Tag Archives: Departures

Something Different

Weather in the Tries:
Oh my goodness gracious sakes alive! The highs this coming week, according to my phone, are all in the 80s! With the night lows dipping as low as 59, but most at 60. In other words, we have reached perfection! 

Something Different:
I figured y’all were probably not looking forward to any more one-legged happy dances, besides which I overdid it this last week, and I’m doing my Happy Dance sitting in my chair. You know, waving my arms. Oh, sigh, at my age, one would think I’d know better. I don’t. But I do get my stitches out in a couple hours;-)

I’ve spent the last few days at my computer, wondering what to write about besides my personal happies or woes, and it wasn’t until last night that I saw the most fascinating video on YouTube that it dawned on me. So, yes, a shorter blog, but a longer video. It’s something like 28 minutes long, but I was spell bound the whole time, and hope you are equally fascinated by “the process of making a cello. A high-end Japanese cello crafted by one artisan in six months.”

One of my all-time favorite movies is Departures. It’s a delightful Japanese romcom about a young man who buys an expensive cello and then learns the orchestra in which he plays is being disbanded. He and his wife move back to his hometown and his late mother’s tea shop. He answers an ad for a job for ‘departures’ thinking it’s with a travel agency or travel-related job. He shows up, and is hired on the spot, and it’s for a mortuary, the ad had a typo—it should have read ‘departed’. If you don’t know, Asians have a real phobia of touching/dealing with corpses. (I saw an interview of the ME of a large and populous county in Florida (Dade?). She was Asian (Chinese?) and when asked how her family accepted her profession, she laughed and said they didn’t know. They thought she was a practicing physician. Fortunately, she said, they lived in Canada and didn’t watch American tv.

Back to the movie, if you like cello music, you really ought to look for it. As of this writing, I think YouTube is streaming it as well as Apple TV. Possibly other places. However, if you would like to see how cellos are made, clickhere.

Photos of the Week:
Watch the video. Pour a cuppa, settle in, and watch.

from the desk of the ferocious guard dog;
I don’t understand you humans. you sit around watching a screen all day, and if you were outside, you could watch birds and squirrels, and if you got your nose closer to the ground you could smell the most delightful messages from other dogs. my human doesn’t even walk right. she needs to get down on all fours and have fun.

Make America Laugh Again!