Jiggle [09 May 2012|08:05pm] In his controversial and largely academically discredited book, The Naked Ape, zoologist and ethologist Desmond Morris argued that the human females mammaries evolved into such rounded and erotic things because humans lost the direct line of sight to the ass when they became bipedal. In other primates the buttocks are erogenous, and the mammaries swell only when the females are nursing the young and don't signal sexual readiness, so in his view, human breasts were surrogate buttocks. Be that as it may, this entry will again be about titties. It seems that in Japan breasts were not eroticized until relatively recently in history. It's true that in Japanese art the naked female form was curiously absent. And I don't mean pornographic or erotic art, but just plain old art. In the West we were painting and sculpting and sketching naked chicks all the time. It was the most commonplace subject ever. Obviously, this created an environment where different aspects of womens bodies weren't eriticized in Japan like they were in the West. In shunga, or erotic Japanese prints, breasts may be visible, but they're not prominent. Rather, shunga artists concentrated in the depiction of the faces, genitalia, and clothes. The clothes weren't mere decoration, but gave important information about the season, the status of the people pictured, as well as their relationship. The faces and the fantastically detailed and huge genitals signaled emotion. Traditionally in ukiyo-e in general, faces were rather inexpressive, from a Western standpoint at least. So at a loss as to how to signal sexual passion, shunga artists came to use the genitals as the man depictors of emotion. The end result being that for most of us who're unaccustomed to reading shunga images like they were meant to be read, the impression is sometimes baffling rather than titillating, when the characters engaging in sex often appear to just impassively watch the intermingling of their enormous penises and vaginas. Reinhold von Werner wrote in his Die preußische Expedition nach China, Japan und Siam in den jahren 1860, 1861 und 1862 (1876), the record on the naval expedition captaining the warship Elbe, that the Japanese bathed together, man and woman, young and old. Wives would have male bath attendants wash their bodies without any need for swimming attire or bathrobes. The book's on Google, and the passage in question can be found on page 71. It makes me wish my skills with the german language were better. Zoologist and orientalist Edward S. Morse wrote similarly in his account on his stay in Japan, Japan Day by Day 1877, 1878-79, 1882-83 (1917). "[T]he most striking sight was to see both sexes in the bath, young and old, and the whole affair open to the street along which many were passing, though a low screen partially intervened." This is on page 97 of volume one. I had always wondered about images like the above, first of all because the women seem so indifferent about the fact that they're in full view of the man stoking the fire. Second, because despite depicting a situation that I'm used to interpreting as sexually charged, it doesn't look like a pornographic image at all. Chistopher Pemberton Hodgson, explorer, writer and diplomat, wrote his A residence at Nagasaki and Hakodate in 1859-1860: With an account of Japan generally (1861) about his time in Hakodate as British and French consul. He devoted a few pages to bathing. If there is one thing that disgusts Europeans more than another, and which is greatly to be lamented, it is the open and undisguised licentiousness which prevails in every rank of this people. Were one to believe all, or a portion even of what we are told confidentially, (but which is denied most positively at first, and afterwards only gradually and equivocally admitted by superior officers,) it would be revolting to all with any vestige of delicacy still remaining in them. The public bathhouses have often been described. I have heard very much of the scenes some have witnessed, but with the exception of one ride at Yedo, when the bathers of both sexes indiscriminately sallied out to see us pass, from some twenty of their common cells, in all the natural simplicity of our first parents' costume before their expulsion, I cannot remember but one other occasion on which I was so fearfully horrified; and that was on the first day we landed with Mr. Alcott, and went, with a band of music preceding us, to the Governor's Yămūn. On that occasion I remember the same indelicate display, and all the bathers of both sexes came out, unabashed and without the slightest idea or reflection that they were naked, to gratify their curiosity by a good long gaze on the novel spectacle. At other times I could have seen the bathers, but then, to have done so, should have been obliged to lift up a veil of cotton or linen to obtain a glimpse of them. So, although they may have no sense of shame, and do not think it immoral or improper to expose themselves, I do not think that this exposure is so very common. Curiosity alone to behold unknown wonders may have at first started them from their watery caverns, and so has given us fair reason for accusing them of habitual indecency, when in fact it was only exceptional; for now, if a European attempts to draw the curtain before the house, he is received with storms of abuse, and told very plainly to go about his business. This is at Hakodate; where I am well assured that men and women of the lower ranks do bathe together in perfect harmony and the most complete nudity. But what is the bathing at Leukerbad, or Barèges, or Biarritz, or Trouville, or Ramsgate, or Brighton? Is it perfect? is it always decent and irreproachable? (251-252) I'm not sure how I feel about Hodgson based on this passage. For 1861 I suppose he was being quite the radical for at least appearing to try and understand what he was seeing despite the shock to his sensibilities. In a way it brings to mind what Claude Lévi-Strauss wrote about the natives in South-America, how their nakedness wasn't motivated by lasciviousness, but that they simply had different notions of privacy. The tribesmen wore woven sheaths or simply small tufts of straw over their genitals, and while a Westerner might interpret them as accessories or decorations meant to better display the genitals rather than conceal them, according to Lévi-Strauss they exhibited intense embarrasment if they happened to be caught without them. Consider also the difference between our Western clothes, that may bare our arms, legs and more, and a burqa. The Japanese only developed a taste for breasts when they adopted the Western style of dress. This was as late as post-war. Kimono were the most common type of clothing, and with their undergarments they obscured the chest area all but completely. So the Japanese eroticized what the kimono did emphasize or show, namely wrists and ankles and the nape ot the neck. Narrow hips, or "willow hips" were also a coveted body ideal. I think this also has interesting implications concerning the notion that humans are hardwired to find physical signs of healthiness and fertility incredibly erotic. In Caucasians few things spell out health and fertility as clearly as rounded hips and full breasts. So perhaps cultural norms trump biology in the end. I want to flesh out how the contemporary Japanese feel about breasts and how this was arrived at, especially since this entry ended up being more about body-shame or lack thereof and the introduction of Western ideas of decency and sexual modesty... However it's way too long already and writing another entry gives me an excuse to post more pictures. 2 comments|post comment

