get a move on, you lazy asses

you slow pokes need to get with the times. We're already 12 hours into the new year. I've eaten potato chips and toast, and taken a hot bath in the year 2006 already. What's the hold up?

year of the stupid dog.

2006. Not only does it lack the phoenetic "ring" of any of the other years so far this millenium, it's the year of the dog. Of the 12 year-animals on the "chinese zodiac" (actually it's a little different in Japan), none is so lame as the dog. Don't believe me, check it for yourself.

2000 - Dragon
2001 - Snake
2002 - Horse
2003 - Ram, Sheep
2004 - Monkey
2005 - Bird
2006 - Stupid Dog
2007 - Pig, Boar
2008 - Mouse, Rat
2009 - Cow, Bull
2010 - Tiger
2011 - Rabbit

Still, I'm gonna try and make something of this lame-o inudoshi. Last year I had a singular goal of passing 1kyuu of the JLPT, and I think I managed it. This year, my singular goal is a little more clear. I want to be living in Tokyo by the end of October, and reasonably well-employed by the end of the year.
The other resolutions for 2006 are a little less concrete. In broad terms, I want to take several aspects of my life from "sufficient" to "good". Targets include, but aren't limited to: Japanese language ability (esp kanji), my body (and health), cooking, housekeeping, writing, budget living...

making it worthwhile

I decided to stay home (in my Aomori apartment) for the holidays this year. So I've spent a lot of time on my ass, in front of this screen. I've wasted over a week already, but it hasn't all been a waste. Just look at all the wonderful things I've done.

I figured out what I'm gonna do with my money. (see entry below). I had been leaning stongly on putting it in the US market, but I really think the J markets are going to go crazy for a while.

I learned a little about music theory, via this website. It's gonna take some work to really "get" this stuff. Still, I've wanted to learn an instrument for a while... next year may be a good chance.

I studied some kanji... though not nearly enough. I'd like to take the kanji kentei 3kyuu in June (missed my deadline this) time. I watched a lot of TV too. Trivial as that sounds, I understand virtually everything now, so it's as good a practice as I can get...ot to mention the acculturation effect.

I tried out a few new recipies. I managed to make a decent tamago-don, and a really good soybean and green pea fried rice. Tonight it's my first nabe from scratch. It's supposed to be good as ramen too. Cooking means I saved some cash too... though not really that much between the recipe books and the new nabe pot I bought just now.

There are an awful lot of things that I meant to do that I didn't too, but I'm trying to be positive here.

Tomorrow... resolutions.

how to lose money fast!

I've been looking for a long time at putting some money back in the stock market. I was in the market in 2000, when the bubble burst. I lost a couple hundred dollars, but I'm not bitter. So now that I have some money set aside, I figure I might as well get to gambling it on the market...only there's one thing.

The US market is not performing. The Japanese market is. The Nikkei 225 has more than doubled in value since early 2003. But that's not all. Japanese TV is hyping daytrading like crazy... and not the boiler room shirt and tie type, but the lonely housewife type.


I think I'm gonna try to jump into the next bubble while it's still young. Is it still young? Well, I have reason to think so.

There's an awful lot of personal savings being really ill-serviced right now in postal savings accounts with annual returns of 0.02%. Combine those terrible ( one 50th of an average american checking account) returns with the postal privatization on the horizon, and people don't really have an excuse for keeping their savings with the post anymore. (Most people have kept their money with the post for security's sake). So if money's gonna be coming out of savings, there's got to be a whole lot of money going somewhere, right?

This well timed hype, and the impact of koizumi's privatization plan could combine to make a ridiculously hot market.

ho, ho, ho.

Pope benedict does his impression of harriet myers dressed as Santa Claus.

so this is christmas, plus "korean caught cheating, hallelujah"

I fell asleep on the couch last night with just about every possible appliance turned on. The hot water pot, the external hard drive (which I normally keep off), and the heater were all blazing at full steam all night.
Why are you trying to burn your house down, Nate?




Also, I would be happy to see a lot more scandals emerge out of korea. When I hear the words "south korea", all I can think is "boring, boring, boring". It seems like they're a bunch of christians who are still elevating people who look like donnie and marie osmond to super celebrity status... like WoW gold farming really is the most interesting thing going on.
This cloning scandal is the best thing that's happened to korea since the dog poop girl. Some scandal and social malaise could go a long way to making south korea a culturally interesting country.

super boring, "kingdom hearts 2"

jesus christ that game is boring. for every 2 minutes of action there's a ten minute cutscene full of fake, uninteresting fantasy crap.

boo.

it's a nice looking game, up until the stupid disney characters join in at the 4 hour mark. I should have known that fighting monsters with goofy and donald would be really really lame. What was I thinking?

update. I held out for 5 hours, but I'm finished with it now. I sold it.

happy birthday god-emperor!

I suppose you know that the emperor of Japan is suppposed to be descended directly from the sun, and that it wasn't until after world war II that a Japanese emperor was actually made to declare that he was not a god.
Well today is the 72nd birthday of the current emperor of Japan, and for the occasion, I've decided to change how I think about royalty in democratically elected countries. I'm now vaguely "for" them.

In a country without a non-democratically-elected leader, all the leaders are politicians. So when people think america, they think of this guy.

All of the great things he does reflect on us as a country, and there's no neutral face to counter-balance President Bush. There's no leader, national or international who has a right to stay out of the fray on bitter, bitter issues.
There's also no face that says "America" today, and will say it tomorrow. Clinton America and Bush America are two very different places when seen from the outside... or when you watch TV. But our lives haven't generally changed that much.
Regardless of how you feel about Koizumi, the Emperor is there. He will be there until he dies. When he does die, his children will take over... the literal face won't even change much even then. He doesn't need an opinion on postal reform. Today in his birthday address, the Emperor spoke of the harsh weather striking northern japan, and said that he hopes that it doesn't continue for long. I think his words will give people occasion to think about the people suffering in Niigata from power outages in the middle of the biggest blizzards in 80 years. In a couple weeks, you can be sure he'll be touring the affected cities.

But if Bush had said the same thing, the response would likely be "why isn't the government doing more? does the recent harsh weather have to do with global warming? why has it taken you so long to make a pronouncement?" not to mention all the questions about his other hijinx.
The emperor is really just a non-political "good man". While Koizumi is charged with keeping Japan running, the emperor is charged with keeping Japan Japan.

aomori, can I get a _____ (Ch 1)

(Tomorrow, I'm gonna head downtown and get some photos to flesh out this entry a bit)

Ch 1, a decent place to eat my bentou, and maybe study.

Not so long ago when I was cramming for the JLPT, there were a lot of times when I just couldn't study at home. All the distractions I keep around are quite distracting, to tell the truth. To get anything done, I had to get out of the house. In Aomori there's only one place for times like those (two if you count Freaks Internet (etc) Cafe, but they're not free, and full of distractions).... Auga, 5f.

The first 4 floors of Auga are sort of mediocre shopping, and the 6th, 7th and 8th floors are the library (decent for studying, but no food allowed). But on the 5th floor, up above the arcade, is a large open space with a bunch of tables, a water-wheel-powered clock, some vending machines and a few homeless people. In the recent past it had a decent view too, but the new "mid-life tower" took care of that.

Like I said, when I was studying that's where I'd go for a change of venue. Just pick up a few conbini snacks on the way, and you're set. Incidentally, I'm really drawn to the type of vending machines that dispense cups with ice in them (or not if it's a hot drink), so that's bonus points for me.
Only trouble is, it really is the only place in town. When school lets out for the day, it's pretty full, especially in test seasons.

Still, since it's right there in the middle of everything, it's really convenient for just a few minutes relaxing too. By some twist of fate the place stays quiet almost all the time. I wind up in there pretty often when I'm just not sure if I want to hop a bus home yet or not.

japanese public transportation manners... don't believe the hype.

