. Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 15:21:27 -0800 (PST) From: { brad brace } <bbrace@xxxxxxxxxx> Reply-To: Net-Gold@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Newsgroups: alt.nettime Subject: [Net-Gold] Hello from Hateruma Island (Japan); eighth excerpt very spicy pot this morning: chilis, rice, miso, leafy greens, dashi, dried-shrimp, seaweed, sesame seeds, rice-wine, soya sauce; scattered showers... (e-go hon: english books?)... PMT... did an abbreviated loop around the SMP as it was very humid: returned to deliver the rent, then noticed that she had written 3/23 as a date when I'm not leaving the island until much later.. gobbled-down a big bowl of okinawan noodles with sardines and went back and I think she said 3/23 was today's date, which it's not, unless there's a different calendar or creative accounting in play; at any rate she seemed to understand that I'm leaving for Ishigaki on the 28th... offshore/online... down to post-office to mail 2 cards and Nishi where you can see the weather's surely about to change: bought 1.5 litre bottle of curious, but refreshing Calpis water: (Y310: lactic white, and vaguely citrus (www.calpis.com.jp): seems to be an alcoholic version as well and aids digestion(?); toasted fried egg(s) sandwich... editing [81251]... very windy last night and still a little this morning: chair blown over outside but the pinhole is still in place... seems as if ethanol is also made from the sugarcane; more (worrisome for the island,) news of trade imbalance between US and Japan... Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, together accounting for ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with over 127 million people. The Greater Tokyo Area, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents... A major economic power, Japan has the world's third-largest economy by nominal GDP and by purchasing power parity. It is also the world's fourth largest exporter and fifth largest importer. Although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains an extensive modern military force in self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan has the second lowest homicide (including attempted homicide) rate in the world. According to UN and WHO estimates, it has the highest life expectancy of any country and the third lowest infant mortality rate... Japan suffers from a high suicide rate. In 2009, the number of suicides exceeded 30,000 for the twelfth straight year. Suicide is the leading cause of death for people under 30... editing [81252: mostly sanshin from neighbour], [81253]... PMT... email from Ika: << Hello brace! Nice to hear from you and thank you a lot for the pictures! Aren't we all cute? I went into deadline psychosis as soon as I got home, and only surfaced this morning, as most of the two first volumes were posted at 09:37 this morning. Still one lap or leg to go, but at least I have time to come up for breath. My two months on the island already seem, as you say, like dream, and certainly a good one. And there you are, still, and with one month to go. I hope the island is treating you well and keeping you supplied with vegetables. Fishing on the breakwater sounds great. Hope you caught some edible fish. Here [Norway] we still have lots of snow, it has been minus 10 until a couple of days ago, now it has started to creep up towards zero. But the great tits have started their springtime singing, the late winter harbinger of hope. All the best to you, and say hello to the family from me. Best, Ika >> ... down to the beach and port and grocery store on the way back: much cooler now, I imagine this is more typical seasonal weather: another, the last in the store, loaf of 'special bread' (Y294), different kind of sardines (Y140) to go with another package of okinawan noodles (Y140), 8 unrefrigerated white eggs (Y208), plastic bag (Y3)... saw several clusters of youngsters with what looked like windspeed vanes mounted on tripods, other gadgetry and clipboards on their way towards the shore... here's a posting I just put on the Kindle discussion forums: << I've been 'publishing' a continuous sequence of greyscale photo-art images (the 12hr-isbn-jpeg project,) online for over 17 years! and would like to start to have them (perhaps freely at first,) delivered to Kindle readers. A new image is released every 12 hours. How would I best do this? (http://bbrace.net/12hr.html) /:b >> I'm intrigued by the social-reading aspect of the Kindle where you can view others' clippings... reading Zola on the PC: << It measured about sixteen feet by ten, and was entirely painted over, though little of the work had gone beyond the roughing-out. This roughing-out, hastily dashed off, was superb in its violence and ardent vitality of colour. A flood of sunlight streamed into a forest clearing, with thick walls of verdure; to the left, stretched a dark glade with a small luminous speck in the far distance. On the grass, amidst all the summer vegetation, lay a nude woman with one arm supporting her head, and though her eyes were closed she smiled amidst the golden shower that fell around her. In the background, two other women, one fair, and the other dark, wrestled playfully, setting light flesh tints amidst all the green leaves. And, as the painter had wanted something dark by way of contrast in the foreground, he had contented himself with seating there a gentleman, dressed in a black velveteen jacket. This gentleman had his back turned and the only part of his flesh that one saw was his left hand, with which he was supporting himself on the grass. >> ... the morning pot takes the better part of an hour to prepare: rice, dashi, seaweed, dried minnows (put these in first this time), and shrimp, chilis, a little potato, daikon, carrot; sesame seeds, miso, a lot of leafy greens, rice wine, soya sauce, and another hour to eat it... _for every star driven enterprise there are corollary benefits for those who support it and keep their mouths shut... PMT... two-fried eggs, with fish flakes on toast... old newspapers (fu-ru-i shim-bun); collecting stylized vertical headlines for possible ebook... fellow from the tour bus told me that Nami guesthouse (the father and son go out fishing,) has free sashimi and tofu for their guests!... trying to cutback on expenses but perhaps I'll swing by there at sashimi time today... (I need to edit my rss.txt files and make a new one for GIP = sell to Amazon)... another short loop around the island: breezy, barely visible Iriomote island contour: Vitamin C.C. Lemon (Y350: 210 lemons worth of vitamin C in every bottle: suntory.jp/cclemon)... started down to see the sunset but turned back once beyond the shelter of the town as it was a little cool/breezy so instead, having resisted the bottle of fattening peanuts and beer, for about the same price bought sashimi (Y300; no ma-gu-ro today [tuna]) and tofu (Y160; with some fish flakes and leek it's actually quite good: very creamy and still warm)... shower this morning: a lot of hair in the drain: no stars visible for the pinhole: sink-laundry underway... *cool* I'm on the Puddle-town Art Museum's blacklist! <<curatorial@xxxxxxx> (reason: 551 Sender is on domain's blacklist (Mode: normal))>> a greater honour can hardly be imagined! but it's long past time to shut these bogus, corrupt institutions down! ... want to try some kite-aerial digital-films but need to find a location where I can retrieve the kite/camera if it takes a dive: going to have a look at Pemichi? beach this morning but if the wind's blowing inland strongly the kite will land in dense, impenetrable jungle-like vegetation that lines the perimeter of the beach: the port's another possibility nothing but water (waterproof housing on the miniature camera) and asphalt/cement (power lines are underground there))... PMT (on Teppan, the discouraged runner/athlete seems to be leaving the house despite/becaus-of his feelings for the girl is her name 'Ana?' -- forgot about the pinhole until I looked outside to check the weather supposed to be isolated showers today only 64F, so it's had about an hour and half more exposure than any other frame)... a bowl of instant coffee with Hateruma black-sugar lump while I wait for a slightly warmer morning... for fiscal year 2012, the actual U.S. military budget is something like $1.2 trillion dollars. Trillion with a T. Just to put that in perspective, a million seconds is 12 days. A trillion seconds is 31,688 years.... I have more trouble with batteries! none of the 6 disposable AAAs seem to have enough juice to keep the camera-on for more than a couple of seconds, so I'm charging the rechargeable batteries this is the little camera (along with an undercover-cop in the pool,) that caused 8 black-clad Puddle-town armed-goons/cops to suddenly surround, harass and subsequently defame me and wrongfully-cease the camera at a public swimming pool, where I was testing it last year along with new snorkelling gear -- with permission... anyway, today I'll just bring the kite along... oh, wait, I just found a good pair of AAAs in my shaving kit!... off I go!... but first put the laundry out to dry [dark blue mesh tanktop, black shorts, black T, zebra-mesh swimsuit] -> ok, still too cold out there and it'll be worse on the beach, so another bowl of coffee... more interminable TV footage of smug Japanese gov't ministers (often seen nodding-off) in parliament... well, Pemichi beach had only the occasional gust of wind so I thought I'd try the observation tower (!) which was quite windy (the adjacent reservoir had a good chop, and the railings were rattling again maybe it _would make a good recording if I can find a sheltered spot), but perhaps too gusty, as the little pocket parafoil kite I had it on a very short line -- would eventually get knocked-over [think I bought it in Long Beach WA: bbrace.net/long_beach.html] -... so, around and down past a cattle-yard (the radio, which gets much better reception than mine, seems to be left-on for the grazing faculty), and down to the port's breakwater which was even windier there was a broadcast announcement earlier which I guessed was about the ferries not running, but they were! -- almost lost my 12hr cap, and then almost everything else in quick succession as the wind had its way; much too windy for the kite headed home, buying two bigger tins of mackerel (Y150 each; to go with the okinawan noodles: more bang for the yen: www.food.maruha-nichiro.co.jp) and a tiny tin of wasabi powder (Y180: hoping its real wasabi and that it dissolves in soya sauce for sashimi days: www.housefoods.co.jp)... Russian VoA SW radio slaboda 15250... isj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ... sanshin festival on TV... some sun forecast for today and only a 10-15 mph wind (30-35 on Monday,) so perhaps the recording of the reservoir railings should wait: remembered that I brought along a contact mic, which I've yet to use, that might be ideal... in the pot: rice, seaweed, rice-wine, chilis, soya sauce, dried-shrimp, miso, dashi, remaining millet, potato, carrot from another pot; sesame seeds, huge stack of chopped lettuce... PMT... short loop walk South then back for some sun... tempted by a bottle of Suntory whiskey that comes with a free little can of club soda (Y1405); but I need to economize... it's quite rare to have such convenient (wifi) means to spontaneously relate the island experience and it's a shame that the Island Studies list and others reject my postings not so surprising I suppose as most mailing-lists have by-now devolved into an institutional/collegial pronouncement/validation mechanism no real interest in communicating or exchanging/developing ideas... not to be melodramatic but I'm _so tired of being routinely excluded, cheated and persecuted (no other word)... so lately and especially this island-journal has been about a mutual indifference (and perhaps not unlike the mainland/mainstream malaise that islands must face)... no status-quo sashimi today, so two-fried eggs on toast instead... my mp3 player's messed-up (will only play one song then locks-up: actually I think I caused it when I restarted the unit thinking it was hung-up searching the external SD; if COWON D2+ is recognized as a removable disk, please paste D2N_P.bin, D2N _P_RS.bin, and D2N_P_FT.bin files to the root folder (top folder in COWON D2+) in COWON D2+.: an excellent player, that sadly has been discontinued), and unfortunately I didn't bring the upload cable to reinstall the software... a walk to Nishi... we were cheated-out of a good sunset by a low-lying bank of institutional cloud-cover... oh, did I mention that I had the mackerel with noodles today too?... an orange-grower with samples of course, on the TV this morning: should be some more sun: green tea... skype call with D... pinhole in; no Teppan today :( ... squatting old lady with typical sunvisor-bonnet, armed as they all seem to be, with the rusty sugarcane sickle, intent on trimming the foliage outside my unit: walked out to the SMP, past the airport, turbines, (Iriomote was shades of misty blue with brighter short yellow blazes of beach; and I could see another smaller island to the East: Hatoma?), around and up the hill home stopping at the main grocery store: pokka cold tea (Y310: might be jasmine, 2l: okinawa.pokka.co.jp); a different kind of seaweed (Y160; didn't think I could use an entire big bag of the sort I just finished before I leave); Pinky peach & mint sugarless tablets (Y120; very nice); two tiny free, leftover sandwiches (!)... while most of the other are, I don't think my cottage is prefab seems more like cinderblock and plaster, although the interior seems prefabricated somehow... big marathon in Japan on the TV... not sunny enough to sit in the sun but pleasant enough for a short walk through town where there was a funeral (everyone in black(?)); several young boys with a red kite... gosh, I'm going to need to buy more rice! either that or switch to noodles... started down to Nishi for the sunset but it's rapidly clouding over with a little rain in the air... very still outside this morning despite the 35mph wind forecast: the usual big rice 'n' vegetable pot... 6 a.m. the driving-rain and wind have arrived!... the island's roads, a few paved, most not, are sort of concentric loops, being 'tighter' towards the centre of town and looser more irregular toward shore: if you venture too far toward the shore, down the wrong road, you'll need to backtrack, as I had to today, in order to approach the reservoir with the rattling railings -- behind the observation tower -- through the back fence that has a scalable opening: anyway, once there, using the contact mic like a stethoscope, I initially despaired of finding a decent sound and I was thinking the contact mic, which is advertised as a hear through walls device, might also pick-up some of the sound of the water being blown around in the reservoir but I probably ended-up with 90 monaural minutes of something pretty interesting: the very long, hollow aluminum railings would rattle, drum, hum, warble and produce choral overtones as the wind gusted over the water (~ a polite/restrained refrain of Japanese noise-art)... finally (my fingertips were numb), headed home even though I had first intended to fill the 160 minute disc: stopped at the main grocery store to buy the 5kg bag of cheap rice (Y1860?), but as I'd feared, they were all gone, as usual; so I bought a different variety in a 3 kg bag (Y1240) which actually should work out pretty well for the 10 remaining meals (eating every other day): at first I had selected an expensive variety (Y1750 for 3 kg), despite being in a plain paper bag: not sure I'd taste the difference but maybe ten kinds to choose from... home for okinawan noodles with