Friday, November 19, 2004
There was an actual event in my otherwise uneventful life, so I thought I'd post. I'm working at the public library now. It's a union job!
I'm at the Spadina branch just north of Bloor on Spadina, if you're in the neighborhood which I know many of you are... we can do lunch or somethings.
#1: There are many books in the non-fiction section that are clearly fiction. Such as long, cookbook style manuals on how to cast magic spells and books about 15, 000 year old Alien prophecies explaining the history of the aliens (who were proved in an earlier book) before they came to earth and genetically engineered humans as workers.
#2 The library is very very quiet and I have completely lost all ability to handle silence. Perhaps this is a result of hip-hop. I consistently feel uncomfortable when I notice the ringing silence and feel as though the world might disappear or I might pass-out.
#3 The library job is actually a bit difficult and I should mock Yorgos less when he complains about hating his job. I still like it, but I am beginning to see what will get extremely annoying. #1 is the fact that no one shelf-reads properly, or else people constantly re-shelf books at random. The result is that when you are shelving books you think you are putting a book in the right place, but then notice the book that you are putting it next to is also in the wrong place, and when you try to fix that one you see two other books in the wrong place, and since -- like language -- a shelf of books is only anchored by its own order (there's no numbers painted on the shelf), everything crumbles into ambiguity and disorder. The result is that my job is like doing that thing where you try to put a CD back in its case but find a different CD perpetually for all eternity.
The kids section is even worse.
Comments-[ comments.]
I'm at the Spadina branch just north of Bloor on Spadina, if you're in the neighborhood which I know many of you are... we can do lunch or somethings.
#1: There are many books in the non-fiction section that are clearly fiction. Such as long, cookbook style manuals on how to cast magic spells and books about 15, 000 year old Alien prophecies explaining the history of the aliens (who were proved in an earlier book) before they came to earth and genetically engineered humans as workers.
#2 The library is very very quiet and I have completely lost all ability to handle silence. Perhaps this is a result of hip-hop. I consistently feel uncomfortable when I notice the ringing silence and feel as though the world might disappear or I might pass-out.
#3 The library job is actually a bit difficult and I should mock Yorgos less when he complains about hating his job. I still like it, but I am beginning to see what will get extremely annoying. #1 is the fact that no one shelf-reads properly, or else people constantly re-shelf books at random. The result is that when you are shelving books you think you are putting a book in the right place, but then notice the book that you are putting it next to is also in the wrong place, and when you try to fix that one you see two other books in the wrong place, and since -- like language -- a shelf of books is only anchored by its own order (there's no numbers painted on the shelf), everything crumbles into ambiguity and disorder. The result is that my job is like doing that thing where you try to put a CD back in its case but find a different CD perpetually for all eternity.
The kids section is even worse.
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Hello all. Well, since I'm no longer in Japan and since I don't seem to be editing or working on my notes from China, India and Nepal, I think it's safe to say that this blog will be on a lengthy hiatus.
However, I am working very hard at focussing all my cynicism, rage and love of fine wines into the apocalypse blog. So check it regularily for updates and ignore this one. Change your links, tell your friends, The END is NEAR!
Should you want to promote my blog via email, you may do so by forwarding this message:
Dear Ladies and, for convention's sake, gentlemen as well,
In days gone by I, Matteus von Mustard, was one of the most famous men in Europe. In 1857 I could hardly keep the paparazzi and their dagguerotype machines at bay. As of late though, my relations with the fairer sex do not seem to draw as much press; perhaps because I have always been attracted to the classier class and presently gauche displays of animal sexuality seem to be the key to celebrity. Since I have fallen out of -- to use a term that may date me -- the limelight as of late, I have realized it may be necessary to actively publicizemy new blog and the startling revelations contained therein.
What type of revelations might a reader find you ask? In the tradition of all fine revelations, these ones shall obviously be of the apocalyptic variety, perhaps occasionally flavoured with a little spice from my private life or an oaky note about being a gentleman in this day and age.
http://apocalypsewatch.blogspot.com
Yours Until The (imminent) End,
Matteus Von Mustard
Comments-[ comments.]
