dandan.: November 2005 Archives

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November 30, 2005

Dave Gorman Show

This comedian, Dave Gorman, is in Seattle. Wow! Akira and I caught him at an arts festival in Belfast, and he was funny. I wish he had a different show this time, else I'd go see him at The Moore sometime before December 10.

This routine is about "google whacking," meaning you try to come up with two words that when you Google them together you only get one listing back. Try it. You get these random links and stuff.

So he gets in touch with people at the other end of those links. He goes to see them, gets them to come up with two words that do the same trick, and follows that link. In real life. And so on.

The whole thing is set up like a power point presentation. Sound nerdy? It is. If you like that stuff, go see Dave Gorman. Tell me what you think of that "G'day Davo" line.

Date: Thru December 10
Time: Varies by day
Place: Moore Theatre

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Two Lines from Keats

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

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November 29, 2005

Ew!

Today at this cafe I was cornered by a dirty patron.

Late afternoon, short spell of sun. Decide to venture out for a breath of fresh air. But freshness was the opposite of what I was about to encounter. I shall keep the name of the establishment anonymous, as the following was by no means the fault of the locale.

Here goes. I'm sitting at this table and have just opened Remains of the Day to the beginning of a chapter on Dorset. I'm trying to focus on what makes a "great butler" when this balding old dude plops down at the next table. He's wearing sweats and is alarmingly close, already offending my space.

Then he takes liberties.

He reaches down to his right leg and pulls up the sweatpant -- cuff? --, exposing a white, scabby leg and disgusting white socks. Clearly, neither have been washed in weeks. I start to choke on my drink.

Then he lifts his leg onto the table and proceeds to scratch the scabs! He does this slowly and deliberately, knowing anyone whose peripheral vision isn't damaged will have no choice but to see. There are other people nearby. We shoot each other looks.

As nausea sets in, I place my bookmark and gather my coffee, bag, coat, scarf, gloves and hat. I desperately need to move out of eyeshot. This means sharing a table with someone else, as the place is unusually crowded, but doing so is very well worth it.

Posted by Dipika at 5:27 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 28, 2005

Engineers

Official business brought me to Seattle University today. Out of curiosity, I roamed the engineering school's halls. This pic is from one of the upper floors, just outside a room labeled Math Lab. In there, a few people tackled math problems in different sections of the room. Quite suddenly, a young lad zipped in, apologizing profusely for what he perceived to be delay. "Do you need help?" he asked. "I'm a tutor."

"Ah, no. I'll just be going now." Crossing the campus lawn, I found this:

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November 27, 2005

First and Pike

"I know! And then, she served wine. I don't drink it. My brother doesn't drink it. For Christmas dinner, I think we'll just have us."

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November 26, 2005

Parisian Scene

Akira and I are in a cafe in Paris, the kind with slim wicker chairs shoved together, their backs a line of arcs. Two café au laits appear and Akira removes his gloves. It's nearly Christmas and even small places like these are decorated lush. Outside, the air is white.

In a corner, a group of well-dressed people hold long cigarettes. Jewels dance under umbrellas of light. "Reminds me of that time," I say to Akira, "we watched snowflakes flutter into the light of street lamps."

"Mmm," he returns.

We halve a crossaint and watch a woman bustle about, smudging makeup on half a dozen of the women’s lily faces. Chairs and skirts rustle. A tripod on wheels appears. A camera.

I was reminded of this scene the other day, when I happened upon a film crew working a corner of Seattle's downtown. The mood was much different.

Perhaps it was the novelty of being in Europe, but the powdery feel of the French scene consumed one's senses much more fully. More drama over there. Or was there? Maybe we've simply lived long enough that chance encounters like these no longer engage us. I wonder which it is, and which it isn't.

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November 25, 2005

Yuki's Show: "Lost Colors"

An artist friend of ours, Yuki Omaki, makes his Seattle debut soon with a series of oil paintings at Aoki Japanese Restaurant.

Yuki was a chef for years at this popular spot for Capitol Hill sushi lovers. Earier this summer, the self-taught artist turned his focus to painting full time, though he's handled a brush since moving to Seattle 12 years ago.

Yuki says the need to feel open space inspired his art career. "I was living in a basement apartment without a window," he explains. "I wanted to paint something of a far away place, to look at as my window to the world outside."

He's done several pieces on commission, and his vivid paintings have also been sold to local art lovers. His works range from colorful abstracts ("all out of my imagination") to evocative landscapes with an impressionistic bent.

The December 5 show will feature Yuki's most recent works as well as a few of his favorites from his earlier commissions.

The show comes at an important juncture of his career. In January, the artist plans to relocate to Prague, Czech Republic.

"I've never been to Europe," he says, "but European art has always been my inspiration. It will be awesome to be surrounded by the works of the greats, and paint my own impressions of what they saw."

There'll be a cash bar and Yuki will also make samples of complimentary sushi.

Here's where Yuki's setting up a web site.

