Feast for the eys

Here's some photos from Sakuran. I didn't think much of the film, but the costumes, colours and girls are a feast for the eyes.




Uhhhhh... now back to Piers Plowman. (yes, I am at the library)

Envy of snails

Snails carry their shells where ever they go, like a mobile house. I am going to be homeless come October in Oxford if I don't find a place.

We found a nice place with the coolest sounding landlord (climber, designer of disabilities friendly software, maker of soap, promoter of pressure group against over packaging), out in the country side surrounded by green space. It's also 11 miles out of town. I like the idea of cycling 22 miles a day, it sounds pleasantly hardcore. But the truth is there's a lot of rain here in Britain, and hardcore though it may be, I can forget about wearing anything fashionable, ever - and get used to go around soggy and wet all the time.

Hm.

There's several other options I'm going to have a look at on Wednesday. The price of everything gets me down though. So does the idea that unless we find the right place, Toph won't be able to move down to Oxford with me. We've already been apart for so long - and things are so good with us right now in Edinburgh. I loathe to think of not having him around to do the cooking, composting, bike fixing, laundry - er, I mean, to wake up to in the morning. Of course living apart may be more economical and productive for both of us... but...

I don't really want to go to Oxford - I don't mean the university, but the town. I'm a bit tired of moving around. Anders reckons that 3-4 years is a long time in one place, but I think for me that's the min. amount of time it takes to get comfortable. So I've had 4 year in Edinburgh, 1 in Taiwan, and now another in Oxford. I'm beginning to look forward to settling somewhere and having a good reason to buy home furnishings.

Speaking of settling down, I had a rather funny experience with Cathy, Toph's sister. We were talking about knitting and I said something about how I can't wait to get started on baby things, since my aunt is expecting and several others I know have wee bairns. She asked me if that was all and whether I had more news - I got a bit confused. Then she asked me outright if I was pregnant. I had to laugh. I'm a belt and braces girl, if you know what I mean. I'd like to think that accidents of that sort doesn't happen to people like me. Best piece of advice: be careful if you can't be good!

And I can't.

Frocks on the blog and what it indicates.

If I post pictures of frocks here, it's because I'm working, and I want to have a break. There's something about pretty pictures of pretty clothes that makes it seem alright for me to sit and read more of Piers Plowman. Same goes for pictures of Audrey Hepburn, which makes bad things ok, and ok things good.

I love the rich raspberry colour of the empire waist dress from Necessity is the Mother (and I love the name of the shop!). I do have reservations about the fit though - my bust is what would be described in Chinese as "airport like" - think runways. Hm. Still, nothing to stop me from looking at it and feeling like the world is that much better for having beautiful things in it.

The same goes for the pinafore dress from Victorian Bird. I am very taken with alot of their designs - and their prices are really very very reasonable. Not being a wasp shaped girl, I've always found higher waistlines flattering to my figure (ditto for the raspberry dress). I'm not sure what it is about the pinafore design - but I love it. In fact, this photo of it I've got totally doesn't do it justice. Please do visit Victorian Bird and look at some of their other things to fully appreciate the simplicity and perfect balance (strange, I know - but that's how I'd describe it) of their cuts.

Sometimes I wonder whether I really do want to go and do this M.St. degree. I do love medieval literature - but there is a part of me that really would like to think about nothing but frocks all day. Will I ever gather enough courage to abandon the safety of esoteric intellectual pursuits...?

For now, though, Piers Plowman bloody well ain't gonna read itself.

Gluttony

5.297: Now bigynneth Gloton for togoto shrifte,
5.298: And kaireth hym to kirkewarde his coupe to shewe.
5.299: Ac Beton the Brewestere bad hym good morwe
5.300: And asked of hym with that, whiderward he wolde.
5.301: "To holy chirche,' quod he, "for to here masse,
5.302: And sithen I wole be shryven, and synne na moore.'
5.303: " I have good ale, gossib,' quod she, " Gloton, woltow assaye?'
5.304: " Hastow,' quod he, "any hote spices?'
5.305: "I have pepir and pione,' quod she, "and a pound of garleek,
5.306: A ferthyngworth of fenel seed for fastynge dayes.
5.307: Thanne goth Gloton in, and grete othes after.

from Piers Plowman.

