Princess Haiku spent the Afternoon Chatting with Lady Muraski Shikubu

Princess Haiku sipped a fine oolong tea with her dear friend, Lady Murasaki Shikubu. Lady Murasaki, she said, thank you for this gorgeous kimono. I feel so much more; well soignee in it. As far as your tales go; did you now that contemporary readers find them just as absorbing?

You can discover or reacquaint yourself with The Tale of Genji via.....

Follow their wonderful links to Heian Temples.

This is a captivating essay that I found on Heaven Tree.

Yet another link to the tales.

A Spill of Moonlight From a Piano Can Only Mean the Keyboard of Yundi Li, said Princess Haiku

MAY YOU SLEEP IN THE ARMS OF ANGELS, FREDERIC.

Angel's Flight to Reopen

Angel's Flight does not refer to celestial activity although it could. What it means is that the people of Los Angeles will once again have a trolley to transport them up a steep street in California. The original Angel's Flight opened in 1901 in the Bunker Hill area of downtown LA, becoming the shortest railroad in the world. It has been restored at various times over the years and its biggest RERUN is scheduled for summer 2007. Even though it's easy enough to float about said, Princess Haiku, the view on Angel's Flight is spectacular enough to attract winged creatures and sundry beings. From the right angle no place on earth is as beautiful as San Francisco.

Why, Twyla

Princess Haiku asks, why Twyla Tharp?

Why is she the most prolific woman choreographer in the world?
Why is she so creative?
Why was she able to overcome all the obstacles in her life?
Why was she born to dance?
Why did she become a major influence on the development of dance in America.

Many of these questions are answered in Twyla Tharp's book, "The Creative Habit" but ultimately, nobody knows WHY the muse ever speaks to anyone. Perhaps Princess Haiku will learn more in the book, Howling Near Heaven; Twyla Tharp and the reinvention of modern dance.




Twyla Tharp informs us that video will be the future text of dance.

Princess Haiku in a tea Trance

Princess Haiku sipped a delicate bowl of olong gold at Teance Fine Teas in Berkeley. The new tea bar is on Fourth street and its fine tea perfect enough to induce tea trance. Where will this lead, asked Princess Haiku as she closed her eyes imagining steep mountains in the Far East, slipping into TEA MIND.

Japanese Tea Garden

Princess Haiku dreamed about the Japanese Tea Garden. Will you have some tea, the spirits of the Tea garden asked her?

Will you?

ODC Dance, SF

Dance-seadance- see the dance- dance sf- view dance-too dance- why dance- all kinds of dance is ODC San Francisco.

ODC Dance was founded by choreographer Brenda Way and has been based in San Francisco for over 30 years. ODC is an invaluable resource to the community. ODC offers over 180 dance classes a week beginning at 8 a.m. and ending at midnight. ODC has multiple components: dance theater, school, dance jam and an educational outreach that provides hundreds of San Francisco school-children the joy of dance.

In their own words:

ODC believes that art is a powerful educational tool and a generative element in personal growth and development. It is central to our mission to work with new audiences and young people to promote dance as a cultural expression of modern life, both on and off the stage. Our outreach in the community revolves around the work we perform and is focused on creativity and an investigation of artistic and social values. ODC can tailor imaginative partnership activities with under-resourced schools and social/cultural community centers.

Princess Haiku's Season of Wildflowers

A Season of Wildflowers after a fire, said Princess Haiku.

One of the best kept secrets of seasonally dry habitats in California known as chaparral, is that fire is required to germinate the gorgeous wildflowers that grow there. Seedlings appear in the ashy soil after fires. The fire is an essential and required element of the cycle. Follow this link for more photos and information on this amazing phenomena.

Eventually, said Princes Haiku, we all come to realize that we are wildflowers of the chaparral.

Princess Haiku Looks Within

This painting by Leonardo Da Vinci reflects my pensive mood. Yesterday, in the process of leaping from one dying laptop to a new one I lost a file containing two years + accumulation of various creative writing projects. Back it up we all say, but sometimes we don't and I didn't. Thanks to the help of some online friends and one closer to home I am in the process of retrieving what can be salvaged. This mishap has given me new insight as to what matters to me in my life. Another person suggested that if the work is permanently lost that somehow, these "thoughts, feelings or intuitions" that I needed to communicate will reemerge in another form. I may have to live with that. If anyone reading this has been through a similar process I would be interested in hearing how they coped with it on a spiritual, philosophical level. There are times in our life where we have to move forward, no matter how difficult it feels.

The Secret Quatrains of Princess Haiku

Princess Haiku was talking about her secret quatrains to her best friend Avant-garde or Avy for short.

Well, what are the secret quatrains asked, Avy, do tell.
It doesn't matter what they are, it's all in the interpretation, replied Princess Haiku.
How can I interpret what I don't know, replied, Avy.
Well said Princess Haiku, it's done everyday, isn't it?

It's a Debussy Night, said Princess Haiku, as she Looked at the Moon

Dark Face of the Sun: the Life of Lili Boulanger

The temporal beauty of the life of Lily Boulanger makes her a perfect subject for my blog. Like a flower awakening at midnight, Lily was given only twenty-four years and the dark face of the sun. Despite this she wove together architecturally perfect, harmonies of spirit and left music behind for the world, that would endure for as long as the sun rises.

