Plum Blossoms Tribute to Ando Hiroshige

Sometimes Life does imitate Art:

Ando Hiroshige's Plum Blossoms.

My Garden

Detail from the Plum Blossoms

Spin It

Yes I confess..
I'm a bit footloose and a total fancy freak..

The Fall of The House of Usher

This always somehow reminds me of that Poe story: The Fall of The House of Usher,
This short story along with The Assignation & The Tell Tale Heart are some of my favorite Edgar Allan Poe short stories.

An extract from the story:

DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year _____,
when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country ; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was - but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable ; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible.

I looked upon the scene before me - upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain - upon the bleak walls - upon the vacant eye-like windows - upon a few rank sedges - and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees - with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium - the bitter lapse into everyday life - the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime.

James Clavell's :SHOGUN

Have you ever watched a stone grow ?

Have you ever been gifted a sunrise ?

Learn to sip cha from an empty cup !

When does life mean its utmost ?

Do you know that life is but ' a dream within a dream' ?

Have you ever been visited by a kami ?

Do you want to know about the eightfold fence ?

Welcome to the world of Shogun - ancient Japan as discovered through the eyes of John Blackthorne - Pilot, Pirate, dictator on his ship, 'discoverer’ of the Japans - and now a prisoner forever.

James Clavell's SHOGUN, (the first book in his Asian Saga) perhaps one of the best books on Japan of the Samurai's circa 1600.

It recounts a highly fictionalized version of the life of William Adams a British Pilot (Navigator) on a Dutch Trader & his life after he lands in Japan at the start of the TOKUGAWA SHOGUNATE under Ieyasu Tokugawa (Tokugawa Shogunate's founder).

Maitreya : The Buddha to be

The Maitreya: The Buddha to Be at the THIKSEY GOMPA near Leh, Jammu Kashmir, India.

Budham Sharnam Gachami...

Buddha Head from 2nd Century AD Gandhara School
(Sakhyamuni - the Buddha that has been)

The General in his Laybrinth.

Trouble Ahead, & Trouble behind,
And you know that notion, just crossed my mind.
Casey Jones
( thus sang the Late, Great - Jerry Garcia, of The Grateful Dead ,very solemnly)

I wouldn't be surprised that these words may sound familiar to General Musharaff these days
As Pakistan celebrates its 60th Independence Day 2 days ago, he must be wondering whether he will still be the head of state when it comes around again.

I mean no wonder the general is worried, ever since he meddled with the Supreme Court & The Chief Justice, things haven't been going all that well for him.

Amidst heavy rains which have brought Karachi to a similar state as that Mumbai knows all too well, and reports out of Washington till recently his staunchest allies must be causing him to wring his hands and wishing that he were Harry Houdini, Alas for the General such is not the case.

Some Interesting Posts on the state of things in Pakistan

• Read Articles from New-Pakistan blog.

• Views of Pakistan Nice Cartoons here

The Barn Owl's Wondrous Capers

Sarnath Banerjee's
Second Graphic Novel after Corridors
If you haven't read it here's a few teasers

The Barn Owl's Wondrous Capers mark the return of
Digital Dutta & introduces The Wandering Jew.
Review by Chappati Mystery on the two books

Penguin India: Rs 395

The Numbers Game

Ode to a Japanese Painting

Waterdrops on a Branch

The Waves

• These are actual natural geographic formations... nothing artificial added to them.

The Beggar Boyo

begbie_letterbox2, originally uploaded by Zofo The Hermit Of Wandering Thoughts.

Begbie Rant from Trainspotting

Face - Off

By zofo at 2007-08-02