The Imaginatorium
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The Imaginatorium is Brian Chandler's personal collection of bits and pieces: it is always a "work in progress", though often not much work is done, and even less progress made.
Earthquake
(12 October 2011) Thanks to everyone for the messages. We are all OK mdash; the really terrible losses are all further north, in Miyagi and Iwate, mostly from tsunami, fire and landslides.
As it happens, I was on my way to Tokyo in a bus with two sopranos and two pianists, for a practice session with a tenor when the earthquakes struck. We barely felt the first big shock (magnitude 8.9), but by the one following (magnitude 7-something) the had stopped on a high section of viaduct which was swaying quite alarmingly. From that point on the entire transport system of Tokyo froze: we arrived at the practice studio, eventually the tenor turned up on a bicyle, and we had our session. The streets were full of people waiting and walking, which we did too, spent the night camped in the lobby of an understanding but full hotel, and eventually made it back to Sano by two o'clock in the afternoon of the following day (today).
The effects were worse in Sano than in Tokyo: a 5+ rating on the Japanese shindo scale, which measures the local amount of shaking, rather than the total amount of energy released (the "Richter" magnitude). Keiko and Aki were in the car, but came home to find various objects had jumped across the room but no no real breakages. People who were at home say it was the worst quake they remember. And the power went off, until 8:30 this morning. Now we have been without water for several hours, but it is gradually returning.
The delays to trains in Tokyo were certainly worse than anything I remember. And the sight of what may have been a million people in total determinedly walking home was certainly memorable. So we have been affected, though I don't expect any effect on the puzzle shop at all.
Our thoughts go out to those who have family and friends lost or missing.
Spring cleaning! (April 2004)
At long last I've got around to tidying up some of the loose ends around this site. And even added the first new page (outside the shop) for nearly two years. Among other things, as current spam levels are becoming unbearable, I'm replacing the old email links with a web form contact page.
Meanwhile, I found some old things in the attic: Look, you can see the old front page (only dead links removed). This might explain the really old front page at Yomogi.
Imaginatorium Site Map - complete contents
Music: Oyama Monogatari - original opera rehearsal photos (May 2004)
Music: Iwafune - the musical! (December 2003)
(Continued below)
Shop
Shop front -
Full index and links page -
Browse thumbnails and order -
FAQ
Sano Gallery
Where is Sano? -
Weather -
Snapshot gallery -
Huh? -
Planning, absence of
Don't miss: Walls ("...the very best site about walls that I've ever visited." - Dan Dumas)
Plant-Watcher's Page
How a paddy-field works -
Ginkgo -
Tochi (our "prefectural tree") -
Higanbana -
and many other trees and flowers on the edge of the Kanto Plain...
Photography
More photographs, calculators and other stuff about photography
Don't miss: Tiling photos
Brian's Bookshelf
Science and Maths -
Nature -
Photography amp; Light -
Music -
Words -
This amp; That
Don't miss: Top Ten science books everyone should read -
Music by numbers -
Maps and projections -
Plus: Ordering from amazon.co.jp
Miscellaneous
Brian Chandler translations (extremely fragmentary!)
Family page
Squibs - Don't miss:
The Great Muffin Mystery -
Qualia! (problem solved)
Italian in Japanese - reference material to help Japanese speakers get around the words of Italian opera. You need Japanese language support to read the pages, but might find it interesting how one can gloss Italian into Japanese by writing "backwards."
Brian's back door - the even more disorganised "unofficial" bits
And finally, my digital image gallery ... The Artofar-
Torium
Guest Pages: Ado Atelier
Adriana Kikuchi hails from Brazil and teaches art to kids in Sano.
Honyaku archives
Text archives of the Honyaku mailing list for discussion of translation between Japanese and English
Mildred sitting on Lucy
News corner!
Sorry: no news at present. Lucy's happy event was a couple of summers ago now.
August 16th - Lucy leaves home! A couple of weeks ago, we realised that Mildred, who is a pigeon, had built her nest right at eye level in the little maple tree in front of our house. With amazing speed, she laid an egg, Lucy hatched from it, and in about ten days turned from a tiny ball of fluff into a crop-eating device, and left us. In the photo she was about three days old.
After the Imaginatorium
Absolutely the best next website: Grand Illusions
Feedback
Is very welcome! Please use the contact page.
More contact info
Japanese
You will need Japanese support on your browser to read the Japanese pages. There is no guarantee whatsoever that the Japanese version says the same thing as the English version.
New Guestbook (August 2002)
History: Japanese jigsaw puzzle manufacturers (August 2002)
Plant-Watcher: How a paddy-field works (July 2002)
Guest pages: Ado Atelier Collected works of Adriana Kikuchi's students (July 2002)
Imaginatorium Shop opens: 1000-piece scenic puzzles (15 April 2002)
Sano Gallery: Pipes - photos (April 2002)
Sano Gallery: Not walls! - and the Venetorium (March 2002)
Sano Gallery: Walls - completed at last (March 2002)
Top Ten science books everyone should read (March 2002)
Squib: Emperor of China's Nose - method of high precision measurement (January 2002)
Music by numbers - how scales are made: books and stuff, including semitone calculator (completed December 2001)
Painting the sun red - talking about culture (November 2001)
Plant-Watcher: Hanadaikon, Orychophragmus violaceus (November 2001)
Huh? - photographs for fun and puzzlement (October 2001)
No descenders, thanks - we're Japanese! (October 2001)
Photography: Lens angle calculator (October 2001)
Books: Photography and Light (October 2001)
Photography: Adjusting exposure - calculator for teleconverters and extension tubes (Interim: June 2001)
Comments on September 11, 2001
Photography - new index page (September 2001)
Music: Cos iacute; fan tutte in Italian (July 2001)
Philosophy: Qualia! - a longstanding problem solved (July 2001)
Books: Buying from Amazon.co.jp (June 2001)
Photography: Focus - interpolating the lens scale (June 2001)
Photography: How many stops? - exposure comparison calculator (June 2001)
Maps and things - the Peters projection (May 2001)
Sano Gallery: Snow! (January 2001)
Music: Carmen in Oyama (May 2000!!)
Plant-Watcher: Ginkgo, "living fossil" (January 2001)
Sano Gallery: Olde Photos (December 2000)
Make your own lens - the Chandlor 95mm f/2 (December 2000)
"Stuff" page revamped- now a Site map! (December 2000)
Plant-Watcher: Megi, Berberis thunbergii (November 2000)
Webotorium opens with photo tiles (November 2000)
Plant-Watcher: Biwa, the loquat (November 2000)
Plant-Watcher: Tochi-no-ki, horse chestnut (November 2000)
Photos: List of Photoforum submissions (October 2000)
Sano Gallery: What is a glum lion to do? (October 2000)
What is a "close-up filter"? (October 2000)
Diary jottings - Philip Greenspun talks in Tokyo (October 2000)
The Great Muffin Mystery (October 2000)
Impressions of England and Wales, 2000 (September 2000)
Plant-Watcher: Higanbana (New photos - September 2000)
Plant-Watcher: Goldenrod vs. Susuki (September 2000)
The Real Truth about the millennium
Click the button for the month in which
you think the third millennium started.
copy; Brian Chandler 1999-2999 (Copyleft) -
Updated from time to time - Almost
WDG validated