Osakatomebaby

The rainy season has arrived. Yay! Today at least, it's pleasant.

Had a smashing Japanese class. My stomach is full of curry and my brain still dwelling on the last of the Czech animation in my little hole-in-the-wall Osaka art film theater. Then puttered around Yodobashi camera and ended up with a new tripod. Not that I'm much of a photographer, but after all that animation I suddenly felt a compelling need to buy a tripod. What next? I'm off to an onsen in Kyoto.

Why would I ever go back to Texas? Yet yesterday I toyed with the idea of that eventuality. Today it seems so foolish. All this in one day? I love Kansai.

Okay, disabled Blogger comments. You can only post anonymously if you don't have a Blogger account, which is the most idiotic thing I have every heard. Why should my mom and dad have to get blogger accounts to comment? Why does everyone have to have a blog? Is this just an isolated in-group thing? That's lame. I want my old comments back. Till then, sorry y'all...

My old comments see to be out of commission again, so I enabled blogger comments. I'll try and rescue the old stuff but if they come back and you see two places to comment...uh...not sure what you should do but anyway that's why. I guess try the old one, I don't like the new blogger comments form or the circuitous route it forces.

I could have drank a gallon of this stuff this morning. One of those all night student/school parties. Dear god. And there were even some loonies that went bowling after the 4 hours of karaoke. Did I really sing Fujiyama mama? Did anyone think that was weird? They hadn't heard it before. My rendition of "Just a Gigalo" went over well at least. But then, it always does. I must have sung more because my throat is the size of a pear. Yikes. So I had breakfast which today consisted of the grossest thing I could find at the conbini and which turned out to be quite good. That could get to be a problem. Kind of want another one. That and a bag of these things that are kind of like Thai cheetoes from hell. And they claim to have an even hotter one. Holy frijole.

Every time we're getting ready to have a school party we think, gosh we ought to do this more often, this'll be fun. Then the next day in the clear light of dawn...fortunately I can kvetch to Canon.

Speaking of whom, came across these the other day. Since it was his birthday this week (Happy Birthday!) thought I'd share...

This one I like to call "Brain Bucket" in honor of the waiter at this sports bar in DC who thought that was the funniest thing he ever said:



Canon & moi:



And I have to admit. I have no idea who this guy is. Canon?



As long as we're doing photos, I finally uploaded stuff from the ski trip and India (what I have, it's not much). Enjoy.

So this guy is visually impaired, but he's doing a film degree and loves movies. No not something I'd thought about. He watches them mostly on DVD because they include they include commentary for the blind.

I basically can't go to see them in the cinema. I presume cinemas simply don't want to spend the money it would cost to install a system whereby you could plug something into the armrest and listen to a commentary, which, in most cases, seems to be readily available by the time the DVD is released.

Now it would be rather expensive to convert a theater that way, but couldn't they, say, have a small local transmitter and offer receiver walkmans? Another suggestion into the void...

Best. Drink. Ever. Although I've evidently never had the real thing. (My doctor told me it was the wrong kind). They don't make it properly anywhere I've been in the States, mostly due to a lack of cherry brandy. THAT, my friends, is a travesty.

READER WARNING: Nostalgia, Sappiness and Potenial Hyperbole Contained

My brother is now an upstanding mid-20-something with a degree and his whole life ahead of him. Congratulations Drew! Now run away to Alaska and live in a lean-to. We all know you're going to. What? You want a family, kids and a house in the suburbs? My god what happened to you? Did you not learn anything from me, your older sister?!?! (interrabang!?!?)

Oh...maybe you did.

I should have said congrats before except my bro does not:
(a)read this site
(b)use the Internet as far as I can tell for that matter
(c)call, write, email

Not that this is a complaint. We don't really have to do these things, and sometimes, in fact, they can be so distinctly unsatisfying that it's better just not to. We'll probably get together in like a year. I'll blather, he'll interject biting commentary. That, as I am given to understand, is what brothers do.

