Monday, July 24, 2006

hide-sama no kage de...

So, today at the gym I did thirty-three minutes on the elliptical, and I did 3986 strides, burning 295.5 calories, and whenever I checked my heartrate it was about 160-165. Compare to the numbers in the post "For the Record", and that's bit of improvement. Yay! Of course hopefully when I go home I'll be able to go see that trainer guy and start doing weight training stuff too and lose a lot of weight. :-)

(And I say "thanks to hide" because I was listening to hide music while exercising today and it felt like it really helped me have energy and go faster. Heh.)

In other news, Lisa's going to give me a whole bunch of hide pictures from her computer, which is so exciting, since they're hard to track down online. I realized that my college friends have never seen me in the grip of an obsession, since I was coming down off Yugioh right before freshman year, and haven't found a replacement obession for the past two years, which has been depressing. Now, I mean, this whole J-rock and hide thing has only endured for like a week so far, so the jury is still out on whether it will blossom into any sort of full-blown obsession. So far only hide has had the right spark to pull me from mild interest into obsessiveness, and I can't gauge the longevity of that yet. But for now, I'm so happy to have something to fill that slot in my mind! :D

Okay, time to *gasp* actually do some work! Oh my god! Well, it had to happen one of these days.

Oh, and just to test...
じゃあまた!!

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Pink Spider

PINK SPIDER
by hide
(An approximate translation by me...)

Wrapped in a thread of lies,
You thought this small world was all there was.
Hurting everything that came near,
You thought the sky was square.

"This is all...in the end, it's just this?"
You said...that was also a lie...

Your gaudy figure seeming lonely,
The Bird of Paradaise unexpectedly came to talk:

"Get the wings of a butterfly, and come here."
"Beyond the sky is what you desire."

Pink Spider -- "I want to go."
Pink Spider -- "I want wings..."

Not listening to the captured butterfly's pleas for her life,
You glare at the sky.
"I'm not injuring you out of hate,
But because without wings,
The sky was too high..."

"You should use my wings, Spider.
You too, who don't know the heartbreak of flying,
Someday will realize:
You were only flying in someone's hand,
And you were calling that freedom..."

You can't fly skillfully with borrowed wings.
You go crashing down head over heals.

Pink Spider -- "It's no good."
Pink Spider -- "Though I can see the sky."
Pink Spider -- "I failed*"
Pink Spider -- "I want wings."

Beyond the sky you could glimpse,
Birds heading south.
"I will fly again, cutting this thread,
In my personal jet,
When that cloud passes..."

Pink Spider -- The sky is calling.
Pink Spider -- Pink Spider

The pink spider** flows across the sky...



*this word can mean failure or mistake, which seem to give slightly different connotations in this line, so I'm not sure which it should be.
**in Japanese, "kumo" means spider, and also cloud...so while in the lyrics this instance of it seems to be written with hiragana rather than the kanji for cloud, suggesting that it's meant to mean "spider", there is a pun or double connotation in the Japanese that gets lost in English.

Also, watch the promotional video here. Oh and I should mention, according to Lisa, "Pink Spider" is some sort of nickname of hide, or at least is known (thought?) to refer to him. I'd have to ask her again for more details about that, though.

Now, I'd have to research it some more, but the Wikipedia article said this was his last single and last video before he died, and that some fans think it was a signal that he was planning suicide. I'm not convinced, especially since he was apparently so drunk when he died that is almost seems whatever happened can't have been a very well-thought-out plan...but it is interesting (for lack of a better word), since I can kinda see why people would interpret this song and video that way...man, I wish there were some way to really know. I wish he were alive. Sigh.

Well, I have some interesting (if I do say so myself) thoughts about personality behind art, or something like that, prompted both by hide and by the Beatles tribute band concert I went to yesterday...but I don't feel like babbling about them right now, lol. So I won't. Perhaps another time. At the moment any free time I have when my brain is working well I need to devote to typing out that SHOXX interview with hide that Lisa lent me...eeep it's so long! *faints*

Hmm, have I mentioned I'm obsessed with hide at the moment? Ahhh, I love being obsessed...*happy sigh*

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Transcendent

Last weekend we went to the LPGA match play championship thingy, and saw (among many others) Michelle Wie and Annika Sorenstam. I don't know if I can describe well what I want to say about it, but I'll try...

