Today I happened to encounter an amiable couple, a guy and a girl. They were searching for the way to the famous tourist's spot. I told the way and because it was a bit complex route for a stranger, I offered to go partway with them. I asked the guy where they were from. He answered they were from London. And he asked me how about myself. I don't think I looked like a visitor but somehow he mistook me as a stranger, which amused and pleased me. It makes me rather happy to think I'm still a stranger here who doesn't and will not belong to the city no matter how long I've been living in here. Because I'm proud of having been raised in a northern countryside and I appreciate the fact that I can call it my hometown.
The guy knew about my hometown and he said it was beautiful place. I agreed with him with much delight and I told him it had started snowfall and he told me that London was chilly and having snow also.
Yesterday I happened to know that my big brother had been on business trip to our hometown for couple of days. Yesterday was his birthday and I'm sure he must have seen the snow falling just like the old days.
Happy birthday to you, my bro!
What's interesting about Halloween is it's something you have to create. If you want to be in a part of the feast you will need to act, be active enough to dress up as scary creatures or knock the neighbors to ask for a treats. It's interesting because Christmas is not like this. In Christmas we don't have to do anything but look around the town filled with holiday songs, reindeers in the sky and Father Christmas on the chimney, around beautifully decorated Christmas trees and tons of presents and cards.
As far as I feel Halloween fever is not so overwhelming and encompassing. Yet Halloween is unique in a way it requires imagination and fun-loving mind, and stirs human's classic pleasure of letting ourselves be transformed into something far away from daily lives.
不世出の美しい女優として記憶に残るGrace Kellyのモナコ公妃としての姿を（おそらくは大いに）フィクションを交えて描いた作品が"Grace of Monaco"です。映画の評価自体は賛否両論のようですが、伝記映画の醍醐味はどこまでが真実かそうでないか、似ているか似ていないかの議論ではなく、その人が生きた世界の中で発揮されたその才能と魅力、人間性を辿り、それに共感し、影響を受け、インスパイアされるという疑似体験ができる点にあります。
時代も国籍も遠く離れた過去の人間に後世の人間がこれほどまでに惹かれるのは、失われた宝を惜しむ気持ちではないでしょう。我々は先達の知恵やウィットや勇気や美や言葉や力を知り、それを学び、讃え、感謝し、そして彼らの遺産を借りてさらに人間性を磨く課題を与えられているようなものです。確かに脚本はディズニー映画のハッピーエンドのように行儀が良すぎるかもしれませんが、それこそがGrace Kellyというテーマなのです。実在の人間にインスパイアされたフィクションは伝記映画ではないかもしれませんが、それだけ後世の想像力を掻き立ててやまない圧倒的な存在感を持った女性を思い出させるという点で十分に観る価値があります。
I make it a rule not to write anything too much personal here. Because to me this is not a blog nor a diary but a journal, no matter how many readers I have, or even nobody notice it, each and every post here is a journal which I try to address my words to the world. Writing personal things itself is alright --- but it will be only for the writer's sake. I try to amuse people with words.
But anyhow, sometimes I make it less disciplined to follow a desire to use here for my own chronicle.
Year 2014 is about to finish its job and soon will leave it to the successor. My 2014 has been a rocky year next to 2013. They have closely linked stories within each other and like "book 1 and book 2" of a series. In 2015 I will try to take up my pen to write a new chronicle.
I like to wear hats and caps. I like winter knit cap and summer panama. Lately I tend to wear a blue newsboy cap made of wool, or smoky black cotton hunting cap. It's all about whether they go well with me or not, regardless of its color or material actually.
Somehow I had never bought a baseball cap. Simply I don't play baseball but everyone knows that baseball cap is a signature of a style, or sometimes a certain organization. It's not strange to see them outside of the ballpark. I don't think of other sports-oriented outfit that establishes itself so familiar and widely accepted as the baseball cap. You would probably imagine when you look at them; your favorite baseball star (if you're a baseball fan), a father and son, holiday, driver, ball game, training camp, or street culture.
Well I got one on the other day. It happened to be a basketball team cap, not a baseball team, but it doesn't matter much. This classic, well-made style icon attracted me a lot shortly. First of all it's warmer than I thought. It fits comfortably enough. And it gives me a lively feeling of myself belonging to some of the most eminent professional sports teams, or being one of the street dancers. That's cool, and it's brought just by wearing a cap.