So he's the mountain man and I'm the expat, both more comfortable in a world we make familiar than the one that already is. I started out in physics, but after a year I realized all the classes I really wanted to take were in the Asian Studies department, and me being me, I just did whatever I darn well pleased and switched without giving too much thought to chucking what had up till then passed for my mission in life. Made some excuses and flitted over to the next flower. Not regretful. To be honest, the only things I've read about hard science since then have been histories, not even pop science--don't miss it. Asia I can study forever and just keep filling the sieve. That and my books, holing up with my books.

Drew on the other hand migrated into physics after periodically running away to the mountains. I guess that could sound kind of unibomber creepy, but I'm the creepy one, not him. Mostly he was up there staring at the stars I reckon, and living in a converted storehouse with a couple of other thinking types--all named Andrew. They could have been characters on Northern Exposure.

And now what? Graduating in Asian studies didn't make me Asian...not yet anyway. Will physics make him a physicist? We shall see. But it makes me very happy to know that between the two of us there is a physicist. Maybe he can fill me in and remind me of the stuff I used to be so passionate about, and I can carelessly twist those ideas into my own metaphors (Stepen Weinberg would loathe me). Maybe I'll pick up a thing or two about people and religions that I am always reading about to blather at him about next time we share a beer or six. What lives we lead, two kids from Tulsa trying to comprehend the universe. Going about it such different ways. We must make time. I miss my bro.

...do this. But I can't help myself.

I am such a nerd. I thought this was funny. And I read the ELT news.

I am queen of the nerd herd. Hey, who:

• organized the 1st grade girls to retaliate by chasing the boys instead of them chasing us? (Didn't last long, evidently girls like to be chased).
• wrote a computer program to catalog her sticker collection?
• founded the library club in order to avoid recess?
• met Mick S. (fresh from the smoke hole) in the library every day in high school to avoid lunch?
• actually believed co-ops were about social change?
• still believes most things people tell her?
• comes up with a new life plan based on the cover story in the New York Times Magazine every week? Oh wait that was my ex who now actually has a plan, unlike me (who mocked him).
• is inexplicably proud and embarrassed of these things?
• posts way too freqently on her weblog?

Thank god nerds are cool now. They are right? Oh that's just another myth. Dang. Still a nerd. Dedman and Melbotis got nothing on me.

This weblog is so egomaniacal, but I guess that's the nature of any blog not providing a service. Oh, sorry, blog navel-gazing again.

Yay. The meeting came off without a hitch. All is well. Evidently I am a perfectionist, but you already know this...Apparently last week went at least moderately well too, and my over-serious remorse was just that so now we can move on. Thanks for hanging in there. Coming soon: the meaning of life.

Got a big meetin' today. Let us hope I redeem myself from my unimpressive presentation last week and my coworkers don't give me those regretful silent stares, or worse, avoid eye contact completely...Yeek.

If you know me you know that any grousing or grumping you hear here is pretty tongue-in-cheek. I have the (sometimes unfortunate) quality of never getting too deep into my funk. Call it shallowness, call it utter mediocrity, call it the mass of men leading lives of quiet desperation until the invention of the blog.

My father observed that he probably reads too much into my kvetching and that I seem to unload on the site. That in mind I shall attempt to keep it more positive lest anyone should worry. And I gotta represent for all the women out there who need more stoic role models (comments).

So y'all don't worry. I promised gallows humor from the outset! Actually, come to think of it, I have failed to deliver on that. I have dishonored myself and must now commit blog-seppuku.

I really like the song Fujiyama Mama but it's not very pc. I wonder if I can get away with it. This ain't no Sukiyaki:

I've been to Nagasaki Hiroshima too the same I did to them baby I can do to you
Cause I'm a Fujiyama mama and I'm just about to blow my top
Fujiyama-yama Fujiyama
And when I start erupting ain't nobody gonna make me stop

I drink a quart of sakey smoke dynamite
I chase it with tobaccy and then shoot out the light
Cause I'm a Fujiyama mama...
[ guitar ]
Well you can talk about me say that I'm mean
I'll blow your head off baby with nitroglycerine
Cause I'm a Fujiyama mama...

