Lost In Translation

Ho Chi Minh: Arrival

I was egar to get out for a beer or two after being in transit for more than 16 hours. That being said, I spent several hours in the airport lounges of Asiana in Tokyo and Incheon since the only way I could get to HCMC on the 27th was by buying a Business class ticket for the first half of the trip-it spoils you. This bar was across the street from my hotel, Mayflower (which isn't really that luxurious, but a good value at about $63 a night).

I ordered spring rolls, but have never seen ones like these, but not bad...

My room in Mayflower.

The Roastery

Tokyo has lots of gourmet coffee places these days and The Roastery on Cat Street in Harajuku is one of the newest. Great coffee, but not so great of a hangout due to the limited number of seats and the door opened to the outdoor seating area, which does have heaters though.

The Scent of Green Papaya

Tranh Anh Hung's debut film, The Scent of Green Papaya (1993), is an extraordinary film. It won the best new direcrtor award at Cannes in 1993. The cinematography is stunning in the tiny details of daily life and the natural world that fascinates the good-natured Miu who comes to a troubled merchant family as a servant and acts as a substitute for the  dead daughter of the matriarch of the family. These scenes are from the point of view of the 10 year old Miu and sets the tone for the first two thirds of the film. 10 years later the family continues to fall on hard times and Miu moves on to be the servant of a family friend of the oldest son. He is a cosmopolitan and classically-trained musician engaged to a modern girl, but soon falls under the spell of lovely Miu and his fiance finally admits defeat and the film concludes with a sort of fairly tale ending, that feels earned rather than tacked on. There is very little dialogue, but it is an entertaining film despite the lack of action and dialogue. A sensual step back in time, taking place from 1951 up to 1961 before things would get really trouble din Vietnam.

Rebels On The Backlot

I have to admit I was a bit disappointed with Sharon Waxman's Rebels On The Backlot (2006). The premise was appealing to me, in which Waxman reports on the lives and careers of Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction; Steven Soderbergh, Traffic; David Fincher, Fight Club; Paul Thomas Anderson, Boogie Nights; David O. Russell, Three Kings; and Spike Jonze, Being John Malkovich. These are some of my favorite films of the last 20 years, but I would have liked to see more critical analysis and discussions of the films and less about the behind the scenes antics necessary to get the films made. all that insider stuff was tedious for me. There was much too much about the flaws of the directors and in-fighting between the directors and studio executives and/or actors. It seemed as though there was some score settling going on here and Waxman's opinions were too apparent and not of much value to this reader.

Torimikura

Torimikura in Ebisu is a yakitori place that has chicken set dishes for lunch, I'll have to go back and try the yakitori sometime.

My Year in Books: 2013

This won't be a Top 10 list since I think I only read one book published in 2013: Year Zero: A History of 1945 by Ian Buruma. But I like looking back and remembering what was really great reading and identifying trends, even though many of them were deliberate. For example, I finished reading all the major Graham Green books this year: The Confidential Agent, A Sort of Life, and Ways of Escape. I haven't finished his collected essay or plays yet, but may have to move onto biographies.

I have a great interest in film and am teaching a course on Japanese cinema, thus I read several books related to film: The Sweet Smell of Success BFI, The Seed and the Sower (inspiration for Oshima's Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence), Night of the Iguana (obviously source material for the film), Detour BFI, Cache BFI, Night and the City BFI, City of Sadness BFI, Noriko's Smiling (about Ozu's Late Spring), Reframing Japanese Cinema, Currents in Japanese Cinema, Reading A Japanese Film, The Samurai Film, and The Yakuza Movie Book.

I have lived in Japan for many years, so there were books read that related to Japan, Japanese society, culture, history, and literature as well: Five Rings Miyamoto Musashi as translated by my friend David Groff, Schocking Crimes of Postwar Japan, People Who Eat Darkness Richard Llyod Parry, Tokyo: A Cultural History, A Strange Tale from East of the River and Other Stories Kafu Nagai, Tokyo Megacity, Ozu, and The Japan Journals 1947-2004 Donald Richie, Confessions of a Mask Yukio Mishima, The Sound of the Mountain Yasunari Kawabata, Okinawa Robert Leckie, and Mark Meli's Craft Beer in Japan.

I am also a fan of crime/noir fiction and nonfiction so that means books from writers like Charles Willeford (Sideswipe, The Way We Die Now, The Woman Chaser, and Shark Infested Custard) and Elmore Leonard (LaBrava and Road Dogs). Some other books from this genre that haven't been menitoned yet are Patricia Highsmith's Ripley Underground, White Jazz from James Ellroy, and Richard Price's Lush Life.

