"I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful."
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science 276)

Cafes treat geeks like lords

Okay so I read this article in Reuters the other day about these cafes they have in Tokyo. They're in a district called Akihabara, which I've heard about from Miyuki. Apparently it's a nerd paradise, filled with shops where you can buy life-sized plastic cartoon models. Often "anatomically correct" models. Gross.

But these cafes are freakish in their own special way. Some are cafes, many are hair salons. The clientele, mostly men, walk in and are greeted by "Welcome home, Master". These women who work there are hired for their cute looks, and they must dress in French maid uniforms or middle school girl uniforms. Services offered include haircuts, massage, and stirring sugar into your coffee while kneeling next to your table.

Sick, right? Welcome to Japan and the special needs of many Japanese men. Of course many of the women who work there are into it too. I mean, they live the lives of anime characters (and are very well rewarded for it).

Just thought I'd share this tidbit and give you a little peek into what things are like, if not in Nagahama, then at least in Tokes.

Superbowl Encrypted Footballs

Yes, hello, hello folks. All one of you. Hi sis. Possibly Claire.
Apparently during the latest Super Bowl, they went all crazy and high tech on every aspect of the event, including the footballs. What did they do to the footballs you ask? Well they inserted unique DNA sequences into each football that could be identified by laser. Each sequence glows only with a very narrow frequency of light, and the chance of duplicating this sequence by accident is 1-in-33 trillion. Why, oh why do they encrypt their footballs you ask? So that people who work at the super bowl don't take them and sell them after the game for $1000, which is what they go for. The whole engadget article covers oodles of other tech stuff as well.

Organ Donations

An Ontario member of parliament recently introduced a bill to allow presumed consent of organ donations, but it was voted down. Our premier, Dalton McGuinty, said that Ontarians are not ready for that now. However, presumed consent is the law in many European countries and the stigma associated with organ donation no longer exists there. This law means that you don't have to opt-in to give your consent for your organs to be used if there is a medical need, and that leads to much shorter waiting lists for organ transplants and many lives saved. If people don't want to have their organs used, they can opt-out of the law.

I think the idea that we are not ready for presumed consent comes from really superstitious notions about the body after death. This kind of thinking says that you should keep your body whole because your soul or consciousness is still associated with it. Well I say it's going to decay anyway, so you might as well help someone else out. Any thoughts?

Wallowing

Recently I had a surprising conversation with my good friend Dan. He is working on his Masters in bio-engineering or some such difficult area. He deals with cells a lot. Anyway, I know that he's been dragging his feet a bit with his thesis, and in this conversation he told me that he was given a one month deadline to finish his big essay.
If it's not done, then *poof* no more funding. So he was staying up late on his last night of not working on his project so that he could extend his last day of procrastination. This was kind of surprising to me because I know that Dan is a hard worker in addition to being a procrastinater. And because he really is considering just giving up on his masters. I think that we have to figure out what's right for us, not just do what we think seems right because it pays more or it's more academic, and I hope Dan can find the right path, whether it's finishing his masters (frankly, advisable after all the work he's put in) or doing something completely different such as becoming a scuba instructer (that would be cool).

As for me, I'm definitely wallowing around in some kind of misery here, lately. I'm not doing much of anything and I'm not motivated to start much of anything, either. I just want to get back to Toronto and start my life there, hopefully with a minimum of financial pain. I want to be active, physically, but it's like I'm waiting for my return to Canada before that can start. I know that I should start working out here, but I just wish there were some people I could do it with. Well, there is one other ALT at my gym who I know. This big black man named Jerrold. He's friendly, and maybe I can get him to work out with me sometime. Hm. Okay I'll give it a try.

Signing off,
Captain Rhubarb

Back at last

At long last another post... This one was inspired by msn chats with Michele in Scotland. I told her I wanted to go to Kyoto but didn't know what to do there. She said take pictures. I said you're a genius. And thus, this post was born.

Today Matt Feitelberg and I went to Kyoto. It hailed a little and he didn't buy his bike parts because the banks were closed, but we had fun.

Our first stop in Kyoto was a temple we came upon while walking into the city. This is the walk up to the temple complex. Which temple it is, I don't know.

