Day: January 28, 2004

American Tilapia Association

looky

a cheap farmable eating-fish.

I think it may be possible to grow them in rice paddies? I’m still looking into it.

Sort of like a multi-phylum Companion Planting.

Aha- FISH-RICE CULTURE

One thing I’ve noticed that is usually considered a disadvantage of this system, which actually is a bonus- you can’t use pesticides on the rice when you grow it concurrently with tilapia.

In an article from the The lsraeli Joumal of Aquaculture – Bamidgeh 50(1), 1998, 33-42:

CULTURE OF MACROBRACHIUM ROSENBERGII
IN MONOCULTURE AND POLYCULTURE
WITH OREOCHROMIS NILOTICUS IN PADDIES IN EGYPT

They found that a high density (in 7,200 m² paddies) prawn polyculture with the rice gave a higher return than a prawn/tilapia/rice polyculture or the control rice monoculture. Their most successful density: 20,000 prawn juveniles per hectareWeb link of note: American Tilapia Association
(At http://ag.arizona.edu/azaqua/ata.html)

Eureka! “Enka”

looky

Finally someone figured out the name of the genre of music I was looking for- it’s enka ( 演歌 ) – the sort of lounge-y Japanese music you used to hear in sushi bars.

I have an 8-track of this stuff from my grandparents, and I’m trying to find who has the rest of their collection… also I’m betting some of the local Japanese churches will have some more (lots of old Japanese people in the bay area).

This genre is so goofy that the GameBoy game “Wario Ware” spoofed it in one of the levels- the decor is 1970’s samurai TV show, a genre of show about as hackneyed as the cop show here, and a enka theme plays which is indestinguishable from the real thing.

KAZUE: people loved it when Karaoke Box started
KAZUE: used to be Karaoke is just the thing people do at bar subby bar you know
KAZUE: and almost only Enka
BRIAN: what is Enka
BRIAN: is that a genre of music
KAZUE: it’s hard to explain….type of music only old people listen to
BRIAN: aha!
BRIAN: I think I have some of that
KAZUE: like country song in US?
BRIAN: I have been looking for the name of the genre
BRIAN: like the lady singers all wear kimono
KAZUE: yes
KAZUE: all sounds same though
BRIAN: I know!
BRIAN: I was thinking “hell, I could write these things myself!”

From Barbara’s Enka Site:

We Western music lovers might imagine it this way… Team up a songwriter who writes old-fashioned Gypsy music with a romantic lyricist of an American blues or country music background. Then translate the lyrics into poetic but old-fashioned Japanese and arrange the music for a band made of half Japanese musicians and half European classical musicians, plus a harmonica and electric guitar. Then find a Japanese woman to sing the song in full kimono, but choreograph her performance as if it were an operatic aria. That would give you something close to Enka music…