michael lambe's scrapbook

Baby Rowan

Congratulations to old pal Rik Abel and Adrienne Copithorne on the birth of their new baby Rowan Alexander on March 19th, which coincidentally also happens to be Rik’s birthday. Hurrah!

Deep Kyoto is back!

It’s spring and time to bring Deep Kyoto out of hibernation with a new article on Cafe Proverbs [15:17], the new vegan phoenix that has risen from the ashes of Cafe Peace. I went down there at the end of last month and having mentioned my blog, was introduced to the owner, one Marre, a charming fellow and quite a Rennaisance man (that’s him on the right with his wife). While talking to Marre I was overheard by another customer, who was courteous enough to introduce himself as a reader of Deep Kyoto by the name of Thomas Bertrand. As it happens, Thomas also writes a blog on Kyoto by the name of la riviere aux canards (Kamogawa sounds awfully romantic in French, don’t it?) which he has been writing for a good three years now and as a result he has been employed by a French publisher to write a travel guide to the city. It just goes to show what’s possible if you stick at something… Anyway, his blog is worth a look if your French is up to it. Or like me, you could just look at the pretty pictures. LINK

The 12th Japanese Beer Tasting 2008

Paul Sparks held his twelfth and final (?) Japanese beer tasting at Chez Sparks in Ichigaya, Tokyo last Saturday evening, thus ending a long run of enjoyably exhausting parties that first began in Fukushima-ken back in 1995. 48 beers were tasted, blind taste-testings held, quizzes quizzed, buzzers buzzed and a heck of a lot of cheese was consumed. I love cheese with beer! As usual, my old friends Chris Cotter and Graham Chave were also present as well as a host of other regulars : drool-worthy Mayumi of Beer Bar Bitter, big Mark of the massive leather jacket, some newer good-characters such as Henry and Sean who I hadn’t met before and my team-mate Rei who was a total star in the quiz. And my team won! Amazing. I forgot to claim a prize in the end but I don’t really care, it was so much fun. And I got two taste tests right too (!) – correctly identifying four beers each time in a blind tasting. As Paul took pains to point out I’ve always been utter crap at these in the past so I was super pleased with myself on this occasion. I shall miss the annual beer tastings, they were a great event and a good opportunity to catch up with old friends, and I shall miss Paul too, one of my oldest friends in Japan (I first met him in a Tengu izakaya in Koriyama city back in 1997), he has gradually gained status over the years as one of my bestest (and most supportive) mates. He and his wife are moving back to Australia later this year so I think I a wee Lambe-tour of Australia may be on the cards in 2009! Anyway, a big お疲れ様 to Paul and Kaori, they obviously worked super hard to make the beer-tasting a really great night. Here’s some piccies (the one of big Mark making team-mates Rei and I look like hobbits is worth waiting for), there’s some commentary on most of the pics if you hover your mouse over them, or you can click on them for a closer look.

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UPDATE (March 21st): Just got a mail from Paul today which reads: Absolutely poptastic having you stay for a couple of nights. Sunday night was very natsukashii. Baeren’s winter ale Ursus, which is a weizen bock won with 14.2 points and Sankt Gallen’s barley wine came second with 14.1. Those points are out of 20. Paul told us on the night that Baeren’s future is in doubt however as there was an explosion at the factory recently during which the owner was killed, and prompting me upon tasting the beer to declare it “dead good”.

Holy Crap

I saw this video on the imminent collapse of the U.S. dollar today and thought “Holy Crap!”. “U.S. balance of payments deficits is so strong and irreversible, that we must accept that at some future date there will be a run against the dollar. Probably the kind of disorderly run that precipitates a global financial crisis.” Dr. Paul A Samuelson (Nobel Prize winner in economics) said that in 2005. Obviously some big changes lie ahead…

GOOD.

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There’s something posh up on Deep Kyoto today.

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!

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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.

I’m sleepy. Goodnight!

Congratulations and jubilations to Rik Abel today who after years and years and years and years and years and years and years and years and years of talking about it, is ACTUALLY leaving Headshift today and going FREELANCE! No more corporate cronyism, or annoying bosses or insane deadlines. His life is in his own hands!

…Oh dear.

Just kidding! Really happy for you Rik.

I will be away in Ireland for the next two weeks, so no more posts for a while (maybe) because I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to get to a computer. Going cold turkey, innit. Back in Japan on the 13th – see ya!

