RIP Kisho Kurokawa

Whoooaaah.
What a weird way to find out more about a movement - an obituary of one of its founders:

Mr. Kurokawa was one of the youngest founding members of Japan’s Metabolist movement, which advocated an organic, renewable architecture that could evolve through the addition of clip-on modular units. This school of thought emerged around 1960, partly as a response to concerns about overcrowding, and culminated in the Osaka World Expo of 1970, where three buildings by Mr. Kurokawa were showcased.

I wish I knew more about this before he died...not that I'd have tried to meet him or anything, but this is weird. One minute I hear "Metabolist movement" next minute I find a week-old obit in the Times.

How Deep Is Your Love?

This has to be the most entertaining set of statistics I've read in a really long time.

On average, the Japanese only have sex 48 times a year, well below the world average of 103 times and a huge distance from the 164 occasions the world-leading Greeks will go at it. There are 38 percent of Japanese couples who say they have sex at least once a week and 86 percent of those partnerships say they want more. The reason why they can't have more sex even though they want it is because it's hard for them to tell their partner how they feel. Throughout the world, 58 percent of couples say they feel at ease enough with their partner to be able to talk about sex, but only 21 percent of Japanese feel good enough to do so -- not even one-third of the 69 percent of Malaysian couples that are happy to chat about nooky. Among the Japanese, 38 percent felt the best way to improve their sex lives was to spend more time with their partner, while 36 percent just wanted to enjoy life more.

People, we're going to Greece.
From The Daily Mainichi.

My friend described a wall to me once. The wall you hit in the middle of a road. You know, the one made of solid titanium alloy, a million feet high and a million feet wide. On the other side is The Point, so thanks to the wall, the road you're on is seemingly pointless.

Ugh.

Some suggested cures to The Wall:

1. Play Pink Floyd's The Wall backwards...no wait. Play it with The Wizard of Oz after the third MGM Lion's roar. Wait, no. Don't. But maybe play "Money" over and over.
2. Take Vitamin B6. Nature's Prozac.
3. Take 5HTP. Nature's Xanax.
4. Take a nap.
5. Get some peanut butter and a dog. Go to the bathroom with both.
6. Leave the country for a while.
7. Think of all the kids eating rocks in some impoverished country, and guilt yourself into doing a year's worth of work.
8. Blame your spouse and hit him/her/it. (Please don't do this unless your spouse is hitting you first, or your spouse is Dane Cook.)
9. Crawl into a corner, cry like an evangelist, apply black kohl eyeliner and listen to Disintegration by The Cure or anything by Sigur Ros, Mice Parade.
10. Make a U-turn.

You guys got any suggestions?

TIME Magazine names the Top 25 Horror Movies, leading up to Halloween.
One of the films is actually a docudrama about Japanese torture and "medical experiments" performed on war prisoners, called Men Behind the Sun.


link

Pirates! And not the interweb kind.

Beware pirates!

From The NY Times Lede blog:

The International Piracy Center, which reported the end of a downward trend in piracy earlier this month, recommends that ships stay at least 200 nautical miles away from the Somali coast, saying that the nasty seaborne criminals there are armed with rocket-propelled grenades and aren’t afraid to use them.

The International Piracy Center? (It's actually a "piracy reporting centre" hosted by the International Chamber of Commerce)

Culture Skulter

Here's a digest to "make up" for a few absent days chez blog.

DARJEELING LIMITED: Not bad. If you can get over Wes Andersonian clichés (e.g. slow motion file of main characters, self-conscious introduction of background music), you'll love the story.

I went in fully anticipating disappointment and maybe even disgust (re: Slate's lambast of Anderson's orientalism), but what surprised me were a. Jason Schwartzman cast as the romantic lover (in the most carnal sense of the word), b. the overwhelming message that spirituality is an escapist joke, and c. the amazing actor they cast as the main train steward. If the movie was orientalist (which it most certainly was in the same way every film in the world is doing something wrong), I at least, was able to ignore it.

YOSHIOKA TOKUJIN: He's a design polymath. About a month ago I went to a "furniture opening" for his Panna Chair - The concept is genius: Yoshioka designed a chair that bakes to full form. Hence the name "panna," Italian for bread.

Of all the kinds of openings and events out there, design-centered ones have to be the most interesting. On the one hand, everyone's behind-the-scenes. On the other, it's super lucrative, so there are no misgivings about where people are headed. Unlike publishing and theater events...

TEKKON KINKREET: I have to admit a slight personal agenda in bringing up Taiyo Matsumot's masterpiece bildungs-manga. I wrote an opinion piece about it for PW. Go get it.

AMERICAN MASTERS, CHARLES SCHULZ: It aired last night on PBS, and should have been split in two sections: Part 1: Martyrdom: The Joyce Schulz Story, and Part 2: Martyrdom: The Charles Schulz Story.

And...someone please get me this.

They've done gone done it. An ultra-nationalist Japanese rap song about The Yasukuni Shrine (for the unitiated: Yasukuni is a symbol of fascist Japan and generally regarded as a litmus of Asian diplomacy).

(Via Ryan from Japundit)

At least it sucks. The chorus is just some dude singing "Japan! Japan! How I love Japan!"

