Lost In Translation

Otsuka Awa Odori

The preparations for the annual Otsuka Awa Odori ("Fool's Dance"-imported from Shikoku) Matsuri (festival) have been up for most of the month. This is the station where my gym, Gold's Gym North, is located, so I saw the build up of lanterns, signs, etc. for the past couple of years and this is the first time I've been able to attend. I didn't know it was an Awa Odori festival, but it is an entertaining dance to see with great costumes. It's also nostaligic for me since I participated in the Minami Koshigaya Awa Odori festival in 1998, at the beginning of my second year on the JET Program.

The Risk Pool

There's another Malcolm Gladwell article avialiable on The New Yorker webpage about pensions that resulted in G.M.'s financial crisis and help create the Irish economic miracle:

America’s private pension system is now in crisis. Over the past few years, American taxpayers have been put at risk of assuming tens of billions of dollars of pension liabilities from once profitable companies. Hundreds of thousands of retired steelworkers and airline employees have seen health-care benefits that were promised to them by their employers vanish. General Motors, the country’s largest automaker, is between forty and fifty billion dollars behind in the money it needs to fulfill its health-care and pension promises. This crisis is sometimes portrayed as the result of corporate America’s excessive generosity in making promises to its workers. But when it comes to retirement, health, disability, and unemployment benefits there is nothing exceptional about the United States: it is average among industrialized countries—more generous than Australia, Canada, Ireland, and Italy, just behind Finland and the United Kingdom, and on a par with the Netherlands and Denmark. The difference is that in most countries the government, or large groups of companies, provides pensions and health insurance. The United States, by contrast, has over the past fifty years followed the lead of Charlie Wilson and the bosses of Toledo and made individual companies responsible for the care of their retirees. It is this fact, as much as any other, that explains the current crisis. In 1950, Charlie Wilson was wrong, and Walter Reuther was right.

Forbes: Stay Away From Career Women

Here's an interesting take from Slate on an article from Forbes magazine suggesting that more marital problems occur if you marry a career woman:

[Note: Forbes deleted from its Web site the story discussed in this piece some time Wednesday afternoon. But as Tom Waits once sang, you cannot unring a bell: A blogger grabbed the body of the article and posted it here.]

The furious blog reaction to Michael Noer's Forbes piece, "Don't Marry Career Women," posted to the Web yesterday, makes the piece sound like an ugly example of "backlash" journalism. If you're not familiar with the genre, backlash stories are the kind feminists believe are 1) full of beans and 2) designed to keep women down. Here's the piece's beginning:

"Guys … whatever you do, don't marry a woman with a career.

Why? Because if many social scientists are to be believed, you run a higher risk of having a rocky marriage. While everyone knows that marriage can be stressful, recent studies have found professional women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat, less likely to have children, and, if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it."

Bande A Part

Earlier this year year I was in a funky bar in Shimokitazawa with my visiting college friend Bill drinking with a hippie musician we met on the train when I clearly noticed that the bossa nova background music was actually a cover of Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself." I had to ask the bartender what he was playing and it turned out to be the French bossa nova band Nouvelle Vague's new album, Bande a Part. Apparently they choose new wave songs that they are unfamiliar with in oder to get a fresh take. I felt the need to hear more so I got a copy of it and it has the following tracks:

1) The Killing Moon (Echo and the Bunnymen)
2) Ever Fallen In Love (The Buzzcocks)
3) Dance With Me (Lords of the New Church)
4) Don't Go (Yazoo)
5) Dancing With Myself (Billy Idol)
6) Hear Of Glass (Blondie)
7) O Pamela (The Wake)
8) Blue Monday (New Order)
9) Human Fly (The Cramps)
10) Bela Lugosi's Dead (Bauhaus)
11) Escape Myself (The Sound)
12) Le me Go (Heaven 17)
13) Fade To Grey (Visage)
14) Waves (Blancmange)

It satisfies myneed for nostalgic new wave classics and provides a mellow background score-perfect for reading or surfing on the net. Their previous album, Nouvelle Vague, looks worthwhile as well with songs by Joy Division and The Undertones.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Haruki Murakmai's new collection of short stories, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, came out immediately in paperback from the British publishing house Harvill Secker (as far as I can tell, it hasn't been released in hardback in America yet, according to Amazon.com). The book collects various short stories that haven't appeared in English before. There are some older stories mixed in with new compositions. For example, "Firefly" was a story that eventually found its way into his breakthrough novel, Norwegian Wood. "Man Eating Cats" was a story that also found itself in a novel, Sputnik Sweetheart. In the introduction Murakami mentions that "The Mirror", "A Perfect Day For Kangaroos", "Dabachick", "The Year of Spaghetti", "The Rise And Fall of the Sharpie Cakes" and "The 163/1982 Girl From Ipanema" were all written from 1981 to 1982. Interestingly, Jay Rubin referred to several of these stories in his book about Murakami and his writing, Haruki Murakami And The Music of Words, so it was interesting to finally get a chance to read them. However, "Dabachick" appeared in Mc Sweeney's literary magazine. Several of the stories appeared in the New Yorker as well including my three favorite: "A Chance Traveller"-in which Murakami uses a meta-narrative introducing himself into a story in order to tell a story of coincidences, "Hanalei Bay"-which has one of his strongest female characters, and "The Kidney Shaped Stone That Moves Everyday"-which has interesting insights into relationships and personal fulfillment and additionally contains a story within a story. I guess one of the weaknesses of the stories is that many of the themes are repeated-loss of identity, disappearances, or an inexplicable event. However, I think most of the newer stories, of which, most were written in 2005, show promise and explorations of new structures and themes.