"Learning hath gained most by those books by which the Printers have lost." [02 May 2012|11:45pm] I'm backing up a bit, to April 6th when I wrote some things about YA. I recently changed computers, because my trusty old HP resigned after years and years of selfless servitude. So now when I visit Amazon, I am not greeted with lists of recently viewed items, but a list of what Amazon thinks I might like. Namely, their best sellers. And I suppose the bestseller list should give a fair representation of what's out there. And what's out there is different editions of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, which is basically three volumes of erotic Twilight fan fiction with the names changed. Different editions of the Hunger Games trilogy. Different editions of Charlaine Harris's Deadlocked. A Kindle edition of Nora Roberts's The Last Boyfriend and The Witness. Divergent and Insurgent, the first and second books in a particularly stupid-sounding YA trilogy. Something from Rick Riordan of the Percy Jackson "fame". Some bargain-priced romance for your Kindle. David Baldacci. Nicholas Sparks. Touch of Frost, the first book in an even stupider-sounding YA trilogy. Some bargain-priced crime for your Kindle. James Patterson. John Grisham. Some true crime. George RR Martin. Sh*t My Dad Says. Lame erotic fiction from Sylvia Day. Stephen King. Self-insert law firm fiction from Tiffany Snow, who probably doesn't benefit much from sharing her name with a "stigmata-bearer, documented miracle healer and near-death experiencer". And Stieg Larsson. I understand. Faced with these choices, I'd pick the Hunger Games too. Except no I wouldn't. There's still erotic fiction on the list. post comment

[28 Apr 2012|09:07pm] I may graduate within the year. So here's A list of job opportunities I may have in Japan: Cross-dressing guide garçon Butch lesbian escort Finnish teacher NEET Token foreigner 2 comments|post comment

