Review – Flight & Anchor

Flight & Anchor: A Firebreak Story

by Nicole Kornher-Stace

Publication Date: 13 Jun 2023

Full disclosure: I read this from a free review copy off Netgalley.

Synopsis: In short (and I do mean short, because the book itself is roughly novella length at 139 pages double spaced), this is a story set in the world of another of the author’s works, Firebreak, about a city gripped by a war between two corporate entities, with a team of bio-engineered super soldiers at the heart of the conflict. This story features two of those—06, a girl, and 22, a boy—as preteens trying to escape the corporate facility that grabbed them as very young war orphans and turned them into killing machines.
They escape and, rather than making their way out of the city as originally planned, hole up in an abandoned container and scavenge for food in the harsh city winter. The whole time, the nameless facility Director remotely monitors their location and vital signs and tries to hide her failure in letting them escape.

Review: I suppose I just have to say this one wasn’t for me. It seems built knowing these children as characters, without giving any real reason to WANT to; since I haven’t read Firebreak, and thus don’t have any grasp on what they do or their significance, my interest just slides off them like glass. This could also be due to the fact that this very brief story spends SO MUCH TIME on mundane details of survival (with a nearly two page listing of the random detritus they scavenge in their abandoned lot, that then plays absolutely no part in their story).

There are also clear allusions to events that happen years after the story—clearly referring to Firebreak—that are frustratingly pointless to this actual narrative, and so simply stand out as enormous flashing “Hey, remember this part?” signs. I don’t, actually.

I was also bemused by how the book spent 13 pages, fully 10% of its length, in the largely uneventful and pointless interaction between a barista, Cass, and these two nameless children, which again had no bearing on the characters’ further actions or development. In terms of Chekhov’s gun, there were like four shotguns (Offscreen characters, suspicions, potential friends, potential foes) in that scene, and none of them ever fired. It was essentially 13 pages of “Then they got some cast off coats and stale donuts.” Which they later did AGAIN after digging through the garbage.

That scene did successfully shake my affinity for “they” as a singular pronoun, since it featured Cass as “they” interacting with two unnamed people acting as a unit whom Cass immediately identified as “boy” and “girl” because I guess that’s what a non-binary person does on first meeting preteens? Anyway, it was tortuous and difficult to get through, and served so little purpose in so many pages that I very nearly stopped reading once I realized it just hadn’t mattered.

However, when something actually interesting and important happened—the intriguing nanobot array that filled the so necessary “snarky sub character” slot showing up, the roughly two pages of action at the end, etc.—it was fun. The writing itself in the use of language and pacing are really quite good, so that was a pleasant part of the experience.

Overall, I’d give this three of five stars, for deft sentences and glimpses of an intriguing world, with marks off for not a whole lot happening that makes sense to this non-Firebreak reader.

Simple Pleasures of Birdwatching

I have long been a fan of birds in general, which sounds like a silly thing to say but is merely the truth. Being close to birds reveals such cleverness, such expressiveness, that it’s hard not to anthropomorphize them. Yet I have never really taken the time to get the kind of detailed knowledge that would allow me to, say, identify all the wild birds around me by call, or plumage, or flight pattern.

So, when I saw an ad in the local paper for a free birdwatching class at Suo no Mori Lodge, a nearby forest lodge, I signed right up. The class happened last Sunday, the 21st, and it was a hoot (har, har).

I learned the basics of the above, but I also found that simply being in a focused environment where every bird that passed was a subject worthy of scrutiny, that was worth paying close attention to, was a kind of blessing. Birds are all around us here in Hikari, so they often just melt into the background noise, but when you actually try to see them they are a treasure.

For example, I learned that I’ve been using “sparrow” as a kind of catch-all term for “little, round, brown birds in the bushes” but there are several species that all fit that name, and all of which have their own adorable-ness to enjoy.

There’s nothing really profound coming here, but I will say that focusing your awareness on the simple, common natural environment around you is deeply rewarding. If you have the chance, take it.

And now, the pictures, which are what you really want.

