speach tree

Picking up again on the theme of sacrifice / ambition in March Comes in Like a Lion , escape/discipline is another theme that circulates throughout the series and closely mirrors the sacrifice theme. The main character's adoptive brother and sister failed to become high-level  shogi  players because of their lack of discipline. Instead they play video games and run away from home. Another main character, Hinata, becomes the target of bullies, lead by a girl named Takagi, who victimizes "losers" because she's afraid to work hard and test her own abilities. Some minor characters make fun of Shimada, the  shogi  player with stomach ulcers, taking cheap shots because they know they might never get to his level. These characters all provide the foil against which the main character and his friends' discipline and perseverance shine. All of this sounds trite when described in words here, but for some reason the illustration/animation make the story so dramatic and re...

7/24/18 Very quickly, while Ichiro is sleeping... I'm currently following Umino Chika's super-popular manga/anime 「 三月のライオン 」( March Comes In Like a Lion ) which has been such a huge hit despite some very heavy themes. During the first season, I was drawn to the main character's struggle with his status as both an orphan and a genius shogi player, who makes more money than his high school teacher as a professional player. This season though I am more interested in the work's theme of sacrifice. The show's more drab characters most clearly illustrate this theme. Particularly, Shimada Kai and Yanagihara Sakutaro. Kai is in his thirties and Sakutaro is in his sixties, and both have given up a lot to play shogi on their level. Kai has stomach ulcers, a failed relationship, early signs of aging. Sakutaro has many physical ailments, seems to be single, is the oldest active A-class player. As they square off, both have flashbacks to what they have lost in order t...

Here are some questions I have personally or I have come across and have been unable to answer very well: Why am I having such a hard time identifying new people who are open to fighting for real change? Why is it so hard for me to plan ahead? Why does it feel like I'm just living day by day? And some BIG questions: - How do we know that what we are doing is fundamentally changing the system or is it just reform? - How do I know if I am going in the right direction? - Why is it every time I find myself doing things by myself; how can I change this concretely?

Today, X said to me and V (and U and Z and C were also sitting around the table as usual), "So many young people try to do things one way and when it doesn't work, they get depressed." I thought about a lot of young people and I noticed a few things... Like E, for example. If E would only zoom out for a second she would see how ridiculous she is. Everyone can see that E has been provided for and spoon-fed for most of her life. She has been given so much attention from her family that she has come to expect this even of others. Every time someone comes to me with a new story about E, I am reminded that what we do is not for the purpose of building an extended family of people who will buy us presents, call us when we are lonely, entertain us. It is to identify and develop fellow fighters in the struggle to win against the enemy. Or like F, who thinks that his main problem is that he doesn't know how to deal with people who are different. Even before the "dealing...

A lot of people in my life are leaving. It’s not that I don’t understand why they are choosing to leave. Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I have traveled the world to find answers, so of course I understand. But the thing is, I disagree. I don’t have a problem understanding A, who has bought a one-way ticket to Spain to learn organic gardening. When I was jobless after Brown, I thought about learning to grow my own vegetables in Japan. But when people asked me: for whom? I had to face the fact that I couldn’t eat all that stuff on my own. And moreover, that people have more important problems to solve right now, like confronting racism and fighting displacement. I found people who want to learn how to grow vegetables out of an apartment in NYC, and that was much more interesting in the final analysis. I don’t have a problem understanding B, who thinks she can build a movement over email, pin down exploitative bosses on the internet, and investigate community problems by lo...

i'm beginning to realize that a big reason why i keep going back to art is because i feel like it's something i can control. i can create and adjust all the discreet elements and how they interact to create the right conditions for change. but life isn't such a small endeavor. i wonder what james cameron does when he's not inventing ecosystems and alien cultures? when i was younger, i thought that charlotte bronte was great, but of course she could create intricate social relationship dramas because she was shut up in a room all day. same goes for lady murasaki. and when i try to live life instead of escaping into my art, i flounder.

Dear friends, Just wanted to share some personal reflections on the Nov 3 mayoral election.... Bloomberg thought he was going to win by a landlslide, but he squeaked by with the white and high-income vote. But the working people of Lower East Side and the Chinatowns throughout NYC were out on the streets tirelessly in the months and days leading up to this rigged election, up against $$$tens of millions worth of ads, robocalls, mailings and propaganda, speaking truth to power; and residents, small business owners, other workers heard. See results from press below! Total: 1,100,649 votes (very low turnout, lowest in modern NYC history) Bloomberg only won by 50,342 votes, lost BX and BK by wide margins. Bloomberg’s votes mostly came from rich white voters: According to NYT: •Sunset Park voted to DUMP Bloomberg: 4645 for Thompson, 4497 for Bloomberg (we were out at the polls all day talking to folks in the neighborhood) •Harlem, Jamaica (QNS), Washington Hts all voted to dump Bloomberg ...