boston cream puff

Margherita Canzoneri Fusillo 1902-2008

2008-03-23T22:33:00.002-04:00

survey

2007-11-25T12:40:00.003-05:00

Hi all,

I don't know if anyone is stopping by here any more, but if you do, I would like to urge you to take a simple survey designed to understand the triggers that get people to do eco-friendly activities. My friend Antonia designed it and the company hosting the survey has donated their time and resources since this is very important. I've added the full text of her letter below:

I am writing to ask you to participate in a research initiative. This initiative is designed to gain an in-depth understanding of the attitudes and emotional triggers that encourage or prevent ecologically-friendly activities. In order to achieve this objective, I would like you and your students to answer a few questions in an online interview. To thank you for your participation, I will share the results of the research with you when they become available.

The interview will be conducted using a unique conversational simulator designed by Quester, a linguistics-based research and technology company. The program, known as Socrates, creates an interview unlike any other that you may have experienced in the past. It works like an internet chat: it will pose a topic to which you may type as short or long a response as you like. Socrates then will follow up on your response in order to obtain a deeper understanding of your comments.

The conversation will take 20 to 25 minutes, depending on your input. Your responses will remain anonymous and the data will be analyzed in aggregate. Although a series of demographic questions are included at the end of the interview, these questions are for segmentation purposes and, as with all the data, will remain completely anonymous.

Following the demographic questions, there are additional questions intended to explore the relationship between religious beliefs, political stance, and attitudes toward the environment. These questions are optional, but I encourage you to share your thoughts on these issues as well.

To participate in the interview, please visit www.SocratesInsights.com and enter in the following Login and Password:

Login: DrewU
Password: Conference

Thank you in advance for sharing your thoughts in this important study. I value your input and greatly appreciate your participation. If you would like copies of the research results, please send your contact information to me at the below e-mail address.

Sincerely,

Antonia Gorman
Doctoral Candidate
Dept. of Theological and Philosophical Studies

2007-07-13T22:28:00.001-04:00

See -- who is this guy? He doesn't look like any protective deity I've seen in Japan before.

2007-07-13T22:27:00.001-04:00

A house on the street I use to get to the supermarket. I'm intrigued by the statues.

2007-07-13T22:26:00.003-04:00

A tea house on the grounds of the temple.

2007-07-13T22:26:00.001-04:00

The temple gardens at night.

2007-07-13T22:25:00.003-04:00

Me and prayer wheels.

2007-07-13T22:24:00.001-04:00

That's Kiyomizudera, a beautiful, old, famous temple, in the distance.

2007-07-13T22:23:00.001-04:00

Prayer wheels! I didn't know they had these in Japan; they're usually part of Tibetan Buddhism.

2007-07-13T22:22:00.001-04:00

Wishes in the dark.

2007-07-13T22:21:00.001-04:00

Two women taking pictures of each other with their digital cameras.

2007-07-13T22:19:00.001-04:00

Me and some wishes. I wished for world peace, and food, clean water and health care for all, as well as health and happiness for my friends and family. I pretty much have everything I want. Except a better digital camera. And a portable scanner. And noise-cancelling headphones. And a fondue set.

2007-07-13T22:18:00.001-04:00

People and their wishes.

2007-07-13T22:17:00.001-04:00

Here's Anna, my roommate, in front of a tree with wishes tied on the branches. She used to date a guy named Ben, but they broke up. It was a Ben-Anna split.

Anyway, we're at Kodaiji, a Zen temple near the Yasaka shrine. They light up the temple and the gardens at night on this one night.

2007-07-13T22:15:00.001-04:00

Kids today with their sitting around on blue tarps, and their wearing yukata (cotton kimonos) and their drinking copious amounts of beer and getting noisy. We didn't do that stuff (at least the first two) when *I* was in college...

The Inari photos and this are from the Yasaka shrine, in the Gion district, on the night of Tanabata, when the weaving maiden star meets the cowherd star in the sky. If you make a wish on that night, it comes true, they say.