Review – Ceramics and Modernity in Japan

I’m trying lately to build a solid base of knowledge in ceramics, not only of aesthetics and mechanics, but of culture and context as well. This book, part of the Routledge Research in Art History series, is an excellent resource for exactly that.

The cover of the book Ceramics and Modernity in Japan. — The image is the abstract work Mr. Samsa’s Walk by Yagi Kazuo.

It features 11 scholarly essays (including the intro and epilogue) examining how the whole ceramics world—creating, seeking, purchasing, and appreciating—changed in post-Meiji Japan. The individual topics are relatively specific, but are well arranged and referenced enough to give an excellent overall grasp of the various issues at play.

The articles are all both rigorous and accessible, with the possible exception, perhaps, of “More than “Western”: Porcelain for the Meiji Emperor’s table” by Mary Redfern, which reads like something an undergraduate in social science might write to fill in a word count assignment. Study, overly erudite, and off questionable insight

Of particular interest to me are the many references to the interplay between attitudes toward other Asian nations during Japan’s colonial and post-colonial periods and the concurrent growth of the mingei movement under Yanagi Sōetsu. There is also a very illuminating reference to the circularity of how ceramic science from Europe influenced Japanese pottery, which in turn went on to influence the British studio pottery wave spearheaded by Bernard Leach.

These incidents fundamentally changed my perception of the mingei movement and Leach; particularly his “translation” of Yanagi’s work into “The Unnamed Craftsman.” The clear biases and, dare I say, agenda they shared makes much of what they say very suspect, even as it touches on some clearly vital issues of the intersection of art and Buddhist ideas.

Anyone who is interested in fort insight into the historical context of his Japan came to be “potter’s paradise,” the tension between art and craft in ceramics, and the roots of Japan’s enormous valuation of pottery and the “living national treasures” that create it would do well to read through this one.

Highly recommended.

My New Year in Pictures

Rather than a tired resolution post or whatever, I thought I’d just post some picture I took over the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023. I’m also trying to ensure that I include captions for screen readers, which WordPress seems to struggle with when it comes to galleries. Patience, please.

Locations include Shunan city’s Eigenzan park, Tokuyama Zoo, Nijigahama Beach, Yanai Adeli Hoshi Park, and Mt. Taika in Shunan.

Captions for slide show: 1. A brilliant pink and yellow flower against green leaves. 2. A pale piece of driftwood that resembles some kind of beast’s skull, atop a pine-needle bedding. 3. A small green bird perched on a bare branch, with a bright pink flower nearby. 4. The silhouette of a bird encircled by leafy, flowered branches.

A clear sky dotted with flying kites and the moon.

A tricky term – オカルト

Today’s conundrum: Is オカルト a false friend for “occult,” or not?

In Japan, for example, writers who dabble in horror, mystery, and stories with a weird, dark edge are often labeled オカルト (okaruto, a direct transliteration of “occult), and there are things like オカルトサークル (okaruto sa-kuru – occult circles), which are clubs that discuss and share information about things like urban legends (a very common theme on オカルト websites, it appears), strange true crime stuff, and related fiction.

But calling those “occult writers” or “occult clubs” seems, to me, to have entirely different connotations. I feel like the label “occult” is strongly associated with witchcraft and mystical secrets, rather than “eerie stuff in general.” The dictionary definition tends to point that way, too, but of course dictionaries always lag behind popular usage.

A look at the massive Wikipedia list of “occult writers” in English clearly shows a leaning that way: people like Anton LaVey, Aleister Crowley, Madame Blavatsky, and Simon Magus. More popular writers listed include Lovecraft, Robert Anton Wilson, Carlos Castaneda, and W. B. Yeats. Clearly, these writer seem connected by a focus on mysticism and the secret layers of reality, rather than “could-be-true scary stuff.” Again, this is not any kind of definitive list, but I do think it reflects the popular perception of the word.

The upshot of all this is, if I wanted to write about a Japanese オカルト writer, what would I call them? An eerie writer? A dark writer? A writer of the hidden world?

I wonder if anyone else thinks about this stuff?