a journal of the chaos, conquest, war, [stale nuts] famine, and death year

Read The Big Wall (in French), a manga by Yoji Kamata & Kunihiko Yokomizo, which my wife bought me while visiting the mountaineering Éditions Guérin in Chamonix. This is in fact a collection of seven stories about climbing and mountaineering, in Japan, the Himalayas, and Canada, all related with the same central climber. It is a bit similar to The Summit of the Gods, another if much earlier gift from my wife!, in that an outstanding climber, Yasushi, faces extreme situations, saves lesser climbers’ live while trying to solve a personal dilemma. The similarity extends to the highly unrealistic climbing situations where Yasushi survives despite all odds! I also finished Pascale Quiviger’s Royaume de Pierre d’Angle (3), again in French, with many more days and less enthusiasm than the earlier volumes as the story pace drags down to a confrontation between both royal brothers, with too many Deus ex Machina moments and the sad erosion of the ethics of Thibault, the current (and reluctant) king. I also started reading (the French translation) of Along the Tōkaidō trail, (Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige, 東海道中膝栗毛), by Jippensha Ikkû, which is a 1802 touring guide of the road between Tōkyō (Edo) and Kyōto, and its famous 53 stations celebrated by Utagawa Hiroshige in famous woodcuts. Its main appeal is that the guide is a pretext for a ribald novel about two rascals walking the road and the depiction of the Japan life and popular culture in the early days of the Edo Period. However, it is neither a bedside nor a travel book, since I need permanent access to internet to locate place, check the corresponding HIroshige woodprints, and read through the numerous footnotes explaining puns (like its title translating as Shank’s Mare) or special traditions, therefore travelling quite slowly on the Tōkaidō trail!

Cooked most days upon returning from the Alps, if nothing particularly novel, except for pissaladières made with Moroccan msemen basis rather than foccacia bread, since they were sold in the local bakery during Ramadan (along with Moroccan pastillas that were in high demand!). Making these “Nice pizzas” a quick dinner option, for only requiring frying onions for a few minutes and adding anchovies. I also made a few jars of hazelnut butter, upon advice from a visiting friend for using the bags of hazelnuts collected in late summer by my mother a few years ago! They had predictably turned sour but enough torrefaction hid the sourness to make the butter enjoyable (after a few attempts).

Watched a Netflix attempt at Judge Dee stories, which I found lacking when comparing with the original books by Robert van Gulik, especially since it is very loosely connected with some van Gulik’s stories (like The Chinese Bell Murders, The Chinese Gold Murders, The Haunted Monastery, The Lacquer Screen, The Red Pavilion). In addition, the underlying threat from a mysterious revolutionary organisation ruins the purpose of the story and the sleuthing abilities of Judge Dee often appear secondary. Some aspects remain appealing, like in the story centred on a puppet theatre show or the one where the central imperial authority gets questioned by the population of a Gobi town. Overall, I also disliked highly unrealistic resolutions (like the one involving a parting of the sea that was even more unbelievable than in the Ten Commandments!) and the very slow progress of Dee’s relationship with a courtesan whose past life is deeply intertwined with Dee’s family history (and missing from the books).

a journal of the conquest, war, [snow] famine, and death year

Read yet another novelette by Aliette de Bodard, The citadel of weeping pearls, set in the same universe of a Viêt Nam inspired galactic civilisation, which proved somewhat equal to the previous ones,  with the plus of digging into mother-daughter and sibling relations and the slight minus of involving time travel [which, surprisingly, rarely fails to annoy me]. Right level for filling the nightly wake-ups I encountered while in Les Houches, despite a reasonable amount of physical activities since I totalled 79km of running that week and a few thousand meters of positive climb.

Made very little cooking while in Les Houches, obviously!, although we brought back a nice collection of very local cheeses, or the obvious reason of having evening meals at the workshop hotel together with the other participants. Nothing spectacular to report on that front, except for a limited vegetarian offer, incl. failed risotto and dhal, and more than substantial portions presumably calibrated for ravenous skiers (rather than regular runners!)… But had a lunch stop on the [high]way back home at [Ratatouille’s inspiration] Bernard Loiseau‘s bistro, Loiseau des Sens (and not the Michelin Côte d’Or**!). While the dishes were made from unsophisticated ingredients, their perfect preparation really proved worth the détour (and light enough to avoid falling asleep on the remainder of the drive home!!!)