The year of living snobbishly [06 Apr 2012|02:33am] I've been thinking of fandom lately. I had an interesting discussion with a friend on how when we were young, being a fan meant analyzing the product one was a fan of, which most often meant finding faults in it. The writers/producers/directors/editors just didn't get this or that right or didn't have a very good understanding of the characters and how they should act. These days the act of being a fan appears to have gone back to the era of The Beatles, when fans don't seem to discuss the object of their fanaticism, but simply indulge in breathlessly extolling its virtues and accusing everyone who doesn't agree of elitism, bad taste, stupidity, or a delightful combination of those. What I'm talking about is obviously Young Adult fiction. I'm not pretending to be any less of a literary snob than I am. Because I am. And I'm not pissing on YA as a genre, though I don't think much of it, what with being a literary snob. The problem I have with YA is grown people reading it. And not even grown people reading it, because hey, I can read Remo novels in the privacy of my own home and enjoy them. What I have a problem with is grown people reading literature geared toward teenagers, and seemingly thinking nothing of it. Indeed, promoting them as something everyone should read. Indeed, becoming unnecessarily aggressive when it is suggested that YA is for young adults, not for people old enough to have an offspring of young adults. Why do fans of YA get to reserve the right to pick and choose and say "It's not all stupid like Twilight", when those with opposite views have no such rights? Ok I'll get right on reading all of Laurell K. Hamilton's books before reading any other innovative pieces of YA fiction. Also every Harlequin romance ever published because those def aren't for kids. I guess to someone the above seems like a very compelling argument in favor of YA... But I seriously doubt it ever comes down to a choice between Harlequin romance novels and YA novels. It hardly ever comes down to a choice between some Joanne Harris or Tom Clancy novels and YA novels. Still, there are arguments like the following, apparently in favor of reading YA, because literature for grown up people is bad. I'm sick of trying to find an adult book that isn't - a mother with grown children finding herself after having a midlife crisis - chick lit where the girl is a socialite, a model, working in the modelling, magazine or film industry behind the scenes, big on shopping and cute little lunches with "the girls" or all of the above put together - how the family pet taught the family to laugh and love again - journeying abroad and finding oneself etc. I don't remember ever reading a novel that fell in any of those categories, and I've read a few novels. But then again, I don't walk into a bookstore and stand there dithering in front of the bestsellers, where ones options are limited to novels about shopaholics and the myriad reincarnations of The Da Vince Code. I have a vast library at my home from which to choose (when in doubt, read some Martin Amis), and when I get new books, I look for new stuff from the authors I like, as well as stuff from authors who seem interesting. And it's never a detriment to a novel to have been awarded or shortlisted for a Man Booker Prize... There's also the numerous "So teens shouldn't read and learn about this or that that's superbly portrayed in metaphors in this or that YA instant classic?" arguments, which miss the point entirely, so I'm not even going to discuss them. Then there's the "Well excuse me for wanting to know what my child reads so I could have meaningful conversations with him" argument, which also slightly misses the point, the point being that it's one thing to read the same novels ones teenage son or daughter reads to have more common ground, and a whole different thing to read nothing but literature geared for teenagers and excuse oneself by saying it's better than anything else available. And then there's this argument here: I guess this applies to the classics, too, huh? I mean, To Kill A Mockingbird is clearly off limits since it is told from a child's perspective, right? What about Catcher in the Rye? Huckleberry Finn? Treasure Island? The Adventures of Tom Sawyer? Riiiiight. post comment

