Simplicity

·What are your first impressions when you think of Japan or Japanese culture?
·What makes you laugh?

My first thoughts of Japan are paintings of Mt. Fuji, sushi, discipline and Buddhism.
I find the two-dimensional style of much of Japanese art calming. There’s a simplicity of style that excludes too much detail – leaving only the important parts to make a complete image. I also mentioned discipline. This characteristic comes mainly from my business background. The ability to think truly long-term (generations into the future) is amazing and something sorely lacking in American culture.


I think of Zen – meditation and mindfulness – a turning inward. I am not very good at meditation. I am easily distracted by thoughts and external sounds. I prefer a quiet environment or one in which natural sounds are the only intrusion – the ocean, thunder, bird song, rain.
I've never been to Japan so I only have pictures to go on, but the architecture in less populated areas seems to me to be very much in tune with nature.


The simplicity of style and lack of overly grandiose ornamentation I find very appealing. I believe I like this style because I wish to achieve a greater simplicity in my own life.
I feel like I've only touched lightly and bounced several key areas. As I reread the beginning of the this blog, I realize, my overwhelming impression of Japan is simplicity. I realize that isn't really the case, but in the Art and in the architecture and in a representative spiritual path, that is a common theme.
One more comment that is somewhat off the topic of Art. I love to cook and I appreciate beautiful food. Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto creates some of the most beautiful sushi I've seen.

Laughter is an interesting concept. I once heard a stand-up comedian say that working a club has become more difficult because so many people now get their comedy from the TV that they have forgotten how to laugh out loud. I started noticing that when I found things funny on TV I was more apt to laugh in my head rather than out loud. I’m not a very noisy person by nature so this didn’t come as a big surprise to me – just something I had never really thought about.
As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I really enjoy laughing with my Mom. Silly things can get us started and we’ll laugh until it hurts. I remember going to a comedy club years ago with friends and laughing/crying the whole time the opening comedian was on. The headliner, in contrast, was not funny to me at all. I don’t remember why I found him so funny, but he probably told jokes about things I easily related to in my everyday life. I find Dilbert very funny because there is so much truth to the comic strip. (That makes me a little sad, too.) It’s difficult to discuss laughter when I’m not laughing – if that makes any sense. The next time I find myself in hysterics, I’ll think more about what’s making me laugh and add another blog entry.

Childhood

I am the oldest granddaughter on both sides of my over-protective but loving family.

For some reason, none of the pictures in the video really resonate with me. I've watched it several times and they just don't stir any of the emotions I feel when I think of my childhood or even my adult life. Maybe it's because my memories of my childhood are scattered and incomplete - impressions more than anything. Or a combination of repeated memories. I spent alot of time during the summer with my grandmother. The weeks were basically the same - Monday was Catholic Novena and taking lunch to my grandfather's sausage plant. Wednesday was also lunch at the plant. Each afternoon was spent at my aunt's house. She was bed-ridden and could do very little for herself. My grandmother would help her lie down for a nap each afternoon and then take a nap herself in one of the living room chairs. I would read.

Childhood was full of trips to Daytona Beach, Sunday breakfast with my grandparents after mass, trips to Disney (including one memorable time when we lost the car in that vast no-man's-land of a parking lot), trips with my other grandmother to Clearwater and Lake Wales.

I'm still puzzled why the pictures don't elicit any emotional response. Maybe they seem too generic to me. They remind me too much of of sit-coms telling me that the perfect friendships should be built around a coffee-shop or a neat apartment. It's also possible that I am not appreciating the photos because I've never had children and, over the years, have had very little to do with children. I'm not really conflicted by this - part was decision and part was life circumstance. It just means that pictures of my cats tend to elicit more emotional response from me. (Yes, if I weren't allergic to them, I could easily become the crazy cat lady down the street.)

I'm going to get some childhood photos from my Mom and put together my own slide show of childhood memories and post it on this blog. I hope I do as nice a job as Colleen did.

I do believe I can answer the questions about laughter and what makes me laugh pretty easily.

Mom and I can start laughing over the silliest things and be incapable of stopping for many many minutes.

Jon Stewart but not Stephen Colbert

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Life of Brian, not so much)

Mel Brooks' History of the World: Part 1

Young Frankenstein (rolling on the floor)

Comic strips

I just had another childhood memory - Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman and Tim Conway. Talk about rolling on the floor.