First Michelle. My relationship with her is complicated. *laughs* First of all, I have affection for her purely because I randomly decided to make her a character in CAC, long before I really knew anything about her. And anyone who's played a round behind Seto and Ashila can't be all bad, right? Then again, my old instinct of jealousy/resentment kicks in mildly against any new phenom on the LPGA tour who might challenge Annika's dominance and respect...after all, gender aside, I seem to remember Annika's name showing up on various scraps of paper back in eighth grade along with Rey Ordonez and Tiger Woods. Plus I can't quite decide how I intellectually feel about this whole desire to play on the men's tour. Instinctively I seem to root for her to do it and to do well...and of course, I'm always in favor of breaking gender barriers and empowering women to do whatever the hell they want. On the other hand, why does she need to play the men's tour? What's wrong with the LPGA? Physically, the vast majority of women just aren't able to hit a golf ball as far or hard as the men on the PGA tour, and if the best women players start playing a good deal of their time on the men's tour, what will happen to the popularity and excitement of the LPGA? So I'm just not sure...but without thinking too hard, I always find myself liking and rooting for her, and I was excited to see her in person.

Now, how can I describe what she was like in person...I have to say, she reminds me a lot of Kaiba. Seriously. (Who's Kaiba, you ask? Tsk tsk, go watch Yugioh! (Japanese version only!)) She has an aura of concentration and intensity and elegance when she moves. And she's tall, lol. Just the way she carries herself, so strong and focused and serious and intense. (That's on the golf course obviously; I have no idea what she's like in real life! Not as much of a jerk as Kaiba I hope lol...) I've gotta say, if I were a few years younger and of an appropriate sexual orientation, I bet I'd be quite taken with her. Instead I just feel this Kaiba-like intensity from her that's very charismatic and almost mesmerizing in a way.

Now Annika. This is even harder to describe, and I feel rather silly knowing I'm about to start talking about watching someone hit good iron shots like it's some sort of mystical, cosmic experience or something. Okay, in a way that's silly. But sometimes when I watch Annika, especially in person, I feel that swelling of meaning (described in some post below I think) that's close to a feeling of wanting to cry, but not quite; like something in my soul is overflowing for a moment, like I'm seeing something not just impressive and good, but somehow beautiful, somehow an important part of the meaning of the whole universe. I know that sounds dramatic--it's just someone playing golf. But it's not meant to be dramatic; I don't think that everything that's an important part of the meaning of the whole universe has to be dramatic. It's just--beautiful, in some transcendent way. Not that every shot of hers is perfect. But there's something about her skill and precision and mastery of this particular artform that's just so powerful to see. And she hasn't got any of that Kaiba aura. Sure, she concentrates, but she's got her own aura, something more down-to-earth, laid back but deeply serious, solid and open. I got that swelling feeling specifically when she hit her iron shot up to the ninth green and it landed and checked up and spun a foot or two toward the hole. Not like it's a golf shot no one else in the world could hit; far from it. There's just something about her connection to this ability of playing golf that's meaningful to me.

So is all this stuff I'm babbling really as silly as it sounds? I don't think so. On one level yes; most of this, if not all, is in my head, something I'm bringing into existance inside myself and then calling powerful. At least, one could accuse it of being that. But I think that either, a) that's wrong, and these auras and transcendent abilities and whatever that I'm hit by are really something "real", whatever that means--something that is true or meaningful outside of me, I guess--or b) they're not; they're purely subjective, in which case I think, what's wrong with that? Life is subjective isn't it? What's the difference between something that's "really" powerful and something that feels powerful to me? Is there a meaningful way to define these concepts outside of subjective experience of them? I don't really think so...at least, I believe there is a meaningful way to define them that's rooted in subjective experience. And maybe a lot of things that we feel as being deep and powerful and intense and spiritual and meaningful in some sense aren't "real"...but can't we just define "real" in this case to be whatever we feel? This applies also, I think, to something like love.

