Joe Bloggs

Chicago 12 - Art Institute

So the Chicago journey comes to end and a fitting end too at the Art Institute museum. This is probably my favourite picture (click on it for an enlargement) of the whole lot I took while in the city. Can you make out the downtown skyline in the shadows? ;+)

Chicago 11 - English and maths

Photo (enlarge by clicking on it) of bust of Abdiel for a dubious link to the difficulties of working in a second language i.e. it's a battle sometimes. Here are some snippets of conversations I had and overheard during my stay.

Indian taxi driver dropping me off at the Second City theatre on North Wells Street: This is the Old Town district of Chicago.
Me: Is this where the Great Chicago Fire was?
Taxi driver: Oh yes! It happens every year on July 3rd (sic) and at Navy Pier every Saturday.

Latino waiter who has been in the U.S. for 8 years and came when he was 16: Where do you work?
Me: In Japan.
Latino waiter: Who's that?
Me: Not who, where? Do you know where Japan is?
Latino waiter: No!
Me: Near China. Know where that is?
Latino waiter (with puzzled look on face): Yeah.

Cashier in supermarket on the phone to supervisor: Rhoda, could you do me a favour and tell me how much change I need to give the gentleman if the bill is $26.38 and he has given me $41.40? (She still short changed me a penny!)

It all makes me realise the fun the Japanese must have with my Japanese sometimes.

Chicago 10 - Windows, Alleys, Traffic and Walls

My last montage from Chicago. If I take any more photos I like, I'll put them up either when I get to LA, or when I get back to Japan. It's been fun! (Oh, and by now you know you have to click on the photos to see larger images I think.)

Chicago 9 - Digging for dirt

It seems all I've done since coming to Chicago is gush and gasp at what a wonderful city it is. Fact is, it is, but there has to be some dirt that I can throw your way to provide some balance. Totally predictable, I know, but I rushed off in search for crime statistics on the city. Somebody told me it was the 'murder capital' of the U.S., but no that dubious privilege is firmly in the grasp of Washington. Chicago lags in fifth place on murders behind Detroit, Baltimore and Memphis. Even then, the crime rate has fallen for 10 straight years. While I'm sure it could do a lot better (5th out of 50 in murders isn't exactly great), the city nevertheless is moving in the right direction. I think if there is any dirt here it is probably in race relations, but I haven't found any statistics or articles to back that up. Then again race is a big problem right across the U.S. and I'm sure some of my American readers could step in and put me straight on matters.

If you are really interested, you can compare crime in any two U.S. cities, though the data is a little old - currently covering 2001.

Chicago 8 - Jan the janitor

Meet Jan from northern Poland. He let me on to the roof of 220 South State Street where he works as a janitor. I like getting on to the roof of buildings. You get a more expansive perspective don't you know. Jan has been in the U.S. for 17 years and is a citizen, but he must have cheated on his English exams ... or maybe one didn't need them when he applied. A sweet man with a kindly disposition. I instantly took a like to him. Click on the picture for that more expan... er ... bigger view.

Chicago 7 - More songs about buildings

Nothing to add. This city must be an architect's dream, but that's hardly an original thought.

Chicago 6 - Public Radio

I have a lot to thank the previous occupant of my hotel room. I set the radio alarm clock for an early morning call and was very pleasantly awoken by Chicago Public Radio. Having grown up (well from about 10 years old anyway) listening to the BBC's Radio 4 it was good to hear a balanced version of the news without any commercials (effectively just announcements as to who helps pay the bills at CPR) and, most importantly, presented in a way that the personality of the newsreader didn't impede the delivery of the news. National Public Radio deserves a bigger audience and the previous occupant of my room has my thanks for making my mornings in Chicago TV-free and altogether more interesting.

Chicago 5 - Character

I don't know the names of all the buildings shown here, but rather the photos were taken for the impression they left as I saw them from various angles. Click on the photos to see the same a little big bigger.

