Art Classroom Note

I found this on the floor in a British secondary school art classroom. Written by girls aged between 11 and 16, it tells an evocative story of young life in today's modern urban Britain.

omg im so board!
same same I cnt w8 till friday till venom n c dat boi yay cnt wait
lol, do u want me 2 come?
well no lol
OMG! OK if ya dont want to hang out wid ya nanny I understand!
lol na u cn cum bt we duno how we are gettin home dogh cuz I will ask but prob say no init
well we cn walk, it wont b da late or dark & it b fun! haha
it will n ma dad will kill me
Ohhhhhhhhh [possibly written by third person]

Notes:
1. Venom is a horrifying nightclub in Berkshire with an under-18s night.
2. "dogh" is easily the best ever youth culture mis-spelling of "though".
3. There are people in the world who actually write lol on paper, in real life. The nature of writing a secret note in class means you cannot actually be laughing out loud, as doing so would arouse suspicion in the teacher almost immediately. Thus, like almost all people who ever type LOL, these girls are liars.

More foreign packaging (slight return)

This morning I received a CD from America. When I cut open the folded piece of cardboard in which it had been mailed, I discovered this printed on the reverse.

Whatever this company is, I'm sure we don't have it in the UK. What the hell is the image supposed to be? In addition, I can think of no words beginning with BAGL.

Please help if you can.

Ways of Using Bread

We found this little post-war recipe book while helping my Grandmother move house. Its full title is Over 120 Ways of Using Bread for Tasty and Delightful Dishes, and it cost 6d (old money). Here's the back cover:

Ah, that famous Wild West Great Bread Empire! The dusty road; the covered wagon; the smell of the crust.

A very good point is made in the introduction:

"Of course, we do not live by bread alone. Nobody wants to. Nobody needs to. We could, however, live and thrive on bread and milk, were it not for the monotony."

Over the last few years, I've come to really hate the crushing inevilability of bread. It invokes a kind of midday despair, and reminds me that at its root, life is very boring indeed. This book, then, is both my heaven and hell. Myrtle and I have picked some choice recipes for you to try at home.

BREAD JELLY
¼ pint water, a little sugar, 1 thick slice of bread, 1 egg.
Toast the bread on both sides and remove the crust. Break the toast into small pieces and put into a saucepan with the water. Simmer over the fire until the mixture becomes a jelly. Take it from the fire, and stir in the egg well beaten, sugar to taste, and a little vanilla flavouring if liked.

BREAD CUTLETS
Slices of stale bread, milk, nutmeg, pepper, chopped parsley, herbs, lemon rind, egg and breadcrumbs.
Cut the slices of stale bread into cutlet shapes, about three-quarters of an inch in thickness. Soak them in a little milk on a plate, but do not make them too soft. Mix the chopped parsley, herbs, lemon rind, nutmeg and breadcrumbs. Break the egg on a plate, dip each cutlet in it, then in the prepared breadcrumbs, and drop in deep boiling fat.

TOAST WATER
Cut a slice of bread from a large loaf about ¼ inch thick. Toast it evenly on both sides to a golden brown colour. Cool it, then put into a jug and pour cold water over it. Leave until the water is the colour of sherry, then strain and serve in a glass jug. This is a very refreshing drink in hot weather; it may also be safely given to patients suffering from Influenza and other feverish ailments.

For reasons of space we are unable to reproduce every recipe, but as a kind of blog dessert, you can try to imagine what these dishes from the book might entail:

• Brown Bread Mist
• Ham Mould
• Cold Meat Shape
• Bread Meringue
• Brown Bread Ice Cream
• Rice Toast

Full recipes are available on request. You might like to try this recipe too. Barman, toast water for everyone!

Lost Property Box Jury

Another library find, this time a mix CD I discovered buried under all the gloves, pens and reading lists in the lost property box. I was so intrigued by the drawing on it of the bird's wings and paw print that I took it home to have a listen.

I spent a good hour identifying all the tracks and, boy, do I feel gypped! This is undoubtedly the worst mix CD that I have ever heard. No wonder it got left at the library.

