Hana Mochi and Re:Standard
Jan. 1st, 2009 11:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusHana mochi are artificial flowers made of pulpy, glutinous, sweetened rice in pink and white. You make them at New Year. It's a tradition from up in the mountains, where there are no winter flowers. To make the New Year's celebrations festive, people organize workshops in which they press "buds" of sticky rice pulp to bare branches and twigs, making them into floral sprigs and spays.
Our small collective worked recently in a room heated by a wood-burning ceramic stove to make hana mochi, artificial rice flowers. Not only were we making artificial flowers, but we were -- some of us -- artificial Japanese people.
In order to prepare our hearts and minds better for the task of becoming Japanese-of-the-mountains, we pored over copies of Re:Standard magazine while drinking tea during our breaks. The wood crackled in the ceramic stove as we applied ourselves with dedication to our reading.
Re:Standard magazine is published by Little More, an independent Tokyo publisher and gallery. It is a magazine dedicated to the re-assessment of the normal. The first issue carried the cover story "A Life With Thermos Flasks". A Thermos flask is a simple, normal item, but it can suggest something extraordinary; a field trip with friends during which a magical moment arrives, a moment in which -- in the middle of nowhere, perhaps -- one is refreshed by hot tea.
"With your head and your instinct," say the editors of Re:Standard, "you should judge what you really need. The standard things in our daily lives, we would like to translate as futsu -- normal things. This is a magazine in which we think about normal things -- futsu -- and necessary things, neither too old nor to new. These things -- abandoned in the rush for progress -- can become our new standards."
This magazine about the normal and the not-so-new has a special interest in "slow photography" -- old cameras, old film. An analog camera, like a Thermos flask, is an under-appreciated friend, a device you take on a field trip with a small group of friends. With the right philosophy, it becomes a tool for the reassessment of "standard" things encountered on the way -- normal things which have become slightly neglected because of the arrival of new things. With the camera one records, and appreciates, them. And from the Thermos flask one swigs hot tea, admiring the hana mochi.
Our small collective worked recently in a room heated by a wood-burning ceramic stove to make hana mochi, artificial rice flowers. Not only were we making artificial flowers, but we were -- some of us -- artificial Japanese people.
In order to prepare our hearts and minds better for the task of becoming Japanese-of-the-mountains, we pored over copies of Re:Standard magazine while drinking tea during our breaks. The wood crackled in the ceramic stove as we applied ourselves with dedication to our reading.
Re:Standard magazine is published by Little More, an independent Tokyo publisher and gallery. It is a magazine dedicated to the re-assessment of the normal. The first issue carried the cover story "A Life With Thermos Flasks". A Thermos flask is a simple, normal item, but it can suggest something extraordinary; a field trip with friends during which a magical moment arrives, a moment in which -- in the middle of nowhere, perhaps -- one is refreshed by hot tea.
"With your head and your instinct," say the editors of Re:Standard, "you should judge what you really need. The standard things in our daily lives, we would like to translate as futsu -- normal things. This is a magazine in which we think about normal things -- futsu -- and necessary things, neither too old nor to new. These things -- abandoned in the rush for progress -- can become our new standards."
This magazine about the normal and the not-so-new has a special interest in "slow photography" -- old cameras, old film. An analog camera, like a Thermos flask, is an under-appreciated friend, a device you take on a field trip with a small group of friends. With the right philosophy, it becomes a tool for the reassessment of "standard" things encountered on the way -- normal things which have become slightly neglected because of the arrival of new things. With the camera one records, and appreciates, them. And from the Thermos flask one swigs hot tea, admiring the hana mochi.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-01 05:05 pm (UTC)I downloaded Tales from Earthsea. Did you and Hisae watch it in the end? I enjoyed it, I liked the character designs, although I think Goro is going to live constantly in his father's shadow as an animator if he doesn't try to deviate more from the Miyazaki formula.
During the production of Tales from Earthsea, Goro wrote a blog that was posted on the Ghibli website. I read the English translation and I was surprised at how personal it got at times, it seemed completely unprofessional and very unjapanese. he wrote:
"22nd February 2006
Number 39 - Zero Marks as a Father, Full Marks as a Director
Hayao Miyazaki, to me, is "Zero Marks as a Father, Full Marks as a Director".
My father was almost never at home... and almost every Saturday and Sunday he was still at work regardless. That's why, from my earliest awareness to the present day, I hardly ever had the chance to talk to him.
My mother was also an animator... My father changed workplaces, and his work got even busier than before. So the result was, that in order to bring up the children, my mother had no choice but to give up being an animator.
(full entry here (http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/earthsea/blog/blog39.html))"
It's something I could imagine on a personal blog, but this was a production blog on the Ghibli website.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-01 05:34 pm (UTC)Yes, and I agree with the thing about him being in his dad's shadow. What annoyed me slightly about the ending was that the witch was a caricature of evil, demanding eternal life for herself. Miyazaki the Elder would have put more moral nuance in there.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-01 05:53 pm (UTC)I personally think that a character that embraces nihilism would have been a more interesting and unconventional way of approaching the philosophical concepts raised in the film. It wouldn't have been popular though and would have been misunderstood by most cinema goers.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-01 11:22 pm (UTC)"And the people who see the pictures in this trailer,
at the same time as they are moved in their heart by the song,
will probably be thinking something like this:
"It's the same Ghibli artwork" "It's just like a Miyazaki anime"."
That screams "existential boredom + anguish" to me. I can see him going nuts and becoming the new hideaki anno. Either that or chuoside....
Zephyre
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-02 01:35 am (UTC)