Shodo and Tell.

Last Monday was a holiday (Respect for the Aged Day) and I had the pleasure of teaching a bunch of students, all of whom are older than myself. I had a couple of hours to kill between lessons so I popped into Mediatheque. A friend of mine has a piece of artwork hanging there in a 書道 (shodou or Calligraphy) exhibit.

That is the piece in question and it is 門 (mon or Gate) and this particular gate is Dante's Gate to Hell! Cool!

        

Her name is Rumi Tanno and this is not the first time she's been featured and she even made it into the newspaper!

Here are a few other pieces of artwork that caught my eye. I have NO idea what any of them mean nor who painted them. (Forgive me if one or two are upside-down!)

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

This last one is my name that I signed in the Visitor's Log. Can you spot the spelling mistake?

It was a really busy day there, on the Sixth Floor, there is an Art exhibit featuring local artists who've painted a cornucopia of topics. Here are my favourites.

  

The panorama mode on my iPhone is great for taking a bunch of photos at once.

Also on the top floor, there was a Photography exhibit. I snapped a few pics of pics.

And a Rubic's Cube challenge next to the library.

Also on the first floor there was the last day of a mini-film fest featuring short films.

I caught last year's trailer for Shin-Godzilla and a subtitled trailer for Your Name. Now I finally know what's going on with that anime.

Familial Kanji.

I never did write down the Kanji names of my family members, so here goes:

Jones: Ji-on-zu 冶　恩　図 (A Diagram to Rule with Kindness)

mother Edna: (E-do-na) 絵　度　菜　(To Carry a Green Picture)

brother Mark: (Ma-aku) 魔　悪　(Aberrant Evil)...He loved this one, but my Japanese co-workers vehemently pooh-poohed it, so I created a more PC version: (Ma-ku) 真 久 (Continued Truth)

Sister-in-law Pat: There is no natural "pa" sound in Japanese, so I went with her nickname, Trish: (Tori-shu) 鳥 朱 (Vermillion Bird)

Niece Christie: (Kuru-su-chi) 来　素　知 (To come to Knowledge Simply)

Niece Torie (To-ri)　兎　利 (A Rabbit Village) (鳥 = Tori which means bird is too obvious, so I opted against it.)

Brother Stephen (Su-chi-ben) 守　知　文 (To Protect through Wisdom and Literature)

I presented these as calligraphed kanji and all were duly impressed. I'm going to create some for my sister and her family now and post them later.

Fawlty Towers, Etobicoke style.

I'd be remiss if I didn't bid thanks to Phil and Dawn for tolerating me all week. We had lots of fun together and my stay would have been very unpleasant were it not for Phillip and Dawn (and Honey, their dog.)


Here's the fan that I made for them...
Fi-ri-pu= compare truth in a prefecture (?)
Do-n = drink.

My kanji skills get evaluated.

I met up with a trio of friends on the Tuesday and presented them with their very own copies of my 書道 (shodo) expertise. All of us worked at a company called Market Facts (now Synovate) over the last 2 decades and all but Bob have moved on to bigger and better things.

Deb Irwin: a fellow sci-fi nut, she works for a bank in some kind of wacky managerial position (I don't really know what she does, and most of the time neither does she.)
Her kanji was: De-bo-ra (出　分　部)=The Department of Rising Odds
Eru-u-in　(得る　鵜　陰)To Get a Negative Cormorant



Dorothy Gordon: Dorothy used to be a theatrical and cinematic actress back in the 50's and 60's in Merry old London and immigrated to Canada in the 70's with her hubby. She has since retired from MF and has entered back into the world of acting in Toronto. I saw her in a play last year and she crops up in commercials and movies every now and then. We also have the distinction of working with Charles Bronson, albeit 20 years apart.
Doro-shi (泥　市)= Mud City
Go-don (剛　呑)= a Strong Drink



Robert Browning: I've known this guy for over 20 years now. He was a friend of a university mate, Blair and later became a close pal of mine. I got him the job at MF and apart from a 6-month leave of absence to work in PEI, he has never forgiven me for getting him that job.


Bo-bu (某　武) Don't be Strong
Brown-in-gu (茶色　印　具) Brown Seal Ingredient (I didn't feel like breaking "Brown" into 3 kanji, so I just used cha-iru which means brown)

Shodo is the way to go!

書道 or shodo (Japanese calligraphy) is painstaking work and a lot of fun. I spent the morning creating kanji combinations for my friends and family and then the afternoon painting them.







What do you think?