Monthly Archives: January 2016
Fukuoka, Jan 2, 2016
Hakata Station.
From the station we walked south towards Minoshima Market street. 
The market was closed but we found:a neko guarding an alley
little gardens
doors
yatai parking 
more doors. 
Later, thought about having some chewy Ika イカ.
Had some noodles instead
and gyoza 餃子.
Headed north to Fukuoka Tower. We merged into a crowd of women fresh out of a concert by boy band Kanjani Eight performing near by at the Yafuoku! Dome. They all carried bags printed with the band’s lips-and-sharp-teeth logo.
Left a mustached octopus behind. 
Observed.
Love locks at “lover’s sanctuary”.
Love for sale. ¥1,000
Robo-bins loitering at Nishijin-eki 西新駅.
We had our last pork ramen at the yatai street by the Nakagawa 那珂川. A group of Koreans (kankoku) arrived. The girl in the group said the cook was bery handsome in Korean. Her male friends studied him and agreed. The Japanese cook understood and blushed, and tried to look cool. The ramen wasn’t as good as the night before.
The River
river scene in The Revenant.
to see:
Fukuoka New Year’s Day
New Year’s day. Students near Hakata station.
Had delicious croissants from Il Forno Mignon at Hakata station.
Komainu 狛犬 at Sumiyoshi shrine 住吉神社. 
Statue of an ancient sumo wrestler revisited.
Komainu.
A dog and his master waiting in line at the shrine.
An older couple arrived at the shrine with their respective matching pups. 
Canal City.
Kawabata shopping arcade. 
We were all wrestlers in Japan once.
ネコ. Ca ca catters mccatters ©. 
ACROS.
A little papillon near Watanabe dori.
Had the creeping sensation of being followed.
Found some yatai 屋台 at the edge of the city. I got excited about a yakuza-looking guy hanging out near the joint that had part of his little finger missing. She was more excited about the food.
Some of the best ramen noddles I’ve had under a plastic tarp.
Walked the ruins of Fukuoka castle in the dark.
Headed back to our Hakata base. 
Sunday, Jan. 17, 2016
저는 한국어를 공부해요. 영어 하고 한국어 하고 중국어 사전을 읽어요.
Revenant
Watched The Revenant (2015)
Cinematographer: Emmanuel Lubezki
Alfred Jacob Miller – Breakfast at Sunrise (1858-1860)
Based on the novel The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge based on Hugh Glass
Men on a Roof Top
Rene Burri | Photographer
Men on a Roof Top / 1960 / San Paulo / Rene Burri
Che / 1963 / Cuba / Rene Burri via leicaphilia.com
Tae Soe Dong, South Korea, 1961 / Rene Burri
“Six Photographs”: René Burri from PORT on Vimeo.
Rene Burri at Magnum Photos
Burri in Korea (1961) Magnum Photos
Nostalgia
On Pogranichnaya.
Fukuoka 福岡 December 31, 2015
Waiting in line for steak and pork intestines. Underground near Hakata station 博多駅.
Our apartment near Hakata station.
A man carrying a ceremonial, evil-destroying arrow Hama Yumi purchased from a near by Shino temple (Wakahachimangu 若八幡, Gion station 祇園駅). 
We had takoyaki たこ焼き and other snacks from street vendors while we waited in line outside a Shinto temple.
Statues of Kappa playing in a waterfall. Tenjin Chikagai under Watanabe dori. 
Watanabe dori. 
Ramen tickets.
Tonkotsu ramen, our last meal of the year.
Claw cranes near Solaria. 
Et in Arcadia Ego
Et in Arcadia Ego. Guercino. 1618-22. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome. Via wikimedia.
A memento mori at 3:38.
Nicholas Poussin, Et in Arcadia Ego, 1627. via wikipedia.
Nicolas Poussin. Et in Arcadia ego (1637-1638). Via wikimedia.
Interpretation of the phrase and paintings:
“The most important difference between the two versions is that in the latter version, one of the two shepherds recognizes the shadow of his companion on the tomb and circumscribes the silhouette with his finger. According to an ancient tradition (see Pliny the Elder, nat. Hist. XXXV 5, 15), this is the moment in which the art of painting is first discovered. Thus, the shepherd’s shadow is the first image in art history. But the shadow on the tomb is also a symbol of death (in the first version symbolized by a skull on the top of the tomb). The meaning of this highly intricate composition seems to be that, from prehistory onward, the discovery of art has been the creative response of humankind to the shocking discovery of mortality. Thus, death’s claim to rule even Arcadia is challenged by art […] In the face of death, art’s duty—indeed, her raison d’être—is to recall absent loved ones, console anxieties, evoke and reconcile conflicting emotions, surmount isolation, and facilitate the expression of the unutterable.” * Wikipedia.
Philippe de Champaigne. Vanitas (c. 1671) Life, Death, and Time.
See memento mori and vanitas.
Raising Lazarus, Oil on Copper Plate, 1875, Carl Heinrich Bloch. Via wikimedia.
The Raising of Lazarus, 1857, Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat. Via wikimedia.
See Ecologues of Virgil.
See Erwin Panofsky
See Web Gallery of Art.
The mass hanging of San Patricios via wikimedia.
Read Samuel Chamberlain‘s My Confession: Recollections of a Rogue.
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Et In Arcadia Ego is the name the Judge has given to his rifle in Blood Meridian. In the book, the Judge copies and destroys an ancient rock painting he finds while crossing the desert.
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On the origin of painting and drawing through shadow. Blog.
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*the source of the interpretation doesn’t appear in Wikipedia unless it comes from the German book Picasso und die christliche Ikonographie. Mutterbeziehung und künstliches Selbstverständnis (2003) by . (Picasso and the Christian iconography. Mother relationship and artificial self-image).