Temptations returned

Just because I am in Edinburgh and living a more ecologically conscientious lifestyle doesn't mean I am far from temptation. Thanks to the good internet I can work more efficiently and slack with likewise efficiency.

I am supposedly reading and taking notes on Piers Plowman (a lot of rats and mice appear around line 146 of the Prologue. Random or what?). But I take breaks to look at blogs, and to take note of beautiful things which I covet. Though it is technically slacking, I find that it increases my over all productivity because it allows me to return to the text with, er, greater degree of concentration... yes. (not thinking of frocks, I assure you).

Still - things, things, things. Here I am reading a text which has definite spiritual aims and I am thinking of frocks. Particularly this one, from My Favorite Vintage. I mean, look at the flat neckline - I think that would be quite flattering on someone like me, who has broad shoulders. Also, the detailing on the back of the neckline, in green velvet, is really, really nice. Usually I am not much for yellow, or for this kind of 50s print and cut - but I'm willing to make an exception.

So who wants to buy me a dress? Go on, it's not even the most expensive one in the shop.

There are things that money can't buy...

People sometimes ask me whether I enjoy living in Taipei or Edinburgh more. It is of course a slightly unfair comparison, since I have far more friends in Edinburgh, having lived here for 4 years of my adult life, and only 1 in Taipei. Either way I have worked out a simple formula to explain what the major difference is between Edinburgh and Taipei, at least for me.

In Edinburgh, the good points are the things which money can't buy: good air quality, good amount of green space, good healthy life style, etc. For everything that one has to spend money on, Edinburgh is not so great. Expensive, and you'd never really get too much bang for your buck.

In Taipei, the good point is that I always feel like I'm getting my money's worth. Because I was working, I could afford to eat out, take taxis, buy a stupid amount of shoes and clothes, and have fresh flowers at home when I feel like it. The real difference is not that I am employed in Taipei a student in Edinburgh, but the fact that one simplest gets a bigger bang for one's buck in Taipei - things are cheap closer to the manufacturing heartland of the world, I guess.

However, in Taipei, those things which I consider to be public property, such as good air or green space, are horrendously thin on the ground (comparatively). This is frustrating as it's not something I can do anything about as an individual - and moreover, not something I can simply buy.

Of course there are some things which don't stand up to much comparison. In Edinburgh people piss all over the fucking town. Yes, I mean that. If you walk around town and detect a foul odour of piss, it's not cats - it's the drunks. But then again, this town has charity shops, which are always worth a good rummage and can turn up some cheap & cheerful surprise bargains.

Over all though, considering my consumption tendencies, my conscience rests easier in Edinburgh. I get my food from the East Coast Organics farm delivered to me in the form of an ecobox once a week (highly recommended if you live within delivery range). I buy the rest from independent organic shops such as The New Leaf and Real Foods (expensive, but comprehensive). I cycle or walk absolutely everywhere (the number of times I have been in a car in Edinburgh can almost be counted on one hand - if you happen to be a mutant with 20 odd fingers on one hand). But most importantly, I don't consume a huge amount of new, mass produced, environment destroying goods. Instead, most of my material desires are satisfied by way of vintage shops or charity shops - all second hand.

So yeah, it's nice to be back here where I feel like the natural lifestyle I adopt brings me closer to being the person I want to be. Where I am not continually and sorely tempted by cheap mass produce consumer goods, and not likely to consume too much processed foods or fast snacks which are high in sodium and MSG.

But... I do miss the temptations.

Back in Action

It's August in Edinburgh and things feel like they've not moved in 4 years.

Case and point(s):

1. The freaks are back on the street, and still working the same lines, chillin in the same places, and shootin the same shit.
2. I am back at my usual spot of the Edinburgh University Library, using my same old account (which should have by now, a year after my graduation, expired), and working on the same old thing.
3. Still waking up next to Toph in the same bed.
4. Jamie is still working at Alien Rock.
   

The grass is lush and green, the tents up are in the George Square Gardens, and the Royal Mile takes about an hour to walk down. Undoubtedly chippie prices will have risen accordingly. There are some things which don't change, and to tell the truth, I don't mind at all.

