aku menulis post ini dari hotel ubudo di matsushima. nobuto diundang utk kasih lecture di sendai hari ini. daripada bengong sendiri di rumah, aku memutuskan utk ikut. kebetulan hotel yg disediakan terletak di luar kota sendai, tepatnya di matsushima yg terkenal keindahannya. hotelnya pas dipinggir laut, balkon di kamar pun menghadap laut yg lebih mirip danau krn ramai dng gugusan pulau2 kecil yg membuat matsushima terkenal keindahannya. ternyata pemilik hotelnya adl penggemar berat segala sesuatu yg berbau bali, krn itu interior designnya bernada etnis bali campur jepang. sangat kreatif dan manis sekali! nama ubudo sendiri adalah kata "ubud" yg diucapkan dng lidah jepang.
sesudah ditinggal pergi oleh nobuto tadi, aku jalan2 sendiri mengunjungi museum orgel yg cuma beberapa ratus meter dari hotel. museumnya kecil, tapi isinya sangat menarik. ber-macam2 orgel ada di sana. dari yg thn 1800-an sampai yg pertengahan 1900-an, dari yg sekecil gramofon, sebentuk kursi, sangkar burung, sampai yg segede rumah, yg buatan spain, perancis, inggris, jerman, dan terbanyak dr belgie. saat duduk di tengah hall besar sambil mendengarkan orgel besar dimainkan oleh pegawai museum yg berkostum tradisional gadis belgie, rasanya spt duduk di opera2 tempoe doeloe sejenis komedie bangsawan dan komedie stamboel yg sering tertulis dlm cerita2 djaman olanda. langsung kebayang bhw orgel gede dengan lukisan landscape ttg negri antah-berantah, kapal layar, gunung, taman bunga, dengan hiasan patung seorang putri yunani, betul2 bisa menarik penonton opera ke alam hayal dan masuk ke dalam dunia fiksi yg sedang dipentaskan di panggung... sooo cool!! sayang sekali tour singkat dlm museum tsb diberikan dlm bhs jepang. jadi aku sama sekali gak tau gimana sejarah orgel2 di situ. tapi aku curiga bhw orgel yg berbentuk kursi (bayangkan, di jaman dulu ada org yg minta dibuatkan kursi yg bisa bernyanyi!) dulunya adl milik seorang aristokrat eropa. kursi berukir dan bergambar tsb punya mesin semacam music box kecil yg baru terlihat kalau dudukannya diangkat. mungkin pemiliknya adl seorang raja atau ratu yg punya masalah "gas." hihihi.. sirik ah!!
dari museum orgel aku mengunjungi sebuah jembatan kuno yg indah yg menghubungkan daratan besar dng sebuah pulau kecil (pulau fukuura). pemandangannya, luar biasa deh! pokoknya breathtaking!! mudah2an foto2 yg aku ambil bisa meng-capture sedikit dari keindahan pulau tsb. foto2nya nyusul ya, sesudah pulang ke rumah lusa nanti. skrg ini cuman pake komputer di lobby hotel. anyway, time to rest dan makan malam sekarang. have a nice weekend utk semuanya!
"you don't take naps. naps take you."
--garfield
"I will feed My flock, and I will make them lie down," says the Lord God. "I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away, bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick."
--Ezekiel 34:15-16
i think a good friend of mine can appreciate this article and, of course, a second chance. enjoy!
A Princely Match
by Ellen Goodman
(The Boston Globe, April 3, 2005 )
I AM NOT, by genealogy or nationality, a follower of the British royal family. The last monarch who mattered to Americans was George III, and God knows he made a mess of things.
Nevertheless, I find myself hooked on the thoroughly un-fairy tale wedding of Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles scheduled for next Friday. I am not quite so besotted that I'm buying the coffee cup, suitable for microwaving, bearing the congratulatory message. But I do have my eye on the refrigerator magnet.
I owe my fanfare to the uncommon couple in large measure to the British press. These Brits, at their beastly best, managed to transform Camilla from the ''other woman" to the ''older woman."
Yes, I know, many Diana lovers will never forgive Camilla for Charles's affection. At the height of the ''annus horibilis"she was the ''femina horibila." There are those who threw buns at her at a supermarket and there are those who will picket at her wedding.
But when Charles allegedly got down on bended knee and proposed, the press description of his fiancee made Diana's pet name for her -- ''the Rottweiler" -- seem complimentary. Scrutinized from her hair to her teeth to her waistline to her wardrobe, she was declared ''frumpy," ''dowdy," and the ''jellied eel" to Diana's ''lobster thermidor."
She was even age-profiled and found guilty of wearing-jeans-while-57. One columnist wagged: ''The advice must be: don't try this at home. Or maybe: do try it at home, but for goodness sake stay there, with the curtains drawn."
On our side of the pond, Camilla was dubbed ''the Botox generation's nightmare" and the ''frumpy consort of his dreams." Brit Hume said of her, ''Well, if you look at a photograph of Diana, you can understand, but this one . . . why? Why her?"
It was as if Charles had upset the natural order of things, whereby every Donald Trump must have his trophy wife. It was if the Prince Charming had chosen the ugly stepsister as his second wife. What woman of a certain age couldn't side with the un-bowed and un-Botoxed object of his affection?
Mind you, Charles is not much of a trophy himself. At 56, the bridegroom has been heir to the throne since he was 3 years old. He'll probably get his job about the same time his Eton pals are retiring. He's royalty in a country where his basic economic role is to support the twin pillars of tourism and tabloidism.
