Joe Haldeman's Blog, page 28

art and fried chicken

After breakfast we wandered off in no particular direction.  Gay had some sights listed on a map, and our choice was fortuitous – the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art.

Our whole morning and early afternoon became kind of European, except for the unintelligible language describing some of the art work.
The Hara was all about seeing and not seeing – blindness.  Most of the  exhibits were the French artist  Sophie Calle . . . her first exhibit was videos of people she had found in Instanbul who had never seen the sea.  She took them to the beach and photographed their responses.  Some silly, some pretty, some moving.  The best was an old man who stared in impassive bewilderment, even disbelief.  Some children clowned (but didn't dare go farther out than ankle-deep).  One picture was the back view of a woman; after a few minutes she turned around and we could see that she was holding a baby.  She licked her lips and her eyebrows went up in surprise.
A startling and sometimes brutal exhibit was "The Last Image," where blind people were asked to recall the last thing they ever saw.  One was such a dramatic narrative I have to reproduce it here.

Blind with revolver

19:10, June 9, 2008.  I am thirty-nine years and nine days old.  In Guiltepe, two women jump into my taxi.  On they way they keep shouting, 'Faster, faster!' I flash my lights, I honk my horn  This maddens th driver of a metal gray Megane II on my left.  We trade insults.  We get out of our cars. The stranger is five feet and nine inches tall and must weigh over 220 lbs.  He socks me one then gers back into his car.  My head is spinning, but I do the same.  Further ahead, on Yahya Kemal Mahallesi Square, he has stopped and is blocking the road with his car.  I note that the number VE 2106.  I am slightly higher up because the road is going downhill.  I stop and get out  The man calmly gets out of his vehicle.  First I see his left foot.  Then hs left hand, which is holding a revolver.  He turns around.  He walks towards me at an unhurried pace, calm and determined.  I can't really make out his features because his face is so fat.  No expression. As if he's just been pulled out of the freezer.  The top four buttons of his shirt are undone.  He is wearing jeans.  He has a ten-cay beard, chestnut hair.  Our eyes meet. His are brown or black. I see no sign of hatred, anger or joy. We don't say a word.  He grabs my head, holds it against his chest with his arm, and fires a bullet into my left eye which comes back out above the right eye.  Since then I have forgotten my wif's face, my children's… Everything has gone. But I can still clearly see a man getting out of a car with a gun in his left hand.  Maybe one day this image will disappear just like the others, but it will never be replaced. All that's left will be black.  Until that day, it’s the last one and the only one.
I lost my trial.  The man is a Mafioso, he threatened my passengers, they refused to testify. As for me, I'm unable to identify him.

Whew.  Life in the big city.  Though I guess Guiltepe is not so big.

There was a nice park behind the museum.  We had a glass of wine and watched kids playing.  I like these small art collections.  They have coherence, and you can spend plenty of time on each piece.

Walked back into town, stopping at a random hotel for a late lunch, small servings of salad and grilled salmon with home-made bread and olive oil.  (Continuing the accidental European theme – no rice or chopsticks.)

Most of the afternoon was given over to moving from the urban hotel to our exurban one, more than an hour away by fairly fast train.  Our expert guide in this transaction was Kyoko Ogushi, who picked us up at the hotel and walked us through the high-speed bustle of the railroad station and several transfers, and then made sure we were settled in properly.   So now we're in a rather larger motel room, about the size of a Holiday Inn.

We had a lovely dinner last night, at an unprepossessing place across the street.  It was decorated with amateur paintings of sea creatures, so we went in.  No English nowhere.  On the menu I pointed at two small fishes that looked kind of like baby snappers.  To my delight, the waiter brought out a small brazier and lit a fire in it.  Two little fish on a platter, headless, scales scraped off.  I had metal tongs to put the fish on the fire and turn them as they cooked – gourmand heaven!  We also had bowls of delicious pickled vegetables.

Gay got fried chicken!  It came out in one deep-fried mass, and the waiter cut it into manageable pieces with shears.  It was great, spicier than KFC.

There's not much to this little burg, Urawa, Saitama, but we know we'll eat pretty well!  We're also next door to a supermarket, where I got a big waxed carton of okay red wine, a liter for about nine bucks.  If you don't find me online, look for me relaxing in an alleyway with a paper bag.

