An animal wrangler in my garden
Dec. 14th, 2007 05:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusThere's a strange man who stands in our hof sometimes, a peasant blanket thrown over his shoulders, a long blue pole in hand. Here's there in all weathers, sometimes even at night. Greeting neighbours with a shy "Hallo!", this rustic mostly just prods the thickly-tangled shrubbery with his pole, calling out "Small!" Apparently he's trying to reclaim an animal of some kind, a black rabbit nicknamed Small which is hiding stubbornly in the bushes. The man is me -- the rabbit wrangler.
I take Small out to dig and nose around. He transforms immediately from a tame to a wild rabbit, and evades me the moment we get outside. He loves to dig and bite and gambol -- his tugging, twisting joy-leap tells you that. But he also loves to hide in the thick shrubbery and chew on twigs, and when he does that you just have to be patient and wait.
There are plenty of things to do out there. You can read blog comments on your iPod Touch (which doubles as a torch you can shine into the shrubbery); your wifi network is still perfectly legible out in the garden. You can think about the novel you're writing -- deciding, for instance, to stop in the middle of jokes and just walk about, admiring the scenery for a while. Slow motion jokes! Jokes like video games you tramp around in rather than playing for the plot!
You can admire what your lit flat looks like from the garden at night. It's quite impressive; you're on the ground floor, and there are four windows, all lit with different sorts of light (reddish pink in the bedroom, halogen yellow in the kitchen, fluorescent white on the white blinds of the living room). They bend around the courtyard, these windows, like a train bending around a track.
Your pretty girlfriend can hand you out a cup of hot Pu-erh tea, and shoot pictures through the window. Out here it's so cold your hands are growing numb -- a novelty which takes you back to enforced rugby matches on dismal Thursday afternoons in Scotland. You wrap your cold hands around the yellow mug, transferring its scalding warmth to your flesh, which starts to tingle. You enjoy being outside in winter. You like being in the garden in the dark.
Jan, your Japanese-American neighbour's Norwegian boyfriend, comes out with some old pizza boxes for the recycling bin. He's an artist. He tells you the flat's a mess just now, too much stuff. The Turkish family who just moved in at the back of the courtyard are cooking -- their windows are all steamed up. But the daughter opens one and looks out at you for a while. She must think you're a nutter. She doesn't know you're winking at Joseph Beuys, who's winking at a shaman.
It's incredibly quiet in the courtyard -- a Berlin thing. No matter how high-density the building, everyone keeps pretty schtumm. You can hear pleasant sounds, though -- Berlin sounds. The aerodrome drone of small taxi-ing prop planes at Tempelhof. A child practicing the cello -- the rumbly, wobbly sound of a beginner sawing out uncertain, half-broken notes. The birds that live in the big tree are going mad, chasing each other around in the dark. Chakk chakk! They're so territorial! And still the rabbit hulks in the hedgerow, a prey animal hiding from a hunter.
Eventually you'll grab him and pin him down and pick him up and bring him in. The trick? A rattled bag of raspberry treats. He can't resist them, even in the wild.
I take Small out to dig and nose around. He transforms immediately from a tame to a wild rabbit, and evades me the moment we get outside. He loves to dig and bite and gambol -- his tugging, twisting joy-leap tells you that. But he also loves to hide in the thick shrubbery and chew on twigs, and when he does that you just have to be patient and wait.
There are plenty of things to do out there. You can read blog comments on your iPod Touch (which doubles as a torch you can shine into the shrubbery); your wifi network is still perfectly legible out in the garden. You can think about the novel you're writing -- deciding, for instance, to stop in the middle of jokes and just walk about, admiring the scenery for a while. Slow motion jokes! Jokes like video games you tramp around in rather than playing for the plot!
You can admire what your lit flat looks like from the garden at night. It's quite impressive; you're on the ground floor, and there are four windows, all lit with different sorts of light (reddish pink in the bedroom, halogen yellow in the kitchen, fluorescent white on the white blinds of the living room). They bend around the courtyard, these windows, like a train bending around a track.
Your pretty girlfriend can hand you out a cup of hot Pu-erh tea, and shoot pictures through the window. Out here it's so cold your hands are growing numb -- a novelty which takes you back to enforced rugby matches on dismal Thursday afternoons in Scotland. You wrap your cold hands around the yellow mug, transferring its scalding warmth to your flesh, which starts to tingle. You enjoy being outside in winter. You like being in the garden in the dark.
Jan, your Japanese-American neighbour's Norwegian boyfriend, comes out with some old pizza boxes for the recycling bin. He's an artist. He tells you the flat's a mess just now, too much stuff. The Turkish family who just moved in at the back of the courtyard are cooking -- their windows are all steamed up. But the daughter opens one and looks out at you for a while. She must think you're a nutter. She doesn't know you're winking at Joseph Beuys, who's winking at a shaman.
