Sunday, November 28, 2010

HOW TO LIVE THE DREAM, part 4; or, 気分転換

the bicycle races. i had every intention of writing about them tonight. i really did. but i also needed to eat. and after paying the 620 yen to get onto the observation deck at sunshine city to take a picture of the docomo tower as one of my thirty-six views (no offense, hokusai, but my series looks stopped at thirty-two), i was too tired to search for anywhere other than somewhere i'd been.

i visited japan last november for a good friend's wedding, and the restaurant i visited for dinner tonight was the place that my good friend and i were able to share a meal after the frenzy of the festivities died down and before, that night, we met up with a group of mutual friends for festivities of a different sort. the japanese are wonderful at justifying all-out gatherings, and (as would be proved once again tonight) they do it with careful nomenclature and cultural aplomb.

so i had dinner again tonight -- a late one, it was verging on ten -- at nami, a teppan-yaki style restaurant that specializes in okonomiyaki and monjayaki, which are batter based griddle dishes representative of osaka and tokyo, respectively. the place is nothing like the images that most would conjure from the "japanese steak house" implication of teppan-yaki in america, which then i complicate myself by saying because nami ("wave," although not written with the character that designates that word) is subtly surfer themed. by going so far as to say that, however, i complicate myself further, because i can't imagine any way to explain why there are dozens of vuitton scarves on hand to be laid over customers' bags and jackets once those things are settled in the baskets provided for them next to each set of seats. (rather, i've no way of explanation beyond that nami is in japan, and especially in tokyo.)

so that's the scene. it was set nicely and quietly, and although i felt somewhat awkward about eating alone at a place where the menu had been written on the assumption of parties of at least two (it's the nature of the food), i had no trouble both cooking my dinner for one and reading my copy of roland barthes' incidents at the same time. it was delightful, actually. you wouldn't believe the music selection: all american, but with no discernible pattern from one song to the next.

then the unexpected. in japanese they call them "happenings" too. they really did look like a bunch of yakuza, which is what the senior waiter lamented when the group of six came in, at least twenty minutes past when she'd given me the chance to make my last food order. i made haste to finish the last of my post-meal beer and kimchi when they were sat four to my left and two to my right at the counter around the prep area.

"how rude. don't talk to him when he's reading."

i didn't care. i was only thinking about the fastest way out of an uncomfortable situation. but i let them know that they could have my seat in just a minute, which was also letting them know that i could speak japanese.

you can have more, i promise, if you want it. ask and i'll give you all the gory details. but i have a plane to catch in the morning, and several coded, in other words, completely useless, souvenirs to buy before that. they were coming from a funeral. for a friend's daughter. a stranger couldn't possible express appropriate sympathy. luckily, they'd already been drinking. and luckily, one of them was the owner.

"oregon," he said (feel free to make up the interim conversation yourselves), "you need to do something about the guns. and then all the warring." then he tried to give me his daughter and that senior member of his staff. it would seem that i was all luck tonight, because i had a recently established anecdote ready when he jokingly mentioned a certain japanese author.

"he's drunk! don't worry about paying any attention." but i was more than happy to. you talk and remember why it is you travel alone. maybe it was all good fortune, or maybe it was the mood of incidents, or maybe (probably) it was these hott new boots. i was more than happy, even before they picked up my check. tokyo, i might miss you more than i thought.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

HOW TO LIVE THE DREAM, part 3; or, 微妙極まる

『乙女の密告』, winner of the most recent akutagawa prize, is about kyoto, language acquisition, memory and meaning construction, and idle gossip. of course, you don't get all of that from the jacket copy, but the book just somehow shouted out to be read -- despite tepid reactions from three trusted opinions (though none of the three had read it). reading it has so far paid off: sometimes things do make sense, even if the sense they make is to aver that things don't.

"i dreamed a dream" didn't make much sense within the rest of tonight's program at the basement bar in shinjuku ni-chome where the rally was held, but also it did. it was one of the few numbers that was sung straight (so to speak), and, for all its diva camp, managed to edge its way around the overly melodramatic. those are the kind of lyrics you sing to yourself in the bathtub. and you never needed a soak more than after having to buy a plunger at a 24 hour multistory discount retailer on the edge of kabuki-cho at eleven p.m. on a saturday (and then carry it home through the throngs).

bath yourself to that song and you won't care to wonder whether the cake or the probiotics were a better placebo.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

HOW TO LIVE THE DREAM, part 2; or, 治りかけ

it's record time, i think. 45 minutes from ikebukuro to kita-shinjuku on foot; if only because no one walks it, let alone after midnight, let alone in the rain. safe in my self-diagnosis of food poisoning, i gambled on a cold for another day. after all, i come from a city of rain...although, again, dear portland, i know you're right now smitten with snow. another kick in the face: the clothes i wore on my walk will dry more quickly in my room than the ones i left to dry on the veranda before the rain.

i ask this group of friends for book recommendations -- i've only a few days to hit the bookstore before i leave -- and, sadly, haruki murakami's 1Q84 (don't worry, america, you'll have it after not too long) comes up first. the saving grace: one of them remembers that i prefer murakami ryu, and suggests the singing whale (『歌うクジラ』), which i'm sure, unfortunately, you'll never get to read in english. again unfortunately, that book was printed in two volumes and is only now available in hardcover, which means it would replace one other book as weight to carry home. japan excels at first world problems.

what's a girl to do? especially when her stomach is revolting again. make plans to cancel plans for tomorrow. roland barthes is on your side.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

HOW TO LIVE THE DREAM; or, 体調崩し

the bike races here find a way to be spectacular in one way or another, and both ways will get their due treatment (also here). but an early headache, that headache's resilience in its confrontation with food and water, and then a split heel and a full body ache made today a different bet. probably, it's just a real estate up sell on tokyo's part. a decent bathtub is an absolute prerequisite for gambling here. as for tomorrow, all signs point to going to wake up with a cold.

