6.3 billion (+2)
Happy to say that there is a new bike in my life. well, actually kind of an old bike, but new to me. for the very fair price of 2000 yen I secured myself longish term rental from the nice lady at Nonoyama bike shop. it is a Bridgestone brand, tricked out with basket, and model name: “Colmo Roadman.” Getting on the springy seat, you can feel the power of the eight-speed gears that make the name so right on for this remarkable example of Road Vehicle. it’s got a mustard yellow bell on the right handlebar which is great, ‘cause the brakes don’t work as well as, well, they could.
Unfortunately, the internet doesn’t have much information on it, aside from one brief exchange between “weedman” and “luker” on bikeforum.com:
luker
never see one like it - looks like a pretty decent randonneur. Are the wheels 650b?Supercolmo? Man, the Japanese came up with some startling attempts at Euro-sounding trade names. I have an Araya with a "Compy" saddle...
...
Jung-Shih, a Taiwanese student also here for some Japanese study, rented a bike from the same shop. Eager, we decided to check out Okazaki Castle and the park of its environs on our new rides. it was a beautiful Saturday for such a thing.
Utmost in civility, livability, and right-on-ness: community gardens spread like squash tendrils across the banks of the river on one side,
while some decent playgrounds, 30 years on now, hold firm on the other.
There is nothing "spectacular "about this town, which may in fact be its greatest asset. 30 minutes off the World Expo is happening, making the neighboring city a Big Deal. big deal indeed. look instead to the Small Deal that packs a punch.
(pretty industrial, though on a small scale. Japanese classes are in a building that itself is a reclaimed metal smelting warehouse).
……..
Being somewhere else all together means doing something else all together, even like watching the occasional TV. Last night on NHK there was a show on the world birth rate. Apparently geared towards to the 10-13 year old crowd, it discussed what national birth rates were, how they were calculated, and how Japan at 1.29 children per woman is on the low end of global things in the population growth game. and it was a game, actually and in part, that the two kids helping MC the show guessed on:
(can you even imagine such a program even being conceived in the states? you completely can’t. This is not the kind of stuff that helps kids go koo koo of Coco-Puffs; it is a advertiser’s nightmare)
huh.
it appears to be a 'timely' show, given the the recent government reports. Of course, the relationship between the government's promotion fo births, the pensioner population, and womens' reproductive rights in Japan is not a nice story at all (while the Pill is finally legal, it's not likely playing much of a role in the particular case of 1.29).
Overshooting by about 0.7, maybe the kids' guesses where thrown off by other demographic considerations news-worthy of late?
Yes, the current world population is estimated to be 6.3 billion people. but what about the big rumour about the two Japanese soldiers holed up on a mountainside in the Phillipines, the ones that the Japanese government is now frantically working to officially contact and confirm? the last census missed them, I bet. Two soldiers that, it should be added, have supposedly been holding out since the conclusion of world war II 60 years ago.
The two in question seem less keen on media coverage spotlight. but then if you could avoid the war, are those who sent you to it (80% of there particular army division perished), wouldn’t you continue to wait it out? Real myth turned urban myth (?) turned absurd, it is all still pretty unclear...
the last Japanese soldier they found like this (i.e. in the Phillipine jungle) in 1974, one Lt. Onoda, didn’t know the war had ended. Onoda refused to surrender till his former commanding officer was flown to him in the jungle to tell him the war was over, like for real. I guess being that kind stickler for confirmation must have made him quite the intelligence officer in his day.
<><>>>>
Of course, When I heard the 1.29 figure for Japan’s birth rate, I also couldn’t believe it. Just looking around the South City Park here in Okazaki this past Sunday, one gets the impression that the Kids are winning. they were in droves, wall to wall and tree to stream, it was completely out of hand. Fun was being had by the short-set like it was disappearing with the sunset (and indeed, the kiddie train that weaves through the greener parts of the park was scheduled to steam-down just around then.)
Cute Animals, or rather representations of there of, are everywhere. So it shouldn’t come to any real surprise that the WC next to the panda-shaped train has a like-minded mural:
However I want to ask: just what the hell is going on here?
I could stare at this mural for a couple days and I think be not a hair closer to cracking the egg on the riddle of this one. Suggestions? The car is upset, this much is clear. because the mouse just flew out the back window with steering wheel in hand, perhaps? the bear is also freaked out, maybe by the mouse, and because the car is completely NOT paying attention to the fact that they are about to hit a pig. the pig who is oblivious (and I suspect constitutionally non-plussed) and waving to me. making me realize -but my god, what is my part in this scenario?
