Title: The Woman in the Dunes
Author: Kobo Abe
Year: 1962
Rating: 4/5
Thoughts: Extremely provocative, mind-bending, but most of all the uncomfortable. The story takes place in a remote town of Japan, a nonsensical place made of sand where the inhabitants spend their days toiling away under the wrath of the sun, digging their homes out of the sand. As such, the descriptions mostly consist of explaining what dehydration feels like, getting sand in your mouth, having your eyes crust over while sleeping–even the author’s choice of sexual expression is painful sodomy, as the main character (who has a name but is tellingly referred to only as “the man”) has given himself a psychological venereal disease.

This book isn’t like many Japanese “out there” books I’ve read–it’s just mundane enough so that it’s eerie, and the storytelling is quite frustrating as it follows the man’s attempts to escape the town. Although everything is told in a more or less “matter of fact” way, whether the facts are made up or not is hard to tell. Everything about sand, including the physics of it (1/8 mm in diameter) is consistently woven throughout the book. It was hard to read at times because of the repetition, but I did find myself wanting to know the ending quite badly.

Quote Certainly sand was not suitable for life. Yet, was a stationary condition absolutely indispensable for existence? Didn’t unpleasant competition arise precisely because one tried to cling to a fixed position? If one were to give up a fixed position and abandon oneself to the movement of the sands, competition would soon stop. [...] While he mused on the effect of the flowing sands, he was seized from time to time by hallucinations in which he himself began to move with the flow.

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Pretty pictures, money-saving tips, and more…!

- Check out these beautiful pictures of various roads in India.

- Are you a math-idiot? Me too! Thank God for people who make things easier for us by explaining how to do math in your head quickly. 2 + 2 = 4, indeed!

- I love these little illustrations depicting people you see and loathe daily for seemingly no reason, only this guy knows the reason, has illustrated them, and even included a text description to help us all out.

- A cool post on old comic artists practicing a basic drawing practice in art school–drawing without looking.

- You like stuff? I do. Sometimes I like stuff, and buy them. This article dictates on what days you should buy stuff.

- This article on preventing/curing hangovers works two ways–educates you about nutrients (or lack thereof) in your body while consuming, and also entertain by means of the creative responses and suggestions fellow readers come up with in the commentary. (Quote: I had a paramedic mate who’d swear the best and quickest way to get rid of a hangover (not prevent) was as Ron Paul says IV (one dextrose and one saline) and a 10min doze whilst it’s being administered.)

- More examples of The Man trying to bring you down. This time, in grocery stores.

Once in a while, my iPod will decide to play a joke on me.  It will work perfectly fine, only to freeze on occasion.  Holding down the menu button and the select button simultaneously will fix this.  However, yesterday my iPod decided it wanted to up the extremity by giving me a little picture, of itself, with a sad face.

I restarted it.

It booted!

…and then gave me the sad icon again.  It continued to restart itself and tell me in its own special way that it was sad.

I looked online, and found that this icon is actually quite infamous, and the cure for this is just as equally infamous, as it a.) channels the Fonz and b.) teaches your iPod who’s boss.

Now, slamming down a piece of expensive hardware is a hard concept to grasp.  Fortunately, my iPod was only a little bit of a bastard, and has not yet become a full-fedged non-functional asshole, and so I was able to make it work by charging directly into the wall.  The charge seemed to give it a little nudge that plugging it into the laptop could not provide.  But it’s good to know that giving your iPod a good smack might do the trick later on, when it decides it wants to be funny.

The moral of the story?  No matter how advanced technology will get, at least we know that hitting things will still be a legitimate form of troubleshooting.

…In less than sixty seconds! I thoroughly enjoyed this article about how to make tough decisions. The basic idea is that, anytime you are feeling overwhelmed by a decision, take a step back and ask yourself: “Is this me?”

When making decisions via the “Is this me?” method, you’re using an idealized version of yourself for the comparison. This is your best self. It’s who you are in your dreams and goals, who you want to be.

What happens when you begin to fill your life with people, places, and objects that reasonably reflect your true self? By osmosis you’ll begin to take on more of those qualities yourself.

Especially when trying to make an intelligent choice as a consumer, things can get crazy. Companies and employees will often tell you what they think you should do or buy. But this little tip helps put things into perspective–you are the one who is going to live with the decision you make, and so you should make that decision understanding your own self.

Tomb of Emperor Nintoku, late 4th/early 5th centuries, Osaka

Japanese Art with Chelsea, Part 3
Or, Big Mounds, Little People
THE KOFUN PERIOD

Two very opposite objects exemplify the Kofun Period — a few very large, and many very small. In the Kofun period, we find for the first time written records of the people of this period, and also for the first time a people who associate themselves specifically with the continent of Japan. The word they used was Yamato. Also essential is the fact that these people had leaders, as evidenced in the huge tombs built for their rulers, like the one to the left.

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