#Nobuyuki Yuasa

[a-ramblinrose]

“In this mortal frame of mine which is made of a hundred bones and nine orifices there is something, and this something is called a wind-swept spirit for lack of a better name, for it is much like a thin drapery that is torn and swept away at the slightest stir of the wind. This something in me took to writing poetry years ago, merely to amuse itself at first, but finally making it its lifelong business. It must be admitted, however, that there were times when it sank into such dejection that it was almost ready to drop its pursuit, or again times when it was so puffed up with pride that it exulted in vain victories over the others. Indeed, ever since it began to write poetry, it has never found peace with itself, always wavering between doubts of one kind and another. At one time it wanted to gain security by entering the service of a court, and at another it wished to measure the depth of its ignorance by trying to be a scholar, but it was prevented from either because of its unquenchable love of poetry. The fact is, it knows no other art than the art of writing poetry, and therefore, it hangs on to it more or less blindly.”

― Bashō Matsuo, The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches

[abellinthecupboard]

I, too, was clad in a black robe, but neither a priest nor an ordinary man of this world was I, for I wavered ceaselessly like a bat that passes for a bird at one time and for a mouse at another.

— from A Visit to Kashima Shrine, Matsuo Bashō, transl. Nobuyuki Yuasa

[nobuyukikakigi]

拙著『燃エガラからの思考』刊行記念対談のご案内など

ここ福岡ではようやく秋の深まりが肌で感じられるようになってきましたが、いかがお過ごしでしょうか。来たる11月24日（木）の19:00より、七月に上梓した拙著『燃エガラからの思考──記憶の交差路としての広島へ』（インパクト出版会）をめぐって、中国文芸研究会──その読書会のことは、拙著第二部の「残余の文芸のために」に書かれています──の行友太郎さんとオンラインで対談します。広島／ヒロシマの現在を「軍都」の歴史を踏まえながら問い、「破局の残骸を継ぎ合わせ、核の普遍史に抵抗する連帯の場を開く」（帯文）ことを追究する思考を芸術論を中心にまとめた拙著を紹介する機会を設けてくださった誠品生活日本橋の神谷康宏さんに心より感謝申し上げます。 一緒に観たテント芝居──『図書新聞』第3564号に行友さんが寄稿された今夏の野戦之月の公演「TOKIOネシア荒屋敷予想《鯨のデーモス》」の劇評「分解は止まらない」は…

[movies-to-add-to-your-tbw]

Title: Night Is Short, Walk On Girl

Rating: PG-13

Director: Masaaki Yuasa

Cast: Gen Hoshino, Kana Hanazawa, Ami Koshimizu, Aoi Yuki, Hiroshi Kamiya, Chikara Honda, Hiroyuki Yoshino, Junichi Suwabe, Kazuhiro Yamaji, Kazuya Nakai, Mugihito, Nobuyuki Hiyama, Ryuji Akiyama, Seiko Niizuma, Sōichi Nakaoka, Yuhko Kaida, Daisuke Harada

Release year: 2017

Genres: romance, fantasy, comedy, adventure

Blurb: As a group of university students go out for a night on the town, a sophomore experiences a series of surreal encounters with the local nightlife, all the while unaware of the romantic longings of Senpai, a senior student who has been creating increasingly fantastic and contrived reasons to run into her in an effort to win her heart.

[alightinthelantern]

Books read and movies watched in 2024 (January-June): Should you watch/read them?

Poetry:

In the Next Galaxy (Ruth Stone): No

Selected Poems (Mark Strand): No

In the Dark (Ruth Stone): Yes!

Response (Juliana Spahr): Yes

The Unicorn (Anne Morrow Lindbergh): No!

Everything Else in the World (Stephen Dunn): Yes

Words Under the Words (Naomi Shihab Nye): Eh

On Love and Barley (Matsuo Basho, trans. Lucien Stryk): Yes!

The Transformation (Juliana Spahr): No

The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches (Matsuo Basho, trans. Nobuyuki Yuasa): No

The Book of Taliesin (anon., trans. Gwyneth Lewis & Rowan Williams): No

What Love Comes To: New and Selected Poems (Ruth Stone): Eh

Face (Sherman Alexie): NO

No Surrender (Ai): Eh

The Summer of Black Widows (Sherman Alexie): Yes!