Here’s a happy thing. Thanks to this blog, and their own fine internet search-skills, a couple of old friends have actually got back in touch with me after years and years and years. However there are still a few few friends I have sadly and shamefully lost touch with over the last decade or so. So I was thinking that if I put their names up here, then they might just one day google-search themselves, find me and get back in touch again, and that would be swee-t! Here they are:

Matt (Matthew) Fernyhough
Judith Cox-Rogers
Jonathan Irwin
Ester Fleischer-Brown

Oh GREAT and POWERFUL INTERWEB let your mystic magic work!
Now, let’s see what happens…

Here are some snippets of conversation/burbling with Rik:

DREAMS:
michael: I had a dream that I was waiting at a bus stop with HJ and there were bluebirds fluttering around a nest on the building behind us
what does this signify?
rikabel: er…love?
michael: nah
rikabel: a desire to actually settle down?
michael: hmmm
rikabel: you tell me, dream interpreter man
michael: erm…. currently waiting in transit between one part of life’s journey and the next… not sure when things will start up/settle down…. bluebirds signify happiness/freedom?
something like that
rikabel: ok – yeah

BLOGGING:
rikabel : your blog is great man
michael : thanks
rikabel: i wish i had time to read it properly
michael: as do I…. by the way… I’ve been looking at Google Analytics
rikabel: go on
michael: I don’t understand the difference between page view and visit
rikabel : nor do i
michael: crap
ok well after studying all the different and very confusing data I think I’ve figured out that the vast majority of people look at my blog once and never return (although there was a remarkable upsurge of returnees last week)
also I think I have approximately 12 regular readers
considering the time I put into it this seems less than adequate
rikabel: you gotta keep on truckin’ dude
early days
michael: I think maybe I need to change tack….
rikabel: you just need one break to get a much bigger audience
maybe you need to refine your focus?
michael: I like burbling on about whatever though
However I have nothing to burble about today
rikabel: there’s always something to burble about
michael: I think I’ll just put up a list of people I’d like to get back in touch with in the vain hope they google themselves and find me
rikabel: what about ‘an inconvenient truth’ winning an oscar?
michael: for a song?
rikabel: what?
best documentary
michael : oh it got that too eh
cool
rikabel:yeah
michael: did Al Gore make an acceptance speech?
rikabel: dunno
michael （after a quick search）:
He said: “People all over the world – we need to solve the climate crisis. It’s not a political issue, it’s a moral issue,We have everything we need to get started with the possible exception of the will to act. That’s a renewable resource – let’s renew it.”
rikabel: what a dude
he gives me renewable wood
sorry, i mean sustainable wood
etc…

DIAMOND WAY BUDDHISTS

michael: why are you always meeting diamond way buddhists?
rikabel: yeah, i do
maybe i’ll become one
michael: gosh
how does one become one?
rikabel: go to a meeting i guess
and get inducted
apparently they have REALLY REALLY good parties

If we look at what the Buddha discovered about mind 2550 years ago, we find that he realized that mind is clear light. The mind hasn’t been born, and it cannot die. Even though bodies, thoughts and feelings appear, change and disappear again, mind itself, being open clear limitless space, can in no way be hurt or harmed.
So when the Buddha obtained liberation, he found that he was not the target anymore. He wasn’t that body which could be in trouble, nor was he those thoughts and feelings which could change and disappear – instead he was radiant awareness. This led to enlightenment, the realization that there is no separation between space and energy at any time or place. He knew and was aware of all things. He felt the great joy and expressed the great love which is the meaning of all things; which makes every atom stick together and vibrate and which makes all things happen in the world.

michael: did you just make that up?
rikabel: yeah
etc…

SCROTUM
I was reading Neil Gaiman’s journal today. You come across interesting things when you read Neil Gaiman’s journal. For instance, today he talked about how librarians up and down America were refusing to stock an award-winning children’s book that made mention of (HORROR OF HORRORS!) a dog’s scrotum. Quite rightly, Neil Gaiman was dismayed by this. I am too. I mean, what are we doing? Pretending dogs have no balls? Like kids don’t know? Recently I found myself bowdlerizing “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen so I could use it in the classroom. I actually changed the words “sex machine” to “six machine”. Ridiculous right? But I didn’t do this because I wanted to protect the innocent wards in my care. I know they know sex exists, they talk about it and think about it all time (they’re 14 – that’s probably all they think about). It was the adults I was worried about; the parents and the teachers who can’t handle the idea of being honest and forthright about this kind of thing in front of children (which is far healthier to my mind) and would probably give me a very hard time about it. Seems pretty immature to me to be honest, but as a foreigner, on a one-year part-time contract, I’m in no position to buck the system. Once a student asked me to use Avril Lavigne’s “Don’t Tell Me” in class. I’m not a big fan of Lavigne’s (let me assure you), but “whatever works”, you know. If the students like it they will learn. Anyway, the song is basically about a girl who is telling her boyfriend to clear off because all he wants to do is get in her pants (so you know, probably a good message, right? “Girls be strong! Be assertive! Don’t be pressured into doing that-kind-o’-thing before you’re ready!”- type of message, right?). I thought I would have a crack at translating it, but when I asked a Japanese teacher to check my translation he seemed perturbed.

What does “it” refer to in this sentence? he asked me

I’m guessing sex. I said. But before I had a chance to explain futher:

Sex!? No! No! Not sex! Not sex to junior high school students! No way! etc…

The mere mention of sex (never explicitly mentioned in the song) had him in paroxysms! I mean, I can understand my aged Irish-Catholic parents having weird puritanical attitudes, but you know, they are from a different era. We live in the 21st century now. Why can’t we just be honest and take all the mystery (and the associated sniggering and the misinformation and the hang-ups, and the FEAR) away? Then kids would have a more mature understanding of things… And I think we would too.

