rainy days

Calling out to the Japanese friends

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:59:20 GMT

Are you ok?

I just noticed the news on BBC about the earth quake. Big ♥ to you all. Take care!

Diamanda Galas - Let My People Go (live)

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 18:50:20 GMT

I grew up with her music, she's still one of my favorites, and after all these years she hasn't lost her touch.

Hello again.

Sat, 28 Apr 2007 09:36:22 GMT

How are you?

Some of you might have noticed how quiet my art got in this fandom. To be honest, I haven't got time to keep very much involved. I started to work on a website together with some friends and it's going slow. I also started a myspace for my more 'serious' art: my paintings and drawings.

http://www.myspace.com/_mnem

I still have to find out how to do the html coding to get a neutral white background and a simple look. It's a mess at the moment, but I'll update with recent art (I still have lots of works to photograph) and you're all invited to see what I'm painting.

Why myspace? Because lots of people I find interesting are there too, and I like to keep a close eye on some of them and at the same time introduce my work as a painter.

My life is still too busy to enjoy a quiet moment for fan art, but I didn't say goodbye. I'll keep reading the books and I keep working on my big plans for fanart.

I hope you're all well and enjoying the fandom.

Much love,

Mnem

My first ABC

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 17:34:24 GMT

A couple of years ago I made an ABC gift for Casa Rosa,
a meeting place for all kind of gay, 'bi' or 'het' people.

here's a link

It's in Dutch and here's the translation:
A: Adam and Adam
B: blushing
C: Casa Rosa
D: daring
E: Eve and Eve
F: foert = 'I don't care' sort of word (I don't know the translation)
G: smile
H: hi
I: info
J: boys
K: closet
L: spring
M: girls
N: neat?
O: everywhere
P: present
Q: queer
R: rainbow
S: vocal cords
T: tea
U: out
V: freedom
W: welcome
X: x
Y: Y-front
Z: Saturday

I never know they put it online.

My day with Emi, mon jour avec Emi

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 12:19:00 GMT

Today I met up with my friend Emi,
because she speaks French I'll try to translate this page in french.
I haven't written any decent French in the last ten years, so please have patience. :)

Aujourd’hui j’ai rencontrée avec Emi,

Parce que Emi parle Français, je vais traduire ce page en Français.
Comme je n’ai pas écrit du vrai Français pour près de 10 ans, je vous demande d’avoir en peu de patience. :)

We went to a lovely shop named Spiral Market where I bought post cards and some pencils.

Nous sommes allée à un magasin chouette qui s’appelle ’Spiral Market’, ou y j’ai acheté des cartes postales et des crayons.

We had tea, a delicious mix of Yasmine and sencha, and and cake, Millefeuille and Carrément Chocolat at Pierre Hermé .

On avait du thé, une mixe délicieux de Jasmine et de Sencha, et des gâteaux, Millefeuille et Carrément Chocolat, chez Pierre Hermé.

After that we went shopping at Kyukyodo and Itoya and Gekkoso .

Après ça nous sommes allée shopping chez Kyukyodo et Itoya et Gekkoso.

She gave me a sweet little surprise present: three postcards by Dan Schlesinger, and I gave her a postcard with Padfoot. What a strange coincidence. Thank you very much Emi ^_^

Elle m’a donné une petite surprise tout chouettes : trois cartes postales de Dan Schlesinger, et mois, je l’ai donne une carte postale de Padfoot. C’est bizarre, l’occurrence comme ça. Merci beaucoup Emi ^_^

I had a lovely day and I hope we'll meet again next time, or maybe somewhere in France.

J’ai u un jour mémorable et j’espère qu’on rencontre la prochaine fois, peut être quelque part en France.

ETA This is her personal blog, in Japanese.
Ceci est son journal privée en Japponais.
Emi

A trip to Yokohama, with lots of photos.

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 23:09:24 GMT

I'll post a small photo for a friendly dial up, I think you should be able to see the larger photo (if you'd want that) when you click it and see photo account.

A seat in the almost empty metro to Yokohama. Sometimes these metros are like sardine cans, too full for people to breathe, and horrible people are in there too. I want to mention chikan in Japan. It happens to many people, not only in Japan, and it's utterly wrong, don't let it go unnoticed!

A new metro station outside Tokyo, it's huge and empty and very clean.

Cities are expanding and young mothers crowd in shopping malls between those buildings. Individuals live here.

It's empty but it works.

Yokohama lost and found dept. Who lost this dog?

Dusk from a taxi.

The light is on.

Sunset in yokohama, I just missed the sun in this photo.

