michael lambe's scrapbook

Here are some pictures from Gion Matsuri I’ve been wanting to put up all week but bubbleshare has been acting up lately so… Anyway, the first set are from last Sunday, I got a couple of tickets to go and look inside two of the festival floats which was pretty cool. I went a day early to avoid the crowds. Still had to wait though.
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The second set are from Monday, Yoiyoiyoiyama when the festival really gets going and the streets are littered with impromptu street bars and stalls selling chocolate coated bananas, tako-yaki, fried chicken, all kinds of crap. We all put on our best yukata and jimbei and strolled around and soaked up that special festival atmosphere.Thankfully it had rained earlier in the day, so it was relatively cool for us.
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These last couple of pictures are from 3 am Thursday morning when I encountered a friendly group of riot police on my way home…

Not sure what they were up to. Didn’t stick around to find out.

Before I sign out for the evening, here’s a link to Joss Wheedon’s latest creation, a three act musical super-villain comedy which you can watch for free until Sunday when it is due to vanish from the net like the snow in springtime. I watched the first two acts yesterday, and was entranced. The third and final act goes up tomorrow. Watch it while it’s free! Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog

Here’s a news video from the BBC on the super-enviromently friendly “zero waste” policy of Kamikatsu town in Shikoku, Japan. If only the whole country world would follow suit… LINK

And here’s an amusing video from The Onion: Bush Tours America to Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency.

And here’s my friend Thomas Schwegler’s website Tropical Mountains.

Tropical Mountains was formed in 2005 in Bolivia. We saw and experienced the need of small scale coffee farmers to have support in quality control, access to pre-financing and international markets. Many producer groups and cooperatives have now moved to direct export and away from selling their coffee to the local market or local traders. We are happy to support them on their shift towards direct export…

I met this guy in Italy in 2002, a nice chap, charming, multi-lingual and a hit with the ladies. I got the impression he was looking for his place in life. He went to South America and found his place selling coffee on behalf of coffee farming co-operatives over there. As a result of his work (he has the gift of the gab see), the guys who are growing the coffee aren’t selling to the big corporate masters anymore, but direct to consumers, and that way they get to see more profit for their work. And why am I posting a link to his company’s website? Because he’s a pal, that’s why. LINK

I want to get a couple of links out of the way first so…

There aren’t enough posts on bars on Deep Kyoto. This summer I aims to remedy that. God help my liver! Anyway, the first of many is up tonight: Bar Hawkwind. It’s a good place. I like it.

And this will make you smile if you haven’t seen it already: Where the hell is Matt?

Now on to tonight’s topic. The last meditation from Hozouji, if you remember went like this: すべてが割りけれぬところに人生の妙味がある
Which I somewhat lazily translated as: Not everything can be broken down into simple solutions, and therein lies life’s beauty.

Well, Masaya was good enough to write to me with some thoughts on it and here they are:

There are two tricky parts in the original, which are difficult to translate.

The first is 割り切れぬ（割り切れない, the opposite of 割り切れる）.

Maybe you know, but it’s originally a mathematical term.

If you divide 10 by 2, you get 5. That’s 割り切れる.

If you divide 10 by 3, you get 3.333333333333333333(and 3 continues forever). That’s 割り切れない（= 割り切れぬ）.

We use this idea metaphorically for something that you have to decide, you have to make choice, or even how you feel about.

For example, if someone ask you whether you like your job, and your answer is either ” Absolutely” or “Absolutely not”, then that’s 割り切れる.

If your answer is “Yes and no. I like it because such and such, but I don’t like it because such and such, but then …, even so …. but on the other hand … (arguments for and against continues on and on like the never ending decimal places)”, that’s 割り切れない.

It is also used to describe feelings. When you decide something or accept something, and you feel that something is not quite right about it, that feeling can be described as 割り切れない.

割り切れない indicates there is no simple solution, it’s not easy to find a simple answer.

In your translation, you use “simple solutions” to capture the idea, which is very good.

The next one is 妙味. This is an interesting word. It’s a combining 妙(strange) and 味(taste). “Strange taste” in 妙味 has a positive meaning. It’s strange, unusual, not boring, not common, so it’s interesting. Life is interesting because not every thing has a simple solution, and you have to find answers to many things. And even when you think you’ve found an answer, you have an uncomfortable feeling of unsettledness（割り切れない）.

I like this poem. Thanks.

Thank you, Masaya! Now the thing is, when I first translated this poem there was something, an uncomfortable feeling of unsettledness in fact about my translation that bugged me. That strong sense of life being “interesting” in 妙味 was completely lost in my translation because I stuck too closely to the dictionary definition of beauty. This despite the still small voice at the back of my mind telling me that something was amiss. Of course I could have gone with charm as my friend Osamu suggested, but that word didn’t seem to carry enough weight (not in it’s light and fluffy modern meaning anyway). So Masaya’s commentary got me thinking again and I think I finally hit on the right word:

Not everything
can be broken down
into simple solutions,
and therein lies
life’s fascination.

Seems kind of obvious now… Lesson learned: trust your instincts, not the dictionary!

I shall be posting a fresh meditation very soon.

…How did that happen? Well, having celebrated more than plenty on Friday night, I opted for a quiet night in on the day itself. “Let’s stop in with a DVD” says I, “Something light and fluffy. Nothing too heavy. A romantic comedy perhaps…” But instead I ended up watching “Reign Over Me” which is a movie about friendship, and about loss and it does have a lot of light humour in it but also what you might call a deep sea of sadness. I recommend it. Don Cheadle is always good but Adam Sandler’s performance was outstanding. Rent it! Here’s the trailer:

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That was a really good movie. The chocolate cake and champagne I had after was nice too… AND・・・Thanks very much to my sister Sheila for the You Must Celebrate! Dalek birthday card. That made me laugh out loud! Oh, and I just watched the last episode of Doctor Who tonight (glad to see that I’m not alone in that), and I’m glad (yet sad) at how all those loose ends got tied up. Davros was supramegalomaniacally excellent. The bit with Rose choked me up. Donna’s exit from the show did my head in totally… I’m glad David Tennant is still the Doctor. And I’m gutted there won’t be a full series next year… Saturday’s just aren’t the same without him, eh? I’ll definitely be home with the family for the Xmas Special.

Here are a couple of pictures from Nakano-kun’s second Takoyaki party last Wednesday, that I haven’t had a chance to post till now. Below are left to right: Miyazaki-san, China-san, Miyabe-san, some daft git in glasses and Nakano-kun.

And here is the same bunch but with Yamamoto-san on the far left. We had a good time!