My dad told me the other day of a conversation he had with my brother, in which my brother proposed the idea that there's such a thing as a song that is "great" in some way that means more than just being a song that's written and performed more skillfully than most other songs, but rather means somehow that this song taps into something more important and powerful than most other songs. That doesn't mean, of course, that these would be the songs with the "deepest" lyrics, or they would only include songs about "important" themes like death or spirituality or something. And of course, this would be (to some extend) a purely subjective judgment. I think that's part of the same idea...some things, experiences, people, phenomena, quotes, songs, characters, relationships, ideas, images, etc. just strike us somehow as tapping into something deeper, and personally I think that's very meaningful and important.

Listening to the CD of Japanese rock music that Lisa burned me, many of the songs on which I really like, I told my dad (before even knowing most of the lyrics to any of the songs) that I had a feeling that a particular song, Misery, by hide, was somehow a more powerful song than the others. Not meaning musically better, or even that I enjoyed listening to it more, but just something about it gave me that feeling that it transcended being a rock song, into being some small but important piece of the universe. And sure enough, now that I know the lyrics, I know that I was absolutely right. Remember all that stuff I was babbling about about how there shouldn't be a dichotomy between "happy" and "sad", and it shouldn't be seen as happy = good and sad = bad? How life is really about appreciating all emotions and learning to cultivate strong relationships based on love so that you can absorb the "negative" emotions when they happen and not be knocked over? Well, that's what this song is about, to me anyway. So I leave you with some quotes (although you really need to hear the music to get the power of it, especially the last line!):

Kimi no itami ureshisou ni hane wo hirogete maioritekuru.
Hiru no hikari kimi no kizu wo daite yasashiku hirogeteyuku.

Your pain happily spreads its wings and swoops down.
The daylight gently wraps your wounds and spreads them open.

Yoru no yami ni ochite yukeba wasureteshimau koto na no kamo;
Yureru omoi, tsuka no ma no yume, chiisana higeki.
Huru hoshi no kazu kazoetara naku no ni aki darou;
Warau tsuki no aosa kizu wo nadete tojiteyuku.

It could be something you forget as you fall into the dark of night;
A quivering feeling, a transient dream, a small tragedy.
If you count the falling stars you'll tire of crying;
The blue of the laughing moon will rub your wounds closed.

Stay free your misery: Furisosogu kanashimi wo sono mune no naka ni dakishimete.
Kiss your misery: Kareru made odoru darou subete uketomeru yo kono mama.
Stay free my misery.

Stay free your misery: Hold the sadness that pours down inside your heart.
Kiss your misery: You'll dance until you die, catching it all just as it is.
Stay free my misery.

Stay free my misery: Sakuretsu suru itami ga kakenukeru dake no kaze naraba...
Stay free my misery: Ame nochi hare wo matou hora kimi no namida wo tabechaou.

Stay free my misery: If this exploding pain is just a wind blowing through...
Stay free my misery: I'll wait until the rain clears, and see, I'll eat up your tears.

Kanashii to iu naraba sora no aosa sae mo todokanai modokashisa ni kimi ha nakun darou.
Kimi no chiisa na karada tsutsun deru yume ha itami wo nomikomi azayaka ni naru.

If you say you're sad, you'll cry with frustration, reaching not even the blue of the sky.
The dream that evelops your small body will swallow the pain and become brilliantly clear.

Stay free my misery: Furisosogu kanashimi wo sono mune no naka ni dakishimete.
Stay free your misery: Kareru made odoru darou;
Subete uketomete, kono sora no shita de kimi ga warau...

Stay free my misery: Hold the sadness that pours down inside your heart.
Stay free your misery: You'll dance until you die;
Catching it all, under this sky, you laugh...

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Eavesdropping

In Target today, a woman talking on her cell phone:

"...and he said, 'Do not leave your house. We are coming to get the penguin. And we would appreciate it if you would not come back to the zoo again.'"

Wow.