Tout ce temps, je n'étais pas mort

[asakiyume]

A fine vintage of honey
The unspoilingness of honey. I can't get over it. I'm going to buy some honey this summer and put it away, a flavor time capsule, and break it out on some later date--the flower vintage of 2012. And there may be a story in that, maybe. Though, bee stories tend to fly away from me.

Cell phone novel
Little Springtime was hard at work, an air of severe concentration on her face, when the ninja girl and I went to get lunch just now.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm writing a cell phone novel," she said. "Last year I started a novel in Japanese and English, and I thought, 'There's no possible market for this,' but then I found out about cell phone novels, in Japan. People upload them and share them. I've joined this site ... I don't know how to change the genre, though. Right now I'm down as その他 ["sono hoka" = "other"] but really it should be 恋愛：切ない ["ren-ai: setsunai" = "romantic love: sad"]. It's amazing how many different flavors of ren-ai there are ... There's ren-ai: highschool, and ren-ai: office, and ren-ai: sad ..."

"Wait, but what if your highschool ren-ai story is a sad one?" I asked.

"Well, you go by the most salient characteristic, I'm thinking," she said. Sensible answer.

ETA She's already had feedback on her first installment! The person who commented said (I'm translating) "At any rate, your English is excellent! I'm excited for the next installment." And they said it felt very authentic. Oh Japan. How do you be so awesome?

Scrutible
Jiji-the-kitten is very scrutible. You can see the wheels turning in his head. Looking at him and reading his thoughts in the twitches of his ears and the change in his posture, I wonder if this scrutibility of cats gave L. Frank Baum the idea for the Glass Cat, who was so proud of her pink and purple whirling brains, visible in her glass head.

The Glass Cat

Comments

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

"Wait, but what if your highschool ren-ai story is a sad one?" I asked.

"Well, you go by the most salient characteristic, I'm thinking," she said. Sensible answer.

That's a really interesting way of looking at genre. I can definitely see it's like popping up in fanfic, but part of me would rankle at having to define something I've written that way. Something I am going to write, however.

Cats are really easy to read, once you have a minimal acquaintance with them. I have never understood people who think they are inscrutable. That said, some cats, like Jiji and Win$ton are open books WITH VERY BIG TYPE.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it seems like a characterization based on surface things. Like, you could call something a green story if it was set in a forest and everyone wore green clothes. Still, any taxonomy can work.

Jiji is in 72 point, for sure.

Re: bzzzz...whynott try....

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That book looks excellent!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Awesome!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

:-)

I'll take that as a blanket awesome for the whole entry!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

It was--I loved everything from the bees to the phone novel!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Now I am curious. How does a cell phone novel work? Does it have tiny chapters to make it easy to read on a cell phone screen?

What is the novel about?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I haven't the **faintest** idea. It only works with smartphones, that have Internet access--but that's for the downloading. Does it appear like texts? I don't know. I mean, a smartphone isn't limited to texts, right? you can watch videos and things on a smartphone, and read newspaper articles and things, so I guess there's no reason why it couldn't be a whole, proper novel. But Little Springtime says you're supposed to use short sentences. You'd have to ask her for details (shikuchi). But I guess it's "romantic love: sad," in any case :-)

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I am intrigued by the idea of phone novels too. I actually read normal novels (Kindle or epub) on my iPod Touch, which has the same screen size as an iPhone and our son uses his Samsung Galaxy smartphone the same way, but it sounds like these are specially tailored for phone reading in some way.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I'll have to press Little Springtime to explain--since you *can* read ordinary novels on a smartphone, what makes novels written for them special?

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

How tragic it must be to see the genre tag shift. You thought you were in "romantic love: highschool" but then it turns out to be "romantic love: sad"...

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

It's very good that our life isn't telegraphed to us that way!

[xjenavivex.livejournal.com]

that is really cool

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

:-)

I ent ded yet, neither.

[muuranker.livejournal.com]

Not all cats are scruitble. Kiwi goes 'skquawk!' and I am never sure if this means 'aggh me bunions'. Or 'lowling, I will kill you for distubing my sleep' or 'oh, yes, mooore pleeease' or 'please pass the hairball treats, now you have noticed my magnificence'.

