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moon in the water Blog Tools Rating: Rate This Blog
Creation Date: 04-26-2010 10:46 PM
niall
Offline
rss2
the water does not try
to reflect the moon
and the moon has no desire
to be reflected
but when the clouds clear
there is the moon in the water
Blog Info
Status: Public
Entries: 155
Comments: 1,111
Views: 1,865,806

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In General fire works Entry Tools Rating: 5 Stars!
  #76 New 08-05-2011 02:29 AM
fire works
Tokyo Bay fireworks by scion_cho used under creative commons licence



to these
Hale dead and deathless do the women of the hill
Love for ever meridian through the courters' trees
And the daughters of darkness flame like Fawkes fires still

Dylan Thomas, In the white giant's thigh

The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honour to meet you and you may call me V.
V for Vendetta

Bang! Bang! Bang!
Midsummer night

Exile, Fireworks

boom boom boom
even brighter than the moon moon moon

Katy Perry, Firework



Fireworks is a strange word. Works is the same word as the works of a watch. The Japanese word is fire flowers. In Japan there are many large public fireworks displays in the summer. There are famous displays in Tokyo on the Sumida river and in Odaiba on the Tokyo Bay waterfront. Many displays are on water. People sit on riverbanks or shores or around lakes and watch the dramatic displays and reflections in the water. Many people wear yukata - casual summer cotton kimonos. I'm from England so I associate fireworks with crisp November nights and Guy Fawkes.

The same families have sometimes been in the world of fireworks for generations in a kind of iemoto system similar to martial arts. Traditional fireworks are made in the form of balls. They are still measured in shaku, the same measuring system used for sword blades.

I saw a very good Japanese movie called Golden Slumber this week. The title comes from the Beatles song. I don't know if it's available with English or other subtitles yet. Some movies (Aiki and The Hidden Blade, for example - both great movies - I'll talk about them in more detail another time) already include English subtitles on the original DVDs you can rent. Golden Slumber is a conspiracy theory movie. A guy is told that he is going to be the Lee Harvey Oswald figure in an assassination and then he gets framed. Japanese fireworks come into the story.

From the Aikikai hombu dojo in Shinjuku in Tokyo you can sometimes hear fireworks going off in the distance. When I was the uke for Sadateru Arikawa sensei - one of the great aikido teachers of the twentieth century - they would be going off in the dojo too. Boom. Boom boom. Boom. Boom boom boom. Boom.


Articles and internet sites about fireworks, Guy Fawkes and Golden Slumber. The final home pages about Japanese fireworks are very interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireworks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iemoto
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowd...opular_culture
http://www.rhymes.org.uk/remember_re...h_november.htm
http://akas.imdb.com/title/tt1413529/
http://www.fireworks-japan.com/about...rikukakoh.html
http://www.fireworks-japan.com/


Dylan Thomas poem, In the white giant's thigh
http://www.poemdujour.com/thomasGiant.html


music
Exile, Fireworks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSEksNCHi30

Katy Perry, Firework
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGJuMBdaqIw&ob

The Beatles, Golden Slumbers in an Abbey Road Medley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qP4Ye15J0Y
Abbey Road cover art tributes! Cool Tintin version
http://abbeyroadrage.tumblr.com/

Def Leppard, Rock of Ages from - what else - Pyromania!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ww60uHNYRE



my columns on aikiweb:

Improvised Weapons No.1: The Umbrella

Brothers

Unbalance - Feet of Clay

Half a Tatami

Zen in the Art of Aikido



© niall matthews 2011
Views: 3473 | Comments: 9


RSS Feed 9 Responses to "fire works"
#9 08-11-2011 12:22 AM
niall Says:
Thanks for the calendar, Carina.
#8 08-11-2011 12:16 AM
niall Says:
Sure Ziv. You can ask me anything any time. Let me think about an answer. It might not be for a while but I'll get back to you. Niall
#7 08-10-2011 02:26 PM
guest1234567 Says:
Thanks Niall, very nice memories and I must watch the hidden blade before you write the post I found a display Calendar, you are right Niall, almost all are in august, there are a few in july, september and in october too
#6 08-10-2011 04:39 AM
zivk Says:
Thanks for your answer Niall. I hope you won't mind another one. You used the fireworks metaphor for describing Arikawa sensei's technique. I feel like someone asking explanation of a joke's punchline, but I'm willing to risk it. Can you please elaborate regarding the feel of his technique on you?
#5 08-09-2011 09:15 AM
niall Says:
Hi Ziv. Thanks yes of course Takeshi Kitano made HANA-BI. You know he calls himself Beat Takeshi for everything other than directing? I think fireworks in Japan are almost exclusively for summer. Perhaps it's to take your mind off the summer heat! Cheers, Niall
#4 08-08-2011 07:06 AM
zivk Says:
Thanks for this interesting post, Niall. When thinking of Japanese fireworks, Takeshi Kitano's movie HANA-BI comes to mind. However, I've seen this movie a few years ago so frankly I don't remember the reason for the movie's name. Can you tell on what occasion do the Japanese use fireworks? In Israel it's part of the ceremonies of independence day.
#3 08-07-2011 07:41 AM
niall Says:
Thanks Carina. That's a good memory. I'll write about The Hidden Blade soon. That title sounds cool but it's a really bad translation of the title by someone who hadn't seen the movie.
#2 08-05-2011 11:46 AM
guest1234567 Says:
(cont) reminds me of something, this time it brought me back to the 31 Dec 93 when my youngest son was born, he was not the last baby of the year, he came at 8 in the morning, but the hospital in Las Palmas is a high building and I was in a room with a view to the Canteras Beach, so I could see the great, beautiful firework at 12 PM and then the nurses went singing, some with a guitar or a glass of champagne through the halls and brought us a plate of sweets we use to eat in Spain on that day.
#1 08-05-2011 11:45 AM
guest1234567 Says:
Thanks for this post, I always learn something new and this time not only about Japan, but about your country(Guy Fawkes and the 5th nov) too. And all the links and nice music. Yeah the last links are very interesting, how safe they prepare the fireworks in Japan! And in the abbeyroadrage link Tintin is cool, but did you see the rabbits, and the Simpson? And it is strange that you mention the hidden blade, because I downloaded this movie a few days ago.Reading your new posts sometimes it
 




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