(2006/02/27)  Since I've been slipping into the mainstream method of blogging, the direction this letter is taking is an ongoing transformation.  At the moment, I see it as a place to put less time-sensitive material and also to publish some historical bits and pieces that I don't want to put into a blog.  Actually - there's some overlap here as well, with some articles in here that I also published as part of the blog.  Some overlap isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I do aim to come up with a clearer separation of what this LL-Letter is and what the blog is.  Ideally, the blog would be for posting and comments to blog articles would appear in here, but the only blog forum at which I'm getting regular feedback is not via my own website, so the usability of comments generated on outside sites is an issue.
 
Chronology - as in there not being much of it in this letter!  I started the LL-Letters with a frequency that kept everything chronological, but with the time between letters having stretched out to two or three months, it's gotten quite mixed up.  Everything falls within about four months though, so it's still representative of a certain time frame - but don't expect the letters to be in chronological order, because they're not!

Lyle
 
 

"Shopping & Visiting Hearst Castle"     [Top of page]

by KCM  [US]

Sun, Nov. 20th, 2005

So we didn't actually end up at H&M.  Bbccc got there first and it turns out there was a two-hour wait to just get into the store.  We ended up shopping in Macy's and Urban Outfitters instead.  And my shopping urge is still not quenched.  Grr.  Later we found out from a more fashion-informed friend that there will be a third H&M opening right next to the H&M on Powell, and one in Sun Valley Mall, so Bbccc, you won't have to BART over to SF for that!

This is my stash: A pair of pants and a shirt from Macy's.  I think I should just get a Macy's card, so I can get the coupons and additional discounts.  If anyone needs cookware, their pots and pans are 40% off the lowest price right now.  Tim Biskup and Pete Fowler coasters for two bucks each for a set of four, and the Lewis Black book, hardcover, for $5 from Urban Outfitters.  The set of coasters I really want, though, is the Junko Mizuno ones, which I haven't been able to find anywhere.  I love the Urban Outfitters sale section.  There's always some good stuff there amidst all the junk.

Later Aabbb and I watched a movie with some friends.  It was called Exit to Eden, and is based on an Anne Rice novel, stars Rosie O'Donnell and Dan Aykroyd.  That is all you need to know.  Anyway, it's funny, and weirdly dated.

Spelling errors are my pet peeve, especially glaring ones that any educated adult should be able to catch.  I caught a few this weekend:

TiVo's new download service (for series2 owners) includes CNet's reviews of current gadgets.  (Let's just say CNet editors are not necessarily TV people.)  In this segment, someone held up a sign that misspelled "capacity".  Seriously, shouldn't someone have caught that?

In Firefly, on the last disc, there are a few really sweet special features.  On one of them, they talk about Serenity, the ship, and its role as its own character.  Someone holds up a blueprint of the ship, and on it, the dining room was misspelled as the "dinning room".  Apparently in the future, we no longer dine, we din.
 

Tue, Nov. 29th, 2005

The weekend, overall, went well.  I loved spending time with my nieces and nephew, whom I hardly ever get to see, and seeing Hearst Castle was a lot of fun.  It's pretty amazing what OCD can do to a man with lots of money.  I loved how the tour guide mentioned that William Randolph Hearst "in three years, turned the San Francisco Examiner from the worst paper in the country, to the most-read" but didn't mention that these days, the Examiner is considered little better than a tabloid.  The Castle itself is very, very pretty, with lots of intricate details and genuine artifacts bought from auctions around the world, including a few pieces from King Tut's tomb.

Driving up Route One was an experience with a lot of twists and turns and panicking for me, because I kept worrying that maybe my sister would drive off a cliff.  It was a totally unfounded fear because my sister is a great driver.  Yep, I'm paranoid.  Other than my paranoia, the trip up is beautiful, with awesome views of the ocean and driving through lots of forests and state parks.  I think driving on Route One would be more fun in a good sports car.

KCM      [Top of page]
 
 

"UTF-8 & ISO-2022-JP"     [Top of page]

(2005/12/05)  Just a quick note about getting Japanese text through the wires.  With webpages I'm finding that Japanese text displays fine with UTF-8 (although the English fonts - on some machines - don't look as good as I've experienced using ISO-8859-1), but e-mail is another issue (you would think that if it worked for browsers it would work for e-mail, but that's not the case... yet?).

As mentioned in here previously, sending J-text to cell phones was one example where ISO-2022-JP was getting through the wires (and air) in readable form, but where UTF-8 was turning to bakemoji.  I sent a J-text message in UTF-8 to a Yahoo.co.jp (not sure what happens with Yahoo.com) address this morning and discovered that it turned to bakemoji and none of the Japanese encoding choices of the browser (FireFox on SuSE 9.3 Linux) would convert it to readable form.  I resent it as ISO-2022-JP and it came through the wires in good condition - looking the same as it appeared on the originating screen.

Note: (Please!) that I'm not posting this to discuss what method *ought* to be used, but rather to report on my on-the-ground experiences in the trenches with J-text messages often turning to bakemoji.  The way I have my e-mail client (Mozilla) set now is to UTF-8 for default messages and then I manually select ISO-2022-JP when I have a J-text message to send someone who is using software/settings/provider/whatever that only seems to be happy with ISO-2022-JP.