Joe

 

The stuff you get in the mail . . .

This was kind of amazing – I especially like "If you cut a tree, you cut your own mother."  Two thousand poems, all with different titles.



April 26th , 2013 -


Dear Media . I earnestly hope this message of mine finds you in mesmerizing happiness . At the outset it is an unparalleled human privilege for me to be writing this email to you .


It would be a triumphant mortal honor for me , if you choose to give any comment of yours for the fabric of righteousness , for my Poetry Book - Love Versus Terrorism - Poems on Anti Terror , Peace , Love , Brotherhood ( 607 pages ) . I presume , you can browse almost about 200 pages of this Poetry Book of mine for free by clicking at the cover of this Poetry Book - at the Amazon.com Kindle Store at - http://www.amazon.com/Love-Versus-Terrorism-Brotherhood-ebook/dp/B003XVYJ6E/ref=sr_1_4?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1366177830&sr=1-4&keywords=nikhil+parekh .


I can even email you my above mentioned Poetry Book - in its entirety in the microsoft word document format .


I am Nikhil Parekh , a 35 year old poet and author from Ahmedabad , India . I am also an Eight - Time World Record holder for my Poetry with the Limca Book of Records ( 2nd if official world rankings to the Guinness Book of World Records ) . You can visit me at - http://nikhilparekh.org - to browse thousands of my Poems , my complete Poetry Books , my world records in Poetry and awards .


My style of Poetry / literature is unique and has never ever been written before or experimented on the mortal planet by any mortal . Though my Poetry / literature is normal and natural .


God's astoundingly invincible grace on me .


I have authored Poetry Books which include - 1 God , The Womb , Love Versus Terrorism , You die , I die - Love Poems , Life=Death , The Power of Black , If you cut a tree , You cut your own mother , Hide and Seek , Longest Poem - Only as Life . These Poetry Books comprise of nearly a 7000 pages of my Poetry , have approximately 1.25 million words in them , contain about 2127 of my differently titled Poems and almost a 265000 lines - in their totality .


Currently my Poetry Books are available for purchase in the ebook format from Amazon.com Kindle Store - in the US , UK , Denmark , France , Spain , Italy , Japan , Canada , Brazil .


To buy my Poetry Books in the ebook format from the Amazon.com Kindle Store , please visit -
http://amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_i_0?rh=k:nikhil+parekh,i:digital-text&keywords=nikhil+parekh&ie=UTF8&qid=1282379009


I would sincerely appreciate it , if you let me know as to whether you would be commenting for the fabric of nicety , on my Poetry Book -  Love Versus Terrorism - Poems on Anti Terror , Peace , Love , Brotherhood ( 607 pages ) , or not .


Thank you and take care .


Nikhil Parekh

Direct Telephone - + 91-9227208983

Postal Address -

14, Heritage Homes,
Thaltej
Ahmedabad - 380059
Gujarat , India

If anybody writes this guy, please let me know what happens . . .

Joe

walkabout

Got up about four and had a futuristic shower, and then went down to find some coffee and write.  It wasn't that simple.

Walked for blocks and didn't find anything, so I went into the big train station.  It was open but there are machines and armed guards; you can't get into the main concourse without a ticket to feed to the machine.  So back down to the street and walk in the other direction.

I found a brightly lit diner, full of primary colors and blinking lights.  Sat down at a counter and eventually a guy came over.  I asked for a cup of coffee and he got sort of angry and crossed his arms and pointed at the menu.  The menu did have a cup of coffee, for 100 yen, but I suppose he wanted me to buy a meal.  So I walked on.

The third time I passed a Seven-Eleven, I went in.  Bought a package of iced coffee and went back to the hotel.  Hey!  A place on the main floor is called CafeRestaurant 24!  But in spite of the name, a sign says it doesn't open till six.

There are a few little chairs in the lobby, so I sat in one and unleashed my Mac Air.  Some uniformed people have regarded me with suspicion, but I think they're just bellboys, and if someone questions me, I'll whip out my room key.  Take that, Tojo!

And so back to the steamy 1950's Venus of Gardner Dozois's anthology.



