Cobbly Post

The weather has been lovely lately. Since winter began unusually early and wasn't particularly eager to end, I am all the more grateful for the deep blue skies and the budding leaves on the trees.

In honour of spring, here are two photos of long since wilted flowers on our balcony. I was going to take a picture of the rather larger amaryllis as well, because it was blooming splendidly until a few days ago, but, as you see, I versäumt it (as the French say).

The following daffodils remind me of a bed of daffodils at UBC. The daffodils there were arranged in a semi-circle and, what with their gaping yellow mouths and their little green arms thrown up in horror, they looked for all the world like witnesses to a crime.

On a completely different note . . . Now that the Japanese course has begun, I've been learning kanji again. I'm being a bit more sloppy about it than before, because I don't really want to memorize all the readings each time, even if it would be better (and easier in the long run) to do so. My current approach consists of learning how to write some words using kanji, then adding these new words (in hiragana) to a slowly growing list, with which I test myself whenever I have the time and inclination.

A handy tool for the testing is the whiteboard that my mother ordered some weeks (months?) ago.

A few remarks: First, the "nigeru" character is there (at the very left, third from the top, beside the problematic "kin" of "kinkyuu"). Second, you'll note that one of the characters near the bottom right has a box around it. That's because I'd forgotten what the left half of it looks like. Third, I didn't write most of the words out completely, because that would have meant writing some characters (like the "sei" in "seiji", "seifu" and "seitou") out several times, and it would have taken up rather more space (especially with the okurigana, which somewhat ruin the aesthetics in any case).

Unseasonable Halloween Post

Hoping to contribute to this blog's obviously lacking spontaneity, I shall present a decidedly unseasonable account of Halloween.

I am the last regular celebrant of Halloween in this household, or at least the only celebrant who celebrates in ways that are not (only) devouring the candy that was not robbed from us by greedy children. To be fair, I do sometimes manage to convince one of my siblings to neglect the bowl of candy for a moment and join the fun. As such, fueled not inconsiderably by the presence of face paint and the wish that it not go unused, I dress up. My costumes have included that of a pope, a watchman such as those that inhabit the top of several totem poles of the West Coast of Canada and, last year, Pulcinella, better known to the West as the original Punch.

Pulcinella hails from the Commedia dell'Arte, whose band of eccentric companions, crude though their activities may be, are admirable if only for their eccentric characters and impeccable taste in clothing.

The question as to how any of the above would qualify as frightening, or spirits to be chased away, should probably remain without answer. Or rather, half of the answer should remain unstated. The other half is that they (yes, even the pope) present good possibilities in the use of face paint.

Not to sound obsessed with the matter, but it is that desire to use face paint, and to introduce a bit of originality into a holiday which now mostly breeds ghosts, witches and, perhaps, the occasional Frankenstein's monster, which has led to my looking for more and more obscure models to base my costume on. Pulcinella, as I was shocked to find out, was a little too obscure and, despite the addition of his apparently iconic implements, went right over the heads of the rest of the family. Such is life.

Seeing it again after several months, this picture bears an eerie and doubtless ominous resemblance to certain African death masks. I saw a picture of another mask before in which the resemblance is considerably stronger, but haven't been able to rediscover it.

I suppose that, in the end, the above is only to explain that the attached photos of last Halloween are not, in fact, of black-face, but rather black-mask.

Or rather, it serves as a platform to mention my own opinion on Halloween: however admirable, a holiday in which the only form of celebration is eating and giving out candy seems rather pointless and, even with the presence of candy, oddly unfulfilling. Much like St. Valentine's day, I do not see why the sentiment need be restricted to a single, annual holiday. Taking the opportunity to put on ridiculous and, what is for me far more important, inspired costumes is, however, pointful, according to my own strange standards, and appeals to the tradition still present in various carnivals and other celebrations for large crowds of people to dress up and wander the streets; a venerable if somewhat shady-sounding tradition shared by many cultures.

Or rather, this post provides a weak disguise for my discussion of my favourite subject: me.

In case you are wondering, the only pictures of me you will find here will indeed probably involve some sort of blur, facial covering, distorted expression and/or considerable distance to the camera. Perhaps I am not so much a wandering gnome as sasquatch?

Or rather, it serves as a place to store the pictures which decorate it. Which, I suppose, only serves to support my hypothesis in the preceding sentence.

Or rather, I posted this because I feel I don't post here very often and my sister, not to mention cold, hard fact, seems to agree.