Reading Rainbow!

Reading Rainbow is ending?! Man, this is really sad.
I have so many memories of watching this show and trying to write down the information for all the books they reviewed, then trying to find the books at the library! I wonder what kind of programming is even on PBS nowadays. And how is it that these sorts of things (continue to) happen, anyway?
Well, it played a big role in my childhood and growing up, and I'll always be grateful to and love it for that (and to my parents too for showing it to me :)).

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112312561

Hm.

Could the Ventures be progenitors to video game music??...Anybody??
Live in Japan '65 certainly sounds like a whole bunch of video game music that started coming out soon after...

Also, I would bet 2 fistfuls of cookie dough that Quentin Tarentino got his inspiration for the announcer in Jack Rabbit Slim's from the guy who spoke in between all the songs during that show...unless announcers just sounded like that in general back then.

Chuck Berry's songs are starting to all sound the same to me so much that it just made me laugh to listen to the beginning of Big Ben. I'd better take a break for now, haha.

Jose Hernandez to launch into space!

This is so cool on so many levels. Haha, all the parts about his parents constantly emphasizing the importance of education sound so familiar :)

http://www.thecalifornian.com/article/20090821/NEWS01/90821020/1002/rss

A Satisfying Lunch

A satisfying homemade lunch was had today by me.　　(I forgot to take pictures. I was really hungry.)

Takikomi Gohan (Basically rice cooked along with other things like warabi, shimeji mushrooms, and other goodies)
















Tofu with ponzu and sesame seeds (Sudachi is so the best.) (Like this but with just the sauce and sesame seeds sprinkled on top, sans the onion)
















Bancha hand-picked by one of my old elementary school's English teacher















Plus, Korean seaweed over a month expired from my trip last spring! (Sorry the picture's kind of bad, but this is the exact kind I bought! Made with olive oil!, ahhh, drool)














Psh, expiration dates shmexpiration dates, that seaweed was delicious.

All with a nice soundtrack of ? and the Mysterians, the Kinks, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Charlie Feathers, Chuck Berry, and Ricky Nelson.

Reality Bites?

I just watched Reality Bites for the first time. I always had this image of it in my head from seeing Winona Ryder, Ben Stiller, and Ethan Hawke's faces stretched out in steel teal tint on billboards from the bottom of the backseat car window as a kid, then when I was reminded of it while in Japan I thought, "Hey, this movie actually sounds interesting now and relevant to my life." And it was to a degree, but as often happens with these films that are supposed to be about youthful angst and rebellion I just can't relate that much to the main characters.

I can't sympathize with a main character who struggles to find a job in the professional field of her choice but is incapacitated by pride from working at a fast-food place, makes jokes about "selling fruit on street corners," and in the end turns to stealing from her parents rather than just getting a "normal" job (which is celebrated in the film).

I mean the movie was okay. I got some things out of it. I related to Ben Stiller's character the most and one thing that he said that actually really clicked with me was, "Hey, we're all human beings." Lately, I've been thinking that, as I realize I can be kind of judgmental (as this post may attest, haha), toward myself and others. Really though, everyone is a unique, complex human being, despite how preppy, douche-baggy, or misguided we may seem, and it seems like a waste of time and energy to form judgments against people whom we don't really know on a deep, or true, level. So that was one thing I connected to in this film.

But man, when are we going to get some more coming-of-age, youth-centered films about people with problems working-class people who aren't white can relate to?! I mean, can you imagine Reality Bites with Mexicans?? Okay, well first off all those people would've probably still been living at home instead of renting out an apartment they couldn't afford. The whole jobless part of the movie would've been completely out cuz you know they'd all be working as many jobs as they could to support them AND their families. Man, and if one of them got a BMW for free from their loaded dad (an impossible scenario) they would've sold that thing so fast. I suppose these things would all make the movie less interesting to lots of people, but hey, I'd be able to relate to the characters more.

I suppose this movie was made in 1994 (Man, I'm always astounded when I watch a movie from the mid-90s how much more obvious the racism is - the black guy runs the news station for which Winona Ryder is over-qualified, selling produce in the street is a joke, also I suppose Asians and Latinos don't exist in this fictional world either), and there are definitely more coming-of-age movies that speak to the experiences of young people of color now, but I always feel like there are never enough. If you read this and have any suggestions, can you leave some here to share? Cuz I'd love to check them out.