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Watched House of Shinobi (忍びの家) on Netflix, following the paradoxes of a family of ninjas facing the modern Japan but somewhat unwillingly keeping their duties and honour code, which proved predictably cartoonesque but involved comic relief, as well as including the actors Eguchi Yōsuke (playing a similar role in the series of Kinshin films) and Miyamoto Nobuko (who played in the excellent 1980’s Tampopo). And Happiness (해피니스), yet another Korean zombie series, lengthy and easily forgotten.

a journal of the conquest, war, famine, death[s], and chaos year

Read John Scalzi’s Head On, which is set in the same future America as Lock In, involving again the Halden syndrome patients forced to live by remotely operating robots (threeps) and introducing an extreme form of American football adapted to these patients, since they cannot be injured when their threep is. (Not as in the terrible 1975 dystopic Rollerball, which was supposedly taking place in… 2018!). The two main FBI detectives are the same as in Lock In, with great and funny dialogues but with mostly dialogues!, and a surprising disregard for team work and reporting to their hierarchy. My conclusion of the review of Lock In thus stands:

“the Halden detective conveniently happens to be the son of a very influential ex-basketball-player and hence to meet all the characters involved in the plot. This is pleasant but somewhat thin with a limited number of players considering the issues at stake and a rather artificial ending.”

Starting to cook a matcha rice pudding as an experiment, which proved successful in keeping both the matcha taste ad the rice pudding texture, and in lowering considerably the input of sugar [from which I must shy] in the recipe. (In all honesty, I actually used an organic substitute to matcha, grown and made in China!)

Found out while going to a repair shop for a brake replacement that my second bike (the one that I can leave locked in the street for a few hours!) was in such a bad state that I should not drive it. The wheels had indeed lost most of their material at the level of the brakes, due to alien, abrasive, material getting stuck inside the brake pads. My nearby repair shop was clearly uninterested in repairing a cheap, ten year old, bike and gave me a quote that was larger than my original purchase amount. I thus found a Décathlon store nearby PariSanté campus and brought back a new wheel attached to my backpack, which proved more manageable than dreaded!

Watched in the nearby cinema A Man (ある男) by Kei Ishikawa, based on a book with the same title by Keiichiro Hirano, that won the Yomiuri Prize for Literature.  (The main actress Sakura Ando also played a central role in the fantastic Cannes Palme d’Or winner Shoplifters.) I went thinking it would be a psychological thriller, but it proved me wrong, as the movie is much more about self identity, intimacy, and societal prejudices, than a detective story about usurped identity. The pace is deliberately slow and the director light, impressionist, touch gives depth and freedom to the characters, while keeping some of the mysteries behind the story open. I really enjoyed the film, which was the first time I had returned to a cinema since watching a Jim Harrison documentary in 2022. I also discovered thanks to the beginning and final scenes an infinitely deep René Magritte’s painting, La Reproduction Interdite, which I had never seen, and which was a perfect still for the film message.

off to Bristol

a journal of the conquest, war, famine, and Gothic death year

Read novellas by Aliette de Bodard, The tea master and the detective, and Seven of infinities, which involved a “mindship” as a central character and mysteries attached with a second central character, set within a Viêt Nam inspired galactic civilisation (still enjoying tea!). Easily forgotten mind candy but not unpleasantly so.  And Legacy of Evil by James W. Peyton, which had been recommended by the Crime Book board of Libé, which proved terribly predictable, cliché, borderline (!) sexist and racist, and unrealistic, plus loads of unnecessary political reminders about the dire state of Mexican politics and policing, and the impact of the recent US policies about migrants.

Made my first kimchi, with chards, red onions, and radishes for the basis. Which proved much easier (and messier) than expected. It even worked (!) in that fermentation took place with no major disaster and in that the outcome is definitely eatable, with approximately the right spiciness. Made good use of the jar  for cooking within a fortnight. But the bitterness of the chard had not gone away, so next round will be with more traditional cabbage. And more gochunjang. Still on the food side, met two occurrences when a shop absurdly refused to sell (or give) me a product (previous day bread and spelt levain) that was just out of date, when no equivalent product was available… Absurd waste.

Watched The Fall of the House of Usher, a modern variation on the most well-known short stories of Edgar Allan Poe (who seems in high demand on Netflix shoes, witness the recent The Pale Blue Eye where he was a character by himself, during his cadet year[s]). Like the Gold-Bug (little connected), the Pit & the Pendulum (imperfect), The Telltale Heart  (predictable), the One-Eye cat (duh), the Red Death (closest) &tc. Other characters have names taken from Poe like Rue Morgue‘s Auguste Dupin, Arthur Gordon Pym and Rufus Gimwort. I could not trace an Annabel Lee (one of the very few luminous characters of the show) to Poe’s works and life… The whole setting is very Gothic(-chic) and saturated, not only in the colouring, but so are Poe’s stories. Actually, I remember enjoying these stories very much as a teenager, Poe being presumably better known in France than in the US, but I am unsure I would still uniformly do in the current time, esp. in stories that are droning on the melancholic feelings of some old nobility characters or the vague prescience of an horrifying event. (As an aside, I regret I never found the time to visit Poe’s museum in Philly.) The characters of the show also are uneven, possibly getting more structured with the episodes, especially the Usher elders, but with little suspense (everyone dies!) or logic (a supernatural being being the deus ex machina). The reconstitution of the 1980’s atmosphere is remarkable, though, if unconnected with the Victorian Gothic!