Monthly Archives: June 2005

Comme Ça Dogs

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In yesterday’s post, Pat asked if that really was a dog among the window display mannequins. The question made me realize that I’ve come to see pet mannequins as a normal part of the shopping experience. They just blend in with everything else and seem so unremarkable that I can’t even remember if there are such things back home. Are there?

In any case, for today’s post I made a slightly clearer crop of yesterday’s photo, starring the dog. And then I dug through my photo archives for some more samples.

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Comme Ça, Baby

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You can skip this preamble if you want, and go directly to the next paragraph. I had a really long day, filled with correspondence and bureaucracy, mostly having to do with our preparations to play continent leapfrog—unrelated to incontinent leapfrog, something that I do not want to see—starting in July. So today’s post is much shorter than I had hoped. I’ll probably end up splitting what could be one long post into a series of shorter ones.

I’ve written briefly the Comme Ça Store before. It’s a chain of stores that primarily sell clothing. You can read more about them in the I do not think it means… post, which was one my first descriptions of strange English usage in Japan. The Comme Ça description in that writeup is too brief but it’ll have to do. You may have to scroll down or do a text search to get to the Comme Ça part.

But enough about the past. Today you get a brief description—and two photos—of a small corner of the baby wear section of the Comme Ça Store.

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Should Never Reproduce?

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Today I have yet another photo that I took near Riverwalk in Kitakyushu. Just two lovers an ordinary couple sitting on a park bench their bodies touching in the late afternoon, holding hands in the moonlight watching the Murasaki River.

I remember doing an almost whiplash-inducing doubletake at the guy’s shirt. Contrary to what one would expect, there is not, in fact, any massacred English. Just a slight amount of confusion as to the original intentions of the author of the text. Oh yeah, it’s at this point that I should warn the parents of any minors in my audience that there is profanity in the photo that follows.

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Dotcom Fortress

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A pachinko parlour in rural Japan evokes memories of the late-90s stock market boom. And bust.

I’ve been meaning to write about pachinko parlours for awhile, but haven’t had time or energy to do the research necessary to do the subject justice. Plus I still haven’t organized my photo library enough to be able to easily extract sets of photos by keyword. Instead of an exhaustive report, today I’ll simply post one photo I came across while I was looking at pictures I took almost exactly a year ago.

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A Poet’s Birthday

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If you’re one to pay attention to these things, you’ll have noticed that this is the second poetry-related post in two days. Poetry lives!

At one point, this post was turning into a longish text that sounded more like a funeral speech than birthday wishes. Luckily, I know a good frankeneditor who cut out all the eulogizing.

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Bicycle Poetry

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Apologies in advance for the briefness of this post, but I’m being forced by the organized member of the family into living up to the duties of someone who will be moving to another continent in less than a month.

Today I have, for your entertainment, edification, and reading pleasure, three found poems, discovered on bicycles in the bike shelter next to our building.

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Demonstration Class at Jarrod’s School

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Every few months they have an open period where parents are invited to come watch a class. Monday was one of those days. We don’t always go, but we decided to go to this one because it’s the last one before we leave Japan.

We didn’t understand much of what was going on beyond the methodology—it was a Japanese class where they were reading a story—which involved reading, interpretation, and explanation. There was also an activity where some of the students acted out part of the story, but I couldn’t really follow it.

In any case, my lack of understanding didn’t stop me from taking pictures.

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Fire Drill

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Today we had a fire drill. I’d known about it for a few weeks, since it was on the month’s events schedule, but I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect since it was my first one in Japan. Lia had told me what they were like at her school so I was somewhat prepared for how different they are from what I was used to in Canada.

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Shrine Guardians 4: Epilogue

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This is the final installment of my series about Japanese shrine-guarding lion dogs, where obscure references are explained, and mysterious poetic wisdom is shared.

I’ll be starting with some clarification of stuff in the Shrine Guardians Legend, so please make sure you’ve read the story before proceeding. Otherwise most of this post will make little sense. The notes herein should clarify a few mysteries without creating more. Part 1 and Part 2 of this series are also recommended, though not necessary. If you haven’t read the story and don’t intend to, feel free to skip to the photos at the bottom of the page.

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