Electric Ladyland

windows needs some valium...

sometimes i really do understand why regular users freak out at the messages they receive on their screens.  i'm running xp pro at work and this message popped up when i unplugged my ethernet cable for a minute to swap it out to my mac.  catastrophic!  failure!  oh, the sky is falling!

wonder if they moderated the language somewhat in vista.  who knows.  i prefer the messages that gmail sends me ("cross your fingers and try again in a few minutes..."  "... and we're back!").  they're a little less apocalyptic sounding.

in other news, today was an excellent, excellent day.  wow.  work, life, interactions with people... it was exciting all across the board. 

now i'm in for another session practicing calligraphy before tomorrow's class.  last night i did an even better version of the chinese poem i've been working so hard on.  when it came time to wind down i practiced that "branch" piece but wasn't feeling it, so i tried some xu bing-style square word calligraphy.  i assembled a character using radicals to spell out the english word literacy.  i was surprised at how well it came out.  i may submit that as my original piece tomorrow.

tea society

back to work.  it's been a challenge working effectively in our temporary space as the next floor is being brought online but my coworkers and i have bonded in our adversity.  last week someone made me earl grey tea and to return the favor i brewed him a cup of sencha with my favorite japanese teapot.  i used to make green tea for myself nearly every day in the afternoon and it was a little touch of civility in an otherwise hectic office environment.  the teapot went home before our last office move so as not to be damaged but it is back to keep me company for a while.  i'd forgotten how much i missed it.

uh... oops...

note to self:  practicing calligraphy while listening to the yeah yeah yeahs may have the unintended result of ink finding its way into your brandy.  blame it on karen o.  i just could not stop the boogie.  i was feeling a little too joyful (if there's such a thing...) 

fortunately this party foul happened at the end of a very productive practice session during which i made some positive strides in the large winter assignment.  i'll keep on working at it but here's a recent shot...

writing my future

good... er... morning.  went to the JETAANY shinnenkai last night.  several friends of mine were not able to make it and i think i drank for all of them as well as for myself.  my eyes popped open at 8am and i knew i wasn't going to be going back to sleep anytime soon so i decided to go work out at the gym.  good call.  plenty of hydration and i think i excised some of the toxins that were in my system.  i'm only feeling a slight tinge of hangover at the moment. 

my only plan today is to practice my winter calligraphy assignments (the big honking huge one, a gyousho rendition of the chinese poem "喜気楼台満春容松竹先," and the regular assignments of six-character poems in gyousho and kaisho).  sensei also said we should try to submit a separate piece of our choice by the end of the month. 

i want to do mokuan's "branch" piece.  i wrote about it in a previous post some time ago.  i've been a fan of his work since i first encountered it at the met not long after returning from JET in 2001.  last year i went to his temple, manpukuji, outside uji, and had a thrilling two-hour exchange with a monk there about calligraphy while viewing an exhibition they happened to have on.  the poem in "branch" pretty much sums up my philosophy at the present time: 

the garden full of spring color will not stay closed
a branch of red apricots comes over the fence

the floodgates have opened up where calligraphy is concerned and i feel a heady optimism about where my pursuits are taking me now.  thursday night i told sensei that my goal in calligraphy for 2007 is to achieve the rank of 3rd dan (i'm presently at provisional 2nd dan - 準二段).  many of the more interesting assignments in reisho, tensho and other styles require 3rd dan before you can begin attempting them.  plus, with the other educational goals i have in the works this is a natural fit and what i learn in calligraphy will feed into a variety of other areas. 

it's ambitious.  sensei came right out and said "you're gonna have to practice like hell."  but he also said "if you turn in something truly brilliant, no one can deny you."  that's where that branch comes in. 

interestingly, last night at the shinnenkai i sat next to a woman who works at CLAIR's new york office and in the course of our conversation i learned that she too once studied with nihon shuji.  kampo, where i study, is the new york branch of that association.   kampo is opening a gallery in the main hall soon and she said she wants to see it when it opens, also to see my calligraphy on display.  guess i gotta get going then eh? 

