big in japan

Like fondue sets, neighbourhood block parties and the Concorde, I had thought Hibachi grills were relegated to a nostalgic era that is not easily recaptured. Those portable Japanese-inspired braziers were wildly popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s but sort of disappeared, or so I though until telling a friend about our vacation plans, and he told us that we ought to get a Son of Hibachi. Hibachi-san, I call it. It was a really good piece of advice, rather than looking for a small dome grill to take camping, this modernized version folds out and clamps together, eliminating some of the mess and space concerns. I think there are possibilities for all sorts of camper bus cookery. I also thought it was funny, however, that one might not know Hibachi the Elder and only the revamped model.

motör skills or kontrapunkt

With renewed respect and interest for Alan Turing and the long time status of rock legends that Albert Einstein, Werner von Braun and Werner Herzog have enjoyed, I thought it was a terrible omission to have just learned of another scientist and physicist whom ought to enjoy a similar following and be an industry icon: Moshé Pinchas Feldenkrais, a trained physicist, martial artist and Eastern philosopher besides his adventures and experience prompted him to develop the eponymous method to promote health and well-being by heightening the individual’s awareness through motion and movement, a discipline like yoga except that Feldenkrais’ exercises had no specific target and mostly dealt with repetitive, everyday movement, like one’s posture and gait, since laziness and bad habits compounded with inefficiency could led to chronic mental and physiological states. Such occupational therapy is being taken up by many medical professionals as an effective and viable supplement to traditional methods, and in Sweden is considered a treatment (both mentally and physically) of first-resort.

A lot of what makes us ill, I think, becomes manifest through the mind and body second guessing each other—most things need to be repeated ten-thousand times over to become an expert at it, and even though we’re mostly just aspiring specialists, it’s not helpful to try to undo or correct such programming and alignment with a perfunctory reading of a patient’s medical history and an uncommitted handful of pills. An elegant suggestion and meditation are worthy enough on their own but I have to wonder also about this individual’s career and why it did not elevate him to guru and rock-star status, too. A pupil (and later a teacher as a judo master) of the Curie family, he fled the Nazi occupation of Paris with jar of radioactive heavy-water tucked under his coat and fled to England to develop sonar for the Admiralty’s fleet of submarines. It was while bunking on board a submarine for an extended period, Feldenkrais, nursing an old sports injury aggravated by the cramp conditions, formulated his technique and rehabilitated himself. After the war, he continued his pioneering work in electrical engineering and teaching his method. I suppose the message lies in getting to know oneself better (which is structured but not exactly regimented and certainly not irrevocable as intellectual property) rather than in celebrity, even among a sea of contending and complimentary practices.

pilgrims' progress

The juxta-position is at first a bit jarring, the centuries old wayside shrine (Bildstock) that I found wandering along a valley path compared to the electronic and networked cattle-brand-invitation displayed on an equally old church door, and a pilgrimage was never supposed to be a scavenger hunt or a popularity contest. Perhaps curiosity overtook the journey in itself with development of tourism, moving from religious wonder to respect for history and art—still inspired and inspiring, though. Some aspects of the Canterbury Tales did make the events some more like a social hour our cruise ship inmates, rather than a rite, sojourn and expedition (Pilgerweg).

Maybe it’s not so different—although I don’t think that one needs more real world reminders and visual cues especially in a place like Franconia and Germany, crowded with churches and altars of all sorts—from devotional artwork and the way, for instance, these ancient markers not only helped travelers keep to the trail but the way posts were often dedicated and personalized for pilgrims that were not able to reach the goal. I guess it’s fine to import such ornaments and memorials into people’s virtual lives and help with their spiritual vigils. The journey, no matter how many shortcuts are invented or indulged, still retains important elements of discovery and upbuilding.

endonymy or we call it maize

Watching the soccer (Football, Fußball) match between two countries known outwardly (exonym) by their monikers in the Lingua Franca in the Baltic city of Gdańsk (Danzig), I wondered how they take to being called something completely different and view the lingering imperialism of language. Of course, English is not the only steamroller and all peoples historically developed their own roots and reasons to talk about outsiders, but as the choice of a common tongue above the din and babbling, it’s interesting to consider how labels and aliases are just one persona and taking a deeper look is quite telling.

high-fidelity or bring me a pineapple that doesn’t sting, a bird that swims, a fish that sings

I have contributed a nominal amount to my private pension fund, an opportunist surely that blurs the limits between brooding a nest-egg and retirement supplement and high-stakes ventures that happens to management the pensions for a good portion of the American federal workforce, and so as not to encourage more reckless behaviour, I’ve kept it at the absolute minimum: one cannot contribute less than one percent and I’ve justified that much since the government matches it. Still, over the years it has amounted to a not insignificant sum that’s not readily reclaimable.

I suspected and it’s been confirmed several times over that this money-manager is gambling with people’s life-savings and that they benefited from their quasi-public status—however I didn’t suspect that they were actively hatching evil schemes for one’s money, apart from the expected trading in legitimized weapons companies, polluters and assassins. Their latest pursuit, I discovered through their advertisements (though little reporting and fact-finding is to be found supporting or otherwise questioning this image and vision) is something called synthetic biology, which is only a re-branding of terms that are waxing scary like cloning, genetic engineering and genetically modified organisms. Their promotion and prospectus implies that such research and development, which will one day triumph over Nature’s numbers and diversity, can produce bacteria to clean up industrial spills and halt disease by disabling its agents. This is a Brave New World with many goodly creatures but I can also easily imagine a genetic dystopia that failed to respect the dependencies and relations of ecology. Business has already been over-eager with introducing new crops that are untested and unsuited and have been less than forthcoming (with mounting resistance) and spent more resources on protecting patents and discrediting critics than on actual scientific research. It is one thing to make mosquitoes that don’t bite or self-cleaning beaches, but I would imagine that Nature would rebel and be less than compliant, mirroring the phenomena of drug-resistant germs created by keeping too clean. I don’t think it’s a good idea to mortgage one’s pension on such a future.