From Rock, Paper, Shotgun:

“Goodbye The Silver Lining. Our culture is formed by the sharing of ideas. Throughout history, for millennia, every piece of art, music, literature and entertainment has been the result of a worldwide collaboration. It’s been an astonishing act of creative evolution, the most vibrant and extraordinary gene pool of imagination and inspiration, from which all were free to draw and create. It has been exceptional, and in the last 50 to 100 years it has come to an end.

The tragedy of the abuse and misuse of intellectual property and copyright cannot be counted. After centuries of sharing, we have allowed a “MINE!” tag to be affixed to every thought, string of notes, doodle on a page, or merest whim. We have committed a grotesque cultural suicide. And the extent to which this has reached should be a parody. We have now allowed ourselves to be in the situation where art museums ban sketching – something that should surely make anyone whose understanding of art history goes beyond yesterday scream in fear. And it exists in our world of gaming in a similarly berserk form. And so it is that Activision has closed down work on not-for-profit fan creation The Silver Lining.“

Very similar to what I said recently, but worded a thousand times better.

I went to see a Noh play for the first time and was really looking forward to it, meanwhile thinking I probably wouldn’t get much out of it. If you haven’t heard of it ever, you might have seen it — Japanese men dressed up and playing drums and flutes and sing-speaking Japanese at an ultra-slow level. It’s old — it has been practiced since the 14th century; that old — and old things tend to be hard to appreciate without proper background or (historial or otherwise) interest in the art form or the culture in question.

Regardless, I found myself not understanding a word they were saying — unsurprisingly; I have a hard time understanding non-conversational-but-regular Japanese, and this was nothing of the kind, spoken at a very un-regular pace. Even if I didn’t understand the words, I might appreciate the actual scenery or the performance for what it is, beyond words and meaning, but this was not the case either.

In fact, I found it difficult not to laugh. Watching this man dressed in clothes that made him look quite odd, with a woman’s mask over his head, only made me think of the fact that yes, back in the days, women were not allowed on stage, and I didn’t find it particularly admirable that they preserved this tradition (although it wouldn’t be Noh if they didn’t, and I’ll be the first to admit that).

I have no pictures, because I didn’t have a chance to borrow a camera. And besides, noone else took pictures so I suppose it was forbidden. It was pretty, but it wasn’t special.

Then there was the drum playing man who kept saying the Swedish word “Ja!” (“yes”) with a perfect accent (where’d he learn that — Swedish students should take note!), who sounded so slap-stick amusing that I had to try not to listen to him or I’d end up laughing out loud.

And the flute. Its sole purpose must have been to wake the audience up. The old man next to me (or next to his wife who was next to me) started snoring loudly at some point, and the wife nudged him a few times to wake him up. But yes, the flute. It was an ear-piercing shrieking screech. It’d wake the dead. And the drowsy audience.

I can’t blame them for being drowsy. The way Noh is sung/spoken simply lulls you to sleep. I found myself sleepy too.

The sad part is, the play was about The Tale of Genji but I still didn’t get much out of it, even though I’ve actually read the book (although in English).

It might be like Nattou. The first time I ate it I wanted to throw up, but the second time it tasted great. I’ve not given up on the Noh deal yet, but I’m quite skeptical it’ll be an art form that I’ll ever truly appreciate.