Before Your Memory Fades – Toshikazu Kawaguchi

I’m currently into Japanese novels (Convenience Store Woman, The Key, Days At The Moorisaki Bookshop and others). Here’s another one: Before Your Memory Fades by Toshikazu Kawaguchi.

In a small coffee house in Hakodate, guests can choose to sit at a specific table, usually occupied by a ghost – a man in a suit reading the newspaper all day – and travel through time.

One lady travels back to visit her mother, who left her behind at a young age. A comedian who won a significant comedy award goes back in time to tell his deceased wife the great news about his prize.
These are heartbreaking but, at the same time, lighthearted stories. This is one of those great books you don’t come across often.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow – Gabrielle Zevin

After immensely enjoying The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry, I picked up a copy of another book of Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.

Two nerds, Sam and Sadie, meet each other during their free childhood when Sam is in the hospital for a long time with a broken foot. Sadie visits him regularly. After he is discharged, they lose sight of each other again.

When they study, they meet again. Both are creative and fond of games. They decide to build a game. Marx, a friend, joins them in the role of producer.

The game becomes a huge success. They only needed the engine of an obscure friend of Sadie’s, Dov. He turns out to be an oppressive character, leading Sam into a deep depression, which strains the relationship between Sadie and Sam. The game’s sequel also becomes a success. They have since set up a company dedicated to building games. They move from Boston to LA. The relationship between Sam and Sadie remains platonic, going up and down in waves.

The company builds a game with a virtual world in which Sam and Sadie can express their free morals. For example, they create a world where same-sex marriage is not only accepted but celebrated. Sam plays the Mayor of this world. This controversial world leads to furious reactions in the real world from conservative groups who see it as an attack on traditional values. This gets out of hand, and one day, the company is raided, and Marx is shot.

The story devolves into a surreal, dreamlike narrative of how Marx lies in his hospital bed, trying to survive. Beautiful style reminiscent of Johnny Got His Gun, the intensely disturbing story about a soldier who wakes up in the hospital and finds that he has lost his sight and his arms and legs. The story about Marx is less disconcerting but beautifully written. The whole experience brings Sam and Sadie back together.

Not as weird as Fikry, yet equally enjoyable.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry – Gabrielle Zevin

Stumbled upon at Broese in Utrecht (very nice bookshop, has a small section Dutch authors in translation; nice gift for friends from abroad).

A.J. Fikry is a lonely 40-year-old bookseller. He runs a bookstore on Alice Island. His wife has recently passed away, and he is struggling to find direction in his life. When an expensive first edition of an early Tamerlane is stolen from his home/shop, and shortly thereafter, a child is found abandoned in his store, his life changes. He adopts the baby, Maya. He befriends Amelie, the representative of a publishing house. They hesitate to live together, afraid of adjusting to another person. Acquaintances and family urge both to start a normal family, something neither of them feels like doing.

(In that sense, a funny similarity to Earthlings, in which an aversion to conventions is also a theme. It is probably not a coincidence since it is yours truly who ultimately selected these books).

A.J. marries Amelia. Maya becomes a writer.

He is delighted to have produced such a fantastic nerd.

Deliciously wacky book.

just found out that the book has a movie adaptation.

Birds, Brancusi and Starling

Some days ago, I wrote about ‘Bird,’ Brancusi’s artwork, which I stumbled upon in Bucharest’s National Gallery. Steichen bought it and paid a premium to import it into the US.
Yesterday, I watched a video about Simon Starling, a conceptual artist and photographer from the UK. Starling created a work in 2004 with the exuberant name Two Birds, No Birds — A Mirrored Displacement (Proposal for an Inter-Institutional Exchange). This work is a diptych of two photographs of ‘Bird’ in a particular exhibition space.
A nice loop.
(Omitting pun re bird named starling)

Unrelated, I found Autoxylopyrocycloboros is an interesting conceptual work by Starling about a wooden steamboat that eats its own tail, being fueled by its own hull.

Notebooks re-covered

Redoing boring notebook covers with photographic snips.

With a high five to acrylic medium.

Hiking Shoes: Meindl Laredo – grand and ugly

A review mode post about hiking shoes.

