The origins

of Sushi are not what you think.

Somewhere in the world is a mountain range of mountains so icy and frozen that the eye cannot tell whether it sees ice or stone. In these mountains is an ice valley, which is home to an ice castle, which is home to the ice king. The valley is also home to an ice lake. The lake isn't exactly liquid, but it's not completely frozen either. No one knows how deep the ice lake is, or how the ice fish got there, or how they survive, or even what sorts of fish these diverse species are. These fish are the sole source of sustenance for the ice king. He eats nothing else, and perhaps he doesn't need to eat anything at all. Hardy travellers were once lucky enough to stay in the ice castle, and observed the king eating his raw ice fish (would the ice king think of cooking, or even tolerate it?). These travellers almost died of ecstacy when permitted to eat the ice sushi themselves. On returning to Japan they refused to eat anything but raw fish, and so sushi was born.

We hadn't

meant to be nomads. It had looked like life was gearing towards settling down. A new move, a baby on the way, and so on. When the baby was born, we expected the usual late nights for a few months, with a routine to follow. We got the late nights at first, but the routine we settled into could never have been predicted.

We noticed that though she cried at home, she never did so when we were away from the house, no matter how noisy or strange the environment. As soon as we were somewhere new, she always calmed down, ready to fall asleep. We thought this was just a fluke, it would change with time. But it didn't. Instead, it became worse. She couldn't stand to be in the same place twice, and especially not the house. On weekends we spent time trying to find new places to visit, new places that were affordable, just so that she would be satisfied. Eventually we were spending more time in strange hotel rooms then at home, so we got rid of the apartment, and hit the road. I couldn't maintain my job with the hectic schedule, but the baby comes first, and so we were no longer tied to the area. And the further afield we went, the happier the baby became. We had arrived at the new routine, the routine of no routine.

Two merchants

travelled together in foreign lands, both engaging in trade. Both kept journals of their travels, and wrote down what they found most noteworthy. One merchant, a fishtrader wrote of the differences between the lands -- differences in the people, their customs, foods, clothes, their homes, and differences in the landscapes, plants, animals, weather patterns, and so on. The other merchant noted how similar all the lands were to one another -- each had its people, with their customs, foods, clothes, homes, and each region had plants, animals, and changes in weather.

Which merchant made the deeper observations?

The unhaunted mind

would make a good title of a book I think. But we could choose what it's about.

The book I've been reading "Riddley Walker" has been a letdown, despite a cult following, despite what I thought was a promising start. That doesn't mean that "The Unhaunted Mind" would be any better.

Oh, and while I'm writing: SCOPE ROMBARD.

Where is your harbor.

Now how old are you?

Quick

wit is not the truth. Nor is charm.

Achbar Echad

The mice worship Achbar Echad, the #1 mouse. Achbar Echad lives in the #1 mousehole, eats #1 cheese, and so on. He is alone among mice and has no equal, because he is the #1 mouse. You and I, we don't know our #s, but we might be the #434,612,938 and #243,942,695 mice.

Achbar Echad is the #1 mouse, but is he the first mouse? Or is there a #0 mouse -- a mouse before mice? Does mousehood precede mice?

What

could compel one to not go anywhere, just stay in the same place? There are things.

Thoughts today have shot past and through Boston a couple of times. That was a nice place. If anyone happens to read this, and also happens to be in Boston, say hi to the Charles river for me, and so on.

The drain

speaks for itself, me I say "..." and watch my words get sucked down. So much gravity somewhere below it, pulling everything down. There goes half my wardrobe, a table, books, flecks of paint, down, down, even my thoughts.

Ghost wisp

The clouds will not leave. They sit overhead waiting. "You have taken our chief; we will not leave until he is returned."

I don't know what they're talking about, but they won't believe it. "You have taken our chief."

If you can think what to do, please let me know. I haven't seen the sun in weeks now.

Ha ha ha

he laughed, ha ha!

The Canadian Mushroom Belt

extends over two thousand miles, stretching from Southern Ontario west to Alberta, ending just short of the Rockies. Across this area, a wide variety of mushrooms grow in abudndance. Residents are typically oblivious of the mushrooms, though in some communities youth play mushroom themed games such as PunchShroom, a variety of the game PunchBuggy (also known as SlugBug). A tourist industry devoted to seeing the mushroom belt is slowly growing, though these "shroomtrips" have so far been most popular with visitors from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.

It is the time

when my eyelids come a drooping, and gravity tells me that I will belong to it even more for the next hours. It is getting to that time though its only 11:35 pm, still early really. But the days have been a bit long.

Typing seems as second nature, and I don't seem to really need to look at the keys, or to even think about where the letters are. Don't even need to think, much, about most of the words may be, but then I suppose the writing shows it.

I'm in a slight mood to keep on eating.

I think that memory and half memory has dominated the blog, partially because those things were there (the memories and half memories are in my mind, that is) but also because I wanted to avoid making this some chronicle of my current times. If not to write about the present, then there is always the past. The past and fantasy anyway.

But at this moment, there is no past, and not much of a present either (though much is going on, and life is far from empty). Not much of a present because basically, its all in my eyelids just now, and here they come a drooping.

