With nightfall it comes,
The loneliness of a still
And silent old house.
Ears strain for unheard footsteps,
Or for a remembered laugh.

I'm taking a break from deleting photos I shot at the Balinese dance and gamelan thingy in Oakland this morning. Thanks to the unfortunate placement of one of those godawful torchiere floor lamps and a space heater in the converted garage used for the performance, I have far too many shots of people with said lamp growing out of their head or heater protruding from their bodies, example at right:

The live music was performed in a room down the block where my camera did interesting things in a no-flash setting with sunlight pouring through a door on my left: these are successive frames shot within seconds of each other. I did nothing, the dancer moved to my right.

Though it did result in some interesting shots such as this:
Must. Be. Ruthless. Must. Delete. Crap. Shots.....

Gamelan Sekar Jaya and Destiny Arts will be performing a fusion of hip-hop and traditional Balinese dance and music called Tjak Box at Rhythmix Cultural Works in Alameda December 4 and 5.

A teacup moon floats
Through a reef of clouds of an
Impossible pink.
Twilight remembers herself
And dons a more subtle robe.

Because now that the being-pissed-report is out of the way, things did improve as the day went on.

1. The Safeway tuna "poki" (which was simply slices of raw tuna on a bed of wakame seaweed salad) fit nicely in the top compartment of my bento with some rice in the bottom, and traveled well enough when stacked in my basket ontop of a frozen bag of blue ice. Kiffany was duly impressed with my impromptu picnic on the steps of the event site. "Chopsticks and everything." Well, yeah!

2. Got to watch some of my favorite people step up as the new Prince and Princess. Had an interesting conversation on the artistic process with moira_ramsay . Sat in the peanut gallery with aureelia . Admired helblonde and moriven 's Baby Bear, who is not much of a conversationalist yet, but seems like a very mellow, contented little guy.

3. Was told by Wilhelm that he once again included assignments on writing tanka and haiku while teaching his middle schoolers a world civilization unit on feudal Japan. Was only mildly appalled when he pulled out his iPhone to show me his Facebook page with a horror haiku about zombies. ("Undead want my skull/Chanting, "Brains! pounding the door/Load the Benelli." I just fired off: "Clouds hide the moon's face./Things that go bump in the night/Are waiting out there." )

4. Got offsite in enough time to make it to Mom's Apple Pie before the 6 PM closing time for a slice of killer Gravenstein apple pie with layla_lilah , then mosey next door to the Henweigh Cafe for dinner. Yes, in that order. I had flank steak marinated in bourbon with sweet potato fries and asparagus, layla_lilah went for the Henweigh chicken pot pie. If you have cause to be up in the Sebastopol area for any reason, Mom's is definitely worth the detour. (On 116 just north of Guerneville Road). That pie was better than my grandmother's, which I didn't believe was possible. The Henweigh is also a decent place to get a meal. The one caveat: one has to exit the restaurant and cross the patio to use the restrooms, which is less than ideal on a chilly evening.

5. Will be going to a free Balinese music and dance concert tomorrow afternoon in Oakland, also with layla_lilah .

We are not amused #1: I will be starting MY new year with two wisdom tooth extractions. And some fillings. And some replacements of old fillings. That I am not doing this until after the New Year has to do with how big a bite out of my benefit maximum for the year that root canal and the perio treatments took.

We are not amused #2: I came downstairs this morning to go to Investiture and discovered that someone had managed to pop my camper shell open. This is with my truck parked on the corner in full view of the house and fairly close to a street light. The lock appears to be completely undamaged, BTW.
Known to be missing are the folding garden cart I bought and used exactly once AND the sugoroku box and its contents, which included two very nice teapots, lots of cheap tea cups, the two tiered jubako one of my Tousando-ites gave me as a gift two years ago and the brocade futon cover I picked up at the flea market and use to decorate the House of Cheerful Monkeys. I can rebuild the box. I can replace tea things and other serveware at Daiso, but that futon cover was a random lucky find and I'll probably never see any of this stuff again.

So there I was, coming out of the Safeway at South Shore when I realized it was nearly sunset and the sky was likely to be doing some interesting things after today's fast moving storm. I turned right instead of left and began cruising slowly along Shoreline when I spotted sails. It figures: on a nice day with a breeze, there hadn't been anyone out, but it was cold and the light was going and there were a bunch of kite surfers out on the bay.