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A monk sits by his bonfire. I liked the light and shadows in the smoke.

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In Japan they call him Matt-to!

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Where should we go next? The monk pointed towards our destination - the orange gate.

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We left the temple and chose a direction. En route we saw two Tanuki. Note the ball sacs.

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A wooden bicycle. Fully rideable. Matt informs me he was going to make his own wooden bike too. But then he didn't.

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The orange Tori. It's the temple's gate. Note Matt in the foreground with his courier bag. He likes bikes.

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A horse. He eats the paper.

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Temple was busy today because of holidays. Lining the streets are overpriced food vendors. We got okonomiyaki. The woman in the foreground is licking her lips.

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The women are tying their wish-papers on the line with everyone else's. Then the monks burn them.

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If my face looks fat that's because it is. To the gym I go!!

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The people were shaking these copper containers. I thought they had money in them. Then I tried it and there was a horoscope written on this copper stick that came out. This one isn't my horoscope though.

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This is a cool car we saw. I forget the name of the character painted on it.

Women Are Not Psychic

This post is a result of me thinking about my last post, and realizing that I had painted women as somewhat alien, even if definitely powerful. I do think that women are better at understanding human relationships, but I'm not saying that as an excuse to get me off the hook for being an understanding boyfriend, friend, son or brother. I think lately I haven't been much of any of those. So this entry appears to be a confession, not of any dark, deep secret, but of my inability to connect with people lately. I guess it does have some benefits in that I can think deep, dark thoughts and be ever-so-slightly more creative in thinking up ideas for stories and scripts. I'd rather just be happy and get over it. So in honour of that I'm going to start making more of an effort to get out there with the people who are important to me. And I'm also going to start running and working out in the cheap gym near my apartment.

Snarky Comments

Due to a snarky comment on the previous post, I feel compelled to continue my blogging endeavours.

Today we shall discuss the tv shows called "Survivor: Vanuatu" and "The Apprentice". Vanuatu is last season's survivor, and I just finished watching my downloaded episodes. I like to wait till the season is finished before downloading because then I can watch them over the course of a couple of weeks, with episodes back-to-back. That way I avoid that terrible feeling of dreading what might happen next on the show. Both Survivor and The Apprentice are good at instilling dread, though for the Apprentice it only lasts during the tasks and the judging, and is extinguished after Trump has finished lambasting the three "disappointing" or "stupid" executives. Then everything is a-ok because I don't give a fuck about the future executives of America. Those people are mostly full of shit anyway. Except Bren, the trial lawyer from Georgia (or some southern state) - he always has a Southern drawl going on and looks like he'd rather be sipping bourbon and discussing plantations. I like that. (I mean, other than the whole slavery thing.)

Survivor episodes, I get caught up in the truly petty but hubristic personalities of these people. They are like the squabbling gods of Greek lore, with all the legendary powers of instant celebrity and being on a desert island competing for a million bucks to draw out their natural characters in full fauvist bloom. And when the women's and men's teams mingled, but the editors showed us viewers clips to make it clear that the women were still a team, damn! That was scary stuff for me, as a man.

It spoke to some atavistic fears in me that women know stuff that men don't. I mean, why else do the girls laugh at me instead of replying to my "Konnichi wa"? The boys just say Konnichi wa right back at me. I have occasionally considered the possibility that all women have psychic powers, and that men were simply born without; we are necessary for the procreation of the race, we can create cool things, but we just don't quite have the same level of understanding in a conversation. Especially about alliances. Needless to say, the women were much better at playing the game than the men, and they wittled the men's numbers down at every tribal council, by convincing the remaining men to vote one of their own gender off. Because "it's good strategy to vote him off now. We'll get her next round." What fools - the men fell for it until they were a tiny minority. Interesting that the two leaders of the female coalition were lesbians. Interesting, also, that these two - young Amy and old Scout - hated each other. Scout was a cool customer. Amy was pure, vilest, blackest manipulation. God I felt good when she got the boot.

If I were a Survivor contestant I think I'd make it at least to the final 9. Maybe even final 4. The key would be to not use big words, so as not to alienate people. Clever.

