153 Illusion

Yesterday, after the damped typhoon had gone, the evening sky was clear and chilly, as if it was the beginning of autumn. I felt like I was back in my childhood, when I woke up one morning to find myself in the cool air, in the change of the seasons.

It's an illusion---or a momentary dream. Summer has just begun.

152 Harry Potter

(I've just seen the last Harry Potter movie and am going to talk about it. So to anyone who wants to see it please keep away from the post not to ruin your entertainment.)

At their reunion the old Dumbledore told Harry that "Words are a source of magic. It would hurt but also can cure."


Words are magic. That's it. There were only words in a book by J.K.R. before this 10-years of exciting creation and world-class marketing success. What else is magical other than this?


But the movie achieves an honor of an overwhelming finale not only with the original magic of storytelling. If I were a kid I would admire the dragon or a thunderbolt-like spell fighting (it would have been more realistic if invisible.)  But this is no more a children's summer movie. Here's the strange calmness. Strange because it describes the fantasy in a way very similar to a documentary film (even with "snake-language" or "guardian of bronze statue").


Calmness, silence and almost a serene state of mind rule the film. It's the eye to witness the ending of 10-years enthusiasm. It has the glimpse of the deep origin of European culture and history. Deepest ever. I dare to say its feeling is not unlike an opera.


But basically this is an adventure of a boy with two best friends. Compared to the classic, mythical adventure in Starwars--- father and son, brother and sister, master and apprentice in a long time ago---it is more complicated and modern. Honestly I couldn't fully understand why Harry conquared his evil enemy and survived. It never be the simple theory of "Hero wins."  Its magic should be modern--- as this was supposed to happen in 1990s England!


Perhapse the most worthy to see is the actors. The cast has lived their 10 years with the series. The sense of finale is real because this is truely a finale for their long time achievement.

151 Electricity

こう何もかも、日常生活も経済活動も楽しみも全て電力の恩恵で成り立っていると痛感する一方でふと思うのは、人そのものは本当は電力を使わないということです。つまり、人が立ったり喋ったり食べたり笑ったりするのに別にコンセントに差しこむ必要はないわけです。人はふつうに栄養と休養を取りさえすれば、数十kgもの身体を好きなように動かし、好きなところに行って、ややこしいことを考えたり語ることができます（人が栄養と休養を取るために、電力を使いまくっていることはさておきますが）。

この素朴すぎる事実に思い当たって、人はいわばバイオエネルギーで活動する生き物であることを思い出します。

電力を使うのも人間なら、作るのも人間です。自転車を漕げばライトが点くくらいの電力は誰にでも作れるのなら、電車待ちやランチタイムや気分転換や暇な時に手足を使って発電できる、持ち運び型発電機を開発してはどうでしょう？

Notice on Poll

I'd like to notice that I withdraw the Poll, as it didn't work so well because of some technical error. Apology for inconvenience. I do appreciate those who joined the poll and yet, now I understand it doesn't matter if I don't know where my readers come from. The thing is that there are readers.

150 Do It Yourself

自分のかばんは自分で持つし、自分の靴は自分で履く。自分の歯は自分で磨くし、自分の友達は自分で見つける。自分の物や身体は自分でどうにかする。

一方、自分で行っているはずなのになぜかそう言われないものといえば、
「癒される」
「元気をもらう」

これは本当は
「癒える」であり、
「元気を出す」であるはず

そう言った方がもっと力強いし、正しい方向だと思います。

149 Reindeer Poll

Now I'd proudly state that I have readers in over 20 nations. I'm proud, honored and really amazed. I'm thankful that so many people might visit here so often, and thankful that they don't complain even if one of my stories is boring.

The statistics shows another interesting fact. The most popular post in this blog is #82 Chill out, a very short, simple note to describe a moment in late summer. To me it's a light snapshot but to my dear readers, somehow this is all-time best. It's like a small documentary film produced within entirely the director's neighborhood had won the Oscar. Do my readers prefer realism?

Maybe I should ask you "What kind of subject you want to read?" or "How many words could you accept in a post?" but I don't need to know so much. I'm just curious about "How did you find here?" and this time I set up a simple poll here and I'd appreciate if you could give answer to it. (Please see right)

Again I'm so grateful to the readers from the world.

148 Ozu

Although I often talk about movie, music, opera and literature, I do not like criticism. Comment, recommendation, impression, or opinions are okay. But criticism sometimes makes me wonder why the speaker could be so confident about understanding the creator's mind and thoughts. If a person could understand other person's mind so well and write it precisely, it would be a record not a criticism, like Dr. Watson writes about Sherlock Holmes.

Unless you're his family or a best friend, you will probably never know an artist. So when I talk about an artwork I try to simply follow my experience and my subjective eyes, not to become a spokesperson of somebody whom I've never met in my life.

Years ago I discovered the world of legendary filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu. The amazing experience to know his masterpieces was like boarding a supersonic transport. But I never found a criticism of Ozu which hit me truely. It's certainly a female and family drama as they say, but I think it's about break-through female and outstanding family living in almost surreal modern world. I can't tell why and I don't care.

People in his movie exchange a charming, sophisticated and catchy dialogue in a very clear, definite and distinct tone that I hardly hear in modern Japanese conversations. I don't know whether it's because of Ozu's unique creation or it's a style of people as they were in good old days. I don't care, I just enjoy it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArHMEzlcOp8&feature=related