Welcome to

the land of bicycles. Never mind the coming snows, never mind that the temperatures will drop and drop down. Do not attend to any of that. You are in the land of bicycles.

Walk down the street at night, you'll see two bicyclists zipping towards you. They politely line up and move to your left, their right.

Head over to the supermarket, with wife and daughter. Silent as can be they keep coming from behind you, riders on bicycles. You only hear them when, again, they politely pass you. This time treading on grass.

You are in the land of the bicycles. How long, how long till you have one too?

Harvest Moon

They had walked out to the grocery store to get a few snacks for the evening. Somehow it was dark by them time they ended up leaving the store. On their walk back she suddenly exclaimed "Oh, look!" and he looked and saw what she was pointing at. It was the moon hanging just above the trees, huge and orange, yet not quite full. Next night would probably be full moon. They decided they'd repeat their walk to catch the full harvest moon.

The next night they headed out at about the same time, walked towards the grocery store and then past it for a way. They looked back occasionally, but the moon wasn't there, wasn't rising in the expected spot. It wasn't anywhere else in the cloudless sky, and they still hadn't found it when they reached home.

"I know," she said, "lets go drive out into the country. Maybe we'll be able to see the moon out there."

He agreed so they got in the car, and drove out of town, on the same road leading past the grocery store. They took random turns onto smaller roads to try to get as far out into nothingness as possible. They looked up and around, but every time they failed to spy the moon.

They laughed about it and kept driving out further and further. As they grew tired they found themselves on a small rough empty road, surrounded by an empty barren field. They they drove on, becoming so tired that they hardly looked for the moon at all now, no longer looked at where they were going, and the small road had given way to a gravelly surface.

Suddenly they were driving up a steep hill, only rocks around them, the black sky somehow vivid. As they came up over the crest the view of the sky opened up, and they finally saw it in the night sky. [Not the moon, but something much larger, all green and blue. The earth itself.]

News item from the year 2053

Scientist report that they have developed a new form of light. Whereas ordinary light consists of photons, the new light is made up of phentons. Humans are unable to distinguish phenton from photon light. However, phenton light accelerates plant growth. According to Dr. Mao Frieder of Caltech, bamboo exposed to phenton light grows one inch every two minutes, a growth rate visible to the human eye.

Blog Envy

There is always room for new neuroses, new mental diseases.

The past

gets swept away, but lingers nonetheless in memory.

Do you (whoever you are) imagine your distant future? Do you have visions, however fleeting, of places you might like to go? Perhaps a boat trip never taken yet, but maybe one day. A mostly abandoned carnival town somewhere, with a long wide main street?

Religion

You'd never guess it from the way I write this blog, but I'd say that my true religion is 'Strunk & White'-ian.

Bergman

In some of those older Ingmar Berman movies the movie begins at some beach house, though a scanadanavian beach house, and people are pushing a boat back in from the water. Well, that it probably just how one of his movies begin, but lots of them seem to have coastal scenes. That movie scene may be the inspiration for my vision of launching a canoe into Lake Huron.

Return of the Canadian

Heading back now, and its years later. Everything is different, but it is still heading back.

Eating Eight by Lars Paul Linden

I am reading "Eating Eight" by Lars Paul Linden. The book made its way to me.

It is a slim book. It is a sci fi story written by someone who cares about rock concerts, comic books, and maybe spray painting. I have mixed feelings about it, but it yields few hits on Google, and that alone made me decide to mention it here. But reading it seems to awaken something in me. Also, on Amazon some copy is selling for $187 or some absurd amount.

And now back to the house.

The dominant feeling

What is the dominant feeling of childhood? or what was the dominant feeling of your childhood? Did some emotion occur more than others? Or was there some emotion that occured perhaps rarely, but now occurs much less or ever never?

I don't want to romanticize childhood, but I'm guessing that the feeling of wonder often dominates childhood. That feeling when you look at something, and it mystefies you, and you are somehow curious about it, and as if there is an explanation (not something technical) and knowing it matters or would be better.

Depth

For a while at Boston College, towards the end, I asked everyone I knew to tell me what they thought depth is. Not the depth of physical things, such as lakes, and closets, but the depth of people or maybe music or books. It was a difficult question, and no one ever seemed really confident with their answer, confident that they knew.

The rabbit garden

Rabbit ears grow straight up from the soil.

Ya

its true. Memory hasn't been haunting me lately. Could have something to do with so much happening recently. Could be.

Before I worked

in the old age home I might have been surprised at the prospect of memory decreasing with age. But now I wonder, how could it be otherwise? The older we get, the more that happens, the more to remember, the more that is forgotten. Who could remember all the events of a life of 80 years.

yes, yes, there is more to it than that (short term memory goes as well, and those old people always seem to remember the far far past) but still, too much happens in a life for memory to be able to remember it all.

A friend writes

Our names are so similar. I always
think of the word "affinity"
whenever I consider the mystery
of the similarities of our names.

My discovery on the banks of the river hackensack

The reeds sprawled across the ground lay in patterened placement, mimicking motion of water or wind. As I paced back and forth they broke beneath my feet and became disarrayed, the mud below appearing.