There are quite a few contemporary writers that I like and am trying to catch (or keep) up with like: Bret Eason Ellis (Imperial Bedrooms), David Foster Wallace (Oblivion: Stories), Mario Vargas Llosa (Who Killed Palomino Malero), Dave Eggers (A Hologram for a King), Jess Walters (We Live In Water), Sherman Alexie (War Dances), Paul Theroux (Dark Star Express & The Lower River), Junot Diaz (This Is How You Lose Her), Joan Didion (A Book of Common Prayer, Run River, & Democracy), Muriel Spark (The Driver's Seat), Nick Hornby (More Baths, Less Talking).

Sometimes my reading is directed or inspired by travel. Earlier this year I visited Cambodia (Pol Pot Philip Short and Phnom Penh Noir edited by Christopher Moore) via Bangkok (Bangkok Found Alex Kerr). I decided to read Juan Cortazar's Hopscotch for my trip to Argentina. I read Okinawa by Leckie while traveling there.

I also like to make time for classic writers and books: Charles Bukowski (Women), James Dickey (Deliverance), James Jones (From Here To Eternity), Kingsley Amis (The Old Devils), Charles Portis (Escape Velocity), The Sword of Honor Trilogy (Men At Arms, Officers and Gentlemen, Unconditional Surrender) from Evelyn Waugh, Mikhail Bugalov (The Master and the Margarita).

Music is another great interest, so I read Patti Smith's biography Just Kids, the oral history of punk rock-Please Kill Me, and Carl Wilson's philosophic book Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love: A Journey To The End of Taste.

I suppose there were a few books that are somewhat hard to categorize as well: The Walking Dead Compendium I, A Life Full of Holes (translated by Paul Bowles-I'm a  big fan of his writing), and Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima/9-11/Iraq by John W. Dower.

EAT

EAT is American style restaurant in the Hikarie building known for burgers and sandwiches, I should went with one of those, because the burrito was flavorless and forgettable-hard to compete with Frijoles.

Top TV Shows of 2013

As the year winds down I decied to list my favorite TV shows of 2013:

    1. Breaking Bad

    2. Justified

    3. Boradwalk Empire

    4. Game of Thrones

    5. Mad Men

    6. House of Cards

    7. The Walking Dead

    8. Girls

    9. Arrested Development

    10. 30 Rock

Special Mention: I just started watching Season One of the Swedish drama Borgen and find it really compelling. Also, got Jane Campion's Top of the Lake, but haven't watched it yet.

The City Bakery Hiroo

There's a great new coffe shop / bakery in my neighborhood The City Bakery. It is less than five minutes from my place and has great pasteries, cookies, and bread. Look like a new hangout.

Music Documentaries: Big Star and The Minutemen

Big Star is a band that I first became aware of via the single "Alex Chilton" from The Replacements 1987 album Pleased To Meet Me. But I didn't hear them until college when they were gathering buzz from other bands like REM (other bands included Teenage Fanclub, Jesus and Mary Chain-I didn't know about their popularity in the UK) and had their albums re-released by Rykodisc as well the lost solo album by Chris Bell, I Am The Cosmos. Once we heard the music, all of my college friends were appreciative of the band of whom was given homage at local shows by The Posies (who later become honorary members of the band and play live shows) who would often open shows with, "Feel," the opening track from #1 Record. We were awed that our Memphis friend Harris Schoener had played with the legend in Memphis. So I am the ideal audience for the documentary, Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (2012). It was great to hear the stories of how the records were made and what Alex Chilton did in his many careers (producing The Cramps, Pantherburns, and the Gories for example) before acknowledging the homage from the many fans of the bands many who went onto form their own bands.  The co-founder of the band Chris Bell had the most tragic story in that he probably killed himself at 27 due to frustration from the commercial failure of the band and never got to live to see the band get their due much like a band they loved and covered, The Velvet Underground (there are many parallels between these bands despite the differences in their signature sounds). At some point I picked up the classic double album of the first two recordings #1 Record (some faves from here are: "In the Street"-now know as the theme song  to That 70s Show, "Thirteen," "The Ballad of El Goodo," "The India Song," basically not a bad track on the album) and Radio City (The closest thing to a single for them was "September Gurls" from this album and again not a dud on it). But somehow I lost recordings of the third album Third / Sister Lovers and Chris Bell's solo album also released by Rykodisc, I Am The Cosmos. So I reacquired that and have been enjoying the classic tracks such as: "Thank You Friends," "Jesus Christ," "O Dana," "Kangaroo," and many others. I think everyone should see the documentary and know the music of one the greatest unheralded bands of all-time.

The second musical documentary I saw was about a band that I was much less familiar about, The Minutemen. I was not a fan, but i was aware of them because they recorded on SST records with many of my alternative favorites like Sonic Youth, The Meat Puppets, etc., and they were one of my best firends' favorites bands back in high school. Neko Case cited them as an influence despite their differences in style and recommended the documentary, We Jam Econoco: The Story of the Minutemen (2005). I was never sure what they were about, and through this documentary I can see what they were trying to do. I can't say that they won me over, but I can respect what they were trying to achieve and it was worthwhile to find out.