Monday, November 22, 2010

ON TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING

the tale of the heike, much less famous than the tale of genji, should be better known. it chronicles the struggle for power between the minamoto and taira clans during the late 12th century, and is one of the prime literary examples of the foreboding sense of universal impermanence that pervaded japanese artistic sensibilities during that time (and into the present). the taira had ascended, but only two decades later the arrogance and shortsightedness of that house sowed the seeds of its own destruction. the taira's was a decadence of the truest sense, and its fall marked the end of japan's rule by a self-indulgent "cult of beauty" (the embodiment of genji) and the introduction of an austere, military power structure that defined japanese politics until its imperial restoration in 1869.

heike opens (and in a nutshell):

the sound of the gion shōja bells [they sounded when the historical buddha attained nirvana] echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sāla flowers [they bloomed on the same occasion] reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline. the proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night; the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind.


in other words, the taira got what was coming to them. how silly of us not to have heeded time tested advice.

it's strange and confusing, trying to find a voice at all, but then trying to find one in another language. they'll tell you it's wonderful, but they also won't shy away from pointing out the gaps, which means is all well and good enough, but not enough; and it's criticizable for the same reason it's laudable: because it's almost there. but that's also where confidence flags, and on the spot it gets spotty.

just let me be, tonight. yes, i'm afraid, but i won't say so. i'm sitting across from the woman responsible for inspiring japan to flamenco, and i don't want to second guess. i want to freely make mistakes and not wonder if she's laughing with me at what i said or because she couldn't help laughing at how i said it.

of course i know my way. i've lived here, and i'm living here now for all intents (my own, of course), but then i mistake the direction from which we've come out of the underground. i'm fine walking. i live in a place where it rains all the time. anyway, there's no quicker way on the subway. i can walk the underground passage to the metropolitan government building and then head north above ground from there. i would have found and read the signs to the west exit of the station without your help, but because you ask i'm given pause and pause.

it's the challenge of exposure, to anything, that time enough puts you face to face with that most difficult hurdle: knowing enough is enough to know how much further you still have to go. tonight, i still had to get from the metropolitan government building to home.

i was soaked, but my hat was decent enough not to let me feel it. tonight (although it's daytime there), portland is expecting snow. tonight, tokyo got the rain. i get it. i've been gone too long, and clear skies couldn't last forever. as for you, portland, you've been too long without a master. "there's no point in running away. never run away, all you find is yourself. there's nothing else to find."

there's not a bit of this in what i wanted to say. so, it would seem that i heeded that advice after all. the tale of the heike. it'll only hurt for a second.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH

"how horrible it is when crucial moments in our lives can only be expressed in words so banal that they in turn, make the moments themselves banal."

you were warned.

(and that comma is [sic].)

i read that passage of the traveler trying finally to finish that book at a cafe somewhere between sendagaya and yoyogi, and, well, to be sure. i'd wanted to sit down for a glass of wine in the early afternoon at a cafe called bowls on the outskirts of shinjuku ni-chome and on the road that runs east-west along the northern edge of the shinjuku imperial gardens. unfortunately, bowls was full when i arrived (it was, after all, a saturday afternoon), but the handwritten chalkboard menu outside didn't make any indication of wine on offer, so i let myself move on without too much regret. i didn't want to walk much further without sitting down to finish a certain letter, but i walked on anyway.

to ochanomizu, i thought. i haven't spent much time in central tokyo, and i remembered having once been to an older establishment under a railway or highway bridge that served denki buran (electric brandy), a spirit that originated in tokyo during the meiji period (1869~1914) when alcoholic drinks in japan weren't yet on par with their european counterparts as far as alcohol content. (the mouthfeel of a higher proof spirit was compared to the sensation of an electrical current, and the drink was so named.) per my recollection, the place i had in mind served theirs mixed with beer, and although there's no comparison to make with the taste or service of that and a glass of wine, i was able to equate the two on the level of sitting down for experience.

however, once i passed the eastern edge of the gardens i was able to see the jinguu kyuujo, home of the yakult swallows (tokyo's lesser professional baseball team), and was seduced by nostalgia for an evening i spent cheering for the underdog in a box that my host father from high school maintains despite having never gone up to the capital since we were introduced eleven years ago. my warm memory was ravaged by the crowds under the ginkgo trees along the perimeter of the stadium: reality, as is necessary and appropriate, quickly gave the lie to the shallowness of nostalgia. those same crowds should also have been sufficient warning of what i'd find when i proceeded onto aoyama doori, into which the road that runs south along the stadium intersects at a perpendicular.

aoyama gives its name to one of tokyo's six elite universities, the university famous for producing models. that's no surprise when you know that aoyama is at the east end of omotesandou, home of the world's major fashion houses' tokyo flagship stores. the more finely curated stores are actually east of where omotesandou intersects aoyama doori, and i thought i still had the energy to head there and make my afternoon in the fitting rooms of comme des garçons. it turned out i didn't. this season's theme is color, and the inside of the store looked as fun as that sounds; but one snap of the camera at the doorway and i was done with the weekend shoppers as well as with all of my unwealthy tourist compatriots. issey miyake has three stores across the street (and a pop-up down the street opening on the 26th), and prada's five story bubbled glass phantasmagoria of shoes is next door. surely they'll all be less crowded on monday, and their staffs kinder to visitors with no intention to buy.

what a disaster. dear tom's shoes: if the stuff you're giving to those children in need is as painful to walk in as what they sell at nordstrom, i have to say that your mission might need a new guide. all of the food/drink establishments around omotesandou were either full, not right or, in the case of the south asian styled tea room that i decided i wouldn't have wanted to go to anyway, overpopulated with non-japanese that must have been either aging models or young advertising executives who gave me dubiously encouraging eyes when i passed by.

the new plan was to get me out of there, but the new plan was ironically more difficult the further away i got because it was executed on an increasingly aggravating empty stomach. get out of my way. (how can a city like this operate on people who move so lackadaisically?) oh yeah. h&m. congratulations portland, and that lanvin collabo comes out on the 23rd. this one (intersection of omotesandou and meiji doori) or the one in shibuya? that's a decision for tuesday morning.

tokyo can make you forget that there was ever a quiet moment in the world. and then it can also remind you how to relax. it's the difference between night and day -- though, for sure, it was now solidly dark -- being on or just off of omotesandou and walking a couple of hundred meters from harajuku station where omotesandou dead ends at the meiji shrine.

the cafe was only a ten minute walk away. it was splendid. tas yard. look it up if you're in the city. i had some food and my glass of wine, over which i was given pause in ordering because the place served coedo beer, a craft brew made in kawagoe near where i went to high school. there were a couple of young men sitting behind me to my right that seemed the epitome of tokyo creative style. i would have taken a photo if i could have shot them without getting any of this month's art exhibit (no pictures of that, understandably). but the cafe was just an overdue waylay, and besides, i wasn't there for long.

i had to race back to the apartment to change my shirt and grab a gift. i'd made my apologies for dinner and asked that i be allowed to join the party for desert. sweating, i had half an hour to get to the station, buy my ticket, ride three stops and find the restaurant. in my imagination, it was a formal affair, something that nearly made me spend the afternoon alone in my room with panic. really, though, for a ten year old's birthday? but maybe you can only think that once you're there and given the most gratifyingly warm welcome, a welcome that you'd should expect from friends -- near family -- that makes you think, "for shame..." at not having more graciously accepted the invitation to arrive earlier. when did looking good in pants come to mean being so guarded and mistrustful.

tuesday, it turns out, is a national holiday, so we'll have time to have lunch before the races start at three. then we'll bet and make a day of it. what an embarrassing relief. and what a pity to have to say so.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

