The notes for this posting were transcribed (mostly) from notes I made in the back of my Lonely Planet Tokyo Encounter guide book. I recommend this small city guide and map combo, if you are Tokyo-bound with not much of a clue, as I was.
Sunday April 13.
Harujuku reminds me of Queen West and Kensington Market. Lots of skulls, American vintage-sque tees; plus Vivienne Westwood punk, and other UK gear. The girl dressed as a killer doctor in a blood-stained labcoat wearing a pirate's eye-patch seemed uniquely Tokyo youth, circa 2008.
Later, I watched Manchester United beat Arsenal at a pub in Ukebukuro.
In Japan, my Honda Ruckus scooter is sold as a Zoomer. This Tokyo hipster-child has stripped his down a bit further by removing the fenders.
Tuesday April 15.
Ueno Park. Met Jiro, his girlfriend Naomi, friends Assami, Kai and Yoko. All college students studying photography and shooting with old Nikon SLRs. Had cook it yourself dinner together in Ueno. Okonomiyaki is the name of this type of restaurant where you make Japanese 'pancakes', mostly cabbage-based with egg and shrimp.
Wednesday April 16.
-met Keith, went to lovely private Japanese garden, saw a crane eat its catch, then moved onto a gallery building where the first gallery had some nice paintings and beer garden table rubbings. From there to Ginza where I saw the new Nissan GTR and bought a Magnum photographer t-shirt at UNIQLO. Then Keith went home, and I went to Muji for dinner, underwear and tea! Later at home I watched Lost in Translation again. This time, with the Tokyo bits being less exotic, I found the two characters flawed to an even greater degree. She is a spoilt, lost soul and he is a philandering has-been who is selling-out instead of doing a play (his words). But his advice to her is good...keep writing.
Thursday April 17.
Planned, then went and booked all my train tickets for my Japan Rail trip. Tokyo-Naoshima-Hiroshima-Kyoto-Tokyo. Then went to Roppongi Hills Mori Museum to see BMW Art Car Show (weak show, I liked Stella's 3.0 CSL best) Then I met up with Keith again, saw the group show he was in. It was really great...work by stylists, photographers and make-up artists. All very well made, excellent craft and attention to detail - professional, as it were. From there we went to see Lee Friedlander's exhibit at the Rat Hole Gallery where I bought the Lee Friedlander book they published, and a copy of Anders Petersen's book Cafe Lehmitz, which is the source of the image on Tom Wait's Raindogs. From there to an excellent dinner in a place that was a kind of Japanese-beer-hall-tapas-bar-a-rant
Friday April 18
Copied from the back of a guide to Ueno Imperial Park:
I got really excited, like ahhh! Open mouth excited when I glimpsed at all the big sculpture in the Met Museum - the Japanese League of Sculptors.
Then I went and saw the finely made Japanese crafts – masks, ceramics and lacquerware.
Now, I am sitting having a $5 cup of coffee in the National Museum of Western Art (their logo NMWA, all joined in one zig-zag line). I've come to see the Venus exhibition (1400 yen). I am yawning, so I need this coffee...it is a dreary, rainy, yawny kind of day. Okay for a museum...if you have coffee.
Had great sushi for lunch after a late departure, approx. 2-3 pm, from the hotel where I spent the first part of the day booking my hotels for Naoshima, Hiroshima and Kyoto. All booked, including trains, yay!
My Bollywood-stickered Canon and my CBC tee. I truly missed my CBC Radio weekends during this year spent away from home. I am excited to hear the new show Under the Covers by Danny Michel; one of my favourite musical artists, who, without CBC Radio in my life, I might not have discovered. Which would be a shame, because my life wouldn't be nearly as rich.
9 comments:
Did you know you could listen to CBC on the internet? I sometimes get a bit homesick and listen to it. It is surreal given it could a snowstorm in T.O. and 10C here.
i've done it, but it just isn't the same as when it comes through every radio in the house and feeling the Canada in the air; knowing it came to you via Canadian airwaves.
send me yer email & I'l send you mp3s of the 1st 2 shows
danny michel
BP: re Lost in Translation, I've only seen it once and a long time ago, but I remember some other good advice.
As per the tape running in my head, the quotation spoken by Bill Murray goes something like this --
"(when you have kids)...your life AS YOU KNOW IT is OVER....but then...they become the most delightful people you'll ever want to meet...".
Yeah.
Another insight: when he recounts to Johanssen the demise of his marriage, he says -- at one point -- "she didn't need me anymore" and that marked the beginning of "the end." Or at least, the beginning of his philandering, presumably.
I've often marvelled at the predictable life cycle of early romance (which some -- or many? -- marriages are based on). Her "need" forms the basis for his feeling valued (loved), but when this "need" is met or becomes less compelling (as is the evolution of supply/demand), something irrevocable unravels....
I'm not so "simpatica" when I impersonate Freud huh? Like I have a clue about any of this. "Clueless is the rule in America America" as the NY times wisely pronounced last weekend.
And yet, because I'm relentless when I get in this mood, I can't help ending with yet another intellectualism. You said they were both "flawed". And I'm reminded of how prevailing "deeply flawed" really is if one cares to peel back the self-made narrative. We all have it, and the more articulate, the more confounding....take it from a pro.
In the meantime, a date with Bill Murray under the pulsating Tokyo lights would be just swell.
AA
Arrrgh! Excuse the reference to Freud above....It is indeed very flawed of me to denigrate a great one! I intended to say: "I'm not so simpatica when I impersonate a DIME STORE THERAPIST". That's better!
You will LOVE Under the Covers-- it totally, completely, and utterly SATISFIES. Okay, that is not true. Rather, it totally, completely, and utterly leaves me wishing it were a LONGER SHOW so that I could hear MORE!
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Yes, correctly.
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