Lyle
 
 

"Fun at the Game"     [Top of page]

From: KJA  [US]
Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005

I drove my old hiking buddy to a football game last night.  Such things as ball games (any kind) are most interesting, not the game itself but the spectators.  What a collection of inhabitants with time and money on their hands and no intelligent alternatives open to them than the moronic game.  So they think.  But judging from the uncontrolled screaming, yelling, and noisemakers, they don't think enough.  They could be reading my book.

Or, they could watch the d*** game on TV while enjoying the comfort of their living rooms and refrigerators.  But no, they prefer climbing unending ramps and steep steps to a perch so high that binoculars are essential (at least they are for me).  Then for four hours on a little seat that, when exposed to pressure, turns to granite, I try not to appear revolted at grown people around me wolfing down nachos, cheese, and jalapenos, between barbaric yells and cries of "Go, Fight, Kill, and so on.  They bring small children who can't even see all the way down onto the field, but must amuse themselves by staring wide eyed at all the crazy people.  In time, the bored tykes fall asleep on the cold bench or concrete, while mommy pretends that this rowdy and uncomfortable environment, this noise, her revolting dinner of cold, maggot-proof, nacho-mess, altogether equals something great.  Speaking of which, my large binoculars stayed busy working the cheerleaders, not the ugly players.

With some satisfaction (secretly of course) I cheered within when our team, University of Arizona, lost and lost big.

After sitting so long, I fell when I climbed over the seats behind me while making my way out.  The woman who cushioned my fall and possible injury did not smile as I apologized profusely.  More successful in the parking garage, I navigated out without being killed in the mad rush.  Then the exchange of comments were made such as "what fun we had" when I dropped my friend off at his home in the dark foothills of Tucson.

Later, back in the glow and sanity of my home, I poured a stiff one and tried to shut out all recollections of the past wasted four hours.

KJA
 
 

"Lunch With the 'Morning Show' Team"     [Top of page]

(2005/12/05)  I was doing work at home for half of today, so I had a late breakfast (usually I skip breakfast actually) at about 9:15 a.m., so I turned on the TV, chose channel-6 and began eating my breakfast.  Looking up to see the "Morning Show" group also eating, I laughed a little and thought "Cool!  We're all eating breakfast together!" - I then pondered the situation and wondered if they have them eating something at this time specifically to make people watching who are also eating feel like they're part of the team?  It's sort of bizarre, but there's some logic to it and I actually did feel as though I was part of the group on the screen in some way... hummm....

They wrapped up their food sampling and got to talking to an author who is the daughter of a famous author, and is now an author herself.  I generally have nothing but contempt for television, but something about eating with the TV group and listening to an interesting interview with the author (obviously someone not often on TV), who was keyed up and going on about her famous father when she was growing up and some concrete examples of word usage advice that she received from both him and other writers....

Will I be tuning in again tomorrow?  No, but I'm glad I did today!

Lyle
 
 

"Seattle, A Laptop & TV"     [Top of page]

by KCM & LHS
Friday, December 30th, 2005

Tomorrow we're flying to Seattle, to meet up with some friends for our New Year's Eve celebration.  Since Aabbb and I hardly ever spend any holidays together, it's definitely a treat for me.  Apparently the plan is to go to some "good underground hip hop" concert.  I have not heard the words "underground", "good", and "hip hop" all in the same sentence lately, so I have my hopes up.  I don't have a name.  Will probably write about them once I see them.

The next day we're driving up with Aabbb's friends to Vancouver.  I am the queen of packing.  I packed all our stuff, including umbrella, beanies, gloves, undies, heavy sweaters and towels all in our luggage, and we still had room for Aabbb's laptop.  We're bringing his laptop because we got a hotel with wireless.  Geeks need their Internet.  In Vancouver, we plan on eating dim sum, possibly taking a walking tour of Gastown, going to the aquarium because they have beluga whales, and checking out the underground historical drama of Vancouver.  There may be more.

We're going to have to remind ourselves to take lots of pictures.  We always bring the camera and forget about it.  It's such a waste of my money. ^_^

Project Runway has podcasts!  Tim Gunn explains what goes on behind the scenes, what the cameras didn't show, etc.  Zod's meltdown went on for about ninety minutes, Diana's clothes looked nothing like what she pitched to Heidi, and Heidi surprises everyone by having a brain.

I hate Zod. I don't even think he's that talented - he just keeps adding ruffles and thinks that makes up for his lack of understanding about a woman's body.  There's no one I really root for right now like I did in Season 1.  This season, they're either mean, or boring, and they seem unwilling to listen.  I mean, did any of them even watch Season 1?  So far I think Nick has the most potential, Chloe is talented but boring, Diana totally disappointed with this last challenge and is so inarticulate I wanted to smack her, Emmett is a cute boring robot overcompensating his menswear background with pink frills, Marla can't sew, Zod is evil incarnate, Daniel V who?  I can't remember anyone else.

Must. Sleep.