All winter, I have to use buses to get to my schools each day, and I have no choice but to travel during rush hour. The buses are naturally pretty damned full.

Japan has long been famous for the train station attendants who literally shove people into the packed trains in Tokyo, but this is no Toyko. Aomori doesn't even have convenient local trains, much less enough passengers to need shoving, but we've got buses and a commute that puts all the businessmen and the high school students on the busses at the same time.

So when your timing's not good, you're forced to shove your own way into these over-crowded buses. Or if the bus driver will allow it, stand on the boarding steps.

The thing is, the buses aren't usually full. The riders just tend to crowd around the entry door, and no matter how full the bus is, they almost never scoot toward the often comparably spacious back of the bus.

It's times like this that I'm glad I'm a foreigner and not afraid of high school boys like so many people around here are. If you impolitely ask people to move toward the back (something even the lamebrain bus driver wouldn't do), they'll do it. Or there's always the standby of lowering one shoulder and pushing forward with an irritated "suimasen".

(It's my hope for the new year to be less bothered by this kind of thing)

alberto fujimori, wikipedia, and the glass of water.

There was some news on Alberto Fujimori that I was reading for japanese practice, when I realized that I don't know enough about the back story. So I looked him up at wikipedia. His rise to power had a lot to do with tough talkin' about the Shining Path. Well, you gotta find out who they were (surprisingly not "no-wave dance-punk", or MIA-like musicians!). So you wikipedia them too: Maoist guerillas; Peru; leader captured 1992; gotcha.
But what does that mean to be maoist outside of china? Go, go wiki-maoism!

The thing is, I don't know if now understand more or less about what's going on. It seems like it would take a million days in front of the wikipedia just to have an intelligent conversation. Which reminds me how much I want to read more Saul Bellow.

Every other man spoke a language entirely his own, which he had figured out by private thinking; he had his own ideas and peculiar ways. If you wanted to talk about a glass of water, you had to start back with God creating the heavens and earth; the apple; Abraham; Moses and Jesus; Rome; the Middle Ages; gunpowder; the Revolution; back to Newton; up to Einstein; then war and Lenin and Hitler. After reviewing this and getting it all straight again you could proceed to talk about a glass of water. "I'm fainting, please get me a little water." You were lucky even then to make yourself understood.... You had to translate and translate, explain and explain, back and forth, and it was the punishment of hell itself not to understand or to be understood, not to know the crazy from the sane, the wise from the fools, the young from the old or the sick from the well. The fathers were no fathers and the sons no sons.

--(from Seize the Day)


(also fuji-cola)

the little red japanese book.

矛　is an old chinese character for spear that is still used in both languages.
盾 is an old chinese character for shield that is still used in both languages.

together, 矛盾 implies a spear meeting a shield.


in japanese, 矛盾 is read "mujun" and simply means a contradiction. It's got a bit of the "unstoppable force/immovable object" feel to it. Something's gotta give.

in chinese, 矛盾 with the reading "máodùn" denotes the "antagonistic contradiction", or the inherent and conflict between peasants and landowners. "máo dùn" implies the necessity of endless class struggle, and in some sense endless violence. Though it also seems to entail chick-fights.

confuse them at your own risk.

(also in japanese "手紙" (hand + paper) = a letter. in chinese "手紙" is toilet paper.)

happy belated thanksgiving everyone!

I spent my whole teaching-week talking about Thanksgiving and comparing American and Japanese holidays. I suddenly think there is something really commendable about Thanksgiving that's missing from every other day on the American calendar. It's a life-affirming holiday. It's a holiday that encourages America to feel a little bit connected to the world and the seasons.

Even if it is whitewashed in this whole "gratitude for god's blessings" bullshit, thanksgiving is really about the Harvest. It's about the bounty of the land, and about connecting our own well being to the well being of the surrounding environment. It's about food! That's the real stuff of life.

What about the other holidays? Well, looking at the calendar...

Jan 1 = celebrate a new calendar... and one cosmic cycle.
3rd monday of Jan = MLK Jr day. A great guy for sure. America could use more moral heroes.
3rd monday of Feb = President's day. WTF? Seriously? To celebrate our highest elected official?
Sometime in Mar or Apr = Easter (in most locales)
Last monday of May = mermorial day (war dead day)
4th of July = 4th of July (commemorating the start of a war)
First monday of Sept. = Labor Day. sweet. more of these.
2nd monday of October = Columbus day. there are a lot of things to say about that one.
Nov 11th = veterans day
4th thursday of Nov = Thanksgiving! yay!
Decmber 25 = Christmas

So, if your tally matches mine, we have 2 days for war and warmongering (5 if you count columbus, the presidents and independence day), 2 for "great men", and 2 christian holidays. The christian holidays it may be noted were intentionally moved from their presumed real dates in order to muscle out (or coincide with) millenia old earthy crunchy pagan holidays, and to replace them with anti-human anti-earth christian myths.

The J calendar has more holidays, but among them are "ocean day" "childrens day" "becoming an adult day" "respect for the elderly day" "green day" (to celebrate billy joe, trey and whatshisface) "(thanks for the) labor day" "sports day" and "culture day". Those are all real, day-offa-work holidays.

What a nice country.

less typing more reading.

While I'm settling in for winter, I want to spend more time learning stuff than vacuously pontificating.

Don't worry though, I'll be back and vacuous as every before long.

Also, I've not been paying very good attention to the news lately, but little girls are getting killed around japan. One of them by a gaijin!

(shock!)

you didn't even have to listen.

Lots of things in my head about my tokyo trip. Some quick thoughts on the JLPT.

It is pretty meaningless really. Even 1kyuu isnt a high enough level to be meaningful and doesn't test more than abitity to take a test. The focus on understanding is very reasonable, but every time that the test diverted from grasping meaning, it was strictly about amassed vocabulary (especially unusual kanji), and anal-retentive grammar.

There were a lot of asian faces in that test room. 150 or so people. 6 or so white folks, a few indian lookin people, and a middle-eastern-ish dude. I studied with the same books that most of the chinese people were using.

Some cocky white dude I overheard on his keitai outside the test missed a listening question. He was talking to someone about the listening test, and saying that "some were so obvious you didn't really have to listen". He then gave an example, and how he deduced the answer before even listening... he deduced wrong.

Learning is all about motivation. A lot of the chinese people picked up japanese as fast as possible... like in a year. I ran into a lawyer who has been working here for a while at least who took 2kyuu in 1992, and is taking 1kyuu for the first time 13 years later. There is a lot more to either of those stories, but it fits in with something I've been thinking and talking about lately.

"hunger". and the lower classes surplanting the upper classes while the middle imperceptably sinks.

one back, ripe for a pattin'

I'm back. I think I passed me test. I think I deserve a bath.

sumo, made (even) better

http://dbzsumo.ytmnd.com/

I should sleep. And study. and post real entries when I post.

shit.

64.2%

this is very bad.

the next few days are going to be unpleasant, as is the long wait for the test results.

For those not keeping track, I was hoping for/expecting an 80% on my practice test. Above is what I got.

who can do hip hop better than a frog can?

http://frenchrappers.ytmnd.com/

still not not blogging

my two favorite albums of the nineties so far:

yeah, I lied a little.

sometimes a break from studying and thinking is nice. I spent my break at wikipedia.

The following people (among many others) share my birthday:


One of the kinki kids was also born on the same day of the same year I was (as well as two other musicians and a protester who got run over by a tank in israel a few years back).

Also, I found how to make my pictures much bigger.

