Karaoke
I’ve become quite a fan of karaoke. Some people inexplicably like to sing on a karaoke stage, where you sing on a stage in front of everyone else in the place, but I prefer the karaoke box, where you and … Continue reading
Slash with a Knife — Yoshitomo Nara
This artist beautifully captures the angst of disaffected youth. (Like, 8-year-old youth.) Link to website Continue reading
Prismic — Yuki
I heard Yuki‘s song 66db, an odd, Bjork-ish ballad, in the J-Pop Cafe one night. Later, I bought her album to celebrate my new job, She’s melodious, in a rockin’ kind of way. One of the songs is called The … Continue reading
Curry donuts
Curry-filled donuts (or doughnuts) are a surprisingly popular snack in Japan. They are available everywhere from local bakeries to Starbucks, and they taste as good as they sound. Continue reading
Botchan — Natsume Soseki
A teacher from Tokyo gets posted to a country town and spends his time getting into misadventures and complaining about the shifty country folk. Quite fun! Maybe one day I will be able to read it in the original Japanese. Continue reading
Strange Tokyo
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
Tokyo — my new home
Tokyo will be our home for the foreseeable future. First impressions: the shops are fantastic as expected, the food is good and cheaper than I remember, and the people are nice. Looking forward to it. Continue reading