KCM
 

I didn't watch TV when I lived in the US, but somehow now not having the option makes me wonder what's what with popular shows.  I should be used to it by now - I haven't watched any popular US TV shows since about 1972.  One program that has made it onto broadcast TV here that I like is 60 Minutes and they used to also broadcast the "CBS Evening News" early in the morning.  Now I catch bits and pieces of it from time to time via the Internet and - very rarely - 60 Minutes when I'm actually awake at 3:30 a.m. on Friday night/Saturday morning.     [Top of page]
 
 

"Old Music"     [Top of page]

(2005/12/12)  An acquaintance who lived in Japan from 1948 to 1950 mentioned an old Japanese song that was on the Internet (as background music for pages), so I went to the site (that automatically plays the song via Flash) and had a listen.  It turned out to be a song originally sung in the 1930's (1938?) called "Shina-no Yoru" (also used in a 1940 movie by the same name, also spelled "Xina-no Yoru"), which had its name changed to "China Night" (or "China's Night") after the war due to some negative connotation being attached to the word "Shina" (or "Xina"), an old name for China.  At least that's what my research turns up so far - if you have additional or more accurate info, please let me know!  The song has been recorded several times since, by both men and women, but what I want to hear is the original version!  (I just found on another page that the song is banned in China!  Oops... I have no interest in making anyone angry here, I'm just interested in hearing the original song for historical purposes.)

So - off in search of it I went yesterday by going to one of the largest (the largest?) recorded music stores in Shinjuku, Tower Records.  I had high hopes that a simple inquiry would point me to a section of old music, including the very recording that I sought, but no, it didn't work out that way.  I was a bit surprised to discover that their search computer doesn't include anything at all older than the sixties, and while the store does have an "Oldies" section, most of it is also from the sixties!  There are a small number of things from the fifties, but practically nothing at all older than that.  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but recorded music on disks has been around since... when?  The 1920's?  For historical purposes, I would think it would make sense to keep that old stuff available on modern CD's....

In any case, I did find one double CD that I ended up buying and have found to be quite interesting.  In case you're interested, the English part of the title and the number of the CD is as follows:

THE PIONEER OF JAPANESE POPS
RYOICHI HATTORI VICTOR RECORDINGS - 1948-1954
Victor Entertainment
VICL-61066-7

This double CD doesn't have the song "Shina-no Yoru" on it, but does have 46 songs from the 1948-1954 time frame; mainly with female singers, but with some male as well.

Listening to the two CD's, the image I'm trying to get out of my head is one of a period movie.  My only exposure to this kind of music has been in period movies, so I'm having a hard time projecting my imagination back to real people living life in real time.  But that's due to the tonal quality of the recordings I think - if someone could go back in a time machine and record the same sessions with modern recording equipment, it would probably sound much more modern.  It's like looking at a black & white photograph and trying to envision it in color.  It's no easy task!  The style of the music is completely different from now, but if it were clear and full-fidelity, then it would mainly be an issue of style instead of age and could be popular again I think.

Lyle     [Top of page]
 
 

"Vancouver, Canada"     [Top of page]

Thursday, January 5th, 2006
by KCM  [US]

I am waiting for the laundry to be done.  Traveling somehow seems to increase your luggage load by 250%, even though you didn't even buy anything new.

The rest of our trip was pretty nice.  We had dim sum at Sun Sui Wah, which was good but not amazing, and comparable to anything you'd get in California.  The chicken feet were excellent.  I kind of wish we had more people with us, because then we would have been able to try more types of food.  We were satisfied, though.  The hostess did not understand my request in English for two glasses of water, so I had to use Cantonese, which I should have used in the first place. I blanked out.  Ugh, all my Cantonese is disappearing - no one talks to me in it anymore, so I don't use it, so I forget more of it each time.  I guess I should work on that.  Note to self - watch more Hong Kong movies.

Afterwards, we took the bus down to Chinatown and walked around a little bit.  Vancouver salespeople are overly nice and attentive.  (This is preferable to them being mean and rude, just so we're clear.)  In every store I went into, I was followed around by a friendly salesperson who explained every item I picked up to look at.  It was annoying after the third time the person explained that the item I was looking at was "half off and imported from China", etc.

I bought some bookmarks and a small bamboo painting.  It is a cliche that I like. ^_^

Then we went to Gastown to check out Storyeum.  It was very, very cheesy, and pretty entertaining and educational.  For example, I learned that the Canadians screwed the Chinese over, too.  We stopped for some coffee and tea in a coffee shop, and I checked out a truly international bookstore.  The bookstore was tiny, but had books in about five different languages, and a large manga section, too.  I wish we could have a bookstore like that here, but it would probably go bankrupt in the first month.

We had a terrible time trying to catch a cab back to our hotel.  It turned out that they were all busy with the hockey games; some of the Canadian team was staying in our hotel.  We decided not to fight with the rain and cars, and ate at a restaurant within walking distance.  It turned out to be pretty good.  Cardero's is "fish, chops, and a wok".  I normally dislike fusion foods, but their crispy noodles fried with beef turned out to be pretty yummy.  The sides weren't spectacular, so I recommend just getting the entrees.