TOKYO BIKE SCENE THIS JUST IN

that's a post i'm going to write when i finally make it into a bike shop -- that is to say, a bike shop that's coolly japanese enough to impress the sensibilities of my countrywomen in the already saturated-in-japanese-cool state of cascadia. and that's not even to mention the recognized ascendancy [don't you prefer ascendance, too?] of our homegrown bicycle industry. this is why we procrastinate...and make things up. if the storied annals of 'looking good in pants' teach you one thing, it should be that journalism's greatest success lies in its colorful (i.e. debauched, if you don't understand japanese) relationship with fact.

i'm hoping to garner a lead during a lunch meeting i've got today, and i'm guessing i'll be sent somewhere in shibuya; but then again, the friend i'm meeting is more of a roadie than a commuter or a fixster or any in-the-middle urban rider sort, so i can't really be sure. but ultimately, i imagine myself walking into some designed-out little boutique store where i'll nonchalantly let my sleeve draw back to show my spoke bracelet, whereupon the staff will ask me where i'm from, and we'll all love that i'm there to represent portland. i don't know how many takes it's going to be to get it right, but if you can't be real, you should at least be perfect.

i do regret not taking pictures of the two riders i saw stopped the other day at an intersection on waseda doori between nakano and kōenji. one was on a fixed gear, headed north, balanced up on his bike by the aid of holding on to a telephone pole or a fence or something. he was wearing rolled up jeans and canvas sneakers, but the triple layered combination that he was wearing above the waist was so perfectly styled and color matched as to be impossible outside of japan. the other rider was stopped in traffic headed east. he was riding a production model giant road bike, anything but special, but his all black commuting ensemble would put the best of us in portland to shame. head to toe rapha (well, i suppose not his shoes), including a pair of those newly designed three-quarter lenghts. man, he looked sharp. unlike his fixed gear counterpart, the man on the giant was wearing a helmet, less, i'm sure, because he was riding with traffic and was therefore more safety conscious than because it was part of the package.

on tuesday, i'm going to a keirin race with the same friend as i'm almost late to meet for lunch. i know. keirin is so three years ago...but i'm excited anyway. i mean, they made it up here, so even if it already crested on the american trend wave, seeing it here is still an important cultural and historical experience. plus, those dudes are stacked. and apparently they get to retire at 35 to a public pension. the scene at the track moves from a distraught closeup to a building excitement to a wide shot of me hanging over the rail frantically waving the billet that just won me tens of thousands of yen. then there's a snapshot montage. i'll be able to afford myself a cup of coffee on wednesday morning.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

ON GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS; or, HOW TO DO JUST THAT

there are some eight and a half million people in the 23 wards of tokyo proper, so despite my having been in a place and time not difficult for running into the person in question, i was still surprised to hear my name called from behind me on the street and turn around to see a friend. and then, what, by another chance, i'd made evening plans with a mutual friend who was scheduled to call me within thirty minutes of my chance encounter.

the italian restaurant that minami suggested was full for at least another hour, but we didn't have to look long to find something else, as there's no shortage of izakayas around ikebukuro station (most of them chains, although they still offer better fare than what you'll find in the booming copycat market in the states).

minami works in fashion. she sells clothes for paul smith -- though i think she's officially employed by tobu department store. she wants to take herself elsewhere. in other words, she wants to really work in fashion. kawaji works for a company, a japanese company with offices in ootemachi (literally the big dogs' town) near tokyo station. minami watches "the city" at mtv.com and thinks that she might just have to bet everything on an internship, an internship that she'll probably have to seek outside of japan. kawaji insists that she'll have to work abroad for the rest of her career if she goes that route. they both agree that it's risky, and that she won't have a chance at becoming a salaried employee at any japanese company if she doesn't quit her current job and make a go before she's thirty. (minami has the benefit of five years on both me and kawaji...and, in exemplification of the point at hand, speaks with calculated formality to him but not to me.)

kawaji appeals to my love of books in his arguments against the internet. minami is on uneasy ground in her defense of online content because she doesn't read. i say something about individual responsibility and the failure of japanese education as it pertains to a functional democracy. my origin in a dysfunctional democracy is borne witness to the suspect character of my argument. apparently i used to be more conservative.

minami pulls out her iphone to look up the tpp. i don't bring up that the proliferation of the iphone since i was here last year is entirely the result of a successful ad and price campaign by softbank, the innovative wireless provider here that found a way to popularize apple's smartphone in a country that has had cell phones with internet capability since the turn of the century. "japanese in their twenties don't know how to communicate." "they just communicate differently than their older coworkers." "japan is going to change. it's inevitable." "but that won't happen all of a sudden. the japanese company is too established in its function." "but it has to. the japanese company doesn't have a say."

in any case, best of luck to minami. her impression is that japanese fashion still takes too much from foreign designers. if so, japan should re-protect that industry, tpp agreements or not. it's impossible that there aren't more garments for sale in this city than in any other place in the world, and people are paying top dollar for them, bad economic times or not. unfortunately, the stores in tokyo are selling men fanny packs as something to be worn crosswise over the shoulder, and that needs to be stopped. a purse queen has her dignity. perhaps it's finally time for both america and japan to start thinking outside of the ever increasing standard of living box. designer fanny pack or not, i for one know that a situation in which people throw hundreds around like twenties can't last long.

oof. don't worry about it. i've got the check...

Monday, November 15, 2010

HOW (TO?) CHRISTOPHER GOT HIS GROOVE BACK

there it was, welcoming me back: a hanging ad in the train car advertising noriko sakai's tell-all memoir about her years of drug problems. i haven't any interest in pop idols beyond the regular passing fascination with the interest that japanese pop idols do inspire in some, but i do vaguely remember having first heard noriko's name during my earliest years of studying japanese, and her face was a regular fixture on the covers of the weekly news magazines that decorated the tokyo trains during the two years i lived in japan. i hope it sells, ms. sakai, though i won't be able to be of any direct help. my reading list is already too heavy.

how are memoirs faring in japan? i've no clue. unfortunately for ms. sakai, no one else on that train seemed likely to buy her book either, if only because most of them probably didn't see the ad. most of them were reading -- including a younger man with a newspaper that had an ad on the back for toupees, an ad that seemed aimed at younger men like the one reading the newspaper and that was big enough to be readable from where i was sitting on the bank of seats across the aisle. the older man next to me was reading a publication from some bank or insurance company on net worth and the estate tax. i would have been reading myself had i not been so dazed from my flight and distracted by tired anticipation. i'd hardly opened my borrowed copy of antal szerb's the traveler on the plane. unfortunately, despite having wanted it finished by the time i arrived at that night's destination (and in addition to my inability to concentrate), my copy of the book was in such disrepair as to be unmanageable in addition to my bags.

even if i wasn't reading, most of the rest of the train car still was. the ride from narita to nippori, where the keisei line meets two of tokyo's larger japan railway lines, takes about an hour and a half. from nippori to ikebukuro on the yamanote line is another fifteen or so minutes, and from there i didn't immediately have the humility to force myself and my luggage onto another train for another hour, so i stuffed my things instead into a coinlocker and let myself wander the area around ikebukuro station in vain hopes that by 8 p.m. the late rush hour traffic out of the city would thin enough to allow me a comfortable space on the train to higashimatsuyama in saitama where my japanese adoptive family lives.