Things which have changed:

1. What the hell is this monstrosity in the middle of the meadows? Who needs a fucking "artisan" bakery? What do they sell? Limited edition signed loaves? Why have so many Starbucks sprung up like fungus after spring rain? How many lattes can one city really consume?
2. Why have the old shops I could afford to shop at gone out of business to be replaced by "artisan" bakeries? I hear people talking about how bad the economy is - but that obviously only affects selected individuals!
3. Barney no longer works at Alien Rock. The place will never be the same. I can't even do 6A+ comfortably on a slab any more. The shame! The shame!
4. There are a lot of unfamiliar faces on the swing scene - and they are using the horror of all horrors, Facebook.

Some pictures will help to contextualize everything... but that must wait till after I have done some work (yes, I come to the library, and the first thing I do is update my blog).

From "Anansi Boys" by Neil Gaiman

It took me a while to track this one down, because I couldn't find a pirated edition on line (full text), so I had to pull out my paper copy and find the quotation by memory. Luckily my memory for useless passages of text seems quite alright - so here it is, the bit I was reminded of by listening to Bob Marley...

Spider began to sing. It was "Under the Boardwalk."
It wouldn't have happened if Fat Charlie had not liked the song so much. When Fat Charlie was thirteen he had believed that "Under the Boardwalk" was the greatest song in the world (by the time he was a jaded and world weary fourteen-year-old, it had become Bob Marley's "No Woman No Cry")...

Crazily long trek to the paper mill

Just before Toph left we went to the Guan Shin Paper Mill (廣興紙寮) in Nantou (南投). At the time I had wanted to buy a pig mask, and due to various cock ups, didn't end up getting it. Luckily Steve became interested in a trip out there after seeing my handmade paper - so we headed out today (in the middle of a typhoon which is devastating the more mountainous regions in Nantou).

The paper industry in Puli, Nantou, has been in existence since the late Chin dynasty. Apparently the water quality of Puli (埔里) city makes the area suitable for paper making, as water with a high concentration of iron turns out bad quality paper. Once paper mills dominated the region. Now there is only 10 (which still sounds numerous to me), and Guan Shin is the only one which specializes in handmade papers. The mill offers a guided tour by one of their guides - the majority of them seem to be female, and they all look a little harassed and slightly jaded about the whole arrangement. I guess that's what happens when you do 20 guided tours a day to people who flood in from all over.

After the tour I made my second bit of paper. It was easy this time around. I embossed it with a goat. The last time I did one of flowers. Handmade paper from the mill is exceptionally strong and flexible, because it has super long fibres which are arranged in irregular patterns during the hand-making process. This makes them very suitable for embossing.

This is how the paper making process goes:

1. Raw material (bark of various trees, bamboo, and also husks of water bamboo (筊白筍), which is actually the stem of Manchurian wild rice, after being infected with the smut fungus Ustilago esculenta) is cooked and steamed and bleached and pulped. This process is not open to the public.
2. The pulp, mixed with water, is scooped from a pool into a wooden tray with a bamboo sheet (like the type you roll sushi with, but finer grained) stretched across, like a flat sieve.
3. The water drains and the fibres form a wet piece of paper, which is then peeled off, and laid on top of one another with a piece of string to separate one sheet from another, forming a curious block which looks a bit like soggy tofu. The artisans at the factory do this on a large scale, with giant frames that produce big pieces of paper. We paying customers do them on a tenth of the scale.
4. The paper is pressed to dry. An industrial size block of paper-tofu needs to drip dry over night before pressing for 6-8 hours on a hefty looking big press. We got ours pressed in a matter of 5 minutes on small presses (which nevertheless required some muscle power to turn).
   
5. The paper is laid out onto baking tables heated by steam, and brushed with pine needle brushes to get rid of air bubbles - the side which comes in contact with the table is smooth, and the other side rough. Laying out small sheets of paper is easy as pie - but the ladies who do the "baking," as it were, at the factory, have a knack of picking up individual sheets of wet paper with a wooden stick, waving them in the air like a flag, and laying them flat out on the baking tables. Neat trick!Then we were given an opportunity to do embossed printing on our own bits of handmade paper. There were numerous clay tablets (well worn with ink) on tables. Each tablet has a different design, some are modern (cartoon characters), and others are traditional Chinese symbols.

To emboss:

1. The paper is laid directly onto the carved clay tablet, and wetted through with a spray bottle.
2. A second piece of thin, machine made paper is laid over top.
3. Both sheets get the hell beaten out of them by a big brush.
4. Replace the top sheet of machine paper with another one, and repeat, until moisture has been absorbed out of the handmade sheet of paper.
5. Ink is then applied with rag blobs.