"Any gender is a drag." [08 Mar 2012|08:38pm] I'm late to the party, but today I learned about this. I'm feeling like death warmed over, and like my brain's a steak on the fryer, but I'm still going to make a valiant effort at addressing my feelings about it. I myself was a kid who enjoyed playing with boys and climbing trees, and wanted to be the dad when I was made to play house (arguably not because I identified as male, but because it was the easiest role, as it only required leaving for work), and I think these desires were amply indulged by the staff at my day care. I just wish they had also indulged my desire to sit in hidden corners mumbling to myself with a book despite the fact that I most probably couldn't read, instead of thinking I was retarded... I do think it's perverse and wrong to indoctrinate children from a young age forward into believing that there are certain things they aren't allowed to do or say or think simply because of their sex. But I tend to draw the line at pronouns. Maybe it's because in my native language there are no gendered pronouns, but I think rather than the words themselves, the attitudes behind them are the problem. I don't personally see any problem with having a child know peoples sex, including his or her own, unless it comes up in statements like "girls should wear dresses, not boyish clothes" or "boys can't become nurses/dancers/preschool teachers" or "boys don't play with dolls" or "girls should have long hair". Perhaps, in gendered languages, the pronouns themselves are so imbued with gender stereotypes that it's impossible to escape them without resorting to made up words. When I hear people described with a "he" or "sie" or "han", the only assumption I make is one concerning their sex, so I can't really imagine that a native speaker would draw wild conclusions about their vocation, values, and whatnot based on the same information. Or maybe I'm just lucky, having had my own boyish impulses indulged. Maybe my own happy childhood has made me blind to such injustices. On the other hand, precisely because of it, I can't help but feel that measures such as the ones overtaken at Egalia preschool fail to address the children as individuals. I mean, I can fully see how making a girl who wants to rough house with the boys wear a dress and French curls is detrimental to that childs development, but telling a girl who actually wants to wear the frilly dresses and curls like a princess that she can't on the basis that conforming to gender norms is detrimental seems equally detrimental. I know these measures aren't meant to facilitate the coming to terms with gender issues of the minority of children who're transgender, but free all of the children from socially constructed gender roles that dictate how they are allowed to behave and how not. It's something I very much want, but ideally, I would want it done from an individual level, instead of treating children as a whole to automated "thon may play with model kitchen or with legos, which ever thon wants" responses. I want children to have the personal freedom to choose how they play and what they want to be when they grow up. post comment

Lag [04 Mar 2012|11:48pm] I came back from Japan late last Thursday, and been feeling less than ideal since. After three weeks of near ceaseless movement, I feel as if I've lost all momentum and desire to do anything besides sleeping and eating. I have a terrible allergic cough that makes me wish I might hack up a piece of lung or some other organ, just to make it seem as if all that coughing had accomplished something. I'd feel a lot more sorry for myself if everyone else in the family weren't in substantially worse conditions. post comment

Winners never quit [06 Feb 2012|01:54am] Googling the G-spot, I ended up perusing AskMen.com after a long while. I always wonder what the readers actually think about when they comment with stuff like this: Nowadays, women are becoming more and more involved in the sex process. they are not considered any more as baby makers. i find that good. that is what is called evolution. Or this: Man, oh man, and it IS, a wonderful feeling for HER, when she ejaculates, however tho, work with her, give her plenty of encouragement, that she can ejaculate. She maybe a little timid at first, BUT, getting her to loosen up, turned on through helpful stimulation, that will help lose TOTAL CONTROL, and for her to ENJOY what she is doing. And WHEN, she DOES comes, and squirts, don't be too surprised that the fluid comes squirting out like 50 mm water cannon. Her fluid has probably been building up for some time, here is a WONDERFUL opportunity for HER, to let it ALL HANG OUT. WHEN she IS, done squirting, SHE will be MAJORLY RELIEVED, and DO NOT forget to CONGRATULATE ALL to pieces, for ALL the EFFORT that SHE put into ejaculating Once SHE, feels the RELIEF, don't be too surprised that SHE, will want to do it ALL over again another time. Also, it IS, a GREAT way for her to relieve her self from all those built up fluids inside her body, that she was afraid, or didn't know how to release before. I would love to hear someone read that out loud and shout all the words that are in all caps. But really, the article ends with this paragraph full of wisdom that's sure to be a source of much stress, performance anxiety and feelings of inadequacy to both men and women: Making her ejaculate takes patience Like anything else, practice makes perfect. She might not ejaculate the first time, but keep trying. After all, winners never quit. Try different positions, talking dirty, increased foreplay, and more stimulation on other parts of her body as you insert your fingers inside. For instance, you can kneel while fingering her and use the other hand to touch her breasts and lick her. Or try alternating between penetration and your fingers in doggy-style. If you’re well-endowed you may be able to make her come through penetration alone. If all else fails, a little vibrator action will likely get her juiced up. There's bound to be a bazillion studies and articles in academic journals about female orgasms and performance anxiety. Maybe I'll look them all up sometime when it's not 2 in the morning. 2 comments|post comment

