The Documentary Podcast Yoko Nishina: Japanese calligraphy
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from In the Studio, exploring the processes of the world's most creative people.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Poem of the week: Autumn by Vidyan Ravinthiran
Autumn (after John Keats) The fallen yellow leaves now oftener flare red. Embers. Blown-up chilli-flakes. The burning of the library at Jaffna. Foreign dead about to break the spell of here and now. Phantasms steal into the peaceful lives we seem to have earned, telling tales about what happened to them, not us, and in a tongue I never learned. This is my garden, my spade of blood meal and from our kitchen the time-travelling smell of chicken curry floats to Walden Pond. – A swooping cardinal like a struck match. Above the fence mosquitoes eddy like opinion, crazed by a patch, of red-pink light into giddy scribbling on the air. There is no need to be ashamed. I see you there and keep alive the thought of meeting one day brightly after the next. Black mustard seed thrums in the sauce, the sky falls asleep; where feelings come from or may leap across and through and to no one can say. Tsunami-hit, shoved over at a tilt, they've left the bashed old kovil's god-thronged tower standing tallish, beyond the new one built to face, this time, becalm, the ocean's power … Our autumn clouds are a far-quarried rubble to which the changing light does spicy things. To sing, to fly, migrate, are curious verbs; beauty, like happiness, frailly reliable, has nothing to do with why there are wings, why birds build nests and sing their songs, or why barbed wire's besotted with its barbs. Contemporary poetry collections often fall into one of two dominant categories. One kind travels thoughtfully, claiming spaces in an unfamiliar elsewhere, the other stays at home, revisiting and refining material that's more familiar. Avidyā, Vidyan Ravinthiran's latest, represents for me the exploratory kind, a tour that skirts the flames of history in a relaxed almost self-effacing manner. This is especially true of Autumn. The subtitle's qualification after slyly denotes the time and distance between the two poems. Keats wrote his ode To Autumn on 19 September 1819. The England-born Sri Lankan poet is writing more than two centuries later; since Keats's time Sri Lanka has been colonised by the British, granted independence, endured civil war and seen terrible reprisals against the Tamil Tigers for their armed struggle for independence. The autumnal redness the poem evokes soon turns to fire. A rhythm of stops and starts underlines the threat: 'The fallen yellow leaves now oftener / flare red. Embers. Blown-up chilli-flakes. / The burning of the library at Jaffna.' Keats, reading over the poet's shoulder, might remember Peterloo (critics have found that massacre in his ode's possible subtext of 'surveillance') and realise that the 21st century poet is also witness to less than 'mellow fruitfulness'. Autumn soon reveals the violent biblioclasm of 1981 when Jaffna Public Library, one of the biggest libraries in Asia and a major Tamil cultural centre, was burned down by a mob that included police and paramilitaries. But it isn't books and buildings alone that have been destroyed. The shapes emerging from the poet's past become the 'foreign dead', the 'phantasms' that 'steal / into the peaceful lives we seem to have earned.' Those phantasms give their version of events ('telling tales'), further distancing the poet by speaking 'in a tongue I never learned'. The ensuing jump of imagery, from the 'garden' declared his own, to the necessary 'spade of blood meal' is effectively plotted. Danger is diffused by the magic, humour and resistance found in cookery. In many cultures, families and societies come together to eat 'grief food'. The instant 'chilli-flakes' evoked earlier are an acknowledgment of cultural compromises. Then a further unexpected move occurs: 'and from our kitchen the time-travelling smell / of chicken curry floats to Walden Pond'. There's no abruptness; the translation from the poet's garden where he now lives in the US to Thoreau's retreat is amused, peaceable, sensuous. Choosing, as Keats chose, the subversively 11-lined stanza, Ravinthiran further complicates its balance. A clearcut, almost emphatically rhymed ABAB quatrain evolves into the looser assembly of seven lines whose rhymes may sound out less distinctly. Stanza two introduces a brilliant short film of the cardinal's swoop and the responsive movement of mosquitoes that 'eddy / like opinion.' That nicely poised, concrete-abstract simile is followed by the rather more Keatsian image of the insects 'scribbling on the air'. Keats's poem always addresses Autumn. Who is Ravinthiran addressing with 'There is no need / to be ashamed'? The tone sounds loving, even lover-like, with its note of future expectation. But perhaps the 'you' is the poem, or the poet courting his muse? 