Amazing Japanese Packaging

This image was downloaded from a clever Gridskipper post, Dorito Wars: USA 0 Japan 1. I actually had some of these last week and didn't notice the picture on the package-that image is awesome! I must buy more.

Coffee As Health Food?

Here's an interesting article from the NY Times listing the positive effects of coffee drinking:

Coffee is not usually thought of as health food, but a number of recent studies suggest that it can be a highly beneficial drink. Researchers have found strong evidence that coffee reduces the risk of several serious ailments, including diabetes, heart disease and cirrhosis of the liver.

Azabu Juban Matsuri 2006

Yesteday I attened the annual Azabu Juban matsuri. It's my first of the summer season, and the Azabu Juban matsuri is noted for the foreign food stalls (Mexican, Egyptian, Italian, Korean, Spanish, Pakistani, etc...) in addition to the traditional Japanese food stalls (yakitori, grilled fish, okonmiyaki, hot dogs ona stick, etc...). There are a couple of performing areas and we go the chance to see people doing the "Bon odori" (the Bon festival dance), as well as taiko drumming. Taiko is one of my favorite Japanese traditional performing arts, because it looks and sounds so impressive. Perhaps, the primative rhythmical drumming is universally appreciated. It was a lot of fun, despite the brutal humidity and large crowds. Below is a picture of my friends Lorenzo, Minobu, Sayuri (in her summer yukata), and yours truly at the festival.

The Believer Music Issue 2006

The Believer Music Issue 2006 comes with a compilation CD with 15 tracks. Last year's CD unearthed some gems, so I was inspired to pick up this year's compilation as well. However, last year's compilation had more established indie artists like The Postal Service, The Shins, Devendra Barnhart, etc.. The only artist that is in that company on this year's CD is Calexico, who supplies the song "Throws Daggers." The new surprises, many of which are more folksy, include: "Minor Star of Rome"-National, "Fruit Of The Vine"-Jim White, "Born In Twain"-Tiny Hawks, "(Imprismed)"-Spoken Tongues, "Mushaboom"-Feist, "Destroyer"-Rubies, "Junkeee...Julieee..."-Blood On The Wall.

Of course there are several features in the issue, and my favorites were: "The Sinatra Doctrine" by Rich Coen, who links Sinatra, Elvis, and Sid Vicious through their recordings of the Paul Anka-penned karaoke classic "My Way" / Wayne Coyne (of The Flaming Lips BONUS: Here's a link to The Flaming Lips playing "She Uses Jelly" on Beverly Hills 90201 in 1994) in conversation with Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie, The Postal Service), Don DeLillo (author of the excellent novel White Noise) in conversation with critc/author Greil Marcus, "Some Propositions Concerning the Lounge Lizards" by Rick Moody (author of the novel The Ice Storm), as well as the usual entertaining column "Stuff I've Been Reading" by Nick Hornby.

Arrested Development Seasons 2 & 3

I think watching Arrested Development in large chunks, on DVD for example, is the best way to truly appreciate the comic genuis of this great show since much of its comedy relies on knowing the characteristics of the main players and the in-jokes that relate to previous going ons. Sadly, this is probably one of the reasons the show diidn't catch on, come in on the middle of a season and you might be baffled about what is going on. Here's a great description of the series from Salon's "I Like To Watch" columnist Heather Havrilesky:

And that's what "Arrested Development" is all about, stupidity and greed -- stupid, greedy characters with terrible habits, bad taste and no respect for each other. Like the foot fungi of American culture, they want money and cool stuff and fun times, but they don't have any ideas or guiding principles or values or insights. Like "South Park," "Arrested Development" takes a cheerful look at depressing, soulless human beings, and turns them into pure, delicious Giddy Darkness.

I really enjoyed how they added post modernistic references to their troubles surviving in the last season("Save Our Bluths"). As well as bringing in iconic actors like Carl Weather, Henry Winkler, Julia Louise Dreffuys, Scott Baio, actors from Curb Your Enthusiasm, etc... The whole casts was as remarkable as the writing. It probably has the best physical comedy since Seinfeld as well, especially David Cross as Tobias Funke. It will be missed.