It's neuroses all the way down [05 Feb 2012|02:20am] An excerpt from a book titled Female Ejaculation and the G-Spot: Not Your Mother's Orgasm Book! (yes, the exclamation mark is part of the books title): Inspired, I wrote, directed, and produced another video 1998, Tantric Journey to Female Orgasm: Awaken Your G-Spot, which explored the G-spot and female ejaculation from a healing, spiritual perspective. The video featured the first-ever demonstration of a G-spot massage, which is used to release emotional blocks caused by negative sexual events which have caused the G-spot to become numb or painful. Oh yes, I can tell this isn't my mothers book on orgasms. It's Herr Doktor Sigmund Freuds. 7 comments|post comment

To Asia! [03 Feb 2012|10:04pm] I don't have anything much to say. It's cold as fuck here, so I'm really looking forward to escaping to Japan. Not that it's warm there, because it's freezing, but I have fantasies of wearing shorts. Apparently they used to sell pictures like this as souvenirs for foreigners. Souvenir titties... Who thought of that..? 2 comments|post comment

Rare birds [25 Jan 2012|05:06am] Today I saw this exchange of comments in a post on something or other in the community feminist_geeks. It's all the same what's actually said in the first comment. I don't agree with it or anything. What I find offensive is the moderators note. "You're not supposed to be here." Why exactly? Well, because in the info, right after the communitys description "We're feminists. We're geeks. We're awesome.", it says this. Do these people mistakenly believe that the words "feminist" and "female" are synonymous and interchangeable? That is the only explanation I can fathom. OED defines the words feminism and feminist thus: noun [mass noun] the advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes. noun a person who supports feminism. Nowhere does it say that a person who identifies as male cannot be a feminist. I have been grievously offended. 4 comments|post comment

Issues [24 Jan 2012|03:46am] The first round of the presidential elections is over, and one of the candidates going into the second round is openly gay and married to another man. He's not the guy I wanted to vote on the first round, though I did, and I'm going to vote for him again on the second round. My reasons for voting him and not wanting to do so have nothing to do with his orientation. Frankly I don't give a shit if he's gay or straight. This is not the issue I want to address. The issue I do want to address is how it really pisses me off to read something like this on my Facebook wall: I'm very disappointed and offended about peoples status updates concerning the presidential elections :( Is it a fact that all pedophiles, abusers of their own children, junkies, alcoholic and mentally diseased parents, beaters of women, rapists, etc. are better than I am simply because they have sex and reproduce with members of the opposite sex? Am I to conclude that because I'm involved with a member of the same sex, I am the lowest grade of citizen, and comparable to a mindless animal?! Without any undue disrespect to the person I'm quoting, I have run it through my translating organ and vomited back up something that's even slightly eloquent. I'm very, very bored with this generalization some gays make, as if "I don't want my child to have a homo teacher" equals "Do you have convicted pedophiles on the roster?", or "No way is my son gay!" equals "I would be proud if my son was a schizophrenic crackhead who beats his wife and sexually molests his child". I am somewhat gay myself, and I don't see why straight people shouldn't have a right to want a straight president, when so many gays seem to really want a gay president. I do feel it's pretty stupid to make a candidates sexual orientation a deal-breaker, but that applies to a lot of gay or pro-gay voters in this election as well. Being gay alone doesn't make a person awesome. Neither does being straight. post comment