Well you can say I'm crazy stone deaf and dumb
But I can cause destruction just like the atom bomb
Cause I'm a Fujiyama mama...
I drink a quart of sakey...

I love the way so many words in it are mispronounced and I mean intentionally, not just 'cause Wanda Jackson's from OKC (Oklahoma City folks). The funny thing is they have it in every karaoke place.

It's true. I only wish that was how I read Japanese.

Also, henceforth I am to be known as M.O.L.L.Y. the Magnificently Omnipotent Lebanese Lunatic from Yugoslavia. Got it?

I just realized I spelled theater "theatre" below. Where did that come from? Not like me...

Well after being bored there is only one thing that ever happens, I end up having some good luck and enjoying myself. In this case salvation came in the form of (a)going out dancing rather spontaneously with only 3000-en in my pocket and then managing to be all right for Japanese class where (b)my teacher was an angel and says I don't have to take the test next week but we can stretch out the review a little longer. She says everyone thinks the book is too difficult (I know, she's probably just saying that) but that my speaking ability is right, I just have to learn the kanji. Actually she didn't say the latter, I did, but she didn't disagree.

So feeling passing-out exhausted but satisfied and I had two choices: go home and sleep or go watch some of the Czech animation I was so excited about. You know me, you know exactly what I did, drank about three bottles of green tea and headed for the theatre.

Sorry I didn't take pics of the theater, because it was fabulous. Little hole tucked away with loads of film magazines and posters of all manner of offbeat stuff, most of which I've never heard of. Yay. 78 seats and they deliver coffee to you in a little basket. Good coffee at that. I think I want to move in next door. There's nothing else in Kujo but there is a coffee shop nearby that makes a hella good strawberry juice (for an exorbitant price, but it could be a treat, specially after a night out).

I managed to stay awake through most of the first two showings- programs D and A which are named "Adult" and "Boys". The quality was mixed. D was a lot more even. My favorite being "Faust house" which was stop motion using a lot of delicately carved figures retelling a local Faust legend. Besides I'm a sucker for Faust. D also had a bit more of the twisted side, as you can imagine: wool balls that get out of control and the scissors that have to keep them in line ("Two wool balls"), a man who rather violently murders a Russian folk singer who invades his house and won't shush ("Matyu-kin killed Katyu-kin"--not sure about my transliteration of that). Also had some rather funny pieces that were less dark.

Meanwhile A contained the two most amusing pieces, and a lot of redundant ones. The redundant pieces were primarily concerned with what objects do when people aren't watching. Apparently they fight, play, and occasionally do a little line dancing. Amusing for a few minutes but after that you kind of wish a human would walk in and just make them stop. Darn "inanimate" objects.

"A" was supposedly the "Boys" show, but it wasn't really for kids either. The opening piece had me in stitches. 5 minutes following an outlaw across the countryside on a pommel horse to the theme from Rawhide. Actually gymnastics equipment kept popping up everywhere and the characters were all played by real people in stop motion. The final capture when he was gunned down was too much. Probably an entire minute of the five when he was riddled with invisible bullets. Things you just can't do with physical comedy except in animation.

Also riotously funny was "The world of the bookshelf" in which anthropomorphic books carried out their loves and adventures. The kama sutra was pretty sexy. Machiavelli was tickled at other philosophy books murdering each other. The OED threw it's weight around a bit and there was a great chase scene between some thrillers. Altogether probably the best of the batch.

Unfortunately "Day of Retaliation" which ended the set didn't live up to it's name and at least once I jerked wildly out of sleep, causing my viewing companion to go into otherwise incongruous fits of laughter, so we decided not to stick around for the next 4 hours. I'll no doubt go back next weekend.

(Most images from Svankmajer stuff they didn't show but which I love, put them together from some stills in a book I picked up).

No time tonight after all but here, have a look see...

Oh my god the "remove noise" filter on my photo editor is so sexy. Clean! We must have clean!

I'm going to show you some good stuff soon...hold on...