The Afflicted Girls (Nicole Cooley): Yes!

Winter Poems Along the Rio Grande (Jimmy Santiago Baca): No

American Smooth (Rita Dove): No

Elegy (Mary Jo Bang): No

Angel (Giles Dorey): NO

Collected Poems (Paul Auster): Eh

June-Tree (Peter Balakian): Yes

We Must Make a Kingdom of It (Gregory Orr): Eh

Only as the Day is Long (Dorianne Laux): No

Grace Notes (Rita Dove): Yes

Bathwater Wine (Wanda Coleman): Yes

My Soviet Union (Michael Dumanis): No

American Milk (Ruth Stone): Yes

The Drowned Girl (Eve Alexandra): No

A Worldly Country (John Ashberry): No

The Complete Poems of Hart Crane: No

One Stick Song (Sherman Alexie): Yes

If You Call This Cry a Song (Hayden Carruth): No

Doctor Jazz (Hayden Carruth): No

The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart (Gabrielle Calvocoressi): No

And Her Soul Out of Nothing (Olena Kalytiak Davis): No

Prisoner of Hope (Yvonne Daley): No

The Other Man Was Me (Rafael Campo): No

My Wicked Wicked Ways (Sandra Cisneros): No

On Earth (Robert Creeley): Eh

Genius Loci (Alison Hawthorne Deming): Eh

Science and Other Poems (Alison Hawthorne Deming): Eh

Voices (Lucille Clifton): Yes

A New Path to the Waterfall (Raymond Carver): Eh

Where Shadows Will (Norma Cole): No

The Way Back (Wyn Cooper): No

A Cartography of Peace (Jean L. Connor): No

Minnow (Judith Chalmer): Yes!

Postcards from the Interior (Wyn Cooper): Yes

Natural History (Dan Chiasson): Eh

The Ship of Birth (Greg Delanty): Eh

Madonna anno domini (Joshua Clover): NO

The Terrible Stories (Lucille Clifton): No

The Flashboat (Jane Cooper): Eh

Book of Longing (Leonard Cohen): No

Streets in Their Own Ink (Stuart Dybek): Eh

Different Hours (Stephen Dunn): Yes

I Love This Dark World (Alice B. Fogel): Eh

Baptism of Desire (Louise Erdrich): Yes!

The Eternal City (Kathleen Graber): Eh

Monolithos (Jack Gilbert): Yes

Crown of Weeds (Amy Gerstler): No

Blue Hour (Carolyn Forché): No

Place (Jorie Graham): No

Meadowlands (Louise Gluck): Yes!

Dearest Creature (Amy Gerstler): No

Loosestrife (Stephen Dunn): No

Little Savage (Emily Fragos): Yes

The Living Fire (Edward Hirsch): No

On Love (Edward Hirsch): No

Human Wishes (Robert Hass): NO

Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest (B. H. Fairchild): No

Sinking Creek (John Engels): No

Alabanza (Martín Espada): Yes

Saving Lives (Albert Goldbarth): No

All of It Singing (Linda Gregg): No

Green Squall (Jay Hopler): No

Tender Hooks (Beth Ann Fennelly): No

After (Jane Hirshfield): Eh

Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty (Tony Hoagland): NO

These Are My Rivers (Lawrence Ferlinghetti): No

Fruitful (Stephanie Kirby): No

Jaguar Skies (Michael McClure): No

Song (Brigit Pegeen Kelly): No

Roadworthy Creature, Roadworthy Craft (Kate Magill): No

Life in the Forest (Denise Levertov): No

Viper Rum (Mary Karr): No

Questions for Ecclesiastes (Mark Jarman): No

Brutal Imagination (Cornelius Eady): Yes

Alphabet of Bones (Alexis Lathem): No

Handwriting (Michael Ondaatje): No

Sure Signs (Ted Kooser): No

Sledding on Hospital Hill (Leland Kinsey): No

Between Silences (Ha Jin): Yes

House of Days (Jay Parini): No

Bird Eating Bird (Kristin Naca): Yes

Orpheus & Eurydice (Gregory Orr): Yes

Another America (Barbara Kingsolver): Yes

Candles in Babylon (Denise Levertov): Yes

The Clerk's Tale (Spencer Reece): Eh

Still Listening (Angela Patten): Yes

A Thief of Strings (Donald Revell): No

Wayfare (Pattiann Rogers): No

The Niagara River (Kay Ryan): No

The Bird Catcher (Marie Ponsot): No

Easy (Marie Ponsot): No

Human Dark with Sugar (Brenda Shaughnessy): No

Chronic (D. A. Powell): No

Novels/Fiction:

