Lush Life is the name of a famous jazz standard written by Billy Strayhorn. The song tells of a young man who seeking to discover life in “the very gay places / Those come what may places…” (i.e. bars), has his heart broken by a “siren” with a “poignant smile”. The song describes his disappointment with life and love and his determination to live a “lush life”.
I’ll forget you, I will
While yet you are still burning inside my brain.
Romance is mush,
Stifling those who strive.
I’ll live a lush life in some small dive…
And there I’ll be, while I rot
With the rest of those whose lives are lonely, too..
Damn! He could be talking about me! Of course the lyrics are fairly simple in themselves. You have to listen to the melody to get the deep feel of the thing. Try getting hold of the Nat King Cole or Johnny Hartman versions. What is remarkable is that Billy Strayhorn apparently wrote this when he was but 16. I was still listening to Def Leppard when I was 16.
Lush Life just also happens to be the name of the cafe I’ve reviewed on Deep Kyoto today. Every now and again, when I’m looking for new places to put on the sister blog, I come across a place that really stands out. Hachihachi Infinity Cafe was one of them and Lush Life is one of them too. I’m definitely going back there again.
And tonight? Philippe and I will be frequenting some “come what may places” of our own. Tune in tomorrow for yet more “twelve o’clock tales”.
Another post on Deep Kyoto this time of nearby cafe/diner/music venue Zanpano. Last night my sister suggested that I do a similar site for Middlesbrough. We could call it DEEP BORO - and write about all kinds of places to avoid.
Fiddling around with google analytics last night I was interested to see what word combinations people are putting into search engines that land them on my pages. The titles of books that I’ve reviewed (”What is the What”) or songs that I’ve mentioned (”Bluebird lyrics”) seem to be quite common, along with the obvious variations of my name plus “kyoto”. But I wonder what inspired the search “mike lambe kyoto w@nker”…
Anyway! Here is today’s promised effort at translation. If you remember, the meditation from Hozouji was this:
I’m a bit late with this one because the subject matter is Obon, the Japanese festival of the dead, which was two weeks ago, but nevermind! During obon the spirits of the dead are said to return home to their families and people pay their respects by lighting incense at their household shrines and visiting their family graves. They also light huge jolly bonfires on the hills around Kyoto, but that’s another matter. The point is, contemplating death, helps you appreciate the value of what you have now.
Here it is again in kanji, kana and romaji:
お盆＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿おぼん＿＿＿＿＿＿＿obon
生かされて＿＿＿＿＿＿いかされて＿＿＿＿＿＿ikasarete
今ある命＿＿＿＿＿＿＿いまあるいのち＿＿＿＿ima aru inochi
ありがたし＿＿＿＿＿＿＿ありがたし＿＿＿＿＿＿arigatashi
Now, see this is where I have a slight problem, because I’m not really sure what “生かされて” here is trying to say… But I’m guessing something like this:
Obon
Brings us back to life
And for this life we have now
We are grateful
(Masaya? Help?)This meditation also reminded me of a heart-warming message I read at someecards.com:
When work feels overwhelming,
remember that you’re going to die.
Another fresh posting up on THE SISTER BLOG today of the cafe and art gallery etw.
Checking google analytics the other day, I discovered that a lot of people were coming to this blog via the obscenely popular TOEIC BLITZ BLOG written by my old friend and colleague Masaya “The Messiah” Kanzaki. Masaya was kind enough to write a post about my blog, and recommend it as “interesting” and “probably good reading practice”. Which was jolly nice of him. So I thought I’d do a bit of reading practice of my own and read his. Most of the entries (when he is not linking to English articles) are in Japanese, but they are mercifully short and not so difficult for someone of my reading ability. Anyway, in this piece 英語を楽しむ or “Enjoy English”, Masaya advises his readers to find something they can enjoy doing in English. For a lot of people this will be reading books or magazines of personal interest, or watching movies, or listening to and learning English songs (Masaya closes his post with a nice bit of The Specials). Whatever floats your boat basically. All very good advice because you remember more when you’re having fun and are actively interested, than you do when you are thinking: “God, I hate this! How much longer will it take me to remember this stupid grammar? My brain hurts… etc”. So I was thinking, I don’t really study Japanese much any more, but what enjoyable things do I do that involve learning?
Well, I sit in my regular, sipping beer and chatting in Japanese to the other regulars and through those conversations I do learn a lot… But that could get expensive if I did it every night (まさか!)… Well, another thing I do is I read… Nothing too heavy or overwhelming, but something light and of interest. For instance, recently I’ve been working my way through the very excellent 京都:音楽空間 a guide to all the best music spots of Kyoto, whether they be bars (my regular is in there), or cafes, or live music venues, or record shops etc. It’s great, because there’s enough new vocabulary there for me to be challenged, and plenty of old vocabulary I need to review, but mostly because I want to read it so I do. Through reading this book I can find all kinds of interesting places and meet all kinds of new people that I would never encounter otherwise, which is basically the primary reason to learn a language really (though we sometimes tend to forget it). And of course, it’s proving to be invaluable source material for my Deep Kyoto project too. Life’s too short to be spending your free time suffering after all (that’s what work is for) so have a bit of fun. Enjoy yourself.
