Algae Tapestry, May 26, 1999

May 26, 1999

Geishas, Jedi Knights, and a computer geek in chest-waders

Since the weather's been warmer, I've moved my reading lair into the Secret Clubhouse. Really I ought to call it the Secret Batcave, but I already gave that name to the tiny bedroom with the slanting ceiling and the window which starts at knee-height. With my vintage curving green couch sprawling along two walls, it's the secret lair I've wanted since childhood. It's also stuffy and short of a good reading lamp, so I don't spend much time in it. Instead, I move my papasan and a tray table into the giant closet (sans clothes bars) which has good light and ventilation when it gets warmer. I think it used to be a tiny balcony because it has an exterior door instead of a lightweight indoors door, and it has outdoors-style electrical outlets.

The real bonus, though is that it's tiny. I love tiny places to hold up in. As long as I have big rooms, too. But for reading, cubby holes are magnificent. The fact that the short exterior wall is completely taken up by two regular windows side by side forming one large window looking out on the back yard is an added bonus. Mark hung two of his wall hangings, a silver painting of a castle and another of a knight on a horse on black fabric above rounded triangles of burgundy fabric, on the remaining walls and it seems very much like the other secret lair I've wanted since childhood.

When it's cold or rainy, I curl up in there with a book, snuggling in my papasan with a fleecy lap blanket. On misty mornings, it looks like the entire world is green; soft, muted, cool, soothing green.

When I'm in here, it feels as if nothing else exists in the world but this room and the book I'm reading. I feel as if I've stepped out of time when I come in here, free to drink in an entire book without once thinking of things I ought to be doing on the computer or chores I've been meaning to get to around the house.

I recently read Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha for the first time, reading it all at once, unable to set it down to sleep. I think that of all the books I've read, it's the very best. I read it as slowly as possible, savoring each sentence, and still it was gone all too soon. The detail Golden put into it was incredible. Descriptive detail was layered upon intimate details of experience, and the way he weaves words together is breathtakingly beautiful.

I fell in love with Chiyo/Sayuri immediately, charmed and identifying with her as if she had really lived, had spoken her words out loud to me. I cried for her during the sad parts, and gratefully gave silent thanks to the author when he avoided the common pitfalls of hitting characters over and over again with more tragedies. And when it was over, I cried because it had been sad, and I cried for joy that she got her happy ending (although from the beginning of the book one knows this), and I cried because I felt I might never again read a book as good as this. If ever a book moved me, it was this one. It even prompted me to go out and get Liza Dalby's Geisha (non-fiction), which I'm reading now.

But of course I've been doing more than just reading, even more than just working at the computer. When the weather's been good, I've been outside, and I've planted three packets of morning glory seeds, one packet each of moonflowers, Iceland poppies, and California poppies. Just a few more packets til everything's been planted. I'm nervous as a hen about them, worried I'll have done something wrong or not well enough and none of them will grow. But the morning glories are sprouting in their little peat sprouting-dealies, so surely they'll continue to do well.

I also had a chance to test the waders out when the pool is full, a bit above my waist. My excuse was another of my crazy schemes, this time an experiment to see if dragging an old window screen gently along the bottom of the pool might get a lot of the remaining debris Mark hadn't been able to get out. But my real motivation was to play in my waders.

My chest-waders have become one of my very favorite toys. I think I must have this Walter Mitty sort of gene which lets me enjoy silly things like this even more than they might warrant; probably some part of me was having an African Queen sort of adventure while I mucked around in there.

I lowered a plastic lawn chair over the side of the pool to use as a step-stool and climbed in, feeling the water press the waders hard against me. It was a strange, constricting sensation, but I soon got used to it. The water came up to just above my waist, and just below my chest as I bent over a bit to carefully drag the tall screen along the bottom of the pool. It worked marvelously, and I got tons of junk (silt-like debris) out, working until my arms were too tired to do any more. It was great fun.

