For the last couple weeks, my favorite japanese tv show hasn't been on in the accustomed timeslot. I'm not sure if it's been canceled or reslotted or what. Unlike the states, when commercials come on, they are almost exclusively product ads. Maybe once an hour there will be an ad for upcoming programming, but usually they just talk about upcoming shows on the little network provided news interstitials.
Anyway, I have no idea when it's on. But the premise is "live cheaply"(mostly). Live on $100 dollars for one month including all your utilities, everything but the rent. Given that my keitai bill is over $100, my internet and phone bill is over $100 this month and my gas bill was also about $120 this month, I think that I'm a damned long way from that. Though I am currently getting by on about $30 a week on groceries.
Tonight I think I had a dinner worth about $1.15... and it was actually priddy good. Vegetarian yakisoba with an egg spread over the top and some half-assed ochazuke.
Also finally got my repaired heater returned. What snow?
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Monday, March 28, 2005
帰国 (kikoku)
Maybe the time has come. I'm gonna be going on a trip to San Francisco for Golden Week with my girlfriend. This'll be my first time back in the states since August 2003, and it's a little weird. I'm not anticipating anything really being different. It's the same country and the same city I left a couple years ago, but I'm not quite the same person.
It's not like I turned Japanese or anything, but I do feel at home here these days. I'm comfortable with supermarkets and convenience stores the way they are here. I'm not used to people who deviate from the norm much any more. Maybe I'm not as ready for, or welcoming of suprises as I used to be.
Still, I'm looking forward to some damned good mexican food, and good prices on computer parts. Also gonna be buying my favorite deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste and so on. I wonder if that's all the affection I have left for my little country...
However, what I feel about this trip isn't much in comparison to what my girlfriend is feeling. She speaks almost no English, so she's been kind of afraid to go abroad. This will be her first time outside Japan. She mentioned a couple days ago that she'd like to go somewhere over golden week, but I kind of resisted (can't stand travelling). When I told her that I'd decided that we should go, she almost cried. She said she thought she'd die without ever leaving Japan.
I guess when you don't have the experience, it seems like a much bigger deal.
nevermind...
Sunday, March 27, 2005
Saturday, March 26, 2005
salaryman heroes
salaryman heroes
Originally uploaded by notnato.
This is from the salarman heroes line of toys. It's a collection of diorama toys (now in the third series) featuring ultraman in various office scenarios. He works and rides the train with his nemises, and leads a charlie brown-like japanese everyman life.
Like so many japanese toys, foods, posters, hell any japanese ephemera, it inspires western people to remark on how great/bad/different japan is.
This time, I wanna say japan is sweet and kind. To see the single greatest icon of power in Japanese modern culture put in the situations he's in, is heart-warming. He's a subordinate and he misses his train, and in the new series, he even finds love. In a partially unrelated tv commercial, he is asked by his wife to get kerosene for the heater... but forgets to use his point card.
For all the emmasculation and subservience that a Japanese man is asked to face, it's nice to see that someone understands. Ultraman feels you.
morning blue dragon......wins.
Asashouryuu takes home another tournament victory, and does it before the admiring eyes of Jacques Chirac. This makes 11 for him, and excluding last year's fall tournament, a hell of a lot in a row. Asashouryu owns Sumo these days. He's the Yankees of powerful, hairless fat men.
momus (prolific blogger and "famous" musician) seems to be obsessed with japan in a lot of ways, and he has so much (mostly) well-thought out esteem for the place, it helps me take a step back. Jets spend a damned lot of time bitching. I think he goes too far, and I think we (the population of my office and the other jets I spend time talkin to) go too far in the opposite direction, but it's nice. It's nice to hear from someone who likes japan for a reason other than the ready access to naive women, or the traditional culture or video games or some shit. He really likes the place. I like the place too, but...
Also, a recipe: toast some bread, put honey on it. Spread with a knife. dekiagare. yum.