. . . so at 6:00 "CafeRestaurant" opened and I went in and had a six-dollar cup of coffee and wrote three small but steamy pages of Venus.  Good to use the fountain pen again.  Then I checked my room key and went upstairs.

Wrong wing.  My key didn't work, but at least no alarms went off.  Went to another wing and my floor didn't exist.  Found a nice little girl concierge who traced a crooked line on a map, which led to nowhere.  Actually, I could have gone through the bowling alley, but it wasn't open yet.

Finally I went outside and walked around until I recognized the entrance we had used, coming from the train station.  Then I was able to find my way to 7W (in the G part of East Wing), hold my mouth right, go through the unmarked (in English) doors, and take an elevator from 7W to 5-2541.

I expected a rabbit with a top hat and a pocket watch, but in fact my key did work.  Gay was still asleep, having missed all the excitement.  Now maybe if my stomach growls loudly enough, she'll wake up – and we can go out and get raw fish guts with soy-sauce wine for breakfast.

(About that part, I'm kidding.  For thirty bucks you can get bacon and eggs.)

Joe





 

Tokyo, watch out!

A day of pretty easy travel today.  Our hotel room in Kyoto was above the train station, so we just rolled our light bag down and got aboard for Tokyo.  (We just carried two days' clothing; sent the rest on to the convention hotel in Saitama.)

I opened up a fascinating book, Yokai Attack! by Hiroko Yoda and Matt Alt.  Yokai are Japanese creatures that some people claim don't exist.  They eat people and worse.  I read it all, and now can protect us from many fearsome creatures.  Most of them, unfortunately, are way too powerful and will just tear us apart and eat whichever parts they like.

Three and a half hours of easy fast train.  Crossed the street from the station to our hotel for the night, the Shinagawa Prince . . . we didn't go straight to the convention hotel because evidently it's in a corner of the city where nothing happens.  (Like conventions in the states – if it were in an attractive part of the city, the hotel rates would be astronomical.)

Speaking of nothing happening, we then walked around for a couple of hours through an urban landscape that could have been in Peoria, or worse.  Block after block of featureless apartment buildings.  We made a big circle, though, and wound up at an Indian (!) restaurant right by the station, where I had a welcome pint of ice-cold lager and we nibbled through a pile of samosas.

Put our feet up for an hour or so at the hotel and then went down to the food court on the ground floor of the complex, where we found one of my two or three favorite foods on the whole planet – okonomiaki, the Chinese fat crepes stuffed with cabbage and meats.  We made supper out of those and then walked around the complex for awhile.  Took ice cream packages upstairs for desert, and so here I am – typing up a blog with one of the most exciting cities in the world buzzing below me.

In my defense, I point out that this part of the city is not exciting.  And we're both pretty tired, and want to get some rest before the convention starts.  So there.

Joe

porkbrgers japonaise

Yesterday the sun came up on pretty heavy rain. I wrote for a few hours down
in the station, and when Gay got up we gathered umbrella and hat and took a
city bus downtown, headed for the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art.

Once there, we strolled through light rain down to a likely-looking café, and
had a good lunch of a "pork hamburger," a nicely-seasoned patty of ground pork
in a brown sauce, along with rice and a salad. Thus fortified, we went on to
the traveling exhibition.

Not exactly oriental, it was "Masterworks from the Collection of the Prince
of Lichtenstein," a collection begun in the early 1600s, which functioned as
an underground hiding place for many works of old European masters during the
Nazi occupation. There were a few feet of grainy old film that seemed to illustrate
that, but the narrative was in scratchy German with Japanese subtitles.

The collection is about 90 pieces of art and craft from the Baroque period.
More than a dozen of the Big R's – Rembrandt, Rubens, and Raphael. A good
size for an exhibit, six or seven rooms, I think. A little more than an hour
of casual browsing.

We both loved Frans Snyders' "Still Life With Fruit, Dead Game, Vegetables,
a Live Monkey, Squirrel, and Cat" -- a truly funny masterful cartoon of all
these animals attacking a still-life set piece.

There was also an exhibit of "Van Gogh in Paris: New Perspective." We chose
the other because we've seen a lot of Vincent lately. Might go to it if we
had another day, though.

