Author Archives: Murphy

_Memoirs of a Geisha_ by Arthur Golden

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I was disappointed to discover that this is not actually a true memoir of a geisha. I didn’t know this when I picked it up, but it’s all over the bestseller lists right now. I think it’s a decent book, it just wasn’t what I expected.

It’s basically a kind of 20th century regency romance, set in Japan.

If I had known i was that sort of story, I would have been really impressed. The description of how Sayuri became a giesha, and the historical setting was descriptive and interesting.

But the “Pretty Woman” style happy ending was a little disappointing. I had hoped she would be a strong woman and set out on her own. I concede that was probably personal taste.

Plenty of people love that sort of story, and this is a good one of its kind.

I should say, I heard this book on tape, rather than read it. The audio version was read by a woman with a Japanese accent. Her reading was very engaging, and the accent added a dimension of location that would not have been present on the page.

_South of the Border, West of the Sun_ by Haruki Murakami

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Another one by the great Murakami. Every book of his I’ve read so far (The Windup Bird Chronicals and Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World) has been really great, so when I went to the library I checked out all of his books on the shelf.

But I live in a small town now, so there was only one book by him on the shelf, South of the Border, West of the Sun. It was short, so I finished it this morning.

This one might be the most realistic books I’ve read. Nothing happened that was outside the range of natural life. His descriptions of emotions were very surreal, though. It was the same Murakami I’d grown to love.

This story is a very human story, and the jacket calls it a love story. There is no doubt that love is involved, but I’m not so sure it’s a love story.

It starts off with the hero, Hajime, as a kid. He’s 12, and has a girl who is his best friend. When his family moved to a different neighborhood, they lost track of each other. But he never forgot her.

The rest of the story talks about his romantic affairs, high school and growing up. He is finally an adult and has his life on a very successful track, with a business and a wife and family, when the childhood friend reappears.

Everything turns upside down after that.

The story is good and definitely kept my interest. I don’t know if Hajime could be called typically male. If he could,this story might be very revealing of the psychology of a cheating husband. But I am not sure he could be called typical. The story is just a little strange.

In the end, it was pretty bleak. As he portrays it, tenuous nature of love and the unreliability of human character leaves little to hope for.

Reading this book makes me rethink the others. Perhaps Murakami is more nihilistic than I realized. Then again, maybe this story is just him exploring his nihilistic side.

One thing for sure, I need to read the rest of this guy’s works.

Where’s your pride?

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Sticks and stones will break your bones
but names will never hurt you

…that’s a crock of bull…Names are extremely painful. All kinds of words can conspire to hit you in the middle and throb.

Each person has a sense of themselves. I am not the only one to have a way that I wish to be seen, a presentation of myself projected to others. I want to be seen as clever, or funny, or good-looking. All three even.

But when others poke a hole in my bubble, when they dash my polished surface. They could show me up as stupid. Or not laugh at my jokes. Or something much more embarrassing.

Something that makes me feel like everything about me is undesirable and even despised.

Uhhll. That’s a horrible feeling.

I want to be loved. I want to be accepted and cherished.

That doesn’t always happen. There are times when I am very NOT.

It’s ironic, because I know that I am not always desirable and lovable. I live with me every day. I know my flaws.

Then again, it is especially painful when I hear from others about a flaw I was unaware of. How withering to learn that they outfit I thought so cute has a big hole in it. Or the speech habit I thought endearing was percieved as condescending.

It’s a sick, skin-crawling self-loathing feeling. It’s the sort of feeling I want to be rid of as soon as possible, but it lingers.

I remember one particular embarrassing moment. I was in a new town, and had been embraced in a new friendship–possibly romantic!–which was all the more exciting because there was no one else vying for my attention.

He had loaned me his guitar, a great trust, and told me where he lived so I could return it after a while.

It seemed appropriate to me to bring it back after a few weeks. Still warm from his attention, and not wanted the friendship to fade away, I followed the directions he had given me to his apartment, where his lived with his family. I brought the guitar back, hoping for a little visit.

I came to the door and was greeted with a wall of hostility. His sister left me in the hall, and went to get her brother. He took his time. When he finally came out he asked why I had come.

To return the guitar.

He looked down at the guitar and took it from me at last. Then he said I should not have come.

I left as soon as I could. I was mortified. I felt like a bug that narrowly escaped death, only because I would have soiled the shoes it would take to squish me.

I was reeling. I wanted to find some comfort somewhere. But I had no one I could go to. I wanted to have some friend–someone!–tell me, “hey, don’t listen to them. You’re okay.”

But I was new to the town, and I had no way of communicating with any of my old friends. It was all me. And I felt like a pimple on the butt of the world.

That part of me that stays on the side tried to think of something. Some way to comfort myself. I began to realize that the thing that was hurting was my pride.

What is Pride? “… it’s not a hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man…”

And yet it can be hurt. Was it important? or was this pain like the hiccups, something uncomfortable that was not serious and would pass?

Pride…Pride is the original sin. Lucifer was proud and he screwed everything up.

In that case, pride SHOULD be hurt. Pride should be ignored, torn down, attacked. It was a good thing to have my pride damaged. I should be humble, not proud.

And yet…There is another meaning of pride. Pride in opposition to shame. I will not be ashamed. If I am ashamed, it means I have done something wrong. Something shameful.

But if I am proud, I am proud of myself, I am living right. I should strive to be proud of my work. I should preserve my pride.

How can this be? Two things that mean the opposite.

Here is how I have determined the difference:

For the false, destructive pride, the source comes from external things. If I am proud of what I did not create, what I did not work for, then this is false. If I take pride in my appearance, my status or how people regard me, then that’s wrong.

But if the source of my pride comes from my own work, and the affirmation comes from myself, then it is good pride. Yes, I should work hard and take pride in my work. I should be careful to be honest and have integrity. I can be proud of that integrity, but my pride can be an internal affirmation. I don’t need to broadcast my good deeds, it is enough to know them myself.

A shameful pride would be trumpeted and draw from other peoples’ opinion.

But a humble pride would be quiet and only need affirmation from oneself.

That is basically the litmus test. And it places my pride, my self-worth, inside my sphere of control. I don’t need anyone else’s opinions to know.

I can hold my own with pride.

Fractal people

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They put them in the middle of the mall. They were brightly colored posters; but they didn’t have any kind of picture. People stood and stared at them as if mesmerized.

I didn’t get it. I didn’t see anything.

It’s your duty to uphold tradition

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Once of the things that parents must do when raising their children is give them a sense of right and wrong, and a sense of the values of their culture.

This is important! If kids are not guided and molded, how can society maintain its vital traditions?

Parents, I say to you now, it is your DUTY to take your children trick or treating. Haloween depends upon it.

In years past, there were hordes of costumed waifs parading down the block after dark. It has slowed! It is merely a trickle when once it was a mighty flood.

But we, the childless members of society depend on the children to uphold the tradition. Where would we be if the children abandon Halloween?

Do not go only to the businesses and the malls to gather candy! Fie on you, you parents who deem it convenient or ‘safe’ to do so!

No, we depend on the children to provide us with a reason to buy large quantities of our favorite candies.

It is your DUTY, parents and children, even if you don’t feel like it. Even if you don’t like candy or aren’t allowed to eat it.

You are the carriers of the torch. If you do not pass it forward, we are lost.

Can you imagine the grim future, the barren and dry future of an America with no more halloween? No sweets, no costumes, no flirting with evil or badness?

Let it not be so! Keep halloween thriving! Dress your children and yourselves!

It is your unhallowed duty.

photos of the bristlecone pine forest

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This forest was truly amazing. It was magnificently old. You could tell that it had a sense of presence. It was a forest that knew how to wait, and enjoyed the passage of time.

It was named after it’s own seeds:

bristlecone pinecone.bmp

Of course, that is just the tiniest part of the forest. The forest has huge time-scarred trees.

bristlecone twins.bmp

These trees have learned to live in the hardest of circumstances. The rocks they grow in are not soft nutritious loam. They are rocks. And there is hardly any water.

But these trees learned how to roll with it. They grow as little as possible. Their philosophy was just to remain alive. Which they do. Better than any other living thing on earth.

When the wind and the freezing and the utter lack of water overcomes them, they let pieces of themselves die. And then the wood, which is super hard, stays and weathers the weather.

bristlecone twins.bmp

The forest was very hard to get to. It was very quiet.

The altitude was substantial, too. I had a hard time keeping my breath.

But I would love to go again.

Happy Halloween

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It is the day.

My new home is one block from an elementary school, so we have hopes for some cute trick or treaters.

I’m excited.

There are a lot of halloween decorations up. We did not decorate. Chris kept lingering over the fog machine, and various other scary stuff.

“Buy it!” I told him.

“Let’s wait and see how many trick or treaters come…”

He says that people are more into decorating than he remembers. We see a lot of fake spiderwebs on hedged. I see a lot of christmas-style lights.

Apparently, the witches have become much less skilled broomstick drivers. There are flattened witches all over fences and trees and doors.

I bought the tootsie roll combo pack. I hope it will be enough. I’ve snacked on it a bit, but there is a big bowl left.

Happy Halloween every one!

Transplanted colors

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It’s been rainy and cold. Now it’s just cold.

Of course, cold is a relative thing. This is Los Angeles, after all. Cold means it dips below 70 in the afternoons.

But I’m glad it finally feels like fall. Protracted summer is wearing. I am ready for the season change.

People say there is no change in seasons here. Probably other people have missed the changing colors of fall, because there are more than a few cultivated maples and other such trees that change color and drop their leaves.

I was kicking some of those leaves across the sidewalk yesterday. I thought, This is really an artificial fall. This tree isn’t from around here. It was brought here to drop it’s leaves.

And then I realized my disdain wasn’t really fair. I’m not from around here either. Why can’t the trees be validated as transplants? A whole lot of the people are.

So, happy fall everybody. Wherever you are. Even if fall is long past for you. Enjoy the seasons.

a decade

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America…since…Gosh, I don’t know…But we started to think in decades.

The 50s…the 60s…the 70s…the 80s…

The 80s are coming back, don’t you know?

But, what’s up with the arbitrary emphasis on the ‘0’? the 80 to the 90. Or the 1950 to the 1960.

We have an extra zero now, and we hardly know what to do with it. We don’t have a cute term for the now…The fifties, the eighties, the nineties…and two thousand five…or worse, two thousand and five.

We’re kind of drifting until we get to call it the teens. Then it’s back on solid ground, the twenties, the thirties and the forties.

But at this moment, we are half way. 2005.

And for me, that concludes my own personal decade. On October 15, 1995 I flew from the Anchorage airport to Sacramento California.

My first decade of California living has passed.

I have a geeky reason for remembering that it was 1995. That was when it went from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95

A big year, to be sure. And the decade that followed has been justly monumental. I am so happy to be where I am and to have the skills that I have.