in Hopland

11Feb12

I’m staying at a friend’s mountain home in Hopland for a few months while I get some writing done before my move back to Osaka in April.  I’ve been visiting this spot since I was a kid, coming up here for Easter egg hunts, and also for Passover celebrations.  The property is one of several […]

Filed under: nature, personal, sweet story of Trout Monroe, travel   |  2 Comments
Tags: cabin, critters, Duncan Springs, frogs, Hopland, household visitors, mouse and bird, Mt. Duncan, nature, Northern California, spiderwebs

rivulets

19Jul11

Walking on Fine Sand Beach the other day, I came across a series of rivulets that reminded me of this famous passage from the “Spring” chapter of Walden: Few phenomena gave me more delight than to observe the forms which thawing sand and clay assume in flowing down the sides of a deep cut on […]

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Tags: beach, foliage, fractals, Henry David Thoreau, leaves, lobes, Mandelbrot set, mud, natural form, nature, rivulets, sand, spring, Walden

blossom blizzard

26Apr10

Photo information, by order of appearance, including camera, lens, and film type: 1) Voigtlander Bessa-L, 15mm Heliar, uncertain film type. 2) Voigtlander Bessa R2A, 35mm Ultron, Kodak T-Max 400. 3) Voigtlander Bessa-T, 50mm Nokton, Fujifilm Provia 100. 4) LOMO LC-A+, Fujifilm Natura 1600. 5) Voigtlander Bessa R2A, 75mm Color-Heliar, unknown film. 6) Voigtlander Bessa R2A, […]

Filed under: Japan, Kansai, nature, Osaka, photography   |  5 Comments
Tags: 15mm Heliar, 35mm Ultron, 50mm Nokton, 75mm color-heliar, analog film, analogue film, お花見, blooming, blossom, cherry blossom season, cherry blossoms, film, flower, LOMO, nature, photography, sakura, spring, Voigtlander Bessa R2A, Voigtlander Bessa-L, Voigtlander Bessa-T, 春, 桜

plum blossoms — spring explodes from the skin of the branch

20Feb10

(Shots taken at the Osaka Castle plum garden, the Expo 70 Memorial Park plum garden, and a couple of prime plum spots near my house.)

Filed under: Japan, Kansai, nature, Osaka, scraps and bones   |  2 Comments
Tags: blossom, flowering, flowers, nature, Osaka, plum, plum blossoms, plum garden, plum trees, spring, 大阪, 春, 梅林

honeyland and alienation — a cartoon rhapsody

18Nov09

Múm’s video for Rhubarbidoo (off Go Go Smear The Poison Ivy, their latest album) is one of the most re-enchanting videos that I’ve seen for a long time.  If, as Max Weber has argued, Enlightenment rationalization, especially as it manifests itself in the bureaucratized capitalism of Western society, results in a disenchanted world where we […]

Filed under: animation, art, cinema, culture, film, history, music, nature, philosophy, society, technology, video   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: Adorno, alienated labor, alienation, American farming, animation, Aya Yamasaki Brown, bee society, Beholden, capitalism, cartoons, childhood, consumerism, creation, creative destruction, Dialectic of Enlightenment, disenchantment, Disney, Enlightenment, Enlightenment thought, exploration, Fantastic Planet, fantasy, Flowers and Trees, Gulliver's Travels, hive as factory, homo ludens, Honeyland, Horkheimer, imagination, industrial militarism, industrialism, industrialization of American Farming, Ingibjörg Birgisdóttir, invention, iron cage, Jason Malcolm Brown, Lilliputians, Max Weber, Múm, montage, natural world, nature, play, re-enchantment, Rhubarbidoo, Rockwell, science fiction, social control, social unconscious, They Made Frogs Smoke 'til They Exploded, totalizing systems of control

typhoon melor

08Oct09

Typhoon Melor blew through Japan last night, killing three people and injuring 64.  A few typhoons a year usually make their way to Japan, but for some reason the main force of the typhoons almost always seems to bypass the Osaka area where I live.  My very first experience with a typhoon warning came on […]

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Tags: air is a liquid, bullet train, Hotel Shinkansen, nature, Osaka, Shinkansen, storm, tropical storm, typhoon, Typhoon Melor, typhoon warning, wind, 台風, 台風18号

Train track hiking

24Oct05

On October 9th I went for a fantastic hike with Yoichi-san, or Yo-chan, who works at a film developing stand just outside of the west gate of Ishibashi station. From Ishibashi station we took the Hankyu Takarazuka line and then transferred to the JR Takarazuka line at Kawanishi-Noseguchi. The JR line took us straight up […]

Filed under: culture, daily life, Japan, Kansai, Osaka, society, travel   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: abandoned train tracks, basic onsen rules, bathing culture, 紅葉, forest, hiking, hot bath civilization, maple trees, momiji, mountain, nature, onsen, river, Takarazuka, Takarazuka mountains, tunnels