Of course going to Japan to see collections of European paintings is kind of
odd. I really should have gone to something Japanese, but the main one, the
Insho-Domito Museum of Fine Art, is closed for renovation.

Went down to the underground shops to scout around for dinner. Got absolutely
wonderful tempura by a grizzled old guy wielding chopsticks over a bubbling
vat of soybean oil. Picked up a sinful piece of cake covered with fruit and
took it back to the room for dessert.

This morning we're getting back on the train to return to Tokyo. Leaving most
of Kyoto unvisited, but I was glad I did have an hour to sit and paint. Maybe
I'll be able to pry myself away from the convention to draw or paint something
of Tokyo.

Joe

calorie-san

Here's Japan's answer to the french fry . . . the potatornado, a spiral of starch . . .



(the fellow in the photo obviously needs the calories)

Joe

Eating one's way across Japan

Nice breakfast outside of the hotel Tuesday – the high-class one inside the hotel runs 2772 yen; about $28; we paid less than half that for scrambled eggs, grilled fish, rice, and pickled vegetables, down by the train station.

Took a long bus ride to the Ginkakuji Temple, a big wooden building that dates from 1482.  Kind of odd to see this huge pile of mortise-and-tenon timbers that's older than European America.  What mysterious oriental treatment did they have for wood back then?  (Actually, the wood itself only goes back to the late 1800's.  Earlier ones deteriorated or, often, burned to the ground.)

To fuel our way up the hill we stopped at an odd stand that sold something that hasn't made it to the States – one potato carved into a continuous spiral and deep-fried, then salted.  Oh my.

The temple itself was not open, but the walk was wonderful in perfect cool weather, winding up and down hills of carefully tended trees and bushes.  We missed the cherry blossom season by a couple of weeks, but a few of them were in bloom, and the dogwood was brilliant, glimmering white against the bosky dark.  (Good Scrabble word.)  At the souvenir shop I couldn't resist a silk bandanna, black with flower blossoms.

(Back in the States I often wear a bandanna instead of a tie.  You can take an Okie out of the country, but you can't take the country out of an Okie.)

The hill back down was about a third of a mile of interesting little shops, a Japanese version of state fair or boardwalk offerings; munchies and bling and teeshirts.  We stopped at a soda-and-pastry place for lunch, a beer and toasted cheese & bacon sandwich for me and kora-café for Gay (chocolate ice floating in cold milk), welcome after traipsing around for a couple of hours.

From the bottom of that hill we walked for more than an hour along the Philosopher's Path, a picturesque tree-lined canal with ducks and huge koi.  About halfway I stopped for forty minutes and did a little watercolor sketch, which I'll insert in LiveJournal.



Our destination was the Eikando Zenrin-ji temple, the most impressive one so far.  Imposing steps sweep up to where the temple sits framed by dense forest, bright with decorative banners, all in the same sequence of purple/white/red/yellow/green.   As you paid to get in you also had to leave your shoes behind, brrr.

(Cold feet didn't keep me from buying something, of course – a pretty folding notebook of good drawing paper.  As Shuin-cho it's a book tourists use to gather calligraphy and rubber stamp impressions from tourist stops.  But you could draw on it, too.)

Wonderful woodwork in and out of the temple, and a striking statue of Buddha, who is shown looking back over his shoulder.  The description gave five or six reasons for the sculptor portraying this posture, but they missed one, which is the sculptor saying "Hey . . . why don't I do one with him looking back, for a change?"

On the way back to the main drag we stopped for a coffee and chatted with some Aussies.  Dogs started barking a moment before a fire siren went off.  The precognitive canines of Kyoto.

Back in the hotel, we rested for a bit and then went to a fancy restaurant in the huge complex next door, where we had reservations for a seven-course formal meal, a kai-seki.  I found the starter pretty revolting – Sesame Tofu Topped with Sea Urchin, which had a Slime Factor of 300%.  The other six courses, fortunately, were less challenging.  I could eat most of the six-kinds-of-raw sashimi, and a grilled Spanish mackerel was out of this world.  Chilled soba noodles with garnishes, the other main dish, was good.  But I could go approximately forever without the Steamed Dish:   Soy Milk Skin, Sea Eel, and Shitake Mushroom Topped with Sticky Amber Sauce.  Man, I so do not want to know how they make Sticky Amber Sauce.  We had a good chilled sake with the meal, though, and fresh fruit with a sweet yogurt for dessert.  A final cup of tea was a complex green-and-white mixture, I think, with a hint of the burnt flavor that I associate with Shui Hsein, which some people love.

