1/002-1161996-3530412?%5Fencoding=UTF8), we could do something similar and I could put the best stories up here… Well, anyone who is interested, let me know and I’ll either mail the first set of pictures to you. Or maybe post them up here….
I suppose I’d better work now. Sheesh.
More pictures are posted on Flickr for your perusal. Also I’ve gained my first Flickr contact (well the first one who isn’t Rik anyway). I was all excited about it for all of five minutes, especially when I realised she’s a comics artist (www.fartparty.org) but then I realised she has over 5,000 contacts already, so whoop-de-doo.
I’m pleased to report that Chris Cotter has managed to write me an email without any errors in spelling or punctuation: “Just watched the most recent Dr. Who, the one with Sarah Jane & K9. My that was a great, great, great episode. And Sarah Jane didn’t scream and get herself into trouble, like the stupid ninny she used to be.” Yes indeed, Chris. I was actually quite moved myself. Sarah-Jane Smith got all deep and growed-up: “The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it’s a world or a relationship, everything has it’s time and everything ends.” Wow. Bit of a contrast from: “Aaaaaaaaaaaaarggh! Doctor! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrghhhhh!” The writing really does seem to be getting better and better on that series. How did K9 get out of the car, though?
Last Wednesday, I went to Eiga-mura with Philippe and Hyon Ju. Eiga-mura is basically, a bunch of shabby old film-sets you can visit and watch some actors dressed up in Edo period outfits, running around having pretend fights. It’s a bit crap to be honest but I can’t complain as the tickets were free and I did get some good pics.
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Philippe and I, finishing our ice-creams.
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The actor 福本清三 gives it what-for.
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Philippe and Hyon-Ju centre with two actors at Eiga-mura. The guy on the right is 福本清三 who played the “Silent Samurai” in the movie “Last Samurai”… So that’ll be me taking the picture then.
This lady was kind enough to supply myself, Philippe and Hyon Ju with free tickets. Ta.
Secrets…
There’s also a big Kamen Rider section for the kids. This next one’s for Kumar…
I posted some more pictures of a similar ilk on Flickr, which you can see by clicking “My Pictures” on the right of this page.
On Thursday, Hyon Ju and I went round to Suwa-san’s Temple to see if he really is a monk, and, strangely, he is. His family lives in and runs this little temple tucked away in one of the side streets right in the centre of town. One minute you’re in a busy shopping district, the next - sanctuary. There’s something very odd about sitting in a temple drinking beer and nibbling snacks. The lady behind me is called Keiko and she’s completely insane.
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Thursday evening: a long promised visit to The Flying Keg with Hyon Ju, Sun Hyon, Takeshi and friends. The Flying Keg (http://keg.boo.jp/) is a superb beer emporium on the crossroads of Mikage Dori and Higashioji Dori. Here’s a picture of myself, pre-imbibification of beverages. Sadly, all post-imbibification images are somewhat blurred. This beer is a Tripel Karmeliet from Belgium. Lovely.
Just look at the range. Ah, tis a beautiful thing:
After that we went on to karaoke but I don’t remember much about that except for singing something by James Blunt and that’s just wrong.
Working at the mental clinic on Saturday morning one of the questions that came up in conversation was “If you could be the same age forever, what age would you choose?” Most people chose 21. But I’d pick my age now. In my twenties I was a bit of a daft bugger. But now I have a small measure of common sense, good friends, enough work to keep me and a very nice life thank you.
