Lost In Translation

Danger!

Here's another sign that doesn't need a translation. Actually, I find that the Japanese are quite paternalistic in some respects and foster a sort of infantilism in adults. For example, train recordings tell you the name of the stop, which side the doors will open, and will remind you not to forget anything on the train at every stop. There are always signs stating the obvious (like the one above). Perhpas, it is consdiered polite to look after the general public this way, but it sends a deeper message that the masses are unable to use common sense to get through the day, and that it is necessary to spell everything out and look after people.

DVD Notes: Elephant

I recently rented Gus Van Sant’s latest film, Elephant. It’s a movie inspired by the high school shooting incidents that took place in the late 90s, and the Columbine shooting in particular. I think it’s the best Van Sant movie since Drugstore Cowboy. The story of the shooting is presented in a series of different points of view from several different characters, and some of the stories overlap. It has a documentary-like feel since it doesn’t unfold in a conventional narrative pattern. There’s no real back-story as to why this has happened, but there are echoes to as why it happened. The actors are all very convincing as well. I like the fact that he cast real unknown teenagers, rather than professional actors playing teenagers. The result is that the dialogue, clothes, and behavior feel realistic and true to life. The cinematography is excellent as well. Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” is effective as the musical motif for the film. It is haunting, true to life, disturbing, and fascinating all at once.

In The iPod: A Whole Lot of Music

When I went back to Seattle my friend Mike made me a mix CD of a bunch of new music, recommendations, and some music that I was curious about. And I’ve really gotten into most of the music. Here are some of the discoveries:

The Killers-I heard “Somebody Told Me” on the radio a lot when I was in Seattle, but I was blown away by “Smile Like You Mean It “ and “Mr. Brightside,” both of which are great tunes-I’ll have to get the CD. They’re part of the 80s revival started by The Strokes and perpetuated by Franz Ferdinand, The Postal Service, The Shins, etc…

Death Cab For Cutie-I expected I would like them since I dig Ben Gibbard’s (the front man) side project The Postal Service, and I do. Tranatlantcism has some excellent moody heartfelt songs, one of which “The New Year” was featured in the mix list from the Onion’s AV Club.

Drive-By Truckers-a lot of my friends have been talking them up for years. They live up to the hype. I particularly like “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac,” but there seem to be several standout tunes on Decoration Day as well.

Gerald Collier-used to hang out at my local bar in Seattle and played in the under-rated power pop band, The Best Kissers in the World. He is a truly gifted songwriter, and has changed directions and has moved into the alternative country/singer-songwriter terrain with his solo albums. “Dark Days” and “Whored Out” are two of his gems.

Ryan Adams/Whiskytown-I have one Ryan Adams (former Whiskytown front man) CD, Heartbreaker, and I’m an alt country fan, so it’s probably a matter of exposure. Whiskytown was one of the leading bands of the No Depression movement, but I just never got around to getting any of their albums, same as the solo Adams. It looks like I need Faithless Street.

Cat Power-another band hyped to the gills by my friends, so much so that I went to a show a few years back and was under whelmed. But I have to admit she has some produced some powerful ballads like “Maybe Not.”

Tegan and Sarah-Canadian alternative hotties that have a catchy song with “When You Were Mine.”

Mary Lou Lord-I’ve always been a fan of her modern folk-“Aim Low” and “His Indie World” are two shining examples.

Here are some individual tunes that I’m digging as well: “Small Parade”-Tobin Sprout-he’s a former member of the excellent band Guided By Voices and wrote some of my favorite tunes on Under The Bushes, Under the Stars. “All I Know” Pernice Brothers. “Year Of The Rat” Badly Drawn Boy. “Maps” Yeah Yeah Yeahs. “Kiss It All Goodbye” Garageland. “A Perfect Sonnet” Brighteyes.

The Tequila Girl @ Zest

I met some freinds food and drinks at Ebisu Zest before my freind Marcus' concert at What The Dickens. It just so happened that it was tequila night. So we bought a round in honor of my friend Evan's birthday. After doing the shot, about 9:30, I went to use the toilet only to find a patron passed out in a stall surrounded by staff and memebers of his party, a bunch of young guys in suits. I remarked that it was a little early (not even 10) to be so drunk, to which one of his friends said they'd been drinking since 6 and it couldn't be helped. Just another night on the town in Tokyo.

THE Defining 80s Song

My brother forwarded this to me:

From the Sports Guy (Page 2 ESPN)

Q: What do you think is THE defining song of the 80's? Not the most
popular, but the song that if you were putting a disc of one song in a
time capsule for 100 years and they were to open it, what song would
scream "This is why the 80s rules." I say it's Blue Monday by New
Order,
but I'm open to suggestions
--Lance Hughes, Lubbock, TX
SG: That's a great "Driving on a road trip and needing something to
argue about for 50 miles" question. In my opinion, a quintessential
80's
song should accomplish five things:
A. It should make you think that, except for the rare exceptions --
like
the Killers or Franz Ferdinand -- they don't make music like this
anymore.
B. It should be happy and moody at the same time, the last song you
would ever hear before driving your car off a bridge.
C. It should have a definite beat -- you could dance to it, clean your
car to it, drive 110 MPH to it, etc -- and it should definitely sound
like something that could have been used in Miami Vice (in an opening
montage or a "driving around Miami and checking out hot chicks" scene,
not a car chase or a "Tubbs hangs out in a strip joint and pretends
he's
Jamaican" scene).
D. It should make you question your own sexuality for about 0.87
seconds
before you say, "Ah, screw it, it's a good song."
E. It should be dated, cheesy and a little overdramatic ... but not so
much that the song isn't still enjoyable even now.
Anyway, these would be my six choices (with apologies to "Relax" by
Frankie Goes to Hollywood, which wasn't quite morose enough since it
was
about an orgasm):
1. "The Promise," by When In Rome
2. "Suedehead," by Morrissey
3. "Uncertain Smile" by The The
4. "A Forest" by The Cure
5. "The Killing Moon," by Echo and the Bunnymen
6. "Age of Consent," by New Order
So there you go. And yes, I spent about 90 minutes coming up with that
list. And you wonder what I do all day.