The composer and conductor Igor Markevitch once remarked, "The works of Lili Boulanger, impress me with their solitude."

Lili was the first woman to win "The Prix de Rome" and was awarded this honor in 1913 for her cantata "Faust et Helene." Christopher Palmer wrote in "The Boulanger Connection, "Lily acquired a totally professional technique with unnerving speed and facility. Her orchestration, for instance, is masterly. she was essentially a poet-in-sound, with an artist's feeling for beauty of color and texture."

Lili Boulanger is best known for her "Hymn to the Sun or Hymne au soleil," and this is my favorite of her compositions. She became ill at an early age from bronchial pneumonia and was left with an undermined resistance to infection, eventually dying of cancer. Lili knew that time was of great essence and her works; luminous and transcendent, were written in the dark eye of a night enfolding her like angel wings.


Hymn to the Sun
Casimir Delavigne (1793-1843)
Translation Nick Flower

"Let us bless the power of the reborn sun.
With all the universe let us celebrate its return.
Crowned in spendour. It rises, it soars.
The awakening of the earth is a hymn of love....."

Helene Grimaud: Astrologic Revelation

I wonder, mused Princess Haiku, how a ghost can order a birth chart on ASTROTHEME. Determining a date of birth could be a problem. For Helene Grimaud fans, here is a link (click on the bold) to her birth chart and analysis. The rest of you might want to see what the stars have in store for you too. ASTROTHEME looks like an interesting and fun place.

Jody Sperling: Dream and Dance as Elemental Spirits

Jody Sperling/Time Lapse Dance

"A suite inspired by the mesmerizing spectacles of Loie Fuller (1862-1928). Sperling furls her enormous winged costume–designed by Michelle Ferranti from more than 80 yards of white silk—into eddying spiral shapes. The moving fabric catches luminescent rays, orchestrated by Bessie Award-winning lighting designer David Ferri, that evoke the elements Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Ether. The hypnotic visuals are set to piano music by Ravel, Chopin, De Falla, and others performed by Jeffrey Middleton."

The dancing of Jody Sperling cascades out of the unconscious; billows into clouds becoming swans, tears, wings and an archetypal pathos I know as intimately as my own breath. When dancing is this perfect its various elements, music, text, visuals and movement become an incarnation of the spirit.

I found this information via a lovely space that I encourage everyone to visit, Japonisme.

Urban Flute: the Dark Night breaks

My "Dark Night of the Flute" appears to be over for now and has broken into a cloudy day with splotches of silver fog everywhere. I found a flute player on youTube playing the Pachelbel Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel. This is one of his best known works and is deceptively simple; it sounds only as good as you do. Even though I have come down with a bad cold my spirits have lifted and I managed to trill through the coughs. The days that seem the worst often aren't. What else will this silver flute teach me, asked Princess Haiku? My thanks to the anonymous flute player.... The young girl in the photo is Bianca Garcia playing at Tanglewood Institute.

Immortelles of Ancient China

Catherine Despeux: Immortelles de la Chine ancienne

I have so much to tell my immortelles, said Princess Haiku that it will take forever.

Fog Horns for a Haunted Princess

Who turns on the fog horns in the San Francisco Bay, asked Princess Haiku; it certainly isn't me. Some dearly departed friends of mine suggest that they do, although I doubt this after watching a cbs5.com newscast in which key words such as fog density and computers were mentioned.

Text Message to Jacques Derrida from Ovid

Tonight, I was musing on the fate of the Nymph, Echo who lost her own voice and was forced to repeat the words of others. I think that to some degree this is the fate of all of us. I mean think about it, what person or thing did you echo today?

Derrida suggests in this intriguing little video I found on uTube, that "Echo is able to appropriate Narcissus in such a way that he becomes her, in a sense." When we are in love with someone and blindly reflect back their persona to them, aren't we in effect doing the same thing?

In Ovid, Metamorphoses III we are told, "her name is Echo; she always answer back."

Does She? Do We?
What will enable us to find our own voice/identity?
Derrida interprets the myth as the juxtaposition of two blind people loving each other. How can they? How can we, who cannot see, make our way in the journey of self that we call love?

Cosplay : Your Mask or Mine

In Japan, about 50,000 thousand adults dress up regularly on weekends in a variety of colorful masks and costumes to create new identities for themselves. This sounds like great fun to me. We are all dressed up in costumes anyway; the problems is that we don't realize it. Princess Haiku, says, "It's time to Change your Mask" and come to the ghost ball. Luminous colors welcome.

Japan for the Uninvited: Cosplay

Princess Haiku Escape Mode

It's a cold rainy day, said Princess Haiku. It's a perfect day to get away and while this is simple enough for a ghost, the rest of you need tickets. Here is some info in case you want to come along. Of course I never know until the last second where I am going and so can't help you there. BTW I made a new ghost friend and her name is Avant-Garde. Avy as I call her and I are off to parts unknown. We are leaving the red flower behind to cheer the rest of you up.