The White Peril 白禍

新年明けましておめでとうございます。今年も宜しくお願いします。

Which is to say, "Happy New Year! I ask your continued favor." Okay, that's one of those clunky-literal translations I generally try to avoid--but, see, the thing is, the Japanese have a different expression for "Happy New Year" now that it is the new year. I mean, the one above is the different expression from the anticipatory one you use in December. That's 良いお年をお迎え下さい (clunky-literal translation: "May you greet a good new year"). In the sentence at the top of this post, the 明けまして part is the verb meaning "has dawned" or "[morning] has broken." It's the same kanji as is used to mean "bright," though, so the New Year greeting has always had a sweet hint of "Good morning, sunshine!" to me.

And, in Tokyo, at least, the clouds have lifted, yesterday's snow/sleet/slush/yuck routine is over (for now), and it's gorgeous out. Perfect weather for the traditional New Year's cleaning--which explains why I decided to park myself in front of the computer and check the news and my messages and have now ended up composing a blog post. But never you fear. On this day of new beginnings, surfaces will be washed with hot bleach-water, items will be returned to their rightful drawers, electrical cords and lightbulbs will be checked, and bedding will be sun-fluffed. You know, starting in just a minute or so.

I was looking for a season-appropriate poem to post, but for a dilettante like me, there are problems. The new year according to which the poems of the classical canon were written is in February, so those that are actually appropriate to this point in time have a wistful, year-end feel. Those poems with the sense of a fresh start in the new year are full of references to the beginning of spring, which for obvious reasons feels a bit off.

However, since the Japanese spring in the Heian Period began before the vernal equinox, anyway, I'm going to take the liberty of repairing yet again to the Shinkokin-shu and enlisting the aid of the Princess Shokushi. Actually, I wish all dilemmas in life could be solved by enlisting the aid of the Princess Shokushi--it would make for a much more aesthetically pleasing existence--but we must content ourselves with capitalizing on such opportunities as present themselves. Anyway:

山深み春とも知らぬ松の戸にたえだえかかる雪の玉水

式子内親王

yamabukami / haru tomo shiranu / matsu no to ni / tae-dae kakaru / yuki no tamamizu
Shokushi-Naishinno

Deep in the mountains
My cabin door of pine planks
knows nothing of spring
But melting snow now and then
slides down with a gem-like flash
--The Princess Shokushi

Okay, fine, so there's actually more cold weather to come in 2005--I told you the poem didn't fit the solar year. What strikes me as apposite about it (it's the first of many for the Princess Shokushi in the Shinkokin-shu) is the sense that new beginnings don't always announce themselves explosively. They creep up on you, the way the year begins with an arc in the sweep of the second hand, just like any other top of the hour.

Once again, Happy New Year to everyone. Special thanks and good wishes to our troops and to the Japanese SDF for working to keep us safe and help others achieve what we have, and to their families for enduring chaotic lives to help them do it.

I was going to wait to post the picture at left until after the year changed, but since I sent out my New Year's cards today, I figured I may as well do it now. This is the same rooster Atsushi bought for my parents) when I went home last month. I mean, it's the same design, only this one is ours. While I'm not addressing my parents here, I figure I may as well still call it the Year of the Rooster, since heaven knows it's always the year of that other thing around here.

To those who are traveling home for the holidays, stay safe.

So I'm at one of my hang-outs, and the manager goes, "Sean-chan! There's a new version of 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' out--Band Aid 20. Want us to put it on?" He means on the DVD player that feeds the three televisions around the bar. Band Aid 20? Well, jeez, why not?

It's even more awful than I could have imagined. I mean, okay, I was a pre-teen when Bob Geldof was birthing the first version, and it wasn't much later that "We Are the World" and "That's What Friends Are For" were saturating the airwaves with showy benevolence. So maybe they were more horrible than I remember--not that I think of them all that fondly.