The 7-11 is pumping Jimmy Buffet as musak. I am tired of conbini food and I have been pretending to study all day. Maybe it's time to move...but where? Somewhere they don't use kanji I guess. In theory tomorrow I am supposed to review the entire textbook then have a test next week and move up to the next level. I just don't care.

Tomorrow I'm going to tell them I can't catch up. I don't have the energy. I've been bringing work home and working from sun-up (or till the wee hours the night before) till I stagger home at night. I know I got to cut that off too. Poor time management. Certifiable. But work's still going to be there. Big meeting this week and busy month ahead. And I'm tired of torturing myself to "catch up". Why in the heck won't they just let me start over?

There's a word for people who always think happiness is found in another place. What's that word? Ben? That's how I've thought since I was a child and had satellite photos of Australia all over my walls. Now, I don't know. Left Tulsa, left Austin, will I leave Japan twice? To do what? With what? Where? Questions without answers. Here is better than anywhere else I guess, if I weren't deaf, dumb and illiterate.

Mom, I'm bored.

When I was a kid I would get so bored I would cry. It's too late for a walk by the river and I don't want to go to the bar. Got to buy a DVD player...but the Tsutaya doesn't have anything worth seeing. Don't want to spend money, house is clean, photoshop is boring, don't feel like painting. Had plans but just didn't feel like going. Nothing major. Oh! I know, I'll go write that depressing novel I outlined last year...no on second thought that would just take me from bored to morbid. Back to the books!

"Here’s a little song I wrote the other day while I was out duck hunting with a judge… It’s a new song, it’s dedicated to the FCC and if they broadcast it, it will cost a quarter of a million dollars."

I am just like every other blogger.

I'm kind of glad my folks busted the volume on their computer. Not cause they were rocking out or anything. Someone probably accidentally deleted it. Yes deleted the volume.

I don't have to do anything till I wake up and study. Hail mighty hacker god who put me here yet cares not. If you're ever in the neighborhood drop in for a chu-hai!

I accidentally forgot to bring home one of the books I needed to do some work...well actually just brought the wrong one. So instead I have to chill out and not do anything productive. Hallelu.

Lost in Translation update: "It opened at just one theater but is slowly expanding to some 70 by July." July?!?! The travesty continues.

From the Asahi Shimbun review:

"All the Japanese are consistently portrayed as foolish. But the movie fails to point out that what appears to be foolish mirrors the viewer's own foolishness."

Um...aren't you doing the same thing by failing to realize part of the point is that the Murray/Johansson characters realize they are foolish? And we're seeing this through their eyes. Um...isn't that part of the point? Outsiders laughing at ourselves, not at you?* Feel free to laugh at us too. Forest/trees?

*Okay except for the "lip" scene which is just not funny.

Today I am a viking.

I would put crumbs in the other dwarfs beds today so they would feel like me. I won't air my dirty laundry, I'd rather burn it. As someone told me this week about themselves, but it's true for me today, I need an emotiondectimy.

LASH! LASH!

Okay that's as much as I can lash out.

So coming home tonight I did a weird thing. I thought, what do normal people do when they have a crappy day? And answer came there one: eat ice cream. I've never tried eating ice cream after a bad day. (a) Seems like such a chick thing to do and (b) I'm just not big on sweets. Much rather chow on a bag of pepperoni if anything, but I wasn't hungry so I thought, well, can't hurt.

So I just ate a cup of Haagen Dazs Vanilla and I'm waiting for whatever is supposed to happen next. Nothing so far. Maybe I didn't eat enough. Maybe I got the wrong flavor. I guess in retrospect what chicks are supposed to do on a crappy day is buy a tub of ice cream (probably one containing chocolate in some form) and eat the whole thing with a giant spoon. But anyway I don't have a giant spoon or an eating disorder so I guess it's just not gonna work.

I feel like a kid who just smoked oregano.

