AIFF 2015: Features In Competition From Turkey, UK, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand and Iran

"In competition" means these films were selected by the screeners to be eligible for awards at the festival.  "Features" are 'stories' that are full length. While there are always other features which different folks like better than those in competition, it's a good bet these are among the best features at the festival.  This year's picks are all from outside the US.

The point of this post isn't to tell you what each of the features in competition are about, but rather to just give you a glimpse of something about the film I found interesting.

I don't have the times and locations yet.  I'll add them later and I might make other changes as things come to my attention.  

Here's the whole list and below I look at each one. 

Film (all are in competition)	Director	Country	Length
And The Circus Leaves Town	Mete Sozer	Turkey	99 min
Creditors	Ben Cura	United Kingdom	81 min
Jasmine	Dax Phelan	Hong Kong	80 min
Magic Utopia	Shoji Toyama, Shuichi Tan	Japan	88 min
Orphans & Kingdoms	Paolo Rotondo	New Zealand	74 min
The Descendants	Yaser Talebi	Islamic Republic of Iran	80 min

And The Circus Leaves Town  
Mete Sozer 
Turkey √
99 min
l

And the Circus Leaves Town is the story of a village caught in between life and death. This is the story of the moment when the paths of the village which wants to forget its past and the “Stranger” who wants to grasp his past converge. The “Stranger” gets off the train with an old, wooden, red suitcase. His destination is a village where only a handful of people are left, where the young have left and the babies cease to be born, where each moment repeats a previous moment. The arrival of the “Stranger” is met with curiosity first, and suspicion later. The dark, covered memories of a bloodied wedding night are revived. Is the “Stranger” someone from the past, or a brand new hope... (From the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts iFKA)

Won for International Feature Film at the 5th Underground Film Festival in Cork City, Ireland this past August.


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Creditors
Ben Cura   
United Kingdom √
81 min


Much of what I know about Ben Cura comes from a recent in-depth interview with Film Courage.    Cura wrote the screen play,  directed the film and acts in it.   But it also has some strong, established actors, like Christian McKay, Simon Callow, and Andrea Deck.

"At times disturbingly funny and cruelly bleak, "Creditors" deals with the most private aspects of human relationships. From questioning our concepts of marriage and fidelity, to trying to establish the role of the modern woman in a world still trapping her within the confines of old fashioned canons, the film's story stirs, moves and sometimes even angrily rebuts our very own personal definitions of each."

The interview covers a wide range of topics from Cura's background (his father is a major opera singer which meant as a child Cura traveled the world); adapting the film from August Strindberg's 1888 play; the challenges of being a first time director and of black and white;  budgeting, and more.

 The film's world premiere is October 31, 2015 in New York's Nordic International Film Festival.  Then, it appears, to Anchorage.  Those who seriously want to prepare for the festival can read the original Strindberg play here.  




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Jasmine  
Dax Phelan  
Hong Kong √ 
80 min

UPDATE Dec. 10:  Just opened an email from Dax Phelan who said the second review quoted here was of an unfinished version of the film.  So take it with a grain of salt.

TwitchFilm liked it:

"Dax Phelan, veteran screenwriter and producer based in Los Angeles got the Hong Kong bug on a writing research trip to the city in 2005. By his own tongue-in-cheek admission, it had become somewhat tedious being handsomely paid for writing screenplays that rarely if ever get made. Citing inspiration by such auteurs as Lodge Kerrigan (The Killing TV series, Keane) and the Dardenne brothers (Two Days, One Night) Phelan sensed that Hong Kong could be fertile ground for a psychological thriller that would be his directorial debut. He penned Jasmine based on a story that he had co-written with Jason Tobin. . .

For the first time ever, Hong Kong plays a characterful, if inhospitable backdrop to an english language film with artistic sensibilities, a restrained, rhythmical build, and a chilling and thought-provoking climax. It explores themes of loneliness amongst the masses, fear of postponed regret, and most poignantly our ability to invest everything in our own flawed narratives."

Screen Daily wasn't as kind:

"Writer-director Dax Phelan uses the trope of the unreliable narrator to mixed effect in Jasmine, a classically-executed slow-moving descent into paranoia set on the streets of Hong Kong. Working from an idea by Phelan and Tobin, Jasmine’s script is too thinly fleshed-out to be fully successful, and the production tends to drag through its final frames. This moody noir will find a slim audience locally, and works best as a calling card for its director and lead actor, who are clearly capable."

Guess we'll have to see for ourselves who's right.   As of Oct 26, Anchorage isn't mentioned on either the director's Twitter or Facebook pages. 



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From Keiko Shiga's Tumblr page

Magic Utopia
Shoji Toyama 
Japan √
88 min


Finding out about this film isn't easy.  There this from

"A young girl who lost her mother suddenly begins to float in midair when she meets a man trapped in a past of painful memories. At the same time, an old man receives a message on his answering machine from his long dead daughter."

 And this from what seems to be the film's website:

1. 思い出せない秘密
2. 抑えられない衝動
3. 真実しかない孤独

ひとりの少女の体が宙に浮いたことによって動き出す
３人の男女の《マジックユートピア》へと向かう魂の物語。

 But this picture on their website suggests this could be good. 

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Image from Orphansandkingdoms website gallery

Orphans & Kingdoms
Paolo Rotondo 
New Zealand √
74 min



From an interview with Director Paolo Rotondo in the New Zealand site Flicks:

How did you discover the three young leads?

They all auditioned. Calae who plays Kenae was the only kid who could really stand up to an adult actor in the audition and hold his own. Hanelle (Tibs) had auditioned for me when I was helping to cast a US TV film, she was so strong I wanted her for Orphans. Jesse auditioned and proceeded to teach me about the real world of the characters I was exploring, he didn’t need a script – he knew the story.

Director bio from a story generator workshop he ran:

I am a passionate and accomplished Artist who has worked in New Zealand’s Film, Theatre and Television industries for twenty years. My need to tell stories began as an Actor and inspired me to develop my skills as a Playwright and consequently Filmmaker. I offer a depth of experience in Film and Theatre, ranging from acting, to producing, to writing and directing.
The short films I have written have won awards and garnered international acclaim. This year I will be releasing my first full-length feature film ‘Orphans & Kingdoms’ which I wrote and directed, funded by The New Zealand Film Commission.
As a Playwright my works have been published and have toured nationally and internationally to universal critical and audience acclaim. “In 2014 my Play “Strange Resting Places” was invited in the New Zealand showcase at Edinburgh Festival.

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The Descendants

Yaser Talebi 
Islamic Republic of Iran √
80 min



From the Youtube description:

"Jacob's family worries about Farrokh, the son of the family. Farrokh left Iran to continue his studies but he has not been in touch with them for a long time. Jacob travels to Sweden to look for his son..."

Japanese Garden, Lilies, Birds, And Water

We visited with an old friend we hadn't seen in years.  She recommended the Japanese Garden in Van Nuys as the meeting place. 


Wow, we didn't even know it existed.  It was a great place to walk and talk. 

We know the Japanese Garden in Portland fairly well, having lived close to it when we were in that city for six months.   This one is totally different and interesting in its own way.

Lots of birds.  Like this osprey. 

And lots of lilies in a long flat rectangular lily and lotus pond.





And a wonderful way to catch up on lives. 







Not much time now.  Headed for the airport and Seattle before we get home.  If all goes well, we'll meet our granddaughter's plane in Seattle, which is why we're on such an early flight.  (Well, an 8 o'clock flight doesn't sound so early, it's getting to the airport on time that's the killer.)

So here are some of the pictures.

Lotus

Snowy Egret

There's an American Bittern sitting on the rock

There's also a very big modern building on the grounds that seemed too big and the style too space-agey for a Japanese Garden.  It turns out the garden is really part of a large water reclamation plant which sits directly next door and the building is for that rather than the garden. 


I didn't take any pictures of the building except of the garden through the walkway around the building.


The AAA explains this relationship:

"The Japanese Garden at the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant, 6100 Woodley Ave., is a water-treatment facility highlighted by a 6.5-acre Japanese garden."

It's a stark contrast between the garden and the plant which abut each other. 

And, apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks the building (not the plant, but the building which I didn't take pictures of) is space agey. From a Memory Wikia:

"The location can also be seen in episodes of Knight Rider (1986), Murder, She Wrote (1993), Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (1995), L.A. Heat (1997), Charmed (1999), and Numb3rs (2009) and was featured in the action comedy Dead Heat (1988, starring Joe Piscopo), the crime drama Rising Sun (1993), the science fiction film CyberTracker (1994), the action film Red Sun Rising (1994), the comedy Bio-Dome (1996), the comedy Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), the thriller Most Wanted (1997), the science fiction thriller Terminal Error (2002, with Marina Sirtis and Michael Nouri), and the science fiction film Sci-Fighter (2004). [1]"

Sam Daley-Harris, Citizens Climate Lobby, and Japan Summer Festival

Today's Citizens' Climate Lobby international phone meeting (that the Anchorage group calls into from UAA) featured:

Sam Daley-Harris, Center for Citizen Empowerment and Transformation

How can we maximize the leverage from the media we generate and other actions we take? RESULTS founder and CCL mentor Sam Daley–Harris will join our August call and coach us on best practices to ensure that our actions have the greatest impact with members of Congress. After 15 years with RESULTS, Sam founded the Microcredit Summit Campaign, which he left in 2012 to establish the Center for Citizen Empowerment and Transformation.

As I sit here trying to write, I realize I'm getting blasé about these really good speakers.  They're all so good and the meetings are so efficiently run - the reasons I kept going to meetings - that this has become the expectation.  If the Alaska legislature were 1/3 as efficient and effective, Alaska would be humming with a balanced budget and serious programs for making Alaska a more caring and equitable place.

As we left, they were setting up the Japanese Summer Festival at the Cuddy Center.

The event goes from 12pm to 5pm today and parking's free.  It's on the west end of campus near the Wendy Williamson auditorium.

These two, apparently had their setting up chores done, and were 'going' at it.

There was a table of Ikebana. 















The dining room at the Cuddy has the bazaar.  There was food in various places, music, folks in various kinds of Japanese dress.

And a great sale on Pocky. 


 As I post this, the Japan Day celebration has three and a half hours to go.  And it's a spectacularly beautiful day. 

AIFF 2014: Powerful Alaska Film On Juneau Japanese-Americans And WW II

Imagine the high school newspaper editor's father being arrested by his best friend's father and sent out of state for the crime of being of Japanese.

The Empty Chair in the title of the film refers to a chair on the stage of the 1942 graduating class at Juneau High School.  The valedictorian, John Tanaka, wasn't there.  He'd been relocated with his family to an internment camp after Pearl Harbor was attacked.  John's best friend's dad was the highest ranking military officer in Juneau at the time and was ordered to arrest John's father, and later to round up all the Japanese-American residents and ship them south to an internment camp.

I got to see The Empty Chair Sunday morning - at its world premiere on the  73rd  anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Heres a bit of video I took during the Q&A after the Sunday showing.



This film is a testament to how a dedicated film maker can preserve a small but significant part of history with his camera.  Greg Chaney interviewed Juneau residents who experienced those events.  Japanese-Americans who were kids back then and were sent to camps during the war.  Their white classmates, and a few others alive at the time like Katie Hurley.

Chaney chronicles a small Alaskan town - the film estimates Juneau had about 5000 residents then - where the Japanese residents were well integrated into the community and how some key members of the white community struggled when they were required to deport these citizens to the camps.

The film also takes advantage of vintage film and photos from any number of archives and from some family film that includes footage of playing in the snow on Dec. 7, 1941.

This is a huge contribution to Alaska's history and because it focuses on high school (and younger) kids, it would be a terrific addition to Alaskan history curriculum in high schools throughout the state.

It plays again tonight (Tuesday) at the Alaska Experience Theater at 7pm.

The programming is tight this year, but if you're seeing The Ambassador to Bern at 5:30 at the Bear Tooth, which I also recommend, there will be time enough to get downtown to see The Empty Chair.    It's ok if you're a few minutes late, though you might want to reserve a ticket in advance if you can.

The movie is quite well done, even on the minuscule budget they had.

Should Hirohito Have Been Hanged? The Movie Emperor Addresses That Question

The US occupation lands in the ruins of Tokyo in August 1945.  McArthur wants to make this occupation the model for all occupations.  There's pressure from DC for the Emperor's head, but McArthur believes that would cause the Japanese to revolt and cost countless American lives.  But as the symbol of Japan, stateside politicians want his head.

General Bonner Fellers was given the task of finding evidence that would exonerate the Emperor of supporting the war.  He's given ten days to accomplish this.

There are lots of flashbacks to Bonner and his Japanese girlfriend in college and later in Japan as he pursues his task.

This film didn't feel like a typical Hollywood movie.  It was thoughtful, yet moved right along, weaving the past and present well. (The NY Times reviewer Stephen Holden was less generous about the flashbacks, and while they worked ok for me, his comments about east-west romance do ring true.)  It's tricky when you're discussing an historical movie.  Do you evaluate it as a movie, regardless of its historical accuracy?  Do you focus on its accuracy?  Or do you do one review for each?  Of course, this assumes the reviewer knows the history. My basic qualification is having read William Manchester's biography of McArthur, American Caesar.   In other words, not enough to judge the history,  but things didn't fly out at me as obviously phony as they did in Argo.  And as a film, I liked it a lot. 

The Bonners Fellers website that says it is maintained by his family endorses it this way:

The compelling and meditative film Emperor depicts with fidelity
  Bonner Fellers' character and
the complexities of finding the path toward justice and peace.

The Bonner Fellers website also tells us more about General Fellers.

JAPAN

Bonner Fellers entered Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, in 1914. He became friends with a Japanese exchange student who introduced him to Japanese culture and history, including the writings of Lafcadio Hearn.  He visited Japan 4 times prior to WWII.  In 1934 he wrote an insightful and prescient thesis entitled "The Psychology of the Japanese Soldier."  It foresaw Japanese behavior, including Kamikaze attacks, and suggested strategies to address Japanese militaristic tendencies.
From 1942-1946, Brigadier General Fellers was in the Pacific Theater under General MacArthur.  Along with many other assignments, he led the psychological warfare effort against Japanese forces and the homeland. For this he was awarded a second Distinguished Service Medal.  The citation reads in part, "Through his outstanding professional ability and resourcefulness, General Fellers contributed in a marked degree to Japan's surrender and the initial success of the military occupation."
During the first year of the occupation he was MacArthur's military secretary and Secretary General of the Allied Council for Japan.  Due to his 30 year military experience and interaction with Japan, MacArthur relied on him for advice.
In 1971, Emperor Hirohito conferred on him the Second Order of the Sacred Treasure.

A good film.  

How The US Got Its First Japanese Zero In WW II

Synchronicity - I thought I would use that word to describe how I've been reading Brian Garfield's The Thousand Mile War:  World War II In Alaska And the Aleutians and just recently saw a photo at the Anchorage Museum of an event I had just read about.

But when I looked up synchronicity online, I realized that while it sort of has that meaning, it has a lot more meaning than I really want to imply.  I don't think I want to suggest that these two events - reading about Japanese Zeroes in the Aleutians and finding a picture of a downed Aleutian Zero at the museum - had any special meaning beyond coincidence and the fact that I was especially alert to WWII Japanese Zeroes when I happened to see this picture at the museum.  I might have passed by a similar picture a month ago, not giving it any special notice.  But now that I just read about it, I'm paying more attention.  Like when a couple is pregnant, suddenly they see a lot more pregnant women than they had before.

But, I will take this opportunity to share some Alaska WWII history with you.  The book is full of stories of incredibly far sighted thinking on the part of some - General Simon Bolivar Buckner gets lots of credit for getting Alaska as ready as possible given the inter-service rivalries, the general lack of military resources in the US in general, and the belief by many that Alaska was irrelevant - and equally incredible lack of preparedness as, for example, primitive communications systems that prevented critical information from getting delivered.

Photo of photo at Anchorage Museum

The quote below comes from a description, in The Thousand Mile War, of day two (June 4, 1942) of the Japanese attack on Dutch Harbor.  The weather is horrible.  Buckner has managed to put in a landing strip on Umnak Island and get some planes there to help protect Dutch Harbor.  The Japanese have no idea this air strip or these fighters are there.  The whole Japanese mission to go after Dutch Harbor was to divert US ships and planes to Alaska while the Japanese attack Midway.  US planes fly out into the storm to try to locate and torpedo the Japanese fleet.  (Yes, they have torpedoes, not bombs.)  They find them, but can't hit them.  The Japanese zeroes are far superior planes to the ragtag collection that Buckner's been able to cadge out of the military brass in the Lower 48.

The Japanese have bombed Dutch  for 20 minutes,  hitting a wing of the hospital and setting fire to a warehouse.  750,000 gallons of fuel exploded when they hit four storage tanks.   Garfield writes that because Dutch Harbor knew the Japanese were coming, only eighteen men died.

Heavy antiaircraft flak scored no hits on the wheeling enemy aircraft, but the Japanese did not escape untouched.  The Rube Goldberg radio had failed to get through, but Umnak had been alerted by the noise, and the Japanese choice of the west end of Unalaska Island as a rendezvous point to rally after each attack.  Now eight Japanese planes from Junyo had formed up in plain sight of the Umnak runway - and eight Flying Tiger Warhawks scrambled to meet them.

American fighters corkscrewed through the enemy formations, striated the sky with tracers, and sent one Zero into a spin, surrounded by a white vapor that turned black and erupted before the Zero touched into the water.
Lieutenant John J. Cape, a good-natured boyish twenty-three year-old pilot who loved to drive an old tractor around Umnak, watched a Japanese dive-bomber swell in his gunsight until, at point-blank range, he triggered a burst that hammered the enemy plane into a ball of flame and sent it down in fragments.  Then a snapped warning in his radio headset made him look behind:  he had a Zero on his tail.  He zoomed upward, hung desperately on his propeller, and rolled over on his back in a wild attempt to evade the Zero. 

In 1942, the United States had no fighter capable of outmaneuvering the Japanese Zero.  When Cape righted his P-40 he found the Zero still with him.  The panel instruments blew apart in Cape's face.  Ammunition exploded in his gun racks and fumes rolled through the cockpit.  Engulfed in flame, Cape fell into Umnak Pass, unable to get out of the spinning airplane.

From Navy webpage The Forgotten Theater  (Japan to lower left not on map)

As Cape when down, Lieutenant Winfied E. McIntyre tried to break away from another pursuing Zero.  The Zero's guns knocked out McIntyre's engine and set it afire.  McIntyre put the ship into a screaming dive, trying to blow out the fire;  he could not get the engine restarted, and almost went into a spin before he glided to a crash-landing on the Umnak beach.  He put the burning P-40 down so skillfully that he climbed out of it and walked unaided into camp.

Meanwhile, four of the homeward-bound Zeroes spotted an American PBY flying low on the water.  The PBY's waist-blister gunners raked the sky with tracers that seemed to have no effect on the diving fighters.  But three of the Zeroes broke off and headed away, too low on fuel to stay for the finish.  One stayed behind to finish off the PBY:  Flight Petty Officer Tadayoshi Koga, a slim young man with an abiding hatred for Americans.  Koga blew the plane apart in the air with his guns.  The Catalina splashed into the ocean, but Koga stayed to make sure.  Finally one man (Aviation Machinist's Mate W. H. Rawls) crawled out of the burning wreckage and paddled away in a life raft.  

Rawls, the blister gunner, had put a machine-gun bullet into Koga's plane, though Koga did not know he had been hit.  That one bullet, a third of an inch in diameter, was to bring the Allies a decisive prize of war.  Koga circled the bobbing rubber raft and machine-gunned Rawls to death in the water.

Koga climbed into the soup after that, but at that moment the needle of this oil-pressure gauge dropped to zero.  Convinced his engine was about to pack up, Koga turned toward the nearest land - Akutan Island.  He sent out a voice broadcast to the I-boat submarine which he had been told was standing by to pick up downed pilots.  Coming in over the island, he prepared to make a forced landing on the flats.  

He made the mistake of lowering his landing gear;  his wheels caught in the boggy tundra, snagged and flipped the Zero on its back.  The crash broke Koga's neck.

The alerted Japanese submarine searched the coast by periscope, but could not find Koga's plane.  (The Zero remained undisturbed on the lonely island until a month later, when a U. S. Navy PBY sighted it.  Navy crews were immediately dispatched to collect the prize.

(Aside from a few dents, Koga's Zero was intact.  Its only damage was a single bullet hole, from A/M Rawls' gun, severing the pressure gauge indicator line.  The gauge was broken, but the engine was unharmed.  American crews quickly dismantled the Zero and shipped it back to the States.

(Tadayoshi Kogoa's fighter was the first Zero captured intact by the Allies in World War II.  The apparently trivial loss cost Japan dearly.  American engineers, with this opportunity to fly and study the war's fastest, deadliest and most secret fighter aircraft, would design the Navy's F6F Hellcat around the principles they learned from Koga's Zero;  in less than eighteen months the Hellcat would drive the zero from Pacific skies and insure Allied supremacy of the air.) [pp. 40-42]

Such little things can make such a big difference.  One bullet in the pressure gauge indicator line, because Koga hung around to kill Rawls before flying back.  Koga trying to land, not knowing he could get back to his carrier, and getting his landing gear caught in the brush.

The book was published in 1969.  I'm not exactly what you'd call a war buff, but as you can tell from this quote, the prose moves you right along.  And for Alaskans, the book is full of back stories on familiar names and places. 

"The beacon fires were burning for three months" - Calligraphy at the Japanese Garden, Portland

I asked a woman who turned out to be Judy the extent to which a person should be able to recognize the characters in the calligraphy.  As you can see, the Chinese characters are on the description of the calligraphy.   I tried finding some of the easier characters in the calligraphy, but it was really hard. 

 Judy said that was part of the art of calligraphy.  The art should express the mood what is written.*

But in this one I can actually find some.  If you look at the second row, left column of the Chinese characters in the description, you can see  ⽕  (fire) and ㆔ (three) and ⽉ (moon or month). They are in the middle column of the calligraphy.  Find the ㆔.  The ⽉ is below it.  The ⽕ is up two from it. 

 And you should be able to 'find them' in the English translation.

I can see a violet flower in the image of this character.  (I hope it's the right one.)

Clouds - Christine Schulbach

As I understood it, the calligraphers were guided by Fujii Sensei who led a workshop.  The website of the calligraphy organization - meitokai - has a brief bio:

"Master Calligrapher Yoshiyasu Fujii (b. 1963, Fukuoka, Japan) began calligraphy studies at the age of five, in his childhood home of Saga, Japan. He attended Daito Bunka University and studied under Master Calligrapher Shumpo Akashi, with whom he would continue to study until Akashi’s death in 1995. While studying with Akashi, Fujii studied sumie painting and pursued his interest in the history, not only of Japanese calligraphy, but of Chinese classical calligraphy in addition to all of the traditional calligraphy writing styles. Fujii is the recipient of many honors, including top award at Mainichi Calligraphy Competition, Japan’s oldest, largest, and most prestigious calligraphy competition, in 1990 and 1992. He has served as assistant judge at the Mainichi Calligraphy Competition and is the only calligraphy instructor in the U.S. licensed by the Japanese Ministry of Education."

He talked to us a bit about the exhibit and the calligraphy on the floor which he had done the other day in a demonstration.  He's put some pictures of this exhibit on his website too.

The card with this calligraphy offers a haiku:

"Leaving Japan.  Just as the Persimmons finally ripen.
(A Haiku by Judy's Mother)"

Judy told us that her mother wrote haiku for over 50 years and they have all been published.  Judy is, I believe she said, an artist rather than a calligrapher.  So her calligraphy reflects that artist's eye.





We got there not too long before closing - and watched them take photos before taking down the exhibit.







It seems I got a picture (not sharp enough to post though) of one card, but I seem to have forgotten to get the scroll with it.  It's one of Fujii Sensei's work:

A person can claim to drink the first cup of liquor.  But by the third cup, it's the liquor that swallows the person.  I can't recall who said this to me, but I wrote it on my waist band as a warning.

I thought it a profoundly simple and universal truth.



*A website called Beyond Calligraphy has this on the deeper meaning of calligraphy:

The Art of Far Eastern (mainly Chinese and Japanese) calligraphy is a universe on its own, sewed with passion, soaked in love, painted in stunning beauty, sparked by raw emotions, and secluded under a translucent veil of ancient mystery. We find it as fascinating as the miracle of life itself. Our intention at beyondcalligraphy.com is to reveal and share secrets of this vast world by bringing it straight to your home. 

The art of writing Chinese characters is often misunderstood for many reasons. One is that not many people realise that in calligraphy, kanji (漢字, i.e. Chinese characters) are to be felt long before they are being read. Another is that the word “calligraphy” in western understanding means nothing more than a craft of writing in a beautiful manner, whereas here in the East we refer to it as “way of writing” (Japanese: 書道, shodou) or “laws of writing” (Chinese: 書法, shufa), which is to be understood as a “chosen life path”, a sacred knowledge, far beyond the definition of “art”.

I'm not sure how much Japanese calligraphy I've seen.  Mostly I've seen Chinese work.  For those unfamiliar with Japanese writing, they use a combination of Chinese characters - Kanji - and two phonetic alphabets.  One is for native Japanese words and the other for words borrowed from other languages and scientific terms.  You can learn much more at linguanaut.

Portland's Japanese Garden 1

Drops of water everywhere.  Then inside to warm exhibit hall.  Calligraphy post coming soon.  Portland's Japanese Garden.

Free Snow

Since the city hasn't collected the snow since it started falling every few days at the end of October, I decided to see if anyone else wanted it.  One guy driving by asked it there was free delivery too.  Streets like mine are really getting narrow and there is a lot of creative parking. 




The Anchorage Daily News had a front page story about that sad situation of the side streets and main street sidewalks.  I haven't been able to find confirmation of my belief that we've never had so many days over a long period of time where there was measurable snow.  But the ADN did say there were only six days in December without measurable snow.

Here's our back deck.  I've been clearing this, a little less regularly than the driveway, but it keeps building back up.  This is maybe three days accumulation.

I'm starting to think I need to clear the roof.  I have this wonderful gadget invented by the father of one of my students long ago.  I have to find it in the garage.  I'll try to get a video tape of how it works.  It's ingenious and gets the snow off the roof without having to lift any shovels. 

Photo from Facebook

While we've had a lot of snow, Valdez has had a lot more.  This photo was posted on Facebook as the highway going into Valdez.  But I noticed the cars were on the wrong side of the road.  First I thought maybe there was a road block and they just had cars going in one lane.  But one comment said it was Norway and another comment said it was Japan.

Japan makes more sense because they drive on the left side of the road.  Anyway, we still have a way to go before we're in this condition. [UPDATE 1/9/12 - Commenter Kenrick provides link to other pictures of this road in Japanese mountains.]

NOAA (I think the link takes you to the site, not specifically Jan. 8, 2012) suggests that the US snow cover is pretty low this year.

Automated Model Discussion:
January 8, 2012

Area Covered By Snow:	14.6%
Area Covered Last Month:	37.3%
Snow Depth
Average:	1.4 in
Minimum:	0.0 in
Maximum:	1000.2 in
Std. Dev.:	6.2 in
Snow Water Equivalent
Average:	0.3 in
Minimum:	0.0 in
Maximum:	521.6 in
Std. Dev.:	1.7 in

So any of you in one of those snowless areas who needs some white stuff, it's free, but you have to pick it up yourself.

Taiko Concert - Drumming as a Full Body Sport

Mary, a reader, emailed me about this concert Monday night at West High.

Quite some time ago, we first saw the Kodo Drummers, at West High, I believe. I was totally caught up in the drumming - the incredible precision and strength of the drummers was mesmerizing.

When they came back to Anchorage, we saw and heard them again, this time in the Atwood Auditorium. Still incredible. (See the video I found on YouTube below - thanks Helloeudora)

I don't know how good Monday's groups will be, but I'm certainly going to give it a shot. This totally changed my perception of drumming. Here it is a full body sport.

Taiko Concert Anchorage - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: Taiko Concert Anchorage