So this is my list in no particualr order (it's too hard to choose just one):

1. I agree that New Order definitely belongs in this list, "Blue Monday" is too obvious and over-rated in my opinion. My sentimental choice would be "Bizarre Love Triangle", but "Ceremony" still sounds fresh to me.

2. "The Killing Moon" by Echo and the Bunnyman-I have to agree with the Sports guy here, I rediscovered this while watching Donnie Darko-killer tune.

3."How Soon Is Now" by The Smiths-my favorite all-time Smiths song. I really think that The Smiths have stood the test of time, in that they don't sound dated to me.

4. It seems like there should be a Cure song, but which one? "Pictures of You"(1989) has found it's way back to my heart through the HP commercial. But I think "Inbetween Days" is more fitting.

5. Duran Duran was sort of my sequeway into punk/post punk/new wave music, however I would choose another late 80s tune taht was featured in Donnie Darko,"Notorious." Although, I'm tempted to suggest their cover of Cockney Rebel's "Come Up And See Me (Make Me Smile)" from a bootleg recordign that I chreished inthe mid 80s.

Honorable Mention: "Forever Young" by Alphaville, "Tainted Love" Soft Cell, "I'll Melt With You" by Modern English, "Bad" by U2-all mixer calssics.

What do you think?

Don't Jump Out!

Even if you can't read Japanese you can understand this playground sign in Bunkyo-ku.

More Murakami

Here's an article about a film maker who made a film from a Murakami short story from The Daily Yomiuri:

From paper to celluloid

Shogo Hagiwara / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

As an avid reader of Haruki Murakami's novels, director Jun Ichikawa knew adapting the author's fiction would be a daunting task. When he tried his hand at the short "Tony Takitani," he struggled at first. But the effort paid off, he tells The Daily Yomiuri.

Few would question Haruki Murakami's status as one of the most famous Japanese writers of our time. When his Umibe no Kafuka (Kafka on the Shore) hit bookstore shelves here a few years back, he became a phenomenon, with numerous magazines and newspapers devoting generous space to deciphering his world. And now literature students pick him over for their dissertations.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

Terrorism: Success Without Victory

The January/February issue of The Atlantic has some interesting articles including their yearly “State of the Union” series looking at where America is right now. In addition, there are some though provoking articles about terrorism. The one that I really found most compelling was “Success Without Victory,” written by James Fallows. In this article he criticizes the current focus of preventing terrorism and offers concrete examples of how resources should be used to prevent acts of terror on U.S. soil. He points out that screening lines are the most familiar reminder of post-9/11 security-and this exemplifies what’s wrong. There are two people whose job is to see if the name on your driver’s license is the same as the name on your ticket-as if any self-respecting terrorist would forget to match these up. The airport screening process costs Transportation Security Administration $4 billion a year.

He makes several other astute points as well:

“The TSA has a total budget of $5.3 billion-more than 80 percent of which goes to airport screening…TSA…has well under $1 billion for everything except airlines: roads, bridges, subways, tunnels, railroads, ports…”

“Terrorism is simply too cheap, too available, and too tempting to ever be totally eradicated,” says Stephen Flynn the author of the recent book America the Vulnerable.

“U.S. Homeland Security policy has embraced the false idea that all American communities are likely targets of terrorism,” Benjamin Friedman wrote. “It is time to stop indulging the expensive myth that risks are geographically distributed, time to abandon feel-good security, and time to accept reality: some risk is inevitable, some of us should be more afraid than others, but our fear is what our enemies intend.

“Saying that ’freedom is the future of the Middle East’ is seen as patronizing, suggesting that Arabs are like the enslaved peoples of the old Communist World-but Muslims do not feel this way: they feel oppressed but not enslaved.”

There’s a lot of food for thought. It seems like those in power are ignoring the obvious. I guess future policy will be the true barometer of which direction we will go in terrorism prevention.

DVD Notes: Breathless

A while back I bought a poster of the Jean-Luc Goddard film Breathless for my apartment, because I liked the 60s style lettering and bright colors (red and yellow). So I felt the need to see this film and bought it while on vacation in Seattle. Goddard is credited with being one of the French New Wave forerunners that was so influential in modern film. Some reviews of Kong Kar-Wai’s Chunking Express describe it being influenced by Goddard. I can see the influence in the focus on atmosphere and characterizations over plot and narrative. The action in both films is limited and there are extended scenes that slowly reveal the essence of the characters in the respective films. There are long stretches where Jean Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg just hang out in an apartment and interact, a sort of real life equivalent. I have to admit both actors are charismatic in their respective portrayals of the petty thief/criminal and innocent American abroad. It was a bit long , but still compelling to watch. The commentary by the film critic David Sterritt was educational and informative as well, however there aren’t many extra features on this DVD version of the film-it begs a Criterion Collection makeover.

Favorite Places: Ootoya

Ootoya is a sort of healthy fast food chain in Japan. The food is inexpensive (usually under 800 yen-$8), delicious, but basically healthy. So the example below is tonkatsu (breaded pork) with grated daikon(radish), salad, pickles, and miso soup and a sauce for the breaded pork.