It’s October 31st and unseasonably hot. Actually most of October has been pretty much like summer during the day and only cooling down to proper autumn temperatures once the sun goes down. Very odd. You’d think the ENTIRE PLANET WAS HEATING UP OR SOMETHING.
I taught all my lessons in a Frankenstein mask (plus long black hooded robe) today… I think I shall continue to do so for the remainder of the week. Scaring the bejesus out of your students is an excellent way to start a lesson (a sort of role reversal if you will).
Monthly Archive for October, 2006
I tried to post this yesterday but I was trying to be all clever with the html, wasn’t I? So that didn’t work then. Well, here it is, yesterday’s blog as is:
No videos today. No tunes. No pictures. No fancy stuff. Just discipline. Just words.
I only had one class today because of the mid-term tests but I somehow managed to convince myself it started at 10.30 when in fact it started at 9.30, thus ensuring a glorious morning panic once I’d realized my mistake. Arriving on time, minus necktie, unshaven, hair sticking out in all directions, speech jumbled and confused, my Senior High Third year students (AKA: HOTTIES) looked at me in some amusement. “What time did you get up?” they asked. So I gave them a test. That bequieted them. Ha.
I just read this asinine fool’s opinion:
Gene Luen Yang is a teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area …. He produced a graphic novel (or “comic book,” as we used to call them), American Born Chinese, which has been nominated for a National Book Award in the young people’s literature category.
I have not read this particular “novel” but I’m familiar with the genre so I’m going to go out on a limb here. …comic books should not be nominated for National Book Awards, in any category. That should be reserved for books that are, well, all words.
This is not about denigrating the comic book, or graphic novel, or whatever you want to call it. This is not to say that illustrated stories don’t constitute an art form or that you can’t get tremendous satisfaction from them. This is simply to say that, as literature, the comic book does not deserve equal status with real novels, or short stories. It’s apples and oranges.
Methinks:”Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
But then I read this calm and measured response from Neil Gaiman.
Then I felt much better.
I suppose if he builds a time machine he could do something about Maus’s 1992 Pulitzer, or Sandman’s 1991 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story, or Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan winning the 2001 Guardian First Book Award, or even Watchmen’s appearance on Time’s Hundred Best Novels of the 20th Century list. Lacking a Time Machine, it seems a rather silly and antiquated argument, like hearing someone complain that women have the vote or that be-bop music and crooners are turning up in the pop charts.
I like the bit where he says that he hasn’t read the comic in question, but he just knows what things like that are like. It’s always best to be offended by things you haven’t read. That way you keep your mind uncluttered by things that might change it.
Greenpeace have this rather splendid game up on their website here: Duke Anti Nuke
It’s all fun and games… until somebody detonates a warhead.
Finally, I spotted this rather amusing piece on the recent furore sparked by Rush Limbaugh accusing Michael J. Fox of shamelessly exaggerating his symptoms in a recent cell-stem research ad (see last post).
Now, I know this may offend those who suffer from this particular condition, and these individuals might not like it much when I suggest that a certain person with this diagnosis is exaggerating his symptoms, but I have to say, I think Rush Limbaugh is just pretending to be a dick. While the right-wing radio host does exhibit most, if not all, of the common characteristics of this behaviour, it’s so rare for all of them to coalesce at a single moment that one can only conclude Limbaugh’s most recent performances are nothing short of fraudulent. I’m no expert diagnostician, but nobody could be this big a one. Limbaugh must be acting.
More of that here.
Oh and I almost forgot! There are some brilliant six-word short stories up here.
Here are my favorites:
Longed for him. Got him. Shit.
- Margaret Atwood
Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time
- Alan Moore
God to Earth: “Cry more, noobs!”
- Marc Laidlaw
Dinosaurs return. Want their oil back.
- David Brin
Will this do (lazy writer asked)?
- Ken MacLeod
And now it’s time for all fine young High School English teachers (i.e. myself, Jules and John) to partake of foods and beverages. I bid ye all adieu.
So that was last night then. Before I went off and imbibed beers with Jules and John, which was before meeting up with Hyon Ju and Philippe and Hyon Ju’s friends, which was before I found myself singing karaoke till 4 in the morning. Gosh.
Quiet night in tonight.
Wow. That’s one very brave chap.As Rik Abel said to me last night now that I can embed videos I don’t need to actually write blogs at all any more. So here’s another bit of Michael Franti for you singing about something very very important. I’m watching his DVD about his trip to Iraq now so I’ll be writing about that soon.