For John Dillinger
In hope he is still alive
Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1986

Thanks for the wild turkey and the Passenger Pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts

thanks for a Continent to despoil and poison —

thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger —

thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin, leaving the carcass to rot —

thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes —

thanks for the AMERICAN DREAM to vulgarize and falsify until the bare lies shine through —

thanks for the KKK, for nigger-killing lawmen feeling their notches, for decent church-going women with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces —

thanks for "Kill a Queer for Christ" stickers —

thanks for laboratory AIDS —

thanks for Prohibition and the War Against Drugs —

thanks for a country where nobody is allowed to mind his own business —

thanks for a nation of finks — yes, thanks for all the memories... all right, let's see your arms... you always were a headache and you always were a bore —

thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.

november morning

november morning
Originally uploaded by notnato.

I keep having the same discussion about how being "american" means something different from being japanese. You can "become american", but race is so tangled up in the idea of being japanese that "becoming japanese" isn't so simple.

I don't doubt that you can become un-japanese (like nomo?), but since it's not so strict a definintion, can you become not-american?

thisisaprettypicture.

ya ha! 73%

how's that for a post title?

I got 73% on the practice test! That is in the realm of passing, and I've still got a couple weeks left to lift it out of the girigiri level. I am stupidly happy right now.

As though there were someone that cared about the details, I got 86% on the grammar section, and improved my listening to a 76%. Kanji and vocabulary are still crap, but that's what the next two weeks are for.

g'night.

here go nothing, part three.

Just about to start my third practice test. Last time was a 64.75%... crazy as it sounds, I'm shooting for a 72% this time. I'd be happy to break the 70% line though.

also, it's snowing.... my ipod broke... I wore my new suit for the first time yesterday... and nhk caught up with me, and I'm 13400yen worse off for it.

asian eyes are the new black.

This is the front page of pitchfork right now, as they advertise tickets for their new years-ish party. It looks like a pretty happening show, and if I were chicagonian, I would be there, but what's with the design? Why is there an asian (maybe chinese?) woman's face cut into pieces? Mu won't be there, neither will deerhoof. As far as I can tell, the only asian women will be in the audience. Still, it's no different really than if it were a white woman, I guess, and I probably wouldn't make a blog entry about a white woman poster.
Lately america, at every social strata, thinks that asian (esp japanese) = cool. Whether it's anime, hentai anime, other japanese porn, green tea, modestly talented bands, sushi, j-girls/boys, fake japanese fashion (see gwen stefani), goofy internet clips, or lame tatoos, everyone wants in on the game.

How can I make money on this?

(also worth note, is that this design even without the face looks very au courrant japan)

retired pants, the fuzz

I'm really not into writing about japan right now... so I'm probably not going to write anything anyone will think is interesting for while. But in very uninteresting news... Tomorrow, I will retire my trusty dark blue, striped suit. My rough and ready wallet, and bike riding made a couple of holes in the butt, so I had to buy a new suit... or two.
From friday on, it's gray pinstriped winter wool, and/or brownish gray regular weight. If these two survive as much abuse as the last one, I'll be quite happy.

And the school I'm at this week is so bad. Cops were called in, though I couldn't really figure out why. No good high school age kids fucking with the junior high kids I think. Though there are so many fights there, and bullying to the point of injury (saw 1 kid get hurt, saw the aftermath of another). I read in this poll (via marxy) that only 17% of japanese women are concerned about education. I'm surprised, but it does fit in with my experience. I'm sort of disappointed in a lot of parents I've encountered, or parents whose kids I've had to deal with. I could elaborate, but it's really just a feeling. I've met a couple of parents I think are really great too (both at my work).

64.75%

That is a nice number. I got 64.75 on the practice test this time. Still need 70 to pass; still got a long way to go before I feel like I can pass, but it's a damned good start.

Listening didn't change a bit, but kanji went up five points after week (two days really) of kanji-focused study, and grammar went up 10 points for no good reason. The reading score was also better for no good reason. Those "no good reason"s are bothersome, because they mean that I am at the mercy of the test-makers' whims. I would rather know that my score was safe from 10 point swings based on the material (and lucky guessing).

But hey, if I can keep moving at 4.25 points a week, I should be close to 80% by the time the real thing hits. To bad it's hard to get hold of the kind of psychoactives it would take to make me believe that figure though.

60.5%

Well, well, well. How's that for an inconclusive result? I have to get 70% to pass, and just as I'm coming into big last push, I'm scoring 10% below it.

Actually, I'm pretty happy with it. And even more happy to have found where my weak points are. I did well on reading and on listening, but crap on kanji, and on grammar. But since I haven't cracked a kanji book in 6 months, or a grammar book in 2 months, those are the right ones to have shitty. They're also the most conducive to "cramming", which is the subtitle of my november.

If this score is piss, it's king piss.

facty, allzu facty.

11 months later, I realize that I haven't been putting anything into my head but fact after fact. Emphasizing the language, kanji and especially vocabulary, I gotten used to a shallow style of consumption based on result rather than pleasure. It's a bit more complicated than I care to write about, but I've plowed through 2 books in the last month without enjoying them, and I'm starting to treat music and even food the same way.

I'm gonna keep doing it until december 4th, and then I'm gonna grow an ulcer waiting for my test results.

Speaking of test results, I'm actually taking a break right now from a practice test. It's not going well. Not going well at all.

google, we're waiting

When ray charles died, google did a special logo for his birthday. Well, I hope they're cooking up Captain Jack's logo right now. Rest in peace, soldier.

I am a chinese austauschstudent!

I've been locked in my room all day studying kanji, and working on test-taking strategy and all of those terribly un-fun things (though I secretly enjoy them). It strikes me... I used to know some people who seemed to live like this every day. The Chinese students in the dorms in germany. The only difference is that I don't interrupt my study breaks by frying up huge pans of chicken hearts and sweet pickles in the communal kitchen (true story).

I'm sort of proud of myself for being able to buckle down like this, and doggedly work on a single facet of self-improvement. I'm glad to know that I can still function like I'm "hungry" instead of the sated, ironic, lazy american that I have been since I entered junior high.

Oh, I'm still sated, ironic, lazy and american, and I probably always will be, but in the past, I've been too bored with the world to lift a finger. I feel like everything I've failed to acheive, and the list in not short, I've failed out of boredom. Not even something so noble as laziness. I had the time and the energy to learn C++ and write my thesis on Adorno and learn to play guitar, but I had stupid things I would rather be doing. Most of the time it was video games, or mindless internet. If I go back to the states next year, and fall into another shitty job I can't stand, I will have reaped what I spent a decade or so sowing. If not, maybe I'll start eating chicken hearts.

warm biz

During the summer, there was a government coordinated fashion movement in Japan called "cool biz". The idea (and a clever one at that) was that by asking private corporations, and forcing government offices to slacken their dress codes (good by necktie!) for the summer, they could get away with turning the air conditioners down, thus saving a bit of energy and making a very long run-on sentence.
Now it's time for the real winner, "warm biz". Save energy by wearing cozy little vests under your suit jacket.

Word is that cool biz was a pretty big windfall for the men's clothing industry, and warm biz will be too.

my mom says it's worth a fortune

My blog is worth $0.00.
How much is your blog worth?

cliffhanger

I'm waiting for the tv to come back from commercial break so that I can hear what a panel of experts decided was the best way to hold out a little longer when you really have to poop.

and they say japanese tv is worthless.

furusato - 08

furusato - 08
Originally uploaded by notnato.

This is my "pretty" furusato picture.

It seems like the internet is full of pictures of wacky japan, or traditional "kotos, temples and kimonos" japan. I'm really tired of those ideas.

Japan is a place where people live, and it's full of the life and color that people create.

while I'm in a blogging way...j-brog!

This is my other blog. I updated it for the 3rd and 4th times ever today.

I've been reluctant to share it with anyone, but lately I've been thinking that I should practive what I preach. In school, I always tell the teachers and students that being afraid of being wrong is a huge impediment to learning a language... and that the world will forgive your mistakes faster than you'll forgive yourself for not trying. (what a namby-pamby teacher type I am)

So even though I have very little confidence in my japanese, I'm opening up my other blog for the world to be unimpressed with. Enjoy.

