sounds amusing

[incandescens]

Invent a memory of me and post it in the comments. It can be anything you want, so long as it's something that's never happened. Then, of course, post this to your journal and see what people would like to remember of you, only the universe failed to cooperate in making it happen so they had to make it up instead.

(taken from daegaer)

Comments

[rvdammit.livejournal.com]

A pleasant lunch somewhere in London, chatting about life the world and everything for an hour or two.

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

We sat in the outdoor section of the cafe. It was just beginning to mist, the water making the Champs de Elysee glisten and seeming to breed additional traffic. It was just turning to dusk, and the Arc de Triomphe was just beginning to turn on the lights that turned it from gleaming white to gold. The coffee was thick and bitter, the wine was red and refreshing, and we were having fun arguing.

"Americans simply don't understand the French," you said. "You'd like them to be striped shirt, beret wearing stereotypes, so you can go on accusing them of cowardice and ignoring their culture."

"There's nothing wrong with a healthy disrespect," I countered. "We've turned it into a national art form. And the French are simply the natural target for it."

"Why would that be, then?"

"Because they're incomprehensible to us," I said. "We understand the Spanish, more or less. We're intrigued by the Scandinavians, and we're stupid enough to think the British, Scots, Irish and Welsh are essentially like us even though they're not. But the French are prominent, powerful, and completely not like us. They don't have our values, our attitudes, and they seem to miss the essential point."

"Which point?"

"That we're the best in the world." I grinned and ducked the tossed bit of bread. "It's true. There's just something about the Gallic attitude that gets die-hard liberals and ultraconservatives to lean close to each other and chant U.S.A."

"A real rally 'round the tire fire, before the Monster Truck pull, eh?" You shook your head. "I'm glad there's an ocean between us, instead of a channel. I'd much rather come over here on a weekend, thank you very much."

[(Anonymous)]

Those four hours in Nakano's SunMall, remember, after you'd gone through *all* Mandarake's doujinshi and *all* Mandarake's used manga and then spent 45 minutes on the fourth floor looking for GB cels, which you didn't find, and the obscure Amano artbook which you did, come by chance in that little store tucked into the corner that I keep forgetting exists. 'Oooh my feet hurt,' you said. 'I need to sit down.' Which gave me the ijiwaru opportunity of a lifetime. 'This is Japan,' I informed you. 'Thre's nowhere to sit down.' I'll never forget your face at that moment. Yes of course we then went to Renoir's downstairs and had iced coffee among the too-low armchairs and too-low little tables and the cigarette smoke. And I don't think you noticed any of it because you were too busy wrestling open the heavy plastic bags that Mandarake doujinshi come in. There was a mountain of ripped bags overflowing the table like enormous transparent cicada shells by the time we were ready to go.
-mjj

[incandescens]

You know me well. This is exactly how it would happen.

And do you remember your later visit to England? I took you walking on the area of common ground near my home, and we sat by the duckpond and watched the ducks. You commented that the swan was an uke, even if he was larger than the rest of them, and we speculated on his aristocratic heritage. We threw bread to them, and he bent his head as well as any of the drakes or ducks, or the mandarins themselves. We walked back along the path that's next to the graveyard, and you looked at the yew trees and the sun on the old moss, and it might have done for a sage's retreat, except that there were too many shadows.

[(Anonymous)]

But the sun on the old moss would do for a poem, I said, and we finally worked one out with a little borrowing from Wang Wei.
-mjj

[incandescens]

A narrow, sunless path to the temple tree,
Deep and dark; abundant green moss.
Wait by the gate when finished sweeping the yard,
In case a monk should come down from the hill.

(Temple Tree Path, translated by Octavio Paz)

[(Anonymous)]

Empty hills, no one in sight,
only the sound of someone talking;
late sunlight enters the deep wood,
shining over the green moss again
(tr. Burton Watson)

Works better in French, actually:

Dans la montagne tout est solitaire,
On entend de bien loin l'écho des voix humaines,
Le soleil qui pénètre au fond de la forêt
Reflete son éclat sur la mousee vert.
(tr. G. Margoulies)

Fun page (http://www.chinapage.com/poem/wangwei/wangwei-trs.html), apropos of your comments about getting translation right. The Chinese is so simple even I can read it. But translating it *right*- might as well tilt at windmills.
-mjj

[incandescens]

I like the image of the sun actually reflecting off the green moss, rather than simply shining on it. Very nice page, yes.