1. The Beatles - I've Just Seen A Face
2. Sam Cooke - Wonderful World (Don't Know Much)
3. Bic Runga - Sway
4. Prince - The Most Beautiful Girl In The World
5. Lenny Kravitz - Stand By My Woman
6. Bill Withers - Lean On Me
7. Van Morrison - Have I Told You Lately
8. Sinead O'Connor - Nothing Compares To You
9. Katie Melua - Closest Thing To Crazy
10. Bob Dylan - To Make You Feel My Love
11. Bob Marley - I Know A Place (Where We Can Carry On)
12. Dire Straits - Romeo and Juliet
13. Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes - Up Where We Belong
14. Lionel Richie - Stuck On You
15. Bob Marley - Turn Your Lights Down Low
16. Billy Joel - And So It Goes
17. The Beach Boys - Disney Girls
18. Sting - Fields Of Gold
19. Eva Cassidy - Time After Time
20. Bob Dylan - Shelter From The Storm

I feel embarrassed every time I look at the readers in the library now, wondering who the recipient was and, more pertinently, who in god's name made this MOR slushfest. I mean, I feel mortified for this person who thinks Lenny Kravitz songs are a valid form of musical expression. They'll never pass their finals this way.

I'll give as much milk as possible

I was handed this flyer yesterday by a middle-aged Chinese lady:

Any fool can tell you that a flyer with a drawing of a chicken saying "We Pray for You" on it is worth keeping.

Who is behind this campaign to convert people to vegetarianism? The links at the bottom of the flyer point to godsdirectcontact.org which, despite the spooky name, is a sort of Buddhist group led by The Supreme Master Ching Hai.

Being vegetarian is a major facet of traditional Buddhism but Supreme Master Ching Hai has some further explanations about why we mustn't eat eggs:

"We can drink milk, yes we could, no problem about milk because we don't have to kill the animal for milk. About the egg, even if it's no fertilized egg, it still contains a kind of symbol of life and death, born and reborn, and also the egg has the potential of attracting the negative energy. Perhaps you would read or know or heard that many of the magicians, they use the eggs to attract the negative entities from some of the possessed persons. Therefore we do not like to attract the negative force into ourselves, because now we try to reach the positive nature."

And:

"Because egg is a symbol of life and death. In it contains life, yeah. And many of the black magicians or white magicians they use eggs to withdraw some of the negative possessive spirit within some people, yeah. Therefore, if we eat eggs too much we tend to attract this negative force toward ourselves. Yeah, that's one of the reasons why we should not eat eggs, hm."

Here, have an egg-free fortune cookie. I can absolutely guarantee it will not attract any negative entities.

The Free Object

My very favourite crafty arty internet person, Sarah Neuburger, has declared it a week of download fun at The Small Object. Huzzah! She'll be uploading a new free downloadable mystery item every day this week, all week.

So far we've had these great envelopes and labels:

I printed some out this morning at work and sat with the glue and scissors making them. I can confirm absolutely without reserve the radness of these designs. And I can't wait for the stationery that I ordered to arrive!

Download from the Small Object Steno Pad.

Natsume Soseki Am A Cat

We found this a little while ago on a Japanese imageboard:

It's a folded 1000-yen banknote, featuring the face of author Natsume Soseki. The creator of this piece is sadly unknown.

Try as we might, we have failed to find any instructions on the internet on how to make this particular kind of origami money-folding cat, either for Japanese money or our own trusty British sterling. I can, however, make a lovely Japanese crane. Myrtle says she can make a lily, but this is unproven.

On researching this entry, we've just discovered that these 1000-yen notes were phased out as legal tender just after we left Japan, replaced by ones bearing the countenance of Hideyo Noguchi.

...All this holiday money is WORTHLESS!

The World of Mimiyo Tomozawa

There doesn't seem to be any really good online English resource for excellent Japanese artist Mimiyo Tomozawa. She isn't even on Wikipedia, for Christ's sake! So:

PART 1: THE ART OF MIMIYO TOMOZAWA

Mimiyo is probably best-known for her artwork on two Jim O'Rourke album sleeves (Eureka and Insignificance, both released on Drag City):

As you can see, there is a theme running through her work. Put simply: Round-headed people who often look unhappy. In that sense, she's like a Japanese Charles Schultz. Several books of Mimiyo's comics and graphic art have been published in Japan, and her work is a regular feature of underground comics and magazines there. Several years ago, a ten-page Mimiyo strip, Through The Looking Chest, appeared in Tokion magazine's 'Happy Issue 3'. It was presented in Japanese and English. This is the only Mimiyo comic to have ever been officially available in English, though a slim French children's book called Viens chez moi describes what a house will be like in the future. In French.

This dreadful lack of English Mimiyo content has prompted me to translate a two-page manga from her book Kinoko Ryokou (Mushroom Travel). Here it is! Just for fun! With acknowledgement that all copyright lies with Mimiyo and her publisher! Click the links to see each page.

"SHIMERU"

PAGE ONE ~ PAGE TWO

PART 2: THE MUSIC OF MIMIYO TOMOZAWA (cribbed from here)

In 1990, Mimiyo Tomozawa and Missa Fukuma formed a 'Spacy Folk' group called RISU ('squirrel' in Japanese). They had one release only - an "Official Recording Cassette Tape" - which the pair decided to reissue in 2000 on CD after exchanging some emails on the subject. Re-titled "The Best Of RISU - Past Future Folk Songs" and expanded to include tracks not on the original cassette, the CD was remastered by Mayo Takise, one of Yann Tomita's right-hand men. On its release, Miss Fukuma had the following to say: "The sound of RISU was 10 years early. It's 2000 that we all understand the most evil devil and the most gentle god are the same one. It's strange feeling like the light of stars finally come to the earth now."

Here it is at Amazon Japan (Japanese language link). If you think your local super-hep record store might be game, the CD was released on EMPEROR RECORDS, catalogue number ER-2003, on 2000.7.7.

For immediate thrills, you can download an mp3 by Mimiyo here, available for free as part of a 10-track experimental EP entitled "Minute Women," also featuring excellent French group Dragibus.

PART 3: THE GOSSIP OF MIMIYO TOMOZAWA

1) Mimiyo is married to a French musician, and they've had a child together.
2) Mimiyo and Jim O’Rourke like to sing karaoke together when they're both in Japan.

This is all the gossip I've found so far, and it concludes my brief tour around the World of Mimiyo Tomozawa.

MIMIYO LINK APOCALYPSE

Epileptic page containing lots of Mimiyo art, and great music by Dragibus.
Information about 2005's Stranger Town exhibition, featuring Mimiyo and Daniel Johnston.
A New York Times article on Stranger Town.
'Snap Shots' Photo exhibition at the Neon Gallery Brösart from 2002, featuring Mimiyo and O'Rourke.
Some photos of Mimiyo (in black with white polka-dots) at an exhibition closing party in Love Lab, Tokyo.
The goods of Mimiyo Tomozawa (some t-shirts and books, page in Japanese)

Dido Building Carthage, or An Unfinished Letter

I found this card today, addressed to an Officer Cadet at Sandhurst, down in the dusty recesses of a library bookshelf:

September 12th 2005

Dear Jeremy,
I have just finished having my bath and speaking with you on the telephone. It occurred to me that the letter I had written you and was intending to send tomorrow was simply not appropriate for your first letter. I believed that your emotions were probably running high, being it your week, and therefore I decided to write in somewhat of a detached manner. Rather than follow my instincts, I wrote about... Scottish national identity and the British public's love of the secular magic of monarchy!

We have only known each other a few weeks and there is so much for us to learn about each other. I will start, I think, by providing (not particularly interesting) facts about myself:

The remaining half of the card has been left tantalisingly blank. Why did this person stop writing at this point? What interrupted her (or him)? Did they use the unfinished letter as a bookmark then carelessly forget about it? I guess we'll never know.

This is why I love ephemera so much - that voyeuristic peek into other people's everyday lives, the open-ended mystery of these fragments, the imagined human dramas. The nosy, speculating, storytelling part of my brain explodes when I come across precious scraps like today's card.

I hope that I can sate your burning curiosities by providing some (not particularly interesting) facts about myself:

• I have two brothers.
• I don't like it in winter when I enter a room and my glasses fog up.
• I have a scar on my knee from a childhood fall.

Over to you, dog.

The Sickness

A few years ago, in the UK Japan Society newsletter, I found the best reason for cancelling an event that I've ever seen.

I'd love to get that rubber stamp.

Though this lecture was cancelled, and was due to take place two years ago anyway, you haven't missed your chance to see some beautiful examples of Buddhist sculpture at this Buddhist Art Photo Library.

They're a little bit dull, but here's a link to the UK Japan Society.
This link is much better.