The Place For My Writers Notes

original posting 14 Feb 2011

[apropos of nothing... but funny!]

One of the Sunday evening TV shows included what I guess would be called a Mythbuster's type bit. Apparently somewhere -- manga or anime? -- there's this notion that someone can paint some kind of glue on a baseball bat, so that when the batter goes to hit the ball... it sticks. So the batter swings, and then has a ball stuck on his bat. In this little bit, they had someone try to find out whether this was possible.

The investigator went to 3Bond, apparently a leading glue manufacturer, and posed the question to their research lab. They hemmed and hawed, showing off various kinds of glue that they produce, and finallly decided that the best candidate was a pressure-sensitive glue. This is what is used in roach-traps, flypaper, and similar applications.

As a lead-up to the baseball bat and ball, they painted a soccer ball with this glue, and let the investigator try to kick a goal with it. He took two steps, kicked... and nearly fell down, as the ball stuck to his foot. So far, so good.

Next, they got a professional baseball player, and let the 3Bond folks prepare the bat. It had a fairly thick layer of glue on it, like a layer of plastic wrapped around the head of the bat, but the player grinned and took a swing. And the ball flew across the park. They checked, and there was a clear impact mark in the middle of the glue, but it hadn't caught the ball.

The 3Bond man asked the ball player to try again, with a second bat. This one had an even thicker layer of glue. The player swung it a couple of times, and then took a pitch. And whacked the ball across the field again.

Finally, they handed the ball player a bat with glue... well, it was probably an inch thick all over the end of the bat. The player tried swinging it, and shook his head at the weight, but tried. And while he didn't manage to whack the ball as far -- it was more like an in-field pop fly -- the ball didn't end up stuck to the bat.

So, the conclusion. No. As far as they could tell, putting glue on the bat is not going to result in a stuck ball. Even if the glue is so thick that any batter would immediately notice it.

Although I suppose you could get the batter's hands glued to the bat?

Original posting 23 Dec 2009

This morning's news program had a retrospective -- what were the big stories here in Japan from this last year? The actress who got arrested for drug use, various people getting married, this and that -- this seemed to be the actors and actresses scandals and human interest more than what I would've called news stories, but the interesting thing was the retrospective. What happened this year?

They're starting a little early, but I expect to see quite a few of these kinds of summaries of the last year and maybe a few predictions for the new year over the next week. The New Year's celebrations seem to bring out this kind of reflections on the last year, even though in fact you could declare a year at any point and look back 12 months. In any case, you might want to think about what were your stories this year? What happened in your life?

These are the kinds of things that you tell your brother or your sister when you meet them over the holidays. Someone that you haven't seen in a while. Doesn't have to be five or 10, could be less, could be more. But what are the high points and maybe low points that you remember? There might even be a story or two that you don't want to tell anyone, but you still want to look at it in your own private reflections. That's OK too.

It's a good time to think about what the last year has meant to you. You can stretch it to the last decade, or even longer if you want to -- sometimes I like to look back at my life history and think about the steps that led to today.

And then take a few minutes and look ahead. Maybe not New Year's resolutions, but at least setting your own expectations about what you would like to do in the coming year. Think about what it might take to build up to that -- if you want to do nanowrimo in November, maybe you want to do some planning and thinking ahead of time? Or there is that great opportunity to stretch out under the willow tree by the riverside and soak up some sun this summer -- it doesn't take as much preparation. Or maybe there are some people that you'd like to reach out to this year and see what happens?

In any case, enjoy the holidays. It's a good time for reflection, even if you are busy with travel and television specials and all that stuff.

Original posting 14 Dec 2009

The other day there was a TV bit about a juku -- the intensive schools that many Japanese children attend. This particular one focuses on first to third year elementary school students, and apparently has been shown to have a reasonably effective program. Interestingly, the organizer of the school explained that they really only teach two things. Or maybe three, given their approach. The first one is reading, and the second one is writing. He said that he feels the focus on communication skills translates into other fields, such as mathematics.

The third one is kind of subtle. Each session at the school is 90 minutes long, and during that time the students are only doing one thing. For example, during the reading session, the students read for 90 minutes. They do nothing else but read. Sit and read. According to the organizer, he thinks that many students need to learn to focus on doing one thing for a period of time. TV and other influences teach distraction -- this class teaches focus.

The writing sessions are also 90 minutes of writing. However, they did indicate that there are several exercises that the students can choose between for their writing practice. If I understood correctly, once you start one, you do that for ninety minutes, but they do have several different ones. And... that's where I picked up something that sounded worthwhile for our list.

See, one of the exercises that they do is to take one of the books of comics -- four panel comics? -- and write it out. Describe the setting, characters, action and dialogue in the first panel, and then do the same for the second panel, and so on. If you finish one four-panel chunk, move on to the next. And...

It's kind of interesting because comics don't actually show action, they just imply it. But they certainly do show setting, and converting that into writing is good exercise in description. Deciding what the action really is, figuring out how to make the punchline punch... I think it's a good exercise.

So, go ahead and laugh. Then write!

(psst. http://www.thewebcomiclist.com/ says they have 14,900 comics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webcomic also provides links
or you can ask your friends what they like... huh, there's even comics in the bookstores in those funny little paper things...)

Original Posting 20 November 2008

If I'm not sure if I can get this across in text. But it should be fun trying.

The Japanese public television sometimes has some very interesting pieces. This particular one started with a little introduction to the art done by a woman. These are fairly large prints -- the early ones in simple black and white, apparently large woodblock prints. Some of her later work involves additional colors -- one that caught my eye had some brown in fairly large areas, along with at least two shades of green providing leaves for a tree. Almost all of the work includes strong architectural settings.

Then they ran through a little bit of her biography. If I understood correctly, she was born in Taiwan to Japanese parents. Then she lived in Japan for a while, and also had spent some time living in America.