Friday, March 25, 2005
linkatonia
The web is getting all full up with these link based blogs, and for the most part they link other blogs that seem to be full up of the same sort of links. It seems the small guys find a good link, and the big guys (like boingboing or kottke or fark) come along and snap it up (or have it sent to them, I'm sure).
That seems like a fine way to get the links flowing honestly. Until the small guys then grab links from the big guys, filling their own linky blogs with 80% or so leftovers.
It makes polling the sites seem like a waste of time.
How to combat that? RSS! I switched my rss client over to sharpreader recently and have already filled it up with forty something rss feeds. Interglacial actually has a bunch of things on feed from sites that don't create their own rss feeds like McSweeney's the onion and get your war on.
Also a propos a linking discussion, my del.icio.us page... and while we're at it, my flickr page.
and that's that for links and talkin about them. I won't likely fill any future entry so fulla junk.
That seems like a fine way to get the links flowing honestly. Until the small guys then grab links from the big guys, filling their own linky blogs with 80% or so leftovers.
It makes polling the sites seem like a waste of time.
How to combat that? RSS! I switched my rss client over to sharpreader recently and have already filled it up with forty something rss feeds. Interglacial actually has a bunch of things on feed from sites that don't create their own rss feeds like McSweeney's the onion and get your war on.
Also a propos a linking discussion, my del.icio.us page... and while we're at it, my flickr page.
and that's that for links and talkin about them. I won't likely fill any future entry so fulla junk.
texas city
You (the imaginary reader) will bear with me... I write these days to try and get back in the habit.
Tonight I'm on course to finish the second of three parts of my current study book. Every bit of studying I do actually feels meaningful still, which makes me wonder if I don't still really suck. Even if I do suck, I'm on the road to crossing over the 2kyuu line by my birthday... which is actually a fair bit better than I had expected.
I've also started reading banana yoshimoto's "kitchen" in Japanese. Can't say that I'm in love with it... but I'm gonna read it through, just to finally clear my first proper japanese writing.
I'm in the midst now of another of my strange profound contentment phases. Phase is something of a misnomer, since it's actually been the norm for a good while.
Except for the panic boredom that took root between getting back from Tokyo and meeting my girlfriend, I've been wholly content and wholly unperturbable almost since I came to Japan. (seems like a good advertisement).
But for the last couple days, I've been peeking at the blogs of people crisscrossing the globe and being cool and artsy, and I feel a little weird. The place I live, there doesn't seem much point on going out on friday, or any other day. Especially lately, I am quite happy to be left alone with the internet, and my studies.
Is that good for me for me?
short answer, yes with an if; long answer, no with a but.
Tonight I'm on course to finish the second of three parts of my current study book. Every bit of studying I do actually feels meaningful still, which makes me wonder if I don't still really suck. Even if I do suck, I'm on the road to crossing over the 2kyuu line by my birthday... which is actually a fair bit better than I had expected.
I've also started reading banana yoshimoto's "kitchen" in Japanese. Can't say that I'm in love with it... but I'm gonna read it through, just to finally clear my first proper japanese writing.
I'm in the midst now of another of my strange profound contentment phases. Phase is something of a misnomer, since it's actually been the norm for a good while.
Except for the panic boredom that took root between getting back from Tokyo and meeting my girlfriend, I've been wholly content and wholly unperturbable almost since I came to Japan. (seems like a good advertisement).
But for the last couple days, I've been peeking at the blogs of people crisscrossing the globe and being cool and artsy, and I feel a little weird. The place I live, there doesn't seem much point on going out on friday, or any other day. Especially lately, I am quite happy to be left alone with the internet, and my studies.
Is that good for me for me?
short answer, yes with an if; long answer, no with a but.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
on the edge of
I like the title and subtitle I chose for this blog. I'll try and explain them...
I live in Aomori prefecture, in Aomori City (pop ~300,000), the capitol. That's really explanation enough, but let me clarify what that means a bit. Aomori is one of the poorest prefectures in Japan, as well as one of the most old fashioned. How old fashioned? Well, we have a local dialect here called tsugaru-ben, which is one of the hardest to understand dialects of Japanese. Most people can speak a fair deal of it, and the older folks can't speak anything but. "Wa" is tsugaru-ben for watashi (I). Wa, wa... is something like "as for me..."
Aomori city's greatest claim to fame is being the snowiest city of it's size in the whole world. And that's no jive. The city was simply buried under snow all winter, and even now, it's falling something fierce. As a consequence of the weather, and the poverty of the region, there's not so much going on. Most of the talented, young people skip town as soon as they get the chance.
But I'm here under contract. I'll be here under contract until August 2006. Now I'm not saying that I hate my life here. Thanks to good pay, and other benefits tangible and intangible, my life here is about as good as it's ever been.
But this place can be a drag. Anything approaching culture in the region is Toyko's leftovers. That's the case for a lot of Japan, but here moreso. We don't even get broadcasts from the two major private networks, Asahi and Fuji TV. We get weird half syndication that moves the most popular shows to different days (like trivia no izumi), or doesn't even broadcast them(like one piece). Amongst local young people, the choices are limited to hip-hop or disappearing into the workforce... or Tokyo. That's not to say that TV or fashion choices of youth are the most important things in my life, just the readily apparent symptoms of a broader malaise.
So I feel isolated from the Tokyo culture that I am in love with. Being a white guy in Japan is already an isolating experience (albeit one with more than enough fringe benefits), but in Aomori foreigners are beyond rare. As such, I think we get the full foreigner treatment. The only people around here who aren't afraid to talk to us are those who have somehow rejected Japan, and want to be international. This rejection usually amounts to wanting to have a fantasy world "real life" like in "titanic" or some other awful caricture, meaning that they're really poorly suited to actual conversation or friendship... kind of like michael jackson would be.
I feel like a salaryman despite having all the free time and disposable income I could ask for. Granted those last two benefits are nice, but I feel like I have them because there's nowhere to blow cash or time.
Thus the little influx of culture I get comes from the TV or the officeplace, just like everyone else around me. And just like everyone around me, I'm only sitting on the edge of japanese culture.
I live in Aomori prefecture, in Aomori City (pop ~300,000), the capitol. That's really explanation enough, but let me clarify what that means a bit. Aomori is one of the poorest prefectures in Japan, as well as one of the most old fashioned. How old fashioned? Well, we have a local dialect here called tsugaru-ben, which is one of the hardest to understand dialects of Japanese. Most people can speak a fair deal of it, and the older folks can't speak anything but. "Wa" is tsugaru-ben for watashi (I). Wa, wa... is something like "as for me..."
Aomori city's greatest claim to fame is being the snowiest city of it's size in the whole world. And that's no jive. The city was simply buried under snow all winter, and even now, it's falling something fierce. As a consequence of the weather, and the poverty of the region, there's not so much going on. Most of the talented, young people skip town as soon as they get the chance.
But I'm here under contract. I'll be here under contract until August 2006. Now I'm not saying that I hate my life here. Thanks to good pay, and other benefits tangible and intangible, my life here is about as good as it's ever been.
But this place can be a drag. Anything approaching culture in the region is Toyko's leftovers. That's the case for a lot of Japan, but here moreso. We don't even get broadcasts from the two major private networks, Asahi and Fuji TV. We get weird half syndication that moves the most popular shows to different days (like trivia no izumi), or doesn't even broadcast them(like one piece). Amongst local young people, the choices are limited to hip-hop or disappearing into the workforce... or Tokyo. That's not to say that TV or fashion choices of youth are the most important things in my life, just the readily apparent symptoms of a broader malaise.