However, I am working very hard at focussing all my cynicism, rage and love of fine wines into the apocalypse blog. So check it regularily for updates and ignore this one. Change your links, tell your friends, The END is NEAR!
Should you want to promote my blog via email, you may do so by forwarding this message:
Dear Ladies and, for convention's sake, gentlemen as well,
In days gone by I, Matteus von Mustard, was one of the most famous men in Europe. In 1857 I could hardly keep the paparazzi and their dagguerotype machines at bay. As of late though, my relations with the fairer sex do not seem to draw as much press; perhaps because I have always been attracted to the classier class and presently gauche displays of animal sexuality seem to be the key to celebrity. Since I have fallen out of -- to use a term that may date me -- the limelight as of late, I have realized it may be necessary to actively publicizemy new blog and the startling revelations contained therein.
What type of revelations might a reader find you ask? In the tradition of all fine revelations, these ones shall obviously be of the apocalyptic variety, perhaps occasionally flavoured with a little spice from my private life or an oaky note about being a gentleman in this day and age.
http://apocalypsewatch.blogspot.com
Yours Until The (imminent) End,
Matteus Von Mustard
Thursday, November 04, 2004
There's some new posts at Apocalypse Watch, including some unhelpful mudslinging at the American electorate. I know this isn't really a question of intelligence, travelling has taught me that there are equally stupid people in every nation on our planet. But man it sure felt good to sling some mud this morning.
Comments-[ comments.]
Friday, October 08, 2004
Also, there's a new post at the apocalypse blog... and considering how much tv i'm watching I might be seeing a lot of signs in the near future.
Is that blog funny? Interesting? Worthwhile? What do people think... it's partly created in an attempt to please an audience rather than just write down crap I'm thinking of so if people don't like it I'll stop.
http://www.apocalypsewatch.blogspot.com if y'all don't know.
Comments-[ comments.]
Is that blog funny? Interesting? Worthwhile? What do people think... it's partly created in an attempt to please an audience rather than just write down crap I'm thinking of so if people don't like it I'll stop.
http://www.apocalypsewatch.blogspot.com if y'all don't know.
Well, I'm no longer actually in Japan. So this blog has certainly fallen on the backburner. But I am writing... mostly fairly serious article type stuff which takes longer. I've got one that's kind of a summary of my experience in Japan in terms of language. It does make some fairly sweeping comments about what I thinke "Japanese people" are like... so I want to ask people to take them with a grain of salt, it's more about how I saw the culture than it is some kind of formula describing how all Japanese people think... I hope you enjoy it.
In the beginning the world around me seemed as though it was constructed with smoke and mirrors. Language is the bridge between our internal experience and the external world -- but in Japan, I couldn’t understand what people were saying on the subway or the TV news and I couldn’t make my voice heard. It became hard to recognize causal links between the things I saw around me -- Unable to pin events down with descriptions and explanations the world began to seem less like something I lived in and more like something I was watching pass by, like clouds in the sky. For the first month I kept to myself. I watched and listened. I was quietly confused by my school’s bunkasai (culture festival), where the students performed dozens of Disney plays and then balled their eyes out at the awards ceremony regardless of whether they won or lost.
Nonetheless, the thoughts in my head remained coherent, connected and dense with meaning. My identity, constructed from verbal formulas and linguistic equations, remained a bulwark within the unstable world around me. The line between myself and what surrounded me had never been clearer, a stark streak dividing the coherent conglomerations that were me from the shifting dunes that were not. As a result, in my first months in Japan I became able to see the shape of my personality more clearly.