there's a large stand of coinlockers at the "metropolitan" exit of the station (the exit's named for the shopping center above it), which is conveniently located at the above ground entrance to the tobu tojo line that runs from ikebukuro to higashimatsuyama. but, my god, if the entire city of tokyo isn't just a giant shopping center. recession or not, and regardless of japan's continuing deflation woes, the stores keep coming, and their wares are on constant display in the crowds that pass in and around them. tokyo denizens are shamingly well put together. i'll have to see about apparel shopping, which is to say that i'll have to wait and see which direction the yen blows after the g20 meeting in seoul. anyway, it's no time for frivolity. all the stations in tokyo have been on orange alert because of the apec meeting in yokohama.

so i sat for a while at the park near the west exit of the station, the park that, like most parks in tokyo, is just a lot of cement. a lot, that is, that hasn't been built up. there's a fountain on timers across from a set of railing seats for smokers and some kind of performance hall across from that. it's not by any means a tokyo must see, but it's representative enough (and vaguely nostalgic), so i took a picture before moving on. the longer i sat, the harder it was going to be to brave the home stretch of my arrival.

there's a pedestrian underpass that takes foot and bicycle traffic between the west and east sides of the station. i took it under and east to where it opens near the first floor of one of the area's larger discount electronics stores. i don't know how the employees stand it. that song can't be much longer than 30 seconds, and it plays on constant repeat. you'll know how to sing it after a dozen cycles, so you'd bettr know what you want. it's the same thing at most of the city's big chain stores, excepting the ones that sell books, and the bookstore to which i was headed isn't so awfully like a chain. it's definitely huge: the junkudou in ikebukuro (the company's original store) is at least nine floors plus a basement. but its interior is scarcely designed or gimmicked (the store on shijou doori in kyoto is no different, though slightly smaller). the japanese will stand and read at a seven eleven. it's hardly necessary for a bookstore to affect an ambience.

one sweep of the magazine section to the left rear of the cash registers on the first floor was enough. absolutely no sense in increasing my load on night one. there's a huge market for seasonal and limited time items in japan, but in my experience that doesn't affect the publishing or bookselling industries -- and saying so now makes me worried for when that floodgate finally opens.

i couldn't read on the train from ikebukuro to matsuyama either. despite having waited an hour around ikebukuro and then going to the platform and standing in the second set of lineups for the next next express, the train was still crowded. i got a seat, though at the expense of having to sit my bags in front of me in such a way as to make the seat next to me unusable. i've played that game on that same line more times than i'd like to remember, and, sadly, i don't remember specifically any of the books that i read during the two months i commuted between saitama and the city in college. the rules are similar in the opposite direction. during the peak commuting hour of the morning, higashimatsuyama station is the last station on the line where you can expect to find a place to sit on the train up to town. standing for an hour in the swarm is anything but unusual for riding morning or evening trains around tokyo, but it's not the most energizing way to start a day.

even if i hadn't been worried about losing the first fifty pages of my book over the laps and feet of the other riders, i still would have kept it in my bag. and i hated that train. the rebuffs and having to make the last one. 12:50? even if i took taxis, 55 kilometers is impossibly expensive. and so one decides to pay rent in the city. that night, though, i was happy to be riding that train to matsuyama, or if not necessarily happy, smilingly indifferent. there was be food waiting for me, and i just didn't care. looking good in pants means keeping up appearances, and having attended school in japan couldn't have been any better training. but really, anymore, i'm just tired of taking care of her. (when the LED news ticker on the super express ran that story about the man poisoning his mother, all i could do was wonder how mrs. bates had died in "psycho.")

more important than the strangers: "would they be able to talk to each other again, after all these years? after such divergent paths?" i've gradually made my way about half way through the traveler, and i wasn't surprised that a passage in a book so named would strike an assonant chord on certain heartstrings. mihály and ervin, the dissipated philanderer and the jew turned catholic priest, are able to talk to each other, and ervin sends his friend on another travel, a trip to rome. i might not need to finish reading the rest of the book. or, more correctly, i'm afraid of being sent on a different errand after already have been given the only advice i want to follow: "above all, do nothing. surrender yourself to coincidence. give yourself over to it, don't make plans..."

i'm sitting on a heated toilet seat next to which is a shelf of books. one of them,『ヘタな人生論より徒然草』("who needs some shoddy theory of living when you've got 'essays in idleness'"), strikes me by its title's coincidence with an idea that i once expressed at this blog. (the japanese, by the way, really did invent blogging.) the back cover describes something about finding fluidity between falling behind and being sucked into the pace of contemporary digital society. really, what better solution to that dilemma than a collection of seven hundred year old musings on the interplay of beauty and action?

what a strange, demented feeling it gives me when i realize i have spent whole days before this inkstone, with nothing better to do, jotting down at random whatever nonsensical thoughts have entered my head.


maybe that's why it's in the bathroom, but i guarantee that the japanese get some serious reading done there, too.

it was just a coincidence -- and, admittedly, those are easy to find when you need them. correlation and causality do, after all, have that strange and deceitful relationship. but we all know that those are the most fun to read. fun makes the writing easier, too. in other words, ms. sakai's book is an easy win on either side. it can't, also, be coincidence that the fortune i got at kiyomizu-dera temple told me that very same thing. for a hundred yen, it couldn't have been off mark. so i'll surrender. doing nothing is exactly the something i need to be doing, especially insofar as that means looking good in pants. and if there's nothing else to do than read and write, well, then that makes the decision all the easier.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

HOW TO MAKE THE BEST OF IT; or, ON META-VACATIONING

there's a bookstore on istiklal ave in beyoğlu in istanbul that sells books in english. that's where i made my introduction to orhan pamuk via the new life. i also bought what i hesitate to call a collection by anaïs nin because i remember it including only two stories. one of the two stories in "artists and models" was the story of a young man, a handsome young man, who wakes every morning and takes special care in pressing his slacks, dressing, fixing his hair, and then leaves his apartment and walks the morning streets of the city to bask in the attention of the women he passes -- although without entertaining any of it -- only to return early to his apartment to sit in his bed smoking, masturbating over the excitement of possibilities.

during my two weeks in turkey, i paid special attention to following that young man's example. last night, however, the intercession of five years found me forgetting the benefits of that well learned lesson until i was confronted with the hazards of dismissing it. i should have contented myself with my one man dance and grooming party. in hindsight, an hour on the street would have been much more satisfying than two hours waiting to let myself pay a bar tab. there was no promise that the payoff would have been satisfying had the endeavor paid off anyway. the inference of hope can be enjoyed without ever having to gamble on it toward possible disappointment. and, getting what you want can be just as boring as not.