Everyone deserves music, sweet music Even our worst enemies Lord, they deserves music, music Even the quiet ones in our family, they deserve music Why? Just because they do. And because I absolutely love this tune. (That’s Michael Franti in the silly hat by the way) And because WHOO-HOO! LOOK AT ME! - I’ve worked out how to embed videos! So I can! And I will!
Michael Franti & Spearhead - Everyone Deserves Music
Music Video Codes at Www.roxwel.com
I finished my last lessons at Yamashina tonight and they gave me a bottle of champagne. So that was nice. Don’t think I ever had a whole bottle of champagne before. I guess I should save it for some kind of special occasion… like winning the lottery or an engagement or something. Winning the lottery seems more likely though at present.
I went for a walk in the rain yesterday (safely sheltered under my 80 cm wide monster-brolly) and came across this sign (left) by the canal. It amused me so I took a picture of it for you. It seems to be a depiction of the great celestial dog-turd in the sky. An inspiration for all pooches everywhere to boldly do their doo-doo whereever they do do doo-doo.
Anyway, the last week or so has been fairly relaxed because it’s time for the mid-term tests, so not much teaching. I had a nice chat with Rik Abel the other night and he told me to sign up for this National Blog Posting Month thingy but I got completely
the wrong end of the stick (apparently I am “quite retarded”) and accidentally signed up for this instead…..
And then I thought, “Well, why not give it a go?” Now in order to finish a decent sized novel (first draft) in 30 days I have to write at least 4,000 words a day. Research is obviously out of the question so it has to be something very pull-out-of-arseable indeed. Anne Kobayashi writes: “i think the blog is great. you should just write a whole book about yourself”. I thought about that, but then if I did, it would be either a) very boring or b) it would be too interesting and get me into a lot of trouble. I went on a book buying splurge the other day and invested in a couple of Neil Gaiman books “Neverwhere” and “Smoke and Mirrors” and “The Years Best Fantasy and Horror” so that’s probably the sort of direction I’m going to go in… Just trying to psyche myself up for the big push now. Anyway, if you want me for anything during the month of November, forget it. I’m busy.
MUSIC!
Now for the longest time I was thinking that this cover of Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” was by Ben Harper. “Fair play too ya, Ben,” I thought. But it’s not. It’s Jeffrey Gaines. Who the heck is Jeffrey Gaines? I don’t know but he’s quite good. As Hyon Ju nicely points out his hair makes him look like the Incredible Hulk (which only makes me like him more).
I thought someone might want to see what an autumn rice field looks like.
This is in fact what an autumn rice field looks like. I took this picture with my mobile phone a couple of weeks ago in Yamashina. I’ve been teaching part-time at a company there for the last 18 months or so. Then the other day I got this (out-of-the-blue) mail:
Hello Mike,
I’ve got a bad news for you…
Eikosha will stop English lessons this month, so
25th will be the last lesson.
I hope this would not affect your income so badly.
Emi
Which, although the financial thing is no big deal, it was just a bit of pocket money really, does seem you know a little odd and sudden and, without an explanation, kind of rude. So I asked why. And after a few days of silence I asked Emi if she had received my mail asking why. Then I got this one:
Hello, Mike
The reson is …I am not sure, but
Mr. Akitsu had thought the lessons would be 1year or 1 and half
from the beginning, so may be he thought now is the time to stop lessons.
Emi
Thing is, though he may have thought that, he never mentioned it to me. Which I think qualifies him as a rude bastard, don’t you?
Well, I don’t feel like blogging today. But my mate Rik Abel has started blogging again, and he’s wildly intelligent and stuff, so read his instead until I pull my socks up again. The link is to the right of this page under the aptly named “Links”.
So I got married at the weekend and this is my new wife:
I’M JUST KIDDIN’!
Mario and Shiori (finally) got married and don’t they make a super photogenic couple?
Me and my hairless friend.
Some archaic western ritual:
Feed:
A bunch of people getting snap-happy:
The true professional: Mr. David Kleyn with his hawk-like eye.
Midori caught the bouquet.
And was abashed.
A lovely day for everyone there I think.
Thanks to Paul Sparks for putting me up over the weekend and introducing me to the delights of “Deuce Bigelow 2″ and also to Dan Warriner for taking me to a bar full of transvestites.
This whole thing seems upside down, but the whole wide world keeps turnin’ around, life is too short to make just one decision, music’s too large for just one station, love is too big for just one nation and GOD IS TOO BIG FOR JUST ONE RELIGION!
