The Melting World

I love shoveling snow, especially fresh fallen powder, and after the weekend I am sure it will be my main source of exercise this winter. At least three feet of snow has fallen within two days, and every five hours yesterday I shoveled the car out and the building’s front walkway. I even crazily decided […]

I liked the juxtaposition here of emperor photos (or military leaders?) and the sixties nude. These thrift shops are just north of Kyoto city hall.

A classic photo of Osaka city. This is a shot of America-mura, which (of course) has nothing to do with America at all.

I am still asleep, foggily typing out this blog, before I go teach two classes back-to-back. I had a week off from teaching and now it is time to be on stage again. Once there, it is not bad, even enjoyable…but it is the “having” to go that feels unnatural this morning. I’d much rather […]

On my way to work, the wind tried to peel me from the bicycle more than once, sudden gusts in the shape of two square hands pushing occasionally and forcefully against my right side, but I prevailed and remained balanced…as I think I must be part circus acrobat. Inside the wind a spray of rain […]

We are home. Took a trip to the main island, to Osaka and Kyoto for four nights, and I felt overwhelmed with the sudden onrush of city life–crowds, cars, taxis, buses, airplanes, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, mopeds, shoes, and faces that didn’t smile as much or hands that didn’t hold doors open as much, and the […]

Yesterday and today…snow, not the icy or miniature variety, but full fluffy soft snow…the same as the snow from my Minnesota childhood and so I am in love with this land and the snow that covers it. When people grow up in tropical climates, they usually have no conception of why any human would want […]

As most of you know, and others will soon find out, I am equipped with a highly developed serial obsessive compulsive personality–which means I am “into things” (quote from the sweet movie “Jump Tomorrow,” but I hope not in the same pathetic way…). I am just constantly studying, reading and dreaming about a few chosen […]

Human beings contain more water than any other substance, probably due to our amphibian beginnings…this is a quick thought I just created to explain why I chose Watercarrier as my user name, but that isn’t actually the real reason. I have written a poem called “Saltwater Carrier,” based on a character in a Japanese Noh […]