things might have come off ideally, or unexpectedly (maybe even better). but kyoto is, after all, a city raised (and razed) on sour grapes, so i'll have no compunction over having mine. i've just overheard that kyoto natives still maintain an irreproachable sense of pride over living in the capital (and that means the boundaries as they were, not the extent to which the city has been incorporated to now). nothing has ever been less tolerable in this city than losing face, and no aspect of culture here hasn't at one time been helped by the incredibly powerful force of ruined pride. my own pride, then, is bolstered to know that i've had a something like what we could call a real kyoto experience. let's call it that. pro or con, there's a satisfaction that comes with tiredness and just having it done.

still, for me, and for most japanese i think, tokyo is the indisputable center of the world, and i wonder if i'll have the chance to think so wildly once i'm back. "in tokyo we have a life. we can hide in our everyday lives." hiromi kawakami wasn't comparing the two capitals when she wrote that in manazuru, but her sense of reluctant resignation to the pull of the center is an accurate description of my feelings on the end of my vacation from my vacation. a kyoto native would no doubt take issue, but that's just sour grapes.

that said, i'll be taking a forced break from the internet for at least the next twenty-four hours, after which time i'll have gone up again to the capital and left the old one behind. what could be better? we fallen nobility think of nothing else. life in exile has its certain pleasures, but life in the capital is gay. the possibility anyway. mask my displeasure at having too many plans not to leave. for the audience it's all the same, writing not excluded (and perhaps even the best example). this could have taken me a few dozen fewer minutes. i've learned my lesson. masturbation.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

ON THE THRILL OF THE ACADEMY

kyoto is teeming with anthropologists, or it seems that way anyway when you're surrounded by them and in such culturally steeped environs. it was indescribably rejuvenating to play the art fag accessory to the anthropology of art post-doc at the willy ronis photography exhibit at the kyoto museum of contemporary art yesterday afternoon, but the conversation at dinner was even more enlightening. it would seem that no one paid enough forethought to my negotiable property holdings and that no effort of charm on my part could ever have won over someone so society minded as the subject of tuesday night's fancy. you see, i don't have any pigs. not one. and no amount of clever conversation can increase my value in the eyes of a certain set without it's ultimately being underwritten by livestock.

the girlfriend wanted chickens, and so i obliged. damn. i'm as bad as he is.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

ABOUT LAST NIGHT, part 2

postcards. people are sure to appreciate them more from kyoto than in tokyo, or so i've decided, so i've decided to send them from here. but instead of finding some nice ones and sitting down to write them this evening as was my plan when i woke up this afternoon, i put on a nice outfit and went to one of the fancier department stores downtown so that the salespeople on men's designer could be nice to me. walking there i couldn't tell if it was my back hurting from so much walking or my kidneys from dehydration.

japanese homo culture is probably the way it is so that the japanese can avoid the overblown dramatics of the likes of me. but looking good in pants means saying it straight and as it comes. we sometimes get worked up, but, when we finally work ourselves down, we aren't beyond recognizing that perhaps a selfish response to not getting what we wanted can overtake our necessary respect for the nuances of cultural difference. the braggadocio of near perfection blinded me to the possibility of my still being susceptible to cultural shock. so once again: ctrl identity + alt + delete adolescence. the truth is, i had fun. not sorry.

my walk took me near chion-in temple, and i remembered from my visit yesterday that the temple is open special evening hours this month for a seasonal illumination. fall in japan means colored leaves and moon gazing parties. i climbed the hill again, paid my fee and made a second round.

the main hall of the temple was dimly lit from around the altar. a recorded track of monks chanting sutras played in the background. those of you who were raised catholic will understand when i say that once you've lapsed, you develop a profoundly unique relationship with god. despite your firmness in your disbelief, he's always still there to talk, an ex who still loves you and will do whatever he can to help you stop making the same mistakes as when you were together. i'm no buddhist, but in the dim light and amidst the incense and chanting, i had a nice sit down with amida. not believing in the law made it all the easier to come clean. i'd have stayed there all night had they let me.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

YO! ASOBI; or, HOW TO RECONCILE YOURSELF TO WELL ADJUSTMENT

in the opening pages of yukio mishima's confessions of a mask, mishima's protagonist recollects the stirring vitality he felt in regularly seeing the finely muscled night soil gatherer come to collect from the neighborhood in his tight shorts. although i've a copy of the book on my shelf, i've never read anything more than that first chapter, and that only in an undergraduate introduction to modern japanese literature. confessions of a mask has pervaded that discipline so far as to justify its students never reading the book. the school of the flesh, in which a clique of wealthy middle aged divorcees grasp for meaning throughout conversations at 1960s tokyo gay bars (it's "the first wives club" meets "sex and the city" meets second wave feminism well before all of their times), secures mishima's place as an early standout of queer fiction. (we'll leave his extreme right wing politics out of the discussion for now.) he isn't, however, as i was assured by the manager of a tokyo gay bar some seven years ago, a "gay author." "yukio mishima was married."

tonight was my first foray into kyoto nightlife. the first time i came here was for the second half of the school trip i took during my year at japanese high school, and i was with my parents for the second. the bars and clubs in gion and kawaramachi (each on one side of the kamo river from gion shijou station) aren't dissimilar in arrangement from what you'd find in ikebukuro, shinjuku or shibuya in tokyo: multistory buildings with vertical signs advertising the names of the establishments inside but with no street names or numbers. the hosts and hostesses are equally as eager to exploit an older mark in the old capital as in the new, and with drink minimums and service charges for the snacks you're automatically served, you'll have broken your budget before you've had a chance to decide if where you are is where you'll actually have any fun.

gay bars in kyoto follow the same basic plot structure with the added complication of being intentionally under-advertised. insiders tonight told me that the city hosts about ten, but i was lucky to find two after a laborious internet search. at least the bars in shinjuku are collected in one spot -- although one of the bar owners tonight told me that there are places more along the lines of what you'll find in kyoto in shibuya. what you'll find in kyoto are small, carefully decorated bars that seat maybe a dozen people, most of them with "members only" signs to deter any bargoers not in the know. laugh, where i stopped first, is the only stop at the basement floor of the garnet building in gion, and despite its being only about twenty feet deep and ten wide, genki-san, the owner and resident dj, told me that as many as seventy people will show up to dance on designated nights. "it makes it easier to introduce yourself."

the four other patrons that were at laugh when i arrived had already been drinking hard and long and left shortly after i came back to the bar after running out to catch the last train back to fumi's apartment to find my money clip, which i was sure i had when i ordered my first drink. i found it deep in one of my pockets about two blocks to the subway station. i hadn't yet meant to cash out, but i did pat my back pocket after a trip to the bathroom and found it empty. for all my apologies and distress, i'm glad the group at the bar stayed to see me walk back through the sliding wood gate with my head bowed and my tail between my legs. genki-san had been inspiringly gracious, refusing to let me leave my rental phone (the only think on me worth anything more than my tab) at the bar until i was able to come back with payment. if gay bars in japan have nothing else to offer (and most gay bars anywhere don't), at least i got to be the beneficiary of the trust that comes from the desire for a shared experience.