I hope you enjoyed the trip :)

Ring, ring!

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 11:21:31 GMT

This is my new little bicycle for in Tokyo. My old one is back to it's owner, I only borrowed it until I got this one.

It's quite small because I have to take it with me in the elevator to the sixth floor. And it's very handy since in Tokyo people drive their bicycle on the pavement: that's people walking in two directions and bicycle races in two directions on one very small pavement, usually stocked with stalls showing off groceries or pottery.

I feel like a hero when I manage to slip between the playing children, a stack of horseradish, an old lady with a mini dog and a school boy on his race bike coming from the opposite direction.

I'm still not sure if it's allowed to drive on the pavement or if police will stop me if they see me. I'll risk it anyway since the alternative is a deadly street.

Until next time :)
*ring, ring*

Some pictures of this week. (probably not dial-up friendly)

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 12:36:24 GMT

This is Coo, I was in a nice restaurant and found her under the table eating the entire menu. (That's not my foot, but Coo's owner's foot)

The Meiji shrine in Harajuku, I went there at dusk, to find a minute of rest.

The flower shop with at this moment an exhibition of wild Chinese orchids. (If I understood it right.) I came here to paint the flowers and meet up with waccawheels.

Today Wacca and me went to a small but delightful exhibition about Bruno Taut . His works are inspiring because instead of only being practical and useful he made also architectual drawings for an Utopia, for stars and mountains and other such places. His drawings in ink and watercolours are fragile and beautiful. Here's the Wikipedia page on Bruno Taut.

A plum blossom tree in Omote Sando. I watched it together with Wacca while two little green birds were playing between the branches. Today was a rainy day, that's why the branches are in a dark contrast with the flowers.

I accidently moved the camera a bit. In Japan the moon is like a smile, in Belgium it's tipped sideways.

Dear Wacca, thank you for the nice time together ^_^ ♥

Shinjuku, too much of everything.

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 14:14:36 GMT

Sunday I met up with Lala, ( she's lala_kamiturugi in lj world) and she showed me some amazing places. Thank you Lala for the wonderful day :)

Lala took me to a special show, Takarazuka, it's impossible to explain what I saw but I'll try. The entire show was about dancing, there were Romeos and Julias dancing in 1980's costumes, Sayan costumes, feathered French cancan costumes (the male roles had the biggest feathers), Latino tango costumes etc. You can't imagine it but they dressed up in it. Now the special thing is, these roles were all played by women, half of them looking like a man. Lala explained they use cushions to hide their slim hips, add shoulder fillings, masculin eyebrows and bright red lipstick, eyelashes that long enough to fan fresh air when batted, high heels and that typical macho attitude of men with a big car. (It was yellow and could have been driven by bob the builder.) I honestly didn't know what I saw, but you can learn more from Lala's explanation in her journal here where she also shows the little comics I made after being inspired by the show. ( 'Aha Erlibnis' hit me with the force of Moody's 'Stupify')

In a very old art supply shop in Ginza I learned how to write my name in Japanese, I would show you but I haven't got a scanner. I used a brush and special grated ink on rice paper. I'm still awed at how very difficult it is to write like this.

After the wonderful evening with Lala, we had a lovely Valentine dinner in a French restaurant, I was forced to pick up work again on monday. It was a beautiful day and I was stuck inside until sunset.

The same happened today, except today I was inside the many department stores in Shinjuku. Shinjuku is a series of shops knit together with bright neon light and slippery white tiles. The shops go in all directions, from basements to top floors, ground zero stretching from North to South, East to West and East again.

For the first time in my life I ate a hamburger. I've had a mos burger before, but it was made from fish so it doesn't really count. This was the real greasy, meaty, Standard Burger. It was fast, delivered to our table outside on the heated terras and it was fat with grease leaking out when I bit in it. I'm not really impressed but at least I got my quick meal. It feels like a stone in my stomach, I don't think I'll be fan.

When I finaly could go home it was already dark, so I took some photos of Tokyo at night:

Inside the taxi.

Big Tokyo, the offices lights and people working late reminds me of Edward Hopper. This is a lonely city.

A traffic jam to Shibuya.

Yoyogi park, the light in the dark.

The Seven Eleven super market.

The soymilk: I can't read the boxes, I don't know what I buy. But it tastes nice, much better than the ones at home.

Greetings from Tokyo, sayonara! ^_^

Shibuya, Tokyo

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 12:57:03 GMT

I worked here in the past week, in the middle of the crowdy concrete heart of Shibuya. Now I'm back to the small streets of Michuku, where life seems quiet from my little bycicle with a metal basket. I went back to the second hand book shop.