(by the way, I won't likely make many entries there any time soon)

whining about whining about music

My friend recently mentioned on a post from way way back when that she'd prefer a world of less music criticism... or as she phrased it "whining about music". I don't think I can really get on board, but I do find myself really often at odds with only critics I really read, the pitchfork gang.

Since albums get out on the net before they get up for review these days, Ive had some time to listen to the new fiery furnaces album over the last month. I listened, and formed my opinions about it. I like it. It's not quite what the last one was, but it doesn't feel so invested in a gimmick as that one did either. A solid, listenable record that I would still consider pretty avant garde, in it's narrative style, and the fast paced shift of instruments and genres.

So, when I saw it finally pop up on pitchfork yesterday, I tried to give a guess as to what the score might be. I was already surprised to see that it didn't have a best new music tag (unlike the stupid animal collective, clipse, and the crappy new sigur ros album), but I figured maybe a 7.5 or so. Fuckers gave it a 4.0. That's rilly bad by their standards... and it's not even accompanied by such a bad review.

"Thus, the central problem of Rehearsing My Choir: It's a spectacular experiment, groundbreaking and perverse, bloated with possibilities and prime for parsing. But its practical function is unclear. No matter how open your mind, how welcome to art-without-directions you may be..."
The music fails to "function" cleanly in the reviewers lifestyle, thus is is sent to the bottom 10% or so of reviewed records. The kallikak family, meanwhile takes home an 8.2 for what I can't see as more than too much spare time to record uninteresting noises, I've listened to it several times to no avail. But rather than get all internet angry...

Why does it matter? money. If music were free (cough), then it wouldn't really be a problem. People would just get reccomendations from sources they trust, and if they didn't like it, so be it, off to the recycle bin. But reviews cost a lot less than cds... especially reputable internet reviews. For the price of one cd in japan (roughly 28 US smackeroos), I can buy a lot of onigiri at the conbini. So music reviews are keeping ears happy and my belly full by keeping me from wasting that money elsewhere.
If I had a wide network of friends with impeccable or at least similar taste, I could probably just fine without pitchfork. but I dont. and I generally agree with them, so I'll keep going.
I'm glad to have that off my chest and onto the internet.

Plus I think after reading that review snippet, my friend might be a little more interested in the fiery furnaces.

keimeisha ga tsumugu chuugakkounyuusiki nihon no rekishi can kiss my ass

I'm not having good luck with reading materials. The book I bought about a year ago for practice and maybe a little insight into japanese history is crap. It's a cram book for middle school entry tests, and it's just packed with ridiculous amounts of worthless vocabulary and minute details about the names given to specific offices in royal administrations from 643-705, and the names of the people that held the office. It reads a lot like that genre of spam where all the nouns in an innocuous piece of text have been replaced by 4 or 5 syllable nonsense... at least it does if you aren't already well versed in japanese history.

To hell with this one. Need to find a new book now.

By the way, there are laws in japan that say that a new book can't be sold at a discount price without very specific exemptions. I saw on the news recently that the Japan's first discount bookstore opened last month. I think they found something like the gun show loophole in the discount book laws.

best referrer evar

I just got a hit from this referrer. I'm proud to be the first and only result.

furusato - 01

furusato - 01
Originally uploaded by notnato.

I finally posted five photos from the trip I took on saturday morning to my flickr. Maybe I fucked with the levels a little too much in Fireworks, but everything looked a little too flat with the featureless gray sky.

I love certain aspects of this place. But when winter rolls around, I'm not gonna feel so fondly anymore.
Furusato is essentially "home town" with a rural implication. When I move to Tokyo, I will think of Aomori as my furusato.

just my weekend.

A couple things happened.

Friday night, before I met up with everyone, I went up to the 12th floor sky bar in the Aomori Grand Hotel (which if you know Aomori is sort of a pathetic name). It wasn't exactly "lost in translation", but it had a certain kind of self-conscious poshness to it... and they didn't turn me away at the door for what I was wearing. After making the new bartender prepare her first gin and tonic, I got to see the crowd that self-conscious poshness attracts in this city. Namely a 45 y.o. or so dude and his "date", a caucasian girl of maybe 22, dressed in fur. Also featured were the 20 something dude and his gf in HS uniform, and the plainclothes rich lady who all of the staff treated like royalty. It was a good time.
Sunday, I finished stupid botchan. Stupid, stupid botchan. Evidently, people read it as children here as a lesson in morality, but it's not exactly dense in moral dilemmas. To me it reads like a nationalist screed against the recently defeated russians and european culture in general. One established reading says that the book is about duty and love. Fuck that. Granted, the book has a little explanation section in the back, but I didn't want to read it. I'm a petulant snot just like botchan.
Later on sunday, I saw the immediate aftermath of a pizza hut delivery car crash directly in front of the pizza hut building. It looked pretty bad, and when I first passed by, someone was on the sidewalk face down. As luck would have it, I was on my way to that pizza hut. Inside, people seemed to be taking it as an inconvenience rather than a disaster. The sign on the wall said that they hadn't had a crash for 48 days. A couple minutes later, on my way out, the guy had gotten up off the ground, and a couple of people were starting to fight over the crash. It was the first time I heard anyone actually use the word "yarou" seriously in real life. When I got home I ate the whole pizza alone.

bought some clothes at uniqlo too.
the whole weekend cost me about 3.5 man yen, or about $330.

hanazono 2-3, loveworn

hanazono 2-3
Originally uploaded by notnato.

I went on a little ride around my neighborhood today and took a bunch of photos. For all its ugly, this sure is a pretty place.
There's something about the way things fit together here in hanazono and in Aomori that feels perfectly correct to me. All of the rust and scratches and dirt that would normally make everything tragic only show how well loved this place is.
It's like a little european village that's had a few hundred years to ripen, only there's almost nothing here over 50 years old.

I'll have a bunch of photos up over at my flickr soon.

a cold-blooded consumption machine

At times I think I'm different from most americans. All of these stereotypes that I've picked up from the states and germany and japan... who would want to be any of those? The worst, and most legitimate of the nasty american stereotypes is the incessant consumer. Eating, watching TV, buying electronics, using oil, laying waste to the world and consuming.

But that's me. The difference is neither one of quantity or of quality. I've jaunted here and there and learned a couple of languages. Hell, I've even learned a couple cultures pretty well by this point. What becomes of all of it though? In the end, I really feel like I just found new ways to consume food and tv and resources and time and people. I taught three classes today and spent the rest of the time somehow involved in media or food consumption.
It's not that that's a bad thing. Maybe having read harry potter in three languages is better than just one.

(strange blog entry, considering I'm not really so upset about anything. just feeling like I'm not putting out even a small percentage of what I take in. Witness my preempted japanese language blog with preciselt 2 entries.
Also, I got my first ever translation assignment... a student's speech on the komagome shishiodori.)

a psychidelic journey of the mind!

Today I will broaden my mind. I will stretch my senses beyond all of my prior experience. Having done so, I'm certain that I will never be the same person again.

Indeed, in just a few minutes, I will intentionally drink coffee.

So say your sad goodbyes to the nate you knew, for he shall be no more!

eat my ass, voldemort!

で きた！ I managed to finish the book today, by reading 80 freaking pages today. So I finished my first book in Japanese, and now I don't want to hear another thing about Harry Potter until late november.

Next up is Natsume Soseki's Bottchan. The training wheels are off this time. There's not nearly as much furigana happening in Bottchan as in HP.

ten minutes of my day

I also ate my first ochazuke today... it was pretty tasty.

wonderful new things to do.