we are among you, walking even in the corridors of power

there are trekkies in all walks of life and apparently now they are describing the iraq war in terms of trek.  i kid you not.  representative david wu may be high but he's clearly one of us.  q'apla.

le sens de la vie

this morning i had a surprise meeting on the subway to work.  i was engrossed in an article on chinese characters and whether or not they have inherent symbolic meaning when a lady standing near the pole tapped me on the shoulder to say hello.  it was one of my mother's colleagues from work, an accountant who runs a feng shui business on the side.  having heard that we'd gone to the chinese calligraphy exhibition she told me that was just the sort of thing she would have loved to have joined in on, and could we invite her the next time we go out for something like that?

certainly, i said.  the more the merrier and it is always a pleasure to find like minds.  in the 20 minutes it took us to get to midtown we had a far-ranging conversation covering language, artistic expression and the pursuit of one's most cherished dreams.  for feng shui she'd learned some chinese characters because her teacher insisted that even from a non-native speaker's perspective a certain kind of sensibility can be absorbed, an atmosphere that you will lack if you approach it completely in your own language.  she agreed because as a hebrew speaker she'd already observed that phenomenon, the shift in environment and personality that occurs when you enter a different language.  i'd felt the same when speaking french and japanese.

later in the day as i was signing in at work a new coworker of mine from russia saw me and addressed me in french.  he really wants me to be french even though i'm franco-american and so from time to time this happens.  lucky for him i studied the language for several years and am comfortable in it to a certain degree but not nearly as comfortable as i was at the height of my study.  now when i speak at any appreciable length in french, japanese words come tumbling into my brain because japanese has replaced french as the designated foreign language.  when my coworker asked me what the word "polish" (as one to polish up one's skills) was in french i immediately thought "磨く" even though that would get me nowhere in a french conversation.  i managed not to actually say the word but it was a struggle to put that thought away and rummage around for the french word.  then he said he wished i spoke some russian and i asked the guy to give me a break -- three languages is sufficient so far.

i did notice during our exchange, though, that the atmosphere was different.  someone wandered by and interjected a few short words in english before we returned to french and i noticed how different that felt.  even though i'm out of practice i still feel a sense of connectedness with the french language and there's a certain part of my identity that comes out in that context that just doesn't find the same type of expression in english or japanese.  very hard to put into words.  there is an even more noticeable change that occurs when i speak japanese although it doesn't call up the same sentiments of family heritage and identity.  a japanese friend once told me that when he saw me speaking japanese from across the room he noticed that my whole body language changed -- my voice became softer, my eye contact was far less direct and my body became still.  i've seen opposite shifts when japanese friends of mine go into english mode -- they become very animated and their body language is warm and convivial, definitely more american.  they say they feel free.  whatever the language it is very freeing to put on another atmosphere and find a new method of self expression. 

chocolate indiscretions

if i kept a pillow book including lists of favorite things cadbury creme eggs would surely make an appearance.  i spotted my first creme eggs of the season at the local rite aid on my way home tonight and promptly bought two.  now normally i would be all miffed about how it's not the season yet -- we just rang in the new year and haven't even passed valentine's day let alone saint patrick's day -- but in this case i will make an exception. 

i have a strong abiding fondness for these odd confections even though they are mass-produced, offer dubious flavor satisfaction compared to actual chocolate, and are abominable for my health.  i remember once while living in japan i flew to the UK for a friend's wedding in the springtime.  while waiting for a train to cambridge i happened across a cadbury vending machine selling creme eggs and was so thrilled to see them -- you can't get them in japan -- that i loaded up right then and there.  mrrrpffhhhl.  oh the indiscretion.  now that i'm back stateside i have unlimited access to creme eggs, which means that i fall off the wagon at approximately oh, this time every year.  guess i'll be going to the gym this weekend.

in other news, i met with someone to compare notes on effective personal financial planning at freeze peach tonight.  i forgot how wonderful that cafe is.  would that we had an indie coffee shop like that in the steinway area of astoria!  down in these parts it's the burnt blends of starbucks or the thump-thump-thump of techno in a dark euro cafe.  freeze peach is like your neighbor's living room and it is a real community space where everyone knows everyone else.  much like the small town where i grew up.  i've come to miss that sense of connectedness a bit since relocating to the metropolis and it's a sweet surprise when i find traces of it here.

