michael lambe's scrapbook

This picture is dedicated to Kumar Sivasubramanian as he liked my hair so much in a picture I posted a week or so ago.
I got a mail from Kumar recently which read as follows:

There’s an interview over at geek fanboy site Ain’t It Cool News (a.k.a AICN) with Dark Horse editor Philip Simon about the manga EDEN, which I am translating. In it, he talks a little bit about me and the work I am doing. (It’s kind of near the bottom, but it’s worth reading the whole interview if you are interested in this kind of thing.): http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=24422

So there you have it. Looks like an interesting manga alright. Lots of kudos for Kumar.

Here are some more links I want to get shot of:

Chris Cotter sent me this amusing beer commercial (parental advisory on this one): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c2KLWEvsbI

That notorious group emailer Anne Kobayashi also sent me this wacky 9/11 conspiracy theory (be warned it’s a bit long and the guy’s voice is kind of whiny):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5946593973848835726

Here’s another theory; could it be that George W. Bush et al are deliberately fostering these wacky theories in order to distract attention from their more obvious lies, war crimes etc. and to discredit all opposition to their policies?

No, probably not.

I have another couple of links to go but first it’s time for

TASTIEST FISH OF THE WEEK!

This week’s TASTIEST FISH OF THE WEEK is the Largehead Hairtail (also known as the Cutlass fish) or in Japanese “Tachiuo” (太刀魚　－　literally “Fat/Blade/Fish”). This chrome colored fish is a favorite of both the Japanese and Koreans who eat it either grilled or raw as sashimi. This is what it looks like before cooking:

And this is what it looked like last night after a good grilling:

The flesh is soft and tender and parts easily from the bone. Very nice with Yebisu Lager and Yebisu Black mixed half & half stylie.

Anyway, my final links tonight are both from youtube. One of the nice things about youtube is that you can find stuff you saw years and years back and thought would never see again. Here is a very nice late ’80s video of Peter Gabriel (with a mullet) and Yossou N’Dour “Shaking the Tree”:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/z06mQT_vkkw" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
And here’s a classic video of Talk Talk going nuts in the woods back in 1986:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/OvMoRVrqx_I" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

I liked it back then, and I still like it now.

おやすみなさい。

This week my school was meant to have a Senior High Sports Day on Tuesday and a Junior High Sports Day on Thursday. What this meant for me was that as long as the weather was fine, I wouldn’t have any classes and could take the day off. However, autumn weather in Japan is notoriously changeable, hence the expression:「秋の空と女心」- “Autumn skies and a woman’s mind”.
So Tuesday morning I wake up to the sound of rain and think “Ah crap, I’ll have to go in…” but strangely, they decide to go ahead with it anyway and I get the day off…

Then, today, I wake up to crystal clear skies, check the TV weather forecast and thinking “They couldn’t possibly cancel now”, go back to bed only to be awoken at 7.50 a.m. by a phone call. “The Sports Day has been cancelled because the ground’s condition is bad,” they tell me and then I’m jumpin’ on my bicycle to be in the classroom by 8.40 (with no breakfast!). That first lesson was one of the longest 50 minutes of my life.

“Do you want to do a song or THE TEXTBOOK?” I asked, faced with an array of sulking faces.
“We wanna do the sports day!” (Japanese kids really do speak in unison)
“Well, I’m sorry about that but we can’t, so let’s make the best of the situation. There’s no point in sulking for an hour is there?” Hahahaha. Yeah, they sulked their way through the whole lesson.
“Look!” said the students “The weather is fine!”
“Yes, I know.”
“Look, they’re having a P.E. lesson out there! What’s with that? Why can’t we have our sports day?”
“I don’t know. You know, it’s not my decision. ”
“Can’t you go and ask someone to go ahead with it?”
“No, I can’t.” etc…

I couldn’t get them to do anything so in the end I told them to show me their cheerleading routine and they cheered up a bit… But whoever made that decision is a right plonker.

Anyway, it is officially autumn in my book (The Book of Mikey Lambe) as I have finally tasted the first Aki Aji beer of the season accompanied with delicious grilled Sanma (or Saury in English). Sanma or 秋刀魚 gets it’s kanji name (autumn/knife/fish) from it’s shape and the fact it is usually eaten in the autumn (and because it is in fact a fish). And it’s tops with crispy malt beverages.

Ooh, that’s nice! More info on sanma here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackerel_pike

Tonight Hyon Ju is cooking Jajanmen – Korean noodles. Yum. Food. Good.

RANDOM STUFF

First thing; belated thanks to Mario and Shiori for putting me up and feeding me last weekend. I hope I didn’t wake you getting up so early when I left that morning. I’ve been meaning to text you but I hate texting so I probably never will. Your picture’s on Flickr by the way (more about that below). Mario’s soup has inspired me to order the Moosewood Cookbook. One of the greatest pleasures in life is eating good food, and one of the others is sharing it with others. I think I could easily get into cooking in a big way…

