I CANNOT SLEEP

I CANNOT SLEEP

I cannot sleep. The time was 2 am and I am wide awake. Saito the cat is delighted — an extra, early breakfast and unexpected play time. “I might as well work,” I think and move to the kitchen to brew the coffee. While waiting, I step out the front door to breathe the morning air.

It is quiet with not even a sound from the distant railroad — not even a cricket. The street is dark and empty and nothing moves. No wait! Two figures, dressed in completely in black, with black hoods pulled over their heads, pass by on the opposite sidewalk. “Death and his intern on an errand?” I wondered. Perhaps not, but creatures of the night nonetheless. In front of me, a cricket makes his way across the sidewalk to a patch of green grass now gray in the early gloom. I smile. Another creature of the night but one I do not dread.

I return to the kitchen where a spider scurries about the counter, perhaps looking for crumbs from last night’s pizza. I decide to leave the kitchen to her for a while and come back for the coffee later. Musings of Lafcadio Hearn await on my computer.

A PALACE FOR BATS

the trains have now passed

tiny eyes watch from above

a palace for bats

KUMANO SHRINE: Kwaidan

Kumano Shrine ~ 

     “I should like, when my time comes, to be laid away in some Buddhist graveyard of the ancient kind, so that my ghostly company should be ancient, caring nothing for the fashions and the changes and disintegrations of Meiji.”

Lafcadio Hearn, "Kwaidan"

KUMANO SHRINE: Shimenawa

Kumano Shrine ~ 

old shimenawa

soiled shide in the breeze

abandoned prayers

KUMANO SHRINE

kumano shrine ~
the kami sits invisibly,
cradling his head in his hands
no one comes to call.

MUSINGS ON GOJIRA

The first view the world ever had of Gojira (Godzilla) 59 years ago.

A week ago I had the opportunity to watch Gojira, the 1954 movie now more commonly referred to as Godzilla. It was a great treat for me because, having grown up in the United States, I had not had the opportunity to watch the original film; instead, only having access to the 1956 Americanized version, with scenes featuring Raymond Burr spliced into the original film. Well, I must admit that it was quite a treat to watch the original version of Gojira and to at last hear those iconic words spoken for the first time in their original context...well, actually written in English subtitles along with the original Japanese dialogue. Those words? “RUN! IT'S GODZILLA!” 

For 59 years, since its release on November 3, 1954, those words have been uttered, screamed, screeched, not just in that movie or even in every one of the Godilla films that followed; however not only in the movies of the franchise, but by kids, Showa kids in Japan and American kids in San Francisco for example, during their playtime fantasies, and in every possible parody of the original film imaginable; parodies that including the cartoon series South Park and Austin Powers' Goldmember — without a doubt one of the few worthwhile scenes in that entire movie...no I didn't like it much but this scene still makes me chuckle aloud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu62k4K4sQ4