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January 31, 2005Sake, Taiko, and my NoHo nightingale floors...
Tonight was fun—vegetable curry and sake-bombs at Curry House in Little Tokyo with members of the UCR Taiko Club, followed by the mad Taiko skillz of Kodo. And, as good as Kodo is, getting a chance to catch up a bit with the folks in the Taiko Club before and after the show was as much fun for me as the actual performance itself.
I’m thrilled with my current situation, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me just the slightest bit sad to hear folks discussing upcoming rehearsals and club chitchat after the performance. We’re still friends, and I’m thankful for it, but it’s not the same with my not being there to take part in the experiential minutiae that binds people together. Really, having to put the kibosh on my Taiko involvement is the only downside to having moved out to North Hollywood. As many folks have told me, I could easily find a Taiko group out here with which to align myself. But it wouldn’t be the same. I enjoyed the drumming, but I enjoyed the specific personalities in the club just as much, if not more.
Oh well. It sounds like I made a positive impression during my brief time in the club, and it’ll be fun (if a little bittersweet) to watch everybody kick some Taiko ass in their concert in April.
In other news, there’s going to be a kabuki performance at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts in late June. There’s nothing about it on the CCPA site, but they were giving out fliers about it at Kodo tonight, urging the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center members to get in on the priority ticket sales before they become available to the general public on April 18.
The tickets are steep, the cheapest seat being $65, but it’s money I’ll be happy to spend. Cheapskate though I may be, I’ll cough up whatever amount I have to in the name of kabuki. I researched it as a theatrical genre a few quarters back and was absolutely enthralled by it—to the point where I e-mailed Professor Samuel Leiter in New York and thanked him for writing such an interesting and informative encyclopedia on the subject, and received a very nice reply in return.
And speaking of feudal Japan, I’ve decided to regard my squeaky floorboards in a more historically favorable light and think of them as sections of my very own nightingale floor—which served as a sort of home-security system, squeaking when trod upon to betray the presence of otherwise undetected burglars or assassins. I don’t know what’ll eventually do me in, or when, but so long as I live in this apartment, I needn’t fear ninja attack.
(My thanks to the ancient "Sword of the Samurai" PC game, which first alerted me to the existence of such things way back when; it was bundled with the OG "Pirates," and is similarly deserving of a remake.)
My windows are ninja-proof, too, it would seem. A few nights ago, just as I was going to sleep, the wind picked up for the first time since I’ve lived here. I’m dozing off, and life is good. Suddenly, the windows start that buzzing rattle that I’ve always associated with earthquakes—and I hate earthquakes. In an instant, I’m wide awake, my reptilian brain having dumped the “Crap—impending racial death!” adrenaline into my bloodstream. My heart is pounding like a cardiac John Henry, and all I want is to leap into a doorway and hold on for dear life. But nothing’s shaking—curious.
This happened two more times before I figured out the wind was to blame, not that my reptilian brain was convinced. It was very diligent about snapping me to attention whenever the windows rattled. Luckily, the wind died down the next day and I didn’t have to weather a repeat performance. And if ninjas eschew crossing through my living room in favor of creeping in through my bedroom window, their first traitorous breath against my windowpane will send it a-buzzin’.
I haven’t found a way to Pollyanna my brown tap water or the cacophonous neighbor children into something interesting or positive, but the week is young yet…
Posted by patrick at January 31, 2005 12:22 AM
CommentsAh, yes, the phantom earthquake alert. In my place, it's not windows, but the bedroom closet in the unit directly above mine. When they slide that thing open, it comes through in my room as a low rumble, and every so often it still snaps me into 'quake alert mode.
Speaking of which... the current wisdom is DO NOT GET IN THE DOORWAY. I read some scary reports that they tend to find doorway hiders dead, crushed or cut in half by the collapse of said doorway. The latest news on earthquake survival is to get down on the floor next to something big and uncompressible, like the bed or a dresser or something. Assume the fetal position. The idea is that, if the floor or ceiling above you comes down, said uncompressible obect will create little triangular areas around it, where the floor or ceiling doesn't come all the way down and make things beneath go squish. Apparently, rescue workers are trained to look, not for doorways, but places where beds and big furniture might have been.
Your public service announcement for the day. And, in other news, there seems to be a new Café Press shop in town, called Che Boxer, mainly because Boxer Rebellion was already taken. Just wanted to post that here, to give you public aknowledgement as the source of the idea...
Posted by: Jon Bastian at January 31, 2005 03:13 PM
Hilarious!
I too have that almost precognitive quake receptor lodged deep in my skull. Only mine is triggered by riced-up Honda Civics with over-endowed mufflers. As it passes through dry wall, that low rumble sounds exactly like a good tremor. Same thing with large diesel engines.
So should ninjas drive riced-up Civics or a garbage truck, my survival is assured. They'll never see me...
lying in wait...
tucked away in the air duct...
breathing quietly through my skin...
undressing them with my eyes...
Mmmmm... ninja butt.
Posted by: James at February 8, 2005 11:14 AM
And apropos of nothing in this thread (but pursuant to a snarky comment our host made elsewhere), my blog has updates. Whoo-hoo...
Posted by: Jon Bastian at February 8, 2005 11:24 AM
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