Vancouver is the most veggie-friendly place I've ever been to.  The hot dog stand also sold veggie dogs, and every place we went to had a veggie wrap or some veggie version of a meat dish.  Oh, and they have the cleanest bathrooms ever.  I couldn't get over it; even the aquarium bathroom, while not hotel quality, was clean and there wasn't anything gross on the floor and nothing was broken.  Once we flew back to SFO and I went to the restrooms there - there was water all over the floor, toilet paper strewn everywhere, it was gross.  I felt spoiled in Vancouver, and I would totally move there just to have access to really clean public facilities.

As a souvenir, I bought myself a copy of the Walrus Magazine, which I guess is the equivalent of the New Yorker or the Atlantic Monthly.  It was pretty interesting - I didn't realize it at the time, but in the weeks before we left I was reading Margaret Atwood and Douglas Coupland, both Canadian authors.  There was an article in there that really drove home how America-centric my thinking is, and it's pretty fascinating to get an outsider's opinion of what we look like, even if it is painful.  (Well, not necessarily painful, just brutally honest.)

Time to get my laundry.

KCM     [Top of page]
 
 

"One Cold December Day"     [Top of page]

(2005/12/18 22:28)  It began with a late morning three-train trip up to Saitama to teach a large children's class.  The woman who teaches the kids, teaches them math and English (in small groups) throughout the year (running a juku in her apartment) and I come out once or twice a year so the kids have an opportunity to interact with a native English speaker.  The class went well, and I met the teacher's recently married daughter and her bright and shining husband (both of them still riding the honeymoon wave), since they were there to help out for the event.

After the kids had gone home and the rented space had been put back in order, we broke out a few beers and relaxed and talked for about an hour.  The new husband talked of his three years spent in Italy, we all talked of crossing cultural bridges, etc. - and I think a good time was had by one and all.  Come 4:30, it was time for us to vacate the rented space and time for me to head towards Yurakucho to see JRG, a friend, play guitar at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, so I walked over to the Keihin-Tohoku Line and climbed aboard a Tokyo-bound train that was just about to depart.

Most of the time in Tokyo, the trains are semi-full, full, really-full, super-full or ultra-full, but once in a while you find yourself in the happy combination of getting on a train going in a direction where, and at a time when, there are not many people on board.  Saturday at around 5:00 was just such a time as I took a seat in one of the corners in the middle of the train car (formed by the barrier between the edge of the bench seat and one of the train car's four - per side - doors).  I pulled out a book to read, but the warmth, quiet, and motion of the train soon put me to sleep - a restful, undisturbed sleep, with no untoward noises, no strange smells, and no jostling crowds.

I woke up just before the train reached Ueno, and in the settled frame of mind such a short, but restful sleep provides, I contemplated the next fork in the day's path.  As the train approached Akihabara, I remembered that the Blue Parrot bookstore's Akihabara shop was at the end of its weeklong closing sale, with just one more day to go.  I was leaning towards skipping it, but as the train pulled into Akihabara Station, I had a look at the time and decided that since JRG was playing at the press club from six until nine, there wasn't really any point in getting there right at six anyway, so I jumped off the train and headed for the Blue Parrot....

I had earlier mentioned to CGI, an Australian friend, that I would be going to the press club concert, and since he had called while I was working, as I walked through the falling yellow leaves riding a cold December wind on one of Akihabara's Ginkgo-lined main streets, I tried giving him a call to see if he would be dropping by Yurakucho.  I got his cell phone's voice messaging, left a message, and proceeded towards the Blue Parrot.

At an intersection while waiting for the walk light, I pulled one of the fallen hand-fan shaped Ginkgo leaves off of the windshield of a parked car and contemplated its shape and color while waiting for the light to change.  Whether due to the slower metabolism of a not-so-young body, a broader perspective, or just a new outlook, I found myself enjoying the moment of studying the leaf, its shape and color while the wind blew and the crowds rushed about.  There was a conscious appreciation of the moment being a good one - a focus on the present, not the past or future.  The light changed, I dropped the leaf to let gravity carry it down to join its fallen friends, and I completed the walk to the used English language bookstore.

I don't know what level of sales the Blue Parrot's Akihabara shop had, but as they are closing it (last day today), conditions can't have been overly good.  The shop was (by the time you read this it'll be closed, so - past tense) located on a main street, but you had to walk down a side street to get to the elevator at the back corner of the building in order to get to the upper floor the bookstore was located on, so that alone might have been the main factor in its demise.  You would never accidentally stumble upon it, so probably the only customers were people specifically looking for it after reading about the shop on the Internet.

Inside the shop, I spent most of my time looking through their CD's, picking out some classical titles (Rubinstein, and some other classical stuff I bought due to the composer rather than the performer), and a disk called "Music from Ireland - Breaking Sound Barriers - Volume Seven", but I also picked up a couple of books - "The World is my Home" by James A Michener (for Y50) and "The Hungry Ocean" by Linda Greenlaw (for Y400).

