Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Oblique Strategies
Wow, the Itunes App store for Iphone and Ipod touch carries Oblique Strategies, the deck of inspirational cards by Brian Eno from the 1970s. It's free, too. A great use for the platform.
Monday, July 14, 2008
July 14th
It turns out there are a lot of graduate students or older students in the group that Waseda has recruited this year. I count seven of us out of 58, but I think that’s an undercount. I’m extremely excited by the intellectual possibilities. There are people here from History, Art History, Anthropology, Economics and Business (but they’re forgiven), and one woman who is planning on going back to school, but I’m not sure for what. The woman studying art history is apparently a big Zizek fan, so I think we will have a particularly large amount to talk about, and the historian is interested in Taisho era Japan (basically, Japan’s Roaring Twenties, and a flowering of participatory democracy), so that’ll be a fruitful avenue as well.
The building they’ve got us in is at once very nice and extremely Spartan. We’re at the top of a small mountain overlooking the valley were the town of Kamogawa sits, and the building has a pair of amazing balconies that overlook the scene. In fact, this area seems to be one that soundly rebuts the construction-industrial complex thesis of Alex Kerr’s Dogs and Demons, as it still undeniably retains a huge amount of natural beauty, its steep valleys lined with a rich carpet of native trees. On the drive in I couldn’t help but complain about the thick haze that lay over the place, obscuring the distant skyline – but at least according to one of our Japanese RAs, that’s not smog but actual fog, rising off the sea just across a ridge. I can’t wait to spend this afternoon walking around and really seeing the place.
Of course, at the same time, there are some adjustments. We’re sleeping four to a room, and easily the most interesting cultural note so far this trip is that these four-deep rooms each come with exactly one key – so basically, you get the choice of either leaving the door unlocked or working out some elaborate system to keep track of your suitemates so you can get the key when you need to get into the room. I’m immediately reminded of the system of mutual monitoring among small groups of villagers during the Tokugawa period, one source of the mislabeled “collectivism” so often attributed to the Japanese. We also have communal baths, which, given the rather predictable number of awkward American otaku here in this group, I’m guessing will probably result in more than a few people bathing in secret shame in their dorm rooms, with a washcloth.
Another notable thing is that, on top of the sleep pattern fuckery wrought by jet lag, the lack of daylight savings time here is bound to make for some serious lifestyle alterations. I went to bed at 8:30 last night, and was awake (not to say out of bed) by 5:30 this morning – and the sun was fully up. A sad testament to my unfamiliarity with this thing called “dawn” in the States, I’m guessing, but made particularly annoying by the eastern-facing bay window that lines an entire wall of my room. I can already tell this is going to be a massive change, hopefully for the better.
The building they’ve got us in is at once very nice and extremely Spartan. We’re at the top of a small mountain overlooking the valley were the town of Kamogawa sits, and the building has a pair of amazing balconies that overlook the scene. In fact, this area seems to be one that soundly rebuts the construction-industrial complex thesis of Alex Kerr’s Dogs and Demons, as it still undeniably retains a huge amount of natural beauty, its steep valleys lined with a rich carpet of native trees. On the drive in I couldn’t help but complain about the thick haze that lay over the place, obscuring the distant skyline – but at least according to one of our Japanese RAs, that’s not smog but actual fog, rising off the sea just across a ridge. I can’t wait to spend this afternoon walking around and really seeing the place.
Of course, at the same time, there are some adjustments. We’re sleeping four to a room, and easily the most interesting cultural note so far this trip is that these four-deep rooms each come with exactly one key – so basically, you get the choice of either leaving the door unlocked or working out some elaborate system to keep track of your suitemates so you can get the key when you need to get into the room. I’m immediately reminded of the system of mutual monitoring among small groups of villagers during the Tokugawa period, one source of the mislabeled “collectivism” so often attributed to the Japanese. We also have communal baths, which, given the rather predictable number of awkward American otaku here in this group, I’m guessing will probably result in more than a few people bathing in secret shame in their dorm rooms, with a washcloth.