back to the financial planning, though -- that went quite well and along with the other strategic planning i've been doing i got confirmation that my thinking is solid and i'm on the right track.  i've got renewed enthusiasm to tackle this part of the equation as well.  although i hate budgeting (insert some blather here about what a free spirit i am and can't be restricted) i recognize the necessity of putting an action plan into place where this is concerned.  it's purely a matter of stating my goals and then making a few moderate changes to achieve them.  i'm strong on planning in almost every other way so i just have to put my skills to use in this arena.  it's really no different.

i didn't get a lot of sleep last night because i was so energized upon coming home.  the calligraphy did it to me.  i stayed up late watching battlestar galactica and then somehow ended up in a wikipedia loop where i was just looking up random things of interest (i am the information hoover after all).  a search for lazy sunday led me to an interesting entry:  nerdcore hip hop, aka geeksta rap.   you heard it here first:  there is such a genre.   i had to grin when i read there was a band named commodore 64.  tee hee.  i'll have to check some of these acts out. 

visceral grace

mom and i went to see the chinese calligraphy exhibition on its closing day at the met yesterday.  what a pleasure it was hearing her reactions and being able to explain details of the brushwork to her. 

i snapped some farewell photos of my favorite pieces before leaving.  this selection by yelu chucai, a farewell to liu man, was by far my favorite.  i was not able to get good pictures but someone else did and has them on display here.  i love the compact forms and dagger-edge downstrokes.  clearly he had a force of personality to be reckoned with. 

although there are some similarities with yen chen-ching (J: gan shinkei), whose forms i've been trying out as an extracurricular exercise, i still think yelu chucai's strokes are more blunt.  they appeal to me.  i wonder exactly what kinds of bristles would be optimal for making those authoritative strokes.   

yelu lived during the time of the mongolian empire.  after having seen the japanese historical drama hojo tokimune i have a sense of the extreme upheaval everyone must have been experiencing in that region of the world.  yelu's words here are a positively withering commentary on the political situation around him, ending with the exclamation "despotic officals and shyster underofficials, may they feel ashamed!"  he may have lived in the 12th century but sadly, his outrage resonates with me in early 21st century america.  political corruption:  well over 800 years and going strong.

but back to the calligraphy because it's all about the calligraphy right now... trying to capitalize on the inspiration gained from visiting that exhibition a third and final time, after a late lunch with mom i went straight home and did some calligraphy myself.  up until recently i haven't been practicing much at home because i tend to want to get my chores out of the way first.  if i do that, though, i have little energy or time left to truly enjoy a session with the brush, ink and paper.  last night i flipped the order around and practiced first.  good call.  there was supple vibrancy in the tip of the brush and i felt a rush of excitement as i pressed it to the paper.  i finished an hour or two later feeling satisfied.  everything else i did after that was all the more pleasant because i knew i had done the thing i had most wanted to do first.

i remained in an excellent mood until i saw the patriots lose tragically to the colts with one minute left in the fourth quarter of the AFC championship game.  we won't go there.

tonight i again opted for calligraphy first upon returning home and now there are sheets of rice paper splayed all over my desk and floor with characters here, there and everywhere in various forms and sizes.  just for fun, even though it's not seasonally fitting, i tried out this chiyo-ni haiku from a set of note cards my aunt gave me for christmas:

清水すずし
蛍のきえて
なにもなし

cool clear water
and fireflies that vanish
that is all there is...

there is a certain quality of time and sound in a moment like that.  time slows and there is sound in the silence.  tonight i observed the same phenomenon as i walked home in the falling snow.  summer or winter, nature has its way of pulling you out of the mundane for a beat of transcendence every so often.  that beat, with its sound in silence, also makes its presence known in the practice of calligraphy.  in some instances you can even hear the stroke before it begins.

would you like to play a game?