This in New Jersey?

Wish of paper transmission

Dear ________, ___.
Nice to meet you.
I am Kyushu University graduate school Human environmental educational
institution in Japan
Psychology course Master one year.
I am doing research on the theory of mind now at the graduate school.
That I am now the most interested is whether change is looked at by tasks
parformance by giving the character characteristic to the characters of a
false belief tasks.
Your thesis was found when the reference about that was looked for.
May I ask you a favor? have then, your paper "Do children attribute false
beliefs by attending to characteristic features?" sent by the attached
file -- is there nothing?
Although an impolite thing is thought by sudden mail, I am waiting for a
pleasant reply.
Sincerely.

The bridge on the river hackensack

Well she done did it, there, taking that nice photo.

Wild Laver

Behold the wild laver. I do not know what it is, but just looking at the label raises in me a vague feeling that I may have to go on an expedition myself, to retrieve the wild laver, searching it out in its natural and isolated habitat, perhaps somewhere in the further reaches of northeastern asia.

Two things my father warned me about

1. Reliance on the color black in painting
2. Reliance on drums in music

This is a jump photo. 

Dreams I never had.

1. A man kneels in the corner of the room. There are two piles of shoes next to him, both enormous. He takes a shoe from the larger pile and I see him doing something to it, though I can’t tell what. Something falls from the shoe. He picks it up and throws it, and then the shoe, into the smaller (though also huge) pile. He repeats this procedure, and as I approach I see that he is cutting the sole from each shoe.

2. We were on a bus. Another bus ride. The trip was supposed to be long, but the bus ride seemed to continue forever. Outside the terrain was bland and indistinct. As night approached we began to wonder when we would reach our destination. It seemed we should have arrived hours before. Everyone seemed to be dozing and for some reason we didn’t want to disturb the bus driver. The bus drove on and after night came you fell I began to grow tired. Where were we going?

3. The field seemed to go in every direction. The grass and weeds up to my knees, but growing sparsely. Bits of old junk here and there, also sparse: tin cans, old mud covered coins, a scrap of plastic, weathered yellow newsprint, perhaps remnants of utterly destroyed shacks. I felt I wanted to stay forever. Something was there. But after wandering aimlessly for a while I somehow found my way to the hill, went down, found the bridge and the tracks, and went home.

4. I was taking a tour of the great pipeline. The guide had taken me out of the city on foot. After hours of walking, the houses growing fewer and fewer, we arrived at the Great Pipe Park. He opened the black gates with a key and we followed a narrow paved path through thick woods. The sound of the air suddenly changed, the path turned, and there stood the entrance to the great pipe. It was amazingly dark as we entered and began the descent, but the guide produced a light and I was able to glimpse the corrugated surface of the pipe. “It’ll be a long time now,” from the Guide. We continued to walk.

5. I had found a blank pad of pages. I searched for a pen and finding that began to number each page. The numbers followed the usual sequence and only one per page. But each occupied a different position of the periphery of the page. And each written differently and some with designs around the number. On the first page I also wrote a title, “A book of numbered pages” You had been watching and suddenly asked, “Why are you doing that?”

6. Two reptilian creatures dashed at each other across the pavement of the parking lot. But as they were about to collide, a dog barked and both scurried together into the shadows of the open garage.

The air

at night comes in through the window, slightly open. The outdoor air is a bit cooler than is the air already in the bedroom, and it has a certain smell and dampness that takes me back somewhere, or maybe not back somewhere to some previous time, perhaps it just takes me somewhere else. Unfortunatly I think that mingled with that air, at least now, is the exhaust from the fast food place next door, so there is that special air smell as well as cooking grease smell.

The adventures of supercreep

are many and varied. Who knows where he lurks, or why?

Just had to type that. Not idea why.

The room

The room is rectangular with fairly high ceiling, from which hangs (and spins) an old ceiling fan. There are no windows, and the sole source of light is a fluorescent lamp placed width-wise on the ceiling. There is one bed in the room with a thin hard mattress.

I found a picture today

I googled the name of a person referred to in "The world is full of arrows", a previous post, and google sent me to a page that had the following picture, and its a pretty great picture I think.

This Italian movie

from the 1970s probably was on channel 47 with no subtitles. I don't know any Italian, but I watched anyway, when not channel surfing. I saw this about 15-years-ago now.

The story seemed to be about a teenage male who was perhaps wanted by the police, maybe for killing someone accidentally, but maybe for something else altogether. His mother, or family, hid him in their apartment by sealing him in this room with very white walls. Alone in this sealed-off hidden room (the police would come but never seem to find the room, despite searching the house) the boy began to paint on the walls, and as the movie progressed the number of paintings increased. And that was what dragged me in, or kept me returning to that channel. These paintings were kind of haunting (or were then) done with lots of primary colors. I guess the movie company had hired a really good artist to draw what a person trapped in a room might draw, trying to recreate his lost outer world on the walls of his room.

Eventually you arrive at

the logic of the string within the string. Hard to express clearly, this idea that the string has a string within it, the second string unseen because of its enclosure. The goal is obvious -- that the second string (the hidden string, the string within) should be revealed or extracated. Somehow this will improve things, or maybe not, but it is necessary.