While in the bookstore, CGI called and we arranged to meet at a (Japanese language) bookstore next to Akihabara Station.  I would have liked to have spent more time going through the CD's at the Blue Parrot, but time was running low and I probably shouldn't have been buying any more than the ten I bought anyway - half price or not - so I took my pile of half-priced things up to the register and had a short talk with one of the owners as he added up the stuff.  It seems that the Takadanobaba Blue Parrot is doing well and they are going to just focus on that one shop now.

A quick walk over to the area by the Hibiya Line exit found CGI, and then we jumped on a Keihin-Tohoku Line train and headed over to the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Yurakucho.  We took the elevator up to the 20th floor, walked past a frowning man at the reception desk (we were dressed casually) and rounded a corner - following the cool tunes.  I walked halfway towards a "Members Only" sign and saw JRG up on the stage playing his guitar in front of the band... and then did a quick scan of the room.  Impressions: Overly lit for a space being filled with cool mellow tunes; stern looking bartender in expensive looking outfit; few people there.., so we would really stand out in the empty spaces and under the (relatively) glaring lights and glaring eyes of the bartender.  So... I backtracked towards the lobby and went over the situation with CGI.  For my part, I was most concerned with the potential cost of ordering drinks there.  One expensive drink I was prepared to fork out for, but with so little to blend into and with the overly bright lights, it would have been either uncomfortable sitting with one drink for too long or too expensive sitting there with the proper amount of cash outflow to the bartender.  From CGI's perspective, that "Members Only" sign was making him nervous, so - after looking over the pictures of famous people taken with FCCJ members that were hung on the walls of the lobby (amusingly captioned with only the correspondents' names!), we rode an elevator back down to the ground and found ourselves back out on the cold and windy streets of Tokyo, but feeling freer and easier....

I looked back up towards the 20th floor up there nearer the stars than I - and imagined myself strolling in there someday in an expensive suit tossing Y10,000 bills right and left as I took masterful possession of the room with my rich presence....  On the other hand, as a Google search link says about the club: "Private club of ex-pat reporters, professionals and diplomats to network and socialize."  It's not about writing after all, but about networking.  Maybe I don't really want that particular fantasy to come true.  An honest interest in writing might dictate staying on the outside.

Now what?  CGI mentioned the drinking place under the tracks that we had gone to before, which was fine with me, so off we went to the comfort of a noisy, crowded, cold and - most importantly - casual & cheap place to have a drink or two while eating yakitori (mini-Shish-Kabob).  We walked up and I confidently held up two fingers to the man at the entrance and he ushered us back to the very rear corner of the place - a spot I had never sat in before.  (Come to think of it - it was the moment I imagined on the ground while looking up at the 20th floor - just in different surroundings!)  I gleefully sat in the corner, with the very best view in the entire place - I could see everything without even moving my head.  As I looked out at the evening's stage, CGI sat on the opposite side - promptly banging his head into the ceiling - the underside of a support for the overhead railway where it curves down towards the ground/floor.  I'm not sure how he did that actually... being a smooth arch and in plain view, I don't know how you could miss the dimensions, but as one who has often banged his own head into one thing or another, I shouldn't say anything!

We settled down, ordered plum drinks with shochu as the alcohol base (sort of like vodka), and chicken yakitori.  As often happens at that place, we hadn't been seated more than five minutes before curious probes came from a pair of fellow drinkers sitting next to us.  The diminutive total size of the shop means that you are always in close physical proximity to others, and conversations typically develop.  Usually good, but not always.  In this case, the pair of drinkers were two middle-aged women who professed such surprise at my speaking in Japanese and knowing something about Japan, that it was slightly irritating.  At one point, I told my friend in rapid-fire-difficult-to-catch English that it was beginning to irritate me - only slightly, but knowing myself as well as I don't (not a typo BTW), I was on the verge of going rude, so I figured it was better not to talk to them any more.

Well... that's what I said and that's what I meant, but soon thereafter more probes drifted over from the side (my right, CGI's left) and I ended up talking in friendly, but rather direct mode, which is the easiest way to talk - bypassing the "Is this politically passable?" check phase, I just tossed out whatever I was thinking.  Then the catalyst of a burst of animated discussion popped out of the mouth of the woman sitting next to CGI.  From out of the smoky (from the grill) cold night she suddenly asked "Do you like young women?", to which I - operating in "Talk-first-think-later" mode answered: "Of course!  All men do!  That's just a natural thing!".  She gave me a look of disgust and muttered something about "All you men are alike..." and then I saw something large lurking beneath that initial question of hers, so I furiously back-pedaled by saying "Well - I just mean that they're nice to look at - like a beautiful painting or a nice car!  I'm too old to associate with them and they're too childish to talk to anyway.", which softened the woman who brought it up in the first place and seemed to go down very well with the woman on my right, who proceeded to be quite friendly thereafter.

All of this was fine and well, but the unfortunate aspect of the evening is that CGI doesn't speak Japanese and the two women spoke only rudimentary English, so even when I tried to shut up and leave the stage to the others, my friend would say something that they didn't understand, and I'd end up interpreting it and stealing the conversation again.

