... no stars visible so we may be back to the usual light rain and clouds... if these nighttime pinholes pan-out I'll need to buy a new, stronger waterproof container as this one has cracked; hopefully an elastic band and plastic-bag lining will protect the camera from the forthcoming rain... soon be time for Tapan and the morning-tune recording... walked around by the observatory; there might be some activity there on Friday 2 p.m... and then down to Nishi Hama where there was actually someone swimming (the Japanese are a hardy yet emotional lot, with lots of nodding affirmation: even the TV-weather 'snowman' nods his head) ... heard a rooster while walking back so there may be a few chickens on the island after all... went into the main grocery store again (first time was to buy a Y200 apple) and a delivery person rushed-in a little after 11 and left several box-lunches, and although I had just eaten a big pot of rice with vegetables I guess I was still hungry, so I purchased one (Y500 + Y180 for Southern Star [pics #8220, 8221])... looked very intriguing: little contrasting tastes, including a slice of grilled salmon (where did that come from!), little egg-things, potstickers, rice (with black seeds, a blob of red condiment and little green pickles), noodles, tiny salads... turned-out fairly sunny by mid-day so I headed to Pemuchi beach and then followed a little path through a patch of woods that seemed pointless... finally came back, drank some SS, ate more peanuts, dried squid and read more of The Year of the Waterless Flood (getting tiresome, and really not very inventive) in the sun... may venture out a little later to see what if anything is happening... the other afternoon I thought I heard a pop-rock-band practising on the outskirts of town (next to the tour bus place.)... well the chalkboard in front of the little cafe/gallery that's been closed ever since I got here seemed to indicate a performance by vocalist Sizzle Ohtaka (seems she's commercially successful and recorded her Sugar Land album here) tonight... but I guess not... have a hard time figuring what's happening... not usually out/up this late: the cicadas are incredibly loud by the side of the road; will probably add that sound as well to the childrens' concert mix (but will soon run out of insertion points)... hung my sink-washing (T-shirt, swimwear) out to dry; goats are now awake and bleating; time to bring the pinhole in; I don't think my joints will ever get used to sitting on the floor and I can just barely pass through the doorways without stooping; when sleeping on the tatami you can feel/hear the refrigerator; much of the town reflects this lower centre of gravity: small vehicles, and signs are often mere inches off the ground, and HD television is perhaps intended for close-up, floor-based viewing... (excellent) su-ba-ra-shi... walked down to Nishi (deserted) and the port but didn't linger due to the smoke from someone burning something; (unfortuntely the port building which has a nice noodle stand seems to allow smoking inside)... met M not long off the ferry from Ishigaki coming to work in the sugarfields as a beginner she gets Y500/hr she told me Sizzle performed last weekend :(( and the cafe was normally closed due to poor business, but promised to tell me about any future events, including the observatory viewing dates the Sugarland CD was in the mainsquare giftshop so I bought it (Y2000; nice sensible packaging) plus a sharp little white button with kanjii and a map of Hateruma (Y200)... chopped-down an earlier TV recording-disk into short segments to make room for more Tapan episodes (don't want too much LP4 TV)... still not entirely sure that I missed Sizzle as there wasn't much advance notice if I did, and M doesn't always understand me... I'll check again tonight when I go out and record the cicadas... well at Y1500/night I'm sure not likely to stay indoors, so I ventured out despite the rain and headed out towards the more northeasterly jungle tract past the fisherman's place, turning right instead of left at the little square concrete building: pumping-station? -- tough-going over wet, loose coral but some nice ocean views (the sea as a liquid sky), big collection of found floats and nets (an old windshield wiper as speargun?), little impromptu shelter with wet-suit, trails past ancient coral structures and around past the wind turbines and up by the sacred-well, where it began to rain heavily; I took shelter under a tree and travel-umbrella as a tour-bus with _one passenger pulled-up to glimpse the well and then drove-off without offering me a ride... I silently, this time, invoked the ancient ruyuku spirits or at least those of the Hateruma white-goats, most of whom recognize me by now, to at least deflate his tires... made a dash for it during a brief lull in the action just as a fear-monger-nation fighter-jet screamed overhead: (stolen tax-dollars>> withheld social services>> utter waste of resources...); then the rain really came down: eventually took shelter in an unlocked farm-implement structure where there was an old coin-operated karioke machine alongside tractors, tools and parts; I confess I filched a discarded/worn conical bamboo? worker's hat which (if it survives the flight,) might look good on the wall at home next to the kenyan basket and bangladeshi fish-trap... my laundry is of course wet again... sun came back, and I took some more pics around town, and vistas out to sea which included the wanton sugarcane (nice crisp, contrasty light right after the rain; the D-max filter sure looks impressive in the camera but I don't really trust it, prefer to use Photoshop later; have introduced a subtle 'bowing' perspective to some shots)... had a few people suddenly ask me something but instead of implying that I don't understand I should just say 'Canada' because what else would it likely be [do-chi-ra ka-ra ki-mash-ta ka?]; but the peace-sign seems to suffice for anything... as usual some little children stare at me but at least they don't demand ID... bought a big 5kg, this time, bag of rice (Y1800), fresh tofu (Y160: still warm; already have the fish flakes that go on top: the tofu van does its rounds about 5:30 p.m.: same establishment that sells the sashimi I think), tiny little round snack crackers (Y90), more bottled peanuts (Y310; I'm saving the empty bottles in a pyramid outside my door), dried chilis (Y130, to help me get through all that rice), and another package of dried squid (Y260)... oh, and finally saw a white eye or mejiro (, ) [web-folder]: much smaller than I imagined green songbird with eye-ring... the cicadas weren't nearly as loud this cooler night, suggesting that at the height of star spangled 80F summer evenings they must be deafening... tried to record an owl-like call -- it stopped when I came close, but got several minutes of some insect that sounds (maybe too much) like an electric buzzer... no sign of Sizzle... bought what I think is a big leek (Y100; to go with the tofu) from the sisters' store and I think she asked me if I recorded sound (forgot my phrasebook I have to make more of an effort with the language); seems news of that quirky activity has favourably spread...
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-requ...@eskimo.com /:b ______________________________________________ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre