tokyo subway

on the iron road to takayama

shots out the train window. the older women sitting across the aisle said to my Japanese-speaking companion, "he takes a lot of pictures, doesn't he?"

costa rica

nothing to see here

the deck is finished. I'm back-dating this post b/c it's really only of documentary interest to people who care what my house looks like, so I don't want it to show up at the top of the page for those of you who come here looking for beautiful things.

oswaldo

who is watching the monkey watchers?

this guy was in charge of the monkeys.

juice

san francisco

monkey wants the stick

If you are holding something, a monkey will try to take it. any other monkeys in the vicinity will also try to take it. whoever gets it will then run off with it and rapidly dismantle it, checking to see if any bits of it are edible or fun.



that is my hand. it is not my monkey. it was momentarily my stick, but soon after this photo was taken it became the monkey's stick.

the monkey's forward hand was smacking at my fingers--quick, jabbing taps meant to make me let go, then he would grab back onto the stick with both hands.

doors to nowhere

(I wish Jay was still with us to see this... sigh... I still laugh when I remember the "statues of animals that look like they got caught in a boat propeller"... )

Anyway, a couple of men came to my house and tore my deck off. Why didn't I tear my own deck off? Because I'm busy tearing decks off for other people, figuratively speaking. Really when you get to the bottom of capitalism, that's all it is--I tear off your deck, you tear off mine.

Why did I let them? Let's do a quiz, see if you can pick out which joist is the old one, and which is the new one they sistered alongside it:

so now I've got no deck, just joists, which is actually kind of neat looking in its own way.

moreover, joists can work like a deck, you just have to be sure-footed. and don't look down.

costa rica: spiders

fog

takayama matsuri procession

takayama festival - okonomiyaki