This afternoon I took the Ginza line metro to Tawaramachi. Next to this street is Kappabashi dori, a street with wholesale pottery. I helped my friend carrying the lacker bowls and simple ceramic pottery for in her kitchen. Like her I have a small collection of every day use pottery from Japan, it looks so nice to have breakfast porridge in Japanese clay matching the colour of the oats.

I'll go back next week for my own shopping and then I won't forget to take a picture. :)

12 months for fanart

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 12:16:48 GMT

To the anonymous friend,

thank you, thank you so very much for your gift. I'll treasure it and share it with everyone who likes my journal too. Thank you for showing you like my notes and drawings, and thank you for generously allowing me to use a scrapbook and all those other paid only features, and thank you for being here with me. I hope you'll have a good time here, I'll try to make it so.

I wish I could have drawn you something, but I'm still in Tokyo and for the time being I lack a scanner. I'll try to arrange something, and hopefully I'll be able to share my drawings again. So please tell me your favourite character, or favourite moment from the books and with time I'll draw it for you. :)

Thank you from all my heart,

Mnem

Publication date revealed

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 06:12:23 GMT

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow's will be published on the 21th of July in English speaking countries.

You can read more about it on JK Rowling's site here

And the new witch on the calendar is Mnemona Radford, I really like her name :)

Book theory: Under the Invisibility Cloak.

Sun, 14 Jan 2007 11:36:55 GMT

A while ago I posted a theory in this journal about the Invisibility Cloak Mystery. I thought back then that perhaps Snape could have been hiding under the cloak. Since JK has informed on her website that Snape wasn't hiding under it I have worked on a new theory to find out why Albus had the cloak.

The new theory is posted at mnem_art you can follow this link.

Have a nice weekend :)

Thank you so much!!!!

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 09:10:06 GMT

How wonderful is this ? Much, much, much ♥ back to you all ^_^

Death Penalty, Voldemort and Harry.

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 17:14:11 GMT

Nobody deserves to die. I can understand why people kill and I agree sometimes there is no choice, but it is never deserved. I'm disappointed they executed Saddam. No matter what he deserved, he shouldn't have died.

I still don't understand why it's so easy if one takes a knife and cut a throat but to 'Avada Kedavra' you need to 'really want it'. I hope Harry doesn't need to kill Voldemort, just lock him in a bottle and hide it where he can't be found. He'll be sorry for being immortal.

ETA I meant 'easy to take a knife and cut deep in skin and flesh' not 'easy to kill with a knife'. Sorry if I'm not very clear on this.

When canon becomes real, at least for Harry it does.

Tue, 26 Dec 2006 14:42:17 GMT

Harry did find out who the Half Blood Prince is, the canon way.

silly hbp, large, possibly not dial up friendly

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 22:50:19 GMT

(Harry using Standard Hogwarts Writing Paper for his letter. It has a pic of the castle on the back.)

I didn't really forget this little silly series, but I hardly have time these days for drawing silly stuff.

I hope you're all well and having a good time ♥

Pour darklinn

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 21:24:43 GMT

C'etait une vraie surprise, personne m'a envoyer une carte que toi et Wacca. ♥ Merci beaucoup!!!

:P Ah, my French isn't good enough to tell you how nice it was to receive your card. I wish you strength and good luck and lot of happy moments together, both of you ;)

There's nothing like friends to keep you company, like these marauders did too. ♥

♥

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 21:24:12 GMT

It's Harry, before he turned one.
with love, for waccawheels

♥

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 20:48:15 GMT

for yukipon

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 21:02:23 GMT

♥

Human Rights for all of us.

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 19:55:28 GMT

I read the papers today, I was shocked by the murders in Ipswich. Then I read about the public humiliation of prostitutes in China and about Anan's speech and the situation in Darfur. After all these years human rights are still not a fact for everybody. ;_;

I don't celebrate christmas, but this is my contribution for the season, a burning heart full of love for you all.

Harry the Hero

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 20:22:26 GMT

I'll be in Holland again, so no new updates for a while. Sorry!

♥ I'll be back with more silly :)

ETA (just in case, that's the HBP's Potions Book he's holding.)

Sorry.

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 10:56:35 GMT

f-lOck3d 51lly.

(ps if you aren't on my friends list and would like to be added, please comment here. ♥ )

Part 2: More silly from the same batch.

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:31:15 GMT

The protagonist and what you should know about him (and he's still coming out.):

There's more to come.