Another notable thing is that, on top of the sleep pattern fuckery wrought by jet lag, the lack of daylight savings time here is bound to make for some serious lifestyle alterations. I went to bed at 8:30 last night, and was awake (not to say out of bed) by 5:30 this morning – and the sun was fully up. A sad testament to my unfamiliarity with this thing called “dawn” in the States, I’m guessing, but made particularly annoying by the eastern-facing bay window that lines an entire wall of my room. I can already tell this is going to be a massive change, hopefully for the better.
Marroad International Hotel
The hotel we’re staying at for the first night has a few indications of the thesis of Japanese decline I’ve been immersed in – it’s a multi-story “international hotel,” but it’s undeniably shabby and, moreover, garish and tasteless. Elevator music, mostly versions of Western kitsch like “When a Man Loves a Woman,” suffuses the whole building. Then there’s the smell of cigarettes throughout the halls – I know this is a cultural difference, but it still says cheap to me. And the dining room we ate dinner in had a gigantic fake-crystal chandelier hanging from the towering marble ceiling – it would have been extremely fancy and up-to-date 40 years ago, just like the starchy, high-collared uniforms worn by the bellhops. For someone coming from the West such antiquities might be seen as cute or charming, but the fact is that, while I’m not ready to say it’s systemic, large sections of this country are very much frozen in time.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Today, For Lunch . . .
The Menu on American Airlines Flight 175 from DFW to Narita:
“Beef and Potatoes” served one hour after takeoff. A pot roast-like substance with mashed potatoes, with limp, hopeless vegetables. Salad, roll in a plastic baggie, oatmeal cookie in plastic baggie.
Sandwich in box AND plastic baggie, with Dijonnaise.
Pizza, gooey with cheese, oily crust. Pepperidge Farm Milanos. Coffee. I saved above-mentioned sandwich and ate it and the pizza back to back.
This is something I love about flying – because I have no control over my food intake, I can eat anything they put in front of me and not feel guilty. I’m nominally a vegetarian, but on a plane, or at my parents house, I Do As the Romans Do and love every minute of it. If American Airlines served veal with a foie grois spread, I would be able to happily chow down – “Hey, what can I do?”
Of course, this is coward’s morality. There are any number of ways I could have made AA accommodate my supposed principles, rather than bending to their shortcomings, but I chose not to. And you know why? Because what we all want more than anything is to transgress without having to take responsibility, to take a risk without taking a risk.
“Beef and Potatoes” served one hour after takeoff. A pot roast-like substance with mashed potatoes, with limp, hopeless vegetables. Salad, roll in a plastic baggie, oatmeal cookie in plastic baggie.
Sandwich in box AND plastic baggie, with Dijonnaise.
Pizza, gooey with cheese, oily crust. Pepperidge Farm Milanos. Coffee. I saved above-mentioned sandwich and ate it and the pizza back to back.
This is something I love about flying – because I have no control over my food intake, I can eat anything they put in front of me and not feel guilty. I’m nominally a vegetarian, but on a plane, or at my parents house, I Do As the Romans Do and love every minute of it. If American Airlines served veal with a foie grois spread, I would be able to happily chow down – “Hey, what can I do?”
Of course, this is coward’s morality. There are any number of ways I could have made AA accommodate my supposed principles, rather than bending to their shortcomings, but I chose not to. And you know why? Because what we all want more than anything is to transgress without having to take responsibility, to take a risk without taking a risk.
Monday, June 09, 2008
Did Steve Jobs just save me $350?
So, today is the big iPhone 2.0 reveal.
A lot of the stuff that's showing up is VERY cool, but there's one piece of info in particular that has some pretty major implications for me. As some of you know, I'm headed to Japan for a few months starting in mid-July, and the best dictionary solution out there seems pretty clearly to be a dictionary loaded onto a palmtop like an iPaq or Palm Pilot - but the total package is over $300 even if you get an older, used piece of hardware. But I've just seen some interesting hints that i may not have to drop that chunk of change - apparently 2.0 includes some kanji recognition software:
http://gizmodo.com/387188/iphone-20-firmware-will-have-handwriting-recognition-go-to-japan-and-china
If this was accompanied by a good port of a Japanese dictionary, Steve Jobs will have officially saved me a boatload of money, since my phone was originally a gift. Then again, I might just spend that money on a new phone, depending on how sweet the 2.0 hardware is. Remains to be seen, though - the descriptions I've read of the J/E dictionary Edict are so great that anything less would seem like a serious compromise.