tinned mackerel and coffee... this being Monday, I'm hoping for some free vegetables soon... still very windy so don't think it's worth checking on the sashimi as there won't be many boats out in this... editing another wordpress news collage that features nations I've visited or planning to visit for my Global Islands Project [bradbrace.net/id.html]: probably the biggest one yet mainly as I delayed assembling the 'cuttings' and denied access to search engines because I recently read stories about evil lawyers deliberately buying 'copyrights' of news-items so they could sue bloggers... it's still interesting to forge new readings of widely concurrent events [bradbrace.net/wordpress & bbrace.net/wordpress]... Mae-san has put new signs, with pictures(!), above the five recycling bins... young fellow next door from Tokyo: he thinks it's very cold here ;) the wind is still blowing: went for a short walk and made a couple of film clips of the rippling sugarcane fields it must be terrifying seeing a typhoon approach ... a bedtime snack of tofu with fish flakes... I need to find an affordable, non-caffeinated, no-sugar beverage... I shudder to think what a litre of orange juice costs... more TV pavement chalk markings and the weather snowmen are frowning, so perhaps warmer weather on the mainland today... PMT, but forgot to change the gain-setting back from yesterday... still quite chilly outside so another bowl of instant coffee while I continue to edit the big WP news-collage... derailed TV train... and ukuleles seem popular: Hawaiian connection -- there was one being played as the sun went down on Nishi the other night... did the "paved loop" walk as I've nearly worn through the new running shoes I brought; picked-up more old Yaeyama Mainichi newspapers for the vertical headline collection... more groceries: another C.C. lemon drink (Y350), pale yellow miso (Y260), more chilis (Y130; whole, dried), more roasted black sesame seeds (Y120), plastic-bag (Y3)... sunny now but still cool out: looking for go-game diagrams for my GIP book and learning the basics of the game.. quite a few visitors on the island today -- I assume it's the Okinawans who travel with their sanshins... . and then there's the Sanba (?) which I've only seen on TV so far: a percussion musical instrument from the Ryukyu Islands. The name itself means "three slabs" or "three boards/planks," and it consists of three shards ebony or other woods that are bound together by twine. It produces a variety of clicking sounds similar to that of castanets. It is played by placing the shards between the fingers of one hand, while using the other hand to flick the pieces of wood together. It can be played in slow or fast rhythms, depending on the musical genre. It is often heard in folk music native to the Ryukyu Islands... I read two walking-tour books by Alan Booth before I traveled here: The Roads to Sata, and Looking for the Lost: Journeys Through a Vanishing Japan, which I recommend, although they refer to a quite different mainland Japan... PMT... giant celery stalks featured on TV talk-show... two fried eggs on toast then a near-circular paved-walk all around the island -- something very satisfying about circumambulating an island; will try and work this into my daily routine although it's about a three-hour walk... well I've had lots of time to finally reestablish the link between twitter and the blogs... and I see that corrupt-crony-curator Martha Hanna has again blocked the email address to which the 12hr-jpegs are sent, so had to unsubscribe her: imagine how a Canadian photography museum would fail to be even remotely interested in a 40+ year-old Canadian photo-art career?... which reminds me that I've seen two weasels (tiny, reddish fur) lately, hopping along the road and by my unit... I thought Mae-san (who was pushing a cart loaded with a flat of beer and luggage of two new young couples in unit 'B',) asked me if I'd like more vegetables (ya-sai), which I thought was odd as he just left me some on Monday, but seeing as how there are no more here, perhaps he was asking if I got the ones he left, or wanted to be thanked again... I was so sure there'd be sashimi today as it was calm and I spotted several boats when out on my walk, but my presence at Nami seemed only to please the little dog: I had been listening to GIP mp3s on my older player and started to think this island was rather staid in comparison especially to Lamu (Island 3.0) where there was a public speakers' square and everything seemed so lively, happening all at once. On islands I tend to seek out "sonic centers": where several sound sources merge, but it's usually very quiet and there's really, with the exception of The Day of the Dead festivities, no social gathering centers here (despite the several community buildings, which D&D says are the outcome of a corrupt national construction mega-industry), and the two cafes/bars that were operated by younger people are closed -- but perhaps they only attracted tourists anyway.... the grimacing sisha (made a few drawings in the moleskin), on the roofs suggest another aspect I've yet to see (unless the shisha ensure the sedateness;), but I dunno, outside of the sugar harvest and the rare golf/croquet match, it sometimes