I look out
find neither flowers nor crimson leaves
An autumn evening in my hut on the shore*
見渡せば
花も紅葉も
なかりけり
浦の苫屋の
秋の夕ぐれ
*some license taken here with this translation but I like it
From a set of poems edited/written by Fujiwara no Teika
He is describing deep autumn, nearly winter. The time when the leaves have fallen and the blooms have blown off their stems.
What is his hut like? It’s empty in the poem, leaving you to fill it however you want. Some days I can imagine a warm fire. The smell of bread baking on the hearth. Pans and ladles perhaps clanging slightly as they sway where they are hung. The thought of fresh, warm bread brings a flush of sanguine to his cheeks.
Other days the hut is empty. A straw bed. A blanket. Smoke snakes up from an old fire. And the man sits cross legged. Motionless. Observing nature from his stoop.
Where is his shore? Is it a small lake in the mountains of Japan? The trees reflecting in the water, watching ripples? Or is it a metaphorical shore? The shores of the universe, vast, glistening in the distance. Empty yet full. Stars bursting open like buds, rippling out in time and space. Stars collapsing like leaves falling off a tree.
My hut is full of books. Cold and musty today. The dog sleeps next to the heater I keep near my desk. It vibrates with electricity, a low hum behind me. The glow of the computer screens are blue and fill the room with artificial light. I will make bread today. Potato-leek soup. I will fill the hut with warmth.
My neighborhood is my lake. It is grey and quiet today. One tree holds on to its rust colored leaves. A Golden-crowned sparrow sings his plaintive song, three thin whistles, two in A, one in G.
You could write a thousand books on huts and lakes. Different days of the year. Different moods. Different men doing things in their hut. Different things for them to see as they look out on the shores of their lake.
Lovely post.
I’ve always been fascinated by Japanese culture, partly due to its paradoxes. It takes an apprentice, years, decades sometimes to create the little delicacies of raw fish and become a true sushi master. It’s delicacy in verse, the artful presentation of food, the tea ceremony, all contrast starkly with its cruel, violent and imperial martial past.
A culture of such discipline and social order that it rose out of the literal ashes of the atomic age to become the world’s 2nd largest economy for 30 odd years before the rise of China.
My hut is sometimes full of wonder for other people and their cultural. When I’m not blasting it at eleven to make the walls shake, I mean.
Thanks for a lovely piece of stillness and reflection. Excuse a pale imitation in reply:
From the hut the lake
stretches to the horizon
thoughts carry beyond
it’s good dude!
Thanks! And let’s give Arteta our full support beyond the near horizon!
Everytime I visit this site
I get what I need.
Incredible!
Great post Tim. Thanks
I know that sometimes you like to get away from football but I think its worthwhile to compare Arteta to Klopp who many of us believe is one of the best managers in the world. In Klopp’s first season in Liverpool he finished 8th and his team only score 63 and they conceded 50 goals. They were not a very effective attacking team and they were a poor defensive team that season. The season before Klopp arrived Liverpool finished 6th so you could argue they actually regressed his first season. Liverpool did not win any trophies in his first 3 seasons. Arteta on the other hand in his first 1/2 season took a squad that was in the bottom half of the table and falling quickly and significantly improved the defense and somehow rescued European football.
The point of is even one of the worlds best managers could not instantly improve the Liverpool team that had poorly constructed squad. Klopp had to almost completely rebuild the squad and arteta is facing the same problem. Like it or not we are at best a mid table squad and with Auba struggling we are not even mid table level in terms of talent. IMO Arteta has done a wonderful job of organizing the team and making it tougher to beat and at least making us a competitive team. I am not suggesting I believe Arteta is going to morph into one of the worlds best managers but his tactical options and his ability to consistently win games is limited but the players he has available. He has a room full of assistant coaches and thousands of hours of film and I am sure he and his staff see and understand the same concerns we have and they have thought endlessly about things they could change that might fix some of those problems but its going to take time and the squad needs to be rebuilt. The bottom line is Arteta did very well last year given his limitations and I think we need to give him the benefit of the doubt and more time.
This week I’m going to make a ham and cheese sandwich. I think the bun will be a pretzel roll.
+1. Absolutely perfect.
My lake is the broad swath of America that loves carefree independence.
No right. No wrong. No truth. No responsibility.
You can have it all and nothing.
A hungry wolf circles my hut…our huts. No one attempts to foil his approach.
Thoughts will carry us all beyond its reach. Eventually.
This is great.
One of things I miss about moving back to the Caribbean is seasonal demarcations. Rainy season and dry season x2 is not quite the same thing. Fall/autumn is my favourite season, but I like the early part round late September/early October, where, if you live in London, you can get 4 seasons in 1 day. Barbeques. Light sweaters. Patio heaters some days. Visibly shortening days. The disappearance of flip flops and gnarly, untreated feet.
But there’s something magnificent about late autumn as well, as Thanksgiving shades into Christmas, and the coats get progressively thicker. Traveled a lot, but it’s a source of regret that I’ve never seen a New England Fall (only deep, slushy winters).
After we have turned the tables on COVID, you simply HAVE to take in a fall near Mystic, CT (or West Point), when the change catches and, all of a sudden, a cool inferno engulfs all the trees seemingly out of nowhere.
With a thermos of mulled wine and a light bag of sticks (inside nine course)…it’s the best.
Noted, pal.
Into the Spiderverse
Miles swings once more
While colour bursts out
From his hut on the shore
I want take-out
find neither banh mi nor General Tso’s
An autumn evening with Pizza Hut at my door
Klopp had tons of money to spend on players as he was able to sell players like Suarez and Countinho for large and obscene sums of money.
We will never have that amount and one would be concerned as to, even if we did, the past experience with players like Pepe indicates that it would not be money well spent.
One of the gems in Wenger’s cap was his ability to find players and turn them into stars.
We now simply seem to be buying players from certain agents not because they are necessarily good or have good potential, but simply because of the influence those agents have on the club hierarchy
So, we cannot look at Klopp and what he has achieved because our situation is different.
What we do have, which Klopp did not have is a good number of youngsters coming from our Academy who can developer into stars if he can also develop away to enhance their progress.
That is what I feel Arteta needs to work on.
Pedantic, yes, but you wear a feather in your cap. Wenger wore the crown
What a blog!!!!!!!
I go for the hut and the horizon, but they are not within my reach.
What a wonderful blog you have. Thank you for sharing.
In thoughtful shadow,
His gaze distant o’er the field
Mikel Arteta
Apologies for dragging in the Arsenal content. Like others, I appreciate your divergences as much as I do your insights.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jul/19/the-pretenders-hate-for-sale-review-every-song-could-be-a-single
Great stuff from one of my favorite people, Chrissie Hynde, who is as relevant and talented as ever after 40+ years. Bonus! Our mutual friend James, joined the band for these sessions and absolutely f$%king shreds it, track to track.
If you loved New Wave / Punk from back in the day, it really doesn’t get better than this. Enjoy and spread the word. And yes, Chrissie is a Gooner.
Great post i must say, the prose of your writing is poetic with all the elements of a poem. Its cuptivating and almost one can read it again and again between the lines to understand.
Its why i love your blog. The different perspectives sends shivers down the spine. I love your writings.
JJGSOL
I think you are correct. Klopp was able to sell Suarez, Sterling and Coutinho for huge amounts of money which helped him to rebuild his squad much more quickly. The whole point is even Klopp who most of us consider one of the worlds best managers couldn’t turn around Liverpool with the squad he inherited. It took him a few years and he had to sell several big players to fund the rebuilding project. The squad Arteta inherited is as bad or worse then the one Klopp inherited and we don’t have any players comparable to Sterling, suarez and Coutinho that we can sell for big money. I understand some of the concerns i and sure Arteta has seen the same things we have but he isn’t a miracle anymore the Klopp or any other manager and there is only so much he can do with the players he has. The whole point is I think we are being far to harsh to Arteta and we can’t reasonably expect him or any manager to instantly turn a squad with mid table talent into one which can compete for the top 4
Klopp inherited a 6th place team and turned them into an 8th place team in his first full season. Arteta took over a team that was in the bottom half of the table and was falling fast and we have no real high value sellable assets so in reality he has even less to work with then Klopp did. Its going to take time and there will probably be a few missteps before we can rebuild a squad to play the way we want and compete for the top 4.
Thanks for the tranquility in a timenof such distress. Always a treat to read your non,football prose.