In the middle of all that, a phone call that I didn't answer came in from a company in Shibuya that I'd promised I would attend their bonenkai (end-of-the-year/forget-the-year party)... which prompted the woman on the right to inquire what my concentrated look at my phone's display meant.  I mentioned the bonenkai, but said I didn't need to go (thinking that I would go late, but trying to be polite).  Thirty minutes later, there was another call, and when I looked at my phone again, I began thinking that I had better go sooner rather than later, and the two woman seemed to pick up those radio frequencies as a clue that it was time to go home, so they said friendly good-byes and left, followed soon thereafter by CGI and I.

Walking to the station, I called Shibuya and said I was with a friend and would it be okay if they came with me?  "Sure!  Bring them along!" was the answer (in Japanese, when you say what I said, there's no "he" or "she" in it, so I'm avoiding those here for that reason), but CGI didn't want to come, so when we took the Yamanote Line around, he got off in Ebisu to get on the Hibiya Line there and I continued on to Shibuya.  (For those of you familiar with Tokyo's train system, yes, that's not the fastest way to go to Shibuya or Ebisu from Yurakucho!  I was feeling too lazy to think about it, so I just did the easy thing - jump on the Yamanote Line at Yurakucho, the nearest station.)

In Shibuya, I wondered how the rest of the day would go.  There are bad days and there are good days, and as I contemplated what a good day it had been so far, I almost got nervous... afraid to think too much about it having been a good day and then turning it into a bad day somehow, so I shut down that line of thinking and just focused on the present.

Arriving at the Shibuya bonenkai (which was - fortunately - held at the company and not in a restaurant), I walked in a bit late, so the (remaining) pizza was cold, but when I was offered a glass of beer, I noticed there was a bottle of wine on the table, so I homed in on that and someone poured me a quarter glass (paper cup actually) of it.  I looked at the mouthful of red wine in the paper cup and thought "Strange..." but didn't worry about it - instead I downed that, grabbed the bottle and filled it up myself.  While drinking that, I began to acquaint myself with the room ambiance.  It was pretty typical for any kind of office party.  A certain amount of nervous radio waves in the air and people standing in small groups with like-minded others talking, drinking and eating.  That was about it for the hour I spent there, except I ended up finishing off the bottle of wine and soon thereafter my attention was grabbed by a man standing on the other side of the table - standing there with the empty wine bottle in hand and an unfriendly and very displeased look in his eye.  I refocused on him with a feeling of surprise and listened to him accusingly state "It's empty".  "Oh, sorry!  Isn't there another bottle?" I responded, to which I was told "No.  Just this one, but don't worry, it only cost Y1,000..."

What-what-what?  I was thinking, when someone filled me in with the information that he had brought that to the party on his own and it wasn't company-supplied.  The light bulb over my head blinked into full illumination and I responded with "Then that was your bottle?!!  Sorry!  I had thought that was from the company and that there were other bottles on the sideline waiting to be opened...".  He responded politely to that, but was obviously none-too-pleased about his bottle of wine having gone empty.  Well... that's what I get for arriving late and not seeing the initial setup!

Then... there was a call from Shinjuku!  I had also promised to attend another bonenkai in Shinjuku!  I had originally planned on going directly from Saitama to the Shibuya bonenkai (on time), and then leaving there for the Shinjuku bonenkai, but since I got to the Shibuya one late, I figured I would call Shinjuku and apologize and say that I couldn't make it.  Trouble was, I forgot to call, so when I got the phone call from Shinjuku, I promised that I'd be there in 15 minutes.  So - with a couple of hasty good-byes said, I headed for the door - coincidentally - just after Mr. Wine.  I saw his retreating back as I got off the elevator, and then - magically - when I stepped outside, he was quite far away.  "No... he didn't actually run in order to distance himself from me, did he?" thought I.  Hmmm... he might have, but I hope he wasn't so upset over the vanished wine that he would actually break into a run rather than have to talk to me....

On the way over to Shinjuku, as I got on the Yamanote Line in Shibuya after a young couple, the man immediately and gallantly repositioned himself between his girlfriend and me.  I put on a face of stone and thought "Yeah... okay.  That's nice.  You're such a gentleman!  Three complaints though - 1) I'm just standing here minding my own business, 2) There are people pressed up against me on all sides here, I can't move anywhere and 3) Why are you seemingly concerned about me but unconcerned about the man standing up against your girlfriend on the other side?".  Not to worry though - such is the life when you are an alien in a space suit (i.e. wrong skin) in a foreign country.

Disembarking from the train in Shinjuku, I fell back under the trance of the wine I suppose, because - Ho-Ho - the spirits had put me in good spirits - Ho-Ho!  Then, when I arrived at the Shinjuku bonenkai, I found a mood that was quite a bit different from the Shibuya bonenkai.  The were many more people, the atmosphere was considerably more relaxed (with fewer nervous people in the room), and I rode the wave of good feelings in the room like a surfer who has successfully caught a big wave to joyously ride in towards the beach.  I made the rounds and talked to as many people as I could before the end of the party - marveling at how different it all felt.  At the end, as everyone was leaving, one of the employees asked me what I was going to do after the party and I responded, "What am I going to do now?  I'm going to China!  .....  I'm going home of course..."  Whereupon I discovered that they had missed their last train and were apparently looking for other late night people to... go to a karaoke room I suppose.  That probably would have been fun, but I was a bit tired at that point and more in the mood to go home than to do anything else, so I gave a "Maybe next time" and headed towards the station and the first of the last set of train rides for the day.

