I had mentioned how the songs were all in Japanese (neither dubbed or subbed on Netflix). They were (and are) still beautiful and powerful that way. But in checking out the lyrics online, I have an even deeper appreciation for them. The After Story opening theme, – Toki o Kizamu Uta or “A Song that Ticks Away Time” – which I felt was somewhat uplifting, is even more melancholy once the lyrics are understood in context. I seriously have a hard time getting through the song. It is that powerful, at least to me:

The song is subbed in both English and English transliteration.

The opening theme to Clannad – Mag Mell or “Plain of Joy” (Irish) – is also quite good:

Lyrics can be found here, in English and English transliteration.

And as I realize these all might be just on the depressing side, I thought I might offer the opening theme to School Rumble to cheer you back up:

Last night, I finished the anime series Clannad (including After Story). And without a doubt, this is the best thing I have ever watched – movie, TV, whatever. That is not just wasted hyperbole. I have never seen something that moved me so much emotionally. I have never seen a show that made me think so deeply on my role as husband, father and child, or even as a member of a community, an extended family; on what I would be willing to sacrifice for, or just slow down for. On the importance of place, something that is largely foreign to my personal experience. I have never connected with characters so much. Never. Just ask my wife.

The overall genre is drama, ranging from high school life to young family and playing especially on developing relationships between family members – brothers and sisters, parents and children, friends, etc. It includes a healthy does of science-fiction/fantasy that builds in intensity once you reach After Story. It provides an interesting introduction into elements of Japanese culture that would be largely foreign to Americans. In total it is 44 regular episodes, two extras, one recap, and 2 alternate story line episodes. Netflix had it in dubbed English, which was great.

I am especially moved by music in general, but the musical numbers for the ending and closing themes, as well as that used within the show itself, are excellent. They range in speed and character, but all share a quality that is hard for me to describe. Haunting and ethereal, hopeful and inspiring, yet full of minor tones. How they succeeded with such mournful and hopeful combinations is simply impressive to me. Very often I watch the opening and closing credits only for the first couple episodes, then simply skip them after that. Not so here. Even the urge to get right to the continuing development of the story was halted by the desire to sit and listen. The words were not subbed or dubbed, and my Japanese is not that good. But it really didn’t matter.

One especially, だんご　大家族, Dango Daikazoku, or “A Big Dango Family” sticks out. It is the closing theme of the Clannad series (Seasons 1 and 2, not the After Story) and plays prominently in the entire story as the main female protagonist’s theme, the song constantly on  her mind and in the minds of others because of her. Dango are doughy balls that are often flavored or filled. The lyrics are childish in their presentation of the family/community of multi-faceted dango, yet paired with the music, I am at the point of tears when I hear it. I’ve seen it described online as a lullaby, but there is no way I could go to sleep to it. I imagine not having been paired with Clannad, it would simply be cute and playful, though slightly melancholy. Paired as it is, my skin crawls (in a good way). It is innocent, playful, hopeful, yet… In any case, it has motivated me to pick back up with the piano, as the score was readily available online. It is simple, honestly – but still a little beyond my skill

This particular anime started as a virtual novel, where decisions made affect the progress of the book and eventual endings, and this multi-trajectory narrative is clearly played out in “What If” episodes and flashbacks. Intriguing if nothing else, they help develop characters and help the watcher go beyond just imagining what might have happened if things had just been different. Add to that that the true ending is exactly this kind of “flashback trajectory” only makes it more interesting, as the lines between what “could have been” and what “can still be” begin to overlap in curious fashion (that’s about as non-spoiler as I can be).

Maybe I’ll follow later with another post that is more “Spoiler”. There is so much to think through, that I found interesting, impressive. Or that I am still uncertain of, curious about. But in the mean time, if interested you can check out the links below:

Spoiler Alert!
Clannad Wiki
Wikipedia – Clannad Visual Novel
Wikipedia – Clannad Episode Listing

I got on the metro, and the three 18-20 somethings were already being loud and obnoxious. They were keeping to themselves, but European culture is anti-I’m-loud-and-stick-out, and France is more so. Anyway, lightly rolling my eyes I just stayed out of their way.

Then, as one of them is getting ready to leave at the next stop, he bumps into me. He quickly offers an, Excusez-moi. I wave my head and hand to let him know it’s fine, and say, Je suis americain. The response? “Oh, you can tell?” I guess “je suis…” is not as common knowledge as I thought. I guess I should have just said it in English. But the, “Oh, you can tell?” made we wince a little.