tuesday isn't a grand day for nighttime outings -- in fact, two of the places i found online are closed that day of every week -- but, unfortunately, most gay bars in japan aren't open to women, and tonight was my last night in kyoto before my seven year reunion with the female friend of mine who's let me stay at her apartment since i've arrived in kyoto, and who will be hosting me for the rest of my stay. tonight or never if i wasn't going to step on anyone's toes or, worse, be ungracious to a japanese. i double checked, just in case, and no, laugh wouldn't welcome fumi.

japanese culture is inexplicably closeted for as accepting as it is of sexual adventurism. pull your weight for your social and familial obligations and you're free to pursue whatever tickles you, just so long as your social and familial face conforms to accepted society and family. sure, the logic of that system supports a system of underground venues not open to a sex that can readily find sex elsewhere. but.

genki-san spun a few "minor" hip hop records for me after the others left. we talked about scenes. laugh isn't so dead on saturdays, he told me. whatever. i'll be with fumi, so i won't see you. "we're open until five on weekends." ditch her late then, you mean. i've a noon train on sunday anyway.

laugh was cute. portlanders (i know you miss me): think the tube in the carribean. i'll probably go back early one evening to snap a couple of shots. i got along well. my japanese is near perfect.

my japanese is near perfect because i could personally stand to be able to say exactly what i want to say as precisely as i want to say it and without any thought as to what i'm trying to say. i guess my english is just near perfect as well. but, i say so to prove a point, and not the boastful one. they tell me that my accent and my intonation are, well, japanese; and i only have to accent and intone the name of the university where i spent my junior year of college to have a room rapt. so it was tonight at masa masa. already well inebriated, i still felt it my duty to stop by the other place i'd to which written directions on the scrap of paper in my pocket before i'd be barred by present company.

masa masa is worlds away from laugh, though only a short walk away. i could hear laughter from the street, and the smell of incense pervaded the space between the door and the entryway curtains. it took the same five seconds as at the last place to put the patrons at the bar at ease by demonstrating proficiency in their language. "you're from uji? the wisteria must be beautiful there in spring." really, i shouldn't get down on men for playing parts while i'm knowingly playing my own. but this place. it made sense. what laugh is to portland, masa masa is to kyoto. the incense, soft light and the delicate interior with its aged wood accents. the owner, i don't think i ever got his name, was a stupendous wit, and i was somehow able to match him tit for tat across the bar. it's easy when you've had time to rehearse, that near perfect japanese.

"how tall are you?" "i bet it's big." "[name here] i can tell that you're interested. he's handsome, hey?" "oh. it is big. are you sure you're not excited?" "university? in japan?" "why don't you bring your friend with you?" "oh. really. we just can't." "but you're handsome. i'm not so old as you think. we could go the three of us. what do you think [name here]."

he's handsome. i thought so immediately i sat down at the bar. the owner, a character, is pleading my case, and when the also handsome forty-something business man who's engaged me in delightful conversation for an hour gets up to leave he takes the seat next to me. they're all friends, of course, by association and necessity, and i tell him that really i would just like to be his friend as well. he has a disarmingly charming smile, and he's dashing in his shirt and tie and slender suit pants. but the pants look good because of the man himself, tall and slender and with eyes for me as long as i've had them for him. the owner has conspired with us all to keep him here for another drink, another drink. i banter with the owner. "you're japanese is so good. and you're so cute." i am so fucking charming.

he has to get home. i would have liked to have talked to him more about the ring on his finger. four years. no children. "and you? do you have a boyfriend?" it's comically unweird coming from a man with a wife. i know the context. the other bartender has a seventeen year old niece who asks him fashion advice, but he tells me that i shouldn't make a point of saying anything to anyone unless it really matters. i'd been on the fence, and it helped to be given that advice, even if just to justify having been giving it to myself.

i would like to kiss him, or at least put my hand on his thigh. we make easy conversation. nothing about the situation is out of place for the situation. but he has to get home. after all, he has a wife. i want to put my arm around his shoulder as we walk out and down the alley toward traffic. i would like to kiss him, but i don't care about sex. i wouldn't invite someone to where i'm already staying on good graces anyway. fumi told me to make myself at home, but i'm not about to soil her sheets the night before our first meeting in seven years. i genuinely and basically and desperately just want to talk. i say so. at 3:30, nowhere's open anymore.

he offers to detour his cab to take me home. if you're just going home, then i might as well walk. i don't have any plans tomorrow. "it's cold." i'm wearing layers. and then, god, "i really would like to talk more, but i don't know how this sort of thing is supposed to go in japan." god, i would be his friend. i would listen to him talk about his wife and his children. someday, maybe. but knowing that he has tomorrow off i just want something to happen so that i can sit next to him being handsome. i want him to know that i want nothing to happen so that i can sit next to him and talk while he's sitting there being handsome.

"um. so i guess we should just leave it at it was nice that i got to meet you." who's line is that anyway? the dark air along the river is crisp and fresh for all of the three miles back to fumi's apartment. it was nice. i did appreciate it. there's a girl in an evening gown in the convenience store where i stop before getting home. because it's four in the morning, that makes me smile. i wanted to bloody my fists on every tree by the riverside on my walk. that girl reminds me that things are different out of context, and i can bitch all i want to fumi come next evening.

ugh. the sun is coming up, and i'm laughing at my lost resolve to be upset about last night. at least the owner of masa masa did better than laugh and discounted my bill for my performance. japan. what a maliciously extended kick in the face of a gift: the key to a city that i don't give a damn for unlocking.

Monday, November 8, 2010

KYOTO: A LOVE STORY; or, ON REAL WORLD HERITAGE

it turns out it's only about six miles to and from gion from the shimogamo shrine, so accounting for the rambling i did waiting for the grocery store to open (ten o'clock?!?) and the distance between the shrine and fumi's apartment, i walked about ten miles. eleven, maybe, with all the backs and forth over the bridges across the river. my shins swear it was more. they've been quieted, thankfully, and thanks to a visit to a public bath just off of imadegawa doori, right across a narrow street from where i saw an impeccably dressed young woman, designer bag in hand, descending the staircase from the second floor of a mcdonald's. i deny her the benefit of doubting that she was there for the wifi.

there's a new -- and automatic, self-regulating -- bath at fumi's, but it's a wonderful, not to miss experience to pay to clean yourself in full view of the skeptical neighborhood old men and the local students who chose not to afford an apartment with bathing facilities. the possibility of discovering a diamond in the rough mural on the wall of the bathing room is enough to justify ducking off the street and through the curtained entryway, but even if the place is just tiled, you're really not settling if you still get to be treated to the kitsch of faucets disguised as cupid statues pouring water at your shoulder while you soak.

