February ---sweets to roots

I started this month out eating lots of sweets--chocolate mostly. My daughter had a busy beginning of the month fine tuning her chocolate-making skills, so there were many practice projects going in and out of the oven.


Now I can hardly imagine eating some of those sugary delights, as the second half of the month gave way to Hay Fever season, which begins in February when the cedar (sugi) trees release their pollens into the air.


I discovered last year that for my allergies ---which are very strong---the best medicine is a diet of primarily root vegetables. For two weeks, I have almost eliminated white sugar, coffee, and bread and am on a root vegetables (kon-sai) and brown rice diet.



I'm finding it interesting that when my body is in one 'mode', how it rejects the other. Now all I want to eat is a mouth watering heaping serving of lotus root--my original cooked in a simmering sour plum and soy sauce--with brown rice.



Happy last days of February to you...

♡
JGY

There used to be more old houses and gardens where I live;
over the years the old houses have been replaced by parking lots until the land value goes up and then large apartment buildings called mansions are built in a very short time.
I notice the 'tomare' more and more, painted on the streets..

for more street photography, follow the roads to Jane at corner view...


♡aikawarazulifeinjapan JGY

Notes from an Exhibition

すごいすぎる。
これが Watashi no
saisho no insho
upon entering the
Artist's Palettes Exhibition
at the Oita Art Museum.
A room full of dabs of
color on palettes
next to paintings
by
Picasso
Matisse
Dali.

Colors written in
3 languages

アンリ・マテイスのパレットの色　(the colors on Henri Matisse's palette)

1. Cad. citron

ガド・レモン

2. Cad. Clair

カド・クレール
薄い（明るい）　カドミウム

3. Cad. moyan

カド・モウイヤン
中くらいのカドミウム

4. Cad. fonce

Jaune Strohane
Cad poupre
Laque ecalate
rouge venise

and all the way down (or up)
the rainbow　to

Blue du Prusse

Violet Cobalt Clair

and

noir d'iboire

The picture was called

窓辺に座る女

Woman sitting by a window

・

I close my eyes and hold out my hand to feel a waft of bleu outremer clair
drift from the frame.

・

Salvador Dalis' palette is grande. He painted with Sennelier Goache couleurs surfine colors、

Made in France

・

Ripples from a water plant and in curly script:
Polyanthes tuberosa et cyncnus vegetalis

・

Who is the man in the b/w photo that spans
half a wall. He wears a kimono and stares at a model
who's sitting up tall.

Umehara Ryusaburo
梅原龍三郎

There's so many of Japan's artists that I still don't know.

・

Ah, Pablo Picasso, a familiar face;
A palette that's streaked with luxurious
grays and those black and white stripes
that he wears 'cross his chest
While his bulging round eyes gaze to the west
where viewers can see
used tubes of colors lined up in rows
for eternity

・
香月泰男、道路標識のある風景
I love this one, there are three
road signs.

・
高田誠、パレット
Look, in this palette
there sprung up some roses.

・
奥谷博
He's painted a goddess upon green and red,
there's a crescent moon rising
above her three heads

・
今永清玄
In here there's some hinges
Do I see some tinges
of Joseph
Cornell?


JGY

fragment from a rainy day we lost our way

the day was so wet the water seeped into my backpack,
dampening half of the cover of this notebook

a chance encounter brought us to the middle of nowhere,
in the middle of somewhere

y: what's the taxi #?

Angel Food Cake
was a
clue
what should we do, we're late

Even the lantern
spoke of France
the only sign that we were still in Japan
was the...


JGY
Aikawarazu Life in Japan

Corner View--Wisdom From Elders

From my Japan Mother-in-Law: "Ta-be" (Eat!!)

From my L.I.* Father: "Walk it Off"

Mabye this is the perfect East-West Balance.


photos (can be clicked on to see enlarged smiles): My mother and mother-in-law on one of my mother's first trips to Japan;
my Dad and Y on one of Y's first trips to *Long Island

Gather Wednesday Wisdom from Elders around the world starting with Jane at Corner View.