The Bike Ride of Anthony and Myles

myles in front of junky boulders


myles and anthony get crouchy


rice field and sunset


more rice field and sunset


a japanese cemetery

Holding for Loans

I'm currently on hold on an outsourced phone centre which handles calls for my student loans. They are playing 80's music from bands you've never heard of. My loan officer - nearly parole officer - huffed and put me on hold when I asked him to fax me the forms I had already filled out, instead of new forms.

When did it become a problem to do exactly what your job is? When companies started calling employees a resource and called in efficiency experts to do team-building exercises, that's when. The customer service centre is definitely the first sector to develop cracks in the facade of corporate unity and "we're all on the same page"-ness. What gets me are the catch phrases these poor, angry bastards have to spout at the beginning and end of calls. "Thanks for calling National Bank of Monopoly, customer service division, this is Todd Rundgren speaking, how may I help you today?". "Well i was wondering about...". The answer is usually "Can I have your name, social insurance number, address, telephone number, and code for verification purposes please", or it could be "please hold", at which point they go off and have coffee for a few minutes, chat about Jennifer Garner's ass, remember they have a "client" on the phone and run back. "Sorry to keep you waiting sir. I was on hold myself with another department. I'm going to have to speak to my supervisor about this." Hold.

Granted, that's the only way you can keep the spark of human intelligence in you if you work at these places. I know, I did. It was in another form - not quite so faceless, not quite so important - hell it was a chain camera store, but I got my taste. It tasted like the metal of robots and the cardboard of display signs.

Happy Birthday To Me

Happy Birthday To ME!

I watched these guys sumo the hell out of each other a couple of weeks ago in Osaka. And now they're spicing up my birthday page.

Sick Days

I'm hanging around in my apartment wearing the same pj's I've been wearing for the past 2 days. Occasionally reading "the wealth of nations" and occasionally watching downloaded tv programs. Yesterday I watched a little bit of a Japanese cartoon in which a family had a little spirit as a guest for dinner, and the spirit commented on their table manners throughout dinner. The family actually liked this spirit. Personally I would have kicked it out, but I guess that's what makes me different from the Japanese.

Reading Adam Smith.

Sucker for taunts

Something I noticed about living in Japan is that people will never say hi to me on the street unless they are under the age of 15. And I'm not talking about white people, or even people who know me. Maybe that's not so strange after all. Maybe it's strange that 12 year olds will frequently give me long drawn-out herro's. The bratty kids have a way of accentuating the r's in English words that don't even have r's, as if to say: "Your language has r's, loser. And I can't speak it, loser." Oddly enough the taunt works. Of course I've always been a sucker for taunts, as Sarain can attest.

Boomerang

The aussies say a boomerang is a thing you lend to someone that comes back. They applied that label to a corkscrew they lent me, and it turned out to be true. Well I'm a boomerang in my ideas about Japan. It seems like staying in Japan could be feasible: i.e. I could remain sane. Only if I start working hard on a project so that I have something to show for the extra year here, will it be an acceptable decision. In that vein, I've begun to learn Dreamweaver, scope out webspace, and think about content for my long-passed-off culture/media commentary website. Perhaps I told some of you my readers about this. It's nice to be finally taking action - as of last Wednesday.

BUT the best laid plains may something something. And in my case that means a debilitating lower back pain that saps my will to live, compose, do anything. Except that this morning I feel well enough to type zee blog. Don't worry folks, it's not that bad. Mainly it's annoying and a pain in the ass, er, back. [Ahhh, the intentional 'er'. Propper-up of old chestnuts!] My other project, which may never emerge from it's gestation sack due to the absence of a video camera, is dun-da-daaa.... to make a video! About.... something!! I figure it's been several years since my grade 7 masterwork in neo-dada confusionism, replete with dream sequences, stomping football players, and yours truly as the young-voiced narrator. I need the balls of that young me! Not literally, obviously, but the chutzpah, the drive, the disregard.

Communist Japan!