a middle aged woman seems always to be the one taking money, and she's the only one who has full view of both the men's and women's anterooms where bathgoers strip down before heading into the bathing area to shower. there are beers and energy drinks for sale, at least on the men's side, and ample seating encourages patrons to linger over drinks and cigarettes after pulling their things from their lockers and pulling on their shorts. each locker key has an elastic strap for wearing around an ankle or a wrist, but there's nothing to dropping one once you've moved to the main event: no one ever seems abashed at bending over in any direction or in any angle of the awfully unflattering florescent light.

you shower first, which is done sitting on a short stool along a row of shower heads with hot and cold faucets below them for rinsing. after that there's a warm bath, a hot one, a sauna and maybe even a steam room. there's a cold bath, too, to keep you from getting too woozy if you decide to linger. a younger man tonight was there only for the denki buro, which i've tried, that time too in kyoto during my high school class trip. i felt bullied after the experience, though i don't think my friend's encouragement of my trying that one new thing was malicious. it's just impossible not to be humiliated after having to claw your way, half paralyzed, over the wall of one of those tubs completely naked. running electricity through a pool of water doesn't seem safe. i'm sure it's not regulated. granted, the japanese also market stick-on mini defibrillators as massagers. this stuff must work for them. the man tonight looked perfectly relaxed.

no one needs another anecdote on the mystifying ins and outs of japanese culture. in fact, i had a thoroughly satisfying time at the bath, not once in my hour there feeling at all ill at ease. i shouldn't have been surprised, then, at what i found at the taqueria on higashi ooji doori where i stopped to eat beforehand. a taqueria seemed like an inexpensive dinner prospect (you try eating good japanese food in kyoto every night on a budget) when i'd passed it from across the street earlier in the evening, so i decided to take a look at the menu on my way in the other direction later. pachanga seats about a dozen people and is decorated like most taco joints: day of the dead statuettes, our lady banners, faux adobe walls. it manages, however, not to be generic. for one thing, it's a taqueria in the old capital of japan. on top of that, pachanga has handcrafted, wood bound menus at each table (mine highlighted bolivia), and a mixture of both mexican and cuban (look up pachanga) decorative elements on its walls. i don't know where the farmers in the four pictures on the wall of the alcove near the door are from, but i was especially charmed by the one who, from a thirty degree angle, looked like george w. bush in a juan valdez hat.

tacos at pachanga cost $3.50. you can also order a variety of tako rice dishes for between seven and ten dollars, but i didn't pay enough attention to the menu during my visit to find out what they included because some sort of doublethink let me decide at the time that the "tako" in tako rice wasn't the same "tako" as in my tacos. (japanese doesn't distinguish between c's and k's.) it's obvious now that a place like pachanga wouldn't be serving octopus rice.

the $3.50 you pay for a taco at pachanga isn't so much for the amount of food you get as the culinary ingenuity of pachanga's owner and cook: mozzarella beef? salmon avocado? they were both impressively tasty. japanese food can wait another night of five, right? i could even just stop by and shell out for one as a light lunch so that i could try somewhere else in the evening. in that case, though, i'd have to make a tough decision between the spicy meat with cottage cheese and the triple mushroom with garlic. i took a card. maybe if i go back i'll get one on the house.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

ON NEAR MISSES; or, ヱビスで旅をちょっと贅沢に

one of the announcements out of both tokyo and shinagawa stations got my hopes up about the internet. supposedly the bullet train has complimentary wireless service for all of its riders. my AirPort detected an open network when i turned on my computer, but i wasn't able to connect. once i'd canceled out of that initial window, my system preferences stopped picking it up. if only i'd given myself time to have the wherewithal to look up suggestions for how to use wireless in japan during my two so-far internet sessions. (you'll have access to this after my third if i give myself time to have the wherewithal to transcribe.)

unfortunately, i've only wanted to pay for enough time to be at my most mundane, which reflects my round of page visits and not -- the unfortunate part -- the color of my experience. case in point: the bullet train makes it happen, internet or not. (i just asked a train attendant, and it's no better here than at mcdonald's. i have to have a pre-existing wireless contract.) but there's the mountain, and i get as many different views as i want. this train is fast. really. and the tookai line curves around the corner out of tokyo bay and onto the pacific coast in a way as to allow several different vantages of mt. fuji over five or ten minutes as the tracks glide southwest through shizuoka prefecture. i think we're nearly through it and on into the next one. who knows? i'm the only one looking out the window to take in the view.

earlier, it was something similar in ginza and hibiya. i've not spent much time on the central west side of tokyo. the areas around tokyo station aren't so much frequented by students, not only because they don't host any of tokyo's major universities, but because they're the work and play grounds of the graduated elite. you're imagining blue chip corps, the diet building, the imperial palace and the same designers as you'll find at omotesandou, but with a clientele defined by an unmistakable older, monied gentility. alex made an astute comment about the nuance of "affordability" before we made our way onto chuoo-doori, a wide north-south thoroughfare decorated with high-end retail and boutique cafes, a "pedestrian paradise" now closed to motor traffic. i let myself take a picture while everyone shopped. after so many years, it's refreshing to play the tourist. for anyone interested in how long that last paragraph took: we're just now passing through hamamatsu.

i'd planned on one photograph today. i don't have one of tokyo station, a site (sight?) that, i think, is confusingly named and warrants an explanation. it's something like grand central, or like any of the gares in paris, but it's named for a city with hundreds of different train and subway stations, many of which have more contemporary visual and word of mouth cache than tokyo (station) itself. it is, i suppose, nice to be able to buy a ticket that spells out clearly a trip from tokyo to kyoto. after all, i'm the happy tourist today. i'd have been happier if the entire station hadn't been under tarps and scaffolding. japan or japan railways or someone is restoring the station to its original early 20th century glory. maybe there's hope for the teikoku hotel (one station away from tokyo at the border of ginza and yuurakuchou), although there's ultimately nothing to do about restoring a frank lloyd wright original; and maybe that's just desserts for letting a frank lloyd wright original be torn down in the first place. granted, the sixties were a time of change. (a bathroom visit, a can of beer, and we're stopped at nagoya.)

so no picture. give me a thousand dollars in two years or so and i can come back and take you one. at least hibiya park lived up to the romance of unexperienced nostalgia. i don't know this part of tokyo outside of books, but the dilettante modernist aesthetic of 1920s tokyo comes through on the terrace of that "high collar" curry joint we hit after a half hour of indecision in the ginza. it's housed in a building at the center of the park that's another obvious reconstruction, but the sense of being at expensive leisure (not so much spending but spending time away from the things that could help you to spend) is enough to let you redraw the scales and imagine that where you're sitting has, in fact, stood since 1903, a strange not-long long time ago in japanese history.

