I visited Tokyo for a couple of weeks in 1992. I came away with the impression that everything is funny, inexplicable or amusing, or all three. Now that I live here, I have realised that this is partly because I harldy understand the language, but partly because things really are strange. Especially TV.
Monthly Archives: June 2002
Storytelling — Belle & Sebastian
I just saw this in a shop and bought it on the spot. It turns out to be a soundtrack album. It has a handful of decent songs, a few instrumentals and a number of jarring dialogue snippets from what sounds like, but to be fair probably isn’t, an American teen movie. I was expecting a proper album, and I was disappointed, but taken on its own merits it’s all right.
Maneki Neko
In Japanese the cat with raised paw is called “maneki neko” (“beckoning cat”). In the West, we beckon people by holding the hand with palm facing up and moving the fingers (as popularised by Neo and Morpheus in the Matrix films). In Japan, people beckon by holding the palm facing down or forwards (like the cat) so it looks as if they’re waving. I wonder if the Chinese do the same?
The 6ths
The 6ths are really The Magnetic Fields with guest vocalists. Of course, they don’t approach the majesty of The Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs (the best album in the world… ever) but their albums are still essential, at least to me.
The two albums are Hyacinths and Thistles and Wasps’ Nests. Note how the band and album names are specifically chosen to be awkward to pronounce. Perverse? Yes. H & S has more brilliant, tuneful, hearfelt songs than most bands manage in a career. There’s also the fun final track, which slowly fades out over what seems like several hours.
Wasps’ Nests doesn’t quite have the sounds or the songs, but there are still many lovely moments. And bonus points for featuring Chris Knox, the Godfather of New Zealand alternative music.