2nd Law

GET THE BODY YOU'VE ALWAYS WANTED!

2008-06-29T22:02:00.005-04:00

Learn all about how I lost 57 lbs and became several shades tanner in a little over 4 days by tricking my body into processing donuts differently...

My life was so hard. I used to eat lots of food and not gain weight. Then, one morning, I looked in the mirror and realized I had gained 57 lbs. I tried everything imaginable to ditch the weight: diet pills, miracle drugs, feng shui, even hypnosis, but nothing ever seemed to work. Then one day I learned about this cool opportunity over the Internet. It's called the "4 day donut diet."

Basically, it works through a scientific mechanism known as "compositional simulation channeling." You see, the rubber tire shape of society's donut actually mimics the way those pesky extra pounds distribute themselves in the overweight person's body. In other words, by consuming literal donut "rubber tires," you actually trick your body into getting confused, and not knowing which wheel-shaped structure to cling to. Ergo, the more donuts you consume, the better your chances of tricking away larger masses of body fat.

The skin tanning mechanism has to do with how your body absorbs the frosting and sprinkles on the donut. I really like sprinkles, so now, even though I am white, most people mistake me for biracial.

A New Century for the Struggle

2008-06-11T22:33:00.013-04:00

Clinton's loss is not the last stand.

At this moment in the race, when Hillary Clinton’s climactic Primary exit and ensuing media-wide VP speculation are on the public mind, the gender stakes could not be higher.

Clinton has been rightly accused of cannibalizing some of the gender double standards that have plagued her campaign: exaggerating the real sexism she has faced to the detriment of American feminist (and her own) interests. That gender has confronted her campaign as an obstacle in substantial and insidiously complex ways is not under question – so much is obvious. What remains to be seen: how will we narrate and learn from the role that gender has played in shaping political prejudice during this campaign?

Of the many pitfalls, one strikes me as the most troubling:

We learn nothing. We relapse into a retrograde dialogue of Second Wave clichés: glass ceilings, several strategically hyper-visible examples of women who have defied glass ceilings, patronizing pundit verbiage, boiling anger, rigid and polarized discourse – greater marginalization.

The media has depicted Clinton’s die-hard female support base (many of whom are now threatening to vote out of vindictiveness and against their own interests for John McCain) all too accurately as angry and bitter. If feminist discourse in this country is to vitalize itself again, to rise above the old lackluster clichés, it has to transcend its emotional impulses.

Of course, in many examples it already has. Unfortunately, codified media representations of gender have a flair for making visible feminism’s emotional displays above its intellectual ones.

This is a moment ripe for evoking old feelings about gender – ones that inspired action and social change in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s in unison with the Civil Rights Movement and a radicalized political landscape – and infusing them with fresh insight and political context. After several decades of silence, stigma and redundancy, feminism cannot afford to squander this opportunity on bitterness and anachronism.

We’ve come all too close before to undermining our own efforts during the final stretch:

In 1914, the Woman’s Party started campaigning against Democratic Congressional candidates – even those who supported woman’s suffrage – in order to establish the legitimacy of the women’s power base, and thus presumably to inspire fear in its male political allies. In 1916, the WP even opposed Woodrow Wilson’s reelection. (Wilson’s support during his second term proved utterly intrinsic to the legislation of women’s suffrage). The women hoped to light a spark under the Democrats, who, despite their vocal support for suffrage and Congressional majority, had failed to pass any pro-suffrage legislation during Wilson’s first term. Instead, the WP risked alienating its vital allies and undermining the successes of its own campaign for enfranchisement.

We now stand on the brink of making major strides for women, but we have a long, long way to go.

Professionally, women still earn less than men for performing the exact same work, with the exact same responsibilities and under the exact same titles; even very successful women also face greater difficulty than men in achieving executive positions. Women still feel pressure to abandon their career aspirations in exchange for traditional domestic stability. Women endure sexual violence (both physically and psychologically), rape and body image pressure. The trafficking and bondage of impoverished women currently fuels over 10 percent of Asia’s economy, and certainly afflicts many women on the American home front. Women are patronized when they enact stereotypical gender roles, but then face ostracism and ridicule when they do not.

While our struggle is complex and temporally indefinite, there is a lot of ground that we stand to gain. Women alone are not condemned to fight the battle for gender equality. Barack Obama could and would do a lot more than John McCain to advance feminist interests in this country.

I voted for Hillary Clinton, was (and still am) impressed by her political resume and deeply identify with her psychologically; but it's time to move on. Although we cannot change the past, we can ensure that we will repeat the past by choosing to ignore its lessons. Let’s harness this moment of national attention and remind Americans of the urgent need for greater gender equality in this country.

(It looks like Nick Kristof and I are on the same page. Read his 6/12/08 New York Times op-ed).

MTV's "The Paper"

2008-05-14T11:20:00.014-04:00

Teenage reality journalism

MTV's latest addition to its bustling repertory of American suburban high school teen reality drama, The Paper, is rapidly becoming a cult phenomenon. Unlike the Laguna Beach crowd, these neophyte Floridian journalists do not hook up with each other's boyfriends, sexualize themselves in tightly fitting designer apparel, or use the word "gnarly" upwards of 7 times in one sentence. Yet, the intensity of their drama rivals even the most fraught of 17 year-old beachside love triangles.

The Paper airs Mondays on MTV at 10:30 PM, riding the coattails of its MTV reality alter-ego, The Hills: a reality institution which depicts the plights of several hotshot Hollywood 20-somethings, who live in posh apartments while not having real jobs and drinking alluringly-hued cocktails that match their eyeshadow. Although I tuned in at 10:29 PM, I still caught the last several minutes of the season finale of The Hills, which managed to spill several minutes over its allotted time slot. Audrina and Lauren were sitting on opposing plushly upholstered furniture items. Audrina narrated her insights into how society can be manipulative while we viewers were confronted by the rawness of Lauren's emotional reaction. The anxiety was overwhelming: all of America bit its lip in anticipation of whether Lauren's tears would undermine the integrity of her liberally administered eye makeup. (It was a cliffhanger).

But I digress. The Paper follows a group of precociously ambitious Florida high school newspaper editors. In the first episode, several outstanding contenders vie for the coveted Editor-in-Chief position.

The Contenders

Amanda
Watching Amanda, one must forcibly stifle the urge to blurt out: “her nails are just like buttah!” Think, Barbra Streisand, but 17, Floridian and with a flair for high school journalism. Amanda’s bedroom confessionals, during which she vents her anxieties to a sympathetic household terrier, essentially structure and establish our loyalties in the bitter newspaper office rivalries. Viewers cannot help identifying with this neurotically quirky, teenage Woody Allen-cum-Streisand – one episode culminates with Amanda downing an entire venti of Starbucks latte when the boy she likes delays in answering her phone message. She brims with personality, and, although several inches taller, possesses all the spirited vitality and aggression of First Republic France’s Napoleon Bonaparte.

Adam
Although a self-proclaimed rival of Amanda now, in several years, when Amanda Lorber becomes an international gay icon, and her former classmate Adam Brock comes out of the closet, he will worship her. Adam is the Cypress Bay Circuit’s ruthlessly savvy Business Manager. With a penchant for ad sales, musical theater and unelicited, high-intensity emotional outbursts, Adam earns himself the merited distinction of Cypress Bay High’s “Most Dramatic” in the newspaper’s Superlatives Issue. Well deserved, Adam.

Giana and Trevor
Like the “It” couple in a B Hollywood romance flick, but with slightly less character depth. Trevor and Giana hold down the prerequisite irreverent teen eye roll and makeout quotas for the show. Our indifference quickly turns into revulsion when these two express their own interests as antithetical to protagonist Amanda’s. Presuming they ever reach higher levels of psychological maturity, I predict these two will feel the most embarrassed down the road when MTV airs the reruns.

Alex
Amanda’s Machiavellian #2 rarely sports his jeans less than 4 inches below his hips. He may be skinny, but that don’t let that fool you; he is also a coward. Alex grapples with his simultaneous desires to be liked by Adam, Giana and Trevor (Amanda’s opponents) and to agree with things Amanda says when they have conversations. He will be most remembered for designing an Amanda look-alike avatar in a virtual boxing video game and KO’ing her as revenge for surpassing him in the Editor-in-Chief competition. Schadenfreude’s a bitch, Alex.

Why Watch?

We all have our guilty pleasures. It is healthy for the human mind to unwind in front of a shallow mirror. The tensions endemic to the Democratic Primaries have grown as monotonous as an ‘80’s Michael J. Fox spin-off in its 3rd season. Yet, the conflicts in MTV’s The Paper are new and ripe to our reality-dubious gazes. This show, although blatantly edited to advance a recognizable storyline, literally glamorizes teenage diligence, academic sobriety and budding eccentricity. Furthermore, unlike its West Coast reality rivals, The Paper’s dramatics are over-the-top to the point of self-awareness. Can it be? Has lowbrow media “irony” finally transcended its grizzly fate of Morissette malapropism?

At least The Paper explores more interesting questions than some of its reality predecessors. Which 17 year-old striving journalist will prove her/himself the most meticulous at copy editing? Whose meta-confessional will be the most articulate? Will the editors agree on grey scale for the paper’s graphic design layout? Will the Business Manager set a new record for ad sales?

Watch and find out, my friends. Stream full episodes of The Paper right now and then tune in to MTV for new episodes on Mondays at 10:30 PM.

Gender in Race

2008-02-12T00:31:00.001-05:00

On the facebook.com, there is a group titled, "Hilary Clinton Shouldn't Run For President She Should Just Run The Dishes." Abysmal spelling and grammar aside, really, this is sexist. If you disagree with me or believe I am overreacting when I say I am deeply offended, let me ask you, how would you would react if a similar facebook group existed about Obama with the insinuation that black men ought to be limited professionally to capacities like restaurant dishwasher, the way they were before Civil Rights Movement? Do you find that flavor of prejudiced jibe more distasteful than these reckless claims that a woman as professionally revered and accomplished as Hillary Clinton would better suit a more domestic sphere than Oval Office?

It seems to me that Hillary Clinton's campaign has been haunted by a host of double standards. There are the well publicized examples:

1) Hillary Clinton is a frigid pillar of political androgeny.
2) So called "crocodile tears" are shed.
3) My God, she's a hysterical woman!! Call Dr. Freud, Herr K.'s at it again.

There are also the subtler double standards. At first, her gender seemed like an impediment to her foreign policy credibility. Now, the simultaneity of her gender and Iraq War record somehow reduce her to a loathsome hypocrite -- you know, a lot of Democrats voted for war when Clinton did. Based on Obama's record, if he had been in the U.S. Senate at the time (which he wasn't), he most likely would have voted "present."

Abstract relationships between Hillary's gender in the context of Bill Clinton's promiscuity make her the object of widespread white male American hatred. This, her "enlightened, non-hating" opposition argues, undermines her electability and therefore definitively means she would not be able to defeat John McCain. What about how Ronald Reagan launched his candidacy in the late '70's by race baiting segregationist white Southern towns and talking about States' Rights? When did this tautology gain credibility that a marginalized gender is electorally inferior to a marginalized race? And whenever people use that argument, why can't they ever speak on behalf of their own beliefs and impressions? It is not persuasive to say you are voting against your own convictions to follow the sway of "ignorant and superficial party voters" because this somehow predicts and addresses presidential “electability” 9 months from now.

If Hillary is so unelectable, why do so many G.O.P. pundits and strategists favor Obama?

Why does Obama elude responsibility for his team's flirtation with dirty campaign tactics, while the smallest whiff of foul play from the Hillary side is heedlessly interpreted as incontrovertible evidence of her treacherous character?

Why am I the only who cares about the Exelon nuclear scandal while so many people are pointing fingers at the Clintons' corporate ties?

How do Obama's lack of administrative experience, repeated legislative abstentions, centrist politics, corporate/lobbyist ties, bitter and divisive engagements with Clinton, campaign slurs against Clinton and ability to mimic rhythmically the oratory tendencies of Martin Luther King Jr. yield him the "higher moral ground?"

One feels tempted these days to treat it as an inevitability that the next U.S. President will not be the woman. Historically, they are not too far off -- black men won the vote in this country half a century before women.

According to the Fifteenth Amendment, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State, on account of race, color, previous condition of servitude."

As suffragettes such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott argued, It would have been so easy to include the word "sex" -- which was deliberately omitted.

Why couldn’t the word “sex” have been included?

Frederick Douglass suggested an answer to this question in an 1869 speech comparing the plights of women to those of Southern freedmen:

“When women, because they are women, are dragged from their homes and hung upon lamp-posts; when their children are torn from their arms and their brains dashed to the pavement; when they are objects of insult and outrage at every turn; when they are in danger of having their homes burnt down over their heads; when their children are not allowed to enter schools; then they will have an urgency to obtain the ballot.”

In response to a member of the audience’s inquiry, “Is that not all true about black women?”, Douglass answered, “Yes, yes, yes; it is true of the black woman, but not because she is a woman, but because she is black.”

Is that how we feel today? Do Americans believe that Obama’s race gives him a more legitimate claim to his political “transcendence” of his race? Whereas Obama is admired for his ability simultaneously to embody and transcend his race, isn’t Clinton often mocked and scorned for at once representing and defying cultural and biological (these two are not the same things) presumptions about her gender?

I am not suggesting that the history of gender vs. racial adversities in this country somehow entitles Clinton to the presidency over Obama – that is the last thing I would ever propose. I do not believe it is a good idea to advocate a candidate on the basis of her/his race or gender. That is not how a successful Democracy operates (even though America is technically a Republic with a long track record for stolen elections).

When you are next struck by the instinct to react critically to Hillary Clinton, challenge yourself to understand whether you would/do hold Obama to the same standards.

From Myth to King

2008-02-10T13:41:00.000-05:00

I do not particularly dislike Obama as a candidate. It is true, I think Clinton would make both a more electable Democratic nominee and a more administratively competent leader than Obama. I do not deny this. I will tell you what compels me to rally behind Clinton: Obama’s support base (of course, with some exceptions) really seems to miss the point of Obama’s candidacy.

When did Obama become the radical, civil rights activist, African-American preacher reverend of the new millennium? Obama is a far cry from the Reverend King Jr. (meticulously rehearsed speech delivery rhythms and intonations aside), or from Medgar Evers or James Meredith. Let’s get this straight. Obama’s domestic politics lean towards the center. He will not stand up to the corporate lobbyist on behalf of the little guy. For example, he has already made significant nuclear reform concessions that favor Exelon, one of his major corporate campaign donors (read about it).

Obama’s longstanding anti-Iraq War sentiment has helped launch his popularity among youth voters, many of whom are getting involved in presidential politics for the first time – it is unfortunate that poll-speculating and sign waving seem to constitute a legitimate “interest” in politics these days. Obama’s antiwar platform has somehow led to his fallacious equation with JFK (who stole the election from Nixon and then started the Vietnam War) or Bobby Kennedy – who, before his assassination, ran on an antiwar platform not against a Clinton, but against Hubert Humphrey, who believed that we should continue the war in Vietnam. Clinton’s current position on Iraq essentially mirrors Obama’s.

