Sunday, June 19, 2005


Another early morning . . . I agreed to open the zendo today, so I needed to be there, showered, shaved and caffeinated, by 7:00 a.m.

It went fine. Afterwards, we went to see "Howl's Moving Castle," the new Miyazaki movie. Anime. Whatever.

It was good, reminding me at times of a Jules Vernes/H.G. Wells story as told by L. Frank Baum and visualized by Terry Gilliam, but in the inimitable style of Hayao Miyazaki. What was nice was that it was a children's story for children, but perfectly acceptable to adults, without resorting to Disney/Pixar's gimmicks of "inside" jokes aimed at the adults in the room, or the fart gags, slapstick and double entendres shown in the coming attractions for American animated movies.

I spent the rest of the afternoon leaf blowing (damn that magnolia!), food shopping and other domestic chores. Another early morning tomorrow.

I found a new link to this blog the other day. It was on something called Oh My News International, apparently some sort of Korean site written in English that contained the following review of this blog:

Go to the Web site shokai.blogspot.com and you will see that the owner of that site, a Zen Buddhist going by the name of Shokai, has a couple of interesting statements on his masthead: "Water dissolves water," and ""I have an extensive collection of sea shells that I keep scattered on beaches all over the world." Either of these statements could inspire you. At the next meeting of your Water Filtration Executive Board, you could commence the meeting by standing up and saying "Water dissolves water." Then sit down and watch the faces of others around you. Bewilderment? Intrigue? Fear? Who knows how they may react. But you can bet on one thing for sure: the next time any of those folks meet up for coffee, one of them will say, as he raises his mug in a toast to you: "As our friend said at the last meeting 'water dissolves water.'"

Well, that does it. I'm officially changing the name of this blog back to Water Dissolves Water - there's too much of a legacy to the old name, and Buddha Rhubarb Butter just doesn't cut it. . . . I can't wait to see what (if anything) Mumon does to update his link.

3 comments:

GreenSmile said...

Alas poor Mumon, preserving the history of your blog's name. Irony abounds here but I am particularly amused by the Korean's remarks about the effect the phrase "water dissolves water" might have on ones thoughts...it is as if some in the east have gotten so westernized that they could be startled by a westerner reintroducing a thinking tool clearly rooted in eastern philosophy.

BTW, at the risk of spoiling the meditation to which you have elevated leaf blowing, I will attach mundane utility and value to yard wastes by mentioning there is a new catlytic process by which most woody plant material can be rendered into useful fuel.

Anonymous said...

firstly i want to excuze myself about the faults of my english (because I'm french)
the miyazaki's film is called "le château ambulant" but it refears, I think, to his others films as Spirited Away, or Princess Mononoké,and of course "le château dans le ciel" : it was only to remark that his films often have the same characters(the grandmother, the old man with his mustach) and place of actions(a castle),
one other imporant point is his love for Paul Grimaud, who's a french filmmaker, a drawer( i don't know if this word exists :p) whom principal film is "le roi et l'oiseau". Do you know who is he? I may suppose if you love miyazaki's films , you 'll be a great fan of Grimaud's work
(ps : none rapport, but do you know Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt? i think you can enjoy it)
bye

Mumon K said...

I think you ought to have a blog that's a glyph...then it'd be referred to as "the blog formerly known as Water Disolves Water"