Sometimes

I don't want the day to be quite as nice as it is.

I've been walking home from work lately. Its not a very nice route I have to take, crossing over semi-highway type roads (non-pedestrian at least) but the sky has been very clear blue, and lots of greenery on the campus. But a desire comes, for less sun, less clear sky, less trees and less green. Bring on the autumn country?!?

The cold storage room

is a room in my mom's house. It is a room in the basement, that you enter through a door tucked in a corner. The room is long and narrow, unfinished concrete blocks, musty smell, damp, and naturally cold -- probably because its not insulated like the rest of the house, and because it has no large windows for sunlight to enter.

But cold storage room seems like a good name for something else, a special memory storage space, not for main memories but those more obsecure. I thought about these old childhood cartoons that have been haunting me, and some of the other memories. I think they are all stored in some old cold storage room, a room for half-memories you almost never use.

Half-memories, because so many of the entries so far don't concern full-formed strong memories (though some do). Many are about things almost forgotten, or perhaps things almost never-known: a play areas I spent just part of one day in, a cartoon I maybe saw one or two episodes of, and so on. Things barely known or barely remembered, and now a desire to know them.

Once there was a snail

that was trying to get out of the garden, because it was very warm there, but the poor snail could only move slowly.

"I'll help you out," cawed a bird from a tree-top, and he swooped down, and swallowed the snail in one gulp!

"It sure is cool in here," said the snail. "Thank you so very much."

Shoomika

looks just like I do, but he doesn't live in my house. He might live on the roof. If I don't eat my food, he gets it, so I better eat the food. While doings so I will be entertained by being told of the adventures of Shoomika.

In a completely different vein, I seem to have nostaligia for the cartoons of my childhood. Not the ones that were overwatched, but the ones I can barely remember. Their was one on TV Ontario all the time, about the little bear named Jeremy. "I'm a bear called Jeremy, won't you come and play with me!"

see:
http://www.geocities.com/topspeed_jmv/jeremy/


Another cartoon, and this one I probably only saw a few times, though I think my brother saw it more often (why do I think this?) was about some mysterious railroad. Was it the hidden railroad, secret railroad? Google provides answers: it was the secret railroad. A quick google search reveals many others looking for this cartoon. For example I quote from:

http://www.snappedshots.com/mt-static/archive/Purple-Panoply.html

"Hhm? Do you remember Secret Railroad? It was a cartoon I used to watch in the late 70s. There was a little girl, Stella, maybe, with hair like Lisa Simpson. And a black cat named Melody. And an old man who took the train called Passenger or Mr. Passenger and of course a little kid, perhaps named Simon. Perhaps it’s just been fermented and distilled in my brain, but, at least now, that cartoon seems very surreal and mysterious. "

I don't remember as much as the author, (I remember a little boy not a little girl) but that last sentence just gets it right, "surreal and mysterious", and thats exactly how so many of these cartoon memories are.

http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/tvo2/secretrailroad.html

When we are in poor neighborhoods

or just those that are run down, this sung phrase enters my head, "on the pulse side of town". Or maybe its not "pulse" but "polse". Either way makes little sense to me.

The aquarium

will have no fish in it, just aquatic plants: different types of seaweed and aquatic moss (is there aquatic moss? must be). The water, however, should remain clear so that the plants are visible. Mossy, but murk-free. There won't just be one such aquarium, but lots of them, all over the house.

(This draws inspiration from the original Solaris movie.)

In an article in the New Yorker I read a while ago, this Japanese animator was being quite misanthropic, looking forward to an end of all people, so that wild grasses could take over our habitations.

When I was in Wales

I hitchhiked 13 times or so in one long weekend. I still have the notebook somewhere, listing each of the drivers and their characteristics. They were all united in none actually being from Wales originally, all had settled from other parts of England.

One man was a vermaculturist, a worm farmer. When he pulled up I thought I was about to be run over. Another man was a lobster farmer (he actually gave two of the 13 rides), and there was a couple who offered a place to spend the night (an offer politely declined). The last few rides were really not in Wales, but transport back to London because the trains were on strike: A virginal truck driver, and then a strange upper-classy man who was living in France but commented that he was proud of his Britishness.

One day you'll discover

a room in your house that you never knew was there. You've lived there for years, or maybe your whole life. But the house has its secrets, and one is this room that you somehow never noticed. It might be entered only through a door that's in the back of a large closet, just like entering Narnia. Or maybe it'll be a secret attic, and you never noticed the hatchway, or who knows where else it will appear.

What do you do in the room now that you've found it? Is it for decorating and fixing up? Or is there something in the room that you discover, and so it links the new room to unusual events?

Revisiting

the past seems to occupy lots of these posts, so much of this is based on memory, but I keep thinking that I will forget which things I've written about, and then continue to mention things that I've already said before.

Put differently, I'm afraid that in noting down my memories I'll forget which I've already remembered, and remember them too many times.

Same thing with thoughts -- will I carelessly keep repeating the same thoughts from month to month?