Today, for the first time, I rented some CDS. For the next week, I have Fantastic Plastic Machine's "Sound Concierge #501"; Kahimi Karie's "My first Karie"; Halicali's "Halicali Mix" and an album of flipper's guitar's singles.

I'm still mostly clueless about the legal and financial riggings that make cd rental a very acceptable practice in this country. But, all of the cd cases have riaj stickers on them which I guess means someone up there's seeing a cut of the 300 yen I paid per rental.

Update: Evidentally, the whole rental profit distribution system is built around the "happy music cycle". Also worthy of note is that the rental shop had a couple of signs up saying that they couldn't rent "Def Tech" (A white boy + J-boy rap duo) because they were "indies", so evidentally, some important acts are outside the riaj system.

With any luck, tomorrow I will have another japanese first. I'm going to finish my first book in Japanese, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". Maybe you've heard of it.

I reek of effort

You know the sports cliche of giving X percent, I'm sure. Today, for the first time in my life, I gave over 90%.

It was really, really awful and I never want to do it again. I'll stay in the 70's, thanks.

the heat is on

05-10-04_20-40.jpg
Originally uploaded by notnato.

I turned the heated toilet seat on for the season today. It's gonna be a long, cold winter, but not for the outer edges of my butt cheeks or a portion of my thighs.

ADV JPN

and while I'm here...

While having a face that will scare children away is one valuable asset in a supreme court judge, it cannot stand as the sole qualification. No matter how strongly developed that trait may be.

salve.

You know they don't really yank out tonsils anymore? I spent a lot of time looking in the mirror at mine, and at pictures of other people's on the internet, and something fishy's going on with mine. (Yeah, what else are you gonna do when you're sick, study?) I really wish I could just be rid of the fuckers, but alas. Maybe after I get a couple more strepp throats this year...

Anyway, even if the terrible inattentive doctors of this country don't give a fudge why I've had a temperature of 104 four seperate times and have been hooked up to an IV five times with severe strep throat this year, at least I've got my boss. This is the care package he brought me this morning, on hearing that I was staying home sick.



I gobbled it all up quickly and gratefully... except the vegetable juice. Nice try.

the worst hit song of the 1990s. (presented without further comment)

Well!!

Chorus:
Are you Johnny Ray?
Are you Slim Ray?
Are you Paid Ray?
Who wants to know? Who wants to know?

Are you Sting Ray?
Are you Nick Ray?
Are you Jimmy Ray?
Who wants to know? Who wants to know?

Hey, can you tell when you look in my eye
You don't mess around with me
'less you feelin' dangerous.
Are you into my scene, lay it on the line
Ya come and take a walk with me
if you're feelin' dangerous.
Cuz I'm mean-a
I'm lean-a
I ain't no in-between-a.
With a reaper, I'm a dreamer
Good God, I'm a believer.

Chorus

Maybe we can shake it down by the walk
Do you think I'm takin' liberties?
Are ya dangerous?
I gotta let it, somethin' in my genes
ya come and take a walk with me
if you're feelin' dangerous.

Cuz I'm mean-a
I'm lean-a
I ain't no in-between-a
With a reaper, I'm a dreamer
Good God, I'm a believer

Chorus

Everybody jump back, turn around now
Let's do it again
Everybody jump back, turn around now
Let's do it again

Chorus (x2) fading

cannot tell a lie

I'd be lying if I said I've been baking up some brand new content or something. Just been alternating between busy and sick. Though apropos of sick, I think I might try and read up a little bit on doku-hara tomorrow and make a semi-informative entry.

za sorcerer's stone.

My head is awash with harry potter lately... after watching all the movies again, on the tail of finishing the most recent audiobook, I'm working on the first book in Japanese now. I'm trying my damnedest to get through about 50 pages of it a day, and today, for the first time, I managed it.
This translation's kinda shitty. I haven't read the original book in English (audiobook), but this translation seems to be incautious about the coming rules of the HP world, and uses a lot of really awkward vocabulary... though, hey, what do I know about what's awkward to a 12 japanese kid? The real nastiness though is how the spoken language is translated. In order to bend the characters into palettable japanese archetypes, dumbledore has been converted entirely to old-man-speak. He never uses the word です for all his じゃろうing. Hagrid's even worse. maybe 1/2 of what comes out of his mouth is proper japanese that appears in a dictionary with the rest being as grossly chopped up a slang as the english language "Trainspotting" book.
Eh. you take the good; you take the bad; you take them both.

I blog the tv.

Right now, on the television to my right, an aerobics program is playing. But instead of the class being conducted in a small room with two potted plants, the instructors are in a hotel conference room. Instead of two spandex clad girls and one spandex boy, the instructors are standing in front of a crowd of roughly fifty people wearing various uniforms, including chef, mechanic, maid, tour guide, the noodle shop guy, bartender and several not quite uniforms, like an old dude in a tux (who is a little overly eager) as well as a ninja and a black leather samurai.

The chef looks dead serious.

Holy crazy jeez. The music moved me.

Bruce Haack writes some crazy stuff. I know I've been making a lot of music entries lately, but I'm only two songs into "together" and my mind is blown, irreparably. You can download mp3's from the website, and I suggest you do, especially "touch" from "together".

PS... I'd be utterly remiss if I didn't pass on this link.... it's bill cosby tellin kids about the danges of drugs back in 1971. Courtesy of Waxy.org. If wesley willis had an artistic ancestor, Cosby singing "dope pusher" has got to be it.

dozens and dozens served. the dj's shadow.

The first person to read this post will be my 1000th visitor!

Watch this! It's a high school percussion band playing two tracks from "Endtroducing". Then read a little bit about it here.

This clip made me think a couple things. Like momus said, DJing has gotten pretty lame. I think the last couple generations of software have made it kind of easy, and reduced DJing back down to a dubious technical skill, the way it had been before hip hop. The beat matching is done for you, and everyone's releasing a cappella tracks... it's just a hobby now, and some people want to get paid for it.
DJ shadow (sacramento's proudest son), is the man to thank and blame for the whole dj boom of the last 10 years, but man... he was doing it on another level. I saw his live show in san francisco back when (see "Losing my edge"), and became a big old shadow fan. He was spinning four turn tables!... and he was making the best music of the decade. I think spin magazine were the first people I read to call him the Hendrix of the turntable. Today's dj's are a far cry from that. There's a very special place in my heart for Erlend Oye's DJ Kicks album, but there ain't no one doing what Shadow was doing.

Second, the musically trend of the new millenium = taking non-instrumental recordings, like Shadow or NES soundtracks and playing them live. It's a cool thing right now, and a nice way to shift a paradigm, but what about "creating" music? Between the mashups, cover versions, and these "analog-ies" good, creative music is being crowded out.
(Recommended "analog-ies" = the old demo tracks from the advantage, "Straight outta compton" by Nina Gordon and Seu Jorge's stuff on the "Life Aquatic" soundtrack.)

political science

you'll never guess what's going on in this picture. click on it to find out.

what's really on my mind

にいたって（に至るまで）
どうやら
〜たる
〜じみる
ならでは
〜のかたわら
さりとて
をもって
〜そこなう
〜ならぬ
それかといって
につき／につけ／につけても
一方だ
〜てたまらない／〜てはたまらない
〜てしようがない
〜てかまわない
といったら
*this list + 10 tomorrow. ch17 + oldies

hana ga saitarou

I've only just now gotten around to getting the full album from Asa Chang and Junray. I saw them in concert a while back but I hadn't heard anything from them before, or since. Until yesterday that is.

And it's great. "Jun Ray Song Chang" is highly recommended, especially the first track, "hana". It's renewed my faith in "avant garde" music that is still listenable... see also, dat politics, the fiery furnaces (though they're maybe not all that avant), william basinsky, deerhoof and others. Do not see the animal collective, latter day tv on the radio, wolf eyes, or xiu xiu.

god I hate the animal collective.