The country is apparently tired of the same old party legacy candidates – another Clinton?! Yet, somehow this fatigue with the status quo has led us blindly to the pseudo-status quo. As with his race, Obama dexterously manages to transcend in the eyes of voters what he literally, physically embodies. Because Obama votes “present” on a vast range of controversial pieces of legislation (including a bill advocating reproductive rights), is this supposed to elevate him above the party politics that, until now, he has made only token gestures toward combating? Or is it his lack of Congressional experience that makes him appear such a radical candidate?

By Obama’s racial transcendence, I mean that white Democratic and Independent primary voters do not seem to feel threatened or marginalized by Obama’s Kenyan heritage. Male voters apparently find Obama’s race less of a barrier than Clinton’s gender in terms of identity politics. Why shouldn’t they? Obama and his advisors are currently toying with the idea of advocating class-based affirmative action over race- / ethnicity-based policies as a strategy for luring more working class white voters away from Clinton.

On most domestic issues, Obama is even to the right of Clinton – healthcare, energy policy, job creation and subprime regulation to name a few examples. Yes, Obama opposed the war from the beginning (when he was in the State Senate) while Clinton (in the US senate) voted for the war initially. They are both against the war now, and neither proposes immediate troop withdrawals. Let’s not forget, it was Bush’s incompetence that made Iraq such a fiasco. Even after duping the senate, history shows that a Reagan- or a H.W. Bush- leaning conservative leader would have withdrawn the troops after war’s initial signs of adversity (e.g. Lebanon and the Gulf War). If we really want to pull off this troop withdrawal, we need administrative competence. Based on what experience would Obama’s efforts to end the war be better orchestrated than Clinton’s? Based on his eloquent rhetoric? Or perhaps his earlier opposition than Clinton’s to the initial Iraq invasion five years ago when Obama was still in the State Senate?

I think both Clinton and Obama represent the interests of status quo party politics. Except these days, the status quo has been transformed by Bush’s hawkish, partisan, war-waging, tax-cutting, recession-inducing ineptitudes. Right now, we do not need the change (then maybe we would have nominated Kucinich or Gravel, or even Edwards); we need a change. Believe it or not, Obama is not the only Democratic candidate capable of change – in so far as “change” denotes a shift from Bush’s neo-conservatism. Please, if you are going to support Obama, at least be realistic about the degree of change his candidacy represents.

Why I support Hillary Clinton

2008-02-02T14:36:00.001-05:00

I strongly support Hillary Clinton as a presidential candidate.

Why you ask?

1) Her positions on the issues are closer to mine than Obama's. She is to the left of Obama particularly on domestic issues -- e.g. healthcare, energy policy, job creation, how to handle the subprime crisis, etc.

2) I believe her experience would make her a more effective and competent leader than Obama. At the debates, Hillary's legislative experience is apparent in her detailed and concisely articulated strategies for how she would address a host of pressing issues after taking office. Despite Obama's remarkable eloquence, he sounds to me less like he is speaking from political experience (state senate does not provide rigorous training and Obama has been far less active than Clinton in the US senate), and more like he has just been listening to too many policy wonks.

3) I do not deem "electability" a compelling basis for deciding my vote. To revise my use of gender in this explication, I am skeptical of the circular, gender-involved reasoning I frequently come across from voters who have decided on Obama in spite of a closer sense of alignment with Clinton's platform.

For example, people tell me they are choosing Obama because they think other Americans hate Clinton enough not to vote for her. Gender, the Clinton marriage, past White House sex scandals and so forth frequently emerge among the reasons why people whom I know argue that other Americans would not vote for Clinton.

This is all very tautological and confusing, I agree. A byzantine line of sophistry that makes me suspicious of whether certain voters hide behind "ignorant Americans’" reasons for disliking Clinton, perhaps as a way to avoid their own.

4) I think either Clinton or Obama is capable of beating either Romney or McCain. It is fallacy that Obama is the only candidate who could win for the party.

5) It makes me skeptical of the Obama base's degree of longstanding commitment (the trendy youth activism for example) how little so many of his supporters seem to recognize Obama's position on many of the issues. A lot of voters believe that Obama is to the left of Clinton, which just isn't true.

6) The G.O.P. smear campaign media blitz will be a powerful force in this election. We know what they have against the Clintons and can feel confident that Hillary is arming herself against their ammo. She has the resources and experience to deflect whatever dirt they throw at her.

Now, this is where I think Obama's candidacy is a serious risk for the party's future. We don't know what they will use against Obama. His reputation has not really been through the mill yet.

Do not forget what happened to John Kerry in '04. The Dems chose him on the basis of his Vietnam War record, hoping to exploit Bush's evasion of active war duty. Voters simply did not anticipate how the Bush team would "Swiftboat" Kerry and discredit his candidacy on the basis of experiences which should have made him the stronger, not the weaker, candidate. Further, think of how Reagan launched his presidential bid in the late '70's by visiting racist Southern white towns and reassuring voters by making insinuations about his platform's commitment to upholding segregation.

If you are determining candidacy on the basis of "electability," do not underestimate the power of latent American racism. Speaking of which, how will Obama hold up among Latina/o voters?

___
A lot will happen between now and November. I feel I know Clinton better as a candidate: I am as confident about her ability to deliver legislatively as I am about her team's ability to recognize and deflect the immense media smear campaign that the G.O.P. will inevitably orchestrate against either candidate.

Further, I place my support behind Clinton because she represents my left-leaning political ideals. She is more committed to government intervention in:
a) Creating health care mandates and viable coverage plans for Americans.
b) Creating job growth. (Our job market is officially in a recession).
c) Energy policy.
d) Placing pressure on faulty lenders and increasing regulatory pressure in addressing the subprime mortgage crisis.

These types of positions represent my ideals and longstanding political commitments.

Further, I genuinely believe she will make a more competent and effective leader -- she, unlike Obama, has already enjoyed the opportunity to learn from her own mistakes and to establish how her power politics will not intervene with her legislative agendas. I also believe she is the more electable candidate. While, on an abstract level based purely how voters feel right now, I believe either Obama or Clinton capable of defeating McCain, I view Obama as the riskier candidate to survive the 9 month race campaign process. With Obama, who is less tested, less experienced and less able to foresee which obstacles may oppose him 6 or 7 months from now, there is simply more room for error.

I support Clinton.

The Binary Flip Flop

2008-01-08T20:37:00.000-05:00

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
-W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”

These past two presidential terms have witnessed a dialectical struggle between the forces of action and consensus, event and its emotionally spun narrative, worthy of Marxism’s emergence from the grips of Europe’s swift industrialization – or fascism’s from Yeats’s post-war Europe.

Whereas the murderous violence of terrorism somehow provided for the mass popularity of war-waging, tax-cutting, border-patrolling conservatism, the nation once again yearns to seek comfort in the arms of its antithesis. The destruction reaped by the attacks of 9/11 shocked us, jarred us and spun us, unbalanced, reeling away from our cores. 9/11 provided an emotional need for a story in which a swash-buckling cowboy protagonist armed its country against the aggressor antagonists of a nascent international islamo-fascismo-jihado-osamamo-terrorist movement. Now that we’ve absorbed our fear and anger by spawning adequate degrees of death, violence and political instability abroad, yet again, we find ourselves reeling.

We’ve sacrificed soldiers while providing for the downfall of a country. We’ve aggravated environmental positive feedback cycles, generating unprecedented increases in the Earth’s carbon reflectivity, thus melting the ice caps and moreover, irreversibly and progressively increasing the rates at which the ice caps melt. We’ve left hardworking American citizens, befallen by cancers and medical tragedies, bankrupt in trying to fend for themselves because their government did not take adequate measures to secure their health coverage. With our faulty loans crises, astronomical military spending and top-down taxation, we’ve brought our nation to the brink of recession. Middle class Americans, the very backbones of our national pride, are afraid to buy themselves holiday presents because of growing doubt and uncertainty about their economical stabilities.

If not in the discounted shopping aisles of American malls and department stores, where can our nation seek solace and put its over-taxed, under-represented, weary souls at ease?

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

As a nation still reeling from its last attempt to will its self-reconciliation by forcing coherence upon its polarities, the last thing we need is to place our confidence in further hollow ideology and smooth-talking rhetoric.

I say we stop talking about change and start enacting responsibility.

It is precisely not the time for ruptured change, Barack Obama; it is time for stability. It is time to subvert the consumerist flip flops that charge our political imaginations and replace them with something more practical, or at least with something that has better traction and ankle support.

Hillary Clinton may not spout idealisms with Obama’s eloquence; her platform may strike us as relatively status quo; we have a right to be skeptical that her administration would not attempt as radical degrees of change as Obama’s might initially. Yet, perhaps !CHANGE! – over-announced, under-rehearsed, keenly antithetical – will just send us spinning farther afield.

Perhaps what this country needs right now is reality: something tested, predictable and feasibly stabilizing.

One step at a time, America. We’ll get there faster in sturdier footwear.

To invoke Kerry and Edwards’ dueling 2004 campaign slogans – Kerry preferred “help is on the way” to Edwards’ “hope is on the way” – whereas there is always a future for hope, today our country needs help.

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2007-10-24T12:22:00.000-04:00

After the Rice Field.

It has been nearly 3 months since my last Rice Field Brues entry and, thus, also since the culmination of my tenure in Inabe, Japan as a rural high school Assistant Language Teacher. What have I been up to these few months past, you inquire?

Since hyperbole is a favored mode of exchange in the blogosphere, I bet I could tell you anything -- fiction, purely fiction, wildly fiction, etc. -- and you would believe me, despite your better instincts, out of a personal penchant for sensationalism. Just imagine, if I told you I'd won the lottery by purchasing a squillion dollar prized -- approx 4,000 euros, or 27 Great British pounds -- bottle of Pepsi Max and have since changed by name to Duchess Ermina Emu and moved into a Xanadu in coastal Sri Lanka, even if you could verify that I was lying by checking the pepsi.com, or the wikipedia.com or DuchessErminaEmu.com, wouldn't it be more pleasurable for you just to take me at my word?

Imagine the possibilities...

You're walking down the street at your 10th year high school reunion. Everyone else looks so good. No, they look great! Wow. How did they attain such opulently resplendent levels of professional, social, financial and aesthetic success in but 10 years? Shh!!! No time for speculating, someone's approaching...

"Hello, (insert your name here), how's it going?"
"Hello, (insert name here of someone from your high school who you still secretly resent), fine thanks. How are you?"
"Well, (this is your name again), quite well in fact. You see, during the ten years past since our high school graduation, not only have I risen to CFO status at a Fortune 500 non-profit company, and become engaged to the younger sibling of one of the protagonist actors on tv's "Heroes", but I've also found the time to co-sponsor a Cambodian sexually abused barnyard animal relief hospital with celebrity philanthropist Angelina Jolie. Further, my letter to the editor of the New York Times regarding the parallels between Sudanese genocide and Hostess brand cupcakes was published last Tuesday. And yourself?"

Uhoh, what are you going to say now? No way your life is as interesting or glamorous as that. I mean, look at you. Your clothes are worn out. Your job is boring and barely pays rent and utilities. You're in between relationships -- neither of which are with the siblings of protagonist players on tv's "Heroes". What could you possibly have to say that would rival how interesting and impressive the world finds your (secretly resented) high school acquaintance's credentials?

"Well, not much new with me. You know, same old, same old."
"I see."
"My dear friend Maggie, however, recently won the Pepsi Max bottle cap "drink-and-win" lottery."
"How charming."
"Oh, rather. She reaped about a squillion dollars, after taxes that is."
"Why, that's almost 27 Great British pounds! That's even more than I earn per dreary annum."
"Quite. What's more, she's changed her name to Duchess Ermina Emu and purchased a Xanadu in coastal Sri Lanka."
(Former high school acquaintance would speak now but can't because fuming with jealousy.)
"Perhaps I'll swing by to South Asia soon for a visit. Something about co-running an avian sanctuary for sodomized Sri Lankan jungle fowl or something really glamorously philanthropic like that."

End scene.

Do you see my point now? Are you not just brimming with excitement over what ilk of meaty invented anecdote I might blog about next?

Of course, even though the satisfaction of identifying with my tall tales might temporarily impede your ethical clarity, journalistic fiction, even when still a version of truth -- albeit an exaggerated one -- creates problems of its own. If you do not believe me, just take a gander at this email I recently received from an old high school acquaintance.

Dear Maggie,
What a fun surprise to hear from you! We haven't spoken in years. Weren't we in the same math class once? Mr. Emu's Algebra 2 class? Good times. It's great you're so successful these days.
Keep In Touch,
Davey

P.S. For some reason I can find no record of your spectacular Pepsi Max bottle cap lottery success on either the pepsi.com or the wikipedia.com.

P.P.S. Also, for some reason this url you sent me does not exist;
http://www.DuchessErminaEmu.com/

Lesson learned, Davey, from now on I shall only blog the truth.

That being said, since last we chatted I have been enjoying a bit of globe trotting. Nothing excessive... from Japan to Australia, Sydney, Cairns, back to Sydney, on to Bangkok, across Cambodia, Siem Reap, Angkor Wat, Phnom Penh, up and over Vietnam, Saigon, Hoi An, Hue, Hanoi, back to Japan, to New York, to Paris, Southern France, Nice, Antibes, Monaco, Eze Ville, on to Ireland, Belfast, Dublin, Limerick, Doolin, Cliffs of Moher, Galway... back to Dublin... back to Paris.

Of course, many interesting things and stories happened to me during my travels. For example, 4 seconds into my plane ride from Bangkok to Sydney I had somehow provoked my seat neighbor to start publicly spanking her pre-school age child who was mid-tantrum because I refused to swap my window seat for his middle one (between him and his mother). That was fun.

The rest of the trip is a kind of a blur. You should check my facebook photo albums. They always remember better than I do.

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2007-07-25T22:09:00.000-04:00

I leave Inabe forever tomorrow.

After a long year of Microsoft Hearts, Ueda-sensei, jetsetting, rice and Freudian malapropisms motivated by misuse of the letters "L" and "R", I would like to conclude my epic saga the only way I see fit: by resuming my narrative of Mizutani-sensei's tumultuous marital life.

Mizutani-sensei approached my desk one afternoon while I was playing Microsoft Hearts. At first I was irritated by the interruption. Then, I realized that I didn't actually want to be playing Microsoft Hearts and felt grateful for the interruption.

"Hello Maggie, are you busy right now?"

We both glanced at my computer screen. Kanai had just thrown down the four of hearts.

"Um, not especially."
"May I have the chance at talk to you then?"

(Just a brief aside, Mizutani-sensei is a younger teacher and still in the process of qualification exams because she failed her interview test last summer.)

"Of course! Of course! What's on your mind?"
"Maggie, now I want to tell you another story about my husband please."

I shifted my position to something more keenly relaxed to accompany my heightened state of anticipation. From issues regarding digitized queens of spades to juicy gossip about Mizutani-sensei's alcoholic two-timing second husband: Inabe's horizon was brightening.

"My husband, he -- "

Mizutani interrupted herself to giggle. I followed in suit hoping to encourage her candidness.

"He get very drunk the other day... I came home to the house. And I find a bad smell."

