Plenty of Nothing

1980s Blog

Nō and the Cat's Ears

    Late one morning toward the end of the month, Taeko appeared again. Sachiko was listening to the radio.

    "Yukiko?" Taeko pulled a chair up to the fire.

    "She has gone to Dr. Kushida's."

    "An injection?"

    "Yes." Sachiko had been taking down recipes said to be good for the season. Now someone was reciting a Nō play.

    "Would you turn it off, please, Koi-san?"

    "Wait. Look at Bell." Taeko pointed her jaw at the cat, asleep by Sachiko's feet.

    Bell was drowsing happily in the warmth from the stove. Taeko had noticed that its ears twitched at each drum beat. Only the ears were affected, it seemed, by a reflex of no concern to the rest of the cat.

    "What do you suppose does it?"

    "Very strange."

    They watched, fascinated, as the ears twitched an accompaniment to the Nō, and when the Nō was finished Taeko turned off the radio.

Junichirō Tanizaki, The Makioka Sisters, page 385.

Gaelic Church, Jamaica Street

The former Gaelic Free Church at 14 Jamaica Street, Greenock, is an At Risk heritage building. It says a lot about Greenock's place in the mid-Nineteenth Century world that it had a Gaelic church on a Jamaica Street.

Today Morton and Queen of the South make up the game abandoned Saturday when a supporter died ten minutes into the match. Morton need to win (they need to win every game at this point) because Cowdenbeath beat Hamilton Saturday and opened up an eight-point gap. Queen of the South, for their part, can get into the promotion playoff zone if they win today. There are just eleven points between first and eighth places in the Championship right now.

[1 - 1. Morton goal by Archie Campbell. QoS played the second half with nine men.]

Holy Mount Athos

After a prolonged wrangle the National Gallery in Prague is exhibiting the twenty humungous canvasses that make up Alphonse Mucha's Slav Epic. Admission 180 krona, or about nine bucks. The composition above, Holy Mount Athos, painted in 1926, makes good use of church architecture and iconography to incorporate Mucha's signature form, the circle.

Red Thrummed Mitten

Japanese Word of the Day: Kibyōshi

Kibyōshi were a form of illustrated book popular in Japan around the year 1780. Relying on both text and picture to convey a story, they veer very close to modern-day manga. The example above is from a draft version of a kibyōshi by Santō Kyōden about how writing a novel compares to giving birth, and is particularly comic-like insofar as it has cartoons in the place of the more formal woodcut figures of the final version. You can browse both versions here at the National Diet Library.

Coup de Tête

Workmen in Qatar install or uninstall Adel Abdessemed's Coup de Tête.

Queen of the South visit Cappielow today.

Changes. Stuart Findlay is in. Ben Sampayo is in. Peciar is out and signed with Östersund in Sweden. Page is out and signed with Dunfermline in League One. If Morton finish ninth they could very well face Dunfermline in a playoff. Habai is out, and signed with Livingston. Livi visit Cappielow April 5th.

Both Celtic and Rangers remain undefeated in league play. Celtic do have three draws and Rangers have one. Chances are they'll win their divisions. The Championship, though, is a three-way race between Dundee, Hamilton and now Falkirk. Third-place Falkirk have the fewest losses among Championship clubs, with four.

[Match abandoned following a heart attack in the stands. Falkirk take over first place.]

The Topps SPFL Sticker Book has been released, and includes all 42 clubs. With the roster changes since Kenny Shiels took over at Cappielow, the Morton stickers are already somewhat out of date.  They are: #295 Badge; #296 [Campbell?]; #297 Derek Gaston; #298 Michel Habai; #299 Mark McLaughlin; #300 Scott Taggart; #301 Marc Fitzpatrick; #302 Jonathan Page; #303 Reece Hands; #304 Fouad Bachirou; #305 David O'Brien; #306 Tony Wallace; #307 Kabba-Modou Cham; #308 Doug Imrie.

St Johnstone defender Tom Scobbie is under a cloud following a nonregulation use of the forehead last Saturday against Hearts.

Scottish Junior Cup 4th Round replay: Largs 3 - 3 Kilsyth. Kilsyth win on penalty kicks.

On Tuesday Boulogne lost 0 - 2 to Stade Rennais in the seizièmes de finale of the Coupe de France, and are now eliminated. Stade Rennais are a red and black team from Brittany, and play in Ligue 1, which in France for once is the actual top league, so a victory for Boulogne would have counted as a major upset. Today in Championnat National play Boulogne visit Le Poiré-sur-Vie. [Poiré win 2 - 1.]

Narimichi

    The Journal of the great twelfth century footballer, Fujiwara no Narimichi, contains the following story: "I had brought together the best players of the time to assist me in celebrating the completion of my thousandth game. We set up two altars, and upon the one we placed our footballs, while on the other we arranged all kinds of offerings. Then, holding on to prayer-ribbons which we had tied to them, we worshipped the footballs.

    That night I was sitting at home near the lamp, grinding my ink with the intention of recording the day's proceedings in my journal, when suddenly the football which I had dedicated came bouncing into the room followed by three children of about four years old. Their faces were human, but otherwise they looked like monkeys. "What horrid creatures," I thought, and asked them roughly who they were.

    "We are the Football Sprites," they said. "And if you want to know our names---" So saying they lifted their hanging locks, and I saw that each of them had his name written on his forehead, as follows: Spring Willow Flower, Quiet Summer Wood, and Autumn Garden. Then they said, "Pray remember our names and deign to become our Mi-mori, 'Honourable Guardian.' Your success at Mi-mari, 'Honourable Football,' will then continually increase."

    And so saying they disappeared.

Arthur Waley, The Nō Plays of Japan, pages 291-2. The ukiyo-e print is by Toyohara Chikanobu (1838-1912). Note the football sprites in the top panel. Traditional Japanese football, kemari, is more like hacky sack than soccer. See here.

Mill Village Earth Station

Nova Scotia had a satellite tracking station at Mill Village near Liverpool from the 1960s till the 1980s. Watch this British Pathé short film from 1967, or this home video from 1985.

Kujibiki Zoku

Detail from the cover illustration of the recent Genshiken Nidaime Blu Ray release, showing the current Genshiken cast cosplaying Kujibiki Unbalance. Kuji-Un operates within Genshiken as Genji Monogatari or Heike Monogatari do within Japanese lit, or the Silmarillion within the Lord of the Rings, as a source of archetypes, a borrowed backstory to lend the characters an extra dimension (not 2D to 3D, but 2D to 2D+). Cosplay as a device for introducing archetypes into what is essentially a slice-of-life manga is pretty ingenius and might only really work in this manga. And it's the reason Ohno can never be allowed to graduate.

Ogiue and Sue have appeared before as Renko and The President, and Ohno as Kasumi Kisaragi. Madarame makes sense as Chihiro Enomoto. Typically Hato has now appeared as two different characters.