Mistaken identity

The feudal lord Orochimaru mistakenly thinks the man in kimono is a master strategist, Hojo. But the gardener had just been trying on Hojo’s kimono.

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Orochimaru: Do you think we can attack by retreating?

[Long pause, sound of cicadas]

Gardener as Hojo: As long as the roots are not cut, everything is OK. And everything will be OK in the garden.

Orochimaru: In the garden.

Gardener as Hojo: Yes. In the garden, growth has a cycle. First there is spring and then summer,and then fall and then winter. After that, spring and summer come again.

Orochimaru: Spring and summer.

Gardener as Hojo: Yes.

Orochimaru: Then fall and winter. So we should retreat?

Gardener as Hojo: Yes.

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Greeting cards

Kenneth, a lawyer working on carbon agreements, shares a weariness of festive cards with Kumiko who has been interpreting for the American team.

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Kenneth: Americans send a Christmas card. Usually it’s got a bunch of deer pulling a fat man in red. Same every year.

Kumiko: We send cards too. Same every year.

Kenneth: But you change the animal. What’s next year?

Kumiko: Rat. Year of the rat.

Kenneth: Auspicious?

Kumiko: For rats, maybe. They might get a little more protection than usual.

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Kamishibai remix

Atsuko borrows some techniques of kamishibai for an audition.

Oliver: Why is she moving back and forth?

Ned: Well, first she speaks one part and then she speaks the other.

Oliver: She’s telling a story?

Ned: Through dialogue, yes.

Oliver: And pictures too.

Ned: It almost looks like she has done a remix, putting together a ventriloquist act with kamishibai.

Oliver: Kamishibai?

Ned: A story told using pictures and a frame.

Oliver: Refreshing change from the gravity of Gore, but she could use a little coaching on voices and maybe a couple more pictures.

Atsuko's performance here>

Rounding

Frida is complaining to Inga about her being taken for someone older than she actually is.

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Frida: I’m going to the movies with my daughter and she says this is my mother, she is 60 so she should get a half price ticket.

Inga: But you’re only 59.

Frida: I know, but she’s getting the tickets and after we are inside I say, “I’m not 60 yet. Why do you always round up my age?” And she says it’s easier or something.

Inga: My daughter did the same but much worse. When I was 58 she rounded me up to 60. Swedish rounding.

Frida: Well, in that case you can stay 60 until you turn 63.

Inga: Sure, then in one day I jump to 65.

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Fearless Mouse

William S. and Christopher M. discuss science at the Globe.

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William: Forsooth, did you mark where the Royal Physician disabled fear in a mouse?

Christopher: I did, though methinks it was not too taxing though, was not all he did was to stuff the mouse’s snout with balm?

William: Simple words make ornamental sentences. Simple science can spark an invention. What if we were able to modify human behavior through the sweets that grocers sell?

Christopher: William, you lag. They do it already. My humours stay balanced by imbibing nightshade, and my doctor, his name is Faust, believe you not, he stopped his age at three score by taking dried toad, sage and vinegar. Old Nick is unsatisfied yet.

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Acknowledgements

At ballet class on Thursday, Aaron mentions to Mason that he has a final page of his book to write.

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Aaron: I have to write an acknowledgements page.

Mason: Acknowledgements? They’re usually pretty perfunctory. Thanks to everyone who pitched in. It’s a place to thank your mother for all her cooking.

Aaron: Well the grant has to be acknowledged.

Mason: So it has to be academic? Thanks are due to the corporation for their money.

Aaron: Warmly academic. Not coldly academic. I was really appreciative of their help. I also wanted to thank people by describing how they helped.

Mason: Okay, so gush, be effusive. If you want to be really appreciative and hi-tech, you can hyperlink to the websites of the people who helped.

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Shoulder pain

Assistant sees Pythagoras leaning on an angle and walking slowly and diagonally.

Assistant: Master, what’s wrong?

Pythagoras: This shoulder pain. All last night I was proofing right angles. Leaning to one side.

Assistant: Master. I know a good doctor called Hippocrates. He will put your humors in balance.

Pythagoras. I don’t need that Hippocrates and his humors. I’m waiting for Leonardo. Meantime, I need some Counterpain. Run out and get some me some from the pain shop. There’s a good lad. Here’s two drachma.

The origin of proofreading

Pythagoras is wrestling with his theorem of ultimate reality. A bright young assistant offers his services as “proofreader”.

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Assistant: Can I proofread it for you, Master?

Pythagoras: Well, you could pick up the obvious stuff like spelling errors, grammar errors, leaps of logic, inconsistencies in style and presentation.

Assistant: I can do all that.

Pythagoras: But can you see inside my head? The things I really should add. Or, the things I don’t think I want left in the text?

Assistant: Both of us should work on it. You’ll miss what the reader will see and I’ll miss what you think the reader should see.

Pythagoras: OK. Bring me the red pens, the blue pens, the white correcting fluid, and a couple of rulers. Let the reading of the proof, the "perfect" number, 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10, hereby begin.
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The sound of air hissing out

Oliver is thinking of submitting a short film for the “Filmed by Bike” festival to be held in Portland, April 2008.

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Oliver: It’s only short films, six to ten minutes, see, so I just thought up this scenario.

Ned: Tell.

Oliver: This actually happened to me. I’m riding my bicycle through the forest and I’m saying to myself be careful of the tree roots because if you hit one you’ll get a puncture and you have no repair kit.