'You' might also be the 'phantasms' who have helplessly spoken in a strange 'tongue'. Ravinthiran's poetic 'courtship' is oblique, questioning, almost shy: 'where feelings come from or may leap / across and through and to no one can say.' Those monosyllables form little uneven stepping stones in a swashing river. After that, the picture enlarges dramatically with the tsunami of 2004, the Dravidian temple, 'the old kovil's god-thronged tower' and the defensive new-build. These lines extend history and still find it dangerous. Conflict is suggested: the sunset's clouds are 'a far-quarried rubble' and there may be no comfort in the assertion that 'the light does spicy things' to them. Open-winged birds of possibility still circle. The conflation of truth and beauty is gently queried: the beauty of birds is mechanism, the poet says, as he hooks the reader sharply down to earth with the marriage of 'verbs' and 'barbs'. The personification of barbed wire as a narcissist fixes in a single line the worst of human nature. A tyrannical border splices the garden, its fragrances and reconciliations. Those barbs may presage a deeper colour of autumnal red.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Jenna Ortega looks quirky in a tiered skirt as she promotes Wednesday in South Korea as season two of the Netflix hit receives rave reviews
Jenna Ortega put on a quirky display at the Wednesday series two press conference in Seoul, South Korea on Monday. The actress, who stars as the titular character in the Netflix hit, wore a gothic tiered skirt for the event which took place at Four Seasons Hotel. She teamed her boucle skirt, which featured a mesh trim and padlock belt, with a zombie printed top. Jenna completed her outfit with a pair of black heels and secured her hair into half-up half-down style. The second series of the supernatural mystery comedy, created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, hit Netflix on August 6 and has received rave reviews from fans. There are a total of eight episodes as part of the latest series, but only four were dropped on the streamer which did leave some viewers disappointed. Jenna Ortega put on a quirky display at the Wednesday series two press conference in Seoul, South Korea on Monday The actress, who stars as the titular character in the Netflix hit, wore a gothic tiered skirt for the event which took place at Four Seasons Hotel Despite receiving an epic Rotten Tomatoes score, fans will have to wait until September 3 to watch the other four episodes. Many shared their complaints on X, writing: 'Only 4 episodes? That's all?'; 'Why just 4 episodes I ain't watching till it's complete'; 'Watching or waiting for all of the episodes on Sep 3?'; 'Only 4 episodes.' That didn't stop fans from giving it a whopping 78% on review website Rotten Tomatoes. Others shared: 'Wednesday season 2 was really f**king good and honestly already better than season 1 but 4 weeks for a batch you gotta be squeezing my balls Netflix.' Daily Mail's Christopher Stevens awarded the series four out of five stars and praised it's superstar cameos. The much-loved series follows the life of Wednesday Addams, who is played by Jenna and originally hit our screens on Netflix back in November 2022. It's based at her boarding school Nevermore Academy, a remote castle where children with magical abilities learn to develop their powers. Some are werewolves, others are gorgons who can turn victims to stone. Wednesday can move objects with her mind and has psychic visions, but that's tame compared to her younger brother, Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez). He can bring the dead to life with a touch. She teamed her boucle skirt, which featured a mesh trim and padlock belt, with a zombie printed top Jenna completed her outfit with a pair of black heels and secured her hair into half-up half-down style The second series of the supernatural mystery comedy, created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, hit Netflix on August 6 and has received rave reviews from fans (L-R Director Tim Burton, Jenna and Emma Myers) Despite receiving an epic Rotten Tomatoes score, fans will have to wait until September 3 to watch the other four episodes - which left some disappointed Daily Mail's Christopher Stevens awarded the series four out of five stars and praised it's superstar cameos (Joanna Lumley pictured) The cast this time includes Steve Buscemi as the school's cheesy, smarmy head teacher, Principal Dort while Billie Piper joins the teaching faculty too, playing a flamboyant music mistress. Christopher says the juiciest cameo goes to Dame Joanna Lumley, Wednesday's grandmama, who has turned the Addams family obsession with the morbid into a career. She's a funeral director – her motto, 'Death never takes a holiday so neither do I.' Also returning is Catherine Zeta-Jones with Isaac Ordonez, Luis Guzmán, Emma Myers, Victor Dorobantu, Joy Sunday, Moosa Mostafa, Georgie Farmer and Hunter Doohan. The official synopsis states: 'Smart, sarcastic and a little dead inside, Wednesday Addams investigates a murder spree while making new friends — and foes — at Nevermore Academy.' Wednesday part one is streaming on Netflix now, while the second follows September third.
BBC News
10 hours ago
- BBC News
The Documentary Podcast Yoko Nishina: Japanese calligraphy
Yoko Nishina likes to use black Japanese Sumi ink in her calligraphy work because of the variety of colours , from blues through to browns. Craftsmen still use traditional methods to create the ink from vegetable oil lamps with wicks made of reeds. She creates both large and small works - and is collaborating with photographer Kenro Izue for an exhibition in Osaka - as well as preparing a special exhibition for her upcoming 60th birthday, an age which is considered a "re-birth" in Japanese culture. This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from In the Studio, exploring the processes of the world's most creative people.