But, man, this was...was...you had Dido singing in that placid, contented "I-ayyyyyyeeee wanna thank yew" Ebba Forsberg half-yodel, seemingly unaware that the lyrics were about starving people who have not managed to sell several million albums. You had Robbie Williams (wearing a shirt, unfortunately, but no matter--I can play back the "Rock DJ" video in my head at will) grimacing through a couplet or two. Naturally, you had Bono rasping away for a bit--that man can smell an opportunity for notice-me professional compassion the way a vulture zeroes in on the closest pick-cleanable carcass.

But the most amazing part was when a close-up of the shrunken face of a suffering child was faded into the head of some plump, pampered pop singer--I don't think it was Des'ree, or Heather Smalls, or Caron Wheeler, because I probably would have recognized them, even if I haven't clapped eyes on them since college. Anyway, as my mother would say, Boy, I'll tell you--no shame! And naturally, we had to climax with wide-angle shots of the contributors assembled, choir-style, to show how sincere they were. After all, if all those cool people were willing to coordinate their booking schedules to be filmed in the same studio at the same time, well, it must be something important they're on about, right? It was a full-force reminder of why it's so outrageous to hear celebrities grouse about how callous and crass the general public is. Give me the Human League cluelessly pomposing about the Lebanon any day.

Added in the morning: I see through Amritas that others have had the displeasure already, too. Like some of the commenters, I found David Carr's last paragraph a little misdirected--poor Africans are deserving of more, not less, sympathy because they've been seized on by self-righteous Western celebs, in my view. But the contempt the song itself deserves can hardly be overstated. Did I mention the rap in the middle?

Added on 17 December: Okay, I've now seen the video again, and it looks as if the dissolve from the child's face may not have been to one of the Band Aid singers but rather to an African woman blooming with health thanks to the transformative powers of rock-star self-promotion. A small but significant ethical improvement.

This is what the quilt looks like in its new habitat:





As you can see, the apartment is outfitted in resale-value beige, so even a hint of color is welcome. Of course, this is more than a hint, but what I liked about this particular quilt was that it didn't scream, "Look how tricky it was to make me!" The design isn't ostentatiously complicated, but when you look closely, you see that the whole thing is made of rectangles of fabric that aren't more than 2" * 2" each, and many of them are smaller.





You can also get a sense in that exposure that I was able to avoid having a bedspread covered in girlie-ass flowers. (Not that I have a problem with real flowers. I just don't need them printed all over the place.) The border, as you can see, is made of flowered cloth, but the flowers all look dark and tangled and menacing rather than prettied up. Like the brambles a medieval knight might have hacked through to rescue the hot stable hand at a neighboring castle from a life of certain drudgery.

The only drawback is that now I'm going to have to stop eating and drinking, slovenly-bachelor style, in bed. Or I guess I could try to stop spilling stuff all over the place, but I don't think that's going to happen.

My quilt just came--very exciting. Japanese housing tends to have sketchy insulation, and heating costs (naturally) compound quickly, so a few years ago, when my parents asked what I wanted as a major Christmas present, I suggested one. Since we're from the edge of Pennsylvania Dutch country, this is not a difficult thing to come by.

The problem is, of course, that many quilts--cleverly designed and skillfully contrived though they be--look like grown-up versions of some Holly Hobbie nightmare, preciously strewn with tulips, hearts, and (blech! heave!) distelfinks. (I think distelfink literally translates to "thistle finch," but my understanding is that it's the German word for goldfinch.) So finding one I'd go for was not easy, and we ended up just making a little family day trip into Berks County to look for one while I was home. Found the perfect specimen at the first farm we visited, and had it shipped here.

Unfortunately, while our bed is a double (you guys thought you'd get to make a "queen-sized" crack, huh? suckers), it's a Japanese double. That means that it's narrower than a US double, so the main panel hangs a little over the edges. But the nice thing about using a good quilt is that it keeps you warm without being heavy, and the delivery guy brought it just in time, since the night temperatures have dipped noticeably since I got back from the States. That, and my hunk of Japanese man is coming home for the weekend tomorrow.