It actually started as I began closing up the computer last night (at like 3:30AM or something). I had wanted to get a lot of my pictures labeled, so that there was some clarity as to what they were and that sort of thing – what I found interesting about them. Sometime during the evening, my power converter had blown. So as I began turning the computer off, it told me I had about 7% power left – about ten minutes.

Me on the TGV

I needed that time in the morning to plan my metro route from the hotel to Gare Montparnasse. More, I needed it to figure out my bus route from Gare Poitiers to my new hotel. As well, I needed to write down all the information for my e-ticket to Poitiers. And I really did need power for the laptop – and before Monday if possible!

I woke up late, around 10:40 AM. What did I expect? Well, I had hoped to wake around 8:30. My cellphone is dead, or I would have set the alarm… Okay, so I get showered and dressed, and run down to the desk. I make sure I have time to run to Darty, the electronics chain store I bought the convertor at, and pick up a new one before having to check out. I run over to Darty (it wasn’t too far actually – took me a lot longer to find it the first time!) I have a conversation (all in French, since the gentlemen knew no English) to return the old and échanger for a new one. I also bought some more camera batteries. Then I rushed back to the hotel to finish packing up.

By this point I’m sweating up a storm. I check out, run with my bags across the street to the cafe from the previous morning, hoping to grab a cold drink or something. I sit down outside, and am completely ignored. You might wonder, maybe they just don’t realize I sat down out there? No, right as I came out, the attendant came out and set up the sign with today’s selections. He then walked away from me, and began to smoke. Apparently a friend of his walked up, and they both begin pointing at me and laughing. Hmmm. A couple minutes later, he goes inside. Still nothing. I got up and left. I didn’t have any more time to wait.

I rush to the metro (I was able to get both a metro and bus plan somewhere in that last ten minutes of battery life), and get to Gare Montparnasse. I’m running farther behind in time than I thought I would be. I have about ten minutes to get get my physical ticket and get on the train. And, no, I don’t make it. The machines where you claim your ticket asked for my code, and I entered it. Then they asked for my name. And nothing I entered worked. So I ran to the ticketing agent with a couple minutes left (after a miserable dialogue with the help desk – another individual who knew no English, and did not get my slightly-disturbed, broken French), knowing that there is no way I will get back in time. I had a good dialogue with the ticketing agent, another individual who knew no English, and she was able to work everything out (she couldn’t find me in the system at first – my name probably has the II of my suffix in it somewhere). I got a ticket for a train about 30 minutes later.

Speeding Past The Countryside

I finally got my first beverage of the day, a blended orange-strawberry drink. It was good, but I downed it quickly. I ran to my train, and got on board. By this time it is 13:50. I have had about 16 ounces of liquid, and nothing to eat. I’m on the train until Poitiers, then I take the bus to Chasseneuil (tentative the whole way that I have gotten on the wrong bus). I get to my hotel, throw open the computer and am on it for about 3 minutes before the new convertor pops.

I heard it pop this time – and it was extremely hot to the touch. A little flustered, I look over the convertor and my laptop and find that I am overdrawing current. The convertor can supply 40W, my laptop battery (which is dead) says it pulls 60W. At least I know, now. Anyway, another power supply down, and I still need access to the computer – and a meal. I run down to the nearby Darty I saw on the bus-ride in (yep, Darty again) and find a power cable that will work for a Dell, rather than a convertor. I then find someplace to eat (at 18:15PM, not an easy thing thing to do – most places near my hotel open at 19:00!).

Whew. Dinner (or a very late lunch, whatever you want to call it) was good, though I was mentally drained; they had an awesome green apple glace, though. Now I’m back at the hotel. The new cable seems to be doing well with the computer. And I have French TV on in the background. I don’t understand but every word out of twenty or so.

That was my day.

Oooh. “Bleach” is on TV in French…

Bleach 十五, quinze, fifteen

My Lunch Stop

I just want to start by saying that I like how Paris brasseries, bistros, restaurants – whatever – do business. Almost all of them have the idea of a special plat or formule. It usually amounts to a list of 5 or 6 entrées (appetizers, not the main course…), 5 or 6 plats (the main course), and 3 or 4 (or more!) desserts. And to top it off, the usual formule says do 1 entrée + 1 plat or 1 plat + 1 dessert. Nice. Simple. Drinks are of course additional. And then there is often a formule for entrée + plat + dessert. Basically, the formule is a fixed price with all the items varying. And they still have more items that can be done à la carte.

