Latest funny web discovery: www.engrish.com A compilation of weird English found on products, buildings, and other things in Japan. Very funny. I was going through this site with my Japanese friend, Junko, and she didn't really get it. Over and over she'd ask, "Why is this strange?" This, of course, just made it funnier.

Words Junko has difficulty telling the difference between:

draw and drown

worm and warm

fly and fry (she likes flied lice)

mommy and mummy

Virgo and booger

Oh, and apparently, boku wa Junko no asobimono desu (I am Junko's plaything). I'm going to take her to see Pearl Harbor when it comes out. It'll be cool.

Also check out this (is this for real? apparently people who bought this book also bought books by Orson Scott Card and Neal Stephenson... hm.) and this (though stay away from this if things done in poor taste piss you off).

I'm reading a book right now called The King of Elfland's Daughter, by Lord Dunsany. It was originally published in 1924. This dude is really the forgotten grandfather of modern fantasy. Quotes from the introduction by Neil Gaiman: "Today, fantasy is, for better or for worse, just another genre, a place in the bookshop to find books that, too often, remind one of far too many other books (and many writers today would have less to say had Dunsany not said it first); it is an irony, and not an entirely pleasant one, that what should be, by definition, the most imaginative of all types of literature has become so staid, and, too often, downright unimaginative. The King of Elfland's Daughter, on the other hand, is a tale of pure imagination... Perhaps this book should come with a warning: it is not a reassurring, by-the-numbers fantasy novel, like most of the books with elves, princes, trolls, and unicorns "between their covers." This is the real thing. It's rich red wine, which may come as a shock if all one has had so far is cola." So, yeah, it's good stuff. It reads almost like one of Grimm's Fairy Tales (which are pretty funky, if you've ever read the original stories)... My coming to this book has kind of a fun lineage. I became interested in Lord Dunsany after learning that he was one of the primary influences on H.P. Lovecraft (I love his stuff). I first bought a book of H.P. Lovecraft stories because in The Tale of the Body Thief, by Anne Rice, she makes reference to an H.P. Lovecraft story called "The Thing on the Doorstep." And I originally became interested in Anne Rice when I was nine years old and read my mother's copy of The Vampire Lestat (still one of my all-time favorite books, though some people now hold it in contempt (though, to be honest, I haven't enjoyed Anne's more recent work so much)). Yes, I read The Vampire Lestat when I was nine years old. No wonder I turned out like I did, hmm... (but just how exactly did i turn out, anyway?)

Album plug- Electro-Shock Blues, by The Eels. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite albums. According to Kelly, around the time the lead singer was working on this album, "everyone he knew died." So the theme of the album is death. But it's not morbid or even depressing (for the most part). It's just... wonderful.

I was thinking about how
everyone is dying
and maybe it's time to live

Seriously, this album is sublime.

By the way, I found that Engrish site via japantravels, so check her out, eh?

I had a painfully unproductive weekend, and tomorrow looks to be hell.

"Who knows what brings fortune, since we cannot see the end?" -Lord Dunsany, The King of Elfland's Daughter

-grey

P.S. My own personal "Engrish" example- I have some chopsticks from Japan, and on the plastic bag-thing they came in, there's a drawing of an old lady dressed in orange with a caption that says, "Pumpkin G. Mother."

Diaryland