All in all, Reality Bites was pretty good, but not the "pretty good" where you kind of accent the words and drag out the vowels. I got some things out of it, but I think I like the weird image of the billboard imprinted on my mind more. It is also really possible the movie's not hitting me as directly because my generation's a little off. What would be my generation's post-college-graduation film(s) (if this movie could really even be called representative of the '90s generation)?...That would have come out somewhere around last year, right?...I don't think I've seen one I really relate to, that really captures the way things are and feel.

The cappuccino reference was funny, is that back when that was becoming popular (by the way, was this movie made pre-Starbucks? I feel like it was...)? This is all making me feel really young...

Also the soundtrack was pretty lame. Just think: Pulp Fiction came out that same year.

Oh man!

Oh man! I just discovered that if I add tofu when I make miso soup from the 8 packs for 80 yen (80 cents) paste I can make a full bowl with only half the pack! With a little rice that's breakfast for 16 dayz!! I reach new heights (lows?) of cheapness when I don't have a job.

Juvenile Irrational Fantasy of the Moment

...to play in a screaming, rocking, critically analyzing, anti-racism, rock-a-billy/punk/noise/rock 'n' roll group.


Hm, with more of an appreciation for punk, 50s-60s rock, and rockabilly now, I'm just right on my way to becoming a quintessential Chicano, aren't I? Haha. What could be next...? I never did get into Morissey...

Every time....a Crash!

Well, I suppose every time I'm in Japan I have to crash my bike because I was doing something that required too much of my attention. At least this time I didn't actually fall down but only crashed right into a small iron fence pole. And instead of videotaping going down a really steep hill I was arched up with my eyes closed feeling a crescendo in Bjork's "Hidden Place." No injuries sustained, though I suddenly found my body slammed into the front of the bike. Right in front of a police station, too, haha.

Also, sudden revelation: I am not bored!! Things in my life are interesting!!

It's really cool

Sometimes,
some things
make you feel that it's really cool to be who you are.

I had a suspicion!

While all these tearing thoughts were going through my head and changing at lightning speed, my mp3 player had been out of batteries! Of course! It's amazing how much a person can need a certain thing to keep them going smoothly. After a long walk to some good, moving music I have thoughts thought out, my head is clear, and I feel like I've cleared my blood.

Summer Rain

Smokey and Miho is good for relaxing strained nerves and calming a harried mind.

Hm...If You Push That Button...

(Yo La Tengo, "Nuclear War")

Hm, maybe I just like a good challenge to the point where it's painful sometimes.

Because it's actually kind of exciting
seeing if I can start a whole new life/employment/financial stability
in Japan from scratch.

Fire!
Melting!
People!
Buildings!

Planning & Non-Planning

Trying to do things based on life's flow sometimes just makes me feel like I can't decide on anything. @_@

I Love Karate

(Charlie Feathers, 'Can't Hardly Stand It,' Delroy Wilson, 'I'm in a Dancin' Mood')

As expected, karate is always good for clearing my head of all those unimportant thoughts and anxieties that disorient. It's good to feel yourself tired by exercise and taste your sweat turn to water.

Things I like about living in Japan:
You can call shows 'lives,' venues 'live houses,' and road stops 'road stations' in English or Japanese, to Japanese people of foreigners who've been here a while, and no one will think it's weird.
Someone can mean to say, "I'm going to ask you a question!" and accidentally blurt out, "Humidity!"

Awa

Awa Odori in Tokushima this past weekend was also tiiiiiiiiiiiiight (you know, say it with that high-pitched voice). Like seriously, it was so awesome. I don't have many pictures, unfortunately, but just trust me, if you ever get the chance to see Awa OdoriDOITDOITNOW. It was seriously one of the coolest musical, performance, artistic, and community/people things I've ever seen. Thanks to my generous host.

'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' by Marcia Griffiths

is a song I'm really into right now.

I got bit freaking hardcore by a friend's bunny I'm taking care of for her. What the heck.
Couldn't get the thing back in its cage for like an hour cuz it would attack me every time I got close to it. Considering not letting it out of its cage today and just dropping some food in from the top of the cage...what's the worst that can happen?

