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Monthly Archives: August 2025

Nisei Week in Little Tokyo

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Japanese Tea Ceremony

This morning, Martine and I took the E-Train downtown to Little Tokyo. It was the beginning of Nisei Week, and there were some interesting events and exhibits to experience.

We had not attended Nisei Week since before the Covid-19 lockdown, so we were surprised by the smaller crowds and the obvious cutbacks. There were no events in the large Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC) courtyard. Some dozen years or so ago, I remember fondly seeing a program of five films starring Raizo Ichikawa at the center’s Aratani Theatre. This year, there were no film programs, no musical programs.

On the plus side, there was a fascinating Japanese tea ceremony. Martine did not know what she was missing when she decided not to attend. The forty-five minute program included a re-enactment of the tea ceremony in a little wooden tea house on the ground floor of the JACCC. There is something about the ritual and multiple exchange of bows that is somehow close to the very soul of the Japanese. And, at the end of the ceremony, we were given some excellent matcha tea and a Japanese sweet.

On the ground floor of the center, we saw a beautiful flower arrangement exhibit. I could kick myself for forgetting to bring my camera, because some of the arrangements were highly artistic; and there was even enough light in the room to make good pictures without flash.

On the fifth floor, we also saw an exhibit of Japanese dolls (not my cup of tea) and ceramics.

After the JACCC events, we trudged to Weller Court and had a so-so Chinese meal until such time as the karate event at the Terasaki Budokan gymnasium on Los Angeles Street was to start. Most of the event was like watching people do calisthenics, except for the team match-ups where there was something that looked like real fighting. There were teams from Japan, the United States, France, and Canada—and that was the order in which they finished.

Some of the Japanese participants were really fierce and fun to watch.

Will we go again next year? Probably not, but we’ll check first to see what they’ll have to offer.

Carry-Ons

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Daily writing prompt
What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?
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Because of my medical history (diabetes, no pituitary gland), the most important thing to carry with me all the time are my medications, especially my insulin and hydrocortisone. Next in importance: reading glasses, pen, wallet, and keys. I guess I should be happy I don’t also have to lug around an anvil, though it feels like it some of the time.

My Video Collection

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When I bought my first video cassette recorder (VCR) in the 1980s, I thought I had it made. I had a great cable television setup near a neighborhood where many film industry moguls lived, and I could record films that were being broadcast on the many channels to which I had access. Eventually, I had a library of several hundred films that any film fanatic would be proud to own.

But then, little by little, they started to go bad. The VCR units had a hard time rewinding. And, of course, you couldn’t view a film until you rewound the reel. The tapes got stretched and started to go blooey. And rewinding became more and more of a chore.

When the DVD players first came out, I thought that was the way to go. I mean the laser didn’t even make contact with the surface of the DVD the way a VCR did with a videotape cassette.

One of my friends even suggested I convert all my videocassettes to DVD. I quickly pointed out that it would take years to accomplish this feat, during which my cassettes would continue to deteriorate.

Then I found out about a thing called “laser rot.” Even DVDs were not immune. After all, there was this metallic coating on a thin plastic disk. And plastic, as we know, won’t last forever.

In the age of streaming, people don’t keep the films they see: They just play them while downloading them. After viewing the film, it is gonzo!

The Cliché Is Inexperienced

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One of the lesser works by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick is Galactic Pot Healer. Even in his minor works, Dick never fails to be of interest. In the first chapter, hero Joe Fernwright plays an interesting word game based on loose synonyms. Below are several examples:

The Lattice-work Gun-stinging Insect

This refers to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. “Great” sounds like “Grate,” which is a kind of lattice-work. Thugs used to refer to guns as “Gats”; and the “Stinging Insect” is a bee. Grate Gats-bee.

The Male Offspring in Addition Gets Out of Bed

This refers to a novel by “Serious Constricting-path,” or Ernest Hemingway: The Son Also Rises. This one requires no further explanation—except perhaps in the name of the author: “Hemmed Way,” or Hemingway.

Those for Whom the Male Homosexual Exacts Transit Tax

Another work by “Serious Constricting-path”” For Whom the Bell Tolls. I presume that “Bell” here is kind of like the masculine version of “Belle” (though I could be wrong here: Dick does not explain.)