seems to be mostly just a lot of tombs -- ancient presence/power -- and elderly ladies plopped down in their gardens... (the sanshin that is often heard, usually seems like more of an individual's lament), so I brought the discrete recording rig I used in Africa along to the sashimi shop hoping to eat there and maybe capture some local exchanges (some of the guesthouses sound lively on occasion) -- but when that didn't pan-out, I thought I'd found, coming back from Nishi, a good location in the concrete cattle, goat, duck enclosure that had a radio-playing.. I should have realized why all the animals were so excited to see me: it was feeding time, and the owner arrived shortly and he was _not happy to see me there... so perhaps I'll try another day/time... finished-off the remaining tofu with fish-flakes as a snack when what I really wanted was another bottle of those tasty peanuts and a Southern Star... very fat female Japanese wrestlers on TV weight-loss program... J emailed me a question about sake and I replied: < I've read that the more the rice is 'polished' (refined to remove impurities: shown as a percentage of original size), the better the flavour/product. The best, at 50% is apparently termed "dai-ginjo." I don't know the brand names. >... pinhole out: waxing crescent moon... earthquakes/tsunami-warnings in eastern Japan (Honshu) and PNG (New Britain)... Bingata (Okinawan: , literally "red style") is an Okinawan traditional resist dyed cloth, made using stencils and other methods. It is generally bright-colored and features various patterns, usually depicting natural subjects such as fish, water, and flowers... Kumi odori (?), meaning "combination dance" or "ensemble dance" in both the Okinawan and Japanese languages, is a form of narrative traditional Ryukyuan dance; perhaps like the opening Teppan dance?... Island 6.0 is now available online! ==================================== http://bbrace.net/islands/island6/island6.html http://bradbrace.net/islands/island6/island6.html Global Islands Project -- ongoing series of multi-media pdf-ebooks/field-recordings -- a pastoral, pictorial and phonic elicitation of island parameters. An intensive examination of small islands and their paradigmatic solutions to globalism. Your (Art)world is based on mutual relief at your common corruption. Maybe some cultures are based on even worse. But that wouldn't change the bad faith of it and as years go by, you wake at night in terror of your whole life being an act of bad faith, where everything is self-interest and nothing more, where every human interaction is driven by a silent, even subconscious calculation of some ulterior motive, to the point that a sea of bad faith has taken over your whole life, there's no small island left from which you can even try to build a bridge of good faith, because even that effort becomes suspect, even good faith is nothing but self-interested, even altruism is nothing but solipsistic, even your professed agonizing right here right now is nothing but a gesture, made to the conscience in order to assure it that it exists. http://bradbrace.net/id.html http://bbrace.net/id.html Island 1.0 is Ambergris Caye, Belize Island 2.0 is Koh Si Chang, Thailand Island 3.0 is Lamu, Kenya Island 4.0 is Narikel Jingira, Bangladesh Island 5.0 is Isla Mais, Nicaragua Island 6.0 are The Grenadines, West Indies Global Islands Project: Island 1.0 -> http://bbrace.net/islands/island1/island1.html or http://bradbrace.net/islands/island1/island1.html -- over 800 images and hour-long audiotrack -- 69mb -- (acrobat 6) Island 2.0 -> http://bbrace.net/islands/island2/island2.html or http://bradbrace.net/islands/island2/island2.html -- over 535 images and hour-long audiotrack -- 78mb -- (acrobat 6) *** http://www.archive.org/details/global_islands_project_island_1.0 http://www.archive.org/details/global_islands_project_island_2.0 http://www.archive.org/details/global_islands_project_island_3.0 http://www.archive.org/details/global_islands_project_island_4.0 http://www.archive.org/details/global_islands_project_island_5.0 http://www.archive.org/details/global_islands_project_island_6.0 *** Global Islands Project -- ongoing series of multi-media pdf-books -- a pastoral, pictorial and phonic elicitation of island parameters... Vientos del pueblo me llevan Vientos del pueblo me arrastran Me eparcen mi corazon Ye me aventan la garganta http://www.bbrace.net/id.html http://bradbrace.net/id.html bbs: brad brace sound http://69.64.229.114:8000 http://www.bbrace.net/undisclosed.html Waters Colours: http://bradbrace.net/webgallerywc/wc.html Eroticized Japanese/Malaysian Snack Foods: http://bradbrace.net/greenscreen.html Additional GIP texts/blog: http://bbrace.net/wordpress/ http://bradbrace.net/wordpress/ 12 mailing list: You cannot politically defy the institutions when all you really wanted was to be clasped to their bosoms and hope in time to be cherished under the very framework of oppressive values you are thinking of overcoming. That would be co-optation, revolution only in the sense of a circulation of elites rather than the extirpation of the very impulses of elitism. To subscribe to 12-list, simply send a message with the word "subscribe" in the Subject: field to 12-list-request@xxxxxxxxxx /:b .