Lost In Translation

Christmas Already

I was in Omotesando today and this new coffee shop already had Christmas decorations up.

They felt that it didn't feel enough like Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn

This assessment of The Matrix triology on MSN's Slate is exactly how I feel about it, having not seen the third installment, which I'll eventually see on rental, but not in the theaters. I was really glad I didn't bother paying money to see Reloaded in the theater.

400 Years of Tokyo

This is the 400th anniversary of Edo changing to Tokyo, so there are several events and exhibitions going on. I should check some of them out. These banners are all over Tokyo, this particular picture was taken near Otsuka Station where my gym is.

Politicians Say The Darndest Things...

It's amazing what politicians can get away with saying here, things like women shouldn't dress provocatively because they might incite rapists, and the usual anti-foreigner rhetoric like this from Japan Today:

Kanagawa governor apologizes for calling foreigners 'thieves'

Friday, November 7, 2003 at 07:06 JST
YOKOHAMA ? Kanagawa Gov Shigefumi Matsuzawa apologized Thursday for calling foreigners "sneaky thieves" while campaigning over the weekend for a candidate running in Sunday's House of Representatives general election.

"My strong desire to maintain security led me to make the false, inappropriate remarks. I apologize and take them back," the governor said in a news conference.

"There are some foreigners who come to Japan with student visas but end up overstaying illegally and commit serious crimes. I want to control such crimes," Matsuzawa said.

In a campaign speech Sunday near a railway station in Kawasaki, Matsuzawa said, "Foreigners are all sneaky thieves. As Tokyo Gov (Shintaro) Ishihara has cracked down on them, they have flowed into Kanagawa Prefecture."

The Kanagawa prefectural government received more than 100 emails after the speech both criticizing and supporting the remarks, Matsuzawa said. (Kyodo News)

Chinese Not Just Anti-Japan

There has been a lot of backlash against Japan in China concerning the orgy incident from last month and the recent Xian lewd skit incident, which caused massive protests. It seemed to me that there's an underlying reason, which is suggested in this article from The Daily Yomiuri. It reminded me of the time that America accidently bombed the Chinese embassy in Kosovo, the Chinese are looking for excuses to vent anger and frustration of their poverty and lack of rights, since only a minority are repearing the benefits of the economic freedoms of recent years. Since it is directed against foreigners the government can't really quell the protests.

Film Notes: Kill Bill

Yesterday I finally saw Kill Bill Vol. 1, and really enjoyed it. It's a glorified B-Movie, a simple plot and an exercise in pure style. I usually prefer more complex stories, but this was so well done. It was an example of how to do an action movie, in contrast, I also recently saw Matrix: Revolution, which I felt was too long and I think they got a little "Star Trek The Next Generation-ey" with the space ships and council meetings (and I don't mean that in a good way either). The cinematography was interesting, the colors vibrant, the violence excessive, the bloodshed copious, and the music was good as well. You can tell the actors put a lot of time in too learn the choreography for the fight scenes. I liked the fact that they didn't use the CGI, which seems to be everywhere after The Matrix, I think it looked more impressive that way. I like Tarantino's imagined Tokyo, much more stylized than in reality, although I saw glimpses of the real thing. There was a short animation sequence in the movie that was as bloody as the real action. I was surprised that there were a lot of speeches in Japanese, as well as a lot of Japanese actors in it. By the way, Uma Thurman's and Lucy Lui's Japanese pronunciation and intonation are crap. Julia Dreyfeuss' (Sophie Fatale) Japanese was amazing, her French sounded good as well. I'm kind of glad Tarantino decided to make it into two parts, I've been having trouble with movies more than 2 hours long lately, I guess I'm getting an adult version of ADD. I'm looking forward to the next installment for sure.

Full Minute of Mercury

One of my old friends from the JET Program, Michele Maurer is now a kindergarden teacher and trying to be a rock star ala Robert Pollard, check out her band profile and download the songs:

We're doing this huge promotion blitz and are trying to get charted on
Washington post.com's mp3 site. So here's where I would really,
really, really be your best friend if you could just log onto the site and
download the two new songs from their site. Our band website has a link
to mp3.com, where we've submitted the new songs and they are still
pending approval. If you have a few seconds to download the song from the
washington post site, PLEASE do. We're trying to get some media
attention and I'd rather not have to resort to desperate measures (which
would probably be very entertaining and/or naughty/illegal...much more
entertaining than reading an email begging you all for help even though I'm
a crappy friend).
SO PLEASE either access the Post page by clicking on this
or by going to our band website (www.fullminute.com) and clicking on the
Washington Post link on the top left hand side, then clicking to download
the 2 songs.

Halloween: Part 2

Some of my friends have an annual Halloween Party, this year it was actually on the 1st of Novemeber.

Kyoko and Tony.

I went as Ichiro.

Mayumi and Yossy.

John as a blonde.

The Chinese dress was a popular costume.

The clown, Timo was one of the organizers for the party.

Chef Shingo and Naoko.

Tim as a dickhead.

Hanae and Shuji, co-winner of the costume contest.

Halloween: Part 1

Meg, Tony, and some of Meg's friends were off to a Kill Bill theme party.

Marcus, the funky monkey.

Reiko and Marcus engaged in some monkey business.

Mori Art Museum

Yesterday I checked out the new Mori Art Museum and was quite impressed. I liked how the curator used a theme, "Happiness" to categorize the art rather than by period, artist, genre, or medium. There was all kinds of modern, contemporary, and classic art in a variety of mediums. Everything from Khmer sculptures to Picassos. There were some subgroup classification within the theme of Happiness: Arcadia, Nirvana, Desire, and Harmony. Some of the selections seemed somewhat arbitrary to me. However, a big thumbs up overall.

Inflated plastic flowers in the atrium to the entrance of the museum.

These are some of the images in the foyer of the museum between the 52nd adn 53rd floors.

This feather ladder was in the middle of the foyer.

There was free access to the city view as part of the admission, so you could get some really cool views of Tokyo and it's open until 11 at night.