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (Yiyun Li): No

The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories: Yes

Movies:

What Dreams May Come (1998, Vincent Ward): Yes

The Cat's Meow (2001, Peter Bogdanovich): Yes

The Birdcage (1996, Mike Nichols): Yes

The Color of Pomegranates (1969, Sergei Parajanov): No

The Eve of Ivan Kupalo (1969, Yuri Ilyenko): Yes

And here's my 2023 list!

[certaincowboypanda]

A Butterfly

Poised on a tender orchid,

How sweetly the incense

Burns on its wings.

Poem by Matsuo Basho, translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa

[bookclub4m]

24 Travel Non-Fiction Books by BIPOC Authors

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

America in an Arab Mirror: Images of America in Arabic Travel Literature by Kamal Abdel-Malek

Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun by Faith Adiele

Due North: A Collection of Travel Observations, Reflections, And Snapshots Across Colors, Cultures and Continents by Lola Akinmade Åkerström

All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes by Maya Angelou

The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches by Matsuo Bashō, translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa

The Travels of Ibn Battutah by Ibn Battuta

Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana by Stephanie Elizondo Griest

A Stranger in the Village: Two Centuries of African-American Travel Writing edited by Farah Jasmine Griffin & Cheryl J. Fish

I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey by Langston Hughes

Red Dust: A Path Through China by Ma Jian, translated by Flora Drew

A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid

An African in Greenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie

Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon

Buttermilk Graffiti: A Chef’s Journey to Discover America’s New Melting-Pot Cuisine by Edward Lee

The Adventure Gap: Changing the Face of the Outdoors by James Edward Mills

The Middle Passage by V.S. Naipaul

Travelling While Black: Essays Inspired by a Life on the Move by Nanjala Nyabola

Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam by Andrew X. Pham

An Indian Among los Indígenas: A Native Travel Memoir by Ursula Pike

Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria by Noo Saro-Wiwa

From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet by Vikram Seth

Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud by Sun Shuyun

Richard Wright's Travel Writings: New Reflections by Virginia Whatley Smith

Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love & Spain by Lori L. Tharps

[thechangelingmedusa]

We seek a vision of eternity in the things that are, by their own very nature, destined to perish.

Nobuyuki Yuasa in the introduction to his translation of 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches', a translation of works by the 17th century Japanese poet, Matsuo Bashō

[godzilla-reads]

Sneak Peek at my List of Nature Books by Non-White Authors.

As I am still putting the list together, I'm giving y'all a sneak peek of the list. It's not complete but here are a few titles:

“Walking is a Way of Knowing: In a Kadar Forest” by Madhuri Ramesh and Manish Chandi

“The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches” by Matsuo Basho (translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa)

“Roots of Our Renewal: Ethnobotany and Cherokee Environmental Governance” by Clint Carroll

“Haunted by Waters: A Journey Through Race and Place in the American West” by Robert Terry Hayashi

“Spirit Run: A 6,000-mile Marathon Through North America’s Stolen Land” by Noé Álvarez

[finita--la--commedia]

This morning, the shrine gate has a pile of silver snow. All the trees on the holy ground shine, as with flowers. Who may it be, I keep thinking, the boy out in the cold, Throwing snowballs, as if the world existed all for him.

Ryōkan (1758-1831), from “Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf : Zen Poems of Ryokan”, translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa  

[a-ramblinrose]

“To translate from one language into another is a fearsome task. It is a fitting punishment for that human pride which led to the great confusion of languages.”― Nobuyuki Yuasa

[newsintheshell]

Heike Monogatari, presentata la nuova serie animata di casa Science SARU

L’anime vede riunito parte dello staff��che ci ha regalato il film La Forma della Voce.

