Reading, Writing & Other Addictions

Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, “Where have I gone wrong?”  Then a voice says to me, “This is going to take more than one night.”   –Charles Schultz

I guess, we all have our Charlie Brown moments when nothing is going like it should and it seems like everything we touch just falls apart.  Everything we do backfires. And we are left tired, and discouraged and angry.  We just want to throw back our heads back and scream, “AAARRRGGG!” (Hey, I did that in traffic yesterday!)  So right now, I say “Scream if you want to scream.  I know how you feel.”  Just remember, this too shall pass.

Did you know that Madame Butterfly premiered on this date in 1904 in Milan, Italy? It seems that the composer’s lack of originality caused the crowd to heckle so loudly that the performers couldn’t hear the orchestra and Rosina Scorchio, the soprano playing Madame Butterfly broke down in tears on stage.  Fortunately, the enraged composer revised the score, and today Madame Butterfly need only cry over her sad story.

Sukura as a girl’s name is Japanese in origin and means “cherry blossom.”  So why is the three-day anime convention held in Washington state called Sakura-con?

Well, it seems that the conference was originally named Baka-Con, baka being the Japanese word for idiot (I am not making this up).  So maybe it’s no wonder that they changed the name, especially since the best loved flower of the Japanese is said to be the cherry blossom.  In Japan, because of their fragility, cherry blossoms have been used to symbolize the transience of life.

Sakura is also the Chinese word for cherry blossom. However, in China, cherry blossoms are the symbol of feminine dominance, feminine beauty and sexuality, which also fits in with anime. So is guess the answer is:  Why not Sakura-Con?