Chicago 4 - Hey Joe

... where you goin' with that gun in your hand? Well, when you're in Chicago you just gotta go to hear some live music and that just happened to be the song Grana' Louise and her Blues Band were pumping out when we arrived at the Blue Chicago bar at Clark/Superior when we arrived. God knows when I last heard some live music but, excellent though it was, I really want to hear some acoustic blues. It's a big town, I'm sure I'll find something somewhere.

Chicago 3 - Hulkin' piece of ...

Went to see The Hulk which opened at theatres here last Friday. Don't know what the reviews said, but the long boring bits were ... well ... long and boring. The action at the end was quite good, but nowhere near good enough to bring it back to acceptable levels. Nick Nolte had some (lots actually) dodgy lines and delivered them accordingly. Music was dire mostly and when it rose above that, it suffered from sounding waaaay too similar to the recent Marvel (Spiderman/X-Men) scores. Not worth it - unless of course you're a die-hard computer graphics fan (guilty as charged!) and then you won't want to miss it. Be warned, however, that this may well be the film that doctors prescribe to cure the ills of insomniacs.

Chicago 2 - Rock Bottom?

Hardly. Picture (click on it for bigger view) taken on the wall of the Rock Bottom club on State Street. I love this city. Like the man says, it's fantastic. It really is.

I asked a colleague here - a native Chicagoan (now there's a collective noun that could do with a bit of working on!) - how he felt being back in his native city. His response was almost Japanese in his pride that the city was looking good and the visitors looked happy. He also commented on how clean the city was and I have to say coming from Japan the biggest compliment I can pay is that I didn't even notice. It is indeed clean.

Chicago 1: Just an urban boy

I guess I'm just an 'urban' kinda guy. Give me some tall brick buildings, a bustling city and a subway system and you can keep me happy for a long time. Fortunately, Chicago has plenty of those. The big mid-western sky, which was shining blue for me on my arrival, adds to the allure of this impressive city. I'm looking forward to doing some walking around the downtown area as well as visiting one of the most magnificent contemporary art museums to be found anywhere in the world.

Homo Zapiens

I was spared the misery of reading this novel by young Russian author Victor Pelevin in Chicago by virtue of finishing it on the plane from Los Angeles. What a relief to get that one out of the way. If I was to be kind I could say that it shared a similar theme to Things Fall Apart in that it deals with the aftermath of the onslaught of western culture - in this case post-communist Russia. However, the pain involved in reading such overblown and banal literature doesn't induce any kindness in me.

That Pelevin is clever and is well versed in western culture - references as diverse as Robert Pirsig, Freddy Mercury, the "iron boot" of Microsoft, Charles Manson, Darth Vader and "his asthmatic wheezing" etc., are sprinkled throughout the book - is not in doubt, but if he could have showed off less and worked more on his storyline and style, I might have enjoyed it more. Might. Some way into the book the main character (I saw him very much as Pelevin himself) is told to "pile on the cynicism", to which he replies "That's easy enough". Sure was. A cynicism that possibly fellow (young) countrymen and women need to reinforce their own bitter feelings about Russian society falling prey to greed and outside influences, but to have it rammed home in page after page of drug influenced diatribe was a bit difficult for this reader to take.

So what does Homo Zapiens mean? Well it is "simply the residual luminescence of a soul fallen asleep; it is a film about the shooting of another film, shown on a television in an empty house". Oh very simple! Don't bother with this one.

L.A. 3 - A tax on paradise?

OK, a final word from LA before heading for the airport. What is it with the weather here? I told my sister that if she won the lottery, she'd have to move to sunnier climes. 'June Gloom', says the Los Angeles Times, "is an atmospheric reminder that if you live in a land of milk and honey, you're going to have a fly problem". The article asks Angelenos (a collective noun I didn't know before coming here - wonder how much I'll get to use it in the future?) to think of this weather as a "tax on paradise". Well if they say so.

