I admit I stole this idea from a picture a friend sent me (I don't know who had the original idea), but I couldn't resist doing my version 😹 #CatsOfMastodon#Food
This is the first of 金井美恵子 Mieko Kanai's books I've read (unfortunately, despite having written more than 30 books and enjoying a cult following in Japan, very few of her works have been translated into English, and even this one was written 25 years ago but only translated into English last year), and I loved it. So much so that I already ordered her "Oh, Tama!: A Mejiro Novel" from the local bookshop.
It's almost entirely an inner monologue, written in long, meandering sentences, that quickly makes you feel you are right inside Natsumi's head, a middle-class housewife and mother in Tokyo, describing an often stifling, routine life. But it's not without humour, and there are some very funny and sharp observations that made me laugh out loud. And while it may seem chaotic on the surface, it's cleverly constructed - e.g. I loved how a passage where Natsumi lists the layout and exact contents of her local supermarket in painstaking detail makes an identical reappearance right at the end of the book.
And Polly Barton's translation is stunning - it can't have been easy to translate a book like this, whose dense sentences more often than not span multiple pages (the opening sentence alone is at least four pages long), and wildly skip between first and third person perspectives and narratives.
Today I learned what my hairstyle is called in Japanese: 坊主 (ぼうず、bouzu), shaven head or closed cropped hair. It literally means Buddhist monk, for fairly obvious reasons.
Another fun monk-related term is 赤ん坊 (あかんぼう、akanbou).,meaning baby, but literally "red monk" (although in this instance I believe 坊 means little, or "person who is" rather than monk, but monk makes it funnier and easier to remember 😁).
Wow I'm speechless, this is the best live video I've seen in a while.
Take Dabda / 다브다, a great S Korean math rock band, add an additional drum kit and make that additional drummer Takashi Kashikura from toe, and what you get is this. Absolute math rock perfection. 🥰🤩😍
流星の絆 (Ties of Shooting Stars), a TBS series from 2008 now on Netflix (based on a crime novel by 東野圭吾 Keigo Higashino), is very good. And as a bonus, I learned in the final episode that the Japanese for Velcro is マジックテープ (majikkutepu, magic tape). 😁
I was just reminded that for the past two years, I did a "favourite albums of 66.6% of this year" post. So here's mine for 66.6% 2024 (as usual, mostly bands you've probably never heard of 😂):
ZAZEN BOYS: らんど (Japanese fuck-knows-what-genre-this-is-its-just-zazen-boys). A love letter to Tokyo, although 向井秀徳 Shutoku Mukai would probably not agree.
toe: NOW I SEE THE LIGHT (Japanese math rock)
And So I Watch You From Afar: Megafauna (Northern Irish post rock)
つしまみれ tsushimamire: バンドは水物 (Japanese art punk /indie)
It doesn't happen very often, but occasionally I still find a new Japanese math rock band I didn't know about (this time because they followed me on Instagram).
Here's the catchily named "Aftermaths of the perfect horizontal urban development", according to their website often active in the Shibuya Ward and Setagaya Ward of Tokyo.
Babies in the market - Aftermaths of the perfect horizontal urban development - YouTube
The amazing Senyawa at the ICA tonight. Unlike anything you've ever heard (probably), an intense mix of traditional Indonesian music and experimental noise. #Senyawa#BabaYagasHut
Ha, this really made me laugh, because I completely forgot all about it. Back in Switzerland in the early 80s I was in a number of punk/punk-adjacent (and often not entirely serious) bands, as well as creating our own fanzines.
Sometimes the fanzines were just a way to write articles (and stupid interviews) about ourselves, as in this case. 😅
It's amazing that there are collectors out there that still have copies of these things (I certainly don't), this also happened a few years ago when someone discovered a self-recorded cassette releases of one of the DIY punk bands I was in...
The mock interview here has already helpfully been translated into English by the owner of this blog.
I would say "enjoy", but "cringe" is the better word 😂
ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅInquisitive hacker, CTO @ Ipsos Healthcare. Swiss-Brit. Runner. 🇨🇭 🇬🇧 🇯🇵I love cats, japan, books, drums, cooking, tinkering with technology, and am obsessed with (mostly weird, experimental, or noisy) music. 日本語を勉強しています。From Zürich, in London for over 30 years.Profile pic by LINE's AI セルフィーBanner pic my own, taken at 有楽町