Mizutani swatted the air in front of her space to render how unpleasant the smell was when she came home.

"I go to the room my husband is in, and I come to learn that the smell is from here."
"Oh?"
"Yes!"

We both giggle again. How exciting!

"What was the smell?"
"The smell... He..."

More giggles.

"He threw up all over himself?"
"No, no, no, no... He..."

...?!!??!...

Visions of Japanese threesomes and stripper perfume flitted across my mind.

"He... PISSED himself!"

Even better.

"HAHAHHAHAAHAHAHH!!!!!!!!"

We both laughed hysterically until the mood turned somber because the story is as thoroughly tragic as it is momentarily funny.

"This is the second time he pisses himself from the drink in three months. He loves the drink. I try to hide it from my son. My son loves him. But I am afraid, when my son gets older, he will find out that his father is... that he is with love to the alcohol."

We share a moment of reflective silence. I really want to assert something of significance that demonstrates how much I recognize Mizutani's plight and identify with her. Unfortunately, language -- ever a barrier -- strangles the moment and makes it awkward. After repeating several times,

"Oh, I'm so sorry. That is a bad situation. It sounds like he has a problem. That is tricky. Haha, funny! No, not so funny. MMmmMHHHmmHNHMMHHMmmmmm. Wow, tough spot."

We part our separate ways: Mizutani returns to her desk and I resume my Microsoft Hearts activity.

In retrospect, I feel strongly that it should bear some sort of cultural value that a Japanese teacher feels comfortable enough with me to share intimate stories about the failures of her personal life -- it is really not customary to do so in Japanese culture.

In January, after returning to Japan from Kwanzukkah Break in Brooklyn, I indulged my negative J-spirits by reading Japanese ex-pat Kyoko Mori's expose, "Polite Lies", about how gendered cultural codes in Japan alienated her and pushed her to move to America where she writes prolifically about how much she hates Japan and how glad she is that she no longer lives there. Kyoko Mori goes into detail, describing how her abusive father carried on multiple affairs, driving her mother to suicide and tearing the whole family apart. Then she proceeds to relate her personal experience to Japan's institutionalized sexism which, she argues, structures its culture on multiple levels -- from women's high-pitched speaking voices to their forced passivity in the face of marital corruption.

Although Mori makes many relevant points, mulling over the details of Mizutani-sensei's marital turbulence, I no longer identify with Mori's arguments to the degree I had when reading her book in January.

Yes, Japanese culture is sexist. If you do not believe me, I invite you to review an earlier Rice Field Brues post which depicts my students' ideas about Japanese gender roles. A brief except from Group 7's findings:

Japan: take off shoes
rice
no divorce
woman cook - men eat

US: do not take off shoes
bread
lots of divorce
men is not man

Yet, focusing exclusively on how Japanese culture codes its sexism somewhat misses the point of Mizutani's story.

To conclude Mizutani's story about how she arrived home one day to find that, for the second time in three months, her thrice divorced, two-timing, much older second husband had drunk too much alcohol and pissed himself: Mizutani objected to the smell, lamented inwardly, cleaned up after him and then, slightly haunted, moved on to her next activity.

If I've learned anything from Japan, it is that discretion, vagueness and subtlety rule the day. One teacher even went so far with his politeness as to say to me,

"Maybe I will miss you."

Really, inserting the maybe makes it more polite. (Though, in this case, the "maybe" is perhaps accidentally honest.)

When I return to New York (thank God!), I expect people to be blunt, rude and grotesquely obscene on a regular basis. There, divorce culture would afford women like Mizutani more options without adding to her alienation and stigma -- you can imagine how ostracized she must feel in the office if she confides her marital scandals to me. Loads of my friends' parents are divorced, and I know many ambitious and empowered career women who would book themselves a room in a hotel before cleaning up their two-timing older husbands' drunken urine.

Yet, do women in America, even in New York, still not feel psychologically marginalized on the basis of gender? Do American women still not withstand emotional and physical abuse from their husbands?

I guess I am heading toward an obvious point here, that other nations beside Japan are complicit in sexism. Perhaps, then, it is the ways in which Japan and America are similar, at least as much as the ways in which they differ culturally, that make me feel alienated and vulnerable living here.

Life in Japan has been uncanny for me -- what haunts me is how recognizable the things I find culturally objectionable become when I allow myself the space to think about them honestly.

In America, many women have found an outspoken and frank language in which to discuss their concerns -- and then appropriated their own voice and stylized it into an amplified echo of its original purpose. (*Many women, not all: others still pursue radical projects of nuanced contemplation about society's deeply embedded gender inequalities). The extreme passiveness surrounding female culture in Japan constitutes its own form of stylized resistance. Women recognize their culture's expectations of them, resign themselves to it and then appropriate it as a weapon of defiance: silence and submission can speak louder in a guilty man's ears than a beating heart buried under a floorboard.

Of course, there is no substitute for a dignified, intellectually-charged language of nuanced meditation about the psycho-politico-sexual dynamics of societal marginalization and its repercussions regarding the domain of gender. Yet, to assert some grain (or rice grain if you will) of relevance to my original reflection upon my life in Japan, I have learned something this year...

I have learned that it would be meaningless for me to react negatively to Japanese society if I did not already have ambivalent feelings toward my own American culture. Gender, rice and Microsoft Hearts aside, some day, when I am home in the States and feeling stifled but not quite sure why, perhaps I can understand and ease my inertia by looking back on the wisdom gained during my JET year in Japan.

That being said, I deem it relevant to note, you can only buy so many chocolate bars before discovering -- to your total shock -- that they are in fact made of mashed white rice and red bean paste before you form negative feelings about a foreign culture.

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2007-06-20T02:22:00.000-04:00

I still hate Inabe...

My Dearest Rice Field Brues Goers,

Please excuse the extended delay between my last RFB entry and this humble missive of present. You see, I have been enjoying, dare I say, positive experiences during my time abroad: a romantic getaway to Shanghai, the thrill of moving my desk at work to a slightly better part of the office, a 10 day Habitat for Humanity trip in the Philippines and other such glorious adventures. Long story short, try as hard as I did, I could not seem to impose my characteristic scathing sarcasm and negativity on these heartwarming journeys.

Let's return, then, to the scene of my unrest and think about how I've managed to fill the gaping hole in my heart at work since Ueda-sensei left the office and went on maternity leave...

While Ueda left school to squeeze out more infant pariahs, I continued to hate work but grew more visible in doing so and, thus, have made friends with a couple other teachers who also hate the school, bureaucracy and Japanese "inaka" (rural) life.

It all started innocently enough...

A 49 year-old cad of a JTE with big white capped teeth and fierce penchant for animated Disney films, Yamazoe-sensei, threw a paper airplane at my head one afternoon and started shouting at me.

"I am Buzz Lightyear! Take me to your leader! Buzz Lightyear says, "To infinity... and BEYOND!""

I smiled and remotely contemplated turning my iPod down.

"Do you know the movie Toy Story?!"
"Yes."
"To infinity and beyond!"
"Heh, er, yes... Um, Buzz Lightyear."
"HAHHahahahaaahH!!!! YES!!! Buzz Lightyear! Buzz Lightyear! Great!"
"Sugoi" (Japanese for great).
"Other Japanese Teachers of English do not know Buzz Lightyear... it will be our little secret."

Yamazoe-sensei winked at me and walked away. I put my headphones back on.

The next day...

Mizutani-sensei, a young, high-end designer brand-sporting comrade of Yamazoe-sensei's, who, oddly enough, also has capped teeth, approached me after class one morning.

"Hi, Maggie. Can we talk for a moment?"
"Sure thing."
"So you are friends with Yamazoe-sensei?"
"Sure."
"Great," plucking at Tiffany's heart bracelet, "I am also a friend of Yamazoe-sensei... He is the only one who understands."
"Um... yeah. He sure is."

Although adequately odd, I did not think much of this conversation until a couple weeks later when Mizuntani-sensei and I were walking back to the office after class.

We strolled along the hallway and entered the staff office. Mizutani pointed to another female JTE who vaguely resembled her in that she also appeared to have spent upwards of 4 hours selecting her outfit that morning -- and is also named Mizutani-sensei.

I looked up and smiled, not really knowing what was going on.

She pointed again, even more ostentatiously at the other Mizutani-sensei, who, by this point, was sitting less than 4 feet away from where we were standing, made a sour face and several other gestures I presumed to signify that the 2 Mizutani's did not much care for one another.

I nodded. All was well, until, later that week...

I received a text message from Mizutani:

"Hi. Sorry to bother you today. I think I will be able to go tomorrow. I am feeling better. I was so busy today but nobody but Yamazoe-sensei helped me. I was so frustrated. In addition, Mizutani-sensei is nasty to me. (Between you and me please) I feel like leaving this school. Anyway see you tomorrow!"

Although the repeated allusions to her afternoon's frustration and presumption that I had worried she would fail to attend work tomorrow -- JTE's are known to attend school in germ-sealing surgical masks before taking a sick day -- slightly baffled me, the basic idea did not escape my notice:

At last, I had an office ally, or comrade if you will, with whom to share my hatred of all things Inabe Sogo!

Rapidly, our friendship blossomed. In other words, in exchange for her sympathetic ears whilst I ranted about how many fewer rice fields there are in New York City than in Inabe, I joined her in mocking the other Mizutani, and in discussing -- during class, while our students were doing their pairwork -- how much of a two-faced tramp that "other Mizutani" is.

We even exchanged tidbits about our personal lives. Well, by that I mean I told her that my boyfriend is also an ALT who lives in the south of Mie prefecture and then she proceeded to divulge excessively intimate details about her marriage to a thrice-divorced, much older Japanese man.

Every Monday morning now, Mizutani approaches my desk with a handful chocolate candies and fiery discourse about the perversities of deception and marital life that would have rivaled even Shakespeare's sonnets. For example,

"Last weekend my husband and I took our son to the zoo."
"Oh, that's nice. Did you have fun?"
"Yes, it was a good day."
"Great! Last weekend I -- "
"That is, of course, until later that night when my cell phone ran out of batteries."
"Oh, that's too bad."
"I had to look through my husbands bag for the battery charger, and when I did, I found..."

Mizutani leaned in closer and broke into a whisper.

"I found A PORNOGRAPHY!"

I snickered.

"I was very mad."
"Oh no, that's too bad."
"I yelled at him and we had a huge fight and then my son came in and started crying."
"I'm very sorry to hear that."
"Then I did something very sneaky."
"Heavens, what did you do?"
(Giggling hysterically to herself) "I sent my husband to put my son back to bed and then, when he was gone, I took his pornography book and I tore it into pieces and pieces."

She started laughing. I started laughing. In a few seconds, we were howling.

"I am scared that he is cheating on me."
"Really?"
"Yes, he cheated on his other wives."
"Then why did you marry him?"
"Because my son needed a father. Now my son loves him. I am afraid if I divorce him then it would hurt my son."

I looked up at Mizutani and felt a deep sense of empathy -- disrupted only by my inner contemplation of how many hours that morning it must have taken her to apply her makeup.

"All of the other teachers at the office already think it is a scandal that I divorced my first husband."
"Really, that seems so bizarre to me. Divorce is very normal in New York."

I looked around the room. The other Mizutani, in a tight flesh-toned skirtsuit, was flirting with several male teachers. The other Mizutani has never been divorced before and lives in a temple -- literally -- because she is married to a monk.

One of the teachers she was flirting with has a reputation for impregnating numerous female high school students and then pressuring them to get abortions -- the most recent was a 14 year-old ichi-nensei (1st grade) student.

After that conversation, I could not escape my recognition of how Japanese society -- its gender double-standards and all -- had cornered my new friend, Mizutani-sensei, into an unfortunate situation. Thus, I've felt compelled to survey my students about various hypothetical situations regarding the environment as part of a 3-class lesson about global warming.

In the absence of a resolution to Mizutani's ever deteriorating marriage story, I leave you with my students' ecological wisdom:

#1) If I saw somebody littering an empty packet on the street, I would...

Student 1: be angry.
Student 2: have a complete disregard for it.
Student 3: I pick up.
Student 4: give you a word of advice.
Student 5: warn empty packet to throw somebady.
Student 6: be angly.
Student 7: you put that person a piece of my mind.
Student 8: pass without stopping.

#2) If I discovered the factory I work in was polluting the environment, I would...

Student 1: be sad.
Student 2: send an anonymous letter to the police office.
Student 3: appeal my owner.
Student 4: let it lie.
Student 5: confess a crime.
Student 6: keep quiet.
Student 7: retire this fuctory.
Student 8: resign from one's job.

#3) If I were Minister for the Environment, I would...

Student 1: preach to people.
Student 2: I would make a heavy law about an environment.
Student 3: clean the liver.
Student 4: strictly collection of garbage by type.
Student 5: do my best.
Student 6: collect taxes from the environment.
Student 7: pay a heavy fine by law.
Student 8: put up a notice, "NO LITTER".

#4) If the government tried to open a nuclear power plant near my house, I would...

Student 1: break a thing to bits.
Student 2: moved abroad.
Student 3: build a power plant of the wind.
Student 4: away to a safe place.
Student 5: say to change the place.
Student 6: take the train.
Student 7: move to the country.
Student 8: not build it near my house.

News for the Politically Literate

2007-06-12T01:33:00.000-04:00

CIA rejects secret jails report. Director Michael Hayden threatens to post classified documents on his MySpace page.

Paris Hilton is sent back to jail. As a result, several teenagers in suburb somewhere learn true injustice of US penal system.

Heavy rains set off flooding in southern China. One inner-city Brooklynite wonders whether rumors true that China skies rain only crispy duck and soy sauce.

Marijuana law in Connecticut gains ground. According to new law, it will be acceptable to partake in cannabis only whilst playing golf, wearing white polo and/or making subtly prejudiced remarks against blacks and judaism.

US viewers watch Sopranos finale. Local NJ police officer "stunned" to learn Tony Soprano part of mafia.

Spurs show no mercy in dismantling Cavaliers. Cleveland fan compares game to experience of watching David Cronenberg movie.

2008 Olympic merchandisers employ child labor. Corporate chief justifies one child's exhausting and meticulous stitchwork as "really good training for summer handball event."

Top Afghan law officer assaulted. In order to ensure justice, officer contemplates bribing himself.

Box office for horror movies is weak, verging on horrible. In related news, Special Features Boxed Hologram edition of "Scream" trilogy sells out on Amazon through pre-order.

Veteran US "The Price Is Right" TV host, 83, retires. Apparently, Barker had nervous breakdown one morning while trying to guess price of new iToaster.

US develops "Bear bot" to rescue wounded troops in Iraq. Robot reportedly performs emergency amputations with gentleness of a Berenstain.

New Spike Lee film to honor black WWII soldiers. Chris Cooper to play really crusty, racially prejudiced white soldier.

Doctors fear child epilepsy drugs may be unsafe. Possible side effects of heeding their warning include mild episodic loss of attention, sleepiness, severe convulsions, sudden recurring attacks of motor, sensory or psychic malfunction, irritation of nervous system and siezures.

Better ear implant gives new hope to deaf. In related news, student at local deaf school excited about listening to Linkin Park album.