After we entered

that hotel in downtown Boston -- the one with the giant clock -- we found that the first floor or two was taken up with some sort of exhibit, I don't remember of what. On the second floor of the museum and exhibit there was a narrow staircase , and we began ascending it, up and up, and at some point we knew that our goal would be to go to the very top. It took a long time, and towards the end instead of a door every two flights of stairs, we had to go up four or so, to see the next door. Finally the stairs ended and there was just the final door. Would it open? It did. We were looking into someone's apartment, or really that person's hotel room. I think that's what it was. There was a large window, looking out onto Boston skyline, and the Miami Vice sountrack was playing. Was there the slight sound of movement? Maybe not, but we dashed down and down and down and out.

That was the same day as a number of other things I think: The parking garage with flowers emblemizing each underground parking layer (e.g. a rose is level A, the lilly is level B). And sort-of crashing SteerRoast at MIT, and my friend's melancholy about it.

I sense

a canoe in the future, or some sort of rowboat in my future.

There was a guy I knew who was into Kayak competitions. His challenges were acrobatic, like getting one tip of the kayak to go into the water with the opposite tip pointed straight up into the sky, and then spinning the kayak in cricles -- could this really be true?

The sort of boating I want to do is slow and steady, like rowing to go a long way, an equivalent to walking all day. Living next to water might help.

When I asked

the British guy I briefly talked about his favorite aspect of travelling he admitted that it was the process of getting from one place to another, like the process of arranging the train tickets and then taking the train to the new destination. An odd and honest answer.

We were in Manali. I think I only talked to him that one time. He was sort of boring in disposition, but had interesting background information -- fluent in Chinese, had travelled in China. We were waiting for the Glacier to melt so we could head out of Manali and into Ladakh. I'd been there too long, and I gather he had too.

Asian Supermarkets

are by far the best because the necessity of shopping for food is transformed into an adventure with unexpected possibilities. Most staples are available (though cheese can be a problem) but in addition to these are endless strange items to look at, perhaps buy, perhaps taste. There can be a feeling of adventure and the unknown -- feelings so rare these days that most people watch television to come by them -- and all while shopping for food.

The subways of Washington DC

provide evidence that science fiction is now lagging behind current times.

This pilgrimage has no destination

The route is not known in advance. I don't even know when we begin. But we will start at Finch and Yonge in Toronto. Better start around this time of year, or even earlier, just as the Winter ends. Set out on foot, and follow those giant electricity towers. Probably best to follow them West, not East, because they'll probably go on for furthe, but I don't know how far out they go.

It's a giant dog

Trip to Montreal in my early 20s. Went with close friends who were a couple, we stayed in this cheap place and shared a room. Midnight walk one night to this 24 hour bagel bakery. I think this happened that night.

We saw this huge dog walking in the night by itself. You don't see that a lot, dogs usually aren't that large, dogs are usually on leashes. There was something terrifying about the thought of this gigantic creature alone by itself in the Montreal night.

I think each of us said one part of the three part utterance:

Its a giant dog

and its all alone

oh my god.

The children found an injured bird

and brought it home. It was strange and exotic, not of some species native to the area. Nobody had ever seen anything like it in pictures or on TV either. But the bird was a mess. It was covered with dirt and mud. It had twigs and bits of root stuck to it, and small stones. Through all this, some long colorful feathers could be seen, but most were bent and broken.

The children wanted to keep the bird, and their parents eventually agreed, but they wanted to clean it up first. They tried washing off the mud, but it was almost sticky, like some sort of tar. So they trimmed off the soiled feathers, and removed those that were broken. It took hours, but finally the grime was gone, as were all the long colorful feathers. Some short ones remained though and the bird was clean, but now it didn't look so strange or rare, and the children wondered why they had bothered to bring it home.

Route 27

Whenever we go walking along Route 27 there is always the knowledge (especially where there is no sidewalk and we are just walking along the side of the road with the cars whizzing by) that at any moment we will come upon the half rotted carcass of a roadkill deer. This has happened before. We walk along and see the carcass, and there is no way to avoid it because the cars are in the street, and it is just about in our path, and so we walk by, trying not to look at it (or smell it), and keep going. There are other kinds of roadkill, smaller animals, like the flattened rats that always try to get under my feet when we are walking.

Route 27 will probably be one of my strongest (and fondest) New Jersey memories, once we leave.

The guy on NJ transit

basically forced us into conversation. At first I was hesitant -- I didn't want to discuss the minor complaints he had against the train system. I like the train system, I wasn't in the mood to complain. Everytime I tried to exit the conversation, he found a way to continue it.

So we continued talking to him and soon the topic shifted. Which American cities, he wanted to know, did we think were World Class Cities. We each suggested a few, and he added Atlanta, digressing on the history of the Commodores and Lionel Richie. Did he think we knew anything about the Commodores? Well now I know they did "Night Shift".

Chinese soups

were always ordered when my family used to go to Chinese restaurants in the suburbs of Toronto. I still am always happy to order Chinese soup, but I don't mean hot and sour, egg drop, or wonton, though those are good to. We ordered other varieties, and the menu would offer two or three different sizes, but always they were huge, big enough for at least four people.