I'm sure it's only "avant garde" from where I sit. Most of the albums I linked were from 2002, 2003... and of course all reviewed by pitchfork (now, both a mark of indie cred, and of lack of indie cred).

(also, apologies for last night's entry)

everyone's got a blog. everyone's a tourist.

Everyone's got a blog. Everyone's got a blog. Everyone's got a blog.

I've got a blog too.

I haven't actually browsed but a couple of those blogs above, but they're all from aomori jets, and all linked off of the front page of jamie's avoidinglife. In fact that's just a small sampling of the blogs listed there. I read a couple of entries on a couple of blogs selected at semi-random from jamie's blogroll, and I learned about video games, and bugs and flowers and how much some people drank. I suppose in a sense I learned a little about japan, but not really.

You won't really learn about japan here either. I've tried to make a couple of enlightening entries; tried to give a slightly better impression of what I think it's "really like" here, but I don't think it matters. Nothing can counter the mass of media on the internet and elsewhere that tries to paint japan as "5 minutes into the future", or a "land of contradictions", or worse yet, an earthly paradise.

My feelings about japan aren't secret. I love the place, and can envision sticking around a long time. What you get here is the result of my working out the language and culture for myself, and the occasional jab at Bush.

Still it always makes me feel really strange to read other people's experiences with japan. It seems like everyone is always coming and going to and from tea ceremonies and sports clubs, or drinking, or gaming, or pining for their long distance lover. Or they're showing silly english photos (guilty as charged), or commenting on the general weirdness of the place.

Is everyone a tourist? Even people that have lived here for a couple years still hold the place at arms length. It seems like most any interest people around here have in japan is either self-concious interest (I like the idea of liking tea ceremony), or entirely uncritical (I like japanese hip-hop), or just silly (anime/ jgirls/ conbini food/ hello kitty is teh awesome).

Then again, maybe I'm just the only one self-involved enough to think himself seperate from that. but I really do want to understand more.

(by the way, I'm not referring to particular blogs or people)

Mr. Bush, I'm flattered, but...

I didn't expect that you'd take my comments so literally. dick.

big fat cheater plays a tiny violin

This is Chiyotaikai. He's a sumo wrestler from kokonoe-beya who's been struggling for a long time to stay at the top of the sport, despite the fact he's clearly past his prime. Yesterday, Chiyotaikai broke my heart.

He cheated. Or at least someone cheated on his behalf. Yesterday in his match against miyabiyama (misashigawa beya), the sluggish chiyotaikai barely laid a finger on miyabiyama before miyabiyama dropped like a stone. No slip, no uncontrolled momentum, he just fell down, making no effort to prevent it. The announcer was pretty shy about analyzing the match, and with the next match coming up there was no time for dwelling on the past.

I like sumo. I've been watching the english langauge broadcast regularly every tournament for the last couple years, and I've never noticed anything this bad. Granted, I've been talking about sumo fixing in the abstract for the last week over at marxy's place so maybe I'm much more aware of this sort of thing now. Maybe I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. Maybe peace and legitimacy reign over sumo.

But sumo has a bit of a shady history in the late 20th century (and before too). I'll add some more about that later, but for now, it's study time. I decided to use a time and make sure I study at least 2 hours every day until the big test in 78 days.

(click the picture for a link to dichne.com, a pretty authoritative site that I stole the picture from)
Also, I joined a forum to deal with my grief... read some discussion about the match here.

your mom dresses you funny.

There are two kinds of bad English in Japan. Incorrect english seems to be all the rage these days on the internet, but the other sort, inappropriate but correct English can be three times as funny.

I feel sort of bad about posting this on the internet, but I had a student yesterday who was wearing the 2nd worst example of proper English on a T-shirt I've ever seen. How bad? Judge for yourself.

Poor kid doesn't know... however even though I explained the meaning to him and to his teachers, no one thought that much of it.

By the way, the worst of the proper English t-shirts was for young women, and read: "And every present you give me gets me dripping like a honeycomb".

(gomen. I don't write the things, I just report 'em)

propriety

Today, I decided to invite a couple of my family members along to read the blog. I've read in countless places that everyone thinks that's a bad idea... so maybe it is. Still I've been posting for a long time here, and I haven't really said anything that outrageous, just a little god-baiting. I figure it can't hurt.

So welcome, welcome. Shoes off on the way in please.

vaccuumcleaner d. monkeyface

this is my vaccuum cleaner. it's winking at you.

dinklink and other links.

dinklink is a new dating website for wannabe dinks. Dink, meaning the demographic term "double income no kids", and not the lame insult most likely hurled by an older child on a sitcom. The link I followed to get there had the wonderful enticement "traditional family values make you want to puke?"
It's intended for "progressives", but I think the subscribers will most likely be homosexual men and women, and jerk heterosexual men. Look for first a mention in the cnn scroll line, and then conservatives saying that they are out to destroy the american family... it may even be described as heterosexuals that have bought into the "gay agenda".
(It's just a fascinating link, everyone knows I get all my myriad lovers through scam deai sites.)

Another website that's given me a couple laughs lately is this here it's an old comic featuring a guy reacting violently to rudeness. it's all I could ask for. Theonion has been surprisingly funny lately too.

and lastly, politics and tragedy. The Katrina Timeline. Worst administration ever.

once more into the breach, working sick (and gentei scorecard)

I'm sick again. This is at least the tenth cold since I set foot on these shores. Were these colds the same things I got back in the day in the states, I wouldn't complain. But these are no "head colds" or "chest colds". The colds I get in Japan are always sore throat + body aches + fever. Maybe it's time to get the old tonsils out.

The other nasty thing is that now that I'm older, and have a little bit of career-type responsibility, I have to work when I've got a cold. This week, that means standing and talking and gesturing, and trying my best to get a crowd of 30 or so 15 year olds laughing and interested in what I have to say. It's just as fun as it sounds.

In the business section, this last weekend must have been seasonal rotation day at the convenience stores. I happened into a conbini saturday night at 1:00 to find the shelves virtually empty, and one of my favorite products from last fall is back. Another couple of visits to local conbinis have also seen unusually empty shelves with lots of new products. With kinako pocky and nameko soba cup noodles for sale, it's shaping up to be pretty nice fall.

限定　Scorecard,

Available: kinako pocky, nameko soba cup noodles, donbei tempura udon bowl, ebi mayo-chili onigiri.

Unavailable: lychee iced tea, mango lassi drink, chili sauce and cream cheese potato chips, honey roasted nut potato chips.

breakfast lunch dinner, 朝昼晩, morgens mittags abends

Wake up and have breakfast on sunday the way I did in Germany (mountains of bread, cheese, spreads, tea and eggs with friends), then have some kind of wa-shoku set menu for lunch in Tokyo (and pick up a snack at a conbini while I'm there), and end the day choosing from the myriad (mexican, italian, chinese, japanese, korean, mongolian, thai, indian, russian, greek, organic/whole food, pizza, fast food, et cetera) restaurants of northern California for dinner.

New Orleans and the new new deal.

Like "ned" said down below, the mess NO is in now is the product of ineffective government. It's not just a government that isn't good at what it does though, it's a government that insists on it's own incompetence.
I made an entry a long long time ago about this regime being the first one (ok, 2nd, Reagan) to agree with "corporate america" that "coporate america" is much more fit to run every aspect of the country than the government of, by and for the people. In turn, they've stripped the goverment down to a waif, concerned mostly with inserting christianity into the lives of the citizenry, and spreading some cash and influence around.

What happened to government that got it's hands dirty, literally? The new deal dug ditches for a living. It made permanent changes to America that left her a better place for a huge number of people, especially the poor. The new deal taught americans that in their time of dire need, a strong, democratic government can harness the power of the people and make things right.

