The Big Red Dot

Fishies at Hein Garden. 2008.

Today was mini-Japan day!

-This morning I read in the CS Monitor that Japan is still strugglin' even though the rest of the world has kind of moved on. I said a teeny prayer for my favorite country.
-Read a lot about Noh theatre in preparation for Theatre History today. Was whisked back to seeing Noh with Jamin and Mahji on a crisp fall evening in Kyoto. The show was so good that I did a cartwheel while I waited for the bus to take me home.
-Watched part of Throne of Blood--the Japanesed-up Macbeth directed by Kobayashi.* Instead of three witches, the Macbeth and Banquo characters come across an old man singing in the woods. He is singing about man being as inconsequential as insects. The two warriors stumble upon him and demand information about who he is at bow-point. Yo, weren't you guys listening? He's singing about the pointlessness of existence...How scared do you think he is to lose his life?
-For only one millisecond, when I heard the Japanese music and the Nihongo, did I think, "Oh...I could have been there." But then the millisecond was shot through with a billion samurai arrows as all the perfection of me coming to graduate school right here and right now swam up from the depths of the Pacific.

I'm the sea, and you're Japan.

*SERIOUSLY EMBARRASSING EDIT. THIS IS THE GUY WHO CAN EAT A BILLION HOT DOGS. The film was directed by Kurosawa. I am the worst Japanese lover of all time...