The world is full of arrows

that direct you various ways.

Once there was this strange old black man I talked to on a subway in Boston. He was selling poems, photocopies of poems he had written, and we bought one. His handwriting was very strange, really shaky, as if his hand quivered when he wrote (did I see him write something down as well? I think so, but cannot be sure) but it was very neat nonetheless, with a peculiar slant to the letters. I don't know what his poem said, I can't remember, I have it somewhere. He had notebooks with him, and talked also in a shaky voice, and was saying something about the Chinese language, and even had Chinese characters written down in his book, and the next moment he was talking about ancient Greek philosophers, and it seemed that this man's breadth of knowledge must be huge, even if nothing he said quite made sense. I wrote his name down, and he said he was in the phonebook, in case we wanted to buy more poems. I called the number twice or so, I think he was listed in Roxbury, but both times it rang on and one and nobody answered. I'd have been curious to see the man's house, more than wanting to buy more poems.

The better playground

wasn't the one at my school (Cresthaven) but at this other school that was a bit of a distance away, and you had to cross a major four lane (two going each way) street with a traffic light to get there, and then walk past this house that was done in this pseudo-Alpine style (dark wood beams and large white surfaces, with lots of triangular angles (does this make any sense?)), and only then were you at this other playground. It was much better than the one at Cresthaven, but older maybe and a little more run down. It had these different playground structures, and they were connected by a hanging bridge made of wood planks with, chains running through them probably. I was only six at the time, and so getting there was quite a feat, especially the time I did it myself, and then it got dark, and I wasn't even sure if I knew the way home, but made it back as evening set in anyway, and everything was Okay after-all. Another time we were there (with my dad) and there was this dirty looking blond kid who was only a couple of years older then me, and he was smoking a cigarette. I think there were housing projects nearby, and years later I heard that one of them was some sort of giant crack-dealing building.

Mystery bathroom

at the new Thai takeout place on our street. That store was home to one of these super-greasy Chinese places, but one so unspeakably foul-seeming that we never even went there, or maybe did once, and had our expectations lowered further. It disappeared and a new Thai place took its place. This Thai place is mostly for takeout I'm guessing, but you can eat in and have a pleasant time of it. The food is good, and the atmosphere reasonable enough, and once you've drank enough Thai ice tea, you might need to go to the bathroom, which is through a little door at the back, and suddenly you are in another world: the bathroom is spacious and very clean, and all done in spotless and large black tiles, and gleaming white sink and toilet, and is there a plant in there, or does my memory insert it. Fancy restaurants do not have a bathroom so clean and nice, and I don't even like bathrooms, I don't care if they are stinky and dirty, but what a palace this one is.

The snail path

curves round and round, much like the path carved into the snail's own shell. This is not the path taken by snails, I guess, but a path one might take if inspired by a snail's shell.

A memory calls:
There was once this cheap Commodore 64 video game set in feudal Japan. The game was by the same company that made a silly adventure game (like Zork but with graphics) based on the Monty Phython movie "the Holy Grail". Don't know the company's name.

Anyway, this game set in Japan, I think you picked a character that was a small sprite, and would then navigate from screen to screen. The screen represented different locations, and often had other japanese people in then. I never understood the point of the game or how to play, though I recall that sometimes the character would get into fights, but immediately get killed.

For some reason, and this is odd, thinking back on the game, it somehow captured a feeling of tranquility -- some of the screens allowed you, for example, to visit tranquil Japanese bamboo gardens, even though they were only represented in the most basic low resolution graphics. Is this a trick of memory?


A google search informs me that the company that made the game was Mastertronic, and that the game was called "Shogun" and based on the book of the same name (that's awfully thick).

Desk

The philosopher couldn't get his mind clear, and hadn't even started thinking about the puzzle yet. All day he'd only thought about solving it (how happy he would be if he solved it, how he might be congragulated for solving it, and how long it might take) and about much else (when he should do laundry, should he now get some coffee). His thinking had been disorganized like this for weeks, and he had only faintly been aware at how cloudy and undirected he was.

He stood up, stepped away from his chair and cluttered desk. He turned around, walked a few moments, and sat down on another chair in front of another, empty desk. This was his special desk. The philosopher had been brilliant in his youth, and when the university hired him, he had negotiated for this desk in his contract. The desk was vast and empty, and he had hoped that by sitting at it, and staring out across its massive surface, eventually his mind might clear, and seemingly intractible puzzles might become clearer.

He was looking out across the desk, and his mind cleared. He stopped thinking of laundry and coffee, and stopped imagining himself working on the puzzle. His sight was filled with the gigantic desk, so huge that he could not see where it ended. He stared at it, but he could not even begin to work on the puzzle. "How strange", he thought, "this desk is really gigantic. I don't even know where it ends!" He sat staring some more, and then climbed up onto the desk. He took the first few steps uncertainly, but then sped up to a good pace, walking quickly to discover just where his desk ended.