2007-07-13T22:13:00.001-04:00

This is an altar for candles and other offerings to Inari. Note the onion shape -- it's the curved jewel you find on the top of the fox's tail. The two little glasses are one-serving glasses of bad-quality sake that you can buy really cheaply.

2007-07-13T22:12:00.001-04:00

More of Inari and his/her fox messengers. Note the mirror in the center; this is the main object of worship and it's rare to see it out like that.

2007-07-13T22:10:00.001-04:00

Here are some people on its banks. On the left you can see fenced-in platforms -- these are the patios of restaurants. You can look out on the river at night while you eat. I've never tried one of these places (they're expensive) but I bet it's nice.

2007-07-13T22:08:00.001-04:00

This is one of Kyoto's two big rivers.

2007-07-03T20:28:00.001-04:00

A nice group photo. I don't know why the English name is Pizza Ball house.

2007-07-03T20:27:00.001-04:00

Here we are trying to turn them in their little cooking holes.

2007-07-03T20:25:00.001-04:00

After the temple, we went to a make-your-own takoyaki restaurant and met another friend of Lori's and Ms Yoshimura's. There are lots of scallions, as you can tell. They pour batter over this.

2007-07-03T20:24:00.001-04:00

Lori and Yoshimura-san praying.

2007-07-03T20:23:00.001-04:00

Lots of stairs.

2007-07-03T20:20:00.000-04:00

Many, many darumas. All of them have both the eyes painted in. You paint in one eye when you make a vow or a wish and the when it's fulfilled you paint in the other eye. I got a daruma from a student and I painted in an eye when I started searching for a job this past year. I filled it in when I got the letter of appointment. Yay! I didn't bring it to this temple, though. I'm making the victory sign because it's a thing lots of Japanese people do when they get their picture taken.

2007-07-03T20:19:00.001-04:00

Some tiny and adorable darumas. These tiny wooden ones are for sale at the temple. They come with a fortune tucked inside a hole at the bottom. Lots of people leave their tiny darumas at the temple.

2007-07-03T20:18:00.001-04:00

Lori and Yoshimura-san.

2007-07-03T20:12:00.001-04:00

This is Katsuoji. It's up in the mountains north of Kyoto. The website is not as good in English, but is clearer. Standing next to me is Lori. We were in Kyoto at the same time five years ago, doing our dissertation research. We came to Katsuoji with her friend Ms. Yoshimura, whom I also knew five years ago.

2007-07-03T20:11:00.001-04:00

It works like a melitta filter, except that it makes a very very small amount of coffee.

2007-07-03T20:10:00.001-04:00

This is how I get my coffee every morning. I put a little individual mini-filter with coffee into my cup.

2007-07-03T20:09:00.001-04:00

Random other tourists buying soft ice cream cones at the stand where I bought mine. I had a combination of mango and green tea, and it was very tasty. Unfortunately the green tea section dripped all over my shirt. Typical.

2007-07-03T20:07:00.001-04:00

The view from the estate of a famous Japanese movie actor of the 1930s. I've never heard of this guy, so I can't say who he was, but he bought a humongo estate in the mountains, made a beautiful formal garden, and now it's open to the public, like me.

2007-07-03T20:06:00.001-04:00

Tenryuji slippers. You wear them so that you don't track dirt into the temple.

2007-07-03T20:05:00.001-04:00

An image of Daruma. He's Bodhidharma, the somethingth patriarch of Indian Zen who came to China and is the first patriarch of Chinese Zen.

2007-07-03T20:04:00.003-04:00

A big chair. What's it for? I don't know.

2007-07-03T20:04:00.001-04:00

People on the porch that faces the garden.

2007-07-03T20:03:00.001-04:00

The garden all us tourists are looking at.

2007-07-03T20:02:00.001-04:00

Here are some other tourists.

2007-07-03T20:01:00.001-04:00

This is the inside of the main hall, and the altar is in the space in the middle.

2007-07-03T19:58:00.001-04:00

Tenryuji, a famous Zen temple.

2007-07-03T19:57:00.001-04:00

Arhat with a bib; I know, I know it's serious.

No, really, why all the bibs?

2007-07-03T19:56:00.002-04:00

An arhat close up.

2007-07-03T19:56:00.001-04:00

More arhats, plus some pretty flowers.

2007-07-03T19:55:00.001-04:00

There's a tradition in Japan of making statues of the 500 rakan, or arhats, the disciples of the Buddha while he was alive, who attained nirvana. There's a collection of them right by the yudofu restaurant.

2007-07-03T19:53:00.001-04:00

So I went here for lunch. It's almost the opposite of a street stall -- a very traditional and elegant Kyoto restaurant that serves yudofu, or simmered tofu. You definitely have to like tofu to appreciate this place, but I do. I paid about 35 dollars for the lunch set, which was a lot of money, but I got about 50 little dishes to go with the tofu , so it ended up as a pretty good value.

2007-07-03T19:50:00.001-04:00

This is a riverbed with a park on the opposite bank. Usually on the weekends, there are outdoor stalls in the park, selling okonomiyaki and takoyaki. Okonomiyaki are made with pancake batter, but filled with shredded cabbage and any kind of other bits of food you want to put in -- shrimp, bean sprouts, cheese cubes, roasted pork, onions, mushrooms, etc. Takoyaki are little balls of the same kind of dough, filled with scallions and a piece of octopus. You might call them fried octopus balls.
Anyway, there were no street food stands on Sunday and I was very disappointed.

2007-07-03T19:48:00.001-04:00

Sunday I went to Arashiyama, the neighborhood I used to live in. Where I lived was very quiet and residential, but two train stops over is a big tourist area. This is some of that.

2007-07-03T19:47:00.001-04:00

fluffy bread. Hard to make sandwiches with (too thick) but great as toast.

2007-06-29T21:51:00.001-04:00

The view from the laundry porch. I call it that because it's pretty narrow and really only suited for hanging laundry. It has the big motor for the air conditioners and other stuff, so it's not like a nice terrace or anything.

2007-06-29T21:50:00.001-04:00

Laundry hanging on the laundry porch.

2007-06-29T21:49:00.002-04:00

The closet interior.

2007-06-29T21:49:00.001-04:00

Here's the closet. It's much fuller now that my big suitcase was delivered and unpacked.

2007-06-29T21:47:00.001-04:00

This is my bedroom in the Kyoto apartment. Notice the side railings on the bed. I took the one not by the wall off the other day. Also notice my laundry hanging out to dry beyond the window.

2007-06-29T21:46:00.001-04:00

This is the entrance to the Keifuku electric railway (or trolley) that starts at Shijo-Omiya, where I'm living now, and goes to Arashiyama, where I used to live in 2002. It brings back a lot of fond memories.

2007-06-29T21:45:00.001-04:00

Here's the sign for Liquor Mountain, the liquor store near my apartment in Kyoto. It reminds me of the Satanicide song about swimming through oceans of whiskey and climbing mountains of cocaine.

2007-06-29T21:44:00.001-04:00

The interior of the train. So spacious!

2007-06-29T21:43:00.003-04:00

Here's my bento. I had sushi and pickles.

2007-06-29T21:43:00.001-04:00

Here's the sign for my train.

2007-06-29T21:42:00.001-04:00

Here's a little kiosk on the train platform that sells bento boxes, sandwiches and drinks.

2007-06-29T21:41:00.001-04:00

Here's the shinkansen station at Tokyo. The shinkansen can go from Tokyo to Kyoto in about 2 hours and 15 minutes. That's like going from Boston to DC in that amount of time. (I think! Don't quote me on that)

2007-06-29T21:39:00.001-04:00

Here are the towel and the yukata, or light cotton kimono, I used at the ryokan. You can't tell but the yukata is almost transparent, it's been washed so often. Hey -- at least it's been washed.

2007-06-29T21:38:00.001-04:00

Here's my ryokan room. It's hard to see how grubby it is from the photo, but take my word for it -- there are cigarette burns in the tatami and the comforter is all pilly. Yuck.

2007-06-28T23:50:00.001-04:00

Jizo! Jizo shows up in the Inari worship center, too, so all my favorite deites are collected in one place.
I went inside the temple but couldn't see what was enshrined there. I think it's Benzaiten, or Saraswati, one of the seven gods of luck and a manifestation of Dakini-ten, all of which are Buddhist.
I talked to one of the priests who was selling charms and one of the custodians and they were very nice. They gave me an english language pamphlet and sold me an amulet. I asked what they were best known for and they said business success, so I bought one. I'm hoping it will help with research too. The priest struck some sparks before the amulet and said a prayer before giving it to me, which I've never seen before.

2007-06-28T23:48:00.000-04:00

I love this image because it shows layers and layers of bibs. I didn't have the nerve to lift them up to see what the writing was.

2007-06-28T23:41:00.001-04:00

Here's another site where you can pray to Inari. Note the wish-fulfilling jewel on the top of the post. Very phallo-vaginal. Vagino-phallic?
So I got to love Harry Potter in Japan, actually. The Japan Foundation had given me a buttload of money for my year of research, and my rent in Tsukuba was 10000 yen a month (about $75.00), so I went to the university bookstore and bought tons of books, including the Potter series. They saved my sanity, as I shivered in my cold little dorm room with no internet access. I was very, very lonely and homesick then and it was great to be able to escape. The Tsukuba public library and the Tsukuba cultural center also helped tremendously, since they had a lot of books in English as well. I was thinking about thanking J.K. Rowling and Diana Gabaldon (author of my favorite time-travel fantasy/romance series -- five books, 1000 pages each!)
Since I've been here, I've bought a novel by Terry Pratcheet (Thud! which takes place in Discworld) and one by Laura Lippman (mystery/suspense, set in Baltimore) and will probably read them over and over while I'm here. I'm almost through Thud! for the second time.

2007-06-28T23:38:00.000-04:00

Okay, so here's a big statue of a fox, the messenger of Inari, a Shinto deity -- or is he/she? Bwah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha..
Hey, speaking of which, the last Harry Potter is coming out soon. I just checked Amazon and it seems you can order the english version in Japan. Yay!

2007-06-28T23:37:00.001-04:00

Now this is cool. It's two temple custodians taking the money out of one of the donation boxes. You don't see that on postcards.

2007-06-28T23:36:00.002-04:00

Here's the station where you purify yourself, by rinsing your hands and your mouth. The characters say wash heart/mind.

2007-06-28T23:36:00.001-04:00

Here's another stupa.

2007-06-28T23:35:00.001-04:00

Here's what you might call the community hall. It's for meetings of the believers, I guess, and it also has the reception desk for prayers.

2007-06-28T23:33:00.001-04:00

It's Guanyin/Kannon/Avalokiteshvara! She's holding a child. See, now you think, aha, a bodhisattva, this is a Buddhist establishment.

2007-06-28T23:32:00.001-04:00

This is the entrance to the Toyokawa Inari temple. Is it a shrine? Is it a temple? It's kind of both. It's very near the Hie shrine with the escalator, in Akasaka, one of the poshest districts around.

2007-06-28T23:31:00.003-04:00

When I was a kid, Lawry's seasoned salt was a big treat.

2007-06-28T23:31:00.001-04:00

A grave/memorial stupa in a cemetery. Notice the fresh flowers in front of the stupa.

2007-06-28T23:30:00.001-04:00

An adorable little car.

2007-06-28T23:29:00.001-04:00

Here's a fairly typical not-open-to-the-street Japanese house.

2007-06-28T23:28:00.001-04:00

The ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) that I stayed in was a complete dump, but the walk to and from Ueno Station was really nice. Here's a triangular building with some flowers of some sort on the sidewalk.

2007-06-28T23:27:00.001-04:00

These are the more traditional stairs. And yes, I did know about the escalator before I took the stairs.

