Personal Entry No. 7

[outou]

The sun was shining strongly and brightly throughout the day, and this was what rolled in this evening. (I took two photographs and stitched them together, in case you thought part of the cloud formation looked strange.)

I've completely revised the lineart of that drawing of Clow, and have started up a new illustration of Yuuko--in case the Clow fanart doesn't work out, or another $200 are donated to the Fanbook project.





The background of the illustration of Yuuko was inspired by Karl Friedrich Schinkel's set for the entrance of the Queen of the Night, in an 1815 production of The Magic Flute. I've always thought that Clow would make a good Sarastro (despite my never being fortunate enough to see the opera), but that's for another day.

Her robes were inspired by these Heian Period clothes on exhibition at The Costume Museum in Kyoto. I'm not sure if it's affiliated with the famous Kyoto Costume Institute, from which CLAMP draws at least some inspiration (especially in xxxHOLiC).

I need to finish shading Yuuko's hitoe, draw in clouds beneath her (I'll be using the photograph above as a reference), color in her uchiki and fan, add texture to the stars to make them blend in with the ceiling, and add patterns to the uchiki. I also want to revise her expression--her left eye holds it, but the right eye isn't cooperating.

And, of course, I have to finish the Clow lineart and color in the whole thing.

I'm obviously going to have to choose only one to send to the editors, but considering that we're only two hundred dollars away from the 880-page book, there's the slim chance that I could send in both. Think about it--if only four people sent in fifty dollars each, we could get the larger book and thus have ample room for everyone's submissions. We've got a chance!

EDIT: Because I forgot, and because it's entirely related to the above:


THEY SHOULD GET THEIR OWN SERIES. WITH REFLECTIONS ON THE TRANSIENCE OF LIFE, MADCAP HIJINKS, AND NINETEENTH-CENTURY-STYLE ETCHINGS. But is that simply the layout of the page, or is Clow really that much taller than Yuuko?



My twin sister's opening night is tomorrow; she's playing Cinderella in Into the Woods, one of Stephen Sondheim's more beautiful musicals. I can't wait to see her, myself--I'm biased, of course, but she has a lovely singing voice and remarkable stage presence. Also, a reporter from the New York Times may be watching the performance, which is very fortunate considering that this is a local production. All of you, wish broken legs upon her!

Setting my sister aside, I've been wanting to post an excerpt from Kusamakura here ever since I began reading it. Take note of the differences between the translations:


I had been following the path upwards for nearly a quarter of a mile, when I caught sight of the white wall of a building. Ah, a house among the orange groves, I thought. The path divided at this point, and I took the left-hand fork. As I did so, I looked back over my shoulder and saw a girl in a red skirt coming up from the valley. The red of her skirt gave way to the brown of her legs, which in turn ended at a pair of straw sandals. Wild cherry blossom was was falling upon the girl's hair, and on her back she carried the sparkling sea.

--Natsume Sōseki, The Three-Cornered World, trans. Alan Turney (1965).

When I have climbed about a quarter of a mile, a single white-walled dwelling looms up ahead. A house among the mandarin-trees, I think. The road now divides in two, and I turn left, with the white-walled house off to one side. I glance back and discover a girl in a red skirt climbing the hill behind me. The skirt gives way to a pair of brown shins, below which is a pair of straw sandals, advancing steadily toward me. Petals from the mountain cherries tumble about her head. At her back she bears the shining sea.

--Natsume Sōseki, Kusamakura, trans. Meredith McKinney (2008).

I've read McKinney's translation in its entirety, looking at Turney's only to compare the two (I'll be reading through his soon). Unfortunately, his translation of the poems is marked by the misbegotten tendency to apply English rhyme and meter to verse that neither needed nor benefited from them. As you can see, he also uses the past tense, despite the original being largely in the present tense, and does away entirely with the original title (草枕, which, while defined as an "overnight stay while traveling," is made up of the kanji for "grass" and "pillow"). I hope to post some more comparisons between the two texts, if you're all interested.

Someday I hope I'll be able to read the original, and thus appreciate it for its true worth--albeit several thousand kanji later. I have a long, hard linguistic road before me.