The new new deal was on vacation when the hurricane hit. The new new deal flew over and looked at the damage from a plane, and asked the citizenry to donate money to save their fellow man (because the goverment had already spent that money elsewhere). The new new deal has set race relations back 40 years, and presided over thousands of preventable deaths, because the new new deal doesn't know it's his job. The new new deal doesn't dig ditches for a living.

My new best link.

This is far and away the best online kanji study tool I've seen.

http://www.jlpt-kanji.com

frontline is great, but this place is amazing. Even has a personal storage folder to stow 100 of your problem kanji... and unlike a lot of the places I've seen online, there are no "coming soon" bits. It's all there and all working great!

the last tokyo entry for a while.

Here are a couple of leftover pictures from the trip. As (almost) always, click the photo to see it full size. Also, I cut the image quality to preserve space when I upload. If you'd ever like a copy of the unadulterated photo, let me know.

best picture I took during the trip. I was trying to take a really obscured picture of the very disappointing kaminarimon, and wound up snapping a really cute little girl running by the candy store while her mom chases after.

the park in shinbashi where the drunken OLs and prostitutes go to make out with salarymen

by learning english, you don a Tony Blair mask... or vice versa?

odd mall, home of little hong kong

a 3 minute walk from one of the busiest train stations on the planet.

the back of my head and the fake statue of liberty

(click to enlarge)

And that's my last entry about the tokyo trip. Next trip is in December for the test.

truly the end days are upon us.

"Bush Admits Fault"

for context, see:

"bush admits fault" : google edition

"bush admits fault" : google news edition

words of one ned sublette

as new orleans, now exclusively populated by a starving, parched skeleton crew of the abandoned descendants of slaves, comes apart at the seams:

the right has gotten their wish. they successfully made government ineffective. this is what happens when you take away the power of government. the point of effective government is to keep this from happening to society. and there is no better poster boy for the ineffectivity of government than the sitting president.

the literal meaning of homeland security is that you secure the land you live on, no? by now the absolute vacuum of leadership is becoming apparent even to TV viewers.

in his eerie disconnectedness to what's going on around him, isn't it starting to seem like bush is heavily medicated? he's *zonked*, right?

do they have him take these long vacations so they can change his meds? what's going on here?

he's got to go. he's got to go *now*.

(via boing boing)

I'm not a cultural anthropologist, but I play one online.

tokyo blogging / one piece blogging

(Omatase)

My name is Nate, and I'm a One Piece fanboy. I read the manga and watch the anime and movies. I own 2 tshirts and a handkerchief with One Piece logos. I sometimes read chapters of the manga on the internet prior to their publication. I even bought copies of the manga I already owned because I wanted to read them at that very moment. Hell, I learned Japanese to read the manga. How did it come to this?

My One Piece story starts in Marburg, Germany in 2001. Yeah, that's right noobs, 2001. There was a display in the window of the local comic shop that I was always passing for the newly arrived One Piece manga. I wasn't about to pick up and read a manga, but damned if that flag was not cool as hell. My girlfriend thought the same... and being a really cool person, talked with the shop owner and managed to snag me one of the mini paper flags!

Then my fanhood went dormant for a couple years... until I came to Japan under completely non-fanboy auspices. I started watching all sorts of anime for a little cultural understanding, and for a little alleviating the boredom. It wasn't long before I happened onto Kaizoku Fansubs. Soon, I found out that One Piece was pretty much the most popular manga in Japan, (with over 100,000,000 books in print as of april or so this year) and that my senpai was really into it too. It was pretty much downhill from there, with the full collapse this summer.

In the last few weeks, I've reached a level of Japanese ability where I can read the manga with no translation, and can watch the anime without subtitles pretty proficiently. As soon as I realized I could, I decided I wanted to catch up to the most current issue of the manga as soon as possible... and so I read over 3000 pages of manga in the last few weeks. And two weeks ago, I took the last step, and boarded the fantasy ship from One Piece, the Going Merry.

That was the real reason I went to Odaiba. I'm not actually a connoisseur of malls, and consumer paradises. For a few years now, Fuji TV has run a going merry cruise through the bay during their big summer festival. Below are a couple of pictures I snapped on the Going Merry, but someone else I met in the Kaizoku Fansubs forum (oh, the shame of it all!) took a lot more pictures, and often, a lot better ones.

robin is 姉さん系

zoro is packing

attacking odaiba with a water cannon

And last, another picture that's not mine. Rock bottom. Cosplay.

the real franky wears a speedo, poser.

There but for the grace of the flying spaghetti monster go I.

(tokyo break) let's talk recipe piracy.

I've got more photo's and thoughts to share on tokyo, but for now, let's talk about the bleeding edge of piracy. recipe piracy!

I decided when I set out for japan that dragging 200 books in my suitcase would be really unwise. So I dropped my cookbooks and brought along 194 books. It turned out to be a pretty good decision, since every recipe from every book ever seems to be on the internet.

case in point, I parted with a cookbook with a title like "world's greatest vegetarian recipes" or some such nonsense. The recipe I was really sad to part with was "kitchiri", a buttery, oily lentil and basmati pilaf. Well, one idle moment, I thought I'd check the internet, and lo and behold there's my kitchiri! Every ingredient, every proportion exactly the same as in the world's greatest veggie cookbook (I remembered most of the recipe, and several of the proportions owing to the difficulty of keeping it all in the kitchen).
Having had luck there, I searched another of my recipes, and ding ding ding! lentil bolognese, just as god intended. In fact, that link is the one I replaced my old link with when it went down. 20 more copies of the recipe could be pulled from the net, and I'd still be able to find it and a zillion other copies. I like this internet thing.

In truth, I know this isn't cutting edge. people have been lifting recipe's from other sources for ages. Slight differences in the language between the internet and book kitchiri recipe lead me to believe that there was some mitigation there as well. With indian recipes in particular, the spice proportions are so crucial, that I think many of the recipes have floated around unchanged for scores if not hundreds of years.
I'd wager that recipe piracy was actually one of the first forms of piracy, seeing as a unique and uniquely delicious recipe is made valuable only by it's scarcity. There's lots of lore out there about people desperately trying to steal their competitor's recipes...from old times and new.

There's something extra cool about cribbed recipes though. It's got that feeling of pirating something material and not just ones and zeros.

ps if you've run out of garlic, don't make the lentil bolognese without. ick.

blogging the shit out of Tokyo; part b (part 2).

Odaiba is the city of the future.

The only convenient way to get to and from the Odaiba complex is in the monorail... a real honest to goodness monorail. After a scenic, futuristic ride across the water, you'll be treated a whole bunch of perfect-looking, super clean buildings. Several are malls, but what's more interesting is Fuji Television.

that's fujitv on the right

The media giant actually keeps their headquarters open to the public. I didn't go in this time, but I understand it's packed with everything fans of their shows could want, including the studios. At fuji terebi you can attend tapings, and maybe even meet your favorite celebs. And naturally, you can buy merchandise. Right now, they're in the middle of the Odaiba adventure, a special attraction for the summer (and the reason I went, but more on that another time). During the "adventure", national acts play most every day, the shows run kind of an open house, and special limited edition shops and goods go on sale.
In this way, Fuji TV strikes me as a really progressive media company. They realize that TV plays a big role in many peoples lives, and that keeping that experience inside the home and inside a box is a missed opportunity. Not just an opportunity to sell people souvenirs and collectibles, but an opportunity to create a deeper connection between people and the products and series they love. I know it's cynical capitalism, but lately I'm especially pleased with cynical capitalism's ability to deliver meaning and meaningful experiences and connections between people.
When I first arrived, the Japanese cultural-economy felt especially heartless and empty, but as time goes on, I feel more and more attatched to it... like it's the future of capitalism.

the ride home, click for a better view

blogging the shit out of Tokyo; part b.