SCIENCE SARU ha svelato di essere al lavoro su di una serie animata chiamata “Heike Monogatari” (The Heike Story), che verrà distribuita in streaming dal 15 settembre, in anteprima sulla piattaforma giapponese FOD di Fuji TV e all’estero da Bilibili e Funimation. 

Assieme al film d’animazione intitolato “Inu-Oh”, che la prossima settimana verrà mostrato in anteprima mondiale alla 78ª Mostra internazionale d'arte cinematografica di Venezia, questa è la seconda produzione dello studio fondato da Masaaki Yuasa (Lu e la città delle sirene, Ride your Wave, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, Devilman: Crybaby) ispirata all’omonimo romanzo storico firmato da Hideo Furukawa.

La serie debutterà ufficialmente sulle tv giapponesi da gennaio 2022 e vede riunito parte dello staff de “La Forma della Voce”: la regia è infatti affidata a Naoko Yamada (K-On!, Liz to Aoi Tori), la sceneggiatura è curata da Reiko Yoshida (Non Non Biyori, Violet Evergarden) e le musiche sono composte da Kensuke Ushio (Devilman: Crybaby, Ping Pong The Animation). 

Per quanto riguarda il character design, quello adattato per l’animazione da Takashi Kojima (Flip Flappers, Ride Your Wave) si basa sul concept originale della mangaka Fumiko Takano (Dormitory Tomkins).

L'epopea originale racconta la storia dell'ascesa e della caduta del clan Taira durante la guerra Genpei. Nell’anime, le vicende sono narrate dalla prospettiva di Biwa, una ragazzina cieca che si guadagna da vivere come menestrello. Durante uno dei suoi viaggi, la giovane fa la conoscenza di Taira no Shigemori, il futuro erede del proprio clan. L’uomo possiede una vista sovrannaturale ed è in grado di percepire i fantasmi. Dopo il loro incontro Biwa ha una visione, profetizzando la caduta del clan.

Il cast principale dell’anime è composto da: 

Biwa: Aoi Yuki (Tanya Degurechaff in Saga of Tanya the Evil)

Taira no Shigenori: Takahiro Sakurai (Arataka Reigen in Mob Psycho 100) 

Taira no Tokuko: Saori Hayami (Yumeko jabami in Kakegurui) 

Taira no Kiyomori: Tessho Genda (Shingen takeda in Sengoku Basara)

Altri doppiatori, attualmente senza un ruolo confermato, sono: Kikuko Inoue; Miyu Irino; Yumiko Kobayashi; Nobuhiko Okamoto; Natsuki Hanae; Ayumu Murase; Koutaro Nishiyama; Nobuyuki Hiyama; Subaru Kimura; Yu Miyazaki; Inori Minase; Tomokazu Sugita; Yuki Kaji.

* NON VUOI PERDERTI NEANCHE UN POST? ENTRA NEL CANALE TELEGRAM! *

Autore: SilenziO)))

[FONTE]

[leavesofmoon]

Bashō’s Moon

The tranquility of the priest’s hermitage was such that it inspired, in the words of an ancient poet, ‘a profound sense of meditation’ in my heart, and for a while at least I was able to forget the fretful feeling I had about not being able to see the full moon. Shortly before daybreak, however, the moon began to shine through the rifts made in the hanging clouds.

--Bashō, The Narrow Road to the Deep Interior (tr. Nobuyuki Yuasa)

[soracities]

For myself, I knew well it was no use to cry, that water once flown past the bridge does not return, and blossoms that are scattered are gone beyond recall.

Kobayashi Issa, from ‘A Year of My Life’ (trans. Nobuyuki Yuasa), The Essential Haiku: Versions of Bashō , Buson & Issa (ed. and trans. Robert Hass)

[azurea]

Determined to fall

A weather-exposed skeleton

I cannot help the sore wind

Blowing through my heart.

- Matsuo Basho, The Narrow Road to the Deep North (tr. Nobuyuki Yuasa)

[theshimmeringostrich]

Saying, ‘Shishi, shishi,’ My wife encourages the baby To pass water, and I hear The noise of a morning shower.

Nishiyama Sōin, ‘Saying, ‘Shishi, shishi’...’