“East to the West” by Michael Franti
This Wednesday was fantastic. All my classes went well… Even the bad girls suddenly developed new personalities and became friendly (their home teacher had words with them) and then in the evening we went down to Osaka for the Michael Franti gig. Now if you don’t know who Michael Franti is, he’s a 6 foot 6 inch giant, genre-defying musician, activist and force for good. In his own words: “Right now, people ask me, ‘What can one person do to change what’s going on with the world?’ I don’t know what one person can do except to connect with other people. In doing that, each of us play our roles. My role is as a storyteller and a songwriter. I’m somebody who is trying to keep the spirits of other people up, despite all the chaos and fear around us” Yeah, and he does a really good job. There’s no gradual build-up at a Michael Franti gig. From the first song everyone is jumping about like mad things and even Hyon Ju (who I never saw dance before) was getting down to the reggae/hip-hop/funk/rock magic. And his songs are actually about things. Important meaningful things. He told us about how he went to Iraq with a video camera and a guitar in 2003 and met both the American troops and the people on the streets. He would play his guitar and they would invite him into their homes and show him the cellars they would shelter in when the bombs fell, sometimes for days or weeks. They would take him into the hospitals and show him what had happened to their children. And he would talk to the troops and they would tell him how before the war, they believed they were there for a reason but now they knew it was all lies… And then he came back to America and felt very alone, but travelling the world playing his music he meets so many people and he realizes he isn’t alone in what he feels and believes and then he sang us a song about that and if you click here: http://www.spearheadvibrations.com/index.html you can watch it (the “I KNOW I’M NOT ALONE” music video).
Then after two and a half hours of pure joy, the show ended and he came into the audience to meet everyone. Wow! Here’s a picture (left to right; mystery lady, Michael Franti, Hyon Ju & Eric):
Michael Franti makes me and Be Ward look like hobbits. The blurry lady in front is Carmen (I think). Thanks for RUINING THE PICTURE!!! (just kidding).
There’s a song “Hello Bonjour” where Franti sings “I don’t need a passport to walk this earth, anywhere I go cause I was made of this earth, I’m born of this earth, I breathe of this earth, and even with the pain I believe in this earth…. every bit of land is a holy land and every drop of water is a holy water and every single child is a son or a daughter of the one earth mama and the one earth papa…”
And he’s right, right? Why do we need passports and so on? Why are we all divided up into convenient little boxes? So he makes music to bring us together: “givin you a beat you can rock and roll to, givin you a sound you can shake your soul to, so hip hoppas punk rockas roots rockas and even wood stockas DON’T NEED A PASSPORT.” And as he sang “Wood stockas” he looked right at Eric! If you look at this picture of Eric and myself back in Kyoto having dinner at Chikyuya, I think you can see why…
Two days later and the calves of my legs are still on fire from all that jumpin’!
Tired but Inspired!
A REVOLUTION NEVER COME WITH A WARNING - A REVOLUTION NEVER SEND YOU AN OMEN - A REVOLUTION JUST ARRIVE LIKE THE MORNING, RING THE ALARM WE COME TO WAKE UP THE SNORIN’!
“YELL FIRE!” by Michael Franti
So I popped round to Philippe’s today for a cup of tea, which is always a mistake if you have things to do. “Oh, I’ll just pop in for a few minutes,” I thought and before I knew it the day was done. Anyway, while I was there I took a few more snaps with my mobile phone of some of the better pieces for your delectation and (indeed) delight…
Good Morning Kyoto (It’s not a blurry photo, that’s the way he painted it…)
La Vieille ( I actually bought this one - Yes! I’m a buyer! - simply because it reminds me of Swampthing).
Kiyomizu
Uwasa (I like this one, but I can’t afford it…)
I thought this one was called Disassociation but for the time being it’s Puppet from Birth.
Motoko-san and another lady, whose name I forgot to catch were there admiring Philippe’s book of French pastries…
When in walked Eric and Rie…
And while we sipped tea and munched on cakes Eric said “Would anyone be interested in getting on the guest list for Michael Franti tomorrow night?” And so I’m going to see Spearhead again after a ten year interval - the last time was in Cambridge with Rik Abel and Matt Allen as I recall. Brilliant!
Now you should be able to see the video I posted to Youtube last night if you scroll down a wee bit and press play. For some reason I can’t see it on my computer but everyone else I’ve asked seems to have no problems at all. let me know if there’s a problem though and I’ll get right on it (i.e. ask Rik).