ANYWAY:
Here’s something else I found on Neil Gaiman’s super site. It’s art that you can play with. Basically collages of old 19th century prints, that you can click and effect weird changes upon. If you click on it in the right sequence you discover the next tableaux: CLICK TO ENJOY!

WHALES:
Here’s this week’s “Whale-Love” video. This week, Yuki and the token foreigner meet up with Mr. Nagaoka who was a whale harpoonist back in the 50s and who looks fantastic for his age. (Must be all that whale meat keeping him young…)

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FINALLY:
It’s official. Youtube has gone over to the dark side. Since Google took over I’ve been reading about these insidious changes going on. About the major record companies demanding that youtube remove copyrighted material etc. But it didn’t hit home until I realised today that over half the music videos I’ve posted on this blog are no longer available. Including one I posted but 11 days ago! Tell me what harm does it do to have say a “TalkTalk” video from 1986, that can no longer be seen anywhere else, freely available on the internet where people can find it and might possibly think: “Ooh, I like that. Maybe I’ll click over to amazon and buy the record…” Hmm? STOOPID! My good friend Rik Abel recently wrote on his blog about Youtube plans to give video makers a share of ad-revenue: “w00t! Revver has been offering ad revenue share for quite a while, but this is exciting news cos like YouTube is obviously the 800lb gorilla and it’s high time they decided to ‘reward creativity’. ”

I beg to differ Rik! It’s another sign of the crass commercialization that has irrevocably swallowed up the sweet naivete of the original youtube ideal! There was a place for that – it was Revver. Youtube was a place free from that, that horrible money-stuff. Ach! No more! No more!

But all things must pass.

Sheesh.

I felt like going to see a movie yesterday… so I went and watched “Lucky Number Slevin”. I didn’t know much about it, but I thought it had a good cast. Well, Morgan Freeman and Bruce Willis pretty much did what they always do. Josh Hartnett was Josh Hartnetty. Lucy Liu was cute (she always cute). Ben Kingsley was (very) good. The film was… ok. Not great. Not bad either. It wasn’t as clever as it thought it was though… I had the whole story worked out in the first five minutes. Still not a bad way to waste a Saturday afternoon.

Now I managed to skip a few pictures when I was uploading to Bubbleshare the other day. Here’s a good one.
This is Rik Abel. (Oft mentioned on these pages.) Once upon a time we worked in a bookshop in Cambridge together and we shared a house with a few other jolly characters. Although we talk on Messenger all the time, we haven’t actually met up for four or five years so it was really good to catch up with him. Anyway, we’ve made some plans and we are out to conquer the world.

My youngest sister Sheila got me a couple of excellent presents for Christmas (I wrote her a list see). Neil Gaiman’s “Marvel 1602″ and “The Fate of the Artist” by Eddie Campell.

I’d been wanting to read “1602″ for ages. It was worth waiting for. All the classic Marvell characters (a pre-spider-bite Peter Parker, the X-men, Doctor Strange, Daredevil, The Fantastic Four and even a brief cameo by the Hulk) are reinterpreted in a 17th century setting. I like Gaiman anyway, but this is a real cracking yarn, heaps of intrigue and suspense and nice artwork form Andy Kubert too. RECOMMENDED.

“The Fate of the Artist” I found a leetle disappointing. After all the talk about it last year I was expecting something weightier but it is a very slight volume indeed… A little too up it’s own ass for my liking too. However, though short it’s very readable, has many a droll moment, and the artwork and constantly shifting styles are very impressive. RECOMMENDED (if your really into that sort of thing).

Lastly here’s something that amused me when I found it in the paper when I was home in England.
Steven Seagal has a band! And it’s called THUNDERBOX!!!!

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Again, it’s late… and I have many things to say… but they must wait… Instead, to fill today’s blog, here is a short video of Rik (McGit) BLIND-ROLLER-SKATING. Enjoy.

I see that New Line cinema has decided to go ahead with the making of “The Hobbit” without director Peter Jackson at the helm. It seems they owe him money and don’t want to pay up, so they’re cheating Tolkien fans now too. I expect they’ll be approaching Keanu Reeves to play Bilbo Baggins next…

Also, my mate Rik Abel, has alerted me to this. Art and slides! Slides and art! Art = Fun! I think I might have to take time out for a day-trip to London when I head home for Christmas.

Finally, the news from our end is that Hyon Ju got the result of her application to Kyoto Dentoukougeidaigaku (Kyoto Traditional Arts and Crafts University) yesterday. She sat in her room all day yesterday waiting, and finally at 6.30 in the evening the “express” delivery arrived. And…

…SHE PASSED!

So for the next two years she’ll be doing things with wood (and spending all her savings) and she’ll have a proper visa at last and won’t have to go back to Korea. So that’s nice then. Congratulations Hyon Ju!

Now get yer knickers on and make me a cabinet!

(good job she can’t read this…)