L.A. 2 - The Office

Tinsel Town deserves another entry! Yes I was falling asleep just about when I was being shown around Beverly Hills, and no I didn't get out of the car at any stage except to go into two supermarkets - including Trader Joe's! - but the jet-lag hasn't really worn off.

I really should carry my camera everywhere. While taking a long walk (almost unheard of here everyone tells me) to a local shopping mall, I saw two security guards collecting money from a gas stand. Well, only one was collecting, the other had his gun out with his attention firmly fixed on everyone around him. I don't think I even know what colour a Japanese policeman's pistol is, let alone having see one in the hand of an officer. I can tell you that this security guard had a shiny silver one, but I didn't get too close or pick up the nerve to ask what make it was.

Possibly the biggest treat in L.A. though, apart from meeting a niece I'd never met before, was getting to see an excellent new British comedy on TV. For non-British readers who don't know it, you must see The Office if you get a chance. I've heard it termed a "mockumentary" and BBC America quotes a whole lot of U.S. press saying how the Americans love it. Well the San Francisco Chronicle certainly does, saying it is "The funniest thing you’re likely to see all year… It’s also funnier than anything you saw last year". Very likely!

Roll on Chicago.

L.A. 1 - Jaded

I asked three people to sum up Los Angeles in one word. My Latino immigration officer at Passport Control said, "big". My Punjabi taxi driver had great trouble deciding, but finally settled on "expensive". My sister, who is a nurse here, thought "litigious" summed it up best. For myself, put it down to the 'June gloom' weather they are suffering here, or maybe even my jet-lag (and take into account all I've seen is a little bit of the city and its environs from the air, the arrivals hall and the 24-mile ride from the airport), but there is a drabness here and the adjective that jumps to mind is 'jaded'.

Donkeys and rain

Well whaddya know? They are marrying donkeys in India in the hope of bringing good monsoon rains! They should have just invited this Donkey over and he'd have brought the rains with him. As I mentioned in the 10 June entry, rains are a different matter in India. The majority of the 1 billion population depends on agriculture and farming to make a living. They want the rain! For me though, I'll be glad to leave these wet, wet, wet shores for a while. Next entry from LA!

Last Supper

Kaiten (rotary/revolving/conveyor belt) sushi is not my favourite meal. The quality of fish is usually below par and if a restaurant isn't busy the food is visibly wilting, reminding me of a food critic's words when not impressed with an inflight meal "the fish that graced my plate died in vain".

The restaurant this picture was taken at is inside the Holiday Inn on the Takanogawa river in northeast Kyoto and would get a 5 out of 10 from me (most Kaiten sushi restaurants get about 2). As you may guess, you pay by the plate and the colour of the plate determines the cost. And NO I didn't eat all those! We went at the behest of the boys as this was my last meal with them before heading for the U.S.

Embers

Next on the reading list is Embers by Hungarian author Sándor Márai. Here's a quote from the third page of the book that augurs well for the read ahead:

On the other side of the closed blinds, in the scorched, withered garden, summer ignited a last blaze like an arsonist setting the fields on fire in senseless fury before making his escape.

Mmm! In the meantime, in Kyoto, when the clouds lift and allow a fleeting glimpse of the hills that surround the city, I have never seen things looking greener or the fields further from being scorched than they are now. Yes folks, the deluge continues with worse ahead ... there's a typhoon approaching!

Lake Biwa Museum

This picture (click on it for a larger view) was taken from the entrance of the building that I do some work in and looks across at the entrance of the Lake Biwa Museum. A very impressive museum it is too. Built on the shores of ... well I think you can guess on which shores it was built ... it houses an absorbing collection of exhibits on the geological and human history of Japan's biggest lake and one of the oldest lakes in the world. A very cool exhibit is also one that gives the curators a big headache. The museum has aquariums and some of these are outside with the window of the museum being the inside wall of the aquarium. Well what fun, and how easy, it is for the big birds that visit to have their lunch waiting for them in a small enclosed space!