She is perfectly capable of more translatable sentences, such as 'bog off, I am eating', 'this is nice' 'this is very nice' 'I would like the thing that makes my head feel nice' 'come outside', 'I think you should go outside' and so on.

But 'sksquwk' is not translatable.

Honey, yes, I knew I wanted to write about that!

The idea of honey as time is quite beguiling. Laying down the years. There is something of this in Ian McDonald's "The Dervish House", but nothing quite. Honey takes me to places I haven't been. The Gambia. Greek Islands. And repeatedly, to Pitcairn. We are waiting for our third shipment.

The glorious thing about honey is, one can buy local, or buy fair trade, and either way, get something very precious.

Re: I ent ded yet, neither.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Kiwi is obviously a many splendored cat--I can tell it just by what she says. "I would like the thing that makes my head feel nice" is an especially useful phrase--do you suppose if I learn to say it in Cat, Jiji will give me a little massage with his paws?

Honey takes me places I haven't been

So, so true: I remember getting forest honey from India last year. It was **full** of new flavors. And chestnut honey always makes me think I'm wandering through an Italian chestnut grove in springtime.

[guitbowl.livejournal.com]

If you do decide to do a story on honey, I have a picture of 4 yellowjackets that you can use

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

I wonder if that's where the glass cats mentioned in Iron Council come from.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

What were the glass cats like in Iron Council? The Glass Cat in the Oz books was exceptionally vain and rather cold-hearted. And selfish.

Timeline-wise, it could work. The Oz books were all written--well, the original ones, by L. Frank Baum--at the beginning of the twentieth century.

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

They're just mentioned.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting idea that you might be sitting next to the author on a train somewhere, reading their story as they write. Then again, I guess these days, they could be blogging from an iphone or ipad and uploading as you read as well.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

An instant production and consumption cycle.

I guess yeah, that's almost what it's like for online fanfiction or other stuff one puts up online--practically instant. Not as instant as reading it as the person's typing it, though.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I'm going to buy some honey this summer and put it away, a flavor time capsule

I did this by accident once. One of G's mature students gave him a pot of honey from his own bees as a present for some extra tutoring. G doesn't eat honey, but I do, but I sadly I didn't like the taste. It seemed somehow raw and tasted very strongly of thistle flowers.

Being a present, I didn't throw it away and just shoved it to the back of the cupboard where it got forgotten. When I found it again, more than a year later, I nearly threw it out, but decided to give it one last chance and I tasted it. It was wonderful! The flavours had all mellowed down and blended. I suppose there is a point where it may mellow too far and just end up bland and sweet, but if it's real local honey, keeping does improve it.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Fascinating that it mellowed! Do you still have any left? It would be interesting to try it in a year's time and see how it has continued to change.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Once I tried the jar again and discovered it was delicious, it didn't last long. Unfortunately he only gave us one jar or I could have experimented with different lengths of maturing time.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Ah honey! The honey here is a bit scary. It is dark and with a too-thick consistency, almost like caramel syrup. I know there are different varieties of honey, but most of this stuff just feels wrong... So, I started studying the labels, and sure enough, one of company's passing its product off as honey was kind enough to include "ingredients," among them: sugar, caramel coloring, and some other things I couldn't translate. But you know, honey should just be honey, so any other ingredients = not GOOD. I solved the problem by buying a honeycomb! :D

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Honeycomb sounds *much* better.

My dad gave us some honeycomb for Christmas--we've been enjoying it in the mornings.

[dudeshoes.livejournal.com]

Did I once read that honey had been found in ancient pyramids and was still good? Funny that you bring this up. The other day I put three jars of hardened honey in boiling water, and now I'm ready to roll once more.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yes, I heard that about honey in the pyramids. Never mind 100-year-old champaign, how about 4,000-year-old honey!

[avalonestel.livejournal.com]

I just bought honey today, because I want to try it in tea! I hear it's really good. Apparently, it's a good moisturizer, too, but it's too expensive for me to use it like that, lol.

I love that, that Little Springtime's English is really good. XD I'll have to agree with the reviewer! XD That's great, though. I'm sure the story is great; I'll have to learn Japanese so I can read it one day. <3

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'd rather eat it than moisturize with it, in any case. Mmmm!

Haha--yes, we were laughing too, about Little Springtime's excellent mastery of English.