More embarrassing confessions [18 Jan 2012|05:34am] It's apparently the embarrassing confession season... One of the main reasons I suck at taking care of my correspondence, apart from my laziness and occasional inability to string together even the most basic of sentences, is modesty. I look at inordinate amounts of sexually explicit material daily, and have a hang-up about writing to or chatting with my friends right after or in the midst of researching Japanese sex techniques or charting the evolution of orgasm-faces or reading masturbation fantasies... So I try to create buffer-zones of a few hours of not doing any of that before writing or chatting, so as to shield them. Usually I either watch tv or google cephalopods. Sadly cephalopods tend to make me hyper. This is a problem I have yet to solve. 4 comments|post comment

Embarrassing confession time: [16 Jan 2012|05:11am] Even though embarrassing isn't probably the word. I'm a misogynist. A lot of women are, in the sense that they may be jealous of each others accomplishments or have a tendency to stab each other in the back. I'm rather misogynist like young sexually frustrated men are; the fact that I can't have one (not that I even try) is indisputable proof of women as a sex being a lot of stupid whores... It's not a conscious attitude that I have, nor one that I apply to any women I know, but an attitude I have none the less. Despite knowing better, I tend to think women have questionable taste in movies, books, and music, and also that women can't direct movies, write books, or make music. I enjoy conversation with any and all of my female friends, because they're smart, interesting people, and certainly a lot more interesting than some of my male friends, but when I imagine what a conversation with a woman is like, I tend to picture a slow maddening death from boredom while listening to some endless prattle about deciding what color of pantyhose to wear. When I don't get along with a man, I understand it's for any number of reasons, such as he's a jackass or boring or has the wrong values. When I don't get along with a woman, it's because she's a woman, and I don't have anything in common with women. I'm not terribly happy about this attitude, especially since I refuse to even make an effort to get along with cis men who adopt such an attitude toward women. * I always feel queer when I use the term "cis". * I actually also rather dislike men, and mostly with good reason. Most of the time they have ridiculously crap taste in most things. Most of them are even too stupid to agree when told so. I used to think shopping with women was a awful enough to make one want to feign having an epileptic seizure. Then I went shopping with a male nerd. He kept pulling games off the shelves and asking me if he should buy them, and when I told him I didn't give a shit he put them back. Then he had to peruse each item in the whole discount area. DO YOU FUCKING NEED A REFRIDGERATOR OR A HOME BREWERY OR A FUCKING ROOMBA WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT THEM. 2 comments|post comment

Self gratification [09 Jan 2012|04:33am] Disclaimer: This entry is more of a placeholder for myself than anything very well thought over. Reading Japanese womens masturbation fantasies (as one does), it struck me that a sizable number of them are about listening in on a girl next door either masturbating or having sex. When I thought about it, there are also fantasies about listening in on a girl masturbating in the adjacent toilet booth. The main thing obviously is that if they can hear their neighbors, the neighbors can also hear them. That seems to get them pretty hot. Japanese women seem very tickled by fantasies of public sex. I rather think getting turned on by their neighbors moaning, and moaning so they can in turn hear is related to the exhibitionist public sex fantasies. Having a man overhear ones moans of pleasure while masturbating is risky, whereas there's something a lot less physically intimidating and yet equally exhibitionist in letting a woman hear it. Who knows. Food for thought. 2 comments|post comment

To the Gallows. To the Gallows. To the Gallows, Gallows Tree. [07 Jan 2012|03:01am] I'm reading the Smithsonian Magazine site, and their article A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials. In the second to last paragraph its reads "Playwright Arthur Miller resurrected the tale with his 1953 play The Crucible, using the trials as an allegory for the McCarthyism paranoia in the 1950s." In the comments "Selena" writes: You guys should read "The Crucible" it's all about the salem witch trials. I'm sure you guys will enjoy it! It's really interesting and what happens and all. It really explains it well detailed and they even use characters for it, it's like a play! ;) You don't say? 2 comments|post comment