I shout out to the pig before remembering that Never will always be soon enough in a case like this. these wacky animals, they don’t need to know any better. Frozen in this nut-o pose, the accident will never completely happen. but then I guess it is also always happening? to envy or despair the life of imaginary creatures, it’s hard to know. and where is the WC? it's all almost enough to make you forget when nature is calling.
Nature is calling. but where is it? apparently hanging out with Daily Living:
this store says simply “nature and daily living” in Japanese on the left; and on the right the name of the store in English: Hell-Bent. peeking in you find all sorts of crazy and beautiful wood furniture that is unaffordable, but uniquely designed and crafted. If not a chair though, at least I can buy the sentiment. life and nature are hell bent if nothing else, damn straight they are. and one can only try to be as hell bent about it as possible.
…
Even after the extensive bike excursion of the day before with Jung-shih and “Roadman”, and this day added, the kind of geographic sense of things that gives me the wherewithal to keep my right straight from my left (or was is it left from right...? ) still eluded. Following that adage which popped into my head 2 seconds before - “When in doubt, look higher about” - I decided to end the day by taking a spin on the local(creaky, old) Ferris wheel to get another perspective on things.
Building upon building to the horizons. and 6.3 billion and counting.
I think I can even make out the two alleged holdouts, some thousands of miles south on that Phillipine mountainside, in their late 80’s, and content enough. But really, after 60 years, you (or even the thought of you), should remain a secret safe. What does the world want with the two of you anyway? I suspect nothing that hasn’t already kept them away all this time for half a century and more. my intuition: stay on the panda-train. or the Phillipine jungle (or don’t). Either way, it's all pretty Hell-Bent, baby.
_Hell_ _Bent_
-----
ps.
Jo-san: wish you were here, like two years past.
No worries, though, I'm eating plenty of 'ten-don' in yer honor.
Unfortunately, the internet doesn’t have much information on it, aside from one brief exchange between “weedman” and “luker” on bikeforum.com:
luker
never see one like it - looks like a pretty decent randonneur. Are the wheels 650b?Supercolmo? Man, the Japanese came up with some startling attempts at Euro-sounding trade names. I have an Araya with a "Compy" saddle...
...
Jung-Shih, a Taiwanese student also here for some Japanese study, rented a bike from the same shop. Eager, we decided to check out Okazaki Castle and the park of its environs on our new rides. it was a beautiful Saturday for such a thing.
Utmost in civility, livability, and right-on-ness: community gardens spread like squash tendrils across the banks of the river on one side,
while some decent playgrounds, 30 years on now, hold firm on the other.
There is nothing "spectacular "about this town, which may in fact be its greatest asset. 30 minutes off the World Expo is happening, making the neighboring city a Big Deal. big deal indeed. look instead to the Small Deal that packs a punch.
(pretty industrial, though on a small scale. Japanese classes are in a building that itself is a reclaimed metal smelting warehouse).
……..
Being somewhere else all together means doing something else all together, even like watching the occasional TV. Last night on NHK there was a show on the world birth rate. Apparently geared towards to the 10-13 year old crowd, it discussed what national birth rates were, how they were calculated, and how Japan at 1.29 children per woman is on the low end of global things in the population growth game. and it was a game, actually and in part, that the two kids helping MC the show guessed on:
(can you even imagine such a program even being conceived in the states? you completely can’t. This is not the kind of stuff that helps kids go koo koo of Coco-Puffs; it is a advertiser’s nightmare)
huh.
it appears to be a 'timely' show, given the the recent government reports. Of course, the relationship between the government's promotion fo births, the pensioner population, and womens' reproductive rights in Japan is not a nice story at all (while the Pill is finally legal, it's not likely playing much of a role in the particular case of 1.29).
Overshooting by about 0.7, maybe the kids' guesses where thrown off by other demographic considerations news-worthy of late?
Yes, the current world population is estimated to be 6.3 billion people. but what about the big rumour about the two Japanese soldiers holed up on a mountainside in the Phillipines, the ones that the Japanese government is now frantically working to officially contact and confirm? the last census missed them, I bet. Two soldiers that, it should be added, have supposedly been holding out since the conclusion of world war II 60 years ago.
