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neruda’s puedo escribir
los versos más tristes esta noche
About six months ago I talked a friend into recording in his slow Spanish the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche. I worked a saxophone over the poem and was rather happy with the effects. I […]
helen gahagan douglas in she (1935)
This entire episode started with a little research into famed politician and actress Helen Gahagan Douglas; a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California’s 14th district (1945 – 1951). She was born on November 25, 1900; died June 28, 1980 at the age of 79 and appeared […]
Ever since I heard the sound of the duduk I have been captivated by its terrible sadness. If mountains could cry, it would be the droning lament of the duduk. As one of the oldest double reed instruments in the world I have been trying to find examples in Armenia and the Caucasus […]
tu boca vela de roja nervadura
para mi sed ruidosa dame
tu fuego
enervada frambuesa de tu encía
boca donde desgarrar
este grito desgreñado
donde terriblemente muerto así
ya nunca más la roja
sed encarnadísima
frambuesa y rocío espeso
tu saliva
luz distraída que se alojó en tu boca
dame espada de duro clavel
tu dentadura
para esta fiebre con su lanza
sobre mi lengua desiertos que […]
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Escribir, por ejemplo: ” La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos”.
El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.
En las noches como ésta la tuve entre […]
hot air slicing through
her words, name, body; splattered
on my startled face.
And so ends the story of the Himeyuri.
I first became interested in making a movie version of the story of the Himeyuri when I stumbled, completely by accident, on a rare film clip that burnt itself into my brain. […]
I still remember some Okinawan phrases I learned at that time. For some reason, all of them have to do with hospitality.
– Ikuo Ogiso, a Japanese soldier. (Feifer, 58)
In Okinawa, we say Nichi do takara: Life is a treasure. Whatever the reasons to fight and kill, however profound the […]
At the heart of the story of the Himeyuri, what turned this from simply being one more example of courage during terrible times into horror (at least for me), was an order given right before Okinawa fell to the Americans; the order commanding the Nurse Corps to […]
A Couple of Notes:
Throughout this movie I have been trying to use only Okinawan phrases and concepts in the dialog. Thus, using the Okinawan term for mother, “Okkaa,” instead of the Japanese,“Okasan,” makes perfect sense to me. However, because 99% of my research comes from books, there are […]
History, they say, has terrible ways of repeating itself. In this part of the film we meet a 10 year-old girl, Chiaki; a neighbor of Kohitsuji’s, someone she tries to take care of even as the Himeyuri begin their fateful march across the island to the battle front.
I chose the name Chiaki on purpose; […]
Uminai-gami’s Weaving
The title for this part of the story comes from the Okinawan Creator goddess Uminai-gami; who, along with her brother Umikii-gami, created all humans and the islands. I have yet to find if Uminai-gami was, in fact, a weaver of souls but it seemed plausible in the realm of story telling. I […]
The Himeyuri, ひめゆり — Blood, Iron & Fog [remix]
I think I made a mistake; picking to sing and record the song “Strange Fruit” and attempting to use it as a metaphor for the atrocities that occurred during WWII might be doing a grave injustice to the song and for all those for racial violence is […]
In a recent fictionalized retelling of the Himeyuri (so far only shown on independent Japanese TV), the producers of the movie chose the American Civil War song “Amazing Grace” as the theme music to draw the story together. It is a good choice; as a reflective message illustrating the terrible suffering of a dark […]
Here is the first installment of my Himeyuri story. I must stress again (and throughout this project) that this is pure fiction. While the story is based on the last months of World War II and the Japanese nurse aides of Okinawa, the characters are not based on anyone living or dead.
The narrator […]
“red bamboo” ZJC (2007)
I can understand my poetic grandparents of the 1920s and 1930s wanting to throw off the mantle of Formal poetry; let’s face it, after Romanticism the idea that perhaps rhyming poetry had gotten a bit stale, that forms for forms sake did not make the best verse was, I am sure, a […]
“gagged by roses” ZJC (2007)
The metaphor of friendship being like a plant (a night blooming rose, let us say) is not new but I think it will work nicely. Two people agree to combine their energies and fortunes. A plant roots itself in the ground. To break that connection, for whatever reasons, […]
“the myth of sedna” ZJC (2006)
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It is raining in Michigan. It is raining out on the lakes. My dear friend Sedna, with her rich songs of betrayal, death and resurrection, sent me a lament. I have been thinking of laments a […]
The Chinese Baiji Dolphin was declared extinct this week. The Week Magazine briefly noted:
“Goddess goes extinct” (Yangtze River, China) The Baiji, a freshwater dolphin know as the “goddess of the Yangtze,” is extinct, scientists said this week. The latest search of the river produced no sightings of the species, which lived in the […]