Feed the Hungry With Your Smarts!

(From Janet)

Win free rice for starving people with every correct answer in this quiz made by The United Nation World Food Program.

The questions start really easy but don't let that fool you.


Link

Bikes on Bikes

I don't usually link to The NY Times, because it's so ubiquitous, but they have a great slideshow of items that bombed or buzzed at design stores across the nation this year. Since many of you are design-savvy, to say nothing of how design-sensitive Giant Robot is, I thought I'd mention it.

One of the buzz items this past year was this thing:The Stockholm Bike Basket...Christmas present, anyone?

I have a story about bikes. Three years ago I got hit by a car going 45. I was on a bike. Broke a leg, my ego, spent Christmas and New Year dosed up and horizontal. Cried a lot. And the kicker was, I hadn't ridden a bike in ages before that, so I blamed myself - i.e. maybe the skill doesn't just come back. Maybe I'm just a bad biker.

Anyway, I figured it was no loss to the world if I never got on a bike again. But then I moved to Deep South Brooklyn, where you pretty much need a bike to get anywhere in less than an hour.

And I love it. It's made me more endeared to self-entitled critical massers, the Tour de France, and that protective hole in bike seats for testicles.

So then I came across this great bike design blog, which makes me realize that if you only need one compelling reason to ride bikes (other than that it's an environmentally friendlier alternative to cars), bicycles might be Man's greatest gift to Design. Symmetry, gears, perfect circles, function, detail, color, dimension, weight...

If I'd just lost my house in a mega-fire and Mickey Mouse showed up to make me feel better...I'd probably do something that would require another Geneva convention.

Disney announced that it would donate $2 million to the relief effort, with $200,000 of that going to the Red Cross for immediate needs and the rest earmarked for volunteer centers, rebuilding and restoring the environment.

And because it's Disney, the company will send some familiar characters over to Qualcomm Stadium, where thousands of San Diego evacuees are staying, as well other shelters in the next week. (LA Times)

I would start with anal rape.

What happens when The Postal Service and Bright Eyes have sex and give their accident to Jay-Z because the kid's too pathetic for one parent and too chipper for the other?

PlayRadioPlay!

Damn if I can't stop fantasizing myself meeting the boy of my dreams at the mall as he traipses out of Hot Topic though. Mall-pop, my guilty pleasure.

(Thanks Sanborn, for the heads up) link.

Meta-Post: Halloween

Amelie Gillette's The Hater blog at The Onion/AV Club is one of the funniest of its kind - ridicule.

She informs us that American Apparel is campaigning Halloween with costume ideas using their garments. Gillette has ideas of her own. And they're way better.

WFMU has a bunch of great Halloween tidbits on their blog, including a clip of Mad Mad Monster Party?
I love old stop-motion animation.

And finally, the money-shot question: if you're Christian, how do you participate in Hallow's evil eve?

Like any other day of the year, Christians should exercise caution as wise stewards of their possessions and protectors of their families. Christian young people should stay away from secular Halloween parties since those are breeding grounds for trouble. Christian parents can protect their children by keeping them well-supervised and restricting treat consumption to those goodies received from trusted sources.

End of a mini-era

There are a lot of sixth degrees in New York City the guides won't tell you about. If you work in any part of mass media, you will come out here, inevitably meet a bunch of UC Berkeley graduates, or make a friend at Conde Naste, or date someone who danced at Tisch, or until very recently, have had some intimate relation with Mo Pitkins.

This last item has nothing to do with how popular or large MP is, but simply because it was a place practically designed around people like "us." A place made attractive to "us" by filigree-ing what is otherwise considered tacky - e.g. instead of a blown up photo of the pizza man holding Bruce Willis around the shoulder scotch taped to the store front, they had caricatures of Lacanian wet dreams all over the walls; they made cocktails with dairy product.

If I talk about this, it's only because I know some of you aforementioned affiliates of the place won't have known that Mo Pitkins has closed down. My first reaction to the news was not one of sadness whatsoever. "Good riddance" was more like it, but on second thought, I will miss Chesterfield booths, secular seder, and even their mill of a performance venue.

Calling Dr. Slump

Interesting story in WIRED about how manga sales are slumping in Japan despite exponential growth abroad.

Fans and critics complain that manga — which emerged in the years after World War II as an edgy, uniquely Japanese art form — has become as homogenized and risk-averse as the limpest Hollywood blockbuster. Pervading the nation's $4.2 billion-a-year industry is a sense that its best days have passed.

I'm sorry. Did that say billion?
link

Don't Let the Title Fool You

Last night I caught half of Does Your Sould Have a Cold, even though the title and director's mug shot screamed, "b.s. indie movie about a disaffected thirty-something man who misses his girlfriend." The advertised McSweeney's interview didn't help in this pre-judgement of mine.

Turns out it's a documentary following a bunch of Japanese people who are "depressed." Except "depression" is described as an American import brought over by pharmaceutical companies who wanted to pawn off their anti-depressants. Before 2000, there was supposedly no word for "depression" in Japanese. "Does your soul have a cold" is a marketing pitch to describe the way "depression" feels. Since its introduction, American pharma has made gazillions of dollars off anti-depressant sales in Japan.