Odaiba is Tokyo for Japanese people.

This trip to Tokyo was also the first time I went to Odaiba. Unlike much of the rest of Tokyo, Odaiba doesn't seem to care about the Japaneseness of it's image. It's dominated by Fuji Television and a few shopping malls that are the spitting image of their American counterparts. Actually, I'd say they're better than most American malls because they aren't full of the lame stores that fill every other mall (though there is a cinnabon).

taken in odaiba

Most of the time, emulation of foreign lifestyles and trends strikes me as either forced exoticism, or a full fledged effort to be authentic (i.e. authentically hip hop, authentically hippy). Odaiba is like an unselfconscious acknowledgement that certain aspects of an American (and international) lifestyle are desirable and fun, while still understanding them as foreign. In keeping the foreign air about everything, it becomes unmistakably Japanese, and unmistakably international.

Speaking of international, there's a "little Hong Kong" inside one of the malls. It was really charming in it's own way. There incense scented air fresheners blow non-stop, as the sound of low-flying airplanes play over the loudspeaker. In the food court area the speakers play a loop of marketplace shouts in Chinese, and the clanking sounds of some utensils. Of course when you pay this much attention to detail, you've got to preserve the illusion. The place is covered in painted-on fake dirt, and carefully applied imitation wear and tear.

blogging the shit out of tokyo; part the first.

Every time I go to Tokyo, I have a different experience. I speak japanese better each time, go to different and better destinations each time, and I just grow more patient with each visit. My first few trips to Tokyo were full of rushing from place to place without really knowing where I was going or what to do when I got there.

This time, I only had one real goal in mind, the Odaiba Bouken, and going for a ride on the going merry. I accomplished that mission in a hurry, and spent the next couple days just taking in the sights, sounds and the odd smell. The next couple entries will be about that stuff, and I'll put up a some pictures. By the way, most of my pictures are links that will show the full size picture when clicked.

Today's quick observation:

They've got the dove real beauty ads that I wrote a bit about before in Japan too now. They're different in a lot of ways, but the thrust is simlar. Women don't need to fit within a small definition of beauty. But there's a really important difference.

The campaign focuses on aging, not having super white skin, not having big boobs, and not having long hair (lord, the short hair example girl is beautiful). Notice something different? That's right, they're not down with the big girls. Japan's real beauty campaign is more about loving yourself, even the things you can't change whereas the US campaign is about forgiving yourself for failing to change the things you can and probably should.
I guess that's one upside to living in a culture of self-discipline. Now if only I could get my gut to be really beautiful.

national eugenics lesson.

(very distracted, stream of consciousness entry, ご注意下さい.)

I'm back. Later on, I'll put up some of my Tokyo photos and tell some of my Tokyo stories later. Right now, I'm all in a tizzy about another tv show, again a show directed at telling children how they ought to be. This time, the show is aimed squarely at children, and concerns population control. Japan's birth rate per adult couple is 1.209. This show is about why that is a problem, and how it can be changed.
The story/lie they're telling is that the nation of Japan will cease to exist in the first half of the next millennium if they don't bring up the birth rate. I'll talk about that a little more later. After a semi-mathematical explanation about geometric progressions, they took a trip to the zoo to talk about the birth rate of other animals, which was pretty irrelevant.

Next it's time for a trip to Denmark, where they have brought their birth rate up in the last years. I think they hit the mark actually (mostly) when they say that in essence most Japanese houses are single parent households because Japanese fathers take no responsibility for child-rearing. They blame that on the father's laziness, and the adherence to traditional roles, but really gloss over the amount of time spent at work. A Japanese worker spends nearly twice as much time at work as a Dane. Danish couples are also infinitely more likely to both work, even in the upper classes. but enough of that.

Why do you teach this stuff to kids? Well, the example I gave above was actually not just a pointless extrapolation. A huge number of Japanese people think that Japan needs to keep it's birthrate up, or Japan will cease to exist (in Japanese the same as the polite word for die). Despite being one of the economically, culturally and technologically strongest countries in the world, Japan preserves the idea that they are a society of the brink of extinction. I can't help but laugh at the idea, but something does occur to me.
Japan does not keen to the idea of integrating their society with others at all. In their model for the future of Japan it's no accident that immigration is not included. A Japan that is not overwhelmingly ethnically Japanese is no Japan at all in the eyes of many people. Whereas the other countries seeing declining birthrates have in many cases welcomed an increase in immigration, Japan has not.
This is a chicken and egg suggestion, but maybe japan's historical antipathy toward it's neighbors is partly to blame as well. Where Germany doesn't view its society as all that separate from France doesn't view it's society as all that different from England, Japan has preserved a sense of racial and cultural superiority toward it's neighbors. Of course Germany and Japan both had really catastrophic flare ups of nationalism in last century, though I take those both mostly as historically isolated incidents. The broader sweep is that Japan has not had a shared culture with it's neighbors for a very long time, whereas christianity, philosophical and political movements, and even weather have bound the european countries very tightly.
That is to say that Japan is an island country and not just physically. After ww2, it's especially difficult for Japan to form strong ties with it's neighbors, but as time goes on, birthrate and immigration are another reason it will have to.

full service blogging.

I am actually going to be accomodating a reader of my blog in my apartment for the next three days. Someone I've only met once, yesterday evening.

You tell me what blogger makes a better offer than that and I will beat their offer by 5%*.

*this offer not valid.

shaking.

there was an earthquake. Everything went all wobbly, but everyone around here is ok. Sorry I don't have any big insights.

the shaking I'm refering to is "shaking off the dust of this one-horse town".

I'm going to Tokyo for a few days. Odds are I actually will make an update or two when I stop in for a breather at a manga cafe. I'll probably have a great mess of pictures coming up afterwards too. Stay tuned.

my best link.

You can watch frontline online.

nebuta wallpaper

While I tinker with that monster entry, enjoy this photo. Of the roughly 300 shots I took during the festival, this one is my favorite, and I'm using it as my desktop background right now.

nebuta

(You know, nebuta ended two weeks ago, and I've got a bunch of new stuff to write about, so I'm gonna leave this entry half-researched, and a quarter finished. My bad... still I will put up a couple more pictures for good measure. Also, a caveat, most of my information is from the official nebuta website, local people and the japanese wikipedia entry, so a grain of salt may be appropriate.)

Each year, in early August, Aomori City welcomes over 3 million people (ten times it's resident population) to watch or to take part in the Nebuta Matsuri.

The origins of Nebuta are, like a lot of history in Japan, not perfectly clear, and open to debate. The most widely accepted theory has the parade beginning as a display of power to intimidate the enemy. Hearing the boom of the dozens and dozens of taiko drums as the massive parade moves down the main streets of modern Aomori City, I find that theory more than plausible. As for the word "Nebuta", I've only heard one theory: that the local word "nemutai", itself a derivative of "nemuru" (to sleep), mutated over time into the current "nebuta" as well as "neputa" (the Hirosaki city equivalent of nebuta).

Literally months of preparation go into the parade. The buliding of the massive floats goes on silently from early in the year. The big floats are mostly built by artisans, paid for their work by corporations like mitsubishi, or the local city hall.

notice the great big Japan Rail logo

Although the floats are being built nearly year-round, it isn't until late May or early June that Nebuta really starts to take hold of the city. As the weather warms up, the taiko drummers begin to practice. As the number of practicing drum teams grows throughout the summer, their powerful rythym gradually fills the city, building to a crescendo of daily practice in the weeks preceeding the big parade.
Once the festival begins, it runs for seven nights. The first six nights, the floats and the rest of the participants parade through the center of the city on a roughly two hour circuit. On the seventh night, the floats are set on boats to parade through the bay underneath an unbelievably long fireworks display.

See my other nebuta related entries as well: beep beep; karasuzoku; sneak peak; wallpaper
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