Winds buffet the inky clouds
Even as the sun stabs through
Curtains of raindrops.
Venture out at your peril:
On such days, foxes marry.*

*A "Foxes' wedding (kitsune no yomeiri)" is a Japanese term for a sun shower. Foxes have a reputation in Japanese folklore as tricksters. The photo is a still from Akira Kurosawa's "Dreams," in which a small boy happens upon the wedding procession of the secretive foxes.
http://www.genjipress.com/img/dvd/2003/B00007G1ZC-027.jpg )

Because you probably actually know who these artists are. I got the Asian Art Museum newsletter this week and saw that Necati Celik, Timucin Cevikoglu, and Yavuz Akalin are scheduled to do a lecture/demonstration on December 19 at the museum.
http://www.asianart.org/performances.htm#turkish

However, when I went searching on the 'net, it looks like they are also doing several performances up here in Northern California in December.
http://www.hayatidede.org/events.htm

I haven't turned up anything in your part of the state yet....

Night comes too quickly,
Driving folk homeward as if
In fear of the dark.
Windows bloom on the hillside
Like flowers of golden light.

Shot these coming out of Dan's Produce.

If I'd known so many people were going to respond to the "Ask me," I'd've thought twice before doing that silly meme! I may reserve the right to ask you only three questions in the name of sanity, and it might be awhile before I get to everyone.

It's official: we just got word that taiko classes will not resume until December, because of ceiling/roof work slated to be done in the old O Club. I'm hoping it's actually interior renovations, otherwise rain could play havoc with their repair schedule. That said, there is something in the room we play in that frequently sets me to sneezing, usually at inconvenient moments. It's an oldish building, who knows how many decades of crud are in what passes for their HVAC system. I may end up dragging a drum to the dog park and scaring the seagulls, weather permitting.

According to their website, the little produce market on a certain side street in Alameda has pie-pumpkins on special this week, among other things. And they had this recipe on their website, which substitutes maple syrup for the sugar. mamapduck ! Do you still prefer Splenda in your baked goods or should I try this?

Loyalty, friendship,
And a strong moral code
Are hardly vices.
One may do far worse than to
Be born into the Dog's Year.

(That is assuming one believes in hooeyscopes, even Chinese ones....)

To barone_antonio 's post of this evening.

You are too kind sir. Truly.

I have no problems owning up to the fact that I am a bitch. It took years of practice, of resisting my natural inclination to be pathologically shy and quiet, decades of developing a backbone of titanium alloy. I have reached an age where I need not suffer fools lightly. I say what I mean, I mean what I say, and I never, EVER apologize unless I mean that too. If that makes me a cast-iron pain in the ass, so be it. Anybody who does not like that and accept me for who I am can step out of my way, thank you.

Gaius called me a bitch once, during some argument I don't even remember. I recall retorting something to the effect of "What, the howling wasn't your first clue?" (Which is probably why the argument went out the window and I can't even remember what it was about.)

If you place me on a pedestal, I'm gonna jump right off it, I swear it. It's boringly distant up there, and drafty, and people just try to peer up one's skirt under the pretense of admiring one.

Ladies, on three.

One.

Two.

ARRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/11/17/unfriend.word/index.html

"Unfriend" is announced as the Oxford New American Dictionary's word of the year on the same morning I wake up to find a comment in my journal and a "You've been friended!" message from someone who has not yet introduced herself, hint, hint, hint.

The first impression
Is all dash and elegance
That delights the eye.
But can he write a poem
That reveals his true merit? ;-D

EDIT: Game on!

Ah, Gracious Beauty
Had not your attention caught
On dye or bearing
Would you wonder if poem
Could issue forth from one? - Takeda Sanjuichiro Akimasa

A waving banner
Is no man, yet it catches
The eye by design.
A man either has true worth
Or merely flaps in the breeze.

antoniseb 's in the area for business this week. Since he's based in Newark this time, I figured it was easiest for me to leave from work and meet him at his hotel rather than make him try to get up I-880 after 5PM. Not knowing the area, I logged onto Yelp.com to find some potential dinner options. It turned out that his hotel is in an area rife with strip-mall food options, many representative of east Asia. We ended up walking across the lot to a nice little place called Simply Thai. It being early on a Monday evening, we had it pretty much to ourselves. I had the Imperial Fish, crispy fried and lounging in finny splendor across my plate in a mound of mushrooms, ginger, garlic and spinach. Anton had a chicken dish the name of which I am blanking on and will probably remember when I pull the takeout bag out of the fridge for dinner tomorrow.

