Only a Blockhead

As good as a nod

Tom Lamont has a fine, often funny Guardian article about modern greeting rituals in the UK. When and with whom do you shake hands, hug (how long; how tight), kiss (once or the double). Or not. Greetings are clearly a minefield, with class, regional, cultural, and age differences overlaid by personal preferences. This can make encounters awkward; as one interviewee confessed, “I’ve kissed ears, shaken an extended fist…”

The article describes the quagmire and quandaries without offering any guidelines. But it does end like this:

More than anything, I kept thinking about a retiree I spoke to. She was about to turn 80 and had put a lot of thought and worry into all of this stuff over the years. How stupid it all seemed to her now. “We spend so much time and effort showing each other we like each other. It’s wasted,” she said. If she could instigate a new rule, whenever people met, “We’d all just… nod.”

To which I say, welcome to Japan and the supercharged nod, aka the bow. No unwanted physical contact, and the only concerns are how deep, how long, how often, and why on earth you’re doing it when you’re on the phone.

--Julian

Exit

—David

Time

Watching the DVD of Days of Heaven reminded me how beautiful the light is at dawn and dusk. And how farmers--then as now--have only the daylight hours to work with, bookended with the pinks and oranges of daybreak and sundown.

Here in Japan, farmers used to divide the day in just this way: sunrise to sunset; sunset to sunrise. And these two were further divided into six parts – "hours" if you will – that expanded and contracted as the year turned. In winter, the six daylight periods were each shorter, the night ones longer.

We lost that connection with the cycle of the day and year when we left the land, measured our lives with rigid hours and minutes, turned on the night with artificial light. We fill our hours of rest with bright pastimes, go to bed late and wake groggy. I've seen many more sunsets than sunrises.

 

        Midnight

        Convenience store lit up like Christmas

        Full moon high above

 

--Julian

The Boys of Summer

 

--David

On the Avenue

--David

Love, Nina

Today I started reading Love, Nina. There are plenty of books that I’m glad to pick up, but this is one of those rare ones I can’t put down.  It’s the combination of subject (gently amusing observations of a loving family life) and form (letters: “I’ll read one more. All right, just one more…”) In other words, the literary equivalent of a packet of Chocolate Hobnobs (but only if you like Chocolate Hobnobs).

*    *    * 

Last night was an epic evening with friends at local gastronomic pubs, where much was talked about and, after many rounds, the conversation became elemental: birth, death, life’s meaning. One consequence was two friends from Tokyo missing their last trains home and spending the night on the floor of my living room. 

This morning I got up with a hangover. I would normally have sat over my computer feeling vaguely sorry for myself, but with the room occupied there was nowhere to go but outside, where I took the opportunity to weed a path. Surrounded by spring flowers, restoring order to rampant growth, I lost any sense of malaise or fatigue. A hangover cure found! 

Later, these friends, similarly afflicted, and I sat in the garden over coffee, orange juice and omelets. I report some exchanges, Love, Nina style: 

M: (Pointing to a patch of Christmas roses) So is this where we should scatter your ashes?

Me: Scatter them anywhere you bloody well like. I’ll be dead. 

and (after breakfast)

M: That was great. I feel 50 percent better.

--Julian

Autumn story

For raking leaves

A neighbor gives me eggs

Which I drop:

Omelet tonight.

 

--Julian

Spectacular

--David

Getting My Kicks

--David

Seventeen syllables (more or less)

The ants got into the chocolate cookies last night

Summer is here!

 

--Julian