Friday, 11 March 2011

The Great Wave


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http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/jpd/02000/02018v.jpg

The Great Wave off Kanagawa: Katsushika Hokusai 1760-1849), from Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, between 1826 and 1833 (Library of Congress)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Russians_meeting_Japanese_in_Akkeshi_1779.jpg

The Russians of the merchant Pavel Lebedev-Lastochkin in Japan, with their ships tossed inland by a tsunami, meeting some Japanese at Akkeshi: artist unknown, 1779 (image by World Imaging, 2011)

slideshow

Fire at Cosmo Oil Company refinery in Chiba Prefecture near Tokyo, causing widespread damage and destruction following 8.9 magnitude earthquake off northeastern coast of Japan: photo via International Business Times, 11 March 2011
Japan quake

Buildings burn after earthquake near Sendai Airport: photo by Reuters, 11 March 2011


Houses in Sendai aflame after being engulfed by tsunami: photo by Kyodo News, via Associated Press, 11 March 2011


The tsunami, seen crashing into homes in Natori, Miyagi Prefecture: photo by Kyodo News, via Associated Press, 11 March 2011
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5 comments:

  1. Anonymous11 March 2011 at 14:21

    There's really nothing for anyone to say except to report the news and issue appropriate safety instructions and warnings. Everything else I've heard today from "important people" has simply been posturing blather. I woke up early this morning (or late last night; the usual muddle that has me speechlessly tired now) and started to write something about the subject that had robbed me of sleep. I unburdened myself and then went to the kitchen to make coffee and turned on the news to this horror.

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  2. STEPHEN RATCLIFFE12 March 2011 at 07:43

    Tom,

    Great to see The Great Wave here (Johnny & I have been making a puzzle of it, and when he saw this just now he said "I know that wave"). I surfed the surge coming into the channel last night, must have been traveling 25 kts. . . .


    3.12

    light coming into sky above black plane
    of ridge, silver of planet next to leaf
    in foreground, wave sounding in channel

    repetition relative to this,
    over graphite on wove

    not in the way in which now
    means, that, which is

    white cloud in pale blue sky on horizon,
    shadowed canyon of ridge across channel

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  3. TC12 March 2011 at 08:43

    Curtis,

    We have read about and talked about that middle of the night meeting in the kitchen.

    We have those too.

    Maybe it's just as well that all moments of truth, domestic and otherwise, are forgotten almost as quickly as they happen.



    Steve,

    Anyone who has been looking at this blog the past few years has probably been imagining, over the past twenty-four hours, the mythic battle of Stephen vs. the Great Wave.

    (We were backing Stephen all the way, imagining Johnny alongside in the channel on a baby board, in a sort of Tintinesque tandem of heroes.)

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  4. STEPHEN RATCLIFFE13 March 2011 at 08:52

    Tom,

    Ah, very nice, thanks! (I'll your comment to Johnny when he comes back). . . .

    ReplyDelete
  5. Unknown16 March 2011 at 20:14

    tom, thanks--eve

    ReplyDelete