Long-Hai | Nyotaimori

On Monday, three weeks after I started writing my NaNo novel, I reached 50,000 words. I was with Christine at the time in downtown Pleasant Hill having just eaten Coppa Mista gelato which is DELICIOUS even if I did once refer to it as Camel Mist to Long-Hai and Jason to make them laugh and like me (it worked).

So: 50K! Undertaking complete. I feel kind of let down now and resistant to reading it over because I’m worried about how bad it will be.

A lot of people over the last 3 weeks have asked me why I’m doing this and what I will do with the novel when I’m done. My answers have been flighty and disjointed, I think. Really, I did it because I could and because it was something inexpensive to free (only had to buy things at coffee shops sometimes) and it gave me something to do this month so I could feel productive and less bored. Also it was competitive, and I am not above that. I especially like it when I win.

Now people have started to ask: What will you do next? and When can I read it? As to the first: maybe write something else. I have more plot ideas for mainstream fiction as well as my graphic YA fantasy novel which Long-Hai has promised to illustrate. Though…I feel it will be difficult to get him to work on it as he’s always busy with so many other projects. And I never really told him how long it will be.

When you can read it–sometime soon, I hope. I need it to sit for a while and then I need to read it all and revise some things. After that maybe I can start sending it out to people. It was a project just for myself and for fun, but I’m not averse to people reading it. I don’t expect to ever edit it again or try to publish it or anything like that. So as long as people read it just for enjoyment and not critically, I have no problem with sharing it (though I’ll have to see when I read it if it IS actually enjoyable.)

And speaking of enjoyable things. Gene sent me a link to pictures of naked girls covered in sushi (nyataimori) this morning. My hero. I share one of my favorites with you. Note the sushi in hands.

It’s rare to see one of your idols in person. Even rarer when said idol is basically a Japanese National Treasure and only infrequently leaves his home country. Luckily for Long-Hai and I, Miyazaki was forced by his contract with Disney to make a scheduled number of appearances in the states and one of them was in Berkeley this weekend.

The talk at UC Berkeley was between Miyazaki and a professor from Tokyo University who didn’t ask particularly great questions. Or at least didn’t phrase them very well. A lot of the time the two of them just sat up there giggling at one another–which, don’t get me wrong, was totally awesome. Giggling Miyazaki is adorable, after all. It’s also possible that the translation from English to Japanese and Japanese to English lost a bit of meaning in the process.

Some favorite bits:

On Love:

One of the audience questions was about true love in his work and whether he believes in it. He relayed a story about his staff discussing Sosuke (the main character in his new film Ponyo) and how Sosuke will have to deal with Ponyo (a goldfish who becomes a human girl) as they grow up. His staff were debating how much trouble Ponyo will cause him and Miyazaki claimed that true love “comes at the end of all our difficulties. We find true love there.” So Sosuke, in his view, will be “all right”. Ponyo might cause problems but that is what love is to him. It is what is created when you overcome trials together. (You see why I find him adorable? He says sweet things about love! It’s not just his tiny stature and shock of white hair.)

On Live Action Films:

Miyazaki made a face of such horror and a quick, negative head shake at even the idea of making live action films. His response to the question was “You’d have to turn the landscape back 50 years and that’s a little difficult to do…even people’s faces are different now.”

I thought the idea of how his movies only reflect the past–and what he views as a better time–was interesting. His refusal to make live action is not based on using real people and sets so much as it’s a rejection of progress and the destruction of nature in pursuit of development. This is a theme which can be heavily seen in several of his films; most notable in Princess Mononoke.

On Apocalypse:

When asked about his interest in apocalyptic imagery and themes, Miyazaki said, “It would be wonderful if I could see the end of the world in my lifetime, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. So I use my imagination instead to see it.”

How awesome is that? I’m kind of terrified of living through the apocalypse and seeing what comes next so to hear someone lament their inability to watch it happen is jarring to me. At the same time, I must admit that fictional visions of apocalyptic realities are one of my favorite reading/viewing topics. So he has a point, getting to experience it first hand and see what society devolves into would be amazing. Plus I think a giant part of his interest is visual–seeing how the landscape changes in the face of total annihilation would be fascinating. Still, I think I prefer just using my imagination to actually undergoing the upheaval.

Nyotaimori

the naked girl

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NaNo Complete (and naked sushi)

Hayao Miyazaki