[bluelang.livejournal.com]

I guess what I remember most was the time you and your friends were eating pizza in the shop I was working out. That fiend from the Negaverse began menacing an innocent girl outside and you five transformed and did your best to stop the monster.

You didn't know it at the time, but I was the masked stranger who showed up in the nick of time to distract the bad guy so you could save the day.

[zamiel.livejournal.com]

No shit, there we were, you on your side of the ocean and me on mine, and you said something on IM like, "Hey, its awfully black out here," which was fucking bizarre because, like, it was fucking two in the goddamn afternoon, right?

So I'm like, "Shit, let me check my astronomical charts and stuff," and there wasn't any fucking lunar eclipse or some shit, but I popped up Google news just in case and saw the goddamn world was on fire, and just as I turned to pass you the skinny on the shizzle, you dropped offline, and the goddamn wave of holy fire kept sweeping over the Atlantic right toward my motherfuckin' door, right?

Yeah, that shit was tight. How's Hell where you are? Its jiggy here.

[pureyaoi.livejournal.com]

I remember the several hours at Yaoi-Con where I got to sit nearby and listen in awe as you and other brilliant people discussed the metaphysical aspects of Gensomaden Saiyuki and its relation not only to the original myth but to the ultimate in fantasy fulfillment of ladies everywhere. And then you patted me atop the head and told me that if I worked hard, I should make a very good student one day. And I beamed.

[archangelbeth]

And then there was the GenCon where she won the raffle for an evening with the guy they were casting for the Saiyuki live-action movie...

[incandescens]

What a lovely thought.

[harukami]

Remember that time you and I got together in GenCon, and headed out for a night of drinking and gaming in that In Nomine LARP? You drew Blandine from the hat and managed her exquisitely, from what I recall, ghosting about the corridords, but I had the poor luck to draw Haagenti. Well, at least the food was delicious.

[solaas.livejournal.com]

I will never forget the look in your eyes when you looked upon the Utroest Cormorants for the first time. I had managed to lure you out to the Lofoten Islands on holiday, and told you the tales of the hidden island of Utroest, that lies somewhere beyond the midnight sun. Only the big, black cormorants know the way there, and they don't lead people there anymore. At least noone have returned to tell the tale.

One blue-sky night we were sitting down by the edge of the ocean, gazing north where the sun hun low on the horizon. It was just past midnight when the birds came. Seven in number, they swooped out from the sun and circled us. The only sound they made was the beating of their wings, but then cormorants are quiet birds. After the third round, they turned and headed off into the sun again. One shed a feather, which landed a couple of yards out from the shore.

You still have that feather, don't you?

[incandescens]

I do.

[inscrutable.livejournal.com]

There was that one time were at the coffee shop on south union, and you totally forgot your money, and I only had $3 on me! We'd been drinking Tripple Mochas all night and when they finally called us on our ever growing tab, we were both so hopped up on caffeine that you just screamed and I ran away.

Good thing you followed me. Once we stopped running, we were laughing so hard we couldn't breath.

[artbroken.livejournal.com]

I'll never forget the time you took on Iron Chef Japan and won.

I never knew there were so many dishes you could make with cobra meat.

[yhibiki.livejournal.com]

Oh, the memories! That time you finally decided to come to DC, and I decided to test my luck by driving us around town. Of course I got us lost the moment we got anywhere close to the big city, and we drove around for hours, crossing the bridges several times before somehow landing at my house again.

I promised you that I didn't really have that bad a sense of direction, but you didn't really seem to believe me. You've never visited since. ;_; I never even got to show you the japanese grocery stores, or all the good restaurants.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

I though you'd stood me up at our dinner engagement, but then in you swept, folding immense and incomprehensible gold-tipped wings behind you, and shaking the raindrops from your hair.

"Notice anything different?" you asked.

I thought deeply.

"New sweater?"

[incandescens]

But my wings were well-kept, which says far too much about me.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

I was on a business trip to Grenoble, France, visiting the Xilinx folks there, and you came up to meet me as we hadn't seen each other in oh, so long. I was staying at the Park Hotel, in front of the beautiful city park. On Friday night we had a superb, local repast, shared my business paid-for room, and stayed up way too late sipping absinthe, talking, and catching up on our lives. Saturday morning we had cafe au lait and croissents and went out to do what other, good, summer tourists do and went to tour the Bastille. It wasn't our fault what happened next! Though I will never forget the color of your wings...