♡ JGY Aikawarazu Life in Japan

PS to share,

I had and article published this week on a site about Japan.
It doesn't exactly tie-in with wisdom from elders, but if you would like to take a look, I have a bagel story here (Bridging Cultures with Bagels) on Japan Visitor.

Quote from Goethe's Faust (2)

From Faust p.19
lines 501-

The Spirit: In life like a flood, in deeds like a storm
I surge to and fro,
Up and down I flow!
Birth and the grave
An eternal wave,
Turning, returning,
A life ever burning:
At Time's whirring loom I work and play
God's living garment I weave and display.

Faust: Oh busy Spirit!...

Corner View--Re-purposed

Here's something you may know about me,
a fact you've heard already.
I have an interest in the
tatami's edge---


In Japanese it's called the heri.

In this week's CV we're talking about something generally used for one purpose
that we choose to use for another.
The item I chose is ordinarily seen at the edge of a tatami floor.
Here is something else that I use it for:
(if you are uncertain, look closely at the curtain...)

Thank you Francesca, for this weeks theme. Surely there's lots of creative re-use going on at Corner View...

PS to Re-use

P.
s.


I also have tatami edges around the house,
atchi-kochi,
here and there,
some have functions and some
whose sole purpose is to satisfy my
(soul?!)
aesthetic pleasure
of being near the tatami's edge*


In with good fortune to you!

JGY

Shira-a-e and Tofu Experiments

Tofu experiments--

Aburra-age (fried tofu skin)
with daikon oroshi
(grated radish) and soy sauce



Aburra-age (fried tofu skin)

with mentaiko (small fish eggs)

grilled

Shira-a-e:
白あえ

Crumbled tofu with boiled spinach,

mixed together and then add


miso plus sugarServe with
miso soup and
brown rice

Make enough to put in a bento
for the next day.

Smile!

(on a break from hulahooping)

JGY

Aikawarazu Life in Japan

Kyoto Poetry Reading

A poet-friend in Japan is involved in promoting this event. Please check it out if you will be in or around Kyoto in March.

JAPAN INTERNATIONAL POETRY SOCIETY March, 2010, Kyoto
Our special guest, visiting from the U.S., will be the internationally renowned American poet MR. JEROME ROTHENBERG.

Date: March 22, 2010 (Monday, National Holiday) 18:00-21:00
Venue: Heartpia Kyoto, Conference Room # 3 (ハートピア京都、第三会議室）
http://www.heartpiakyoto.jp/access/index.html admission: 1000 yen

for further information:
Keiji Minato cage-m@tempo.ocn.ne.jp Jane Joritz-Nakagawa janenakagawa@yahoo.com
For more information about Mr. Jerome Rothenberg and samples of work visit, e.g.:

http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/rothenberg/
http://jacketmagazine.com/16/ziva-iv-roth.html

The Hula-Hoopin' Continues, this time while proofreading

I hand her what I write in Japanese, and she asks for a pen and a book to lean on.
Still hula-hooping away, she crosses out lines and makes the corrections.

I tell her she could get a job anywhere.

Have a great weekend,
don't do too many things at one time!

JGY

Today I got a call from a friend who had a friend who was looking for someone to work part time in a gallery. The qualifications were that the person who worked there would need to speak to customers in the gallery about the work, and would need to write the entries for the gallery's blog and update the homepage.

I could use a part time job if the hours were right, and was happy that my friend thought of me. But he asked how much Japanese I could write. I had to be honest that my level is definitely not good enough to write the blog entries in Japanese. The conversation made me realize that I ought to start writing Japanese and that here might be a good place to start. Ganbarimasu.