the bullet train won't let me onto its internet, so i still don't know who won the gubernatorial race in ohio. from the numbers i scanned in the paper a couple of mornings ago, i don't have much hope that kasich didn't take the seat from strickland in ohio. i haven't lived in ohio for nearly as long as it's been since i last lived in japan. and 'looking good in pants' is seriously non-partisan. but a kasich regime, that government is lamentable. john kasich made it very clear that, if elected, he would return all of the stimulus funds earmarked for high speed rail development in ohio back to the federal government. maybe, having probably elected kasich as their governor (should i hold out hope that strickland saved the dream until i'm on the web again and actually transcribing?), the people of ohio don't want a fast, comfortable, environmentally friendly way to get between cincinnati, columbus and cleveland. they don't know what they're missing. that's a shame. you'll have to share your pleasant memories of our trip together with your elected officials. avoid impending catastrophe. otherwise you'll just have to come to japan.

we're only ten or so from kyoto, and i have to reorganize for a bus ride. don't worry, you might never have as interesting a trip on public transportation as mine this evening through gion, but at least you still have the bus. hopefully ohio won't get rid of that too.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

IT`S NOT CYCLOCROSS

but the japan three day march was a fine substitute for a saturday morning. the march, which now that i`ve typed that word twice seems like it should be something much more ultra-nationalistic, is a yearly event held in the city where i went to high school here, but today was my first time being in attendance. i vaguely remember excusing myself for fencing practice when i was first here.

march participants can choose a 5, 10 or 20 km course, each of which walks them through the forests and foothills of what is best understood as the northwest border of the tokyo mega-region, 60 km from the nearest transportation hub actually in the city. i didn`t walk, other than to the start line, that is. i walked there and then walked across the event space (the athletic grounds of the central elementary school) to where the rotary club had its tent and started my greetings and introductions. i came to higashimatsuyama for the first time eleven years ago as a youth exchange student, and i owe the rotarians a significant debt for their hospitality. luckily, the hospitality was flowing freely from the tap this morning, too, and even if i can`t make it to any of the remaining races of this year`s cross crusade, i got the next best thing during my first experience of the three day march. plus, the coffee, food and beer were free.

it`s no use scolding myself for being so out of practice, because that doesn`t make the words come any easier. but i think that`s beside the point when talking about my conversations with members of the higashimatsuyama rotary club, because i don`t think that i was really able to understand them even at the height of my ability. i stumble over words in english and ask people to repeat themselves all the time. it should be no indication of a failure in my japanese communication skills that i can`t correctly grab what some older japanese men happen to be saying from time to time. what`s that? maybe i just never cleared that important hurdle to begin with and am now only re-encountering my real challenge? what do you know? the rotarians tell me i`m perfect and haven`t lost a thing. i don`t believe them, because any japanese will tell you something similar if you can passably communicate hello. we`ll just have to agree then that they`re no proper gague. they feel the same way about each other, maybe, so let`s just all stuff our mouths.

i knew the first person i saw at the tent, a woman i mistook for the club secretary but who turned out to be the wife of the rotarian that took me on a tour of shikoku during the first month of my year here. she made the appropirate references before i had a chance to make the regrettable mistake. i correctly remembered the secretary once i saw her, and the two women saved me from being grilled by the rotarians on my social advancement for the first hour of my audience. they introduced me to a third woman, the wife of a newer member of the club whose son had gone to art school in california. in that hilly place near los angeles. you know, san francisco. she was a peach. they all want to find me a pretty wife.

what`s more to say? i shouldn`t have made such a public appearance so early. now the word is out, and i have to start planning to break promises. that`s something you learn if you`ve known the right people in japan. and those same people will think the world of you if it takes them until they arrive home to know that they`ve been rejected. so don`t worry. i`ll know how to deal with any proposals.

in the news: murakami ryu started an ebook company but, even so, failed to fall from my esteem. you can`t access wifi in japan -- even at a free hot spot (i.e. a starbucks or a mcdonalds) -- without a pre-existing wireless contract. you can`t make a short term wireless contract in japan. the dragon hasn`t left shinjuku ni-choume; it just moved. christopher merkel, looking good in pants, was spotted at the dragon, shinjuku ni-choume, on friday november 19, 2010. he appreciates all of your gifts.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

WHAT`S TODAY WHERE YOU ARE?

tomorrow came and went, as did another day after that, and, granted, i spent very little of the time since my flight out of sfo investigating internet options, but i`m still blaming japan`s absolutely perplexing dirth of wifi connectivity for my silence throughout an already very seriously contemplative and revealing 36 hours. 11/1 to 11/4 should have taken longer.

granted, again, i`m visiting outside the city until sunday and can`t expect too much. or can`t i? it`s japan! maybe if cell phones hadn`t advanced so quickly with email and internet capability since a decade ago the country would be better in line with personal computing developments throughout the rest of the world. i`m hoping to get some advice on hot spots during my lunch meeting in shinjuku tomorrow. i`m only in higashimatsuyama until sunday, but from there, although i`ll pass briefly through the city and will be in a city for a week afterward, i won`t be solidly in tokyo until 11/14. the leaves in kyoto had better be something special. you`ll hear all about them, and we`ll both pretend that we`re sharing in real-ish time -- but who knows what the time showing on my mobile rental means for you wherever you are.

for now i`m at the mercy of the internet cafes, and my growing desire to shake my laptop at the hp tower standing in my little computer space* to try to get some of what i`ve written to jump between the two machines is mostly the result of the several cappucinos i`ve had from the self-service drink bar. it isn`t really worth spending money for the internet when i can`t access anything on my own computer, so i`m getting my money`s worth by over consuming drinks that i wouldn`t have paid for or consumed had i not come to the cafe. bristling at that logic? welcome to japan.

i suppose i did need to confirm that meeting...and relay my phone number to several friends. now those are finished, i need to save myself some strife. the language input toggle key is directly right of the space bar on this keyboard, which is, i`m starting to think, just a "fuck you" to over large foreigners who stumble over the controls when changing between languages but can`t help accidentally keying the toggle when it`s most inconvenient. they`ll teach you to scorn their technological prowess. things are probably easier without wifi if you`ve got smaller hands. what? did it again. get me out of here before i have another cappucino.

*i opted for a "business" type room instead of one of the larger one`s with a reclining massage chair, but a sign tells me that the latter are just like relaxing in the south pacific.

Monday, November 1, 2010

HAPPY PRESCRIPTIONS FOR NOVEMBER

no one should have to fly without pills.

no time for trysts at sfo, but it's rain, rain, rain in portland. i think the older guy with the vuitton luggage and the gucci garment bag and the prada sport shoes (saw him stepping up the escalator) is going to beijing. he'd be in first class anyway, and what's in my 3.4 ounce clear bottles is meant for sleep and not for cross-cabin romantic overtures. that damn yen still hasn't cooled, though, and a boy does need to think of his needs.

i can think of everything later if i can just nod off for a while. i'll wait until i'm in my seat. no one should have to fly without pills. in the meantime, antal szerb. tomorrow, it's yesterday where i come from. funny, i'm not sure where to find wi-fi in the world of the future.