Naboo, scene from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
I also got to see Star Wars: The Phantom Menace recently. Very exciting. I was about five years old when the first Star Wars came out and I can still remember making blue milk to imitate alien drinks and having fights with toy light sabers. We all wanted to be Jedi knights and fighter pilots, preferably both. I think I most wanted to be Han Solo.

My only real complaint about this one was how a lot of things seemed geared towards kids. (The first wasn't, and we loved it when we were kids without having sickening Ewok-ish stuff added.) There were places where you could tell they were going for a laugh but no one in the theater laughed. But that was minor and to be expected after being tormented previously by Ewoks.

Well, I also didn't like the fact that a certain easy rescue wasn't planned for after the main action was taken care of. It would have been easy after having helped a certain queen out, and it would have went a long way towards mitigating the problems Yoda pointed out. I'm being vague on purpose so as not to turn this complaint into a spoiler. I know, things needed to be the way they were for the future stuff planned, but I thought it was sloppy that an easy out was ignored--surely there could have been some other way without making all Jedi look like total fools for not performing one simple little rescue when they had the time and resources. Just plain sloppy plotting, in my opinion.

The settings, costumes, and effects were spectacular. Naboo and the castle were so beautiful that it made one want to be able to pause the movie, step into it, and just explore for awhile. Queen Amidala's wardrobe was just stunning, opulent and full of Asian influences. I want to be able to collect pictures of all her outfits, with the incredibly elaborate hair styles which when with them.

My favorite characters were Qui Gon Jinn and the elaborately outfitted Queen Amidala with her incredible voice and presence.

There's not much else I feel like saying for fear of spoiling things, but I will say that there was one particular death scene in the movie which really touched me with its tenderness. Rarely do I find a death scene involving two males so well done and moving. Beautiful. Despite the fact that I want all the good characters to live forever.

Queen Amidala's costumes. The larger versions are here.

koi

announcements

These announcements brought to you by... the future! (Because I'm so far behind and want to get these up now.)

First off, I have a new snail mail address, so those of you who've already written down my address from the contact info page should change it. It's the old address, but written differently because the USPS has decided to be obnoxious about non-USPS PO boxes and wants the addresses written in a different format. Those lovely people are threatening to deliver no mail after October of this year unless it is written the way they want it written. Personally, I think they're just trying to make things rough on the competition (my box is at Mailboxes, Etc.). Anyway, here it is, just how it now needs to be written:

Ginkgo
PMB 118
17125C W. Bluemound Rd.
Brookfield, WI 53005-5933 USA

(Btw, my birthday is August 10th, hint, hint. heh.)

Secondly, I have a new message boards system, and it's mighty spiffy. I've added lots of boards with topics ranging from books to gardening, and am hoping people will have fun with them. You can post feedback on journal entries, tell about things entries remind you of, discuss web design or plug your own sites, talk about science fiction or help plan this year's Halloween Ball. I'm planning to be much more involved with the boards now that I have such a nice system (much better than the old Bravenet forums) which is running on my own server. So come and talk to me!

a year ago today

rambling about the cats

Star Wars Name

On diary-l, there was a thread about how to determine your Star Wars name. Apparently, you take the first three letters of your name and add them to the kind of car you drive, then your planet name is the last medication you've taken. So I'd be Ginvolkswagon of Sinutab-Blue. (GinVW? Ginrabbit since it's a rabbit truck?) Doesn't work too terribly well for me, sigh. I'll just have to dream up something weird for myself on my own. Mark's would be Marcougar of Allegra, which works much better, I think.

note from the future

I thought this might be a good place to tuck this in, just a silly little thing which amused me. After seeing The Phantom Menace, I couldn't figure out what the older Jedi's name was. (Qui Gon Jinn.) I asked Mark, and he said he hadn't been able to really catch/remember it either.

"Something like Guano," Mark said. We giggled like little kids.

