Two things, one really quick.
Lately I've been having vivid olfactory dreams - dreams where I can smell things. The other night in a dream I could perfectly smell scallops simmering in melted butter. A few nights before that I could smell fresh eucalyptus. A few nights before that the sweet sweaty smell of sex.
I've really been interested in old Japanese movies lately. Movies about the lives of adults and the issues they have to deal with. Last week I watched Juzo Itami's The Funeral. You may recall this film because it's been remade twice - once as a British film and more recently as an American film. It's technically a comedy, but it's not terribly funny and what humour there is is awfully dry. It's terribly interesting though. Basically, it is about the death of the main character's father-in-law and all the things he must do in preperation as the new patriarch of the family. It's not sad though because even though the family clearly has it's issues they come together as a family. While watching it you get the feeling that the life of the son-in-law parallels that of the father-in-law thus completing the cycle of death and rebirth. Perhaps most interestingly, it shows the practices for modern, but traditional funerals in Japan. Traditionally, funerals in Japan are done under Buddhist rites. This is because in Buddhist death is seen as a natural, neutral to positive thing. However, in Shintoism death is an evil defiling thing. Consequently, Shinto funerals are eschewed in favour of Buddhist ones. Interestingly though, weddings are performed under Shinto rites. The film depicts the major rites from Buddhist monks chanting sutras, to lighting incense to the final cremation. It's a fantastic, but bitter-sweet film.
Tonight, by pure coincidence, I watched another Japanese film about death called Tokyo Story. Tokyo Story is ancient being released in 1953 (The Funeral was released in 1984). The story is about an old couple who live in a remote fishing town in south-western Japan who go to visit their adult children in Tokyo. You get the impression that they do no regularly see their children. Throughout the movie the children don't seem to have much time for their parents and pass off responsibility from one sibling to another. It's not that they do not care for their parents only that they are too busy with their professional lives. The only one who does seem to give them much attention is their daughter-in-law Noriko. While Noriko's husband - their son - died in WW2 eight years previously, she has not remarried and is very dedicated to them. When the parents get back to their home the mother becomes ill and dies shortly. Before she dies, however, their children are able to come and visit and be there for their mother's death. However, after her funeral (the ritual for which is the same in the film above) the children decide to take a train back to Tokyo that night. Only Noriko remains. I've really abridged the plot here pretty significantly, but I think those are the main details.
I've not mentioned it yet, but Tokyo Story is one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time. Watching it I can see exactly why that is. The brilliance of the film is that is shows a significant transition period in Japanese society. It's not that the children are entirely uncaring it's that modern life demands so much of their time and they have been swept up in it. Noriko says as much at the end of the film.
I think the two films are a great juxtaposition. In both, dysfunctional families come together, but in The Funeral the family uses the death as a way to bring themselves closer together, while in Tokyo Story the death shows just how fragmented the family really is. But perhaps those differences are a result of the times they happened in. Tokyo Story takes place during the reconstruction following WW2. The Funeral takes places during they heyday of Japan's economic dominance. Maybe by the time The Funeral takes place society had calmed down, was no longer in a transition period, and as a result, sufficiently caring for lost loved ones seemed obvious again.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Thursday, July 26, 2012
A long sigh
Two days of 9 hrs of exams per day. Crossing fingers that I passed. Time to vacay for a few weeks.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
A long string of dreams
My dreams have been completely bonkers over the last few weeks. Entirely too intense. Violence, arguments, fighting, crime, sex, murder, mayhem - ex-girlfriends, childhood friends, family members - regrets, fears, disappointments. It's gotten to the point where sleeping is as stressful as being awake.
Two days ago I dreamed that Jenny and I were walking on a long narrow peninsula-shaped beach. The sand was white, and the water pale green and opaque. She was wearing the same black board shorts she wore when we went to Busch Gardens, and a white T-shirt. But she was older than the 20 year-old Jenny I knew - she was the 33 year-old Jenny whose birthday was just a week ago. The beach was crowded, but we walked on. She turned around, and I gave her a kiss. In the dream I could feel the kiss - wet and slippery. It was opposite to the actual dry hard good bye kiss I gave to her years go. I hugged her just as tight though. I said, "I'm sorry you had to go away". I hadn't felt this intensity of regret and frustration over her in a decade.
Last night... and luckily I can barely remember it...
It started as an omniscient perspective dream - there were cops and a street bazaar - barbeque pits and balloons and smoke everywhere. It was a documentary, but one that I was experiencing first had. The cop was under suspicion of something, and I was observing all the scenes piecing together the truth for myself. But there was no truth. According to the rules of the documentary it was by definition inconclusive - no completely correct inference could be drawn.