The two in question seem less keen on media coverage spotlight. but then if you could avoid the war, are those who sent you to it (80% of there particular army division perished), wouldn’t you continue to wait it out? Real myth turned urban myth (?) turned absurd, it is all still pretty unclear...
the last Japanese soldier they found like this (i.e. in the Phillipine jungle) in 1974, one Lt. Onoda, didn’t know the war had ended. Onoda refused to surrender till his former commanding officer was flown to him in the jungle to tell him the war was over, like for real. I guess being that kind stickler for confirmation must have made him quite the intelligence officer in his day.
<><>>>>
Of course, When I heard the 1.29 figure for Japan’s birth rate, I also couldn’t believe it. Just looking around the South City Park here in Okazaki this past Sunday, one gets the impression that the Kids are winning. they were in droves, wall to wall and tree to stream, it was completely out of hand. Fun was being had by the short-set like it was disappearing with the sunset (and indeed, the kiddie train that weaves through the greener parts of the park was scheduled to steam-down just around then.)
Cute Animals, or rather representations of there of, are everywhere. So it shouldn’t come to any real surprise that the WC next to the panda-shaped train has a like-minded mural:
However I want to ask: just what the hell is going on here?
I could stare at this mural for a couple days and I think be not a hair closer to cracking the egg on the riddle of this one. Suggestions? The car is upset, this much is clear. because the mouse just flew out the back window with steering wheel in hand, perhaps? the bear is also freaked out, maybe by the mouse, and because the car is completely NOT paying attention to the fact that they are about to hit a pig. the pig who is oblivious (and I suspect constitutionally non-plussed) and waving to me. making me realize -but my god, what is my part in this scenario?
I shout out to the pig before remembering that Never will always be soon enough in a case like this. these wacky animals, they don’t need to know any better. Frozen in this nut-o pose, the accident will never completely happen. but then I guess it is also always happening? to envy or despair the life of imaginary creatures, it’s hard to know. and where is the WC? it's all almost enough to make you forget when nature is calling.
Nature is calling. but where is it? apparently hanging out with Daily Living:
this store says simply “nature and daily living” in Japanese on the left; and on the right the name of the store in English: Hell-Bent. peeking in you find all sorts of crazy and beautiful wood furniture that is unaffordable, but uniquely designed and crafted. If not a chair though, at least I can buy the sentiment. life and nature are hell bent if nothing else, damn straight they are. and one can only try to be as hell bent about it as possible.
…
Even after the extensive bike excursion of the day before with Jung-shih and “Roadman”, and this day added, the kind of geographic sense of things that gives me the wherewithal to keep my right straight from my left (or was is it left from right...? ) still eluded. Following that adage which popped into my head 2 seconds before - “When in doubt, look higher about” - I decided to end the day by taking a spin on the local(creaky, old) Ferris wheel to get another perspective on things.
Building upon building to the horizons. and 6.3 billion and counting.
I think I can even make out the two alleged holdouts, some thousands of miles south on that Phillipine mountainside, in their late 80’s, and content enough. But really, after 60 years, you (or even the thought of you), should remain a secret safe. What does the world want with the two of you anyway? I suspect nothing that hasn’t already kept them away all this time for half a century and more. my intuition: stay on the panda-train. or the Phillipine jungle (or don’t). Either way, it's all pretty Hell-Bent, baby.
_Hell_ _Bent_
-----
ps.
Jo-san: wish you were here, like two years past.
No worries, though, I'm eating plenty of 'ten-don' in yer honor.
posted by andrew s.yang at Thursday, June 02, 2005
1 Comments:
Hey J.
Unfortunately, I can't take credit for the "heaven bowl"; it was some store brought goods...
I hope things begin look up Brooklyn end as summer progresses...proposals, peoples, and the like.
I got an email from the field from someone I know who is a biological anthro. grad student. Talk about having a hard time! Hell Bent for real. I guess we can at least take comfort in not having to deal with "poisonous trees" or "giant spears" with our work? damn.
“Why, you ask, didn’t I just start working at the site I had spent so much time setting up this summer? Because the wife of the man
who owns the area was demanding more money than all of my grants combined as compensation. Then I discovered that the sap from the poisonous tree that I touched last year was still in the field clothes I had left here, so after the survey I got a new case of rangkas and had to track down more medication and burn all of my forest clothes. Then C--- suggested that I take the ultralight to do some surveys by air of the other side of the river to find potential sites. Although most people here are afraid to go in it, I went ahead and did 3 days of survey work by air. Then someone tried to steal the ultralight one night and we weren’t allowed to sleep while C---‘s security people went out in the forest with machetes, a gun, and a giant spear, but then everyone seemed to forget about the problem.“ -M.B.
Post a Comment
<< Home