毎年秋は金木犀が香り、強い芳香が嗅覚に染み渡り、その場を離れてもいつまでも匂いがするくらいですが、以前はこの甘い強い香りがあまり好きではありませんでした。しかし昨年は嗅覚を一時的に傷め、特に甘い香りは感覚がなかなか戻らない状態でした。去年の秋はこの香りを感じとることができなかったのです。それが今年は、金木犀が惜しみなくまき散らす香りを楽しめるようになりました。苦手だった香りが今では楽しめるものとなったのです（とはいえ、香りの種類で言えば同じモクセイ科でもライラックの方がよほど好きなのですが）。
Every autumn we have orange fragrant olives which smell sweet and catch your nose to the extent that the fragrance remains event after you left from the tree. I used to have a bit trouble with this strong sweetness. But last year I had accidentally lost my sense of smell for a while and couldn't even feel this smell in autumn. This year on the contrary, I am enjoying the scent that the orange flower gives us as generously as possible. The one that used to make me frown turned to be one of my delights. Nonetheless I'd rather care for the scent of lilac which is in the same Oleaceae.
A friend of mine and I were talking about dogs, and about the delight to know the life with dogs or cats which human are allowed to have as a best friend. I said I had never lived with animals except for goldfishes in a tank, and my friend gave me an ambitious suggestion that one day I should have a horse.
Have you ever thought about having a horse? I'm sure almost no one did and won't. Horse is and has been such a close, great animal in human history but not at all familiar with us in modern life. The dynamics and beauty of running horse has ever attracting people in thousands of pictures, movies and races. Nevertheless they are not seen walking with its owner around the city park, nor resting peacefully in a zoo.
I've never thought of actually having a horse, but always imagined in my childhood. In reading A.T. Seton's wild life stories I always identified myself with cowboys, naturalists and frontiersmen. As a grown-up, it still excites me to imagine what my life should look like if it is with a buddy horse.
"Notting Hill"や"Love Actually"などのヒットで知られるRichard Curtis監督の引退作、"About Time"は味わい深く、温かく、洒落の効いた作品です。映画を撮るのは最後と決めた物語であるからなのか、これまでの作品のように練られた台詞や音楽やナンセンスなギャグが効いたコメディの使い方の巧みさもさることながら、映画としての洗練度よりもよりパーソナルな感情に深く切り込み訴えかける力を感じました。
日常のうっかりトラブルやちょっとしたアクシデントを何度でもやり直せてしまうという便利なタイムトラベル能力を持つ主人公。歴史を変えるような力はなく、タイムトラベルにつきもののパラレルワールドの困難もなく、その能力に課せられた条件はよくよく考えると辻褄が合わなかったり、同じ力を持つ父親との時間の概念を超えた対話にもいささか煙に巻かれてしまう感もあるのですが、それもこれも含めて一つの寓話として大いに楽しめる作品です。誰もが感じている仕事や雑事に追われる忙しい人生を、この映画を見た後には少しゆったり構えて大海原を渡るひとつの道程のように見直すことができるのですが、人生というやや哲学的なテーマを大げさに押し付けることもなく、タイムトラベルの非凡な設定を使いながらもそのシンプルな意図を淡々と伝えようとする意欲作と言えるでしょう。
全粒穀物、つまり精製しない穀物はビタミンやミネラルに富み、丸ごと食べる方が健康に良く美味しいことは周知の通りですが、いわば食事を先祖帰りさせるようなもので、ではなぜ人間はわざわざ精製した穀物を長い時間をかけて開発してきたのだろうかと思わざるを得ません。見た目の良さ、食べやすさ、加工のしやすさなどが挙げられるでしょうが、おそらくその開発の過程には「不純物を取り除き、ピュアな成分を取り出そう」という純粋なる探究心が働いていたことでしょう。"Refine"という言葉に示される通り、食物に磨きをかけ、洗練させることを意図したわけで、何も不健康な食事方法を作り出そうというつもりではなかった筈です。ところが穀物においては精製して得られた方ではなく、取り除かれた部分こそが実はその本質的価値を持っていたというアイロニーだったわけです。洗練が良いのか天然のままが良いのかという二者択一を全てに当てはめる必要はもちろんありませんが、穀物に限らず、もしかすると洗練という目的で取り除かれ、削ぎ落とされる部分に何か貴重な価値が存在しているのではないかと、時々見直してみるのも面白いでしょう。
It is widely known that whole gains, unrefined grains are rich in vitamins and minerals so well work for health. If the diet is in a sense a reversal to that of the ancestors' age, then why human had been taking the trouble to develop the refined ("unhealthy") grains for the long time? Because refined food is better in appearance, easier to eat, digest and to be processed, and most of all, because human had been in pure pursuit of removing worthless materials and obtaining pure ingredients. "Refining" was supposed to purify, polish, and perfect our food, not to create something unhealthy. But the irony in the case of grains is what had been removed was in reality its essential value, and the polished part wasn't. It's no use of arguing if the refined or natural is better in every aspects of our life, but sometimes it might be insightful to wonder if something removed in the process of refinery could have in fact greater potential for invaluable essence.
