Osakatomebaby

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.