As summer changed to fall, and the ubiquitous vending machines were restocked with hot coffee instead of cold, I began to reach out to this strange world around me. I learned a little Japanese. I figured out how to connect with people and communicate my identity and beliefs using gestures, jokes and simple English. I began to have meaningful conversations with the Japanese English teachers. And I also began to hear how some Japanese was really used. Certain words can’t really be translated directly and one must develop a feel for the word by seeing it in use. For example I began to recognize that the word “onegaishimasu” actually has a meaning much broader than “please.” It can be used on first meeting a person or occasionally in place of “thank you.” In effect it is a single word that humbly requests benevolent treatment in the near or distant future. It was a delight for me to watch new meanings take shape around me.
At graduation all the graduating students and many of the teachers cried. I was beginning to understand the Japanese psyche a bit. The freedom and innocence of life is upheld as an ideal, and as this age teenagers recognize that they are leaving something behind which they can never retrieve. After the ceremony the students sang Sakura (cherry tree) and cried again. One day in March, as I was preparing some hand-outs for my first-year students, a second-year student walked into the office. Upon seeing the drawing I was making see proclaimed “natsukashi” and smiled wistfully. I asked my teachers what it meant. One dictionary suggested ‘dear, desired or missed,’ but they pressed further. The word was a bit like ‘nostalgic,’ in that it recognized the impossibility of a return to the past, but it was weightier and carried no sense of kitsch or irony.
When April rolled around and I saw sakura season in person and I began to understand the song and the word a little better. Overworked businessmen piled into parks after work. In the fading twilight, they sipped sake under the boughs of blossoms, fondly recalling an idealized youth. In a sense the cherry is a very Buddhist image, a million flashes of ephemeral beauty, falling to the earth almost before they unfurl. The Japanese are a people imprisoned by time. Adult life is burdened by endless responsibility, but it must be born with patience. Just as a gardener must tend a tree all year for a fleeting burst of radiance in the spring, duties must be performed so that the nation’s children can each experience their fleeting burst of radiance in childhood. It seems to me, that while the Japanese might agree with the Buddha’s assessment that life is suffering, instead of turning away from the world they are willing to embrace everything in exchange for a glimpse of real earthly beauty. Perhaps because of this outlook, many Japanese people seem to live in the past, savouring the sweet pain of yesterday’s happiness. Even while joyful things are happening, they often already seem to recognize that they are slipping away. In early summer the school Sports Festival happened and everybody cried again.
My last month was nearly perfect. My classes all went smoothly, the students were happy and tried their best, everyone around me was energetic and caring, kindnesses piled upon kindnesses and I could already feel it falling behind me. Yet, somehow I also I knew that July could never have been so beautiful if I was staying in Japan. It was only then that I could really begin to understand the meaning of the world ‘natsukashi.’ When I arrived without language, the world seemed to slip past just beyond my grasp. After a year Japan reached out to me and taught me new things in a new language. Japan had taught me a whole new emotion, an emotion that may have always drifted ambiently below the surface of consciousness if I hadn’t been able to identify it with a new word. I just recently got an email from some of my students saying that today was the bunkasai. I could imagine the emotions flowing in the air, charging the halls and the auditorium. It was very natsukashi.
Comments-[ comments.]
***********************
I have recently finished a year in Japan teaching English. When I arrived I knew no Japanese. I was pretty sure that when I first met my principle I ought to say “Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto.” I certainly couldn’t read or converse. It was challenging, but I could get by without speaking the language. While I was tackling the practical obstacles, I also began to notice the less tangible effects of my linguistic isolation.
In the beginning the world around me seemed as though it was constructed with smoke and mirrors. Language is the bridge between our internal experience and the external world -- but in Japan, I couldn’t understand what people were saying on the subway or the TV news and I couldn’t make my voice heard. It became hard to recognize causal links between the things I saw around me -- Unable to pin events down with descriptions and explanations the world began to seem less like something I lived in and more like something I was watching pass by, like clouds in the sky. For the first month I kept to myself. I watched and listened. I was quietly confused by my school’s bunkasai (culture festival), where the students performed dozens of Disney plays and then balled their eyes out at the awards ceremony regardless of whether they won or lost.
Nonetheless, the thoughts in my head remained coherent, connected and dense with meaning. My identity, constructed from verbal formulas and linguistic equations, remained a bulwark within the unstable world around me. The line between myself and what surrounded me had never been clearer, a stark streak dividing the coherent conglomerations that were me from the shifting dunes that were not. As a result, in my first months in Japan I became able to see the shape of my personality more clearly.
As summer changed to fall, and the ubiquitous vending machines were restocked with hot coffee instead of cold, I began to reach out to this strange world around me. I learned a little Japanese. I figured out how to connect with people and communicate my identity and beliefs using gestures, jokes and simple English. I began to have meaningful conversations with the Japanese English teachers. And I also began to hear how some Japanese was really used. Certain words can’t really be translated directly and one must develop a feel for the word by seeing it in use. For example I began to recognize that the word “onegaishimasu” actually has a meaning much broader than “please.” It can be used on first meeting a person or occasionally in place of “thank you.” In effect it is a single word that humbly requests benevolent treatment in the near or distant future. It was a delight for me to watch new meanings take shape around me.
At graduation all the graduating students and many of the teachers cried. I was beginning to understand the Japanese psyche a bit. The freedom and innocence of life is upheld as an ideal, and as this age teenagers recognize that they are leaving something behind which they can never retrieve. After the ceremony the students sang Sakura (cherry tree) and cried again. One day in March, as I was preparing some hand-outs for my first-year students, a second-year student walked into the office. Upon seeing the drawing I was making see proclaimed “natsukashi” and smiled wistfully. I asked my teachers what it meant. One dictionary suggested ‘dear, desired or missed,’ but they pressed further. The word was a bit like ‘nostalgic,’ in that it recognized the impossibility of a return to the past, but it was weightier and carried no sense of kitsch or irony.
When April rolled around and I saw sakura season in person and I began to understand the song and the word a little better. Overworked businessmen piled into parks after work. In the fading twilight, they sipped sake under the boughs of blossoms, fondly recalling an idealized youth. In a sense the cherry is a very Buddhist image, a million flashes of ephemeral beauty, falling to the earth almost before they unfurl. The Japanese are a people imprisoned by time. Adult life is burdened by endless responsibility, but it must be born with patience. Just as a gardener must tend a tree all year for a fleeting burst of radiance in the spring, duties must be performed so that the nation’s children can each experience their fleeting burst of radiance in childhood. It seems to me, that while the Japanese might agree with the Buddha’s assessment that life is suffering, instead of turning away from the world they are willing to embrace everything in exchange for a glimpse of real earthly beauty. Perhaps because of this outlook, many Japanese people seem to live in the past, savouring the sweet pain of yesterday’s happiness. Even while joyful things are happening, they often already seem to recognize that they are slipping away. In early summer the school Sports Festival happened and everybody cried again.
My last month was nearly perfect. My classes all went smoothly, the students were happy and tried their best, everyone around me was energetic and caring, kindnesses piled upon kindnesses and I could already feel it falling behind me. Yet, somehow I also I knew that July could never have been so beautiful if I was staying in Japan. It was only then that I could really begin to understand the meaning of the world ‘natsukashi.’ When I arrived without language, the world seemed to slip past just beyond my grasp. After a year Japan reached out to me and taught me new things in a new language. Japan had taught me a whole new emotion, an emotion that may have always drifted ambiently below the surface of consciousness if I hadn’t been able to identify it with a new word. I just recently got an email from some of my students saying that today was the bunkasai. I could imagine the emotions flowing in the air, charging the halls and the auditorium. It was very natsukashi.
***********************
(And there's also a really long article on Derrida and postcard salesmen in Asia... perhaps to be followed by a shorter one on Baudrillard and resort villages in Southern China -- co-developed with Justin.) I've realized how hopeless my quest to publish travel articles is -- I had a hell of a battle with myself to keep Lacan out of the article above and the only other two ideas I've had also revolve around obscure, difficult 20th postmodern philosophers... sigh.
