I have now sunk to the point where the last post features a picture of a dead cat, and I felt for a moment that it could be a great last full stop.

The truth is, I have had both nothing to say and too much to write about. I want to explore Stolen, a documentary about slavery in north-west Africa, but the film has turned into a fight inside the Sydney Left, with Polisario squaring up against some parts of the documentary community. Allegations of lies, fraud and simple nastiness have been flung about at the Sydney Film Festival.

But this is a huge task, and I quail before it with my work load at the moment. We are busily changing some roles at Screen Hub, and I am now full time.

I can but entertain you with an anecdote and a guest post. I discovered my left ear was doing something funny last Friday, as if some skin was peeling off the large cavity in my ear canal which was sculpted by a surgeon way back in 1953, and helps to account for my deafness.

Just after work on Friday night, I took off my hearing aid and felt a growth protruding from my ear canal. My life became instantly dramatic, with me carted to the emergency department of the Alfred Hospital, my second home these days, by a work friend. Just before the doctor had a squizz, I realised what it was. At the beginning of the week, I lost one of the buds from the headset I use with my Blackberry.

It had been inside my head for at least five days, and had finally decided to work its way out. I had pushed it inside the ear canal with my hearing aid, which is a pretty tight fit.

Anyway, here is a post from occasional commenter and fine screenwriter, Evil Steve. He went to Japan on holiday, and sent me this… (film writers tend to be economical)

Evil Steve’s Great Big Asian Adventure.

Do you know where I can get my shoe fixed?

The geezer tacked in close. We were the only honkies in a sea of oriental mysticism, a mysticism made even more mystic by the sea’s complete failure to grasp the earth’s first language and our complete failure to grasp the sea’s. I somehow expected him to be wrung out, battered by the weight of the rising tide, but he was shining, scrubbed flush pink like a child deposited on the sands of Treasure Island. The sole of his shoe had come away, brand new too, and we pointed him reassuringly to the covered market one street in. The geezer smiled, leaned in like an old pirate with one last, best-kept secret:

I’m from Brisbane. We were brought up on the Yellow Peril but I’ve never met nicer people in my entire life. We’ve only been here 24 hours and already a complete stranger has treated us to the sumo wrestling. Best seats in the house as well. I got him drunk, mind you.

The usual Western response to any act of native kindness. We smiled at the thought and winced at the consequences as the geezer reeled out to sea like an overloaded hook, never to be seen again.

And so we set sail. Floated, serene, past Mount Fuji, drifted through the lights of Tokyo, drew up in the sleepy port of Kanazawa, where you could still sense the samurai laying down their swords after a hard day in the office, and where the slumbering intensity of the artist quarter felt like Fitzroy, 1987.

Here we met Ohi Toshio (www.ohimuseum.com), number 11 in an unbroken chain of potters going back to the 17th Century. His father, Ohi Chozaemon Toshiro, number 10, busied himself in the background – hand-crafted wares, fired at low temperature in caramel glazes, designed with religious intensity around an ancient ceremony. Of course, as an island nation, it had to be tea.

We handled the exquisitely made bowls with a clumsy, recently acquired deference, sipped at the spumy, green tea.

It’s strange watching the world queue up in the fashion they had to have yesterday to buy the fashion they have to have today. None of it suits them. I call it the H & M syndrome. You know, the department store.

We nodded and laughed, awkwardness dissolving away as his warm wisdom washed over us. Like that other unbroken chain, the Phantom, we gradually became aware he’d been watching over us all since 1670.

So this was Japan: the land of the rising sun, sumo, and the vending machine; the land of memories, of kids in school uniforms and walls with no graffiti; a land where tiny bars are still public houses, streets have no traffic jams, and the sound of a lone horn reveals the absence of rage; a land of quiet graciousness, of bows and common courtesy; a land where the toilets blow-dry pubic hair, the ladyboyz sleaze the working girls and the live bands eat their guitars. What a place.

[The pot at item688086store.html”target=blank”>the head is a fine white Ohi sake cup-guinomi by Ohi. It has a miniature chawan form and a speckled glazing.”the head is “a fine white Ohi sake cup-guinomi by Ohi. It has a miniature chawan form and a speckled glazing.”

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 12:02 am and is filed under entertainments, visual media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.