The song with the theramin just came on again, or it could be a saw. I threw it into the big mix. It's good, makes me happy. I may have to listen to it on repeat once more and then tuck myself in. Everything's always better in the morning. *yawn*

Totally swamped so instead here's an article (no registration!) worth reading. One of the more intelligent nuggets I've seen on expat life. Need to read some Pico Iyer, I haven't except perhaps a few stray articles. Evidently he lives in a Kyoto suburb--wish I knew where, just for my own amusement and context. Context is so good.

Yeah I'm up in the middle of the night workin on lesson plans, and not even for me, for another teacher. But the only reason I'm up this late doing this is that I'm being ridiculously thorough. No one will ever use all this.

So one half of me is doing lessons and the other half is listening to tunes, specifically this one that I think has a theramin. Sounds like, could be, a saw but I doubt it. Sounds like theramin. BTW if you haven't seen the documentary "Theramin" go find it pronto. The history of an obscure and wierd instrument, about a trillion little commentaries by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, and a surprise ending! To a documentary, how good is that. Too good.

Back to lunacy...

Lost in Translation is now showing at 5 cinemas in or near Tokyo and none in Osaka.

This is translated through bablefish not to make fun of anything but in the hope that I can understand a bit of what's going on. I think I have hit the MOTHER LODE. There's a Czech animation festival for the next two weeks at a crazy little theatre I've never heard of but which, get this, also showed the Rocky Horror Picture Show recently. ALAS! I missed it. But evidently this is where the local film society is based. Alloooooo. Course most of it's in every language but English with Japanese subtitles, but whoooooo cares. Next Monday I'm going to attempt to catch all 8 hours of the Czech stuff, unless I max out in which case, shah, I can just come back the next Monday and catch the one or two sittings I miss. I am ECSTATIC.

Personally, I think marriage these days is weird since there are so many legalities and inconsistencies. Society is just so massive that everything has come down to rights...well, rights and taxes I guess. It's very confusing, this mix of personal and political. How this one institution affects your ability to visit loved ones, manage joint finances and property, have a family, and otherwise be recognized in the community in one fell swoop. I still don't really get how people can connect their romantic ideals with all of this horse trading, but that's just me.

Despite my inability to comprehend the machinations of the law and culture, I do know that what's happening in Massachusetts today is a very good thing and frankly tickles me pink. I'm glad that people who want to get married, can. Yay yay yay.

Okay now is it weird to say that even though I think *most* polygamists in the US are weird and anti-feminist, that in theory if you're going to have this legal institution of marriage, polygamy ought to be legal too? Yeah...okay that would probably be weird. Sometimes my liberalism goes around the bend. Guess where I rate on those libertarian quizzes.

Okay I feel bad for blaming the teacher. I'm just in a bad spot becase I'm behind. They are too, because they don't want me to repeat the class (since I'd be ahead of the other students) and I don't want to step up (since I haven't mastered the material). Problematic. However I am slogging through. I think I can catch up but it may take two months...yes I feel like I am that far behind. Not sure what will happen in terms of moving up to the next class...

*eyes wall warily*

I HATE my Japanese textbook. I feel so frustrated and inadequate. I want to start over but they won't let me and the other class member (who is an angel and very funny girl) is lightyears ahead of me. I don't think my teachers care that I am floundering. I am so happy when I ignore this stuff but crack open the textbook and I want to die. There has to be a better way.

*smashes head against wall*

Okay, I feel better. Back to the books!

Thinking about Waking Life reminded me to go check and yes! There is some new animation on Paul Beck and Jason Archer's site. Know Paul, not Jason. Wish they were still doing more political stuff--the rhodoscoping of Bush's State of the Union a few years back was great. The three videos on the top right are new to me, like the top one best but wish I knew Spanish. Anyway, you get the idea.

Hey, they're in the Driscoll hotel in Austin ===============>

Sarah Hepola wrote up an interesting conversation for, you guessed it, NYT between Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. I honestly can't remember if I've met Sarah, though I suspect I did back in the day. I know she knows Jim and may or may not have had a date or two with Nighttrain (who shall forever live in infamy for not having blogged for me when I was in India).