Greatest Barrista in the World

was at some coffee shop that was attached to a hotel (we think) right near Powell Station in Union Square, San Fransisco. He would defeat all contenders in the World's Greatest Barrista Championships, and he single handedly outperformed a standard team of four starbucks workers when we ordered coffee

He is in his early 50s, the outfit has a lot of red in it, he appears to take his time, and is cheerful at all moments. He is alone behind the counter. There is a line and you are part of it, but you cannot be annoyed. The barrista takes his time without seeming slow, and the couple in front of you is getting the best coffee ordering service they ever will, and so the same is in store for you.

(The coffee was good too.)

World Famous Bushman (Bush man?)

You are walking along fisherman's wharf in San Fransisco (yes it is very touristy, but here you are walking), and suddenly you jump back in alarm -- some bush by the sidewalk just jumped out at you... You look back and see that there was no bush in front of that garbage can really... It was a bunch of dense bush branches held up bythis guy who is crouching down and hiding behind these branches. He is disguised as a bush, and when a person walks by they don't see him until... he pushes the bush branches out at the person and gruffly utters "bbaaahhaah!" or some guttural noise. And so the victim jumps aside, scared, and then looking back starts laughing upon realizing that it was just this strange guy pretending to be a bush. (We'd have been bushman victims except we were walking a bit behind someone else it happened to, and so we knew what to expect).

Once you get past the bushman, though, there are people trying to look inconspicious while watching, or videotaping, new victims walking into his trap.

Go to:
http://www.anvari.org/photos/200311h/Bush_Man.html

for a picture, but the picture doesn't show how effective he is in not being noticed by those passing by.

The Stone Soup Variations - II

In a different version of the story, the visitor asked that the townspeople fill a large pot with water, and set it to boil over a fire. They eagerly did so, and then he said "I will place this stone in our soup, what will each of you add?" He placed the stone in the water, and waited for the townspeople to respond.

One villager scratched his head, and suddenly ran home, returning with some rusty worn bolts, and he added these to the soup. Someone else had been collecting bits of wire for a few years, but she volunteered them into the soup. Another villager had some pens that had run out of ink and through them in. And so it went.

All day long the soup boiled and boiled. The visitor looked a little puzzled, though no one knew why. That night the pleased townspeople gathered to eat the soup. But the visitor looked ill and said that would go. He picked up his satchel and continued down the road.

The Stone Soup Variations - I

There was this poor village and everyone was desperately hungry. Some guy came by and saw the town's plight. "I know just the thing!" he said and everyone took note. "We'll make a soup!"

The townspeople gathered round, encouraged somewhat, but some muttered, "We are too poor! We don't even have enough food to make soup."

"Nonsense" said the visitor, "We have this" and from his large bag he pulled out a huge, old-looking pig's head. The villagers gave him a pot, water, a fire, and he boiled the pig's head for hours, and there was soup for all.

The massive field

There were a bunch of people who were on a mass migration or journey. They were walking across a gigantic field for years on end. Often the things they saw were very beautiful and usually the weather was pretty good. But sometimes someone would get too sick to continue, or someone would get bit by a scorpion or snake, or be struck by lightening. The rest would be sad but would have no choice but to continue on their journey.

Mirror maze

the CNE was many things, and one was a carnival. I don't know if its still like that. One time they had a hall or house of mirrors, and my brother and I went in. (The only time I can recall having entered one). We ran around, excited and a bit confused, screaming, and constantly running into mirrors. When we got out I was completely exhilerated, but maybe bruised from running into mirrors, and I think my mom was embarassed at how loud we'd been yelling while inside.

Magic tunnel

is where you can go for a long walk underground. Too bad after half an hour you start getting really hungry, and then you start wondering: how is it that I can see in here. That's magic tunnel, which you are still walking through, and now you are really hungry, and the question bears asking: when will this thing ever end. And you keep going along, and it can never be boring in magical tunnel because every step is deeper in, and further along, and greater discovery.

Blue lobster

is no contradiction. I have seen it myself, and so can you, just use google.

Open lots

sometimes with nothing in them, but straggling plants growing sparsely about, affording a view of the soil. These lots left unused, undeveloped. I remember looking at ants in one when I was a kid, finding a tin can full of bees in another causing me to quickly pull back, passing others on walks.

Glimpse into the future, 30 years from now. I'll set myself some project. A person might work on in an empty place. The project will not be sensible, will accomplish nothing (the goal involves somehow transforming or altering a tin can (not the one with the bees)), but hopefully can be pursued seriously and diligently.

The terminal terminal

is the last station on the line, and the furthest outpost. I grew up just beyond a terminal terminal, a 20 minute walk from the northernmost subway station in Toronto, which isn't really very far out at all.

Imaginary adventure: seek the terminal terminal of an asiatic train line, the furthest outpost. Consider, the train system has become rundown, and the further out one goes the less reliable. It might take luck to get out to the final stop. I think something of this might happen in a story by Bruno Schultz that I didn't finish reading. It also has an element of the Yellow Arrow by Pelevin (?!?).

You never know

I remember going to some sort-of-punk party in Toronto back when I was 19 or 20. It wasn't really a party because it was really just about 10 people there at someone's house at the most, and they might not even have been punks so much as goths, or some related sub-culture (they all seemed blended to me in Toronto at the time, but maybe that's because I didn't really get it). As happens, people started giving each other haircuts in the house bathtub, and I sort of remember just enjoying being there, and also perusing the contents of a bookshelf in the living room. I didn't get my hair cut that night, but some weeks later that summer, I had my head shaved by my friend's current shortlived girlfriend, who was older, from England, and had a bat tattooed on her head.