House defies Bush over stem cells. As trump card, Bush to reopen investigation on abduction of Lindbergh baby.

Apple announces Windows browser. Sweet, then Adobe Acrobat Reader won't work on Macs either.

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2007-04-12T01:33:00.000-04:00

What ho, Korea? Part II

My apologies, dearest readers, for this belated 2nd installment of Rice Field Brues's What ho, Korea?

To summarize Part I of What ho, Korea? as succinctly as possible, my initial days in Seoul, although thrilling, were somewhat complicated by the affairs of a delinquent Swiss tourist with stalkerish tendencies, homophobic Swedish hostel mate, marijuana-dabbling Kansas-born hostel clerk named Clay and sprightly Korean restaurant hostess with insuppressible penchant for fried chicken. With these important ideas established, let's onward, friends, to What ho, Korea? Part II...

Now where was I? Ah, yes, Saturday, DMZ day...

The alarms sounded at 5:45 A.M. Although I felt convinced they were air sirens alerting us of yet another Japanese invasion, Marina reminded me we had set her travel clock to go off a bit earlier this morning so we could catch our 7 AM bus to the Demilitarized Zone.

After setting us several minutes behind schedule so I could check the news headlines and reassure myself that, indeed, Marina's alarm clock wasn't the masked signal of a separate but simultaneous Japanese armed invasion, we purchased our $0.90 subway tickets to catch our $4 2bus at the USO base.

My, what a merry morning! I remember pleasuring in the crisp dawn hour's dew as it massaged my camera lens. Actually, in retrospect, it was raining, which no doubt diminished my enjoyment of the landscape. In fact, I remember it also being rather cold. It was indeed a treacherously inclement morning.

We walked on and on for a couple of blocks. Yet, eventually we discovered that the USO Base from which our bus was supposed to depart – which boasted its location only one block away from the metro station – in fact, was nowhere to be found.

"Sillye hamnida!" (It means "excuse me" and was one of the four Korean expressions I had learned on the plane.)

I approached a friendly gang of Korean police officers.

"We seem to be lost."

Several officers ignored us; a couple others flashed us a friendly peace sign and invited us to pose with them in a picture.

"Sorry, friends, not now."

We moved on and confronted the next batch of unsuspecting, non-English speaking Korean police officers.

"Sillye Hamnida. Camp Kim?! USO Base?! Camp Kim?! DMZ Tour!!"

Although the officers were friendly and tried to be helpful, it just so happened that none among them spoke English either.

Eventually, we stumbled upon someone who pretended to speak English.

"Camp Kim?! USO Base?!"

I can only imagine how he perceived the spectacle of two white Western females parading about the streets of Seoul at dawn on a Saturday morning in the pouring rain, demanding the precise locations of the nearest US Military Base.

"United States Base? Oh no, that is very far from here. Very, very far. Very far indeed. So far, you'd have to take a taxi. Yes, take a taxi very far."

This is the point at which the plot thickened.

Marina and I crossed the street – of course, waiting first at least 12 minutes for the traffic light to change – to wallow in a swampy puddle ridden corner-cum-cabstand, whilst my dreams scattered into dust. Dreams of North Korea: of barely mediated gazings through binoculars into the foggy outlines of what a military officer would tell us is North Korean communist soil; of hearing stories about the Dear Leader; of posing with ROK army officers who wear those cool sunglasses; even of purchasing exciting military ID apparel that I could one day sew onto the sleeve of my favorite jacket (presuming I ever learn how to sew).

The point is, after all the buildup about going to South Korea and visiting the DMZ, all of the stories I'd from people (at least 2) that the DMZ was the highlight of their trip, my heart, usually a feisty organ, began to sink.

And just when all hope was dashed, a taxi pulled up and splashed us with dirty rain water – just the ilk of sludge one's dreams are made of. And through the puddly trenches of Seoul's mean city streets, we advanced into the taxi.

"The DMZ! Camp Kim! USO Base! Our tour! We are late! Right away!"

The taxi driver evicted us out of hopeless confusion.

Indeed, everything after that point remains a bit hazy. Yet, among many muddles of frantic details, I vaguely recall running back and forth across the main street several times, communicating with some Russian tourists who also did not really speak English, posing in several more photos with streetside Korean police officers and, finally, encountering someone who knew of the exact whereabouts of the USO Base who was able to shepherd our taxi exactly 2.5 blocks eastward to its location.

Bursting out of our cab liked the Allied Forces at Normandy, we managed to catch our tour bus no more than several seconds before it pulled away.

The DMZ.

Now, did the DMZ live up to all of its hype? In a sense, how could it?

'Twas a foggy day. Little of the North Korean landscape and few of its figures were remotely visible even through high-powered coin operated binoculars at the height of the Observation Tower. And, much to my disappointment, the gift shops sported only South Korean military apparel. No DPRK patches for me!

Further, the agenda, which had been set in stone, felt about as spontaneous as the stylistic range of an Ayn Rand novel. In other words, a touch on the tedious side.

Of course, like all misadventures, it had its highlights...

1) Four seconds into the tour, just as we were posing for photos with armed ROK officers on the official North Korean side of the Conference Room, my camera ran out of batteries. (hmm, perhaps in retrospect it wasn't such a great idea to take all those pigeon and inanimate object travel photos.)

2) Posing with the ROK officer for my friend's camera with our shoulders at least 3 inches apart lest, as our US Army officer tour guide warned, we invade his personal space and thus provoke him to "get physical."

3) Our tour guide's (Sgt. Naumenkov) subsequent quip that he'd be happy to provide an explanation for anyone who is unclear about the implications of "get physical." (heh, army wit.)

4) Radioactive poisonous army lunch in the mess hall during which I ever so discreetly romped about the room photographing groups of US soldiers while they attempted to enjoy their lunch.

5) Propaganda film about the history of the Korean conflict during which a small North Korean girl sporting a bright red peacoat sheds tears whilst standing in some type of communist rice paddy. (I suspect 'twas an early work of Spielberg.)

6) Our vital march through the 3rd Tunnel – the largest of the treacherous tunnels the North Korean Army furtively constructed during the '70s – during which the man in front of me had to duck down the whole time because he was too tall and his head kept bumping against the ceiling.

7) In said tunnel, bumping my own head against the ceiling several times. As our tour guide pointed out, height-related tunnel awkwardness issues were among the many disadvantages of growing up in a society that gives its citizens food.

8) I did manage to see a couple North Korean folk through the high-powered binoculars. Albeit, they looked like ants. Yet, like communist ants. 500 won well spent!

9) Upon my innocent inquiry as to how Sgt. Naumenkov had managed to get himself stationed as DMZ tour guide, instead of shooting down Sunni insurgents in Baghdad – to which he responded, "bad luck and good looks" – he revealed to us details about his year in Iraq as a US soldier. (R.I.P. his best friend whom, he said with remarkable detachment, had been shot down two days previous by a Chechnyan sniper in Kurdistan.) (Um, also R.I.P. the hundreds of multiple-tour US deploys who are continuing to die during our Brave Leader's latest troop surge.)

10) The bus ride back when some fellow tourists among us started reveling in making racist generalizations against the French – e.g. "they are weak," "hah! They would be so easy to defeat militarily!" "Hooray for the US!" "hah!" "ahahahahah!" "The French are worse than us!" and so on.

11) Returning to Seoul and then going to Starbucks.

Thus, to relieve ourselves of the harrowing traumas of demilitarized, rigorously scheduled psychological warfare – a.k.a. guided tourism – we put our weary feet to rest against the plush upholstery of a Seoul Starbucks.

Although our final day's adventures in Korea would also yield many more exciting discoveries, including multiple daily rediscoveries about how delicious kimchi is, really, nothing compared to that first night at the hostel when Clay couldn't find our room keys and then some Korean woman gave us fried chicken.

I shall remember Korea fondly.

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2007-03-27T02:50:00.000-04:00

What ho, Korea?

Having spent the past several weeks with a literally non-existent course schedule, and as my most stimulating activity, katakana Microsoft Hearts, with no small amount of endless excitement did I anticipate my 5 day vacation getaway to South Korea. Yet, little did I expect to encounter there a cast of characters who, in their eccentricity and spontaneous strangeness, rival even Ueda-sensei...

Day 1.

After a piddling 2 hour flight, sandwiched between endless customs and immigration procedures, near-death experience with airline sushi, 80 minute bus ride, and brief pit-stop to exchange our yen for what appeared to us as Monopoly money, i.e. the Korean Won, we at last arrived at our hostelworld.com-booked accommodaions, Korea's finest Windroad Guesthouse.

Verdant buds that reminded me of past journeys through Europe crept over the outer walls and surrounded a charming little rustic gated courtyard. Onward we marched to the hostel's front desk. There, we expected to see a marginally English-proficient, yet competent Korean clerk who would efficiently shepherd us through check-in procedures and show us to our bunks. Instead,the sinister figure of a Caucasian, and apparently very stoned, American who somewhat resembled the balding and scraggly doppelganger of a young Ron Howard – except stripped of any wholesome appeal -- confronted us.

"Heyyy, more friends!! Welcome to the Windroad Guesthouse, friends," spoke Clay, the makeshift Kansas-born hostel desk clerk.

Several irritated-looking fellow hostel guests glared at him.

"This is one cool hostel. These folk over here just arrived too. Trying'a find them a room. Seem to have misplaced the keys. It's OK because things always work out here. Look at that guy for example," pointing to vaguely annoyed looking fellow guest watching tv in next room, "he's from France. He lost his bag yesterday."

"Umm."

"S'OK! He found it this morning!"

Needless to say, we were not terribly relieved.

"So what's your name?"
"Er, reservation for 2 under Maggie H_______."
"Do you have a reservation?"
"Yes."
"Do you have a name?"
"Yes. It's –"
"Hold on a minute there, I had my pen a minute ago."

(Clay fumbled desperately through a variety of haphazardly arranged objects that graced the hostel's front desk top.)

"Hmm, my pen seems to have gone elsewhere."
"Hmmm."
"Can't imagine where it could be."

Under the heat of our collective glare, Clay frantically opened and closed various drawers, sometimes stopping to gaze inside them.

"Sorry, it's my first day."

Shocking.

Finally, he unhinged a cabinet door and a shelf of room keys marked in Korean burst out from under the desk. Clay's expression at this point resembled how I imagine Ponce de Leon would have appeared had he ever discovered the Fountain of Youth. Encouraged by his novel shelf of treasures, Clay arbitrarily selected several keys off the rack and, with a spontaneously erect demeanor, braced himself to lead us to our rooms.

En route in the hostel corridor, Clay deemed it appropriate timing to point out his bicycle:

"This one here's mine, you can rent it from me if you want. I'll give you a cheap deal. Or you can ride it for free... if you want."

Ironically enough, Clay kept his bike under lock and key.

The ensuing room search ordeal was executed with about as much success as anyone could have expected. After spending at least 20 minutes fumbling with different keys outside of what Clay assured us was a private single (for a fellow distressed Windroad patron) – which later actually turned out to be a 6-bed dormitory room – he finally conceded defeat and suggested we try our luck elsewhere. An ensuing series of misplaced efforts worthy of Donald Rumsfeld's Iraq War strategy culminated with a surprising event: Clay managed to unlock a door.

In disbelief, we lurched inside, with all the curiosity and fear one might muster upon diving headlong into Pandora's very Box.

The room, shabby, dusty and unadorned, contained two metal frame bunk beds, atop each of which others had already piled their clothes, blankets and luggage.

Clay lunged forward with the vigor of a Stalin upon conquering Western Europe.

Clay: "Here's a room you can stay in!"

Us: "Um..."

Clay: "And look! It has four beds. One for each of you."

(There were five of us.)

Us: "Ummm."

Clay: "Hmm, I wonder why all the beds are already made up...

"And why someone left his suitcases all over the beds and floor...

"Uhoh. Woops!"

In a rush of clarity, Clay asserted his "Eureka!" with conviction that would have made Archimedes envious.

"I think this room is occupied...

"Yup, it's definitely occupied. I mean, look, I'd offer it to you. I mean, you can sleep here and everything, but someone's already left their stuff all over the bed and, well, I just don't think these beds are unoccupied. I mean, you can stay here and everything, but I think some other people have been staying here first."

I hoped that if I concentrated intently enough on my ill-wishing grimaces, Clay might implode from over-absorption of negative energy. In other words, at that moment, I pretended Clay was a Japanese rice field.

"Here, you know what? You can't stay here and all because it's someone else's room, but I'll give you the key just in case."

(??!!?!!?!!!).

Timidly, Clay extended a key – actually a different one than the one he used to open the door – in his pale, over-drugged, Kansas-bred palm.

We declined.

That Evening.

Emboldened by our survival of Clay's hostel tour, we entrusted our baggage to Windroad's giant metal luggage-storing cage behind the front desk and, the hour being well after 9pm, hit the streets in search of authentic, Korean-style victuals.

Charles, the friendly chap from France, who had been estranged from his own luggage for the duration of his first night, chose to stay behind in order to await his friends' arrival from the airport, whose plane was supposed to have landed several hours before ours – I wondered whether Clay had worked at their travel agency.

A bubbly Jesus-devotee from Singapore opted to linger behind as well, instead spending the remainder of her first Korean evening glued to the hostel computer whilst chatting with friends from home on a Christian message board:

"Bless me! I'm in Korea! Lol, totes!"

Thus, wallets firmly clutched, we strolled along the streets of Sungkyungkwan University town whilst photographing random Korean restaurant menus, natives and street signs.

Finally, mid-menu perusal, a max four foot tall, sprightly Korean woman popped through a doorway and, with a Herculean vitality, dragged the whole lot of us into her restaurant where she threw us down at a nearby table.

"You speak English?"
"Yes."
"You like fried chicken?!"
"Umm."
"OK!!" demonstrating two stoutly erect thumbs, "FRIED CHICKEN!"

No sooner had our hostess disappeared than did she return, balancing against her palm a thoroughly enormous platter of fried chicken, which she proceeded to plop down atop our table.

With two more thumbs, "OK?!"
"Ummm."
"OK!!"

And thus we dined on our first night in Seoul. In fact, I would venture to describe it ws one of the tastier meals I've ever not ordered.

Later that Night.

When we returned to our hostel, the owner had arrived home from his evening's excursion. After securing for us our luggage, and demonstrating the contents of his entire photo collection from recent romps through Africa and South East Asia – my favorite was a glimpse of him posing with war paint-bedecked North African tribal villagers – he at last escorted us to our room. Amazingly, our front door both opened when attempted to be unlocked with a key, and contained beds which were not occupied by other patrons.

Despite these modest successes, several other mildly traumatic occurrences managed to grace our existence that night:

1) An Arab Sudanese dentist-in-training from Niigata also staying at Windroad referred to his homeland, Sudan, as "politically stable."

2) Clay described to us his experiences in California where he was prevented by Mormons from making "the biggest mistake of his life."

3) Clay described to me the nuanced cultural differences between natives of Kansas and Brooklyn in terms of "mental stability."

4) I was denied a pillow case because, as the owner – who also occupied one of the 4 beds in our room - explained, "we had one for you last night, but too many guests arrived this night and took it."

