michael lambe's scrapbook

At the weekend I went to the National Museum of Art in Osaka to see an exhibition by Hiroshi Sugimoto entitled “The History of History“. If you’re interested this is what the museum looks like (I don’t know why it has rabbit ears):

And here is a close up entitled “Girl Eating a Sandwich”.

But anyway, back to the exhibition – wonderful! The artist has displayed his artwork alongside his collection of fossils and historical artifacts, forming all kinds of thought provoking juxtapositions between the worlds of history and art of course. But also following his concerns with religion, architecture, science, medicine, the exploration of space… in a nut-shell: life, humanity and the world! Anyway, I’d recommend visiting this exhibition, it’s on until June 7th, but give yourself a few hours to see everything because there is a lot and everything is just too fascinating! After that we strolled back along the river towards Yodoyabashi Station and Mewby noticed this lovely old building sandwiched in between all the modern high rises. One word caught our attention on the signage: Organic.

Turns out it was a Solviva Organic Cafe and whole grain rice restaurant. So naturally we stopped and had a bite to eat. I had a cream croquette and Mewby had a tofu stew:

Very nice! Here’s a glimpse of the interior:

And of the exterior:

Satoyama No Shokutaku by Solviva is located here: MAP. Tel: 06-6241-5757 Open: 10:30 – 20:00. We recommend it!

Finally here we are on the train home having fun with reflections:

Tuesday 19th of May: I receive a mail from the company that hires me part time to teach business classes. During Golden Week they effectively forbade me from travelling abroad. I ignored it as I had no plans to travel anyway and do plan to quit the job after my classes end in June. This mail though, kind of wound me up (company and personal names removed):

> All,
> Due to deterioration of pandemic flu situation,
> many customers are now requiring us to wear
> a flu mask when we teach at classes.
> Of course, attendees are also required to wear it.
> Please note that all instructors who teach at XXXCOMPANY and
> its subsidiary companies must wear flu masks.
> And also other companies may require us to do same thing.
> If you have any problem with this, please let me know.
> Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.
>
> XXX and YYY
> Please let part time teachers recognize this requirement.
>
> Regards,
>
> XYXY XYXY

No way are they going to make me do that, I thought. I considered raising a ruckus and using it as an excuse to quit the job early, but when I wrote to my manager about it (ever so slightly pompously with annotations, references and links to WHO and CDC recommendations) he ….totally agreed with me, so that was a leetle bit of an anti-climax… This kind of thing does make one wonder what would happen if there really was a national emergency though…

Thursday 21st May: I didn’t wear a mask and no-one in my class did either and I had no problem entering the building and my students thought the whole thing was completely ridiculous. Actually there was no such rule from XXXCOMPANY but they had been instructed to wear a mask out of doors (seems kind of random). Still there were a heck of a lot of people in Osaka wearing facemasks – thus marking themselves out as complete buffons. My favorite moment: I’m in a convenience store in Yodoyabashi station, (all employees have to wear masks there now), I ask a nice young man working there if they have a particular product and in order to hear me better he pulls his facemask down around his chin and then leans forward to communicate with me more effectively. Maybe I should sue him for reckless endangerment?

Friday 22nd May: I arrived at work today to find that school is cancelled. Woot!  I pass a Japanese colleague on the way out and compliment him on his mask:

Me: Nice mask.
He: Thank you. You know you can get them from the school nurse.
Me: Ah, that’s ok. Actually, (still small quiet voice telling me not to bother but I say it anyway) they’re actually potentially quite bad for you.
He: Eh?
Me: That’s right. The World Health Organization recommends we don’t wear them unless we know we are already sick.
He: What? Why?
Me: Well, think about it, it’s a nice warm damp place next to your nose and mouth. If you wear it for long periods you will increase the risk of infection.
He: Well, maybe but you know… one good thing about it is, it keeps my throat moist. If my throat is dry then a virus can enter easily I think. So it’s good because it keeps my throat moist. (as he said this he touched his mask with his hand thus rendering it entirely ineffective.)
Me: Uh-huh. OK. Well, see you next week then. (what else can one say when faced with such infallible logic?)

So I am free till next Thursday by which time the “deterioration of pandemic flu situation” or Zombocalpse as we like to call it, will be all over. So that’s nice then.

Here’s a couple of random things that amused me recently:
Mr. T says get some nuts.

And (courtesy of Graham Chave who posted this on facebook) an entirely spot-on analysis of facebook applications.

Wind farm kills Taiwanese goats

Actually, it’s my kitchen. But it’s so incredibly small, that I can rarely be bothered to cook in it. As they say in Japanese: mendokusai. Every now and again though, Mewby comes around, steps into this tiny space and works small but tasty culinary miracles. I thought I would document one for you.

Salmon Patties in a Creamy Spinach Sauce

Ingredients:

Milk
White flour
Bread crumbs (you can buy this in Japan as panko)
Salmon
Spinach
Egg
Butter
Salt, Pepper and Vegetable Stock

Procedure:
1. Boil water. Wash the salmon and then soften in hot water. This will make it easier to debone and skin. After that chop it up nice and fine.
2. Put it in a bowl and add egg, some bread crumbs, a pinch of salt and pepper and mix. Keep adding bread crumbs until you can make a nice patty.

3. Pass the patties back and forth between your hands to pat all the air out of them. This will prevent them from falling apart when you cook them.
4. Now let’s make the sauce. Wash the spinach and chop it up.
Then add hot water to soften it.

