Studio Ghibli can do no wrong

Watched "Whisper of the Heart" last night. A film which perfectly captures the struggle a young emerging artist feels upon realising how much more work is still ahead of her. In my perfect Film School, all first year students would watch this on their first day and all teachers would simply say "Let me accompany you, to find the lapis lazuli vein" whenever one of their students would be overcome with fear, exhaustion and helplessness in the ensuing years.

Collections

I've been collecting a range of different experiences, mentally bookmarking them to share with you in posts.

For example, I have a Jamaican neighbour (at the other end of my street) who has a karaoke machine, and last night as I walked past his house I heard him singing this. Now, he can hardly hold a tune (sh...don't tell him), and I could hardly make out what he was singing other than the lyrics. So I googled the words and of COURSE, Bob Marley, and then I actually realised that I preferred my neighbour's out-of-tune version. I think he lives alone and just sings to himself. Love that.

So now I have decided to challenge myself, and a certain other German blogger. Next time I see my Jamaican singer in the neighbourhood I'm going to ask him if I can come over one day and sing with him. Update to come. And let this be a challenge to Eurolush, who has returned home and is still hiding out in a blogfree zone, to take on the challenge of finally asking her neighbour Hawkman if she can hold his hawk (it's been over two years Lushy, shame). Let the challenge begin I say.

And now to a different topic. One of my favourite writers has actually dedicated an entire post to me. I've been Margie's fan ever since I met her, truth be told...even before I read a word she had written. Around the time she started to write for Sassy I was looking after my newborn Miss Commentbox and I would greedily devour Margie's eloquent say-it-like-it-is articles, dreaming that one day my daughter would read exactly that type of magazine. Turns out Miss CB now reads Frankie, which I also love, and I still claim that some of the Sassiness I consumed during her first year of life came through to her in my breast milk.

Moving right along, I'd now like to discuss my recent interest in makeup. Having worn nothing but sunscreen for years I am on the hunt for some fun items with which to decorate my face. But before any purchases are made I realise that it's really all about the people involved, and I'm referring to the "makeup girls" who smile sweetly, and not so sweetly, from behind their soft lit counters. I have fallen in love with each and every one of them; from the fabulously Goth pixie who helps me find the right eyeliner at the Mac counter, to the bejewelled Russian matriarch in her white Clinique lab coat who insists that brown lipsticks are ageing.

Oh, and by the way, a chic French lady standing next to me at the cash register was buying this. She caught me looking at her and she said in a sing-song voice "You should buy some. I see you are tempted."

Happy

OK...not sure how it happened that I stopped my "happiness list" at number 2. Honestly, I haven't really been that unhappy, case in point:

Jasper and me at Kim's place which is always filled with allconsuming love and really really good food.

Happy day 2

Last time I wrote about Japanese animation my friend Yuki mentioned that her favourite Studio Ghibli film is "My Neighbour Totoro." I have to agree with you Yuki, it makes me SO HAPPY. It's the story of two sisters whose mother is sick in hospital, so they spend the summer in the country with their father who teaches Archaeology at the local university. The scene which makes me the happiest is the one in which the two girls are waiting to meet him at the bus-stop with an umbrella, but he's late, and Totoro joins them and waits with them. Oh no, wait, my favourite scene is actually when they catch the bus that's shaped like a cat and it takes them to visit their mother and they sit on the top branch of a tree and look into the hospital window and see her talking with their father. No, no, I've changed my mind...I think my favourite scene is when the lovely old lady who is looking after the little sister brings her to the school where the big sister studies because she won't stop crying, so the little sister joins the class for the rest of the day.

I'll stop now and let you watch the trailer in peace and quiet.




This then doubles my happiness, Totoro making an appearance in Toy Story 3 as an homage to Studio Ghibli. Miyazaki and Lasseter are friends, that makes me so so happy:

Happy tag

The beautiful Duyvken tagged me, so I'm going to come up with 10 things that make me happy. Thanks Duvvy xxxx

I hope it's still within the rules if I post one thing every day. For ten days in a row I'll post what made me happy on each of the days, all right?

So, here goes....

Today, I was very happy to discover this piece of music:







This music is actually one precious link in an entire necklace of musical happinesses. I first heard this tune on the television programme "In Treatment," which makes me very happy whenever I watch it. This is the story behind the music:

Mia was Paul's patient when she was in her late teens, she returns to him as a patient twenty years later and blames him for a decision she made in her youth. She also claims that he didn't truly care for her when he originally treated her. Paul gets up from his chair, walks towards the stereo and presses the play button - this music comes on. It's a tape which Mia had given him many years ago of her own piano playing, and which he has saved all these years. That scene makes me happy.

Each of Paul's patients has a musical theme, and each one makes me happy. For example, this is Sophie's theme:



April's theme:



Paul's own theme when he visits his own therapist Gina:



Sometimes happiness is soft and thoughtful, with an undertone of a good type of sadness. Today my happiness is like a salted caramel - it's sweeter and better because of the salt.

Back home

Hello all,

If you're still here reading this blog then it means you knew me back when...you know...back when I used to post regularly.


It took me several weeks to feel "at home" again at home, and I just didn't feel like writing about it. This is a time of big changes in my role as mother/housewife/woman and some days I seem to be completely lost. Miss Cb is working in America for a few months, Master Cb is very independent and happy in his own world of school and friends, and for the first time ever I'm suddenly reminiscing about the "early years" of the family and wondering what exactly my role is in the present years.

I watched this film last week - "Only Yesterday" - and I had the most wonderful cry at the end of it. Such a wonderful feeling to cry at the end of a movie, really it is! I think the Japanese audience especially loves a good cry, and I'm so thankful for that. It's all very well to watch clever, fast-paced, witty or three-dimensional Hollywood films, but sometimes all you want is a good cry.

I love the idea of a woman in her mid-twenties taking along her younger self as she travels to her summer destination. I love the interweaving of the two love narratives - her first love with the school's baseball star and the deep love which she slowly discovers while picking safflowers. And then there are all of the perfect, tiny details which are added in the animation (painstakingly hand-drawn by the wonderful Studio Ghibli) - the father's puff of cigarette smoke, the cat walking past, her glancing at the mirror while talking on the phone, and best of all - the catcher's mitt glimpse when the little girl and little boy agree on their favourite kind of day.

Thought it might brighten your day as well.....

Dinner with a blogging legend

This is what I looked like as I sat at a table in a wonderful restaurant with EL, bb (and B the lurker, naturally). Lurkers.are.always.with.us.

I only took a break from smiling and laughing so as to eat, that goes without saying though, doesn't it?

Here I am again, smiling and laughing. At one point, bb&EL&B took part in what can only be described as a Funny Competition in which each competed "in the round" with each other, coming up with one-liners in at attempt to outdo each other. Soon, EL had folded (I know. Stamina. She had it not) and oh my but how well did B do against the hysterically funny bb!!! I cannot even begin to imagine what the other diners thought of us. Some very good wine may have been consumed as well, so, you know, it was a very very good night.

Sitting with bb, the wonderfully petite blogging legend who introduced me to EL, and of course to each and every one of you, was indeed a true highlight of my trip.

Ah yes, the miracle of blogging. If blogging was a religion, I'd convert, because it has brought me so much happiness.

I'm now off to the airport to return home.

See you back home.

E xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx