Zen Monday: #169

Zen Monday's the day you experience the photo and give us your thoughts rather than me telling you what I think the photo's about. There's no competition, no right or wrong. Let your imagination dictate. We're here to have fun.

I look for a photo worth contemplating or, failing that, something odd or silly. Unless I absolutely must say something I stay out of the comments box to avoid influencing the discussion. However, I'm feeling more and more relaxed about that self-imposed rule.

Grand Mosaic

This is  one of those things where if you know it's there it's no surprise, but if you don't, when you come upon it it's somehow incongruous.

I was of the latter persuasion, coming upon this and thinking, well, a modern tile mosaic is the last thing I expected above the entrance to underground parking.

I should make you guess where this is.

Maybe you already know?

It's at the north end of South Grand Avenue--the last building before the Colorado Street Bridge. It's nice to park there (on the street) and walk out onto the bridge for spectacular views and, right about now, some bracing wind. You can stop in the driveway for a bit of erudition on the way back to your car.

Mount Hillyer

I want to show you a little window onto some of the scenery we saw on our Thursday hike at Mount Hillyer. What you're looking at is a little window between giant boulders. The window looks out across a canyon to the western mountains beyond.

But what I most want to show you is that spot of blue sky in the upper left. This photo is untouched. I didn't do anything to it. No sharpening, no nothing.

That spot of blue looks fake. Maybe because in town we're not used to seeing what color the sky really is, or maybe we just don't look, or maybe my camera doesn't work!

Links:
Dan's hiking pages
LocalHikes

Ryoko's Fans

in the sound booth at Bell Sound Studios, Hollywood

In the late 1990's I had a great voice acting gig playing a sexy space pirate. Ryoko was a serious warrior and a desperate lover. She could walk through walls and fly. She was silly, funny, romantic and fierce. One doesn't get a role like that every day. (If one did, one might wear out much too young.)

When I first accepted the part I had no idea the English dub of the anime series Tenchi Muyo!, of which Ryoko was a part, would become a cult classic, or that I'd still be getting fan mail 15 years later. "Tenchi" has a devoted fan base (many of whom hail from Ohio and/or the UK--why is that?) and the fans have been gracious and friendly over the years. They're my Facebook friends, my Twitter followers, my pen pals. And they know a lot more about Tenchi and Ryoko than I do.

On November 13th, I'll be appearing on a panel called The Ladies of Tenchi Muyo at Pacific Media Expo at the LAX Hilton. It's a reunion of sorts, although we "ladies" never actually recorded together in the sound booth. We voiced our parts separately and the engineers mixed us in post-production, like producers do with music tracks. But we acted together nonetheless. I always hoped the voices of the other actors would be recorded before I came to record mine. I considered myself lucky when I had their tracks to act with.

I could be wrong but it seems lately there's been a resurgence of interest in Tenchi Muyo. Just last week I recorded an interview for the online radio station 91.8TheFan. (The interview's not online yet. I'll let you know.)

If I were Brad Pitt or Lady Gaga I might get tired of fans, but mine don't count up into the millions and they're mostly not nuts or intrusive or rude. They're nice people who, in their youths, loved an anime cartoon and the character I played. Some of them tell me they chose careers in anime or voice-over because of it. What an honor it is to hear from them, and to know something I did was meaningful in their lives.

I wish I could send them all round trip plane tickets from Ohio and/or the UK.

Ten

John and I like to take road trips together. We like discoveries, seeing things we haven't seen before, getting onto the backroads. There's something about the road itself--movement, quiet, scenery (beautiful or boring)--that cocoons us in the car, encourages conversation and takes us out of our everyday. The road, for us, is togetherness.

We've taken trips that last several weeks or a single day. Some of them blend together in memory. That's because they've all been so good.

There's a reason the word "milestone" is used to mark an important moment in time. A ten year anniversary is far, yet not such a long way yet. It's all been so good.

Zen Wednesday: #2

It's only happened once before. Zen Wednesday. Today we make history.

I think today I won't explain. I'll let you explain.

Theme Day: Fences

The first of the month is our City Daily Photo theme day, and this time it's "fences."

I thought I'd get creative and run by the pawn shop, but ours is a venerated business in a historic building (not exactly a fence). Perhaps I'd locate some skilled athletes and photograph them with their epees. Nevermind. I got caught up in the Halloween rush.

So here's a fence. It's even a little spooky.

I got so caught up in the rush, in fact, that I forgot Halloween was Zen Monday and here it is Tuesday and we're having theme day. So tomorrow will be a historic Zen Wednesday, the second one in PDP history. (The first was in June of last year.)

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