It's incredibly quiet in the courtyard -- a Berlin thing. No matter how high-density the building, everyone keeps pretty schtumm. You can hear pleasant sounds, though -- Berlin sounds. The aerodrome drone of small taxi-ing prop planes at Tempelhof. A child practicing the cello -- the rumbly, wobbly sound of a beginner sawing out uncertain, half-broken notes. The birds that live in the big tree are going mad, chasing each other around in the dark. Chakk chakk! They're so territorial! And still the rabbit hulks in the hedgerow, a prey animal hiding from a hunter.
Eventually you'll grab him and pin him down and pick him up and bring him in. The trick? A rattled bag of raspberry treats. He can't resist them, even in the wild.
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How to explain paintings to a dead hare
Date: 2007-12-14 05:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 07:43 am (UTC)also
Date: 2007-12-14 07:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 08:46 am (UTC)I was very happy".
- The Fall
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 08:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 10:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 11:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 01:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 12:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 08:57 pm (UTC)Which basically has the same composition!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 12:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 01:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 01:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 04:21 pm (UTC)In short, I dont believe the Japanese are more subdued when it comes to blogging, I just believe that more people blog in Japan because a) the techology to do it by phone is more widespread there and b) the Japanese adopt new technology faster as a society. Obviously, when you have more people blogging, the more mediocrity you'll encounter, simple. There are still loads of Japanese bloggers/vloggers who post interesting and creative content to their blogs/vlogs (as seen below). There are just as many show offs in Japan as the west, its just you have to swim through mass of general mediocrity to find it.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 05:04 pm (UTC)I'd recommend you read a survey of the comparative research into cultural psychology called Culture and the Need for Positive Self-Regard: the Japanese Case (http://www.psych.ubc.ca/~heine/docs/diss.rtf). It'll -- at the very least -- make you see your pre-suppositions as begging many questions about your own cultural situatedness.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 05:39 pm (UTC)That article assumed that because a lot of Japanese bloggers like taking photos of their cats and lunches and autumn trees and writing short, concise entries that they were attempting to be unconfrontational and inconspicuous as part of a "collective"...*yawn*, yet another "Japanese people are the borg" stereotype that every lazy 'eye on Japan' hack has wheeled out a million times over). I dont believe this is the case, I just think the Japanese embrace technology faster than the rest of the world, so what you're seeing is their everyday lives (mediocrity) digitised faster than the rest of the world.
People love talking on the phone about idle bullshit. Its nice catching up with friends. The vast majority of phone conversations made by average people are just chit chat. Thats because phones have been embraced as a method of communication in the west. However, Im sure that when phones were more novel and less widespread they were used more "seriously" by the populace, which is the current stage blogging is at in the west. It hasnt been embraced as widely as in Japan because of technology.
In Japan, internet access on your phone is standard. They're one step ahead of everyone constantly in regards to technolgy and as a society they embrace it with open arms. Thats why there are so many 'cat photo entries' on their blogs -- blogging in Japan has become as ubiquitous as chit-chat on the phone is here in the west because of technology.
I'd recommend you have your girlfriend teach you Japanese so you can come and read the blogs on Mixi and watch the Videoblogs on Nico Nico video. You'll see the Japanese arent these timid, "I am a robot" people who get generalised and pigeonholed like they're theyre an alien species by over zealous eurapian/American social commentators. For example, I was recently reading a Japanese blog on mixi where a Japanese gay guy was complaining about the lack of equality for gay people in Japan and a lot of people were responding. On Nico Nico video I watched a guy cook fish bait (worms to be precise) and eat it as a meal, and he showed his face, and that girl who made the placards is another example. There are lots of examples of this sort of behaviour, its just not as widespread as the "this is my cat! Kawaii!" entries, because blogging is widespread in Japan among the general populace. Blogging is the "lets catch-up" phone call of the future. thats just my opinion.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 01:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 02:17 pm (UTC)But Nick, those are the video games I enjoy playing the most!
!
Date: 2007-12-14 04:49 pm (UTC)Re: !
Date: 2007-12-14 05:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 06:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 09:05 pm (UTC)but we also drink a lot of this:
and this:
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-14 09:56 pm (UTC)Teutonic rabbit wrangling: A brief review
Date: 2007-12-14 10:11 pm (UTC)Re: Teutonic review
Date: 2007-12-15 04:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-18 12:44 pm (UTC)i am also quite fond of pu erh. have you tried tuo cha 沱茶? very settling to the upset tum.