Camilla is at least credited with the all-time pickup line. Upon meeting the prince she said, ''My great-great-grandmother was your great-great-grandfather's mistress, so how about it?" Charles, on the other hand, is discredited for uttering the all-time put-down line. Asked upon his first engagement whether he and Diana were in love, he quipped, ''whatever 'in love' means."
Whatever dignity he could muster was lost in the cellphone expose when he was caught telling Camilla he wanted to be reincarnated as her personal hygiene product. As his mother once told her first daughter-in-law, ''Charles is hopeless."
But what makes me tip my republican -- small r -- hat to the couple anyway is their, well, endurance. The real trophy here, if you will allow it, is tenacity in, um, love.
The Daily Star headlined its announcement, ''Boring Old Gits to Wed." An Australian writer said Charles and Camilla raised ''the ewww factor . . . it's like catching your parents pashing." What they forgot is the grit in the gits and the undeniable passion in the pashers.
In just the past few weeks, this couple has been subject to polls taken on whether they should marry or whether Camilla should be called queen. A bishop actually told Charles to make a public apology to Camilla's husband.
The pair who have endured it call each other ''devoted old bags." The devotion of the old bags has managed to overwhelm the burden of the old baggage. Not bad.
Second marriages are not fairy tales. Very few get there without baggage. Some of it damaged. This pair carries two broken marriages, one death, many regrets, and a second chance.
In the Jewish, not Anglican, tradition you break a glass at the wedding to symbolize the end of an old life. But in the ecumenical tradition of second marriages, you take the past along with you. You take the good stuff like the kids. You are also forced to carry the bad stuff, the glass shards that stick in your sole.
So a touch of bubbly to the folks tying the Windsor knot. They already have friendship and love and do not ask ''whatever 'love' is." Finally, the old gits got it right.
A Princely Match
by Ellen Goodman
(The Boston Globe, April 3, 2005 )
I AM NOT, by genealogy or nationality, a follower of the British royal family. The last monarch who mattered to Americans was George III, and God knows he made a mess of things.
Nevertheless, I find myself hooked on the thoroughly un-fairy tale wedding of Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles scheduled for next Friday. I am not quite so besotted that I'm buying the coffee cup, suitable for microwaving, bearing the congratulatory message. But I do have my eye on the refrigerator magnet.
I owe my fanfare to the uncommon couple in large measure to the British press. These Brits, at their beastly best, managed to transform Camilla from the ''other woman" to the ''older woman."
Yes, I know, many Diana lovers will never forgive Camilla for Charles's affection. At the height of the ''annus horibilis"she was the ''femina horibila." There are those who threw buns at her at a supermarket and there are those who will picket at her wedding.
But when Charles allegedly got down on bended knee and proposed, the press description of his fiancee made Diana's pet name for her -- ''the Rottweiler" -- seem complimentary. Scrutinized from her hair to her teeth to her waistline to her wardrobe, she was declared ''frumpy," ''dowdy," and the ''jellied eel" to Diana's ''lobster thermidor."
She was even age-profiled and found guilty of wearing-jeans-while-57. One columnist wagged: ''The advice must be: don't try this at home. Or maybe: do try it at home, but for goodness sake stay there, with the curtains drawn."
On our side of the pond, Camilla was dubbed ''the Botox generation's nightmare" and the ''frumpy consort of his dreams." Brit Hume said of her, ''Well, if you look at a photograph of Diana, you can understand, but this one . . . why? Why her?"
It was as if Charles had upset the natural order of things, whereby every Donald Trump must have his trophy wife. It was if the Prince Charming had chosen the ugly stepsister as his second wife. What woman of a certain age couldn't side with the un-bowed and un-Botoxed object of his affection?
Mind you, Charles is not much of a trophy himself. At 56, the bridegroom has been heir to the throne since he was 3 years old. He'll probably get his job about the same time his Eton pals are retiring. He's royalty in a country where his basic economic role is to support the twin pillars of tourism and tabloidism.
Camilla is at least credited with the all-time pickup line. Upon meeting the prince she said, ''My great-great-grandmother was your great-great-grandfather's mistress, so how about it?" Charles, on the other hand, is discredited for uttering the all-time put-down line. Asked upon his first engagement whether he and Diana were in love, he quipped, ''whatever 'in love' means."
Whatever dignity he could muster was lost in the cellphone expose when he was caught telling Camilla he wanted to be reincarnated as her personal hygiene product. As his mother once told her first daughter-in-law, ''Charles is hopeless."
But what makes me tip my republican -- small r -- hat to the couple anyway is their, well, endurance. The real trophy here, if you will allow it, is tenacity in, um, love.
The Daily Star headlined its announcement, ''Boring Old Gits to Wed." An Australian writer said Charles and Camilla raised ''the ewww factor . . . it's like catching your parents pashing." What they forgot is the grit in the gits and the undeniable passion in the pashers.
In just the past few weeks, this couple has been subject to polls taken on whether they should marry or whether Camilla should be called queen. A bishop actually told Charles to make a public apology to Camilla's husband.
The pair who have endured it call each other ''devoted old bags." The devotion of the old bags has managed to overwhelm the burden of the old baggage. Not bad.
Second marriages are not fairy tales. Very few get there without baggage. Some of it damaged. This pair carries two broken marriages, one death, many regrets, and a second chance.
In the Jewish, not Anglican, tradition you break a glass at the wedding to symbolize the end of an old life. But in the ecumenical tradition of second marriages, you take the past along with you. You take the good stuff like the kids. You are also forced to carry the bad stuff, the glass shards that stick in your sole.
So a touch of bubbly to the folks tying the Windsor knot. They already have friendship and love and do not ask ''whatever 'love' is." Finally, the old gits got it right.
the m's won 5-1 -- not bad for a season opening. go richie!!!