Performing Wonders

Went and discussed Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart tonight with three fellow readers. Although we discussed quite a number of aspects of the novel, I think these words from the author sum up why the book was important to me.

I tell my students, it's not difficult to identify with somebody like yourself, somebody next door who looks like you. What's more difficult is to identify with someone you don't see, who's very far away, who's a different color, who eats a different kind of food. When you begin to do that then literature is really performing its wonders.

This book works its wonders because Achebe writes so clearly and artlessly about the impending destruction of a culture through enforced outside change. A change that was not sought and one from which there is no return. The story has an universality that is the hallmark of great literature. It is that universality which makes us identify with this small tribe of people living in 19th century west Africa. It's an excellent book. Read it.

It raineth every day

When that I was and a little tiny boy
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came to man's estate,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came, alas, to wive,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
By swaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came unto my beds,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
With toss-pots still 'had drunken heads,
For the rain it raineth every day.

A great while ago the world began,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
But that's all one, our play is done,
And we'll strive to please you every day.

(Song from Twelfth Night. Picture taken from my front window - click on the photo for larger view - of a pigeon just resigned to getting wet. This feels like a rainy season to remember.)

What's in a name? Take 2

Azekatsu Ambler (for those of you visiting this site for the first time, that was the old name for this blog) really wasn't cutting it. The Surprised Donkey at least leads to the possibility of interesting logos!

Cukoos in the nest

One of my all-time favourite films, One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest, was made with the help of real mental patients in front of and behind the camera. This excellent Guardian Unlimited article also reveals how Burt Reynolds was the first choice for the part of RP McMurphy and that Milos Forman only got his job because the producers (Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz) wanted a cheap director. Filmed almost entirely at Oregon State Mental Hospital in Salem, "when the actors took initial tours of the ward it was the patients who were scared by what they saw, not the other way round".

Perfect Seasons

Is Vivaldi's Four Seasons the most perfect piece of music ever written? Or is it a cliché of our times (it's currently "the most often recorded piece of any classical music" according to my Penguin Guide to Compact Discs, Cassettes and LPs)? I'm very much leaning towards the former. Switched on the TV to try and catch some Major League Baseball (hangs head in shame ... but I was only trying to find out how Ichiro and Matsui were doing, honest Guv!) when I stumbled on an, as yet unidentified, ensemble playing this music at the Tokyo Opera City. Absolutely stunning. Drew up a stool and just watched and listened. I've often wondered how someone like Shostakovich could be vilified for his music (it was argued, for example, that his opera Lady Macbeth "threatened the foundations of the socialist state"), when, let's face it, no one would know what he was talking about unless he told them. But maybe I need to eat my words because I would argue that if you'd never heard the Four Seasons before and you weren't told the title, you would be able to guess what Vivaldi was writing about.

My Vivaldi CD of the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields conducted by Sir Neville Marriner was stolen (sic) ages ago. Must identify the ensemble and see if they have recorded it.

(Oh, for the record, Ichiro is doing great, but Matsui isn't.)

Saraba Greg

When Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird did she model Atticus on Gregory Peck? Or was Gregory Peck just a master actor and was playing the part like putting on an old and favourite coat? Either way - a great book, great film, great actor. Goodbye Greg.

What's in a name?

Why do I ask? Well I became an uncle for the 12th time (16th if you include Noriko's side of the family) yesterday and my new nephew is special. He's been named Joseph John Arthur (surname of Denne). Joseph was the 9th most popular name in England and Wales last year and comes from the Hebrew name Yoseph meaning "he will add".

So what does your name mean? Go here to find out.

Planting begins

Mr. Ikenishi's son was out helping him plant the rice today. When I was driving around yesterday, I noticed the tractor you saw in the last picture I posted being used by another farmer on an even smaller plot. No doubt the rice planter you see in the photo will also make the rounds. (Click on the photo to see a larger view.)

