Rabbits out of a Hat

Rabbits out of a hat for May, a riff on Leonard Cohen as hatted magician while singing Hallelujah in his 2008 London concert.

Lots of luck for May.

WHITE RABBIT, WHITE RABBIT, WHITE RABBIT

White Boneless Rabbit

Featured this month are three washed white rabbits to wish you luck during April. Boneless they may be, but there is a captivating look about their fetching flopsicle auricles. 

WHITE RABBIT, WHITE RABBIT, WHITE RABBIT 

White Rabbit Dead Heat Win

You will (or maybe won't) have seen the success of the three White Rabbits representing JAPAN finishing in a DEAD HEAT at the Italian Winter Olympics. Japan is ecstatic at their sharing Gold Silver Bronze between them. Never anything like it. WHITE RABBIT WHITE RABBIT WHITE RABBIT. Let’s share in their luck as MARCH comes in like a LION.

White Rabbits taking a break

Arriving in Snow Country, the rabbits decided to do only what needed to be done and head straight on out.

So going on hiatus.Take Five? Try Take Three.

WHITE RABBIT WHITE RABBIT WHITE RABBIT.

Heading somewhere warmer.

To thaw out frozen projects.

And catch up on unanswered letters.

More from there.

White Rabbits for New Year (of the Horse)

WHITE RABBIT WHITE RABBIT WHITE RABBIT

First sunrise of the year. An auspicious dawning of January 1^st. You may very well declare that rabbits have absolutely no business riding on horses. But after staying the southern summer at the White Horse Inn (on a 1936 Broadway remake), the courageous rabbits departed singing, “The White Horse Inn, at the White Horse Inn, There's joy the whole summer through, The days fly past, you must leave at last…” (to horse-trot beats) and into a new year on energetic equines. Resolutions for 2026 will be based on actions that if we don’t take now, we never will, perhaps stopping short of joining the Légion étrangère française but maybe taking up horse riding. 

White Cushion Rabbit

Not quite a white rabbit, more like a mottled taupe lapin, but close enough for a printed cushion to carry an incantation. This outrageously dressed binocular rabbit in shades invited himself in, and has made himself at home, fortunately doesn’t eat much, sleeps on the sofa, offering services such as chair of the Christmas Decorations Committee until…  TBD. I suggested he go over to MONA in Hobart to design avant-garde installations, but he said he is currently a bit busy preparing to launch a YouTube channel as an influencer peddling a line of Rabbitwear and needs a place to stay.

White Orange Rabbit

Time for the WHITE RABBIT, WHITE RABBIT, WHITE RABBIT incantation. For white read Orange as we broomstick out of an ochre October into an amber November.

Halloween has been unavoidable manywheres recently, but I was surprised the other day by the special orange menu outside an INDIAN restaurant, Roti Boti. Curries, nans, rices – all orange. Lashings of turmeric and plenty of pumpkin evidently. The proprietor had given the rabbits a Halloween gig conditional on showing up in orange fur. Takings were apparently up, but there is uncertainty if it was the color of the curries, or the color of the rabbit chefs.
Almost tempted to upgrade to an orange phone.

White Mooncake Rabbit

It’s mooncake time when the Jade Rabbit in the moon pounds the elixir of immortality (I’m a bit keen on that). Full of ingredients like lotus seed paste, red beans, seeds, nuts, salted egg yolk. So DON’T eat three mooncakes at one sitting. Not even ONE. (They DO carry health warnings). A quadrant with a cup of tea. With friends. Oh, and incant “WHITE RABBIT” THREE TIMES first thing on 1st October (even in a scientific world, I still give a nod to my grandmother’s superstitions - just in case).

White Borneo Rabbit

WHITE RABBIT

WHITE RABBIT

WHITE RABBIT

Arriving in present day Sarawak was not quite the Borneo that Biggles flew into in a Beaufighter in WWII but still required moderate levels of planning such as digital entry card, changing flights at KL, initiating Grab for transport, securing DEET sprays for mozzies against malaria, dengue and encephelitis, and vocabulary for indigenous languages. Biggles only had headhunters to deal with.

White August Rabbit

 WHITE RABBIT
WHITE RABBIT
WHITE RABBIT

Summer looms.
Will it last until winter I wonder.
At that, I'd squawk if I could.