The nightclub

was devised as a place to house new forms of entertainment. The owner and management felt that there were limits on what was currently available--drinking, dancing, talking, bowling, pool, darts, karaoke, and so on. Nightlife needed to be expanded.

The new form of entertainment: firecrackers and small explosives were attached to various items, including small toys, pieces of meat, bunches of dry noodles, and these were exploded behind a plexiglass window to the pleasure of the patrons.

Something unexpected

happens every once in a while. What will it be next?

Science Center

Going to the Science Center, or even Chucky Cheese, as a kid would sometime prompt exploration dreams later in the night. In these I dreams, I would find myself in some new dream-place where the overall mood was, all of this is strange and unknown, and I have got to explore it. Strange buildings with slides to climb up, instead of stairs, long cooridoors, and so on. Other people weren't really a factor, and I don't have many details to report, maybe I've never been a very vivid dreamer. The content of the dream was in large part an emotion--that of exploration. Very very rarely I'll still have one of these dreams, and its like they are all one (or two) recurring dream, it really feels that way, as if this other shadowy world were there waiting to be explored.

I really like going on long walks, especially in new places, and its not that the dreams explain this, as much as both might involve, to some degree, the same feeling.

Possum

We were walking along in lower Allston at night, and a sound came from the left. We looked over and up, and suddenly we had jumped into the street. We'd been walking alongside a chainlink fence, and perched atop it, a bit above our heads, was a possum. The sound must have been its tail jangling against the fence. The possum is a terrifying and ugly animal. We stared at it and it looked back still calmly and ominously sitting atop the fence.

In a few moments we walked along, continuing our walk. A guy crossed paths with us. We realized that in a minute or so he would pass by the possum. We waited, looking after him, and suddenly saw him jump to the street and start running, not even looking back I think.

The sub-basement

Is the basment beneath the basement, the level beneath the lowest you know. Its one of those coveted places, the value of which is that you haven't found it yet.

The boat voyage

The boat voyage will have to happen at some point. I've had minor contact with the sea or boats. Some canoes, rowboats, rafts, and a kayak. Also roundtrip by ferry between England and Holland, another overnight ferry from Maine to Nova Scotia or some other Maritime province.

But one day it will have to be a longer trip and I think the boat will need to go through at least some cold air. It would be a definitive trip, the real thing, if the length of the trip was indeterminate -- we may be gone a month, or maybe two, or maybe longer. That sort of trip requires a purpose for the boat, where the achievement cannot be guaranteed within a certain amount of time.

I don't think this boat trip will be anytime soon.

A quote

from a obituary for architect Philip Johnson, that was in the NY Times:

"To a restless mind, a long life is going to mean a number of incarnations".

Coronet at Dawn

In my memory the title of the movie is "Coronet at Dawn", though the internet assures me that it was really called "Cornet at Night" and based on a short story of the same name by one Sinclair Ross (who can now be joined with Upton Sinclair and Sinclair Lewis, in my always confused 'Sinclair file'). For some reason I really want to see this short movie again, even though I remember little about it, and haven't seen it since I was in elementary school. It, along with a few other movies like "Paddle to the Sea" and "The Red Balloon" were repeatedly shown to us during my Canadian Elementary school years.

Memory says that the movie is about a young boy who is supposed to hire a farm hand to help out on his family's farm. The boy is intimidated by the sight of the real farmhands and so he hires this soft looking guy instead. This would-be farmhand is unable to hande the farm work but endearingly plays his trumpet every night. I do not remember if there is some scene in which he proves his worthiness as a farmhand, but I guess I expect there was.

Viewing of this movie may explain why even today I have a lazy desire to hear a solo trumpet song, though I don't know of any such music.

Shimokitazawa

I visited Japan for a few months, around 8 or 9 years ago. I really like the neighbourhood Shimokitazawa, although I felt a little self conscious about it because it seemed to have the reputation for being a neighbourhood for people slightly younger than I was, though I didn't feel old there ever. A few times I went for free dinner at the Hare Krishna temple that was there, or am I confusing neighborhoods?

I would tend to hang out in Shimokitazawa till quite late in a little bar that was primarily dedicated to playing Velvet Underground records. Then I would walk home, navigating by looking out for the tall buildings of Shinjuku in the distance. From Shinjuku I knew the way home on foot by heart. The walk home would take three hours I think, but maybe that was partially due to taking an indirect and inefficient route.

Harbourfront

It was in harbourfront when I was really young. A park where kids were left (or mildly supervised) to build their own structures, with tools provided. Kind of like making treehouses straight off of the ground. I don't remember participating myself though apparently I did for a few afternoons.

My memory principally consists of looking at these odd fort structures, with the nails not fully driven in, and maybe wanting to go into one. Maybe I did.

Nowadays that memory seems to come to me often, but who knows why. It was a place I just tag 'beyond the fence'.