I bought a new pair of shoes for our three-month New Zealand and Japan trip in 2023. My requirements for these were:

  • Comfortable for long days of walking
  • Suitable for the warm February in New Zealand
  • Suitable for the colder March and April months in Japan
  • Nice-to-have: low shoes, not too expensive.

In January of 2023, I did some research and eventually bought these Meindl Laredo’s. They were pretty expensive, but considering their durability, they were cheap.

Further benefits:

  • Great, comfortable fit.
  • Very durable.

Main drawback:

  • Ugly. Which, of course, is subjective.

I walked about 2 million steps on these shoes in February, March, and April. Flawless. The only problem was that a crack in the rubber between the sole and the shoe began to appear in one of them. I returned to Bever to get this fixed, but they replaced the boots for free.

With the new pair, I walked another 3 million steps during the rest of the year and a few months in 2024 until the Vibram sole wore out. Unfortunately, the sole can not be replaced in this model, so I had to trash the pair.

The Bucharest metro system

I wrote about our trip to Bucharest and got questions about the metro system there.

This is a very convenient system.

Finding the right train is easily accomplished through the big maps on the walls of the stations.

You can get individual tickets or tickets for a certain period. The metro is relatively cheap. The tariffs are here. You can buy a ticket at ticket vending machines at all stations. The machines are straightforward to use, have an English interface, and accept many cards and contactless options such as Apple Pay.

We bought a week’s ticket for 30 RON (6 euros) per person.

The ticket is a thick paper card with a magnetic strip. You use the card to enter through the gates. YOu slide the strip in, wait a few seconds for the validation, and the machine spits out the card again and opens the gate.

When you arrive at your destination, you can pass through the gates without presenting your ticket. The gates open automatically.

PS. In an earlier post, I mentioned that Bolt provides a fine taxi service in Bucharest.

Kindle annotations

I read a lot on my Kindle and like to make highlights and notes while reading. You can read your annotations at https://read.amazon.com. However, Amazon only synchronizes the annotations for the books you have purchased through Amazon. I am unsure whether that is because of copyright issues or because Amazon does not want to help you with books purchased elsewhere. Both are equally probable. But annoying it is. (Even more so because I think Amazon is an unsympathetic company, and I prefer to use their offerings as little as possible. For stories about Amazon practices, read Cory Doctorow’s story, but a quick search on the internet will surface many more typical monopolist practices.)

Fortunately, the annotations are stored locally on the Kindle in a file called My Clippings.txt. When you connect the Kindle to your computer, you can browse the file structure on the Kindle and find this file.

I created a smallPython program to read this file’s somewhat cryptic format and convert it to a human-readable format. You can find it in a Gitlab repository here. The program currently requires some computer and Python literacy. When time allows, I will make it more user-friendly.

Last days in Bucharest

(Last Friday)

The Muzeul National al Taranului Roman (National Museum of the Romanian Peasant) is being renovated. Not many of the interesting exhibits to which the Michelin Guide devotes three pages are now on view. The renovation leads to an amusing search of the halls through the cafe-restaurant on the terrace with its old wooden church. A golden McDonald’s arch stands in the courtyard to a set of stone tombstones. In a small room displaying religious drawings, the attendant keeps accurate records of visitor numbers.

We take the subway to Polytechnika station, where fossils can be studied in the marble of the subway station.

We walk on to the AFI Cotroceni mall. All the malls in the world of this type look alike, whether you are in NYC, KL, or Bucharest. In the food court, we find a Lebanese restaurant among the KFC-like restaurants, where we eat labneh, sambusek, falafel, sarmalute, and some flatbread. Not very Romanian, but fine.

We walk back past the botanical garden where a light show, Belle and the Beast, is built up, so we can’t go in. We walk back through the Cotroceni district, a nice neighborhood with old houses of the more luxurious category. At the edge of the district is the Saint Eleutherius Church; we take a look.

In the evening, to restaurant Manuc’s Inn, Hunul lui Manuc, traditional and with dances (review mode:) which was nice but also very touristy; so what, why should I be ashamed of that?

The next day with Bolt (an Uber-like app) a cab for 45 lei but the airport. That’s 9 euros for a half-hour ride. How can a person earn anything from that? (Lei is the plural of leu, I just read)