April, masks, cruelty.
Apr. 21st, 2008 22:46![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starladySome people have sort of more or less asked me this, but I need to go back to the States and work so I can make money without spending it all. I love Japan but it's a money pit, at least the way I live now! And my student loan debt isn't going away, and Social Security isn't going to suddenly magically become future-solvent again...I need to be financial planning, but I don't really have that much finances to plan with. Which isn't grammatical, but I really wonder if I shouldn't attempt to try the salaried job world (puke) if I don't get JET or the Yokohama language school for '09. And I admit, sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be better to chuck academia for something that pays more money. I could totally see myself walking into the corporate world, somewhere, after I get my doctorate. I don't know, but I do know that I need an actual income, and soon. This has been a wasted year in terms of financial planning, which is fine, but I can't really afford (hah! a stupid pun!) many more of them.
...All of which is a preview to saying, Katherine and I went to Mibu Kyogen at Mibu-dera today and it was quite awesome. Kyogen is a precursor/sibling of noh that sort of functions like a satyr play to noh's tragedy trilogy, if I may make an ancient Athenian drama metaphor. Mibu Kyogen is a special kind of kyogen that is only done at Mibu-dera here in Kyoto (where the Shinsengumi are buried! that's right!) and only three times a year: October, Setsubun (February), and this week. It's interesting that those three times have all at one time or another been the start of the new year (last day of October, lunar new year, spring equinox), -ish. But then, drama in Greece and in Japan both grew out of worship--which reminds me I have to see some shrine noh one of these days. It was really fascinating, in other words--we saw four plays, two of them very famous (one involving chucking plates off the stage, the other a spider attack). The performers all wear masks (again, more parallels to Greece! so cool!), so a lot of the acting is in gesture and physical posture, and there are no words. I read at some point that when Aeschylus introduced the third speaking part tragedy as we know it became possible, and so it was interesting to see that even though there were three characters on stage most of the time the interaction would usually be taking place only between two of them. The weather was gorgeous today too, so the spider's "webs" flew most pleasingly. After that we went to Papa John's (the cafe) on Shinkyogoku and oh, it was that store's 10th anniversary, so of course I had the special dessert plate and a macchiato. Scrumptious. Brief note on the Shinsengumi: They were so scary, and on the wrong side, but so cool. Given how the Meiji government's policies turned out, however, is it facetious to ask if there was a right side in the Dragon Year War? Maybe.
I don't think I ever mentioned this, but there were several "human accidents" each day the last time I was in Tokyo, and when I talked to Charity she said that apparently there usually are more suicides at this time of year: April really is the cruelest month, particularly in Japan because everyone starts their new jobs and school on 1 April. Oh T.S. Eliot, you were a genius, certainly the best of all bank clerk-poets.
My real reason for posting today, of course, is that today is the first day of the year 2762 AUC. I realized that my math was off; last year was actually 2761, because there was never a year 0. Yeah, I'm smart, that's right. But anyway, Happy Birthday to Rome, the Eternal City. (No, I'm not going to correct for the Julian/Gregorian conversion difference. It was something like six weeks off when Russia went off the Julian calendar...almost one hundred years ago, I'm not going near that math.)
...All of which is a preview to saying, Katherine and I went to Mibu Kyogen at Mibu-dera today and it was quite awesome. Kyogen is a precursor/sibling of noh that sort of functions like a satyr play to noh's tragedy trilogy, if I may make an ancient Athenian drama metaphor. Mibu Kyogen is a special kind of kyogen that is only done at Mibu-dera here in Kyoto (where the Shinsengumi are buried! that's right!) and only three times a year: October, Setsubun (February), and this week. It's interesting that those three times have all at one time or another been the start of the new year (last day of October, lunar new year, spring equinox), -ish. But then, drama in Greece and in Japan both grew out of worship--which reminds me I have to see some shrine noh one of these days. It was really fascinating, in other words--we saw four plays, two of them very famous (one involving chucking plates off the stage, the other a spider attack). The performers all wear masks (again, more parallels to Greece! so cool!), so a lot of the acting is in gesture and physical posture, and there are no words. I read at some point that when Aeschylus introduced the third speaking part tragedy as we know it became possible, and so it was interesting to see that even though there were three characters on stage most of the time the interaction would usually be taking place only between two of them. The weather was gorgeous today too, so the spider's "webs" flew most pleasingly. After that we went to Papa John's (the cafe) on Shinkyogoku and oh, it was that store's 10th anniversary, so of course I had the special dessert plate and a macchiato. Scrumptious. Brief note on the Shinsengumi: They were so scary, and on the wrong side, but so cool. Given how the Meiji government's policies turned out, however, is it facetious to ask if there was a right side in the Dragon Year War? Maybe.
I don't think I ever mentioned this, but there were several "human accidents" each day the last time I was in Tokyo, and when I talked to Charity she said that apparently there usually are more suicides at this time of year: April really is the cruelest month, particularly in Japan because everyone starts their new jobs and school on 1 April. Oh T.S. Eliot, you were a genius, certainly the best of all bank clerk-poets.
My real reason for posting today, of course, is that today is the first day of the year 2762 AUC. I realized that my math was off; last year was actually 2761, because there was never a year 0. Yeah, I'm smart, that's right. But anyway, Happy Birthday to Rome, the Eternal City. (No, I'm not going to correct for the Julian/Gregorian conversion difference. It was something like six weeks off when Russia went off the Julian calendar...almost one hundred years ago, I'm not going near that math.)
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-21 16:43 (UTC)I think it was Sophocles who introduced the third speaking part, and when he started to win everything, Aeschylus followed suit, but he never became very comfortable with three-way dialogue.
Really cool, though, to see something like that performed in person and be able to appreciate some of the dynamics. I'm jealous.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-23 09:25 (UTC)I have to admit, though, I sort of prefer Aeschylus to Sophocles (gasp!). The Oresteia has a power in its primitiveness that I've never been able to find in Oedipus Rex.
Yeah, thank god for classics or I wouldn't know what to think about anything. :-)