Hawke used to hang out with a girl I know and everyone was always asking her, "How's Ethan?" in a very over-the-top sing-songy voice because they really did want to know but had to make fun of themselves at the same time. That must have been annoying but she was really nice about it.

Not star-struck myself (unless David Byrne ever answers me). Okay I have sent fan mail to Alan Alda and Carl Sagan, but that's all. So the article was fun. Just seemed like a very normal conversation between some folks making a movie and without a lot of pretention.

I like Linklater. He set the tone for me moving to Austin. Saw Dazed and Confused which was set in the 70's when I was living in Tulsa (which is also set in the 70's). Saw Slacker just before I moved and a couple of times in college just because it's fun to watch places you know on film. Missed Before Sunrise but want to see it now. And saw Waking Life when I was living with a postmodernist carpenter. No I don't think Linklater's a genius but he doesn't have to be. His movies are thoughtful, accessible, real and fun. Good enough.

A review (yes Justin it requires registration on the NYT site, not sure why you don't want to do that...) of what sounds like a very intresting exhibit on the history of Japanese postcards. "Early in the 20th century, the exhibition's wall text says, 'the postcard replaced the wood-block print as the primary graphic art form in Japan.'" Wish it was here not NYC.

Sarah Vowell has a very distinctive voice, it's true, (see any of her wonderful wry commentarries on This American Life), but I was surprised to see she is branching out into voicework for the next animated Disney movie. It's a long time since I enjoyed any of these, but it's always interesting to see the eclectic groups of actors in them. Seeing Wallace Shawn is there too, my interest is mildly piqued for a fleeting moment. Now if David Mamet wrote a Disney film...that I would see.

On an unrelated note, everyone go read Vowell's book "The Partly Cloudy Patriot". Funny and insightful on any number of things from dead presidents to Rosa Parks to watching "The New German Cinema" in a small town in Montana. She's sort of an old fogey trapped in a nerdy 30-something's life. I can relate to that.

I haven't had turkey in a long time. Darn. Oh well, have a read, Kurt Vonnegut, 81.

I didn't feel like writing. It's funny, I still don't think I'm a grown-up, or I'm too much of one. I'm sitting here tonight thinking I have to do this, have to do that, have to write part II and then I realized for the umpteenth million time, hey, I can do whatever I want. I don't have homework...well I do but not tonight.

So I scanned in a bunch of pictures which I'll post eventually, and then got sidetracked playing with filters...



A friend mentioned to me that Cat Power is playing in Osaka on June 1st. Of course I'll be teaching and can't go. ~Sigh~ I love having my mornings free, but I miss all the good shows.

Whoa. I have a number of random things I've downloaded over time and one just came up that I wasn't expecting. Elvis sang The Eyes Of Texas Are Upon You? There is a bootleg album of that name? Whaaaaaaa...

This is the part of the first part of something that may or may not be going somewhere and may or may not be loosely connected to the part of the following part in which I will probably say something about India and my reaction to it followed by or possibly preceded by something about my PLAN for the FUTURE, and, though it will likely be rife with vagaries, it will certainly be an indicator of THINGS TO COME.

Will I spill the beans about my long-term vision? Have I come up with a new philosophy for my life? Is this the beginning of The Life of Moi Part II? Did I finally turn from wanna-be-nouveau-radical-pinko-liberal-itarian to full-on hippie? Am I a total fruitcake?

Well, yes to the last, but as for the rest, only time and future posts will tell...

I wonder what the first guy who walked on burning coals was thinking. Was he being sacrificed or tortured and just managed to surprise everyone? Was he mad? Was he a hermit? Was he just bored? Ill? Or maybe he wasn't quite awake and just stumbled over them in the morning after a serious bender.

Of course it must have happened a bunch of different ways. Probably a lot of people in history who walked on fire for a lot of different reasons.