And in the part of the show that really caught my attention, she was visiting Taiwan. A middle-aged woman, well-dressed, with a camera. She did seem to have colorful scarves as part of her outfit. But mostly she seemed almost cool, looking through her glasses at the buildings and other points of interest in Taiwan, stopping to take a picture of a plaza, or getting up on a balcony to take pictures of roofs with colorful dragons at their edges. No smile, seemingly a plastic observer.

Then she met an old friend in a plaza. He invited her to his studio. In this large open space, he had several works under way around the edges. She looked at one or two, without much evident interest. Then he laughed and got out a plywood sheet -- 4 x 8? He laid it on the floor, red side up, and sat down on the floor with it. He got out a small gouge and started carving. Suddenly she was on her knees, smiling, eyes intense, fingers almost twitching, clearly inspired. He took a piece of chalk and scribbled on one part of the work in progress, then grabbed a magic marker and scribbled over that -- and started gouging pieces of that section out. She was watching intently.

That moment of transformation -- when the cool observer suddenly became the involved artist -- was the part of the show that I certainly enjoyed.

They also got out his unfinished piece -- a scroll about a meter wide, and I'm not sure how long, that he's apparently been adding things to for 20 years. A chinese clown face on a baby torso, a looming architectural arch, and other bits and pieces. I gather he has no particular intention of trying to finish it or tie it together into some sort of a finished piece, but the pastiche or hodgepodge felt like there is an underlying unity, a theme of growth and excitement despite that. Almost as if history -- as experienced by an individual person -- was captured on that scroll.

But that's another story.

Maybe the key to this piece is in the kind of art that she does. After all, the sheet of wood with its red coating, carved and chipped and cut, is somewhat cool and reserved. Then coat it with a little ink or paint, and press it into the paper -- and when you lift it up, there's a fresh new picture, shining, unique, just created in that moment of contact between the stiff wood and the soft paper. That's almost the feeling I got, watching the well-dressed photographer suddenly transform into an intense presence at the side of the artist carving on his board.

Fun!

Original posting 24 October 2007

I know it's anthropomorphizing, but . . .

The lunchtime news station had a little piece about some place up in Hokkaido. On a river, well inland from the shore.

So imagine you're a fish. Some kind of salmon, I think. And you've swum this far up the river. And there's a stupid flood control dam there, just high enough that the fish can't jump over it.

But you found the wooden collection space where they are trapping the fish. You've joined the horde flipping away in there. There were enough fish that it looked like you could walk on the water.

And now they put a large net on a frame into the space and use poles to drive the fish into the net. Haul the net up full of fish and dump it into a triangular space with a jet of water pumping into it. Flippety, flip, flip.

And you find the pipe that exits this space, along with some others, and dive into it. Long dark pipe that leads . . .

Across the dam, over the waters, and dumps you . . . onto a wooden deck, slippery with water.

And here is the indignity. While you are madly wriggling and trying to get further up river on this silly deck that they stuck in your way, one of several men stomps over in his plastic boots and looks down at you, then bats you to his left or right, depending on whether you are a male or female. He's got this wooden rake, and shoves you along. Another helper gives you a boost with his rake, and plop. You fall off the deck into a holding cage full of your sex mates. But . . .

Wasn't the whole point of this swimming up the river thing to find someone of the other kind? How you gonna finish the business if you get stuck in this cage?

I gather that they are "farmed" fish, and that in fact there is a careful program of replenishment. But wow! For the fish, it must be quite a come-down. Here you are, overcoming freshwater, swimming away upstream despite all the odds, ready to go out and reproduce for old Mother Nature, and bam! You get stuck in this series of tanks and pipes and people shoving you around with rakes. What a discouraging turn of events!

Makes you want to tell the next generation to try another river or something, eh?

originally posted 4 March 2007

Aha!

Here in Japan, one of the news stations did a report this morning on a puzzling set of thefts.

Apparently in a fairly small area, someone has made off with such oddities as stainless steel trays and fittings from a cemetery, a stack of aluminum hubcaps from a tire store, more aluminum from a recycling center, stainless steel posts from a park, and more aluminum and stainless steel. They may also have been responsible for the disappearance of one large temple bell (probably bronze). Oh, and there was a 550 Kilo (that's about 1,000 pounds!) spool of cable.

What apparently is causing the police and the reporters to scratch their heads is that most of this is not worth stealing. After all, a stack of junk aluminum in a recycling place - where you have to pull down the gate and then lift it into a truck somehow - isn't exactly the most salable article. They showed the junk yard owner scratching his head and saying "I think it must be someone else in the same business, but I don't know anyone in the area who would do this?"

One theory seems to be that the stuff has been hijacked onto a ship and taken to China. The notion here is that perhaps these goods are worth more there, so stealing it here in Japan and shipping it might make sense. Of course, I think they could just buy it and ship it. I'll bet that junk yard owner would be more than happy to sell you all you want cheap.

So, here's your assignment. Let's take the list as including the temple bell, aluminum odds and ends, stainless steel, and cable. Who would steal such an eclectic set of stuff in the middle of the night? Feel free to make your own list, but here's a beginning:

1. the crashlanded alien trying to fix his/her ship
2. goblins bent on confusing the issue
3. kids - although that spool of cable would have been a bear to get out? And where would you keep the stuff?
4. The Weird Scientist, now retired, who is building a ??? in his garage
5. It's a coincidence - these are totally unrelated thefts, with the only connecting link being the imagination of the police and reporters
6. Super mechanical monster # 9, who is valiantly trying to repair the damage inflicted during his last fight?

Okay, so have fun with it. Figure out someone or something that could be making these odd thefts, then tell us their story. Pathos, a bit of melodrama, and fun!