Only a Blockhead

Actually Existing Conservatism

It is clear that the American right, for all its howling about "big government," and the horror they affect to feel that a government might tax and spend, has no problem with big government or spending (their abhorrence of taxes seems sincere) so long as the big government initiatives the government is throwing money at are, for example, military adventures ($600 billion plus spent so far on the Iraq debacle, $200 billion plus on Afghanistan), surveillance of American citizens, or finding ways to incarcerate more people.  The  only government initiatives that actually seem to appall the right are those which might, in some small way, ameliorate the conditions under which the most miserable in American society live: universal health care, for example.

Over at Democratic Underground, someone calling himself  walldude (the "dude" in the name makes me think it's a him) sums up the confusion some of us feel at the contradictions that define the American right.

—David

Obon

Last week, the third earthquake in as many days was during daylight hours, and through the window I saw the trees and hedges swaying with balletic grace before the shock hit the timbers of the house.

making the horses and cows to be put outside the gate (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

On this, the obon weekend, hundreds of dragonflies dart and hover above the ripening rice in the paddies. It's a time to leave the city and visit the family home in the country. Here in the country, strange cars are parked by the roadside and strangers, visiting my neighbors, take leisurely walks under the hot sun on the way to and from the family grave in a nearby cemetery, to be followed by celebratory meals.

Obon offering (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Outside the gate of almost every house there are eggplant and cucumber beasts of burden with chopstick legs (or tiny horses made of straw) together with an offering of food on a leaf: these are to transport the spirits of ancestors to and from the land of the dead for their brief midsummer return to our world. The sleek cucumbers are horses to speed the dead back here, and the rotund eggplants are cows to give the ancestors a slow, safe return from whence they came.

--Julian

Finally Walking?

Since happening to catch a subtitled version of Hirokazu Kore'eda's masterpiece, Aruite mo Aruite mo on a trans-Pacific flight, I've been raving about it.  It has, however, been impossible for my non-Japanese speaking friends to rush right out, in response to my enthusiasm (as they would surely have done), because, apparently, Kore'eda had been unable to find a distributor for the movie.  Perhaps that sad state of affairs has ended.  Dennis Lim, writing in the August 15-16 edition of the International Herald Tribune (I am unable to find a link to the article) reports that the film will open in the United States on August 28. 

So now you have no excuse.  Rush right out.

—David

The Real Problem

Militant Modernism (Zero Books)

Attacks on consumerism always miss the point though — there’s nothing wrong with abundance, pleasure, not being rained on when you buy your groceries, or shiny stuff in general. Criticising consumerism is what people do when they can’t quite stomach criticising capitalism.

From Andrew Stevens's interview in 3:AM magazine with Owen Hatherly, author of Militant Modernism.

—David

Tourism

At the Tower of London

—David

Maybe the World Won't End . . .

in 2012.

—David

Random UK

I usually try to post my random travel notes while the trip is in progress, but this time, the ground we covered—London-Edinburgh-York-Brouton-on-the-Water-London in just ten days—and because each day was too fun-filled to want to spend much time on the computer, I'm not getting around to it until the day after my return, refreshed by twelve solid hours of jet-lagged sleep last night.  And so, without further ado:

• Fashion: English men, almost without regard to age or apparent class, favor shaved heads, tattoos, and ear rings.  This look was much more prevalent than I have observed in Japan, or in Western countries I've recently visited (USA, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic).
• The country: it's just everywhere in England and Scotland, a short drive, it seems, from most urban centers.
  
• Preconceptions Shattered: British trains run on time.  I had been lead to believe that, after the depradations of the Thatcher years, travel on British rail was unrelenting hell.  Maybe we just got lucky, but our sleeper train to Edinburgh was clean and comfortable; our train from Edinburgh to York was sleek, modern, and equipped with wireless; our train from York to the Cotswolds was, again, comfortable and on time (but no wireless); and our train from Moreton-on-Marsh (where the station-master, after explaining that it was absolutely against the rules, let us store our bags in his office for an hour while we went in search of a pint) to London was similarly serviceable, though the ride was made less pleasant by a band of chavs (though they were middle-aged; can chavs be middle-aged?) who thought it was absolutely the height of wit to disrupt the peace that all the other passengers in that carriage—the quiet car—were seeking.  That they disrupted the peace with their unenlightening (to say the least) opinions on immigrants and gays didn't help matters.
• Preconceptions Shattered II: English weather, as we experienced it, was marvelous.  We had a bit of rain, usually just enough to freshen things up, in the mornings, but several days were warm enough for shorts and t-shirts.  That I had packed for gray and dismal made for minor inconvenience, but I'm not complaining.
• Preconceptions Shattered III: Haggis is good.  I had been lead to believe that it was something that only Scots actually enjoyed, and that for others, forcing it down at breakfast was, at best, a display of macho, something like downing a whole habañero pepper.  Not true.  I enjoyed it as part of a "full Scottish"—breakfast that is, and, along with the black pudding next to it on the plate found it delightfully spicy, thought it's not for those squemish about the inner organs of beasts and fowl.
  