Date: Monday, December 5
Time: 6pm - 10pm
Place: Aoki Japanese Restaurant | 621 East Broadway, Seattle, WA 98102

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November 23, 2005

Veggie Roast?

So tomorrow is Thanksgiving. [For our friends abroad, this is a big-deal holiday here in the States. The idea is you roast and stuff a big turkey and generally eat a ton. Kind of gross, but there you have it. [Bonus tidbit: if you're from Michigan, you put off family time specifically to catch (American) football. The Detroit Lions' official site says except during WWII, they've played on the day every year since 1934.]]

But there's one group of people that won't make turkeys. Vegetarians. One of them, a friend of ours, says she's making "tofurky roast."

I'm curious, so I ask Google about this. Google, obviously created by carnivores, shoots me this:

"Did you mean: turkey roast"?

I assure G that I'm quite clear of my query, then click to a commercial site, Tofurky.com.

What I learn there is this. Aside from water and beans, a roast of tofurky contains calcium lactate from beets, "vital" wheat gluten, "natural vegetarian flavor," and organic tofu made with two kinds of chlorides: magnesium and calcium.

I wonder, do you serve mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce with that? Personally, I'd go for a side of palak paneer.

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November 22, 2005

Five More of D's Favorite Cafes

Top Pot (downtown). For when your little brother or sister is in town.

Cafe Vita. For the carrot cake.

Uptown Espresso. For even better carrot cake.

Joe Bar. For the staff.

Panama Hotel Tea House. For the chamomile tea and wicker chairs and feeling of being in a Yasujiro Ozu flick.

Other ones

Posted by Dipika at 10:52 AM | Comments (2)

November 20, 2005

Dictionary

Today we played The Dictionary Game with friends visiting our part of town.

How it works is one person picks a word randomly from the dictionary (the more obscure the better), and everyone else makes up a definition and writes it down. They turn these bits of paper in to the person who picked the word, who calls them out along with the correct definition. Then players take turns guessing which meaning is right.

Points are assigned as follows.

Players get two (2) points for guessing correctly
Players get one (1) point if other players choose their fake definition
Reader gets two (2) points if no one guesses correctly

So here are the words we learned today. You can find out what they mean on the next page...

siderite
Laomedon
interrobang
nappe
tin lizzie
mizzle
sternutation
flapdoodle

siderite n. 1. An impure, yellowish-brown iron carbonate mineral. 2. An iron meteorite -- sider-itic adj.

Laomedon n. Gk. Myth. The founder and king of Troy and father of Priam. [Lat. < Gk. Laokoon.]

interrobang also interrabang n. A punctuation mark used esp. to end a simultaneous question and explanation. [interro(gation point) + bang, (printers' slang) exclamation point.]

nappe n. 1. A sheet of water flowing over a dam or similar structure. 2. Geol. a. A recumbent anticline or fold of strata. b. A mass of rock moved from its original position by an anticline. 3. Math Either of the two parts into which a cone is divided by the vertex. [Fr., sheet < OFr., tablecloth < Lat. mappa. napkin.]

tin lizzie n. Slang. A dilapidated or cheap car. [< Lizzie, a nickname for Elizabeth.]

mizzle intr. v. Chiefly Brit. To make a sudden departure. [Orig. unknown.]

sternutation n. The act of sneezing. 2. A sneeze. [Lat. freq. of to sneeze.]

flapdoodle n. Slang. Foolish talk; nonsense. [Orig. unknown.]

Posted by Dipika at 10:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 17, 2005

Leaving Soon

8.39 PM The snow is fresh and all my bags are packed. Well, they're mostly boxes. Thirteen packages. In a little while, the bus driver will tell me that's way too many for the overnight ride to Tokyo. But I'll grin like a dumb gaijin and he'll wave me along so he doesn't have to make sentences in English.

10.20 PM Yoshi and Junko show up to say goodbye. Their hugs are staccato but I know they're sincere. I wonder if I'll miss them. They showed me curry shops and jazz bars and took me to Metro, a nightclub by the subway and the river. Four years later I'll bump into Junko at a San Francisco career fair for bilinguals, both of us in navy suits.

12.20 AM I pull aside the beige pleated curtain and watch wooden gates and clipped trees slip by. This time I'm not looking through my camera's viewframe, but a sterile rectangle of window. No one is in the seat next to me. I put in a J-pop mix tape. Beyond the reflection of my face, old houses segue into grass plots and glass storefronts. Out here, Kyoto's streets are even more quiet than last night's snowfall.

6.04 AM I retrieve a shawl from one of my boxes. This takes some time, as none of the packages are labeled. But I have time. I wish I could fall asleep here, right here among my worldly possessions. These amount to a couple of clothes and a bunch of notebooks. There aren't very many people at the station, but I know skyscrapers are nearby. Kyoto is far. Already, my mind is empty of her. In a half-hour, Akira will come 'round with his mom's car.

dandan.

world according to d+a. bit by bit.