May I Interest You in a Delightful Cliché?

I was flipping through the photo file, and realized I really haven't ever taken a picture focused on Tateishi, the "Standing Rock" of this blog. The only one where it even features in the frame is this one, and it's completely black. There's a parking lot right next to it, from which you can--if you're so inclined--shoot it with Mt. Fuji and those pine trees that appear in the background, which is probably an activity as close to orgasm as some photographers can get. So, as the sunset makes its way across the horizon each year to backlight Fuji. there are certain days when the tripods sans cameras will be sitting there like squatting insects from early morning, as the shooters stake out their ground to capture a shot that would make the cut for any ultimate collection of postcards from Japan. At sunset, Britney would be pleased at the number of shutters going completely mad. And all I've got is this sad example. Sorry.

Lift (or Drop) Your Monkey

This bolt is called a saru, or monkey, supposedly because a monkey won’t let go once it has its paws on something. It’s a good name. They’re found on the amado, or rain shutters, on all old Japanese houses, and they’re the only thing between the outside and inside other than some pretty flimsy locks. I once came down to spend the weekend without the front door keys and spent a long couple of hours believing I could get past them. But the monkeys held their ground.

The vertical piece slides up into the jamb, and the horizontal one slides across to hold it there, like those wooden Chinese puzzles. This is an agezaru, or “lifting monkey,” whereas the one that go down into the floor are “drop monkeys,” otoshizaru.

The aloe that fronts the house has bloomed so it must really be winter. Their blossoms rise out of the plants on long stalks, and they're not the most attractive flower . . . oh hell, they're ugly as sin, and those stalks are like the weird appendages on the aliens in War of the Worlds. If I didn't cut these plants back every year, we'd be fighting our way through an aloe forest everytime we left the house.