Thursday, September 02, 2004
I'm not really sure who both knew my travel itinerary and reads thenews regularily, so perhaps you weren't worried at all. If you weren'tworried, then please continue not worrying.I have had a plan for a while to visit Sara in Nepal in earlySeptember and since the chaos broke out just after my plane took off,I continued with this plan.I arrived in Kathmandu in the midst of an epic riot regarding thepeople's displeasure over the Nepali's who were killed in Iraq. Itwas quite exciting, they wouldn't let us leave the airport. Therewas smoke rising up out of various spots in the city. THere werereports of bombs and shootings that had happened all morning. Anycompany doing business with Iraq, including the offices of variousairlines were smashed and burned. Cars were overturned and torchedin the street.In the end, I got to ride in the back of a pick up truck with sixnepali soldiers with automatic rifles to the Danish Ambassador'shouse (he lives across the street from Sara and people take you muchmore seriously if you claim you 'must' get to the Danish Ambassador'sthen if you kind of want to go visit your friend from University).So in the end I joined a convoy transporting stranded air travellersto certain pre-approved hotels and got a full tour of town in highstyle since I was the convoy's last stop.Eventually I was escorted on foot from the truck to the Danishambassador's home by two different armed soldiers from a checkpoint.THen I snuck across the street to sara's house and we had champagneand wine and a delicious coconut-buffalo curry that her father made.I had some exciting things to say about india, but they kind of pale in comparison to this. The groom did arrive at the wedding on an elephant. I guess even paled, that's still pretty amazing.
Comments-[ comments.]
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Hiiiiii Everybody, I'm Dr. Nick. Well.... no..not really. But I am in India, in a tiny tiny tiny internet cafe. The entrance was sort of like an old British phone booth, and then there were some stairs leading out the back of the phonebooth into a hallway in which somebody has jammed 5 or 6 midget half desks with computers.
India is completely blowing my mind. I think I'm enjoying it much more than China -- so far... China was beautiful and positively dripping with history, but it was impossible to pierce the veneer of touristification. For more on this please read Justin's excellent recaps of our trip to China on his blog. I've been taking notes, but in my usually verbose analytical way, Im nowhere near ready to actually write anything about CHina. The link is on the left.
peace out,
Matt
Comments-[ comments.]
India is completely blowing my mind. I think I'm enjoying it much more than China -- so far... China was beautiful and positively dripping with history, but it was impossible to pierce the veneer of touristification. For more on this please read Justin's excellent recaps of our trip to China on his blog. I've been taking notes, but in my usually verbose analytical way, Im nowhere near ready to actually write anything about CHina. The link is on the left.
peace out,
Matt
Monday, July 26, 2004
So I'm totally the suxor at posting lately... but I've been having a great time. Bahi and Andrew's trip was totally legend. It ended with us extremely drunk and setting of fireworks off at dawn and going swimming in our clothes in the Yodo river. One of the Japanese guys who was with us accidently went swimming with a brand new cellphone is his pocket. He got out, found the phone, freaked out, tried to dry it, took the battery out, put it back in, tried to turn it on -- nothing. It was dead. Then he kind of shrugged and launched the phone in a glorious arcing parabola way way way out into the river.
Then we staggered home passed out for a few hours and then woke up and frantically ran to the train station with the 800 kilos of stuff that Andrew and Bahi are taking home for me.
Thanks guys, you made my last week here kick total ass.
I will try to post up here a bit more while I'm in asia, I do have lots to say, but you'll have to wait for the book.
I'm off to China, India and Nepal on Friday.
Expect my glorious return sometime around September 8th or 10th.
Comments-[ comments.]
Then we staggered home passed out for a few hours and then woke up and frantically ran to the train station with the 800 kilos of stuff that Andrew and Bahi are taking home for me.
Thanks guys, you made my last week here kick total ass.
I will try to post up here a bit more while I'm in asia, I do have lots to say, but you'll have to wait for the book.
I'm off to China, India and Nepal on Friday.
Expect my glorious return sometime around September 8th or 10th.