I went to a lecture at UT once hosted by the Plan II people (I didn't pick a major but I...) about transcendent experience. There were a number of speakers but the most interesting was a psychologist prof who discussed research on the possible physiological causes/manifestations (depending on your philosophical preference) of transcendental experience. Of course I have no data or names or anything, so I'm going to make a bunch of unsubstantiated claims and then proceed to dubitable conjectures. Three cheers for armchair pseudoscience (on my part, not hers) and reliance on memory. Here goes:

Theoretically, though it is difficult to prove, there are two varieties of transcendental experience, though actually they're more like two sides of the same coin. Your nervous system has two main channels, the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic. The former responds to stress--raises your heartrate, increases breathing and perception. The latter brings you back down. So if you're walking on coals for example, you would probably activate your sympathetic nervous system, whereas if you were meditating that would be parasympathetic.

So the theory goes that you can max out in either direction and when you do the other system will compensate. Max out your sensory perception listening to loud drums, exalting and whirling like a dervish (if you're not one already) till you suddenly get a kick from the parasympathetic side and you start to get high and sort of float into ecstasy. Alternately this would happen under extreme stress to, say torture. Perhaps you wouldn't experienced ecstasy, but it would be release--the sort of thing that makes people able to withstand the unthinkable. Or you can sit and meditate to lower your breathing, heartrate, external awareness then the sympathetic kicks in and--badda bing--enlightenment. Well maybe not but some transcendent experience anyway.

The other things that happen along with this are your brain goes a little haywire what with all the mixed messages and you start interpreting this stuff through whatever filter you're familiar with--angels and demons, chakras, channeling, seeing through illusion, burning bushes. Whatever suits your cosmology. Oh and your pituitary gland gets zapped a lot so it's kind of orgasmic.

Wow...I didn't get very far at all with this and the ending is very unsatisfactory. Sorry, it's obscenely late and I likes my mornings. More soon.

The new blogger is buggy about posting but I am confident it'll get fixed up shortly. Too lazy to install MT...

It's raining and I'm eating salad and humming the May song from Camelot which usually strikes me at some point every year and I just realized I work at 12 today, not one. Good thing.

I'm also midway through a rather long post detailing some of the implications of my trip to India replete with nine degrees of pseudoscience regarding transcendental experience! Plus, coming soon, the GRAND SCHEME. That's where I've been the last couple of days so sorry no posts. Stay tuned.

Jim found a picture that I think looks kind of like me.

Hey look what I found. Hayseeds in Kyoto. How good! Stood around and listened to them playing bluegrass and singing (in Japanese). Not bad, not bad. I got the crowd clapping and did a lot of hooting and hollering. I guess I'm kind of wierd when I'm hanging out by myself (wandering slowly home from another late night with Aero, aka Chuck, and Marie). The pic's not great so you can't tell, but they've got everything but a fiddle and that's where I come in, they just don't know it yet. Now all I need is a fiddle...and lessons. The harp was fun and all, but I want to play something more practical, like an electric fiddle, yellow I think.

Would somebody in Texas please send me my boots (both pairs) and a new summer hat since Fredo sat on my old one. Thanks.

I'm supposedly going to be quoted in the updated edition of Our Bodies Ourselves, which is kind of a classic feminist sex ed book, talking about relationships. That's funny. Also funny is the fact that' I'm listed as 30-something, which I'm not but aspire to be so okay.

I wonder if anyone will be able to identify me since it's anonymous. Anyway, I kind of used it to pay homage to my first love (yes you, I know you read this) and basically all the friends and lovers I still keep up with.

On an unrelated note, I think I'm going to start an alternative sex column where readers can write in with their own responses to the questions in Dan Savage's column and I'll just edit it. Oops, just gave the idea away. Oh well. I got a million of em.

So I guess I should stop proposing marriage to every Japanese guy I'm friends with just because I saw the movie Green Card a long time ago and I can't think of anyone not to marry in protest of the ban on gay marriages.

Thanks to Nordstrom of Dedman screenplay fame via Melbotis for the link.

Sombody's topped Murakami's sales record with "A love story about a boy and a seriously ill girl". Isn't that what Norwegian Wood was too? Sensing a trend.

Evidently the title just doesn't translate well.