last night i went to the museum of the moving image, right here in my home neighborhood of astoria, with a friend.  admission is free on fridays.  i didn't know that along with a tutorial on the history of film and television i would also have a chance to play the arcade versions of tron, asteroid, space invaders and mortal kombat as much as i wanted to!  no need to insert a quarter, all you had to do was press the "player 1" button.  there was a game of pong showing on an old television display somewhere too although we didn't get to play it. 

it was seriously nostalgic to be playing these games.  mortal kombat wasn't even that long ago!  i remember playing that in the student center at oberlin.  my boyfriend at the time got a real kick out of saying "finish him."  i did well last night at the museum and busted quite a few people up... until raiden showed up and kicked the ever-living @#^%! out of me.  decaptitated me.  doh...

oh, but it was fun!  i felt like a kid again and you know, no matter how much the technology advances those old games still have their appeal.  they definitely have their own mystique and an added cachet now that you can't find them anymore. 

my friend and i followed up our museum outing with a dinner at mundo, which was tasty as always.  friendly people there, great food too.  a real addition to the neighborhood.  i'd say that was a nice evening out in astoria!

my heart's desire

when i woke up this morning i saw snow had fallen in the backyard.  it brought a smile to my face.  winter with no snow is just dreary... with the tiny white flakes there's magic and innocence.  they're a reminder of childhood hours spent making snow angels, tunnels, and little munitions stockpiles of snowballs to throw at my dad.  snowball fights between two people who play baseball can get intense, especially when one of the people is 6' tall and the other person is determined to compensate for the fact that she's only in 6th grade. 

last night we had our first calligraphy class of the new year.  thinking this was a good occasion to celebrate, i stopped at astor place wine & spirits on the way over with the idea of getting a bottle of sake to share with everyone.  i saw a lady by the sake section and didn't look too closely at first but then i realized it was K-san, who has become quite a devoted member of the class.  she and i had both had the same idea so we collaborated on what to select and then brought our presents to class.

there were two new students in attendance, one a young american man about my age and the other an american woman of japanese descent who was maybe a touch older.  K-san and sensei tried out some japanese on her and i think it took them some time to tell that she was american, not hiding some innate japanese fluency.  i wonder what it must be like to be in that situation.  i have on occasion had people assume things about me because of my french background and name (more humorous anecdotes include having a board member from my current nonprofit say "donnez-moi le pizza" to me at a staff meeting several years ago and hearing that my college boyfriend's mother had warned him not to date a french girl like me because i would seduce him with my french wiles) but i think the scrutiny is more intense among japanese. 

i for one was glad to be back with my classmates.  it was so calming just to be there and after a while it was like i had stepped into the calligraphy, i was so absorbed in it.  construction on the new kampo gallery was going on just a few feet away but i didn't even hear it anymore after a certain point.  the force must have been with me because i was able to submit a sousho piece last night based on a chinese poem:  春光生福澤 ("the spring light brings good fortune").  i got back a kaisho piece i had submitted in december and the grading is definitely stricter now that i've moved into the dan level.  they're even correcting my signature.  that is as it should be. 

fortunately for me i learned that i'll have more time to complete the large winter assignment that i was unable to hand in by the new year.  if you can complete it well that usually ensures a promotion.  i'm going to give it my best.  i was really enjoying it right before the holidays.  the paper is different, the brush is larger and i feel free to put more vigor into the characters. 

last weekend i spent some time practicing calligraphy not on the kampo curriculum -- selections from the works of gan shinkei (顔真卿)-- and that was very rewarding.  i had a tough time with the small brush needed to write smaller characters but they settled into more compact forms over time.  when i switched to a larger format later just to see how that felt,  i was more predictably more comfortable.  it didn't hurt that i was drinking a little shochu my oniichan had brought back from japan some months back.  as i progressed i realized that i could make those blunt strokes with the brush that gan had made with his.  following the path of the strokes forming his characters was like stepping into his shoes, assuming a very different temperament.  i know i've only scratched the surface of what's there and observed the basic tendencies in the motion of his writing but even those tendencies bring up interesting questions of what his own character was like.  sensei gave me what was left in the bottles of sake to take home this weekend so i'm going to have another session with gan shinkei and some sake to see what else i can uncover.