Lyle     [Top of page]
 
 

"Under the Tracks..."     [Top of page]

Subject: 2006
From: SCJ  [US/JP]
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005

(2006/01/12)  I just wanted to say that I enjoyed "One Cold December Day".  It seems that I've had that day, those thoughts.  I used to visit a friend at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Yurakucho - and it was as you suggested, overly bright and way too artificial.  They were always networking & I felt out of place.  But the best part was eating under the train tracks - we also used to go to a little Japanese restaurant with a ceiling so low and the room so narrow.  One night there, a few Japanese customers were recognized (famous?) and encouraged to play music after their meal - so the owner removed a table, the guests sat on the floor & played blues/jazz!!! I thought, "Am I in New Orleans?  Austin?  Memphis?  This is either extremely good music or I am much drunker than I thought!"  The night went on and on, we laughed & sang when we could join in, and everyone got drunker - and now that I think about it, I guess it was a year-end party as well.  (The fact that the whole restaurant shook when the train rumbled just a few feet above our heads just made the experience better.)

Has it snowed in Tokyo yet?

All the Best in 2006!  <Wine Glasses Raised!>   :-)

SCJ
 

It was great to hear this from SCJ, since my friend who was playing at the club that night was displeased that I didn't stick around.  I'm hoping to have another go at it sometime actually (I hear that the drinks are not so expensive), but it would be nice if they'd turn the lights down a little more....

I think jazz may well be more respected and appreciated here in Japan than in the land of its birth!  Certainly I've been exposed to much more of it here than I was in California....

As for the rumbling trains... it's hard to explain, but it definitely adds to the atmosphere.  As a weak comparison, think of the excitement added at an amusement park with the round of a roller coaster in the background....

Snow - it seems to be snowing just about everywhere in Japan but Tokyo!  Even generally warmer Kyushu down south got snow!  The first time in something like eighty years I hear!  But this doesn't mean it's been warm in Tokyo - it's been quite cold - just the traditional dryness of Tokyo in the winter has saved it from the snow.  Had there been any precipitation, it certainly would have been snow, but no... just dry-dry-dry... a typical Tokyo winter!

Lyle     [Top of page]
 
 

"Car Ads - That was My Concept!"     [Top of page]

It was conceived of in a moment of creativity on the sixth floor of an office near Ochanomizu in Tokyo in 2002... and there is it is on the television screen in 2005.  So... where's the recognition and the money?.....

December 31st, 2005 - the last day of 2005... where has the year gone?  I'm not sure, but it's gone somewhere, as tomorrow is 2006.  It's been a year of what feels like slowly plodding forward without making any sailing progress or engaging in exciting adventures.  That's not an entirely bad thing, as there has been some progress made on this website (although it still needs a vast amount of work), and nothing really bad has happened to me here in Tokyo, other than the irritation of seeing a major corporation here running an ad concept I developed for them back in 2002 - something that should be cause for celebration, except in this case, I was given no recognition or compensation for my creation.  Irritating that!  I sent an e-mail to my former colleagues asking about it.  I didn't expect nor did I receive a reply, but hopefully I at least made them think about the issue of stealing someone's creation, taking the money for it and - worse - taking credit for the creation.  Who says crime doesn't pay?  When it comes to ideas, it seems that only crime pays and honesty keeps someone near poverty.  Technically, since I was working for the company which was (and is) working as a subcontractor for the client company - a large car company with a name that begins with "T" - I can't legally complain, but it would have been nice if they had given me some credit for my creation.

About the ad - if you see one of the many variations they've made of it, think of me and know that I dreamed up the basic concept, which is this:

A successful businessman is shown in an opulent office, then he is driving through a city of skyscrapers, then he is driving in the green countryside, finally pulling up to an opulent building in the country, and the last scene is from the top of the building.  The original concept called for a party and the version on TV shows a "glamorous" looking woman talking (lips moving, but with no sound beyond background music) to the camera - which would be the main character, and by extension a customer wishing to emulate the success portrayed on the screen.  The original idea was to tie together a couple of seemingly opposing concepts - the city & the country (the vehicle's suitability for both), and (between the lines) the man of the party & the family man.  It was, in a way, gratifying to see it implemented - too bad I didn't develop it for a company willing to give me creative and financial recognition for my contribution to their success....

On to bigger and better things in 2006!

Happy New Year!!!

Lyle
 
 

"Fashion"     [Top of page]

Friday, January 6th, 2006
Project Runway
by KCM  [US]

I have to go to the dentist in a few minutes.  Having to use money for essentials hurts.

I caught up on Project Runway last night.  During the first season, I didn't really get why everyone was so picky about their models - I mean, all they had to do was look pretty and walk down a runway for about 30 seconds.  How could you possibly screw up walking?

