The last love letter…
In 2020, the Japanese movie director, Shuji Iwate made a return with a beautiful movie, titled Last Letter. The story lines are simple, yet they give rise to a network of ideas and feelings, that make you want to look back, to view how your own life plot has converged towards the present. In a way, the movie itself is a look back into a different work of art by the same director, Love Letter (1995), that came to the theaters more than a quarter of a century ago. This is a review of both these movies, Love Letter (1995) and Last Letter (2020). Grab your coffee and follow me. Love Letter (1995) marks the filmmaking career, paving the way for later masterpieces, such as “Swallowtail Butterfly” (1996) and “All About Lily Chou-Chou” (2001). It is set up in two distant...
Read MoreKanazawa Trip, Episode 2: DT Suzuki Museum
We arrive at the Kanazawa station just before 11:00 am. The station is huge and crowded. Y. guides me towards the tourists’ corner, where they have the cultural passport that allows entrance to 17 cultural attractions, mostly museums and the one-day bus pass. We get the three-day option for the cultural passport and one day bus pass (since our hotel is nearby, we plan to come back to get a bus for the other day). The station catches my eye immediately. It is so architecturally aesthetic and well organized that it makes Tokyo station look like a total mess. Located between the sea and mountains, Kanazawa already makes it presence known by the lower temperature. It is raining. A huge glass dome, supported by wooden beams, covers the roof, protecting from the rain....
Read MoreThirteen hours by Mitchell Zuckoff, a book review
I had barely started reading Zuckoff’s, an American professor of journalism at Boston University, 13 hours, a couple of days before, but I was already about 200 pages in, it was that absorbing, when I had a video chat about it with my best friends, the brothers Xh. The book details the events of September 11th, 2012, specifically the Benghazi attack on the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens. 2012 is not that far ago, therefore I was wondering why I didn’t have any recollection of the news related to this attack. I reckon that back then I was fully absorbed in my studies as a science major and had little time or interest, to watch the news. So, I felt the need to ask them if they recalled these events. And so, we started a passionate discussion on geopolitics...
Read MoreKanazawa Trip, Episode 1: The beginning…
December 16th, 2022 08:26 We have now embarked on our journey to Kanazawa, the north-western Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. Riding on the Kagayaki Shinkansen, the fastest to cover the Tokyo-Kanazawa distance for 2h30, we left Tokyo Station around 20 minutes ago. I am told that Kagayaki translates to brilliance or radiance in English and comes from the Japanese verb Kagayaku (かがやく), meaning to shine, glitter, or sparkle. Riding on a glittering bullet train, to the city of gold. It is as good as it sounds. Me and Ms. Sugar are sitting on the 6 E and D seats. I had spent last evening reading up on the history of Kanazawa and was pleasantly surprised at the huge network of tourist attractions, including nature and museums, and how inviting the city was for the visitors....
Read MoreGoodbye Ms. H.B. and may we meet in a library in paradise!
Yesterday I was talking with my family, one of my younger sisters asked me if I had known Ms. H. B., who had been a literature teacher in my junior high school. Unfortunately, she had just passed away, while still having been an active teacher (meaning she was younger than 65). The news saddened me deeply. And the answer was, yes, I indeed had known here. My literature and Albanian language classes were in fact taught by Mr. B. B., who was Ms. H. B. husband and she had filled in for him in a couple occasions when he was absent. Having been a passionate reader even back then, I had a chance to interact with Ms. H.B., many times through asking and answering questions. I am not proud of our first interaction though, although we had laughed over the memory many years...
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