• One day in London is not enough.  We covered a lot of ground, most of it on foot, but we visited no museums (the beautiful weather militated against spending the day indoors), and as it was Sunday, we found that many of the non-museum things in which we were interested were shut.  As the evening and day we spent there were full, it was nice to be in an urban enough redoubt that one could walk into a very reasonable French bistro at about 10:00 and dine on excellently prepared duck.
• Real ale is as good as they say, and as good as I remembered it from my previous visit to England more than twenty years ago.  I made a point of having a couple of pints a day, and they were all a pleasure to drink.  (The guy in the Dog Fish Head t-shirt agreed with me.)
• Unpleasantness (but it worked out okay):  Upon arriving at the Thistle Kensington Gardens Hotel I was informed that they had given my room away.  Apparently this hotel, which acknowledged that I had reserved a room—the reservation was right there in their computer—believes that reservations can be ingnored if they would prefer to assign your room to, say, someone paying full price.  The woman working at the front desk came close to admitting this when, upon being asked whether it was normal practice to give reserved rooms away, said "Well, this isn't the first time."  She then requested that we wait in the bar where the hotel was nice enough to buy us a couple of drinks (and I think they would have stood us more booze had we asked in the hope that it would make us complacent).  After half an hour of sitting around, and watching a family who came in after us get a room ("it's a different type of room, sir"), I was able to collar the manager who was quite appalled when she heard we'd been cooling our heels for thirty minutes and immediately picked up the phone and got us an upgraded room at the Thistle Inn Kingsley (in Bloomsbury, a much better location!) and put us in a taxi, at the hotel's expense, which shuttled us to our new hostelry.  Things ended well, so all was well, and this was the only hitch in our travel plans, all of which were organized with the help of our friend the Internet.
• The English are polite.  They can't seem to say "sorry," "thank you" "excuse me" and so on enough.  Indeed they are as courteous as denizens of another rainy island, Japan.
• The Cotswolds, another place that is well worth more than a day, are also delightful.  The largish village (circa 3000 people) where we stayed, Bourton on the Water, is well-preserved, and there are lots of tourists, nice pubs, and good restaurants.  From Bourton, there are plenty of walks one can embark on.  We headed off toward Lower and Upper Slaughter, a pleasant ramble through sheep-dotted fields, reflecting, as we went, upon why Japanese efforts at preservation usually manage to, if not destroy, at least damage what they are meant to save, and why England seems to be able to do preservation so well.  We also visited the Castle Howard and Shandy Hall in Yorkshire and found them, like all of the Cotswolds we experienced in our short stay, quite perfect—not too tarted up, and staffed with knowledgeable guides (particularly at Shandy House, where the guide not only knew his Sterne but was also able to present the information with which he had stocked his brain in a manner quite arrestingly dramatic).

And with that, back to the cicada-loud splendor of Japanese summer.

—David

Yorkshire Man

Yorkshire Man 

—David

The naughty chords

Let It Roll: Songs by George Harrison

George Harrison

I impulse bought the new George Harrison retrospective CD, Let it Roll the other day. Why do so many of his songs get under your skin? The answer is suggested by this passage from the liner notes,

"Blow Away," from 1979's self-titled George Harrison, pulls close to the territory that best exemplifies the recordings of [his post-Beatles] middle period. So well crafted are many of these songs that one doesn't always pick up on the complexity, the odd time signatures and unexpected chord progressions. A lover of what he called "the naughty chords,".... [his music] went to a place of his own making [but] never parades its own complexities. There's a natural character, an ease to the music's feel and delivery, no matter the twists and turns Harrison often takes as a writer."

And the lyrics are as beguiling as the chords, as in "Blow Away," which is about getting over a bad mood.

All I got to do is to, to love you
All I got to be is--a-- be happy
All it's got to take is some warmth to make it
Blow away, blow away, blow away

High Fidelity-style, Top 5 George Harrison songs being played in this house at the moment, in no particular order

Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let it Roll)
This is Love
All those Years Ago
When We Was Fab
Blow Away

And if the posthumous stuff-- "Any Road" and "Rising Sun"-- doesn't quite make the cut, it's right up there, almost as good.

--Julian

Shock and awe on a summer night

Chigasaki Fireworks (Photo: M)

Firework displays are a traditional entertainment during the hot Japanese summer. The Chigasaki fireworks were last night and locals assembled on the beaches at dusk. It's crowded, but not like the better-known Enoshima or Kamakura events. There's always space to put down your mat.

Final Crescendo (Photo: M)

Facing the crashing sea that filled our noses with ozone and drowned out the loudspeaker commentary, we popped open our beers and snacks and settled down for the 50-minute spectacle of 3,000 fireworks, a mere quarter of the number set off in Tokyo the same evening, but plenty enough for a superb show. We were lucky with the weather but not the wind which blew the smoke directly in from the sea, partly masking the later fireworks. While the explosions and the rockets delivered shock and awe on the warm summer evening far from any war zone, down the coast to the left, a just-past-full moon rose silently over Enoshima Island.

The final crescendo turned night to day, and as the thousands of us filed away in an orderly fashion, the pyrotechnicians waved red torches from their barge by the harbor, thanking us for turning out to enjoy their handiwork.

--Julian