So I feel isolated from the Tokyo culture that I am in love with. Being a white guy in Japan is already an isolating experience (albeit one with more than enough fringe benefits), but in Aomori foreigners are beyond rare. As such, I think we get the full foreigner treatment. The only people around here who aren't afraid to talk to us are those who have somehow rejected Japan, and want to be international. This rejection usually amounts to wanting to have a fantasy world "real life" like in "titanic" or some other awful caricture, meaning that they're really poorly suited to actual conversation or friendship... kind of like michael jackson would be.
I feel like a salaryman despite having all the free time and disposable income I could ask for. Granted those last two benefits are nice, but I feel like I have them because there's nowhere to blow cash or time.
Thus the little influx of culture I get comes from the TV or the officeplace, just like everyone else around me. And just like everyone around me, I'm only sitting on the edge of japanese culture.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
the devil, and speaking of him (or her)
Today, apropos the Bobby Fischer story, Fujimori san came up... then over at boing boing, I find out just a little later, he's promoting a cola in Peru to get his name back in circulation. Fuji-cola.
Just had another moment like that with a conversation from yesterday. I can move the entire contents of a book, pictures and all to a different location in almost no time, for essentially no money. But for me to get to freaking tokyo, it costs 3man and takes several hours. hell, even getting to my corner store takes 4 or 5 minutes. But it was the longer distance travel that was bugging me.
Enter Japan Rail's new maglev pavillion at the aichi expo!
I feel like there's some currency and relevance in my blatherings with mary. y00t!
Just had another moment like that with a conversation from yesterday. I can move the entire contents of a book, pictures and all to a different location in almost no time, for essentially no money. But for me to get to freaking tokyo, it costs 3man and takes several hours. hell, even getting to my corner store takes 4 or 5 minutes. But it was the longer distance travel that was bugging me.
Enter Japan Rail's new maglev pavillion at the aichi expo!
I feel like there's some currency and relevance in my blatherings with mary. y00t!
iTunes only.
Ben Folds - Bitches Ain't Shit. A fine piece of recontextualizing. I was over at neomarxisme for the past 20 minutes or so, so I feel sort of inclined to analyze it deeper than that. Luckily, the (fictional) reader will be spared this time.
Have you seen Omega Man? Like a lot of movies that feel somehow kitschy, I was enthralled with the whole weird early seventies vibe... and before long lost that. For about the first half hour, Charelton Heston cracks one liners about the empty world around him, and then sleeps with a foxy black lady who wears a flowing robe to seduce him. There's zombies too, but they aren't as compelling.
I actually watched it as part of my endeavor to throw shit out. I have this collection of movies that I haven't watched, and just want to watch and dispose of. Tonight will be Wildstyle, and maybe a Noam Chomsky lecture. Oh and "Inside Deep Throat" though it looks like the cam is terribly out of focus.
I made a blog entry for no reason at my myspace page concerning watching a movie a day, and why I feel bloggy lately.
Though speaking of myspace, a friend from college with whom I'd been out of touch invited me to make a profile... a "why not" kind of thing. And yesterday, a current senior at my tiny high-school sent a friend request. She says she was runner up for homecoming queen. I'd kind of forgotten that high school ever happened. It stopped happening 9 years ago, actually. Which is spooky.
Have you seen Omega Man? Like a lot of movies that feel somehow kitschy, I was enthralled with the whole weird early seventies vibe... and before long lost that. For about the first half hour, Charelton Heston cracks one liners about the empty world around him, and then sleeps with a foxy black lady who wears a flowing robe to seduce him. There's zombies too, but they aren't as compelling.
I actually watched it as part of my endeavor to throw shit out. I have this collection of movies that I haven't watched, and just want to watch and dispose of. Tonight will be Wildstyle, and maybe a Noam Chomsky lecture. Oh and "Inside Deep Throat" though it looks like the cam is terribly out of focus.
I made a blog entry for no reason at my myspace page concerning watching a movie a day, and why I feel bloggy lately.