Tom Waits' 'Clap Hands' is also amazing and just so good. That whole album, 'Rain Dogs,' is really good, though it's conjures up a lot of imagery about exotic 'other' races and white people going into their domain and losing their mind. Reminded me of the end of 'Apocalypse Now' when the white people go into the insane realm of Blacks, drugs, Vietnamese, and religious rituals and go crazy.

I should read 'Heart of Darkness.'

Songs I really like this morning:
'Dreamland' ~ Marcia Griffiths
'This Life Makes Me Wonder' ~ Delroy Wilson
'Government Man ' ~ Christel & the Goldmaster Allstars
'Dread Are The Controller' ~ Linval Thompson
'Mr. Wicked Man' ~ Linval Thompson
'Jah Jah Me No Born Yah' ~ Cornell Campbell
'Every Day Is Like A Holiday' ~ The Sensations

Time to clean up.

Last Week

Last week, I got the frustrating yet ultimately valuable experience of my friends and I being refused service for not being Japanese...by two restaurants in a row.

Weird

It's kind of creepy how after local elections ended a few weeks ago and all the other political campaign vans and megaphones petered out, this party, the Happiness Realization Party, has continued sending out its megaphone-equipped vans on their own. I've been seeing them around my town and Osaka for the past couple of months and even have people coming to my door giving me pamphlets (It was a creepy moment when I read this article and recognized the picture of their leader from a handout two women had given me at my door a while ago. At first I thought they were Jehovah's Witnesses, who also tried to convert me earlier in the year, but no, these people are way different).

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090804zg.html

Hi everybody

I just thought I'd give you an update.

I just got back from having an awesome time with two of our good, mutual friends around Kansai.

A terrible taifun hit the area right around where I live. There was a lot of water damage to buildings and houses, roads flooded and fell apart into rivers, and somewhere around 10 people died in the next town over. Whoa. Also, a string of fairly powerful earthquakes went off along the north-east of Japan.

I feel a bit weird in the degree of non-mobility I seem to find myself. A part of me wants to stay in Japan and find another job, continue exploring how to live (here) on my own, whether I stay in my new Japanese hometown or move. One of the lessons I've learned from this whole experience is...actually listen to people! Haha. People who give you advice, like other teachers and past professors, have your best interests in mind and really are trying to help you because they want you to be happy. That plus, listen to your environment! When you hear and notice the same thing coming out of all sorts of signs and different peoples' mouths, you might want to take it to heart, at least a bit (I tell myself now). It happened before, with all the signs telling me to recontract for another year of teaching English here, but at that time I overrode it with my own will and what I thought was a pretty decided plan for the future. Stubborness. I've only recently come to realize how much that comes into play in my interactions with people. Sorry, friends and fam, hehe ; ) But anyway, people keep telling me I'm good at Japanese. I'm not bragging or anything, but teachers and people I've met here've been telling me that all year and I've only now actually started putting some thought into it. Maybe I should just go with that, now that I'm in a position to do so. Find more work, keep studying Japanese, keep taking in the culture, keep learning to live here, because, hey, it might just turn out to be important.

Another part of me wants to go! Go, go go! I've lived in Japan a whole year, I've got a good foundation in human interact in this society - I was thinking something back when I decided not to recontract with this job, maybe I should just trust in the deliberation I put into it back then. There are so many other cultures and places that it is important to understand! How can I relate to more of the world's peoples as a person if I don't get out and meet more of them? At the same time, this feels a little less thought-out and reminiscent of that unmatured urge to just go that I felt more in college (okay, yes I know that was only one year ago, I'm not trying to say I'm so much more matured, hah). And after all, what is the other thing I learned from all this?

No matter how idealistically I want to live, I still need a job and financial stability to live freely in this society. I mean, I need a job to keep sane, but I can't go around being picky about which ones I take, really. This might be the phase where I just go through different jobs and professions, experiencing life in each and seeing what I like.

So I have a little less than a week to pack up the rest of my apartment if I feel I don't want to further pursue a life in Japan after I go home in the upcoming days. Or, I have an apartment from which to continue to search for jobs and out of which to base myself when I come back to Japan in a few weeks. And do I really want to put off school another year/apply to school from a foreign country/live at home in L.A. so I can get ready for school again?

