I just had the crappiest weekend imaginable: lots of places I wanted to be, lots of things I wanted to do, invites to parties etc… and I succumbed to a cold virus. I fell into bed on Friday and have only really managed to crawl out today. Unbelievable just how much I can sleep and still feel tired. So much for the Halloween-party weekend.
Ah well, now that I’m back up on my arse in front of this compoota what do I have for ye?
More links that’s what.
FINALLY (!) a fresh post up on you-know-what for Cafe Moley-moley-moley! Way behind schedule with that one.
Also, I spied this article on the BBC website today, that didn’t really tell me anything new but just re-confirmed my deep feelings of scorn, loathing and disrespect for the ever-useless Japanese police: J-pigs
It’s Halloween and time for scary stories. Up on WEEKENDAMERICA there are ten very very very short but scary stories for you to read or listen to (preferably the latter). I especially liked the first one by Paul Bibeau. It made me laugh, it did. Darkly.
However, if tales of terror are not your cup of tea how about a little cup of lurve? If you go to this TIMESONLINE page you can sign up to have five literary love-letters emailed to you by the likes of Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (no idea who the last dude is). I got my Margaret Atwood love-letter today. Typically, it wasn’t strictly speaking a love-letter, not as traditionally defined: a letter written by one person to another, informing the receiver that the writer loves him/her/it. No the writer cheated a bit there. Not only that, but it was maybe a little too clever and cynical to evoke any romantic feelings as such. But writers are meant to cheat and be cynical and clever, aren’t they? So I think I can forgive Mags her little indiscretions because after all it was rather fun. And actual love so often being not very much fun at all, I think I prefer the-thing-what-she-wrote-instead-of-a-love-letter anyway.
tv-links.co.uk disappeared a couple of days ago and I was assuming it would be right back up soon but then I read this and I’m gutted. I’d just got started on Season 2 of Battlestar Galactica. How else am I going to watch it out here in Japan? Darn.
Looks like I’ll have to go back to Japanese variety shows and figure out what all this “どんだけ” hullabaloo is about.
The latest meditation from Hozouji on Uradera Dori:
苦も楽も
心
ひとつの
おきどころ
ku mo raku mo
kokoro
hitotsu no
okidokoro
苦 is suffering or anxiety and 楽 is relief or ease. It is a part of buddhist teaching that whether we are happy or unhappy, anxious or at ease is in large part up to us as individuals. How we choose to react to the world around us and “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” it throws at us, pretty much determines how content or dissatisfied we are with our lives. That decision takes place in the human heart (心), and we must accept responsibilty for whatever emotion we choose to put in that place (おきどころ）. With that in mind, here’s my attempt at translation:
Both suffering and relief
are stored
in one same heart
Meanwhile Rik Abel’s is amazing me with his industry. His latest podcast featuring the mixing talents of Mr. Louis Atkins is up now on rikabel.com. Check it out.
An old colleague of mine, called Eddie, who was a funny old cove, and who I rather liked, passed away yesterday very suddenly and it’s all so sudden and sad that I don’t want to write any more.
Welcome to the new blog. Why a new blog? Well, for one thing the URL is a lot simpler. But mainly because whereas BLOGGER owned the last site - this one is all mine and cannot be taken away from me. Why WordPress? Because my good friend Rik Abel told me to, and he knows about these things. It has better “functionality” apparently, but I haven’t gotten to grips with that yet seeing as I’m a stupid Luddite. (He often tells me that too). One thing I have noticed though, is the Archives button on the header there. Click on that and you can find your way around the blog either by seeing what catches your eye in the tag cloud, or in the list of categories. I haven’t finished tagging and categorising yet (only managed a 157 posts so far!) but I am basically organising it so that categories are more general (movies, poetry etc) and tags are more specific (007, Yeats etc). Also, people I talk about regularly should be able to see their own name in the tag cloud and click on that for a trip down memory lane. I’m a bit embarrassed about the size of Philippe’s tag though. I need to see more people.
And for the first post here on mikeylambe.com I present for your delectation and delight the final video from Banya’s performance at Gojo Guesthouse Cafe last week. Enjoy!
There’s no particular reason for this picture really. Just my students wanted their picture taken and then after I took it and said “Do you want to be on my blog?” - they said yes to that too. As you can see these are friendly students. My favorite kind.
Continuing on from yesterday’s video here is a very nice shamisen solo from “Banya”’s performance at Gojo Guesthouse Cafe on Saturday night. I like to see how happy this guy is when he plays. More to follow!
Here’s a video for you of last night’s performance at Gojo Guesthouse Cafe by “Banya”. This isn’t the smoothest performance of the evening but definitely the cutest, as the singer keeps forgetting the words and everyone has to sing along to help her out. I’ll post more - later.
Today was a pleasant and sleepy day. The sky was a deep and sleepy cloudless blue. My students were sleepy but friendly. I got one test (sleepily) written and out of the way, and only have one left to go. And my Peanuts DVD (”It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!”) is arriving tomorrow morning; a rare treat for the first years after the tests are over. I couldn’t think of a better way to teach them about Halloween traditions than that fine Halloween tradition - watching Peanuts! Well, hopefully it will keep them awake anyway…
Friend and artist Yui Katoh has a blog up. It’s been up for a little while now but I completely forgot to blog it. I have been remiss and now I make amends. Go to her blog, take a look at her pictures and then encourage her (with comments) to post some more because they are MARVELOUS: Yui Katoh.
Rik Abel has started podcasting and swears he will make a regular habit of it. Do we believe him? Who can tell? Here’s what he has to say:
Although I love techno music I have never tried my hand at creating my own mixes, and realistically, I probably never will. Luckily, I have lots of talented DJ type friends who can do that kind of thing for me. So this is the first in a fairly regular series of podcasts where I will be piggybacking on the talent of these friends in order to bask in their reflected glory, and hopefully expose them to a wider audience. Because they really are very good, all of them. As I’m sure you will agree once you check out their mixes…
Read more, and more importantly, listen, here: Rik Abel.
There is a list of up-and-coming events in Kyoto that may be of interest to someone up here: Up-and-coming.
And then there is this, which if you haven’t seen it is… well, it’s got bunnies in it. What more can you possibly need to know? Bravia Bunnies.