The dream escalated and morphed into something different. All of the cops were in the first floor of a skyscraper. The walls were all glass. It was night time, and there were no lights on inside the building. The blue-black night sky, as deficient as it is, was the only source of light. I was observing from a small kitchen to the side. On a set of stairs I saw a victim. His mouth was bloody, and he pulled out a piece of bloodied flesh from his mouth. "That's the evidence right there!" someone shouted. "You should go turn that in". The bloodied man acquiesced. But when he got to the center of the middle of the lobby floor he stopped. There was a crowd of cops in the middle. One of them shouted, "He's coming inside! Everyone stand guard". A dark figure, shrouded in shadows, walked slowly and silently, like a phantom, through the front door. A gun fight erupted. I don't know what happened because the dream transformed again.
Now I was in a long hall. There were a few fluorescent lights, but it was mostly dusky and speckles of dust floated silently in the stuffy air. The walls were covered with pale brown carpeting, and were bare except for the few light fixtures. The hall was lined with rows of folding tables, and they were manned by college students promoting their various clubs, social events and causes. The hall was filled with people, all animated, all interacting with each other, but the sound was never more than a murmur. It sounded as though we were all under water.
I turned a corner and there was another hall. This one filled with glossy wooden tables and students sitting and studying. I wanted to be with them. I wanted a group to study with.
I moved on to another corridor. This one had restaurants in it. I stopped at a coffee bar. I was with a group of people. A bunch of short cute sorority girls with ironed hair and fake blonde highlights. They all wore white shorts and T-shirts. I got there before them so I had a coffee. But when they got there they said they were going to have lunch so I went up to the counter. I ordered a cappuccino and a ham sandwich. They handed me a paper cup, more bowl-shaped than cup-shaped. They indicated that I put it under a chrome machine on the counter a press which button I want. I did, and a glop of mushy coffee beans came out like soft-serve ice cream. I handed it back to them and they served me my cappuccino and sandwich. I walked around the coffee bar to a set of benches outside. I made small talk to the sorority girl walking with me. She has on a peach coloured shirt. When we got to the benches my brother called me from the distance - beckoning me to come.
The yard bottle-necked to the entrance of a cave. I went with my brother inside the cave. When I got inside it was the house of some wealthy family. It was decorated with thin carved wood furniture, rich brocades hung on the walls, and intricately woven carpets lined the floor. It was representative of some culture, but not a culture that existed outside of my dream. There was to be a religious ceremony of some sort, and my whole family was to attend. We all had to dress in traditional clothing. I put on this long, thick blue silk coat. I wrapped my hair around these sanded wooden stakes. It was painful. We walked out of the back of the house where there were tents arranged in an inverted U-shape. We walked to each tent and said hello to the people inside of them.
Then I got an email from a message board forum. It chastised me for not posting a thread properly. I had reposed something on request of one of my brothers, and the moderators were accusing me of stealing it and claiming something that belonged to someone else as my own. They all started shouting at me. They said, "You didn't follow proper procedure!" I was surrounded by people. They moved closer and closer in on me. All shouting. They finally consumed me in their wave. I woke up.
I didn't wake up in fright though. It wasn't like waking up from a nightmare where you suddenly wake up. I woke up calmly. It was as though my subconscious had decided that continued sleep was a bad thing, that it would be healthier psychologically if I woke up. It was protecting itself from anymore dreaming.
These are just two dreams. There have been many others lately, but they are all of the same quality and intensity. Once which I only now vaguely remember dealt with Sameer, an oval-shaped hotel encapsulated inside what I can only describe as a geodesic dome, and people studying on a terrace on the second floor. In another I was in a smallish glass building. Down the middle were two rows of tables. Flanking them were enormous bookshelves nearly as tall as the ceiling. I sat with these two girls and a guy. They all had thick dictionary-sized books stacked around them. I told them stories of my adventures whilst dissecting in Anatomy lab.
I think I could use a break.
Two days ago I dreamed that Jenny and I were walking on a long narrow peninsula-shaped beach. The sand was white, and the water pale green and opaque. She was wearing the same black board shorts she wore when we went to Busch Gardens, and a white T-shirt. But she was older than the 20 year-old Jenny I knew - she was the 33 year-old Jenny whose birthday was just a week ago. The beach was crowded, but we walked on. She turned around, and I gave her a kiss. In the dream I could feel the kiss - wet and slippery. It was opposite to the actual dry hard good bye kiss I gave to her years go. I hugged her just as tight though. I said, "I'm sorry you had to go away". I hadn't felt this intensity of regret and frustration over her in a decade.
Last night... and luckily I can barely remember it...