Hmph.

Anyway, I ended up watching a lot of the movie.

What I got out of it was a couple of people who seriously seemed suicidal (as they'd attempted it before), a really bad therapist ("So...you wanna talk about anything? Um...ok. Next week then?") and the most endearing Japanese rope bondage scene ever. Worth watching for that alone.

Link

Homer, do you like nachos?

This news link comes from Nate, who put it well: best promotion, ever.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Many Americans will be wagering on this week's baseball World Series. For Taco Bell, the stakes are a free taco for everyone in the United States.

The fast-food chain on Monday unveiled a promotion it is calling "Steal a Base, Steal a Taco," which will run through the best-of-seven matchup.

"Millions and millions of people will be watching the Series and hopefully tuning in to see when they are going to get their taco," said Taco Bell spokesman Rob Poetsch.

There has been at least one stolen base in every World Series matchup since 1990. When the first base is stolen, the unit of Yum Brands Inc, will announce a Tuesday afternoon when consumers will be able to walk into the chain's participating 5,800 outlets and ask for a free taco. Anyone who walks into a participating outlet during the give-away period would be eligible for a free taco.

Despite the promotion's name, stealing the taco will not be required.

Congratulations to Chip Kidd for winning an award that was handed to him by...PAUL SIMON!
Jesus. Talk about kudos.


Also, talk of film is very quick-paced. I just got this announcement about a film series taking place at Anthology Film Archives (1st and 1st, NYC) the first weekend of November. It'll examine where art meets politics. (Thanks Nate)

The Tokyo International Film Festival is well underway, and in recent discussion board postings, talk has been mounting over :

United Red Army

I apologize to anyone who just googled that title, and is now wondering what soccer-powerhouse Manchester United has to do with anything (the answer is nothing). The movie is actually about the Japanese terrorist-socialist group. They were infamously violent (and young); stories about the organization sound more like myth.

The film looks at the Asama Sansou Event in particular - the Japanese equivalent of The Davidian Church invasion in Waco Texas, sort of.

But here's the kicker - Jim O'Rourke did the music for the film.

[Update: O'Rourke talks about the film director (Koji Wakamatsu) in this clip on Wakamatsu's website.]

International Planetary

Here's a great article about Shan Sa - Chinese expat author in Paris whose new book is about Tokyo. She won an award for "The Girl Who Played Go" and she's not pro-Japan or China or Europe, but writes locative narratives that necessarily involve politics.

Link.

Also did anyone watch the Sox kill the Indians last night? At one point in their commentary, an unusually unsympathetic Joe Buck said of "Japanese import Daisuke Matsuzaka":

His gyroball is just an overglorified screwball.

Later, either he or Tim McCarver got all samurai on Matsuzaka:

The word Matsuzaka used was atone. He wants to atone for Game 3 by winning Game 7. It's been difficult transitioning from the Japanese league...but no matter his facial expression, Matsuzaka has a real passion for this team.

I.e. His face is totally placid, but he's ready to seppuku to The Series.


And speaking of the baseball love affair between US and Japan, Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters (best. team. name...EVER) manager Trey Hillman has been acquired by the Kansas City Royals. I really don't mean to let the nip on my shoulder get the better of me, but it's truly heartening to see Asian athletes be taken seriously. Even when they're American athletes coaching...Ham Fighters. Oh man, what I'd GIVE to run their PR.

Whoah. Viz Media has a blog. (see their homepage)

So a couple of nights ago I waxed business savvy about blogging with some friends and came up with the following three cents:

1. The hierarchy of blogs: livejournals are at the bottom of the totem pole. (I'd say it's actually MySpace blogs, but that's not fair to all the entertainer blogs kids seem to dig so much.)

Right above livejournals is the corporate blog, and just above that is the media blog, but the king of the blog is the self-named domain.

2. The thing with blogs is that bloggers are not tyrants. That's why when tyrants (executive heads, sales people) start corporate business blogs, they suck. Non-tyrants can smell each other out. Proof of the blogosphere's lack of tyranny:

Ever notice how wonderfully little litigation you read about over blogright? Note: blogrights are not the same as trademark or copyright, so when Blue Chip Monster sues Bambi's Mom Blog for leaking information, it's just more coporate deer hunting.

See, bloggers don't sue. They whine about "netiquette" and will hate on each other through comments boards or snide remarks, but borrowing is still borrowing is still borrowing. I mean look at blog-design alone! No one is taking anyone else to court over borrowed templates and improvements on xml. Talk of theft is only made by creative types to friends who don't care. Not lawyers.
So, I rue the day blogs become as ceased and desisted as the rest of the world.
God rue the day I become nostalgic for spam...

3. Ex-Vertical colleage Kerim and I agreed we'd do whatever it took to coin my neologism:

XENOAPATHY

It's not quite phobia, but simple indifference to ethnic diveristy. I thought of this term when describing New England. If you coined the term already, sorry. If not, consider this my blogright.

This is sounding like a drunken rant. It's just chicken soup, folks.

Word of the Day: Pucker