It was nice overcast weather for their work which turned into a cool shower not long after they finished.

Bite that tongue boy

I certainly don't do myself any favours when dealing with obstinate officials. After a fight on the phone (all my fights are on the phone!) on Monday with my bank, today I had, shall we say, a small contretemps with Technical Support at Adobe Systems (the software giant). The bank fight was over the extortionate commission they wanted to charge me and I told them that it was pretty clear why their stock price had plummeted if they treated their customers like that. He very politely told me I could, of course, "bank somewhere else" if I wasn't happy with their service. I took great pleasure in telling him I'd be staying - my thinking being shitty banks deserve bolshie customers.

The Adobe fight was trivial but once again I couldn't help rubbing it in and telling them "you know your reputation in the market is as bad as Microsoft for customer relations". You'd have thought I would have learned to bite my tongue after all the time I've been here.

Rainy season begins - it's official

The Japan Meteorological Agency announced the official start of the rainy season (tsuyu) in our part of the country today. It could be raining for two weeks beforehand but it ain't the rainy season until they say it is. Unusually, this year, their pronouncement actually coincided with some rain. Tsuyu in Japan doesn't bring the same joy that the monsoons did in India when I was a child, but I think that's because industrial societies tend to equate rain with pain, whereas agrarian nations see it more as a life preserving force.

2001: A Space Odyssey

The Kubrick film came out in 1968 and they are still talking about it now. In a poll of 144 critics taken last year, it was voted the 6th best film of all time, although interestingly in the same poll 108 directors preferred his Dr. Strangelove which they voted No. 5. (And in case you were wondering, Citizen Kane was the No. 1 choice of both groups.)

A very cool flash site tries to explain some of the obscure themes and moments of the film. Why, for example, does the 'breathing' scene with the astronaut floating in space last three minutes? Kubrick's point, they tell us, is that in space man is like a fish out of water and computers (HAL has the upper hand at this stage of the film) don't need to breathe. In four parts and about 15 minutes in total length, you'll probably need a broadband connection to watch it if you don't want to be left as frustrated as many movie-goers were with the original film.

Urban Farmer

The plot of land Mr. Ikenishi is preparing for planting with rice is diagonally opposite our house. On a visit to Kyoto my brother commented on what a shocking economic waste it was to be using valuable urban land to grow crops. I hope Mr. Ikenishi keeps wasting his money, because I'd rather have his paddy field near me than a new apartment block.

Urban farming here is quite intensive. The strawberries in the jam I put on my breakfast toast this morning were grown on that exact same plot and were harvested less than a week ago! (Click on the photo for a larger view.)

African proverbs

I've just started reading Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and was immediately taken with this line talking about how darkness held a "vague terror" for the people (the book is set in pre-colonial West Africa) and how moonlit nights were welcomed: "When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for walk". It got me looking for other sayings and found this excellent site on African Proverbs. The proverb of the month for June is "Like vomit and shit under your feet (the rumormonger spreads scandal)". Or in Sumbwa Gaba malusi ne mamvi, and in Swahili Yamekuwa matapishi na mavi. Reminds me a little of the pre-war shenanigans of certain world leaders.

Star Trek

I thought it about time that the boys started their Star Trek education so we rented the first film: Star Trek - The Motion Picture. I wonder if the Trade Descriptions Act was in force when it came out? What motion? Milan fell asleep well before the end and Paris - quite the film buff these days - said, "I'm off to bed". In my search for things Trek-related I did find that William Shatner has his own website. If you were ever a Trekkie, it's worth a visit.

Welcome

Welcome to Joe's blog. A web diary without a difference. These won't be daily ramblings and they certainly won't be limited to goings on in Azekatsu-cho here in Kyoto, but for those that don't hear from me so often these days, you'll get a flavour of what's happening in the household here and on my travels.

You can write comments on my entries by clicking on the 'Comment' link. You will need to input your name and email address!

So let the show begin!