Later, another day, Mark and I were in the bath and I broke down giggling again. He wanted to know what was so funny, and after tormenting him for awhile in revenge for times he pulls the "Nah, I'd better not say," thing on me, I told him, "Well, it's just as if you have a radar for which characters I'll find attractive. 'What's that older Jedi's name?' I ask, and you sense that I think he's hot and reply, 'Guano.' Bat Shit!"

We giggled over this and then set to thinking up hideous names for the women he finds attractive and the other men I find attractive. "I may be having fantasies about Bat Shit, but you're fantasizing about...."

I told him, "I love you much more than Bat Shit," and smirked.

reading
Since the 17th, I've read Mommy and the Murder by Nancy Goldstone; The Fifth Profession by David Morrell; Too Many Crooks Spoil the Broth, No Use Dying Over Spilled Milk, and Eat, Drink, and Be Wary by Tamar Myers; Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden; The Light Princess by George MacDonald (the edition illustrated by Maurice Sendak, a recent gift from Ceit); The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan; and have started reading Liza Dalby's Geisha.

excerpt
Here are two excerpts from Memoirs of a Geisha, the first from the beginning of Nitta Sayuri's narrative, and the second from later, a part which I think really shows the various levels of descriptive detail Golden used:

"Suppose that you and I were sitting in a quiet room overlooking a garden, chatting and sipping at our cups of green tea while we talked about something that had happened a long while ago, and I said to you, "That afternoon when I met so-and-so...was the very best afternoon of my life, and also the very worst afternoon." I expect you might put down your teacup and say, "Well, now, which was it? Was it the best or the worst? Because it can't possibly have been both!" Ordinarily I'd have to laugh at myself and agree with you. But the truth is that the afternoon when I met Mr. Tanaka Ichiro really was the best and the worst of my life. He seemed so fascinating to me, even the fish smell on his hands was a kind of perfume. If I had never known him, I'm sure I would not have become a geisha."

This one starts right after she's heard her mother has but a few more weeks to live:

"After this, I couldn't hear their voices any longer; for in my ears I heard a sound like a bird's wings flapping in panic. Perhaps it was my heart, I don't know. But if you've ever seen a bird trapped inside the great hall of a temple, looking for some way out, well, that was how my mind was reacting. It had never occurred to me that my mother wouldn't simply go on being sick. I won't say I'd never wondered what might happen if she should die; I did wonder about it, in the same way I wondered what might happen if our house were swallowed up in an earthquake. There could hardly be life after such an event.

""I thought I would die first," my father was saying.

""You're an old man, Sakamoto-san. But your health is good. You might have four or five years. I'll leave you some more of those pills for your wife. You can give them to her two at a time, if you need to."

"They talked about the pills a bit longer, and then Dr. Miura left. My father went on sitting for a long while in silence, with his back to me. He wore no shirt but only his loose-fitting skin; the more I looked at him, the more he began to seem like just a curious collection of shapes and textures. His spine was a path of knobs. His head, with its discolored splotches, might have been a bruised fruit. His arms were sticks wrapped in old leather, dangling from two bumps. If my mother died, how could I go on living in the house with him? I didn't want to be away from him; but whether he was there or not, the house would be just as empty when my mother had left it."

--from Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

Finalist, The Diarist Awards, 1st quarter

pretty sparklies

I was chosen as one of three finalists for the Diarist.Net Legacy Award which "recognizes sites and authors that have made a significant contribution to the genre, whether in quality writing or design, longevity, mentoring, increasing general awareness of the art, or simply active participation in the journalling community. General, positive recognition within the community as a whole is a factor." It's an honor just to be a finalist, especially since I know I'll never win against the immortal Kat (great journal, founder of OP, fictitious but still beloved--by me at any rate) and the Mighty Kymm (great journal, current ringmaster of OP). Just being nominated into such company is heady stuff.

quote
"The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man; nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out; new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again and yet live on. Still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men's hearts, of the hearts of men centuries dead."
--Clarence Day

A green willow,
dripping down into the mud,
at low tide.

--Basho