Though speaking of myspace, a friend from college with whom I'd been out of touch invited me to make a profile... a "why not" kind of thing. And yesterday, a current senior at my tiny high-school sent a friend request. She says she was runner up for homecoming queen. I'd kind of forgotten that high school ever happened. It stopped happening 9 years ago, actually. Which is spooky.
downtown aomori
This is a view of downtown aomori and honchou from 500 meters out into Mutsu bay. But it's just a pier.
And this is just a test.
falling short.
I'm listening to optimo's "how to kill the dj (part 2)" right now because I'm a pitchfork ass, and there's something there that just doesn't hit the mark for me. I can't stop listening, but somehow I can't give the damned thing full marks. If you're gonna listen though, do yourself a favor and do it with the great escape. Yatosho is another of those people that lives somewhere cool, and seems like he's a step ahead of the rest of us. I mean, he writes badass math equations that make music taste better.
Me? I sit in an office half-studying japanese, bothering my boss every 15 minutes to confirm my understanding. For the next four weeks, I'll be doing exclusively that from 8:30am to 4:00pm. Not where I pictured myself at 25 (or 26), but given what I'm getting paid, it could be worse. It could be a lot worse.
Me? I sit in an office half-studying japanese, bothering my boss every 15 minutes to confirm my understanding. For the next four weeks, I'll be doing exclusively that from 8:30am to 4:00pm. Not where I pictured myself at 25 (or 26), but given what I'm getting paid, it could be worse. It could be a lot worse.
hatsu entry
I spend more time cleaning slates than filling them up lately. This is my second attempt at starting a new blog in the last week. The last one just " didn't take".
It's not that I have a project to share, or that I think my writing is worth reading. Quite the contrary. My writing is terrible, and my life, for the most part uninteresting... to me. Sure I live where I do, and I do what I do. I even enjoy doing it. I just don't think there's much to share at the end of the day.
That's the problem, idn' it? I was browsing some other blogs including Jamie's avoidinglife, where you can find my picture if you're so inclined, and some of the cool ass tokyoites' blogs. And it strikes me that despite having become an excellent consumer, and an expert in receiving culture (via studyin and downloadin and watching tv and all of those passtimes), I've never been a creator. Half of that is lack of discipline, half (perceived?) lack of ability. Even this blog entry is a painful process of backspace-try again.
But there's some discussion in the link under the word "cool" up there that put a bit of spring in my metaphorical step. The idea that Japan is somehow exempt from the discussion of authenticity makes me feel one step more free from the burdensome philosophy that I had been toting on my back as long as I can remember. But this isn't the place for that stuff.
I'm not sure what I envision, but maybe I can, like most other readable blogs take some of that culture I receive, cull it, and spit it back with a little touch of my own spin. And thus begins my story about...
It's not that I have a project to share, or that I think my writing is worth reading. Quite the contrary. My writing is terrible, and my life, for the most part uninteresting... to me. Sure I live where I do, and I do what I do. I even enjoy doing it. I just don't think there's much to share at the end of the day.
That's the problem, idn' it? I was browsing some other blogs including Jamie's avoidinglife, where you can find my picture if you're so inclined, and some of the cool ass tokyoites' blogs. And it strikes me that despite having become an excellent consumer, and an expert in receiving culture (via studyin and downloadin and watching tv and all of those passtimes), I've never been a creator. Half of that is lack of discipline, half (perceived?) lack of ability. Even this blog entry is a painful process of backspace-try again.
But there's some discussion in the link under the word "cool" up there that put a bit of spring in my metaphorical step. The idea that Japan is somehow exempt from the discussion of authenticity makes me feel one step more free from the burdensome philosophy that I had been toting on my back as long as I can remember. But this isn't the place for that stuff.
I'm not sure what I envision, but maybe I can, like most other readable blogs take some of that culture I receive, cull it, and spit it back with a little touch of my own spin. And thus begins my story about...
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