Clear and present danger [04 Jan 2012|04:10am] These holidays, Facebook is giving me even more stress than usual. Traditional Japanese New Year greetings have always been a source of stress, because who knows when it's appropriate. Usually I've either skipped them altogether, made them in advance, which is not proper, or made them whenever I happen to interact with people after the New Year (for up to two and a half weeks). This year I promised myself that I'd do a thing on Facebook on the 4th. Today I found that 4th is late... Another thing. A girl I know recently added me into a group called Geek Women Unite. I don't think of myself as a geek woman, though it's up for debate whether it's the geek part or the woman part that I have more of a problem with. Why should geek women have to unite anyway, when geek men are free to live alone at their parents' basement and never to make eye contact with anyone when they occasionally go out to buy more video games? Anyway, I didn't think I knew any geek women besides the one who added me, and I would've pegged her as normal if she didn't keep inviting me to gaming nights at her house. And it's not even sexy code for something sexy. It's board games. I apologise for people who like games. I also don't really know what "geek" means. What I mean to say is, the mysterious number besides the group name in the sidebar keeps growing. It's like in movies where dudes look at a radar screen and it's empty, then suddenly there's a blip, and when it makes another sweep, there's a bazillion blips everywhere and they keep getting closer and multiplying on every sweep... post comment

[30 Dec 2011|10:34am] I've been watching Firefly the whole day. After seeing the episode Bushwhacked, I really wanted to read slash fic about Mal and commander Harken. There is none. post comment

Back to our regularly scheduled programming [22 Dec 2011|11:16pm] In his encyclopedia Wakan sansaizue (Japanese-Chinese collected illustrations of the Three Realms) from 1713, Terajima Ryôan wrote of kawatarô, now more commonly known as kappa: There are many kawatarô in the valleys, rivers, and ponds of the west country and Kyûshû. About the size of a ten-year-old child, the kawatarô stands and walks naked and speaks in a human voice. Its hair is short and sparse. The top of its head is concave and can hold a scoop of water. Kawatarô usually live in water, but in the light of the late afternoon, many emerge into the area near the river and steal melons, eggplants, and things from the fields. By nature the kawatarô likes sumô; when it sees a person, it will invite him [to wrestle]... If there is water on its head, the kawatarô has several times the strenght of a warrior... The kawatarô has a tendency to pull cattle and horses into the water and suck blood out of their rumps. People crossing rivers must be very careful. This is from a book by Michael Dylan Foster, Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yôkai (p. 46). I would like it better if it was less about Mizuki Shigeru. post comment

Sick. [15 Jun 2011|03:24am] Auto-immune disease is no fun. I was diagnozed with one today. Sjögrens syndrome. So lame. 3 comments|post comment

I'm super! Thanks for asking! [03 Jun 2011|09:10pm] Did I ever tell you about the time I got frisked at the airport? So nice! What pisses me off today are people who write accounts on how some people are idiots and then manage to make numerous spelling and grammar mistakes. Does writing this seem hypocritical? The difference here is that while some idiots are too stupid to realize their own idiocy, I don't so much hate idiots as I hate people who fail at spelling and grammar. Who misspells "exaggerating" as "exagurating"? And more tragically, who ends their tirade about being ringed by fools with "I maintain my lack of faith in humaniyt [sic] ¬_¬"..? Normally I'd be too embarrassed to admit that this is the same person who always features in my entries about how I hate people who use knowing multiple languages as an excuse for making spelling and grammar mistakes. It's not an excuse, it just means you suck at spelling and grammar in multiple languages. Also, hey, maybe your husband left you after 20 years because he got sick of your crap spelling! And yes, I am both a masochist and a dickhead. post comment

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