5) At one o'clock in the morning, whilst everyone in my room, including myself, lounged soundly asleep, the hostel owner crept up from his bunk and proceeded to mop our bedroom floor on his hands and knees with a bucket of water and large mop.

My only regret was that he did not also see his way to vacuuming my caseless-pillow.

Day 2.

After a few minutes of focused meditation, accompanied by cursory perusal of the cramped and unsanitary atrocity that was Windroad Guesthouse's shower, we managed to deploy our Singapore-haling comrade from the computer's Christian message boards for long enough to google search and secure fresh beds at more suitable and nearby Seoul accommodations.

Reinvigorated by the marvels of coffee, clean showers and sufficiently-stocked linen pillowcases, Lonely Planet Koreas in hand, my friends – new ones and old – and I set out to make our way through Seoul's "Top Ten in Tourism."

Through Joseon dynasty palace gates we strolled,
Supped on streetside cuisine of delights untold,
Kimchi, squid pancakes, spiced-cured meats, so bold,
Our feet weary with wander whilst our wallets unrolled.

After a guided tour through the World Heritage Changdeokgung Palace, merry glavantings through Seoul's finest commercial neighborhoods, rife with exciting craft stands and endlessly delicious street vendors, we crossed the river into Namdaemun and sampled its magically diverse and spontaneous street market.

"Kimchi!"

We posed atop a bridge along the river; chatted with natives about Seoul's thriving nightlife; photographed university students jump-kicking metal street poles; purchased street charms which sported our names in Korean on glass-encased rice grains; even took in an evening's spectacle whereby elegantly-suited bride and groom sang to each other, arm in arm, in front of a giant pink 2nd story window of a building called, "The Etude House," which sandwiched itself between a Pizza Hut and a ramen noodle restaurant.

I would be remiss if I did not admit, in comparison to my local Japanese cities and rice fields, Seoul's cultural landscape struck me as uniquely satisfying. You see, in many ways Seoul does not stray far from Japan – a country that repeatedly occupied Korea, most recently and brutally from 1910 to 1946. Both are relatively clean, safe and stable spaces whose aesthetics and architecture often resemble one another.

However, as one would expect of a nation that has been repeatedly invaded and occupied by virtually every empire under the sun – e.g. Japan, China, Mongolia, Russia, the U.S., the U.N. and briefly North Korea, but with the possible exception of Ancient Macedonia – South Korean culture appeared to me as uniquely dynamic and spontaneous.

In Japan, the rules, which are embedded in centuries of continuity with tradition, are set in stone.

In Korea, however, this is not the case: rules are executed as guidelines rather than as rigid standards.

For example, when my friends and I, after stumbling into a tea museum, were lured by the scent of Jasmine and image of giant mounds of almond and condensed milk-ridden green shaved ice to settle down at a table, an initial discussion with our waitress about the number of different teas we would have to purchase in order to remain seated aroused in me a familiar sinking anxiety. Such situations in Japan always culminate in frustration, endless apologies and inevitable apotheosis of the established rules.

"No, excuse me, thank you, we are sorry, but our rules designate you must order at least two different expensive teas to warrant our service."

In Korea, however – from my albeit limited perspective – this was not the case. Within four seconds, the "rule" had been jettisoned in favor of a more flexible policy that accommodated all involved. If they did it for the Mongolians, if they did it for the Chinese, and if they did it repeatedly for their Japanese occupying colonizers, I'll be damned if they won't do it once more for the pesky North American tourists who just want to sample some tea while managing to economize!

Granted, it is thoroughly perverse to consider this cultural flexibility in the context of Korea's traumatic political history. Yet, consider the many fruits Korea's, er, multi-faceted past has produced from its tourist's perspective...

In the spontaneous and dynamic space of the Itaewon street market, I managed to bargain down an already cheaply priced scarf that I didn't really want to buy in the first place by about 50 cents. After enjoying endless goodies from the local street vendors, never did I have to search very far to find a bin for disposing of my snack wrappers. Further, upon accidentally bumping into a Korean woman in the street, she turned around and gave me a dirty look (with not so much as a single bow or "sumimasen".) Even a straggler in top hat and riding boots ventured to brush me aside with a large stick on the subway platform for no good reason at all.

Oh, joyous Seoul! The people here are rude and impatient just like me! Never before in Asia had I felt so at home.

Day 3.

Our third day involved a great deal of bonding with our new hostel's guest mates.

During our first stop of the morning, Seodamun Prison, the bleak space where thousands of Korean resistants were held captive and brutalized by their Japanese occupiers from 1910-1946, on a pleasant romp through the basement's "colonizing penality manikin reenactment chamber," we came across a fellow Seoul Backpackers' Hostel guest, David, a Swiss chap with fierce sense of wanderlust.

As the morning wore on, never one for feeling tongue-tied, David punctuated our journeys down rows of gory-dummy-ridden prison chambers with his monotone narrations of various world cities he has visited in chronological order:

"Then we went back to Kyoto, then Osaka, Nara, down to Hiroshima, down to Kyushu, back to Kyoto, back to Osaka, then back to Kyoto, on to Nagoya, over to Nagano-ken, then Tokyo, Yokohama, Niigata, Sapporo, back to Kyoto, Aomori-ken, Gifu-ken, then back to Kyoto..."

We glimpsed into the tunnel where all of the executed Korean bodies had mysteriously disappeared during the Japanese occupation.

"Have you ever traveled through America? I visited there myself. Started in Syracuse, then onto Buffalo, Albany, New York City, Long Island, back over to Westchester, up to Connecticut, Hartford, Bridgeport, New Haven, then Massachusetts, Boston, Cambridge, Greater Boston, back to Syracuse, Buffalo, Albany, greater Albany, then back to New York City..."

I photographed the interior of a cell in which an electronically-operated Japanese manikin inflicted lash wounds upon an elderly Korean woman.

"Then back to Kyoto..."

David prattled on with endless lists of global cities, each transition to a different nation narrated by, "and then back to Kyoto," until we approached another visibly interminable row of dimly lit jail cells.

"The first few days in prison are always a laugh."

What?

"Yeah, real funny stuff. Come day 4 or so, the tune changes."

Provoked by David's candor – and mortal fear that he start narrating the entirety of his Russia travels – I inquired whether David himself had ever undergone "hard time."

"Oh sure, in Switzerland it's easy. Why, they pay you a salary to stay in jail! Great benefits, delicious cuisine, good vacation time. You get your own room with cable tv."

Our next point of alarm arrived when we realized he was actually being serious.

"I got thrown in the prison in Switzerland and in the United States of America for too much alcohol in a public place. They give you five days. At first, it's like a vacation, a pretty sweet deal. By day 4 or 5, not so much fun anymore."

Perversely, I felt relieved he had never been jailed in Kyoto.

That Afternoon.

After managing to ditch Swiss David somewhere around the Korean National War Memorial, we decided to call it a day and head back to our hostel.

Ah, yes, and what could feel more pleasing after a hard day at it in the proverbial salt mines de tourisme than flinging oneself headfirst onto a bunk bed and spending the afternoon unwinding the old bean before an open volume of P.G. Wodehouse?

Now, our new hostel bedroom, a 6-bunk haven of sorts, although sanitary, adequately pillow-cased and not also occupied by the building's owner, still entailed a healthy element of complication.

Upon our return, we found our sofa and floor space had been infiltrated by no less than 50 pairs of recently laundered ankle socks – the kind with the colored patterns and snoopy cartoons sprawled out across the heel. Further, what looked like the contents of an upturned Eurotrash laundry hamper had polluted the bunkbed adjacent to ours.

Whilst we speculated as to the status of this uniquely sock-wealthy roommate, the bathroom door timidly creaked open, and out sauntered a tall, gaunt, wiry-spectacled woman with mousy brown hair, sporting several different layers of varying length-sleeved t-shirts. As fate would have it, she was also wearing ankle socks.

We greeted her, trying our best to conceal our bewilderment, and attempted to initiate conversation.

"Hallo, how are you? Where are you from? We are from America and Canada but live in Japan this year teaching English. Seoul is a very exciting city. We are happy to be here, etc."

In silence and avoiding eye contact as might have the Dear Leader during a guided tour of a North Korean Labor Camp, she leaned against a relatively low sock-density corner of sofa.

Several moments of awkward silence passed, then several more. Just as I was starting to lament the absence of Swiss David's prison and Kyoto travel narratives, she at last spoke:

"I bought new jeans today," pointing to shin, "they cost only 7,000 won."

She arose and scooped up a crumpled ball of laundry off her bed, which unrolled into another pair of jeans.

"These ones look similar, but they cost 45,000 won."

"They're very lovely," I ventured. "Did you buy these ankle socks here in Seoul as well?"

Glaring intently at own elbow with focus of woman in last stages of labor, "My name is Hanna and I am from Sweden."

Silence.

"I live in Seoul for 5 months at this hostel and I teach English for kindergarten."

More Silence.

Hanna pointed to another mass of pink, Hello Kitty-trimmed garment which also vaguely resembled jeans.

"These ones were 17,000 won."

And thus she retreated to the depths of her laundry-ridden top bunk.

Although we were able to keep ensuing relations with Swedish Hanna to a minimum for the remaining two days of our visit, we did manage to learn through the grapevine that Hanna is homophobic and was offended that a polite and mild-mannered Indian girl, another fellow roommate, had unobtrusively hung a gender-ambiguous suit from the side of her bunk bed: a presumed symbol of lesbianism.

Now, I only wonder what 50 cartooned pairs of ankle socks are presumed to signify.

(Please stay tuned for Part II of What ho, Korea?: a thorough recounting of our DMZ visit, rare glimpses of North Korean territory, culminating romps about Seoul and our eventual return to la Nihon-go.)

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2007-03-14T00:49:00.000-04:00

St. Paddy's Day a la Nihon-go

Last weekend, I enjoyed a rare cultural experience: a Japanese St. Paddy's Day Parade. Though the energy level was adequately low-key -- especially when compared to the vigour and unremitting alcoholism of a British or American St. Paddy's celebration -- the date of the parade a week too early, and the national landscape, wholly devoid of experience with Catholicism, everyone enjoyed a good time.

In the spirit of the holiday, the day's cultural journey was focused upon and later re-narrated by alcohol.

11:30 AM.
My friends and I make sure to starting drinking early. However, our solemn vows not to imbibe a single drop of Asahi until making eye contact with each other severely complicated matters. My friend James, a tall, red-headed Scotsman sporting a kilt replete with "200 quid deerskin tassles", and I purchase 500ml cans of Asahi beer at a convenience store, board our train and keep alert for signs of eye contact. Several stops later, two fellow young Mie-ken gaijin (foreigner) ragamuffins, David, a nice chap from South Africa with restless penchant for controversial humor, and Rachel, who was suited in a giant zipup, hooded, yellow/green dinosaur suit, board our train car.

11:30.00001 AM.
Eye contact is made. KANPAI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (cheers.) And the drinking begins.

12:04 PM.
Our train arrives at Ujiyamada station. Though the natives turn their heads to gawk at us, we are by now used to such things, and carry on our merry Irish paths with our lips glued to their cans of Asahi. Intermittently, the cans would drain of their liquid, and the lips would have to readjust to a subtly different aluminum texture. Though some among us attempted to resist this disruption by investing in full liter cans of libation, I think the rotation of cans gave the afternoon's drinking a pleasant tactile significance. In fact, next weekend when we go to the Osaka sumo wrestling tournament, I think I shall experiment with the infamous 350ml beer can.

12:05 PM.
James has to switch beer cans and comments to the effect of, "Crap! Must drink mo'--!" But is interrupted mid-sentence by the arrival of next can.

12:07 PM.
Nathan picks us up in his exceptionally cozy J-automobile and we drive around until we realize we have no idea where we are going.

12:12 PM.
We park the car and quickly find Nathan a drink. Our little joyride has prevented at least 5 minutes of Nathan's vital mid-day beer guzzling activity.

12:13 PM.
We pose for a photo-op with some local cab drivers, all of us excited to partake in such a wildly intercultural image.

12??? PM.
We are at the parade. Wahooooo!!!!!!!!!!

12???+1 PM.
With the exception of several local townsmen, an elderly female Japanese bagpipe player, and some Japanese travel agents from the next village over who are handing out brochures for Irish tourism, we realize we already know everyone at the parade, which is 99% composed of fellow Mie-ken JET ALTs.

1PM.
A throng of 12-year old Japanese baton twirlers with green ribbons in their hair bursts onto the scene. They start performing various feats of Japanese-Irish intercultural holiday acrobatics.

1:02 PM.
One of the 12-year olds drops her baton.

1:02.1 PM.
Despite my better intentions, I laugh out loud at witnessing said dropped baton. Fortunately, however, this whole event is drained out by mystical bagpipe humming and no one really notices anything has happened outside of the perimeters of their Asahi cans.

MORE TIME DURING THE AFTERNOON.
We danced and merried ourselves about the little city. Ample libations were acquired.

At several points, the entire parade stopped to wait at a traffic light (even though there were no cars coming for several miles in each direction.)

A man with a large movie camera filmed some peers and me mid-Irish-dance for his Youtube video channel.

Also, James, David and I were lucky enough to chat with the Irish Ambassador to Japan who randomly had traveled 4 hours south from Tokyo to Ise-shi, Mie-ken in order to attend the parade. Formerly the Irish ambassador to Israel, his most important advice about survival in Japan:

"Assert your will. People will try to make you ask them permission about when and when not to eat your own breakfast. Just do what you want."

So we drank on.

INTERMITTENTLY THROUGHOUT THE AFTERNOON.
People inquired why David and I were sporting matching "Remember Baudrillard" armbands.

"You see," we would explain with vaguely erudite gestures, "The French postmodernist intellectual Jean Baudrillard died last week. Baudrillard theorized that reality is gradually becoming a vast and all-encompassing simulacrum. That is, no longer a reality itself, but a simulation of a reality which no longer exists. To memorialize Baudrillard's life work, we deemed it appropriate to sport armbands -- which have fascist overtones -- that urge people to remember Baudrillard who had surely never heard of him in the first place -- mind you, at a St. Paddy's Day parade celebrated a week before the actual holiday in a country with minimal history of Catholicism."

Then, whomever we were monologuing to would sigh in absolute boredom and emphatically re-engage the perimeter of her/his can of Asahi.

THAT NIGHT.
Sadly, no one remembers.

LEAVING THE NIGHT CLUB.
James orders us a taxi. When one pulls up several seconds later, James -- who should be technically dead as a result of Guinness-induced liver failure -- proceeds loudly to accuse several bewildered J-bystanders of "stealing our cab."

2 AM.
Nathan, James, Lindsay and I return to our accommodations, ready to pass out on a futon in true Irish style. We approach the door, munchie snacks in hand, and discover...

It is locked!

Oh no.

It's okay. We quickly (in at most 20 minutes) remember how we'd left Nathan's car but several meters away in the building's parking lot. After a long day of beer, Irish tourism brochures, Japanese bagpipe music and other events which escape the complex recesses of memory, we put our weary Irish feet to rest in the compact foot space of Nathan's automobile.