It started as an omniscient perspective dream - there were cops and a street bazaar - barbeque pits and balloons and smoke everywhere. It was a documentary, but one that I was experiencing first had. The cop was under suspicion of something, and I was observing all the scenes piecing together the truth for myself. But there was no truth. According to the rules of the documentary it was by definition inconclusive - no completely correct inference could be drawn.
The dream escalated and morphed into something different. All of the cops were in the first floor of a skyscraper. The walls were all glass. It was night time, and there were no lights on inside the building. The blue-black night sky, as deficient as it is, was the only source of light. I was observing from a small kitchen to the side. On a set of stairs I saw a victim. His mouth was bloody, and he pulled out a piece of bloodied flesh from his mouth. "That's the evidence right there!" someone shouted. "You should go turn that in". The bloodied man acquiesced. But when he got to the center of the middle of the lobby floor he stopped. There was a crowd of cops in the middle. One of them shouted, "He's coming inside! Everyone stand guard". A dark figure, shrouded in shadows, walked slowly and silently, like a phantom, through the front door. A gun fight erupted. I don't know what happened because the dream transformed again.
Now I was in a long hall. There were a few fluorescent lights, but it was mostly dusky and speckles of dust floated silently in the stuffy air. The walls were covered with pale brown carpeting, and were bare except for the few light fixtures. The hall was lined with rows of folding tables, and they were manned by college students promoting their various clubs, social events and causes. The hall was filled with people, all animated, all interacting with each other, but the sound was never more than a murmur. It sounded as though we were all under water.
I turned a corner and there was another hall. This one filled with glossy wooden tables and students sitting and studying. I wanted to be with them. I wanted a group to study with.
I moved on to another corridor. This one had restaurants in it. I stopped at a coffee bar. I was with a group of people. A bunch of short cute sorority girls with ironed hair and fake blonde highlights. They all wore white shorts and T-shirts. I got there before them so I had a coffee. But when they got there they said they were going to have lunch so I went up to the counter. I ordered a cappuccino and a ham sandwich. They handed me a paper cup, more bowl-shaped than cup-shaped. They indicated that I put it under a chrome machine on the counter a press which button I want. I did, and a glop of mushy coffee beans came out like soft-serve ice cream. I handed it back to them and they served me my cappuccino and sandwich. I walked around the coffee bar to a set of benches outside. I made small talk to the sorority girl walking with me. She has on a peach coloured shirt. When we got to the benches my brother called me from the distance - beckoning me to come.
The yard bottle-necked to the entrance of a cave. I went with my brother inside the cave. When I got inside it was the house of some wealthy family. It was decorated with thin carved wood furniture, rich brocades hung on the walls, and intricately woven carpets lined the floor. It was representative of some culture, but not a culture that existed outside of my dream. There was to be a religious ceremony of some sort, and my whole family was to attend. We all had to dress in traditional clothing. I put on this long, thick blue silk coat. I wrapped my hair around these sanded wooden stakes. It was painful. We walked out of the back of the house where there were tents arranged in an inverted U-shape. We walked to each tent and said hello to the people inside of them.
Then I got an email from a message board forum. It chastised me for not posting a thread properly. I had reposed something on request of one of my brothers, and the moderators were accusing me of stealing it and claiming something that belonged to someone else as my own. They all started shouting at me. They said, "You didn't follow proper procedure!" I was surrounded by people. They moved closer and closer in on me. All shouting. They finally consumed me in their wave. I woke up.
I didn't wake up in fright though. It wasn't like waking up from a nightmare where you suddenly wake up. I woke up calmly. It was as though my subconscious had decided that continued sleep was a bad thing, that it would be healthier psychologically if I woke up. It was protecting itself from anymore dreaming.
These are just two dreams. There have been many others lately, but they are all of the same quality and intensity. Once which I only now vaguely remember dealt with Sameer, an oval-shaped hotel encapsulated inside what I can only describe as a geodesic dome, and people studying on a terrace on the second floor. In another I was in a smallish glass building. Down the middle were two rows of tables. Flanking them were enormous bookshelves nearly as tall as the ceiling. I sat with these two girls and a guy. They all had thick dictionary-sized books stacked around them. I told them stories of my adventures whilst dissecting in Anatomy lab.
I think I could use a break.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Death, time travel, dolphins and June bugs
Several things.
Last night I looked in the mirror. A single long silver hair twinkled back at me. Then I saw my death. It wasn't the noble death I've hoped for; a death of my own choosing. It was a lonely, sad death. I saw the flesh rot from my skull. Only my eyes remained - blackened and shrived.