Second, as I mentioned on facebook, the Kir needs to be added to our American repertoire. Most good establishments know what one is in the US. But they don’t keep the necessary ingredient(s) on stock, or can’t find them at a reasonable price if they could. And so you are often out of luck. In France, it is a staple. Often, it is a free “starter”, a Kir Bienvenue, added to the beginning of the aforementioned formule.

I spent almost the entire day at Le Louvre, with only an hour(?) for lunch and another hour(?) window shopping nearby. And of course when I wasn’t at Le Louvre, that’s when it started to rain. I started with sculptures and the pre-Classic areas that were open. I then moved onto some of the Egyptian collection. After that, and before lunch, I covered the French painters. Coming back from lunch, I finished the stuff from the Netherlands, Flanders and Holland. That left me back at an area of sculptures I had missed, so I walked through that before heading to the entire opposite side where the Italian painters are. But before getting there, ran into the Classical and Roman zones, and then more Egyptian art. So a full day. And my feet are very sore.

Un Café

You might be interested, as my wife will be, in what I ate today. I of course started the day with a simple café. And at €1 (and right across the street from my hotel), I’ll be going back tomorrow. For lunch I had Beouf Borguignon, and it was excellent. I’ve always been the one cooking it – I’ve never had someone else cook it. I of course did the formule with dessert (and a free Kir) and the dessert I chose was the coupe de glace. Turned out to be fraise, pistache, and pumpkin (I think). Still water I ordered not knowing it was still actually turned out great. After walking Le Louvre I hadn’t realized how parched I was. 75cl of Evian disappeared quickly. Only thing bad I can say is that service was terrible. Had I been intending to give a tip (which some suggest means “to insure promptness”), it wasn’t happening.

Dinner was equally good. I started with a Kir and 50cl of San Pelligrino. The meal was a confit of pork (excellent) with fried potatoes (delightful) and a rather plain salad (not my cup of tea normally, but good). I then followed with an apple tart and a coffee (espresso). I thought I was done, and the owner asked over the bar if I’d like to follow with some Armagnac. I said no, and he looked at me puzzled. But the waitress brought me my addition (I learned a word today! Yay!*) and I paid. Once I realized how little my meal had cost – much less than I thought it was going to be and no mistakes in the calculation so far as I could see – I thought, sure, I can cap the meal with a small glass of Armagnac. Um, the smell was heavenly, to be honest – as was the flavor. And then, I found out that it was free! Not sure why. I don’t think it was part of the formule. But I’m glad I didn’t pass up on that opportunity.

The waitress at dinner was oh, so helpful. She didn’t really speak much English, and my French wasn’t cutting it with her most of the time. But we worked through it. One thing that complicated matters was body position. Every time she came over to me, she got within 6 inches of my face. She would quickly ask a question in French and wait for my response. At this point, with her right in my face, all my words drained from my brain. Not just the French ones – the English ones too. That’s just the kind of thing you begin to notice, cultural differences; differences of habit, comfortability or expectation.

Anyway, I got to see a lot of great art. I was bummed when my camera died (batteries, including and two set of spares!) during the Italian painters. Luckily, that was only about twenty minutes before things were shutting down, and I was nearing my limit anyway. The last picture I got was of the Mona Lisa, and the auto-focus was beginning to fail because of the lack of power C’est la vie. In any case, her is a sampling of what I did get:

I would have liked to have a shot of Napoleon sur le Champ de Bastille d’Eylau (Gros), or La Grande Odalisque (Jad Ingres). Pierre Narcisse Guérin had two paintings that stuck out to me (Le Retour de Marcus Sextus au VII and L’Aurore et Céphale) because they had such stark differences in outlook and feel. And I’d love to have a shot of Luca Signorelli’s Saint Jerome Pénitent en Extase – just to find out what in the world is going on with the horizontal, mid air cross with Jesus attached to it. “It’s a bird, it’s a plain…no it’s Jesus on the cross,” sounds iffy to me.

* I also learned the word for scarf: écharpe. I think I knew that one deep down somewhere, but had forgotten.