This is my embossed flowers from my first visit. This time round I embossed a picture of a goat, and also got my pig mask, which was my main objective for going down there in the first place (the girls in the gift shop thought I was crazy to truck all the way down to buy a mask). Of course I also caved when I saw these paper woven pork-pie hats which were just absolutely perfect for me - waterproof too, and only NT$420 (less than a tenner!).

For more photos, check out my newly acquired Flickr account.

Distance, and the effects thereof

I've long since harboured the suspicion that us being together makes me less productive. I guess I've not gotten good enough at finding my own head space when you are around. Case and point: today you left to head back home, and it's 12:41 A.M. I've looked at all the frivolous things in my feed reader, which is nothing unusual even when we are together, but I've also read much of the serious things in my reader, and listened to 2 1/2 BBC podcasts, knitted loads, done the dishes, and booked granny a doctor's appointment for Friday.

Now I am adding an entry to the blog as a testament to the fact that head space is necessary to productivity. Next I must learn how to create the "I am alone and therefore can do whatever I need to do without diverting my attention elsewhere even when wholly unsolicited" frame of mind when you are around.

But I miss you! (even though it doesn't sound like it)

The exponential rate of days...

When there's a date in your diary everything seems to move towards it at an exponential rate. For a while it's ages away, then it's quite soon, then suddenly it's 3 days away etc.

Topher goes home on Wednesday and I will be following shortly thereafter. Vacation called off early due to torrential thunderstorms. Beach plans drenched before they were formed. The benefit is that we've had time to pack (always something to be squeezed in at the last minute, such as, er, the act of packing itself), and to shop around a bit for completely non-essential items.

One of these items is vintage photographs from the most wonderful antiques/used books/coffee & tea shop in Taipei. It lives in the lane just behind Longshan Temple (龍山寺). It's the kind of thing that travellers go to the continent in search of - a shop with character, piled from floor to ceiling with dusty treasures and surprises for the unsuspecting. Stairs up to the top floor carries a warning for patrons to step lightly, as the building is in slight danger of crumbling from the weight of its antiquated wares. Right now the entire upper floor is closed, having finally reached its storage capacity.

Asides from picking up a few old porcelain bowls with hand painted geometric designs in blue and white, I couldn't pass up on these vintage photographs, even though buying them (and looking at them) has been a rather curious experience. They seem rather personal, especially the one of the little girl holding the baby (she's thinking: "don't drop the baby don't drop the baby don't drop the baby").

Here's a picture of me standing outside the shop.

p.s. if anyone on the blogger development team is reading this: can you make a better WYSIWYG editor for posting? It's extremely difficult to put pictures in, not being able to change the size or the alignment without going into the edit html mode. Would just be so much easier if it was built into the regular composition side... thanks!

Unemployed and itinerant

After bidding a fond farewell to the Taipei Times, I'm now on the road with Topher, dwadling in various tourist sites in Taiwan and generally coming to grips with the fact that my year in Taiwan has almost come to an end, and there is still so much to do. Not fun stuff either - mostly packing and applying for visas etc (more on that later, you'll enjoy it).

Half the time when I'm out traveling I'm actually slightly stressed. Partly because I'm the one to arrange everything (Toph doesn't speak Chinese), and also because I'm not in the habit of going off traveling before everything I need to do is done and dusted. Usually I'm super organized and get things done well ahead of time (I finished all my uni essays a day before the deadline).

So, I guess Toph is rubbing off on me. I'm getting much more messy and last minute. I know for a fact that when we live together I'll have to have a separate work area (so he can't foul mine up with his monkey mess, and I won't keep tidying away his relaxed clutter).

Maybe it's not entirely fair that I blame the physical and non-physical disorganization of my life in general on him? I can't help but think that when two people start living together, things do tend to get a bit messy (and more than a bit different for each person), at least in the first little while.

In any case, we'll have plenty of time to work it all out. Right now we are in Alishan (阿里山), enjoying the 14 degree weather while the rest of Taiwan roasts away at 38 degrees. The humidity and pollution of big cities here makes one sweaty and sticky in a matter of seconds. I tend to picture myself walking down the street, coated in syrupy chocolate as gusts of hot wind brings almond and peanut bits which stick to me all over - that's what walking in humid, polluted air feels like (though less yummy).