Ned: No repair kit.

Oliver: And I’m humming along and suddenly there’s a bump and I say “Steady on” and then there’s this SSSSS – sound. “Darn it.” I’m just thinking about getting a punk and damn me if doesn’t actually happen there and then.

Ned: Power of positive thinking? Visualizing your goals?

Oliver: I jump off and look down and there’s this leaf caught between the brake and the tire whizzing round is making the SSSSSS –sound.

Ned: And you want to make a film of this?

Oliver: What do you think?

Ned: Ten seconds long should be plenty.

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Time to say goodbye

Rajiv is leaving after 20 years in Islamabad and runs across his old friend Gurmeet who still works as a border guard.

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Rajiv: Haven’t seen you for …

Gurmeet: Ten years?

Rajiv: No, more. Sixteen, seventeen, I would think. 1990.

Gurmeet: Do you ever see Manendra?

Rajiv: No, I’ve been remiss. He went away and I lost his number and didn’t chase him up.

Gurmeet: And how about Vijay?

Rajiv: Well I heard he got sick. And nobody has actually seen him for, oh six or seven years. Tell me, you don’t ever see Osama do you?

Gurmeet: Oh he comes through here time to time. But you’d never guess it was him.

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Mercury amalgam

Jack visits a new dentist.

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Dentist: Open wide. That’s it. Ooh.

Jack: Huh?

Dentist: You have quite a few older fillings.

Jack: Splutter.

Dentist: Those older ones are amalgam. Mercury. You suffer from headaches?

Jack: Eerh.

Dentist: I suggest we take out the old mercury amalgam fillings and replace them with newer non-toxic fillings.

Jack: aah..cost?

Dentist: Don’t think about the cost. Think about how good you’ll feel without headaches. You want to lower the risk of Alzheimer’s, don’t you? You really want a headful of mercury?

Jack: Aaaah?

Dentist: I thought so. Let’s get to work. Nurse!

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Stroop test (not) in Russian?

Anna is showing her friends a test using her new MIG computer. Olya takes the test.

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Anna: Read the colors.

Olya: But they’re not Russian. They look like English words.

Anna: That doesn’t matter. Don't read the words, instead say the color each word is displayed in, as quickly as you can.

Olya: красно, голубо, пурпурово, желто, пурпурово, красно

Anna: Perfect score.

Olya: But what does it mean?

Anna: You are highly intelligent and have no signs of schizophrenia nor anorexia.

Olya: But I can’t read English.

Anna: Oh, that doesn’t matter, this is a color test.

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Dieting by diversion

Janet and Gladys are in a meeting. Both sometimes worry about getting overweight. Janet shows Gladys the story about Nancy Makin.

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Janet: Did you see this article about the woman who lost weight without even trying? Went down from 500 pounds to 170?

Gladys: I saw the story yesterday. And didn’t go outside for twelve years!

Janet: And then got help by chatting anonymously online.

Gladys: So the Internet helped. People communicated with her because of what she wrote, not because of what she looked like.

Janet: The bit I liked was that as a result she didn’t diet, or have surgery, or take medication to slim down. She did something else and she forgot about binge eating.

Gladys: Like the best way to get what you want is to help someone else get what they want.

Janet: Not quite the same. Maybe a closer analogy is to get better at another language by studying something else in that language.

How to block a coastal wind farm

Over lunch, Gustav, an engineer working with a wind farm corporation, gives Heinrich the background on the blocking of a coastal wind farm.

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Gustav: We can’t get government approval. The energy minister has a house on the coast overlooking the site. At four miles offshore the turbines will be half a degree above the horizon, which he has said privately will interfere with his view.

Heinrich: So he blocked it?

Gustav: Not directly. Naturally, he doesn’t want to be seen to be anti-clean energy. But he’s matey with the defence minister. So a month back the defence minister forces through a bit of legislation…

Heinrich: In the name of national security, right?

Gustav: Of course. The legislation is nonsense, naturally. All wind farm projects have to go through a long checking procedure to ensure that they don’t interfere with radar.

Heinrich: Wind interferes with radar?

Gustav: That’s just step one. Then he gets the transport minister to add another proposal that no wind farm can be less than five miles from any shipping lanes. That will add years to the approval process.

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Black art

David and Estella must make a presentation for a new office interior. Unlike Steve Jobs, they don’t have two months to practise. Presentation is scheduled for Monday morning and this is Saturday afternoon. They call in Yimou of NQOP.

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Yimou: You want this contract?

David: We need it to stay in business.

Yimou: Then you should make a DVD for this presentation. Show them and then give them a copy to take away.

Estella: Why not PowerPoint?

Yimou: Too canned-looking. It’s got to be a movie now with 3D walk-through shots to get attention.

David: Video editing and then burning the result to a DVD? Used to be called a black art. I once took a week to shoot and edit and finally get the results on a 15 minute short film.

Yimou: 15 minutes? Too long for a short film. Especially yours. Ten’s plenty. You can learn iMovie and iDVD in a day. Start at 10 and by 4 have the essentials.

David: Too busy.

Yimou: OK, if you’re too busy, I’ll do it. Got a spiel?

Estella: Here.

Yimou: Hmm. Filming tomorrow, I can edit and burn between dinner and lights out tomorrow night.

...