Good meal, excellent company, plus a private screening of a video of I Sebastiani's Pennsic production of the highly amusing "The Turkish Princess." We get to do it again in a couple of weeks, because he has to come back out for work after Thanksgiving.

11/16/09
Once more, dawn intrudes,
Poking bright fingers at each
Night shuttered crack.
A dog barks at some
Early passerby, I sigh and rise.

To know who she is
I would walk her narrow streets
And meet her people.
Like Genji I wish to see
Who lives inside that screened room.

http://www.japantravelinfo.com/2010/win.html

The Japanese National Tourism Organization is holding an essay/photo contest for trips to Japan and (and other travel prizes which would necessitate my scraping up the airfare to get there and use them). If you're interested, be sure to read all the details - prizes for the essay contest are not the same as the photo contest and you can only enter one of them. Since the destinations I was likely to prefer were for the essay contest, I just fired off an entry, which came in under the maximum 2010 keystrokes. (Not sure I'm ready to share what I wrote. Perhaps after the deadline has passed and I can't jinx it.)

Wish me luck!

Fired off this morning via email:

Dear Mr. Tanaka (or whoever reads and responds to these inquiries in his stead):

I very much enjoyed last night's concert at Zellerbach Hall. You performed a new composition titled "Hayate" about a group of villagers who disguised themselves as demons and drove Uesugi Kenshin's army away without a fight simply with their drumming. As a lover of history, I would be very interested to know your source material for this story as I had never heard it before.

Many thanks, etc....

sengokudaimyo ? Anyone ever hear of this? Google turns up the following:
http://www.gojinjodaiko.jp/en_top.html

http://www.sohdaiko.org/reviews.html


http://www.hot-ishikawa.jp/f-lang/english/noto-area/event-detail.html#07

http://nohmask21.com/eu/gojinjyotaiko.html

Who knew?
***********************************************************************************
Good concert. Sacramento Taiko Dan, Jun Daiko (from Mountainview) and Wako Daiko from Japan also did sets. Serves only to remind me how much I suck and how badly I need to get over myself when I face the o-daiko.....
***********************************************************************************
layla_lilah and I had dinner beforehand at Jayakarta in Berkeley. layla_lilah actually lived in Indonesia and gleefully nommed her way through the nasi bungus special: rice, jackfruit, hardcooked egg, tofu, fried chicken and beef wrapped in banana leaves, while I had the udang saus mentega, shrimp in a savory brown sauce. Tasty, as authentic as it gets according to my dinner companion, and an excellent bang for the buck.
********************************************************************************************************************************************************
Juana had posted a note to SCA-West about having passed a bookstore called Abandoned Planet in the Mission that was going out of business and selling all their books at 35% off. I BARTED over and determined that either it had been picked over before I got there or it was simply a matter of what used books they ended up having in stock in the first place. The art and history sections were pretty small, compared to the fiction/literature offerings which took up half the shop. I didn't see anything I absolutely had to own and proceeded to another bookstore I'd passed on my way up the street.

Upon opening the door to Forest Books, I released a waft of expensive Japanese incense and Loreena McKennitt pretending to be Middle Eastern onto 16th Street. Airy, well lit, festooned with Tibetan prayer flags and earnest posters and flyers about Buddhism and community events, the selection was well organized, interesting, and I didn't have to worry about breaking an ankle on a rolled up carpet just to look at what was out on the display tables. I resisted a coffeetable book of Ansel Adams photos. I did pick up two paperback novels: Murakami's An Artist Of The Floating World and Barry Unsworth's The Songs of the Kings, then headed to the art section. Decent selection of East Asian art books, some of which I already had. Taped neatly into a plastic envelope was a souvenir tour booklet titled JINGU: The Grand Shrine of Ise. It being taped shut and priced at $10, I asked the proprietor if it was OK to open it before doing so. Nifty little book with full color photos of the Jingu shrines in Ise, including architectural details, parading Shinto clerics performing rituals, festivals and bugaku dancers in full costume.
While paying for my books, I asked the proprietor which Shoyeido incense he was burning at the moment because he had boxes for sale on the counter and I knew it wasn't the Gozan. He asked if I needed a bag and pronounced the Onyabag I pulled out of my purse one of the nicest reusable shopping bags he'd seen. I should send him the link....

A shadow flutters
Past the window, another,
Maple leaves falling.
What must it be like to die
Dancing upon a cool breeze?