A big thanks (and an apology for taking a day to say it) to the inimitable Marie who is among the loveliest of beings in this quadrant of the known universe. Oh heck, in the whole known universe.

Marie, who without hesitation took on the task of blogging during my advenures away from the keyboard (for a change...for me I mean).

Marie, who prefers to watch the "sexy boys" than to waste time trying to impress them with her snowboarding prowess, hence giving me a chance to rest and pray for the strength to stand.

Marie, who can take a red slope and moguls without a board or skis at all for that matter. She possesses the power of flight.

Marie, who deserves to be a princess in a tower but prefers the lusty bacchanalia. Perhaps we at least have the latter in common.

Marie, who is the only librarian I know who wears glitter and flip-flops to work and sings the smokiest Southern rock you have ever heard.

Marie, who's kitchen would be an eyeful to the naked chef.

I'm sorry for not saying it before Marie! Thanks!

**Attention: sexy boys or rock musicians wanting to contact Marie, please send photos and proof of instrument.**

Okay I'm reading Fahrenheit 451 which is one of the best books I've ever read. Why it takes me so long to get around to these things I don't know.

So some wee quotage from Beatty, soon to be flambéd fire station chief from a page I dogeared the other day--not something I normally do, but I'm about to fold this book in half. There's really no point.

Don't step on the toes of the dog lover, the cat lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. This people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted spinning happily, let the comic books survive. And the three-dimensional sex magazines, or course. There you have it, Montag. It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals.

No offense to manga...

Everyone in India has seen Lost in Translation but it's still not showing in Osaka--just in that one theater in Tokyo.

And for good reason. Personally, I advocate turning a blind eye to anything you don't like because it might possibly, though you can't be sure, offend you.

This film is not only dangerous, but has the potential to become a blockbuster behemoth--stealing vital dollars, I mean yen, from more deserving artistic pieces and indies currently showing such as:

• Kill Bill: Vol. 2--which has the added benefit of saying nothing at all stereotypical or offensive about any Asian culture
• The deeply important Passion of the Christ--sure to stir controversy and political discourse here
• And who could forget, Quill--certainly edifying and stars a cute-as-the-dickens little white puppy. Awwwwww.

Down with Lost in Translation and its big Hollywood outsider perspective!

Long live Tom Cruise! Ken Watanabe! And the TRUTH!

Okay, technically it wasn't a cyclone but it did stop us from going to the aforementioned orb. Imagine the red splotch to the left being two red splotches about three times bigger and you'll have an idea. Roads were too wet and everything was closed. Who wants to see a bunch of hippies covered in mud anyway?

So we rode out what we could of the rain in the fine establishment of the Hotel Qualithe (the name says it all). Then rode back thinking (wrongly) the rain had passed. Mostly sprinkles till we neared Chennai whereupon we were drenched but no point in stopping then. I can pretend I rode a bundi through a cyclone anyway.

But all that is done and I am home. Very relieved. It's rather stressful, these uber-male cultures and being waited on hand and foot. Not that it will stop me from going there again and more long term someday. Some...day...

Yes I am still out here in this crazy universe although no one is blogging for me so I had to brave a cyclone to post this report.

What news? The beer here is warm. The smells are many. I have sorted out the money situation in time to go back to Japan. There are many things to buy and none I want so getting presents is an onerous task, feh.

In Pondicherry at the moment. Was kindly driven down here on motorcycle (sorry mum, dum) successfully averting much oncoming traffic, cows, goats. Quite a lovely ride I might add, along the coast.

I regret I have not taken many pictures. Funny. I don't have any desire to. I think your imagination will suffice. I will post what I did take...probably. But I think part of the joy of this trip is not doing any of that. Not doing tourist stuff for the most part. Just hanging out with Kristen, Justin, Gardner, Alison (who just left for the States) and their various and sundry Indian friends.

Speaking of not doing tourist stuff (oh except we are going to look at the hippies at the golden orb tomorrow), I have to get out of this Internet cafe and this blog. No more updates till Thursday when I return. But I will say my head is in a good place and I can handle any damn thing. Life good.