今日友達から電話がありました。この友達の友達がアルバイトが出来る人を探しています。
アート・ギャラリーの仕事なので、いい経験と思います。必要なスキルは、二つあります。
一つは、お客さんと作品のお話が出来ること。もう一つは、そこのブログかHPの更新ができることです。

私が、アルバイトをちょっと探していますから、友達が私に聞いてくれて嬉しかったです。
でも、そこまで日本語が出来ないので、断らないといけなくて、残念でした。これからは日本語で書くのを頑張ろうと思いました。


JGY
proofread by YY

Song to the Sun

I feel the sun
a whole new way
I see the sun
come in today

太陽、ありがとう

Corner View--A Sweets Story

Once upon a Saturday, the TV was on in the morning. My daughter was tuned into OBS, the local Oita station, and was watching a program called Kabosu Time. A kabosu is a sour fruit, similar to a lime, that is local to Oita. Hence the name of the program, Kabosu Time, which features fun or interesting places to go in Oita, and specifically focuses on good tasting treats.

Every Saturday a bakery or sweet shop from somewhere in the Prefecture makes a limited edition of one special SWEET which is featured on the program.

We have watched the program for about a year. It's become a fun moment to see what the weekly sweet is. We even went one time to try it, but by the time we got there it was sold out.
This past Saturday, as a Corner View Adventure, we decided to venture out early to get there in time for the featured sweet.

At about 10:30 the Sweet was announced---10:34 to be exact. A cake made from vanilla mousse sandwiched between a layer of chocolate mousse and a ganache cake bottom, with three strawberries crowning the top. Made by a bakery in Beppu City. Yumm, we were ready, and set to go. At 11:00, we were on the way.

We arrived at the cafe to see the identical sweet we had seen on the T.V. screen only a few minutes earlier, lined up in the glass counter. We ordered one (lately Y. is watching her calories ) to share and of course a coffee for me. We savored the smooth and delicious taste. We could taste the vanilla in a luscious contrast to the chocolate mousse, and the nutty creamy ganache was texturally and tastefully scrumptious.
We split the crowning strawberries, one and a half each. The crowning touch of our adventure was to meet the OBS announcer, pictured with Y. above, who we had seen earlier on TV.

Can you see in the photos the moment when the TV sweet turns to the real sweet? Therein lies the excitement of our adventure. We enjoyed a kind of sur-reality of going out to experience the same experience we'd just seen.
Somehow, it felt very Japanese.

It was indeed a sweet morning.

What Sweet adventures have you encountered?
We are on the way to visit you...Happy One-Year Anniversary to
Spain Daily and the inspiring Jane
who brings us Corner View.

♡ JGY

ある土曜日、娘が「かぼすタイム」ト言う番組を見ていました。その番組は大分の情報番組で、特に、大分のおいしいお店を紹介しています。

そして、その中でも｢かぼすカフエ」という人気のコーナーがあります。そのコーナーでは、大分放送のビルでカフエをひらいて、そのカフエと県内の有名なスイーツ店がコラボして、オリジャナルスイーツを毎週作っています。

１年前から、その番組を見ていて、ずっと今週のスイーツをきにして食べに行きたかったです。そこで、１回娘と食べに行こうと行きましたけど，もう売り切れてしました。

そこで、今週、また　行って見ることにしました。今週のスイーツは、バニラとチョコのムースの上に、苺が３つのっているものでした。すごくおいしかったです。　そした、大分放送のアナウンサーの人も写真が撮れて、すごく嬉しかったです。

ほんとに、"SWEET"な朝になりました。

JGY
Proofread by YY while hoola hoopin'

The Story of O--A blogger's tale

There's a story you might like to know
that somewhere in the Paris snow
stands something that exists 'cause O*
thought to send me a photo.

In the photo was a mug
resting warm
and sitting snug
in the hands of someone
we don't know.

And when I saw it I said 'O',
surely, we must make it so!

Although this mug did not exist,
except in this pho-to-ma-re game,
there's now a real one in the snow!
(you can see it here)

And this is how it came to be
a thought turned to Real-i-ty.
So keep your dreams
alive and well,
You just may find
the one that sells.
(oh, hee hee, this poems gone the way
of all things material--)

With a few laughs,
let's fill our mugs with soothing teas and robust roasts,
and a make a toast
to keeping warm and keeping these connections strong
Good day to all around the world,
campaii, campaii from

JGY


*PhOto created by Otli. merci, Merci!

Writer at Work

It's a good book
(Writers at Work) and
cropped like this,
it would make a good sign