5. Put some butter in a pan. Begin to add flour when it is thoroughly melted. Put in about one and a half heaped tablespoons. Mix on a low heat and add salt and pepper to taste. Then add a little vegetable stock. Add milk little by little and mix it in. This will take time and requires both patience and elbow grease!

6. When you have a nice creamy sauce, drain the spinach and add to the mix.

7. Now fry your patties in butter. Fry them with a lid and you will keep the insides nice and soft.

9. When nicely browned add the sauce and serve with rice and salad.

Here we see them served with an avocado and tomato salad, takikome gohan (rice mixed with vegetables – in this case broad beans, soya, mirin, sugar and dashi) and lashings of ginger ale. メチャおいしかった！

Just some pictures I never had a chance to post before. First a few pictures from this year’s 花見 in early April.
BubbleShare: Share photos – Play some Online Games.

And then some pictures from Udo and Fumi’s visit in Golden Week. They start at Myoushinji, then Fushimi Inari and finally a balcony on Pontocho in the rain.

BubbleShare: Share photos – Play some Online Games.

I was in a pharmacy/chemists yesterday, and I saw this on the shelf and it got me thinking.

It’s a diet supplement, yeah? You take it and the idea is – you get thin. So why the name? I have no idea, so I’m looking for clues.  The model advertising it is Kaori Manabe, a fairly average looking girl-next-door type. I’ve no idea about her religious persuasion.　Her involvement is probably due to her everyday girl quality and the fact that she is rake thin. I’m thinking they went with her simply because they couldn’t get hold of the man himself. As for the packaging, it depicts a woman in work-out attire swooning in some kind of a mystical red haze. Perhaps she exercised too hard and had some kind of anaerobic revelation? Is the implication that once you take this product people will look at you and gasp “Jesus! What a body!”. Or are they suggesting that you might want to get a body like Jesus? I guess Our Risen Lord is typically represented as being a bit of a skinny. But he also has that mad look in his eyes, gaping holes in his hands, feet and midriff and quite the scabby forehead. So, that can’t be right. Oh, and there’s some English on the packaging too, and it reads as follows:

New discovery to be kept secret from others
This discovery is a secret
I can lay it down because I am correct
We will not make you sorry
Pleasure to have the real thing
I really longed for this

Yep, that sounds like the sort of thing he would say all right. But still, what’s the link? A miracle product? Heavenly bodies? What can it be? Enlighten me! Anyone!

Koichi Yoshida had his spring recital at Zac Baran Jazz Bar last night – and the place was packed! I like what he does with his recitals; inviting many other musicians, playing different genres, and generally mixing it up. After an initial honkyoku (traditional shakuhachi) tune to gives us some roots, he warmed us up with a nice jazz combo (quite a bit of swaying and foot- tapping to the Girl from Ipanema) and then a spicy Okinawan set with sanshin player Karura. This was followed by 鹿の遠音 (shika no tone) in which two shakuhachi players emulated the call and answer of two deer in the mountains, by playing across the room to each other. And then an interesting collaboration on a traditional piece with a sitar player (interesting because it totally worked). The final set was a group of original pieces largely by Koichi himself and very trance inducing and meditative in tone. Which was maybe why Mewby fell asleep! Here’s one of the Okinawan songs. I forgot to add the percussionist in the credits because he wasn’t on the original schedule for that song, but his name is 薫 (which unfortunately I don’t know how to read). Thank you, Koichi, for a wonderful musical experience!

You can also see the shakuhachi & sitar piece here.

Mewby introduced me to this movie last night. I was surprised to find that there was a Ghibli movie I hadn’t heard of: 紅の豚 or Porco Rosso. Set between the wars,  it’s the story of an Italian World War 1 fighter ace who, disillusioned by his wartime experiences or perhaps by the rise of Fascism in his country, has left the airforce and is now living as a freelance bounty hunter protecting shipping from seaplane pirates over the Adriatic Sea. He’s a dandy and romantic and also (and here’s the Ghibli bit) a pig. Yes, quite literally a pig… but as he himself says “Better a pig than a fascist”. Lovely little animated movie this, with a nice touch of gentle pathos. And the songs by Tokiko Kato add a nice touch too.

Last Friday, Ted Taylor and I met up at Sarasa Kayuukoji for some old timey jazz and oishii beers. That’s a nice cafe with some very tasty nibbles of which we ordered …way too much.

We were there to see Sweet Strings… which turns out to be not one band but a label for a mixed co-operative of players who combine and recombine in many different formats under separate band names. It turned out to be a very nice mellow start to our Golden Week. Here’s comrade Ted toasting May Day:

My first month at my new job being over, I needed a break. Though I’m enjoying the job, I’m crazy busy every day, so knowing I had the next few days off meant the beers were going down very well – maybe too well (hints of sheepish ruefulness). Anyway, here’s one of many videos I took that night: Tiny Mookie and Hot Society.

I won’t be able to post anything on Deep Kyoto for a while as someone (or something) has hacked it and inserted something nasty that prevents me from logging in. Actually, I’m thinking about making some big changes to the site once I wrest back control so…stay tuned.

Take a silly idea. See how far you can stretch it. And enjoy. I rented this from Tsutaya last night. Plenty of belly laughs and erm… super dream entertainment. Here’s the trailer: