GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

Category: Notes

  • Nevada State College Cafe

    I was about half an hour early to a meeting so I ended up grabbing a coffee at the campus cafe and surveyed the setting.

    It was good to contemplate the users of my building. I needed to descend from the fog of bureaucracy and see the young women and men who will be using this building.

    The people in that shop will be graduated by the time my building opens up, but the next round of future teachers of Clark County will be following right behind them.

    And not long after, my daughter and then my son will be following behind them.

    My two little ones are closer in age to these young folks than I am.

    How time has flown.

  • Whispers at the park

    The Clark County park system has program where one can purchase a memorial plaque at a tree.

    My girl has always been intrigued with these plaques, and she likes having them read out to her.

    To her it’s all so abstract, but when I get something near 1979, my eyes open up.

    They are reminders that life is short, and it runs quick.

    Go make the most of this time, it’s what we got. Nothing more is promised.

  • Graham Oakley

    I’ve always been a big fan of Graham Oakley’s cheeky Church Mice Series. The illustrations are great, and the stories are really fun. My sister and I loved reading his books at the library.

    But they are out of print and you can’t find any copies at the library. Though oddly enough, they do have some taiwanese translations that reformatted his books to a portrait format.

    It’s a sad tale of what can be discarded with the ebbs and flow of fashion. Or reframed more optimistically, a tale of what the internet enables — a couple clicks of a button and I’ve got a copy headed home.

  • Frisbee

    One of the local parks has a frisbee golf course so we brought one with us this latest visit.

    First, I most likely could use “better” frisbees. I remember the game store in Berkeley having a whole wall of different frisbees for aficionados of this hobby.

    Second, I have no idea if it made me any better, but I was constantly reminded of what I learned in Tai Chi. I tried to root my self in the ground and let the body relax, whipping around to initiate a wobbly sad flight trajectory.

    Third, my almost 40 year old body was pretty compliant while on site. But it only took the ride home for my left arm to decide that this sudden uptick in this particular repetitive action was traumatic enough to send alarm bells for the rest of the day.

    Finally, my daughter had a ball running up and down the hills chasing the frisbee and throwing it around.

    My last two decades in a nutshell, encapsulated in a plastic disc.

  • Studio Ghibli

    A straightforward ranking.

    • Top tier
    Whisper of the Heart
    Pom Poko
    My Neighbors the Yamadas

    • Almost top tier
    Spirited Away
    Only Yesterday

    • Really good
    My Neighbor Totoro
    Kiki’s Delivery Service
    Grave of the Fireflies (should be near the top by its heavy)

    • Quite good
    Porco Rosso

    • Good
    Princess Mononoke
    Howl’s Moving Castle

    • Maybe good?
    Castle in the Sky
    Arrietty
    Naussica

    • Decent but too long
    Ponyo
    Tale of Princess Kaguya

    • Doubtful quality
    The Wind Rises
    The Cat Returns

    • Definitely not good
    When Marnie was Here
    From up on Poppy Hill

    • Bad
    Tales of Earthsea

  • Specials and Secret Menus

    I’m a fan of the animal burger at In-N-Out, but that is the exception that proves the rule.

    What really matters is getting the main menu squared away. Make sure each item is a blockbuster (or get it off the menu). Do it again tomorrow. And the day after that.

    Once you’ve got that set, then you can play with these one-off items, or if you want to be cute, go ahead and add something on to the secret menu that is actually a main menu item, just unwritten.

    But let’s be honest, how many of us actually got the main menu down?

  • Twitter (for Nevada)

    Like most people in my demographic I haven’t figured out how to quit Facebook, though I won’t shed a tear for its demise. However, right now it has become my best spot for friends news, national opinion, and random art (since I refuse to go to IG).

    I also have this blog which has become a repository of all my deep thoughts. Privacy? Aww, lets just make it 100% public!

    So where does Twitter come in? In one of my better decisions early in this young year, I decided to completely overhaul my feed to be focused on the State of Nevada, in part due to my new gig and the legislature session happening up north.

    I’ve kept two national figures on my feed – Bomani Jones and Atul Gawande – but otherwise it is all Nevada and local reporters, politicians, opinion makers, and government agencies. Anyone that is consistantly national with their perspective gets booted off the list (I’ll find out bout the most recent outrages in Washington DC via the Nevada Senators and House Reps).

    It has been really nice to differentiate between my Facebook and Twitter feeds for their own own specific use-cases, and so far, twitter has functioned really well as a “local newspaper”. We’ll see how long this lasts, but so far, it’s definitely worth a shot if you have a languishing twitter account.

  • After the Rain, Takashi Koizumi, 1999

    I just watched After the Rain, a film written by Kurosawa but directed after his death by one of his proteges. It is really quite good, even if it is not a “classic”.

    My favorite aspect of this film is the domesticity of the story. This is not an epic, it’s a simple drama that happens to have a swordsman in it. Everyone is dwarfed by the forest the story is set in. Beyond that, I think this review most likely sums up my thoughts the best, the key quote being:

    In playing Ihei [the main character], Terao avoids the inevitable comparisons to [Toshiro] Mifune by approaching the role from the opposite direction. Whereas Mifune’s samurai were often traditional tachiyaku (“manly warrior” types) for whom affairs of the heart were out of the question, Ihei is a New Age ideal: dedicated to his profession, while being sincerely devoted to his long-suffering wife. Terao, a pop-musician-turned-actor who appeared in Kurosawa’s “Ran,” “Yume” and “Madadayo,” is not as comfortable with a sword as Kurosawa’s previous generation of samurai (he had reportedly never handled one before taking the part) but he brings a deadpan panache to his fight scenes.

    Also, he is not embarrassed about or contemptuous of the idea of heroism. Instead, in his own low-key way, he embraces it. While not dominating the screen like Mifune, he brings a quiet authority and likeability to his role. Given an impossible assignment — reviving a vanished heroic type — he does a better job than expected.

    “Cinematic storm ends with light rain”, by MARK SCHILLING

  • This Present Moment, Gary Snyder, 2015

    Recently, I connected with a former professor and he mentioned the poetry of Gary Snyder, so I trundled off to the library and picked up the one book of his work that they have in the Clark County system.

    I’ve never been much of a poetry guy, but I have subscribed to the excellent American Life in Poetry email newsletter for a few years now.

    I can see why he is such an acclaimed poet. The writing was so sharp, that it just sliced through the clutter of my mind. I could only read a couple poems at a time before doing something else.

    I suspect it’s poking and prodding into the dark recesses of my brain that doesn’t want to be illuminated. I suspect that’s a reason I really need to keep reading.

  • CNY ads, Petronas, 1997-present

    Petronas, a Malaysian energy company, has been banging out a tearjerker for Chinese New Years video ad every year for the past two decades.

    At this point, my mental clock knows to look up their youtube channel around this time every year.

    I just burnt half an hour rewatching their catalog. Not every one is excellent, but they got a damn good hit rate.

    Perfection is impossible but trying hard to meet your promise is always achievable.

    People respect consistent effort. Showing up is its own virtue.