I watched Doctor Who after studying last night. I'm about half way through the Matt Smith episodes. Of all the super heroes I've seen over the years the Doctor is the one I identify best with. In this episode, Amy Pond - one of his companions - gets trapped in a different time stream than the Doctor. He is unable to find her until 36 years in the future. At the end they must choose which Amy to save - the young Amy who is first lost in the time stream or the later Amy who has been trapped there for 36 years. The later Amy does not want to give herself up for the younger Amy because it will mean that she will have never existed. So it made me think "if I could go back in time, even if it meant giving all all the experiences I've had until that point, and the version of myself that I currently am would never have existed?" Perhaps it's pessimistic, but I think I would. I can't think of anything so overwhelmingly good that's happened to me that I wouldn't go back if I had the chance. But when would I go to? That I couldn't decide upon.
Staring out of the window I saw a dolphin jump out of the river behind out house. At first I wasn't sure of what I saw. A black-grey thing came out of the water and glided back in a crescent shape. But then it came out again and I was sure. I ran outside, onto the pier, and sat down. But it didn't come up again.
Looking out of that same window, right now, there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of June bugs swarming, flying whimsically mere inches off the ground. It's been like this for several days. Every couple of minutes one will fly into the window and bounce off. There are cicadas and dragon flies too.
Last night I looked in the mirror. A single long silver hair twinkled back at me. Then I saw my death. It wasn't the noble death I've hoped for; a death of my own choosing. It was a lonely, sad death. I saw the flesh rot from my skull. Only my eyes remained - blackened and shrived.
I watched Doctor Who after studying last night. I'm about half way through the Matt Smith episodes. Of all the super heroes I've seen over the years the Doctor is the one I identify best with. In this episode, Amy Pond - one of his companions - gets trapped in a different time stream than the Doctor. He is unable to find her until 36 years in the future. At the end they must choose which Amy to save - the young Amy who is first lost in the time stream or the later Amy who has been trapped there for 36 years. The later Amy does not want to give herself up for the younger Amy because it will mean that she will have never existed. So it made me think "if I could go back in time, even if it meant giving all all the experiences I've had until that point, and the version of myself that I currently am would never have existed?" Perhaps it's pessimistic, but I think I would. I can't think of anything so overwhelmingly good that's happened to me that I wouldn't go back if I had the chance. But when would I go to? That I couldn't decide upon.
Staring out of the window I saw a dolphin jump out of the river behind out house. At first I wasn't sure of what I saw. A black-grey thing came out of the water and glided back in a crescent shape. But then it came out again and I was sure. I ran outside, onto the pier, and sat down. But it didn't come up again.
Looking out of that same window, right now, there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of June bugs swarming, flying whimsically mere inches off the ground. It's been like this for several days. Every couple of minutes one will fly into the window and bounce off. There are cicadas and dragon flies too.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Scrambled Eggs
Yesterday was a pretty bad day. It was on the list of worst days I've lived through. It was up there with first day of highschool, the day I decided to drop out of med school and the end of the semester spring before last. I've still not recovered from it. If I let myself I could stare at a wall all day and not even notice. I've cracked before, but never so thoroughly as this. I can barely articulate what's going on in my mind right now.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Letting the inner weaboo out
Been obsessed with Japanese music lately. In another life I'm sure I was a kabuki singer. I've always loved that style. One thing I've learned is that "timing" in Japanese music is done not by counts, but by breathing. That's why is sounds out of time by people who are not familiar with it. Think I'm going to dig pretty deep into Enka, a rather melodramatic form of popular music from the 1950s through the 1970s. Examples! OK back to studying
Takashi Hosokawa
Meiko Kaji
Takashi Hosokawa
Meiko Kaji
Saturday, September 3, 2011
reaccuring dream
Maybe in addition to the other things I write about on here I should also use it as a dream journal? I have pretty vivid dreams. In a dream last night I had a daughter. This is a fairly regular theme. Normally they have dark-red and curly hair. They are also always daughters. I think these are strange concepts to reoccur. The daughters-only thing makes sense - it's God's revenge for all the terrible things I've thought, did or wanted to do to other men's daughters over the years. The curly red hair doesn't. I personally probably do not possess the genes necessary to produce red-haired children, and am not likely to reproduce with a woman who does either. So it's odd. Also, it's not ginger-red, but a dark-red. So anyway, me and my daughter - who is a newborn in this dream - and my whole family are taking an old wooden boat to the Arctic. We've decided to move there. There are shark monsters looking for us and we are trying to be quiet. At one point the sharks try to board out ship - covered in melting snow - but can't find us because we're locked in the hibernation chambers in a secret part of the ship. I'm on lookout for the sharks, and when they leave I go down to the chamber, pick up my daughter . . . and she throws up on me! The dream gets hazy from there...
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