Next; I’ve added some more links to the right of this page. At the top we have the usual world-saving stuff that most of you simply “don’t have time for right now”… At the bottom I’ve added a link to my pictures on Flickr, so you can browse through some of the better snaps I’ve taken over the last few years. There’s only a few pictures on there now but I’ll be uploading more as the months progress. There’s also a link to Scott McCloud’s “Morning Improv”, a simple idea: “one hour each day, whatever comes into my head”, which is simply brilliant. Scott McCloud is the author of the ground-breaking “Understanding Comics”, which you can take a look at here:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006097625X/104-7974043-0563144?v=glance&n=283155. He’s also A MAN OF IDEAS and we like that don’t we?
Oh yes.
Here’s a sampling of some improvs for you: http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/mi/mi-12/mi-12.htmlhttp://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/mi/mi-06/mi-06.htmlhttp://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/mi/mi-07/mi-07.html

On the topic of comics I was interested to read on Neil Gaiman’s website that he is working with Roger Avary on a film adaptation of Charles Burns’ “Black Hole”: http://www.fantagraphics.com/artist/burns/burns.html. Could be interesting – although I can’t imagine how… Gaiman’s site also had a link to this, which you can easily pass on to all you love (pun intended): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKi5kv7MwPg

Also, here’s a tale of character, attitude and resilience from the Motherland:
http://www.teamtalk.com/football/story/0,16368,2483_1187361,00.html

TEN GLORIOUS DAYS
As of Friday at 2:00pm I was on holiday. For Ten Glorious Days! This was of course an excellent reason to do something I haven’t done for a while – hit the town and have larks. We started off at Pizza Ya, which is undoubtedly the finest pizza restaurant in Kyoto and has the best pizzas I’ve tasted in Japan to be honest. To find it; head west on Shijo till you are roughly halfway between Kawaramachi and Karasuma (where Starbucks is). Then turn left and go south on Yanaginobanba. Keep your eyes peeled on the left as it’s tucked away in a corner and quite easy to miss. It’s a tiny wee place so you might need to book it in advance to be sure of a seat, but I think not that many people know about it to be honest. We enjoyed the anchovy and black olive pizza and washed it down with ice-sharp Sicilian beers. (In Sicilia fa sempre caldo!) http://www.pizaya.biz/

Here’s the Pizza:

Here’s the fine Sicilian beer:
Next, I fancied a bit of music so we went to “Sesamo” a little basement Spanish style Tacos bar off Kiyamachi (north of Sanjo). On Fridays and Saturdays they always have live music, French accordion players, jazz, Spanish guitar etc and the cover charge for the music is only ￥500. This time it was Spanish guitar which I was quite happy about. “Ah,” I thought as I knocked back another San Miguel, “the guitar is a beautiful instrument… when I’m not playing it”. I noticed on Friday that though the place was crowded, I was the only man in there. I wonder if it has anything to with the tall husky-voiced bar-tender…

Finally, my favorite bar: Tsurugi. For a long time I was looking for a bar I could call my own here in Kyoto. I stumbled across this one quite by accident. It’s small and scruffy (like me) and both the master Ueno-san and the regular customers are friendly and ready for a chat and a bit of a laugh. I shan’t tell you where it is though, ‘cos it’s my secret, special place. Ha ha.
Ueno-san: The Master of Tsurugi and a true master of “Om-rice” cuisine.
Suwa-san – a regular – having a bit of a laugh. I’m told he’s a monk, but it’s hard to believe. I’m going to visit his Temple on Thursday to make sure.
Mamiya-san; lovely chap. He knows a lot about 60′s and 70′s Japanese Rock and he shares his knowledge. He lent me a Ryo Kagawa CD the other night, once again furthering my education.

BEANS

Now, I was reading the other day that scientists in South America have found that by fermenting beans they can both improve their nutritional value and reduce bowel-cheek-flapping-gas-passage. This inspired a flurry of headlines, the best of which was probably “Venezuelans Avert Gas Crisis”. (You can read a more serious article here: http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/health/HealthRepublish_1624063.htm)

This is all old news here in Japan the homeland of the fermented bean. Natto, despite the benefits to one’s health, does taste and smell exactly like what it is: rotten. That plus the stringy spidery slime that it produces can easily induce a gagging reflex in the first time consumer. The Japanese however, will often have their foreign guests try this unique dish and then fall about in mirth at the expressions of disgust and dismay these moldy beans give rise to. It was precisely this sort of thing that caused me during my early days in Japan, out of pure spite, to force myself to eat the stuff every day. Now, perversely, I actually quite like the stuff. What is interesting is that though natto is popular in the eastern Kanto area of Japan, people here in Kansai are none to keen on it. There’s a theory about this, to do with horses. It seems that natto was first created accidentally by soldiers in the 11th century. They were busy boiling beans as feed for their horses when they were suddenly attacked. Leaving in a hurry they packed the beans in straw and fled. On unpacking them later, the soldiers discovered that the heat of the horses sweating bodies plus the bacteria in the straw had worked together to ferment the beans into A NOXIOUS MOLDY BREW. Men of lesser hearts would have thrown them away, but our lads were famished so they ate them anyway – and weirdly, liked them. Thus natto culture was born (allegedly). Actually, there does seem to be a correlation between those areas of Japan where people like natto, and those areas where horses are traditionally reared. I’m not sure if these particular fermented beans can avert the blazing saddles phenomenon however, so more research may be needed on that. But why take the fun out of beans anyway?

The Japanese seem to know a bit about that too: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0916291529/ref=ase_recommendedrea06/104-7974043-0563144?s=books&v=glance&n=283155&tagActionCode=recommendedrea06

Click here for the facts on flatulence:

http://www.heptune.com/farts.html

Click here for Nattoland:http://www.ynest.com/nattoeng.htm