The whole thing was about eighty bucks apiece, not bad for all the variety and impressive presentation.  (Lots of ice and the outline of a wooden building and Buddha knows how many little plates.)  For me, though, a plate of tempura fish or shrimp and some fried rice, yum.


Looking back, that looks like kind of a long day.  And I did write in the morning, too, sitting in the hotel lobby with strong coffee.

Joe

Blasts from the past

Keith Stokes asked on sff.net how far back this journal goes.  I said:

Keith, I was thinking about that before we left on this trip.  I started keeping this diary in 1979, back when I had an Apple // and a Radio Shack laptop.  A lot of the 80's are on 5.25" disks that aren't readable anymore, though.A lot of it is on Zip drive, which seemed like a good idea at the time.What I personally want is a set of bound paper books with 30-some years of diary.  But I'd put it online for anyone who's interested. Joe

Buddha on steroids

Monday morning we took the subway out to the Sanjusangen-do shrine, a huge wooden building chock full of statues.  There are 1001 images of Kannon, a Buddhist deity who's a lot more fun than most deities.  Most of them are kind of mass-produced, but twenty-eight are large and marvelous.  He looks kind of like Buddha on heavy drugs – laughing, snarling, sneering, mugging for future cameras.   Fencing, playing musical instruments, snake-handling dragons.

We went there last time we were in Kyoto, and I was impressed.  It's also the site of a huge annual archery contest, thousands of people shooting arrows in one 24-hour period, for prizes.  It's a rite of passage for young girls, not boys!

We wandered a few blocks and went into a curry house for lunch, tasty and spicy – I opted for #2 heat, out of ten, and it was still a little spicy. It was a thick brown broth with noodles, served with slices of "bacon" (like Canadian bacon) on the side.  Two cans of beer to cool it off.   Maybe I could have done #3.  The menu warns that #10 is inedible for normal people.

Peggy Rae and Tim went off to take the train back to Tokyo, and Gay and I shopped around for a bit.  I was cold and wanted a sweater, which wound up being an expedition.  The underground/overground shopping complex of which our hotel is a part has about a thousand stores that sell clothing for women – and one for men.  We did track it down, though, and I got a nice cardigan that will be good for Cambridge in the fall.

Still a bit jet-lagged, we decided to let the Kyoto night-life take care of itself, and folded early.

Joe

around Kyoto

Yesterday we walked for hours, going all around the stately park that is the grounds of the Imperial Palace.  A subway ride away, we admired the Golden Pavilion, a graceful large wooden structure covered in gold leaf.  Storybook surroundings; a beautiful pond.

Good to get some serious mild exercise, and the surroundings were interesting and gorgeous.  The weather absolutely perfect, cool and clear.  We covered it all six years ago, but it was fun to retrace our path.

We did a little shopping -- I got a 100-gram package of green tea powder from a tea woman outside the souvenir shop near the pavilion.   Interesting tasty stuff that you prepare by stirring hot water into a spoonful of the powder in a small cup, stirring it up into a kind of bright green caffeinated mud.  A delicate flavor.  She formally offered me my own personal "golden spoon," which was gold-colored plastic.

The Raven who starred in my novel Listen to the Raven (retitled Guardian) has followed us over the sea.  He came over and talked to us at an intersection near the palace; I snapped his picture.  Big fat fellow.



We had a fine lunch and dinner, with Peggy Rae Sapienza (sf fan from Washington) and her grandson Tom, and a curious breakfast, American with a strong Japanese accent.  Dinner was a huge bowl of beef soup with thick noodles, good hot sauce.  Good beer, too, though it seems strangely prosaic, since I drink a lot of Japanese beer at home.

It occurred to me yesterday to wonder about how familiar the menus are.  Have we become that used to Japanese standards, or have Japanese standards (for tourist places) evolved in an American direction?
Today we're on our own after breakfast.  Going to look into a standard tourist one-day bus tour – not very haut tourisme, but a good way to get an overview.

Joe