Though we'd met a real ambassador but hours earlier, the four of us ourselves then felt like cultural ambassadors.

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2007-02-27T01:50:00.000-05:00

Looking over some past Rice Field Brues entries, I spy a recurring theme of cultural difference, narrated under a uniquely critical slant. To summarize my past 6 months of writing, thus far, I have expressed the following discoveries regarding clashes between Western and Japanese cultures:

1) Japan is more polite.
2) I am irked by the ways in which Japan is more polite.
3) Western native English speakers are quite more adept at pronouncing the word "squirrel."
4) Japan has more rice.
5) Never bring a Japanese person to a Mexican restaurant (see November Dick-"Crack" dialogues.)
5) Japan has school uniforms in a way which irks me.
6) Japan exchanges small, token, food-related gifts in a way which irks me.
7) Japan structures its residential/commercial/industrial zoning in a way which irks me.
8) Japan's karaoke locally-produced music videos offend my aesthetic sensibilities in ways akin to U.S. tampon commercial's.
9) Japan has a smaller Jewish population than America.
10) I am a much better speaker of English than the Japanese teachers who work at my school.
11) Er, something about rice fields and Sartre...
12) More rice.
13) Ueda-sensei is "plegnant."

Now that I can rest assured my year's blog work has established these fundamentally important cultural ideas, I decided to try my pen at the Japanese perspective.

HmmmMMHHHmmmHHMMMMmmmmmm. The Japanese perspective. THE Japanese perspective? Now that's a bit reductive, isn't it? Sure, Japan celebrates its group-oriented and uniform culture. Nevertheless, there must be more than one single Japanese perspective. Perhaps several even. But how to discover and convey these so-called "Japanese perspectives"? I could:

1) Read books, talk to my neighbors and co-workers, take off my headphones, look around me and attempt to be observant.
2) Make something up.
3) Ask Ueda-sensei.

OR, I could...

Spontaneously inform a class full of my Oral I remedial students that I now expect them to devote the next two class sessions to enumerating all of the differences between American and Japanese societies that they perceive, whilst demanding them to focus on the culturally-embedded domain of gender.

Logically, I opted for the last option, and with the following results:

The Differences Between U.S. and Japanese Cultures, Focusing on Gender
by Maggie-sensei's 2nd Year Oral I Communications Class

Group 1:
In Japan, everybody use chopstick.
In America everybody use fork and knife.
Japanese men, work.
Japanese women, cleaning home.

Group 2:
Due to language-related miscommunication, group 2 has reported its results entirely in Japanese, a language which I scarcely speak. Fortunately, to convey some of their ideas through the international language of art, group 2 has also provided us gaijin English speakers with a vivid illustration of a Japanese man soaking in a bath, whilst a self-indulgent American squanders precious water resources in the shower.

Group 3:
US: do not bow
Japan: bow
gender

Group 4:
American people dan't take off the shoes.

Japan:
-skin color yerrow
-hear color
-bow
-chopsticks
-rice
-take off shoes
-Buddhism

US:
-skin color white, black
-hear color
-do not bow
-forks
-bread
-Kewonnzaa

J-men:
-work hard
-eat
-sumo

J-women:
-part-time job
-cook
-not sumo

Group 5:
In Japan, take off the shoes.
In America, American people don't take off the shoes.
In Japan, Japanese people to work.
In Japan, Japanese women do there chores.

Group 6:
different languages

Group 7:
Japan: take off shoes
rice
no divorce
woman cook - men eat
US: do not take off shoes
bread
lots of divorce
men is not man

Group 8:
Japan : US
wa : yo
squair small : squair large
house short : house tall
breakfast- rice and miso soup : breakfast- bread, cornfreak

J-men : J-women
men's works uniform surts : women's works uniform skart
body big : body small

Group 9:
J-Men don't wear makeup; J-Women wear makeup.

Group 10:
US : Japan
English : Japanese
many face : face yerrow
bread : rice
Gun : Not gun

J-men hairstyle short, cool.
J-women hairstyle long, beautiful.

Group 11:
Japan is bow and chopsticks.
US is rude and pork.

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2007-02-20T00:46:00.000-05:00

The Times They Are A-Changin'.

Yesterday at the office, reclining in my cozy desk chair -- which I acquired last month with a NYC doctor's note about spurious back problems -- whilst eating delicious Japanese inidividually wrapped snacks and perusing Nagasaki tourism websites, a radical and momentous idea struck me (please brace yourself):

I do not hate Japan.

No, I am not stoned, at gunpoint or in the middle of watching a Kurosawa movie. I am at work in fact, in my busy and bustling staff office, intermittently craning my neck to give high school teaching bureaucrats dirty looks for speaking to each other at excessively loud volumes.

"She's lying!" you quip. "She has betrayed her fellow J-mocking communities!" (Even though most of my peers take objection to my frivolous degrees of J-jeering.) "Heretic!!"

Phew. Calm down there, Herr Orthodoxy, narrow and close-minded societies have historically achieved progress through the ideas of their heretics. Why, imagine if the Catholic Church had succeeded in destroying Copernicus' groundbreaking De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, stamping out its trace forever? When I gazed up at the skies through my telescope (which I neither own nor would remotely understand how to use if I did own one) would I suppose I spied the sun casting its yearly revolutions around the Earth?!

My point, closed and rigid ideas, although noble starting points, are invigorated by more dynamic ones. Thus, heresy exposes itself as a fallacy: how can a doctrine establish its supreme status if it is capable of being trasngressed in the first place?

Yet again, faithful reader, I digress. Allow me to return to the story of my blooming J-love.

First of all, to clear up any potential confusion, I still loathe my work place. I am looking around my workplace right now... I see awkwardly gesturing bureaucrats, middle-aged female teachers wearing multiple layers of brightly fringed truncated spandex, howling teenage students in school uniforms that bear the entirety of their thighs. I see 10-day-old mikans (J-oranges), cluttering desktops amid heaps of dusty language workbooks, and multiple season old omiyage (gift) snacks. Finally, the rattle of shrieking, baying and polite speech collide together and rupture my illusion of personal sound space. They trespass through barriers even my new Sony noise-cancelling headphones cannot sustain.

That being said, I shall repeat, no, I do not care for my work space. Existing in it is unpleasant and understimulating for multiple reasons.

However, be it a compact nation, Japan is far larger than a high school staff office and a cluster of Inabe-zoned rice fields.

I am excited to contemplate the thousands of years of history, philosophical dialogue and aesthetic tradition that my own nation lacks.

Why, in Japan, even the hyper-fluorescent visibility of the Pachinko Palaces are embedded in the aesthetic politics of the country's traditional housing structures -- which celebrated bright and vivid colors amidst its webs of dim back-lighting and floating shadows. Granted, knowing this still does not cause me to delight in the vision of Inabe's premier "Paradise Slot" complex. However, it does make its unique image, bolstered by a complex of rice fields, seem less absurd and arbitary.

After all, what complex historical motivations as compellingly explain the American suburban logic of the strip-mall or of the McMansion and condominium-ridden residential landscape?

Why, in America, do we expect to see Hummers in suburbs, garbage on sidewalks, Tokyo- and Paris- themed microcosms in Vegas, and Native Americans -- pillars of our country's oldest societies -- in isolated Midwestern gambling reservations, and then gape at the sight of a brightly lit Pachinko Center in a Japanese rice field?

Perhaps, also, I am projecting. Perhaps others, had they moved abroad from their Northeastern U.S. urban homelands, and to the landscape of an inaka (rural) Eastern community like Inabe, the spatial politics of their new soils would strike them as slightly less shocking and arbitrary as mine first appeared to me.

Regardless, the fact is, when I arrived in Japan, I saw figures outside their logic, which is perhaps why I frequently experienced the vague sense of living in a non-narrative experimental '70's art video -- i.e. a world where actions and events exist for the sole purpose of belying their meanings (should they have any to begin with.)

Living in Japan has been like gazing into a trick mirror: at first unrecognizable, and freakish, but gradually fascinating -- even baffling images reveal patterns and longstanding histories in their own distortions.

Upon further reflection, I imagine life in certain parts of America must often look like staring into an empty ditch: vapid and rootless.

For now, I am happy to learn the histories latent in the Japanese culture whose differences from my own continue to haunt me. In earnest (for once), I am starting to appreciate that these differences are not completely arbitrary. Their altered signs, although formally deceptive, contain subtle ideas that explain themselves.

I regret, now, that I am only just beginning to feel curious about what they reveal.

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2007-02-15T21:03:00.000-05:00

Dialogues.

Despite my frightening and utter ineptness regarding Japanese language learning during these past 6.5 months of life in Inabe, Japan, I think it would surprise you how sharp my J-communication skills grow. For example, several days ago, after an exciting night's romp through less rice-ridden territories, I ambled on to my local Sangi train line and attempted to alert the ticket boy that I desired his immediate assistance in paying my train fare:

"Sumimasen!" (Excuse me).

Not hip to the latest in train-fare purchasing lingo, apparently, I clenched my knuckles and proceeded to quell my rising sense of frustration, which was further provoked by the tacky faux-velvet upholstery that graces my local Sangi train benches -- and causes my backside at least as much discomfort as it does my sense of pleasing aesthetics.

When this strategy actually resulted in producing greater anger, I opted instead to consult the impressive list of alternative communication tactics I have been cultivating...

And with a fiendish grin, I uncrossed my legs, allowing the rubber edge of my sneaker to graze and rest upon a ripe spot of faux-velvet seat space.

Success! Within seconds, the ticket boy had lunged forth to my seat in order to scold me in excessively polite Japanese for soiling the train's pristine faux-velvet furniture.

"Er, yes.. I mean hai (yes). Sumimasen. My mistake-o."

(The Japanese often create new words by tacking on the letter O to the ends of English ones.)

At a leisurely pace, I shifted my leg position so that the small spot of shoe rubber that had been grazing the train seat now dangled in the air. Having caught the ticket boy's attention:

"Um, ticket-o for Daian. I pay-o."

The boy looked confused, and vigorously eyed my sneaker soles, lest they wander back and again threaten the integrity of the faux-velvet seating.

In the heat of the moment, emboldened by my linguistic adventures, I attempted, ever so awkwardly, to communicate through the Japanese tongue:

"Er, kippu no dencha Daian ni, kudasai."
("A ticket to Daian station, if you please.")

The boy, with a dubious expression, accepted my money and proceeded to hand me my ticket and change, which he counted meticulously no less than 4,000 times.

"Arigoto GozaiMAASSSSUUU!!!"
("Thank you kindly." They really like it when you overenunciate the syllable "MAAASSSU" at the end. Well, at least I like to believe that they do.)

You see, when confronted by a situation in which my humble command of Japanese language did not suffice, I resorted to other means of communcation: threatending the burgundy faux-velvet train bench with the rubber sole of my sneakers.

In fact, further sites of my culturally-charged non-verbal dialogues with the natives arise frequently.

For example, every week my supervisor and I lead several genki (spirited) high school students through the ritual of our English Club meetings. These sessions consist primarily of students taking dictation whilst I play human tape recorder and recite unintentionally off-kilter anecdotes that my supervisor has selected.

Last week, the story narrated a truckdriver who crashes his vehicle and subsequently entrusts his freightload of pandas that he had been transporting with a fortuitously nearby and idling fellow truckdriver -- who just so happens himself to sport a large, empty and amply equipped automobile. The first truckdriver offers the second one $50 to return the pandas to the zoo in time for their afternoon snack.

All is well until, later, after having repaired his truck and whislt cruising the local city streets in his mammoth hot rod, the first truckdriver spots the second truckdriver on the sidewalk, shepherding the entire fleet of pandas about town.

1st Truckdriver (angry and accusing): I thought I told you to return those pandas to the zoo!
2nd Truckdriver (punchline): I did, but I had some money left over, so I decided to take them to the movies as well.

"AAahhahahahahahhAHAHhhahahahhah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

At this point, I deem it appropriate to burst into exaggerated fits of hysterical laughter. This pleases my supervisor -- Kobori-sensei, a generous woman who no doubt put a great deal of effort into selecting a reading passage with a witty punchline -- amuses my students and provides a necessary space for me to vent the mounting tension created by my previous 20 minutes of playing human tape recorder who narrates anecdotes relevant to ideas about large truck accidents, amusing verbal misunderstandings and pleasantly frolicking gangs of pandas.

I stare out the window at the masses of crisp winter rice paddies -- half with longing to get out of English Club, which meets last period on Friday afternoon, and half with vague regret that the scenery, my object of mental escape, consists solely of vast fields of power cable-garnished rice paddies.

However, afraid that Kobori-sensei will ask me to narrate the reading passage a second time -- at a speed itself slow enough for an illiterate panda to take dictation -- I pretend to find the reading passage funny enough to warrant a second fit of spontaneous and hysterical laughter.

"AAahhahahahahahhAHAHhhahahahhah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Now, lest my rambling tangents of panda-y ilk completely unhinge the narrative structure of this entire blog post, I shall return to my point about cultural dialogues:

"Maggie,"
(Kobori-sensei is one of the few English teachers capable of pronouncing my name correctly.)
"I have teacher's meeting now. Maybe you can take over rest of English Club, please. Maybe read another dictation, or maybe do some other activity if you like."

With that, Kobori departs and I am liberated from the bitter tyranny of dictation recital -- an activity which yields perhaps slightly more English education value than would screening English tv episodes of Baywatch: Hawaii.

Yet, if not dictation, and with about four seconds of spontaneous lesson planning time standing between me and silent awkwardness, what other options have I remaining? Here I am, bereft of plan or interpreter, with the responsibility to lead a class full of students who do not speak English, when I myself do not speak Japanese, in oral exchange activity.

Language. Language. I need language.

"Er..."

No, not gibberish. I mean, I suppose gibberish technically counts as language, but I am looking for something just a touch more communicative.

Swiftly! The students are looking back towards their dictation notes. If you do not make haste, there will be nothing left to do but continue with dictation.

Now, in my vague flutters of tension and tacit language-charged energy, I do not recall precisely what occurred at this moment. A Japanese vixen flitted across the room and contorted my blank yet affable expression into a devilish smirk, with perhaps also the suggestion of something permissive.

At that very moment, the students must have read the idea in my grin: I am the crazy gaijin (foreigner) English teacher and I seem to exist outside of language-embedded Japanese politeness/decorum/hierarchy codes. If they could conjure the English to do so, they could get me to let slip all sorts of scandalous gossip that their Japanese teachers would never admit to them!

Shunsuke, an animated first year boy -- who has on repeated occasions requested that I refer to him exclusively as "The Great Human" -- was the first to vocalize the idea:

"Ueda-sensei."

You see, as Ueda-sensei's desk has been strategically relegated to an obscure and out-of-the-way smaller staff office space, a culture of Ueda mocking -- impressions of her tendencies to walk hunched over whilst pulling out clumps of her own hair and muttering aloud to herself in public situations, for example -- often captivates the main staff room.

Shunsuke, a talented and ambitious young whippersnapper who enjoys ritualistically frequent visits to the staff office, must have put two and two together:

Crazy gaijin sensei (me) + intriguingly off-limits discussion topic of Ueda-sensei =

"AHAHAHAhahahahahhAHHAHahHAHAHhaaahhhh!!!!!!!"