Quickly Shattered at the Quarreling Posterior

Get ready to groan. Here is Joe’s conversation with a fellow gamer named Gauk:

“Jesus,” Joe said, with deep and timid bewilderment. It rang no bell, no bell at all. “‘Quickly shattered.’ Broken, maybe. Broke, break. Quick—that would be fast. Breakfast. But ‘Quarreling Posterior’?” He cogitated quickly, in the Roman sense. “Fighting. Arguing. Spat.” In his mind no solution appeared. “Posterior.’ Rear end. Ass. Butt.” For a time he meditated in silence, in the Yoga fashion. “No,” he said finally. “I can’t make it out. I give up.”

“So soon?” Gauk inquired, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, there’s no use sitting here the rest of the day working that one over.”

“Fanny,” Gauk said.

Joe groaned.

It is apparent that the answer to the puzzle is Breakfast at Tiffany’s or, Break Fast at Tiff Fanny.”

The Cliche is Inexperienced

Another book title: The Corn Is Green.

Dick leaves us with one more, to which he provides no clues: “Bogish Persistentisms, by Shaft Tackapple.” I nhave wrestled with that one but have not been able to decipher it.

Summer Vacation

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The following paragraphs come from the beginning of Chapter Eight in John D. MacDonald’s The Crossroads. In it, he satirizes the typical 1950s summer family vacation.

During the first twenty-two days of July the Crossroads Corporation experienced the normal seasonal change in the character of the business. Summer vacationers clogged the roads. The young families stopped at the restaurants and gas stations and motels. The young husbands, with fourteen days, or twenty-one days of freedom, spent it abrading their souls against the shimmer and stink of fast traffic, counting every night the thinning stack of traveler’s checks. The young wives put on pretty summer skirts and blouses in the morning, and by ten o’clock were stained, wilted, wrinkled and rump-sprung, the victims of the attrition of summer heat, sticky hands and road fumes. They called their husbands darling with iron emphasis. Small, weary, wind-burned children whined and threw up. The young families visited dear friends they had not seen in three years, and found nothing to say to them. They visited the showplaces of the nation, made the proper dutiful sounds of appreciation and found them a litter of gum wrappers, bored guides, and ill-mannered children of the other young families. They careened down the endless stone rivers between the bright thickets of billboards. Virginia Beach was where Junie thumped Russell on the head with a rock. Three stitches. The Suwanee River was where the trunk compartment lock jammed. The Grand Canyon was where Baby broke Mummie’s glasses. Franconia Notch was where Tiffin got into the poison ivy.

Tires burst. Speedometer cables squeaked and died. Pebbles chipped windshields. Pets escaped. (You were the one hadda bring that goddam dog in the first place.) Fan belts snapped. Ten billion pieces of Kleenex tumbled along the dusty shoulders.

Down the Hatch

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Flame-Roasted Hatch Chiles

Hatch chiles are in season!

That is one of my most favorite things about summer. I love the taste of roasted Hatch chiles. Unfortunately, when I roast them on the flame of my gas range, Martine and my neighbors complain of the sharp (but utterly delicious) smell.

Yesterday, I bought a bag of Hatch chiles, intending to roast them in the oven. Following the instructions of a website which shall remain nameless, I roasted them at 550 degrees (288° Celsius) for about 15 minutes a side. I was told that after being locked in a plastic bag for 5-10 minutes, the blistered outer skin could be easily removed with my bare hands.

Hah! Instead, they went all to pieces, with the blistered skin not properly separating from the chile pepper itself. I wound up throwing the whole batch out.

So I decided to buy chiles that has been roasted and stripped of their skin. It cost a bundle, but I like to use roasted chiles in much of my cooking, such as in my Spanish Rice, with scrambled eggs, and so on. I could keep a supply in my freezer for up to six months.

I truly love Hatch chile peppers, so I could hardly wait until I pick them up on Saturday, August 16, at my local Bristol Farms market.

Habitual

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Daily writing prompt
Describe one habit that brings you joy.
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Nothing brings me joy more than travel. Unfortunately, I don’t have the cash tom do as much traveling as I want. So, the next best thing is breakfast. Early on in my life, I was not a big breakfast eater. After my brain surgery in 1966, however, I was prescribed medicines that made it mandatory to eat three meals a day—including breakfast. I love drinking a cup of hot tea with honey and fresh lime, accompanied by one of ten rotating breakfast dishes.

While eating breakfast, I perform the KenKen and Sudoku puzzles in the Los Angeles Times, followed by a reading of the funnies, where one finds more truth than in any other part of the newspaper.