It’s getting late now, so I’ll sign off but tomorrow I’ll be doing something else I find an enjoyable method of study: translating the latest meditation at Hozouji Temple. Unless any of you want to have a crack at it first:
This has to be the most uncomfortable summer I’ve had yet; too hot at night to sleep, and too hot in the day to eat… I spend all day indoors sitting in my underwear in front of my fan. But perhaps you don’t want to picture that. (Email me if you do). And of course, always in the background I hear the tick-tock-ticking as summer winds down to… BACK TO SCHOOL TIME! Yes, I’m depressed. But I keep busy!
Another fresh fresh posting up on Deepity-Deep Kyoto today telling you where to find Kyoto’s best pizzas:Pizza-Ya. Yeah! Yeah! Tasty pizza!
Tell me you don’t want to eat that!
And here’s a curious video (just for you Chris) of Dick Cheney, back in the alternate universe of 1994, telling us just exactly why it would be absolute madness to get involved in the “quagmire” of Iraq. Well, thank goodness we didn’t do that then.
Just how many additional dead Americans was Sadam worth?
And after writing all that I’m beat, so I shall leave you with another video from Satoko’s performance at Togatoga last week as I want to try out this new blogger video icon… Ah, look how incredibly long it’s taking… Maybe I’ll just embed it from youtube before I fall asleep on the keyboard. Ah, look it won’t let me embed youtube videos anymore. Wow, that took forever. This one goes out two-finger-style to my good friend Chris “I hate videos on blogs” Cotter.
One last thing: here is a link to a fossilized walrus baculum that was sold at auction a few days ago in Beverley Hills. The final bidding? $8,000. The expression on the face of the guy holding it? Priceless. BACULUM.
I just spent three boozetastic days in Tokyo catching up with various legendary characters and damaging my liver/bank balance (eh Tony? eh?) Got back yesterday thoroughly macarooned and fell into bed at 7 in the evening. Anyway, those of you I managed to see - twas brillig! We must do it again! But not for a while… I’m not as young as I used to be. Below are the legends of Lado: John Motteshead, Greg Ionson, My Clam, the Messiah and Tony Dani after a night at the Mermaid in Akasaka Mitsuke (Tokyo’s most authentic British pub). After that Tony and I wandered off into Roppongi… and the less said about that the better…
And here I am with my old Fukushima friends Paul Sparks and Chris Cotter. Very good to see you all. Very good indeed.
My friend moon-dancing Kate Buchanan has a new blog up here: nuggets of potential shame, so you should all take a look. She has a bit of a gift with the old words, see.
Here’s another one of those wacky little videos I so like to make, from last night’s festivities at S.T.T. Nobody tell Kageyama he’s on it.
There’s a fresh review up on Deep Kyoto today of 進々堂 a famous Kyoto cafe with a long history and a sadly anal-retentive owner.
Last night I watched a marvellous 8 minute animation on youtube and thought to myself: “Must put that on my blog tomorrow!” Here’s the trailer:
Tantalizing, isn’t it? Sadly the animation itself has been taken down overnight for copyright infringement. Pity. However, this link is both entertaining in it’s own right, and gives some insight into the character of the man resposible, Blur Studio’s creative director and co-founder Mr. Tim Miller.
[DISCLAIMER: Strong language unsuitable for children or my mum. Mr. Tim Miller doesn't mince words.]
Or you can just watch this video of what happens in a crowded Tokyo swimming pool (yes - it is actually a pool!) when somebody turns the wave machine back on: MASSIVE CRAZINESS!
Once again, as every year, the spirits of the dead, have visited the homes of their loved ones, then whistled back over the hills around Kyoto, following the symbols written in flames that guide them back to their heavenly homes.
And I love my camera. I love it because I can take pictures like this:
And even this:
Which aren’t in themselves great pictures, and it’s not as if the world really needs yet more pictures of the firey kanji on the mountain but considering how far away I was and what a crappy viewpoint it was with tonnes of people jostling about and clickety-click-clicking with their camera phones and me with no tripod but the top of Nana-chan’s head (thanks Nana!) - I think they are pretty good. So I love my camera.
I also love my camera because I can take nice videos like the one at the bottom of this post. Last night, I went to see Satoko Okuda (of Viva Sherry) performing solo at 都雅都雅 (togatoga) which I won’t be recommending on Deep Kyoto today because as a live music venue - it kind of sucks. I’ve been there once before and the same things got to me on both occasions. The place has no atmosphere. One thing that makes a show is the interaction between the performer and their audience. But at 都雅都雅 they shine the lights into the performer’s eyes so they can’t see who they are singing to and the audience is totally unresponsive anyway. So, there is that, which would probably be enough, but they do this one little thing when you get there which really gets my back up. You pay your entry fee and you think ok. Then you go in and sit down and they say you have to buy one drink. And that’s fine too because I want a drink anyway (several probably). But then, (and this is what really winds me up) you have to buy one food item off the menu too whether you are hungry or not. So you end up buying something you don’t want, like a bowl of tasteless chocolates (they obviously got at the ￥100 shop) or some sweaty potato fries and it just gets left there uneaten and wasted. So basically, your entry fee is at least a 1000 yen more than the price stated on the ticket. Why can’t they just be honest and up the entry fee instead of wasting food and winding me up? Well, despite all this Satoko’s performance was as splendid as ever and I did get to take a couple of very nice videos. The first of which I’ll share with you today. This one is called “銀河の橋を超えて” which means something like “Crossing the Milky Way Bridge” and is about going on a date and holding hands under a starry wintry sky (just imagine it’s a starry summer sky she said)…. Anyway! Just setting the mood for you… enjoy!
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