I've decided to let things go instead of stressing about that stuff. I figure life's flow will direct me in a way if it doesn't guide me to a conclusion in my own head. But really, every day that goes by without me really feeling a distinct, determined will to do one particular thing leads me closer to sticking around here. If I'm going to say goodbye to this country for now, though, I'd like to do it with a sense of closure. Though I know I'll be back at some point. I guess I don't really get a choice in these matters, sometimes(?).

Anyways, the whole overarching thing to this whole...thing...(>.<)...is probably more about just being happy and able to live a life that is fulfilling and allows me to do my best in whatever I can, make best positive influence on others I can, and be open enough to be positively affected by all the amazing people/things (...) around me. So, how do I get to that? I had it for a while during that time between April and July and it was amazing. I'd like to rise up to that again.

Once, again, that got longer than I expected. Maybe I'll go to bed now, finally. Oh, by the way, I'm listening to Yo La Tengo's "A Smattering of Outtakes and Rarities: 1985-2003," an album I haven't really given too much of a good listen to so far, and it's really great. Feelings of music are also coming back up, too, now that I have more freedom to pursue that I suppose. Anyways, we'll see. :)

Hello 2.0

Hello.

Internet got cancelled, but should be up in a bit.

Well...I'm not going to write anything about life on a large scale because I myself don't even know what's going on with that! Hey!

So, let me say this...

Roy Orbison is amazing!
First thing that got me into him was the incredibleness of his voice in Dream Baby and Goodnight, but now that I'm listening to some of his other ones, like Only the Lonely, Running Scared, and Leah, I'm witness to a whole new world of lyrical awesomeness! Oh my gosh, the words that make up these stories of songs and the rest of the music that matches them are just amazing. Talk about some weird, deep, and complex emotions and stories being conveyed by a unique and awe-inspiring voice, all in a 2-3 minute song. I am definitely inspired.

I've also been getting more and more into Ricky Nelson (would like to hear some more, but I love his version of I Don't Have Anything), the Chiffons (really trippy, good pop I think; feels like you can hear the change in musical styles at the time), and the Everly Brothers (Their version of All I Have to Do is Dream is incredible! and I had it in my head all day yesterday). Chuck Berry is amazing. All I have is No Particular Place to Go, but I can see why people call this guy the master of guitar now. That playing is just brilliant.

So, here I am in a friend's apartment, using her internet. Some people, sounded like two girls maybe, just rang the doorbell...rang the doorbell again and then tried the door handle. Uh...I'll just act like I'm not here, I suppose.

It's been really hot lately, so much so that you get pretty drained by sunset, that is unless you...eat your EEL! Hm, I love eel so much, it's become a Japanese food very much necessary to my diet! Apparently, it's a summer specialty, although you can get it all year round, thought up however many years ago by wise ancestors to combat the heat fatigue of the intense, humid Japanese summer. I've been told the oil in the eel is good for kicking out the energy (i.e.: 元気が出る！). Or jams, whatever you see fit. But besides that energy goodness, it just tastes delicious. Probably the most prolifically eaten (haha, I'll probably never use that phrase again) eel is known as unagi and is eaten teriyaki style. Recently, though, I gave anago, another type of eel, another chance in its tempura form, and that was really good, too.

I think, though, the original is still my favorite. Man, the people at the local restaurant are actually getting to know me now since I've been coming in like 3-4 times a week now. Hey, I'm actually using one of those repeat-customer cards now, (yes!).

Oh!, and also! I started reading Haruki Murakami's new book, 1Q84! The title's pronounced "ichi-kew-hachi-yon," which in Japanese is the same pronunciation as 1984. Ooooooo. I don't know if there's any correlation or not, but the book is supposed to be horror. I love it so far, even though I'm only 24 pages in (really, 13 or so, since the book actually started on page 11), because the main character loves history and a whole page or so has been just on her imagining what Czechoslovakia was like after World War I. That plus, music has played a major driving part so far and a mystical, kind-of-creepy-kind-of-intriguing taxi driver has given instructions out of a freeway by an unknown staircase with the warning of "Do not be fooled by appearances. There is only one reality. You are about to do something not considered normal, and once you have, things will begin to seem different to you. I have had this sort of experience before." It's just so exciting to read a work in another language right as soon as it comes out, before the translation is even done and published yet! (I actually don't know if the English translation's out or not, I just said that). But in any case, yes, it's very exciting and I'm trying to read it every night to keep myself in it.

I'm out.