So yeah, it's nice to be 2200 meters above sea level, enjoying the fine air, and, er, drinking coffee at Asia's highest Starbucks. Normally we're not Starbucks folk. I have no particular feelings about Starbucks either way, not being a coffee drinker nor rabidly opposed to corporate chains. I do object to the homogenization of coffee shops - but I have to admit that it has practical advantages (standard of service, cleanliness etc). I mean, small places almost always have "character," though that in itself does not guarantee that those "characteristics" are positive. In any case, Starbucks in Taiwan is a bit of a god-send, since it's the only place where Toph can get soy latte. While good coffee places abound in Taiwan, most places (especially the more old school spots, such as 蜂大), look at me like I'm out of my tree when I ask them to make Toph a latte with soy milk. For me, more important than soy milk in my coffee, is the fact that Starbucks is always impeccably clean - and their toilets are always the sit-down type! Squat loos are something that I'm afraid I'll never be able to get-used to. I grew up with them, and would be entirely content to leave them in the pages of my past... but alas, they are really quite standard in countries such as Taiwan and Japan.

I would keep a running update of our travels - but sometimes time is better spent away from the computer screen. Though my new Eee PC makes it easy for me to keep up with web life on the go, I'll still wait till I'm home for serious blogging.

Why marijuana growers should publish in scientific journals...

I came across the article "Can Weeds Help Solve the Climate Crisis?" through the Alabama Studio Style blog...

Ziska, a lanky, sandy-haired weed ecologist with the Agriculture Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, matches a dry sense of humor with tired eyes. The humor is essential to Ziska’s exploration of what global climate change could do to mankind’s relationship with weeds; there are many days, he confesses, when his goal becomes nothing more than not ending up in a fetal position beneath his battleship gray, government-issue desk. Yet he speaks of weeds with admiration as well as apprehension, and even with hope.

It is easy to share the admiration and apprehension when you consider the site that Ziska planted with weeds in downtown Baltimore in the spring of 2002. Tucked in next to the city’s inner harbor, the site is part of a barren expanse of turf rolled out over a reclaimed industrial landscape. This unfertile scrap seems an unlikely choice for growing anything, but Ziska saw in it, ominously perhaps, a model of where the global habitat as a whole is headed.

“Ingenuity,” Ziska says, “may be the mother of invention, but poverty is definitely the father.” For some time, he had wanted to create in a laboratory setting the elevated temperatures and increased concentrations of atmospheric CO2 predicted for the mid-21st century by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading international scientific authority on the subject. Carbon dioxide has received a lot of attention as a greenhouse gas, a major cause of global warming. But it is also, along with water, light and nutrients, one of the four essential resources for plant growth. The effect that boosting this gas’s concentration in the atmosphere will have on plants is very poorly understood...

The article goes on to discuss the impact of CO2 on weeds, the obsolescence of Darwin's theory of "natural selection," how human intervention have changed the ecology of the planet in ways hitherto unexpected (by me, at least), and why marijuana growers should publish their findings in scientific journals. I recommend it as an informative, topical, and well written read. Enjoy.

p.s. you may have noticed that my links on the right side-bar are gone. That's because a Spanish blog template ATE my widgets. I plan to update the look of the page in a day or 2 (yeah right), so I will leave it until my page is pretty - then I will put them back up.

Fucked it up again.

Boohoo! I lost the contents of my widgets (again). Twelve hours after my first attempt at changing templates, we are back to less than where we started. Grr. Something tells me that this should be tackled tomorrow, perhaps over a nice cup of oolong tea. Hm.

Mucking around with blog layouts at work... and the dangers thereof

So I find some templates on line and go, "unoriginal, but pretty!" - and decide to upload it for fun. Now it's gotten rid of my widgets (fuck). Also it's coming on 6 pm and my body clock drives me toward food at this particular time, so I can't fix thing now. I've put the old template back, but it's not returned everything to how they were. I can't say that I wasn't forewarned though... it did tell me it was going to delete my widgets. But I didn't realize that my template was in Spanish.... hahahaha. I don't even speak Spanish.

This will require further attention when I get back from my dinner break - what will it be tonight? I feel like the Chinese noodle joint that I've been neglecting for so long. I used to be a regular. I wonder if they'll remember me.