And just like that, the students succumbed to their rapturous delight and indulged in highly audible fits of spontaneous hilarity, rivaled in volume and release of repressed energy only by my earlier and multiple panda outbursts.

"Ueda-sensei! Ueda-sensei! HAHHahahahaaah!!!! AAHhhhahahahAHHHH!!!! Ueda-sensei!" (chortle, chortle.) "AHAhahahahAHJAI(YIY#EYU#)(U*L*W*W#EU#))!?**!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Chaos swarmed the room. Shunsuke arose and vividly imitated Ueda's uniquely hunched-over and staggering gait. Another girl invoked Ueda's distinctive self-mutterings whilst a third struggled to overcome her own laughter and maintain enough control to ape Ueda's hair tugging gestures.

Sensing things were getting out of control, I contemplated censoring the Ueda mocking, until my gaze my was pierced by the sinister dictation passage lying supine atop my desk, and then by the clock, which revealed that there were still ten minutes of English Club remaining...

I opted to allow the inappropriate and dubiously-spirited Ueda burlesque to continue until the end of class -- during which time, I might add, I did manage to teach the students the English words: "crazy," "strange," "unbalanced," "bizarre," "hunched-over," "mutter," "batty" and "plegnant."

Apparently, taboo subjects are excellent ways to motivate language learning.

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2007-02-07T22:28:00.000-05:00

How America makes the rice fields blue.

"We humans are becoming the drivers of the climate system, and we are doing so without knowing where we are going."
-Elizabeth Kolbert

The repercussions of global warming are irrevocable. Further, once under way, they swiftly gain force through various feedback cycles, therefore accelerating their rates of irreversible destruction. Although it is too late to undo the negative effects of warming we are already experiencing -- melting ice caps, disruption of climate-embedded food chains, etc. -- there is good news: we can still mitigate its repercussions.

However, many modern nations have persisted in ignoring this urgent scientific knowledge. For example, my motherland, the United States, continues to produce approximately 25% of the entire world's CO2 emissions. Imagine that: the U.S. significantly out-CO2-pollutes China -- responsible for a trifling 14.5 % -- even though China outpopulates the U.S. by over a billion people, and shows notoriously little regard for CO2 emission regulation.

Although I have never shied away from vocal expressions of my disgust with America's obscene pollution culture, ever since I moved to Japan, a country that boasts a uniquely progressive environmental policy, my actions and behavior have vividly contradicted my political commitments.

You see, growing up in America, I have become so used to all of the cultural signs celebrated by a society that willingly ignores its pollution problems -- trash everywhere, smog and parking lots littered with SUVs and Hummers -- that my initial impressions of Japan's commitement to energy conservation were overwhelmed by feelings of shock and alienation.

Frightening as it is to admit, I allowed my aesthetic and lifestyle-based cultural prejudices to undermine my political and ethical investments in the importance of CO2 emission regulation and of pollution control.

Though I do not deem it urgently relevant to harp on the specific examples of my hypocrisy, a brief list of the aspects of Japanese culture to which I initially reacted negatively, but have now come to appreciate, would include:

1) Small Cars. I focused on how spatially uncomfortable the automobiles here are for gaijin of, shall we say, Western physiques, exaggerating and misinterpreting their significance as signs of Japanese cultural insularity.

These days, I feel dedicated to embracing both the fuel efficiency and spatial practicality of the compact automobile. Yes, it has been an emotionally-charged effort. Yet, I believe, an important one.

2) Lack of trash cans -- or "rubbish bins" as my British/Aussie/South African mates say -- in public spaces: I regret concentrating on how the scarcity of public bins creates daily inconveniences for me. You see, in New York, I grew accustomed to finding trash cans (usually several) on the corner of every block -- and a piece of litter atop every plot of cobblestone.

One might deduce that a scarcity of public bins would increase the amount of trash on the sidewalk. However, if in Japan there are no litter and no bins, and in New York there are a veritable wealth of litter and many bins, an inverse correlation between trash and litter emerges.

You see, Japanese citizens feel distinctly responsible not only for organizing their private spaces, but for respecting the upkeep of their public spaces as well. In other words, if a Japanese person is eating a bag of crisps on the sidewalk and, when done, fails to find a bin in which to dispose the empty bag, said Japanese person will take responsibility for holding on to the empty crisp package until finding a bin -- even if that does not happen until s/he arrives home.

In New York, on the other hand, regardless of the public availability of trash cans, there is a 99% chance that crisp bag would have ended up on the curb anyway. Basically, were the crisp eater not directly in front of a trash can at the exact instant of first desiring to be relieved of her/his refuse, the bag would be littered and dropped onto the sidewalk.

Concisley, despite my culturally-conditioned desires to circumvent personal inconvenience regarding trash disposal, I now take pride in toting about my empty snack containers because I understand that doing so benefits the aesthetic and sanitary status of the entire community. How often in life does one get to enjoy feeling noble by doing something as simple as taking responsibility for an empty candy wrapper for a few extra hours?

3) The Sangi Line: this is a slightly more obscure issue. My local train line goes by the name of Sangi. It is an out of the way means of transport that runs infrequently, ends service early and takes thirty minutes just to connect me to a more central train station -- not itself a location where I would desire to be for any other reason. However, these, my initial sentiments, which I have allowed to color my views of Sangi for far too long, reluctantly withdraw in the face of more reasonable evaluations.

You see, I live in an adequately rural environment -- rice paddies outnumber shops in my town by about 30:1. Inabe is perhaps the geographical equivalent of a smallish suburb in Nebreska. However, if I lived in that remote Nebreskan suburb, would taking the train into town even be an option? No, it would not. Rather, I would be forced to invest in an expensive, teetotaling-inducing and pollution-producing automobile.

Yes, I complain about how Inabe is rural and how few exciting attractions intersect with my Sangi train's destinations. However, I fail to acknowledge how lucky I am to live in a society that even takes pains -- extensive and well-coordinated ones at that -- to produce a train service in such a rural climate.

Thank you, Japan! I know I do not give you enough credit, but I want you to know that I do appreciate your thoughtful efforts to make rural life more convenient -- and less destructive to the environment.

4) Central Heating. Simply put, Japan does not believe in central heating. Structured in accordance with the rest of its fuel efficiency efforts, Japan, unlike America, lives under the notion that a brisk winter's stroll through the corridor -- which itself lasts about two seconds before linking from one sufficienty heated individual space to another -- is neither a devestating atrocity, nor terribly invconvenient, really. Although shocking to my uniquely pampered, New York-cultivated central heating dependencies, such strategies save money and conserve vast amounts of energy. And dammit, they build character!

The next time I shiver a bit en route from heated staff office to heated classroom, I will try to resist losing absolutely all sight of proportion, which I do by insisting to myself that a piddling thirty extra seconds of warmth is indeed worth excessive amounts of energy waste and pollution.

Further, soon my frivolous American addiction to central heating will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

5) Rice. Yes, this issue represents a uniquely focused site of my anti-Japan sentiments. Even the title of my recurring 2nd Law blog segment laments Japan's committed rice culture. However, to return to my original point about global warming, I have recently discovered that my exaggerated and irrational aversion to all things ricey simply culminates a theme of hypocrisy regarding my attitude toward Japanese culture.

Several days ago, whilst perusing the Internet, I happed upon an article about a study conducted by Nagoya University and the National Institute for Environmental Studies that outlines the significant and imminent repercussions of global warming -- many of which are already under way -- for Japanese society. The study reports:

"Global warming will seriously affect agriculture. In Japan, the impact of global warming is already being seen in the production of rice, the country's stable food...Rice harvests...are likely to decrease in [many] regions. It is also possible that global warming will trigger frequent natural disasters, including accelerated activity of weeds and harmful insects, allowing harmful insects from the tropical and subtropical zones to spread to the temperate zone and damage harvests."

Yet, one might ponder, why does Japan take such rigorously painstaking measures to regulate its own CO2 emissions, if the effects of irresponsible countries', like the U.S.'s, Russia's and China's, will disrupt its food production climate and economy, in spite of its own conservation efforts?

Following with the Japanese lifestyle routine of taking care of one's own trash, even if not a bin is to be found for miles and miles, it would never occur to a Japanese society vindictively to create more world pollution just because other countries do so anyway. The Japanese ethic compels its citizens to take responsibility not just for themselves, but for their community at large. One Japanese (wo)man's burden is everyone's. Although, from my limited and selectively focused gaijin perspective, the evidence of this J-ethos primarily manifests itself on a national scale -- which is largely due to Japan's literal geographical isolation -- its attitude of consideration towards its own people embeds even its global environmental policy.

In other words, while Japan suffers as a result of other nations' disregard for environmental ethics, it persists in its noble conservation efforts. Japan does not indulge in a conveniently dubious pollution culture -- despite the many immediately satisfying lifestyle options produced by such cultures. Japan denies itself excessive energy consumption because it is satisfied to mitigate, even if just a bit, the devestating destruction that other cultures' hedonism shall surely wreak upon the globe.

Further, one of the most visible examples of Japan's role as environmental whipping boy points back to its rice industry: oddly, my chief complaint about the national culture here. Rice supports Japan's economy, creates a basis for its labor networks and feeds its people. Yes, as a bourgeois urban American, I prefer overpriced cafe bread -- or baguette, if you will. However, I think I at last see the relevance of overcoming my silly and rather arbitrary, yet thoroughly all-consuming, negative attitude towards Japanese white rice.

As a starting point, I will even admit how much I enjoy white rice when sandwiched between seaweed and a bit of tasty mayo-smothered tuna. Moreover, if it wasn't for white rice, my community would be constituted by heaps of empty plots of fallow land. Call me a philistine, but I far prefer the aesthetics of fertile rice paddies.

Finally, if the message is not clear already, I hereby acknowledge that when I complain about Japan, or indulge in less than positive attitudes regarding the national culture, it is only a sign of my emotional rigidity in adapting from an urban Western lifestyle to a rural Eastern one. However, I have been living in Inabe, Japan for over 6 months now, and it is high time to move forward, and to cease dwelling on subjective -- and rather ethically dubious, on a global scale -- cultural prejudices.

Japan, I, Margaret DeKoven Hennefeld, sincerely apologize for my disgraceful behavior. Now, can you find it in your heart to forgive me?

The Top Ten Worst Ideas in Filmmaking: 2006-2007

2007-02-01T19:41:00.000-05:00

10) Kirsten Dunst as Marie Antoinette in Marie Antoinette

9) The letter "Y" as enabler of unfunny title pun? in The Pursuit of Happyness

8) Ancient Mayan as featured language in Apocalypto

7) Mason the dog as Lassie in cinema's 50 billionth remake of Lassie -- Howard the dog as the 1994 Lassie was dashed more appealing

6) Matt Baker as uncredited Man Bitten on Penis in Snakes on a Plane -- if it wasn't for Baker, SOAP would have been shoe-in for Oscar glory

5) Mo'Nique as redundant movie star pseudonym in Phat Girlz

4) Nicolas Cage as heroic NYC policeman trapped in burning rubble in World Trade Center

3) The Dust as metaphorically apostraphized implicit rhetorical question in Ask the Dust

2) Gymnastics and criminality as high concept in Stick It

1) Marlon Wayans as criminal midget incognito -- for ambiguous plot purposes -- as wayward newborn infant in Little Man

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2007-01-31T21:26:00.000-05:00

An existentialist reading of Inabe's rice paddies

Sartre designated the experience, whereby an individual is spontaneously and dizzyingly confronted by the arbitrariness and absurdity of her/his own existence, as humanity’s chronic "nausea."

Sure, we can employ an elaborate array of strategies to circumvent our latent nausea. These range from career goals, sporting competition and leisure activities, to creating meaning and feelings of attachment by identifying with others.

Living in the middle of a rice field, on the exact opposite end of the globe from my homeland, in a community whose culture, language and traditions baffle me as much as the comedic sensibility of The Tom Green Show, my being grows ripe for seizure by a vivid, Sartrean nausea.

One minute, I am lounging complacently at my desk – which, especially now that my senior classes have ended, and my others are frequently cancelled for endlessly recurring reasons of school cleanup, I pass more than a bit of my time doing. I gmail chat, twiddle my thumbs and read the New Yorker whilst drowning my sorrows in Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited a la my new Sony noise-cancelling headphones. All is well until, suddenly, a misplaced yet vital detail in my routine unhinges the explanatory logic of my entire belief system, thus exposing my existence as absurd and pointless.

You see, I often hold my sanity in place with a variety of clever ploys. These distract me from the tenuous natures of my delicately negotiated daily "incentives" for existing – mind you, in a rice field, for a year, completely cut off from all of the spaces and people I once knew and loved.

My list of justifications that I tell myself reads something like this:

1) Cool travel opportunities: You get to build bricks and carry them across tropical beaches in the Philippines this spring. You definitely have never done that one before.

2) Mmm, tempura tastes good. If you make it through the workday, there will be tempura for dinner.

3) You've met such great friends. They are so great. Sure they're not Japanese and many of them also dislike the local culture, but they are dashed fun to drink with on weekends!

4) Mmm, you have some candies left in your desk, don't you? If you can make it through the next 15 minutes of the workday, you can eat some of those candies. Just think, 15 fewer minutes of work left AND delicious candies.

5) Importance of, you know, teaching English and that sort of thing...the joys of moulding young minds and what not.

6) You have that tea you like that your parents sent you from America. You know, that tea that massages your throat in earthy flutters of spicy lemon tingle-ridden goodness. In a few minutes, you will be able to refill your teacup. I know it is difficult to arise from your desk chair, but the tea will be well worth it. Imagine whetting your whistle for the candies with delicious tea. Yes, that will be just the thing to do.

7) Um, the challenge of living abroad. It builds character and so forth. Strength!, etc.

8) And the tea! The tea! It reminds you of Paris. You can sip at your lemon-ginger-infused liquid metropolis, close your eyes and retune your iPod to Edith Piaf. The sun lounging vibrantly over the Seine, illuminating champagne and cassis glasses in the window of the Café Sarah Bernhardt. D'Orsay. Pompidou. Fromage au poulet paninis punctuated by sutured gazes at Godard-projected Duchamp urinals.

Ah, but how the dream grows vivid. Shadows of old figures flesh out their silhouettes and waft through lemon-ginger gustatory morsels as the tea bag drains and gives off its last sips.

Now, notice how the small details and important reasons all narrate each other into a coherent story that justifies the status of the entire year-long experience? However, much like the project of Soviet Communism, good ideas erupt with the downfall of a nuance – and mountains crumble into a handful of dust.

With the final drop of lemon tea – "remon tea" in Japanese (no really, it is) – the phone next to my desk rings, setting off gangs of Japanese bureaucrats howling at each other 'round the room, my iPod runs out of batteries and, worst of all, I realize Jusco only sells bags of that weird leaf tempura – alas, no fish, potato and pumpkin – on Wednesdays. I will have to settle, yet again, for supper vittles of a ricier ilk.

What a notion! Seriously, consoling me about living in Inabe by offering me white rice for supper is like trying to teach poor people a lesson for not being wealthy by indefinitely cutting off their healthcare... well, er, in a manner of speaking.