In Japan

2007-06-28T23:24:00.000-04:00

Downtown Tokyo. Hie Taisha, a Shinto shrine. At the top of a big hill. Now equipped with an escalator, which you can see on the left of the picture.

2007-05-21T12:03:00.000-04:00

At last, a photo of meeeee! I'm with Jen (on the left) and Nancy (on the right). Jen's a religion major who wrote a huge senior thesis in order to graduate with distinction. It was on women in Chinese healing, especially in the contemporary US, and how it's changed since pre-communist China. I was the first reader on it and her work was better than some MA theses I've read. Nancy is a bio major and Jen's roommate. She took my big Intro Asian class and seemed to really enjoy it. She was definitely one of my favorite students in the class.

2007-05-21T12:02:00.001-04:00

Here are Jonathan and Jenny, two fellow Columbiaites who had the foresight to buy their robes. I should have done that, since I wasn't enjoying the generic black robe as much as I would have this snazzy set.

2007-05-21T11:59:00.001-04:00

This was taken at the convocation ceremony. This is Joe, one of my favorite students of all time. He took Zen, Japanese Religion, Women in East Asian Religion and one more class with me that I forget (Buddhism?) and wrote a whole bunch of interesting and original papers for me. One of them was on Meitantei Conan, for all you manga fans. I also went to see him in a play by Christopher Marlowe that some English majors put on, and he was very dramatic in it. He's going to Japan on the JET program in August.

2007-05-21T11:57:00.001-04:00

Garth, flanked by Brad and Maria. Brad got his phd a few years ago and just got a job at Marymount Manhattan college, and his wife, Maria, just got her ma in religion and lit. note the swanky wood-panelled room. it's steve the dept chair's office.

2007-05-21T11:54:00.001-04:00

Left to right, this is Sean, who got a PhD in Daoism and was graduating, some other PhD graduate, Karen, THE departmental administrator; the woman who knows everything and pulls money for tas out of thin air, and Emily, another PhD grad, who's off to a job at San Francisco State U. Lucky her!

2007-05-21T11:53:00.001-04:00

I took this just as Garth's hat was falling to the ground.

2007-05-21T11:52:00.001-04:00

Chris and Garth, left to right. Garth actually does have a neck.

Religion department convocation

2007-05-21T11:50:00.000-04:00

Elizabeth is one of the department administrators. She organized the whole convocation that follows.

2007-02-24T22:28:00.000-05:00

The front door is on the left and the closet door is to the right of the dresser.

2007-02-24T22:22:00.000-05:00

Happy guests. They're happy because of the delicious lasagna (see the plate). They didn't drink enough, though; I have more beer now than when I started.

A few BUers, including Erin on the left, who went to the same high school I did, but after I graduated. Small world!

2007-02-24T22:21:00.000-05:00

2007-02-24T22:19:00.000-05:00

Futon nook from the other side! The nook makes the apt feel almost (very almost) like a one bedroom.

2007-02-24T22:18:00.000-05:00

Another angle of the futon nook.

2007-02-24T22:14:00.000-05:00

Bay windows! Covered in plastic! Warm!

That's the refrigerator at the right edge of the photo, just to give you an idea of how small the place is.

2007-02-24T22:02:00.000-05:00

Here's my futon, set up as a couch for the very first time in its life!

2007-02-24T22:00:00.000-05:00

Here's the rest of the kitchen. Even without a door, you can tell it's bigger than the one in the other apartment. You can also see the two trays of lasagna on the stove. Mmmmmm.

2007-02-24T21:57:00.000-05:00

That plate on the wall was from my grandmother's house. I just hope there's never an earthquake in Allston...

2007-02-24T21:55:00.000-05:00

The kitchen area. Notice the beautiful microwave -- thank you, Dave!

Clean apartment!

2007-02-24T21:54:00.000-05:00

Finally! My apartment is clean enough to post photos of it! This is because I had people over, so the apt photos are followed by people photos.

I'm very serious

2007-01-09T22:16:00.000-05:00

but I'm no Zoolander...

And now....

2007-01-09T22:15:00.000-05:00

The Magnum, ala Gina!