Auspicious meetings on summery journeys.

White Tanabata Rabbit

Tanabata, when wishes are written on strips of colored paper (tanzaku) resembling very narrow postcards. Tanabata celebrates the annual attempt for separated weaver Orihime and her cowherd husband Hikoboshi to cross the Milky Way to meet. In simpler times girls wished for better sewing skills and boys might wish for better handwriting. I guess the sewing skills wish was inspired by weaver Orihime but I am wondering how better handwriting might improve the life of cowherds like Hikoboshi." Contemporary thoughtful and odder wishes: "I wish it would never rain on Tanabata so Orihime and Hikoboshi could have more time together.” Or “I wish I had a cat the size of a horse I could ride on.”

White June Rabbit

WHITE RABBIT

WHITE RABBIT

WHITE RABBIT

It’s June in Japan,

Irises and hydrangeas.

The rainy season.

White Rabbit, Golden Week

Three white rabbits celebrating Golden Week as samurai, singer and shaman are on a quest to admire azaleas on a mountain hike. May the month of May be merry, barbecue bring briskness to our gait, and fluttering carp herald lashings of luck.

Off hiking a mountain track. The same track that Natsume Sōseki took when he was writing Grass Pillow (草枕 Kusa Makura) in 1906: “Walking up a mountain track, I fell to thinking… Approach everything rationally, and you become harsh. Pole along in the stream of emotions, and you will be swept away by the current. Give free rein to your desires, and you become uncomfortably confined. It is not a very agreeable place to live, this world of ours.”

White Rabbits Brave Blossoms

 

What have blossoms bravely blooming in the Japanese spring got to do with rugby you may ask? Well, the Japanese ruggards team is called the Brave Blossoms. It seems an unusual juxtaposition, but gets your attention. And maybe sympathy. WHITE RABBIT, WHITE RABBIT, WHITE RABBIT!

White March Hare

Usually it’s 'White Rabbit' three times for luck, but this month is for David, March Hare Extraordinaire, whose birthday is on March 1st. Hares celebrate Spring by frolicking about and a bit of boxing. Swapping rabbits for hares gives a nod to Diversity which is currently under some threat.

WHITE HARE, WHITE HARE, WHITE HARE!

White Japan February Rabbit

Feb 1-2: skiing, 

Feb 2-3: soaking off the sunburn in an onsen,

Feb 2: throwing beans so the tax office gives a refund (a setsubun invocation). 

WHITE RABBIT WHITE RABBIT WHITE RABBIT

White Rabbits facing the Year of the Snake

In 2023 the Rabbit ruled the roost, 

2025 it’s the turn of the Snake.

The rabbits now know they gotta gettalong

 with a snake in charge.

WHITE RABBIT 

WHITE RABBIT 

WHITE RABBIT

How we gonna handle this?

White December Rabbit

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WHITE RABBIT, WHITE RABBIT, WHITE RABBIT

Good luck for December projects.

After such a year, and perhaps the ones that lie ahead, 

we may as well end it with a song.

The Nenes singing Kogane no hana.

A melodic caution about travelling far away to seek gold flowers…

Listening to it I departed Koganei (a near homonym).

White Rabbits and a Cuckoo Clock

Immigration: What is your reason for visiting a small town in Germany?
Max Kitsch: A Royal Hunt for a Cuckoo Clock. And maybe throw in a nutcracker soldier and a gnome. WHITE RABBIT, WHITE RABBIT, WHITE RABBIT.
Immigration: Try the shop in the Hauptbahnhof. Same password.

Loosely following a Le Carré operation, this was a Max Kitsch cover for (1) revisiting the town he had left 250 years ago. And (2) for finding a long-lost childhood friend he never knew.

Mission Accomplished.
A suitable clock and a nutcracker were found.
The gnome refused any advances and would neither defect nor migrate.

White Origami Rabbits in a Trunk Room

Fifty boxes containing fifty years of life in Japan are stored in what’s locally known as a “trunk room” (トランクルーム).

Held there until the future becomes less fuzzy.

Or until the third act begins.

The rabbits are busy now. 

Homeless for a while thereafter.

WHITE RABBIT WHITE RABBIT WHITE RABBIT