Then Season 2 happened.  Last season's models had personalities in addition to their walks; this season, they all seem sedated.  I can't tell you which ones made an impression on me or who I liked, because I didn't really see anyone that was that special.  And several of them made the designers' clothes look worse, especially Marla's model.  Marla already had a bad design, but her model did it no favors.

Anyway, I think Daniel V. was robbed.  The dress he made with the sixties-ish print was beautiful.  It gave his model an hourglass figure.  Santino shouldn't be so smug about winning the challenges, because Jay won exactly 0 challenges and went on to win the entire competition.  There's no versatility to his "vision", and his one trick seems to be to find a beautiful fabric and throw junk at it until it sticks.  Nick's dress was far more gorgeous and flattering than his was.

Chloe's dress was boring.

Funny highlights:

Nicky Hilton: "My standards are high and my taste is exquisite." Ha!

Chloe, to Diana: "That looks like something Stevie Nicks would wear."
Diana: "Who's Stevie Nick?"

KCM
 
 

"Bone Smasher... Why?"     [Top of page]

(2006/01/09)  What's with the game of showing how powerful you are by grabbing an innocent victim's hand and smashing the bones in a vice-like grip?  Can such a biped be called civilized?

Many years ago, in a fit of extreme frustration, I punched a wall that turned out to be concrete.  Momentary pain was to be expected, but I seem to have damaged something in my right hand that has caused me pain from time to time over the years, particularly in the winter and also after shaking hands with one of those neanderthal bone smasher idiots who think there is some good reason to show how powerful their hands are by giving a "firm handshake" and cracking the bones in the hand of their victim.

I'm sure there must be many good reasons for the custom of shaking hands, and I'm happy enough to engage in the custom from time to time with civilized human beings, but every time I end up in the painful grip of a neanderthal, I end up cursing the bloody custom and having to deal with the painful aftermath (sometimes lasting a day or two after the assault).  The most recent experience of this happened a couple of weeks ago - I innocently put out my hand to shake the hand of someone I was meeting for the first time (a friend of a friend) and he grabbed my four fingers instead of my hand and showed what a fine neanderthal gorilla he was by smashing them together with 30x more squeeze than a civilized man would use.  Not being a politician myself, I pulled my hand back and said "Ow!! #$%#, that hurt!!".

That would have been the end of the story, but I unfortunately ran into this same neanderthal again (making very sure not to let him touch me this time) and after he shook the hand of a friend I was with who was meeting him for the first time, I asked my friend, the new victim, "Any broken bones in your hand?" to which Mr. Neanderthal said - "Oh yeah, you had a problem with that last time, didn't you?".  Notice the choice of words Mr. Gorilla used - insinuating that his gorilla non-human bone-smashing sport was somehow my fault....

Methinks that hand shaking between strangers is a barbaric custom.  Far better to do the Eastern thing and bow - a way of showing respect without having to come into physical contact with neanderthals.

Rant over....

Lyle

PS - The neanderthal I referred to is one of the mutant varieties of westerners living here in Tokyo.  Call it "Vikings-back-from-the-dead syndrome... but some of the worst of the West is over here in Tokyo.....     [Top of page]
 
 

"What an Age..."     [Top of page]

From: KJA  [US]
Date: Feb 12, 2006
Subject: Cabernet Sauvignon

I think I have about mastered G-Mail and it is indeed much better than the other company I'm using.

Now, I am considering a package deal from Cox to lump digital TV, digital telephone, and high speed Internet into just one back-breaking bill rather than three separate back-breaking higher bills.  So, possibly yet another address change.  All my friends will know for sure, "Ol' KJA has lost it all."

What an age we live in.

Saturday now and I am consuming my weekly bottle of red wine.  Since my workday is about driving all over the city, I stay at home on weekends and play with this computer.

Yet another e-mail from someone searching for someone who knew Uncle Chuck before he was killed in Korea, 1950.

Of course most everyone is gone now or can't remember anything.  So I tell such people, get to know your uncle's old outfit, then you will know what his last days were like.  Every man in that unit experienced and thought the same things, so knowing that, you'll know your uncle.  And of course, we can find history books and personal accounts such as my book "At Mama-san House", thus learning about Uncle Chuck's last days and of those times which were worlds different from today.

Still, Tucson experiences beautiful sunny days, but everyone now hopes to see rain, days of steady downpour to break the drought and looming specter of water scarcity.

KJA     [Top of page]
 
 

"Revisiting 2003..."     [Top of page]

This next letter is an old one... from 2003, but in rereading it, it sums up so much that happened at the printing company I was working at then, that I want to put it in here for anthropological reasons.  I stand by what it says - I wasn't exaggerating when I wrote it and I don't think so much as a word should be changed.  The only thing I have changed is the names.  Instead of the usual boring "Aabbb", "Bbccc" etc., I've picked more meaningful names, such as CarCo, ElecCo, etc., which need no explanation.  Mr. Workwork, the main recipient of the letter, was the most productive person in management there - too bad there was an idiot over him - Mr. LazyMan.  Anyway - read it and laugh, or whatever!

Lyle (March 3rd, 2006)