Last night I heard the klok-klok of the gas man as I hung my laundry in the warming air. He is the volunteer who walks through the neighbourhood after the sun has fallen, striking a pair of hollow wooden blocks together, reminding the people tucked away in their sony filled apartments that they have to turn off the gas. If the gas is left on and there's a small earthquake, the gas pipe may crack, or the hose may come loose, and then gas will flow into the house, either poisoning or exploding. To prevent this the Japanese have invented a new position in society which is the night-walker gas man. This is the benefit of having over 90% of houses outfitted with the same heating system, and having a society that responds well to tradition and office. A few of the foreign teachers here have taken to calling Japan the world's only communist-capitalist society. Oddly enough, it seems to have more of a communist esprit than the more obvious example of communist-capitalism, the giant Middle Kingdom across the straits of Japan.

The examples of the Japanese communist esprit are many. Perhaps more accurately I should say it's a group orientation and sense of responsibility that tempers the individualism of capitalism. The school is rife with them. At cleaning time, all the students go out into the hallways and sweep up, and use sticky-rollers to pull dust up from the carpets. They wash the concrete passages outside, and wipe the floors and desks with rags. That's the ideal version. Mostly they just talk, but they are all out there with cleaning implements. The teachers go out too to provide a leadership example. There is something curious in the workplace as well, at least in the teaching workplace. Teachers who don't pull their weight are pulled along by the efforts of the other teachers. Instead of being fired, these incompetents or lazy people can rely on their peers to carry them for years, even till retirement if they fulfill their group obligations. This also has a very dark side when conflicts arise between teachers and students.

I don't think this is an example of communalism, but strange nonetheless: construction workers all wear bright overalls in a single colour, which are usually immaculate. I've passed by a house construction site to see a group of four immaculate workers on the second floor of a plywood support structure, standing and having a meeting. Their arms move with robotic precision as they gesture, not at all like the movements of Canadian construction workers I have known. I get the feeling the meeting has been going on for a while - the workers seem committed to their poses. I've seen workers disposing of garbage stacked neatly and by type, not throwing it but carrying it to the receptacle. The garbage site looked clean!

Read "Cloud Atlas"

Today I mainly read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. I took it to my four classes and read it during the stretches of inanity, inanity for me at least, when the Japanese teacher was teaching and I would normaly be hum-drumming. It's a novel with multiple personalities that switches after a good satisfying chunk, and I think the writer wrote it this way to avoid getting bored. I think Mitchell stitched together several disparate strands that he'd written ex-post-facto, which is something that I plan on doing with my ramblings, if they should ever acquire that critical mass that would pull them together thematically.

It begins with a colonial sea-traveller's tale, then moves eras and genres. It blends narrative frames so that earlier chapters are read by characters in later chapters as books. There are cross-referenced character names, and a McGuffen that I won't spoil.

Late in the afternoon I fell asleep with my head propped up by my arm, book in front of me. The teachers' room was empty except for Nick, a secretary and me, with everyone else at a meeting. My matronly, kindly neighbour is cooling to me as I come ever late in the morning. If only she knew how difficult it is for me to feel any connection to the workplace. I'm investigating jobs in London tonight.

A brand new world... (morning entry)

New post time! That means I have four minutes to write a post and then get out of my apartment. In the news today Elvis has married Kareem Abdul Jabar, and their genetically engineered children will be kung-fu stars of the future. Both giants of popularity were unearthed from their graves and reconstituted using bacteria that was found beneath the toes of the worlds oldest animal: the drosophila methusela, a fruit fly that lives to be a thousand years old and has toes. More to come later.

Veronica and Mike and Food and Movie

Veronica and Mike are over at my house. We watched "My Own Private Idaho" which has River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves as young male prostitutes in Idaho and Portland. They go to Rome in search of someone's mother and quote shakespearean non-shakespeare that's really amusing. Mike didn't like it. We almost watched "The Manchurian Candidate" which would have been a Mike-Anthony pleaser. Instead we watched a Veronica-Anthony pleaser. I guess I'm easy to please in the movie department.

Veronica was sent on a mission to take pictures of Mike and I and herself. We shall see what turned out. And then it will be posted.

We are being silly and I am being slightly drunkennated.



Veronica is sleepy. Maybe a little confused too...


Mike and I MSN even while in the same apartment.


Mike looking coolio and up


The Canadian couple! This is the state of my bedroom adornment...

Left to right: Kuni Claire and Sugi. The Power Rangers!

The deer threatening to eat my hands.