There's also some indication that this is a longshot - HWR wasn't present in the beta version of the Japanese interface: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=479920
If you want some insight into how successful the phone has been as a wedge to turn people on to the whole Apple lifestyle thing, I'm actually getting all of this by keeping an eye on the World Wide Developer's conference liveblog at Gizmodo right now . . . http://live.gizmodo.com/.
The Phone Is Life!
A lot of the stuff that's showing up is VERY cool, but there's one piece of info in particular that has some pretty major implications for me. As some of you know, I'm headed to Japan for a few months starting in mid-July, and the best dictionary solution out there seems pretty clearly to be a dictionary loaded onto a palmtop like an iPaq or Palm Pilot - but the total package is over $300 even if you get an older, used piece of hardware. But I've just seen some interesting hints that i may not have to drop that chunk of change - apparently 2.0 includes some kanji recognition software:
http://gizmodo.com/387188/iphone-20-firmware-will-have-handwriting-recognition-go-to-japan-and-china
If this was accompanied by a good port of a Japanese dictionary, Steve Jobs will have officially saved me a boatload of money, since my phone was originally a gift. Then again, I might just spend that money on a new phone, depending on how sweet the 2.0 hardware is. Remains to be seen, though - the descriptions I've read of the J/E dictionary Edict are so great that anything less would seem like a serious compromise.
There's also some indication that this is a longshot - HWR wasn't present in the beta version of the Japanese interface: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=479920
If you want some insight into how successful the phone has been as a wedge to turn people on to the whole Apple lifestyle thing, I'm actually getting all of this by keeping an eye on the World Wide Developer's conference liveblog at Gizmodo right now . . . http://live.gizmodo.com/.
The Phone Is Life!
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Hello
If you're here from the Signal To Noise article, you may want to also cruise over to Minds Like Knives, my somewhat more up to date and topically focused blog about race and popular culture.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Reading Rainbow - Lovecraft Reborned!
For those of you looking for a way to turn your brain off over the break (and I mean TOTALLY off), boy do I have a pick for you. In a vindication of nearly 15 years of sweaty adolescent obsession on my part, the Library of America has published a volume collecting about half of H.P. Lovecraft's work. Luc Sante has written a (very cautious, but relatively positive) review of it at the NY Review of Books.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19454
But ultimately, recognition from the literary establishment is of secondary importance. What matters is that Lovecraft is the ultimate nerd's horror writer. As a matter of fact, he's a poststructuralist of sorts - all of the worst things in his stories happen because of books. Libraries and Universities are the most dangerous places on the face of the earth (followed closely by the Antarctic). Books that should never be read are used to summon from the forgotten depths creatures who can never die, and who constitute the inevitable, inescapable doom of humanity - in my darkest hours, I'd call that a rather good metaphor for culture. Ironically enough, Lovecraft was himself a pretty dire racist, and didn't fail to pass it on in his own work.
If Burroughs thought language was a virus, Lovecraft thinks it's an interplanetary octopoid demigod determined to eat your brain, followed by the rest of you. Grab it and curl up under the covers with a flashlight. CTHULHU WAITS!
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/bookSearch/isbnInquiry.asp?r=1&isbn=1931082723
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19454
But ultimately, recognition from the literary establishment is of secondary importance. What matters is that Lovecraft is the ultimate nerd's horror writer. As a matter of fact, he's a poststructuralist of sorts - all of the worst things in his stories happen because of books. Libraries and Universities are the most dangerous places on the face of the earth (followed closely by the Antarctic). Books that should never be read are used to summon from the forgotten depths creatures who can never die, and who constitute the inevitable, inescapable doom of humanity - in my darkest hours, I'd call that a rather good metaphor for culture. Ironically enough, Lovecraft was himself a pretty dire racist, and didn't fail to pass it on in his own work.
If Burroughs thought language was a virus, Lovecraft thinks it's an interplanetary octopoid demigod determined to eat your brain, followed by the rest of you. Grab it and curl up under the covers with a flashlight. CTHULHU WAITS!
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/bookSearch/isbnInquiry.asp?r=1&isbn=1931082723
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