And like the delicate efforts of my JTEs (Japanese Teachers of English) to pronounce their L's and R's correctly when confronted by the word "squirrel", my existence exposes its lack of meaning and time ruptures itself.

Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea:
6:00 p.m.
I can't say I feel relieved or satisfied; just the opposite, I am crushed...So I was in the park just now. The roots of the chestnut tree were sunk in the ground just under my bench. I couldn't remember it was a root anymore. The words had vanished and with them the significance of things, their methods of use, and the feeble points of reference men have traced to the surface.

Margaret DeKoven Hennefeld, Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues):
4:15 p.m.
The work day is over and with it ought lift my despair that objects, words and people no longer possess meaning. I approach my vehicle: a rusted aqua blue bicycle with dented grocery basket from the time(s) I crashed into a tree because a gust of wind blew the hood of my red waterproof poncho over my eyes and prevented me from seeing.

But this is besides the point. Or is it? If there is no point for my tangential anecdotes to stray from, perhaps, then, my little bicycle crash is precisely the point. And with these existentialist musings, I reach the apex of my nausea.

For Sartre, existence clings to the surface of itself. Tree roots penetrate no deeper to their own meaning than the lyrical significance of Britney Spears's former runaway hit single, I'm a Slave 4 U.

(A brief except from this song:
Get it get it, get it get it (woah)
Get it get it, get it get it (woah)
Get it get it, get it get it (panting)

I'm a slave for you, I cannot hold it, I cannot control it
I'm a slave for you, I won’t deny it, not tryna hide it.)

Perhaps Britney's unintentional contemplation of Sartre's ideas – she's "not tryna hide it," like Sartre, precisely because she understands that there is nothing to hide – reveals even what it purports to obscure: a rather clever double-entendre.

I cycle home in an abstract state of gastronomical nausea (not literal) at the thought of the ricey tripe I shall have to consume for dinner. My gaze wanders and images of rice bombard me: rice paddies, rice paddies, rice paddies, seeding dull buds of flavorless nonsense.

You see, like Britney, who, by confessing her status as UR slave, also performed the undoing of her own mystery, and thus triggered the downfall of her international appeal and stardom, the rice of Inabe makes itself naked for me. It takes its clothes off and strips itself down to the arbitrary form of its nascent function, visible at the side of every bike lane in Inabe.

Bereft of its mystery, and like a frowsy new-age pop music star of mediocre talents, Inabe rice confronts its eater as fulfilling a base need, before appealing to the culturally-inclined palate of an experienced cuisineur.

If, then, as Sartre might argue, rice's mask, its disguise, which protects the subtle barrier of its rice-ness, its supposed essence, is peeled away, the sticky porcelain matter accumulates itself as yet another point of my rising nausea: both abstractly, because once its mystery is lifted, its existence becomes redundant and its entire notion absurd; and literally, because I tire of it and it no longer appeals to me.

So there you have it, I am Maggie, eating rice, here in Inabe, Japan, and yet, at once, I am not.

(By the way, excuse me for not producing more hilariously malapropism-ridden material this week. You see, the class I team teach with Ueda-sensei has now ended. However, I intend to start stalking her until she lets slip more outlandish statements that I can quote in future Rice Field Bl(r)ues editions.)

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2007-01-24T00:53:00.000-05:00

Japan, Hostels and Feminism.

Recently, I have undertaken the project of instructing my students and co-workers in radical politics. Nothing too major -- no conspiracy theories, bra burning or Iraq War protests in the middle of the rice fields -- just some good old-fashioned 2nd Wave Feminism with a trickle of '60s utopianism.

Like all events that occur in the space of my worklife, it all started a couple of weeks ago when Ueda-sensei approached me at my desk one day and started bothering me...

"Hi, Mahi! Did you have a good winter bacation in New York City?"
"Indeed I did, Ueda-sensei. It was so nice to go home and see my friends and family."
"Mmmm, soka, soka, soka. Home in New York City."
"Right. Great being back though. I do so relish life in the rice fields."
"Mmmm, soka, soka, soka. [laughing to self] rots, rots of lice fields in Inabe. Hah! Not so many lice fields in New York City! Rots in Inabe."

Ah, the wonders of small talk with Ueda-sensei.

"Right, not so many. So how was your break?"
"It was a good bleak. [Blinks rapidly and shakes head as if being exorcised.] It was bery, bery good bleak."
"Oh, I'm so glad. What did you do?"
"I creaned my house, went to hory shline and ate moechi with my mother. I ate so much I am bery fat now."
"That's nice."

Pleasantries aside, Ueda and I both knew that it was time to discuss far more serious matters.

"Mahi, I want to pran Janawary the 16 resson."
"Surely. What did you have in mind?"

Ueda and I chatted solemnly about bisiting America, immiglation, lestaurant ordering plocedure and hotel cracks, until there arose a nuanced yet revealing point of cultural difference: Youth Hostels.

"Hostel? What is hostel? You mean hotel?"
"No, I mean hostel."

I opened Internet Explorer -- my security coded work laptop will not let me download Mozilla -- and proceeded to log onto hostelworld.com while attempting to explain to Ueda the principles of economy traveling.

"MMMmmmmmHHmmMHmmmmMMMmmm. Soka, soka, soka."
"Exactly. People sleep in bunk beds together in a large room and it only costs maybe 1,500 yen a night."
"Bunk bed? Bunk bed? B-U-N-K bed? What is bunk bed?"

I draw Ueda a rough sketch of a bunk bed -- which, given my limited artistic prowess, probably more closely resembles some sort of medieval torture device.

"Well, it looks more or less like one. Really, they're just a clever way to save space."
"Rearry? In America, there have needs to save space?"
"Oh boy, okay. Yes, America is a spatially vast country but--"

I launch into a tangent about G.O.P. and low income housing. I have by now, I might add, 100% absolutely lost all sense of my audience. Even the co-workers are starting to stare.

"Mmmm, sumimasen," they might quip, "What are that ever baffling gaijin (foreigner) and Ueda-sensei, our designated office pariah, prattling on about now? (Maaassss.)"

However, Ueda-sensei, being the spirited oddball that she is, manages to find her footing again amidst my torrents of political diatribe.

We inspect hostelworld.com together. I show her various hostels I have stayed at all over the world: from Kyoto, Sapporo and Tokyo, to Rome, Barcelona, Prague, Vienna and Budapest.

We both become engrossed in the activity, and are even surprised to learn that European hostels tend to pack people into a room well beyond the teens, whereas American hostels limit room capacity to about 8 or 10.

"Mmmm. Mmmm. Soka, so, so, so, so. Mmmmm. I arways had image in my head of American room as bigger than European room."
"Right, well, this has nothing to do with architectural style. I guess European travelers have a higher threshold for sharing spaces with other people."

We look at Japanese hostels. Most do not exceed 4 or 6 in room capacity. The few exceptions have outrageous names like "Hotel American" or "The Cheapest Kyoto Inn in Kyoto" -- the latter of which, I realize, I have stayed at personally.

I notice and point out that many Japanese hostels have separate men's and women's dormitory rooms. Ueda looks puzzled.

"What do you mean sepalate?"
"Like, the men and women cannot sleep in the same room."
"Mmmmmm."
"Whereas, usually, men and women bunk together in the same room... at most hostels...usually."

Ueda, gasping for precious air, "REARRRY?!!"
"Yeah, of course. It is a strategy for selling as many beds as possible. And if men and women are traveling together anyway, they'd probably enjoy being able to sleep in the same room at night. Don't you think?"

How could a citizen of a country that litters its pavements in thematically advertised Love Hotels -- a famous prefectural example being Matsusaka's "Hello Kitty Bondage Room" -- not understand a concept as simple as mixed dormitory rooms?

"You mean, in the West, rike in New York City, men and women strangels share bunk bed room?"

I confirm Ueda's deepest fears and quickly return to the "Kyoto Cheapest Inn in Kyoto" page and point out that this mixed dorm situation often occurs in Japan as well.

"Japanese woman would never stay in mixed bunk bed with strangels."
"Why not? Are you sure?"
"No, Japanese woman? Never, never."
"But a Japanese man would?"
"Mmmm, Japanese man, mmmm, Japanese man would stay in a mixed bunk bed."
"But is that fair? What if a Japanese woman is traveling by herself on a budget and can't afford---"

Ueda-sensei's pasty foundation colors hot red with the rest of her flesh.

"Japanese woman would never travel alone."
"Why not?"
"No hotel would lent loom to arone Japanese woman!"
"Well, why not? Shouldn't women be able to travel as cheaply and conveniently as men can? Isn't that a bit sexist?"

Ueda-sensei's voice, usually rather low-pitched for a Japanese woman's, strikes a uniquely high chord:

"Japanese woman traveling alone can lead only to shame, plobrem or suicide."

Shame, plobrem or suicide: is that how Japan views its independently-inclined female citizens?

Given my tendencies to have strong reactions to discussions regarding gender and inequality, I decide to allow this conversation to spark the latent intensity of my revolutionary teaching energies.

You see, although I have been hired as an Assistant Language Teacher, which implies a certain degree of team teaching, Ueda-sensei is my only JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) who views me as anything outside of a personal 45 minute weekly vacation.

So, whilst my other JTEs sat back and zoned out during our weekly English lessons, I made my best effort to teach the students about a variety of issues which I deem both important and relevant to their situations: ranging from 2nd Wave Feminism, the 1960s and the Civil Rights Movement, to general ideas about equality, diversity and opportunity.

As soon as my political wisdom had soundly sent 99+% of my students into a deep and restful slumber, I shook my JTE out of his inertia and had him translate for me:

"I am a woman."

I immediately felt my voice sieze up and go hoarse--perhaps a psychological reaction to fears that what I was doing is inappropriate.

"I want to get married and have a family, but I would never sacrifice my chance at a successful career in order to do so. Nor do I believe that I should have to."

Fortunately, few (if any) of my students were paying attention.

"I can have both a family and a career, and so can all of you."

Humbly, I got down off my soapbox and proceeded to wake up several heavily slumbering boys in the front row.

No, I have not mobilized hordes of young Japanese women and men as nascent feminists. Nor have I remotely approached making my ideas seem coherent to the majority of my students.

However, in the moment, I could have sworn I noticed several routinely comatose female students grin at me and appear captivated.

Perhaps, next lesson, they will choose to remain awake and try to learn some English that might benefit their potential careers. Even if, as Ueda-sensei later explained to me, their parents tell them that they do not need to.

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2007-01-18T21:45:00.000-05:00

Top ten phony excuses I make when I am late for work:

10) My alarm clock has run out of batteries.

9) My mother has had a nervous breakdown and telephoned me in need of consolation exactly as I was walking out the door, thus making me dreadfully late for work.

8) I have had a bike accident. I am okay, but I was so shaken up that I had to sit at the side of the road for 30 to 40 minutes before I felt confident enough to finish my morning journey to school.

7) My medicine has caused me to experience "unpleasant side effects" which prevented me from leaving for school at the appropriate hour.

6) A car arrived in the parking lot next to my window very late last night which woke me up and caused me to lose sleep and, thus, to get off to a bit of a slow start this morning.

5) I didn't realize the Japanese do not practice Daylight Savings Time.

4) The wind was very strong this morning and prevented me from biking to school at my usual pace.

3) I had to take out my trash but there was a rip in the bag so everything got all over the floor and I had to clean it all up which took a dreadfully long time.

2) Well, I headed out for school on time, but felt cold when I was halfway there so I had to turn around and dress in more weather appropriate attire.

1) Americans are often late for work and I wanted my own example to create important grassroots cultural tensions because that is my job.

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2007-01-17T21:44:00.000-05:00

Leaving Inabe, Part II.

Oh, the joys of homecoming.

After the mad rush of last minute packing, lugging my 800 kilo suitcase -- replete with multiple omiyage boxed porcelain teasets -- through the rice fields, occupying several train seats with my heap of baggage, followed by a paranoidally sleepless night on my friends' tatami mat, I had at last exited the cab that took me to the ferry that delivered me to the airport where I caught my transfer flight before my 2 hour layover at the airport from which I departed on my 13.5 hour journey back to America.

Proudly, I approached my gate, passport and plane ticket in one hand, soda and peanut M&M's in the other.

After being frisked by a bilingual samurai descendent, I settled down in a cozy leather chair next to an unshaven Arab man with a US passport -- I know this because he was asked to present his US passport upwards of 7 times by each individual security guard, flight attendant and gift shop employee in the airport. Even several genki (lively) Starbucks employees who were roaming around the waiting room demanded to see it before they would allow him his free sample of Mochaccino Latte and Cranberry Bliss Bar.

Whilst I scrambled to retrieve my iPod and headphones to drown out the throngs of shrieking Japanese children in the waiting lounge, a Japanese desk clerk broadcasted warnings about upcoming airplane "turvurinz" -- Engrish for "turbulence" which, when pronounced amid a muddle of other nonsense-ridden malapropisms, sounds uncannily like "terrorism."

Though, this would have been an appropriate choice of words because the feature inflight viewing selection was none other than World Trade Center: Oliver Stone's 2006 2.5+ hour film opus which depicts plane crashes, terrorism and the destruction of large NYC tourist attractions.

You see, the Japanese are as fascinated with witnessing images of the pock-marked Ground Zero -- hence, why Ueda-sensei frequently suggests my personal experienes with death and 9/11 as an appropriate discussion topic -- as they are with consuming foods which have first been molded into the shapes of geometrically impeccable polygons.

Fortunately, however, the perverse environmental context made Stone's trite, ill-conceived and gratuitously lengthy film seem more entertaining to me as well, so I watched 3 times during the flight.

All in all, it was a pretty successful journey, aside, of course, from several unfortunate incidents:

1) 4 minutes into the flight when I removed my seat/tv remote control and, unable immediately to reslot it in its proper position, proceeded to jam it back in by force so I couldn't remove 1.5 minutes later when I felt I needed it again and had to enlist the help of a Japanese flight attendant who pried it loose for me with a metal spoon.

2a) Repeated warnings about upcoming airplane "turvurinz" followed by promises that we shall enjoy our "fright."

2b) Airplane Cabernet Sauvignon.

3) Bombardment by images of airplanes crashing into NYC skyscrapers, punctuated by surfing between the other viewing options: You, Me and Dupree, Miami Vice and a teen flick about romance between a white hip-hop dancer from the wrong side of the tracks and a white ballet dancer from the right side of the tracks called Step Up.

4) Intermittent trauma of having to arise once or twice during the 13.5 hour flight from my cozy aisle seat to allow the two Japanese women in my row to go to the bathroom.

5) Airplane sushi.

6) Ambient muzak of restive meandering flight attendants rattling metal jugs together from aisle to aisle while shouting the words, "Cohee desu!"

Translation = "Coffee!"

(Equally frightening were the flight attendants' -- all female -- arrestingly meticulous and elaborate uniforms, which consisted of navy skirt suits, high heels, stockings, pearl earrings, origami-styled hair buns and thickly layered coats of red lipstick and anemic-white foundation.)

7) Toward the end of the flight, the 30 minute NYC tourism promo which hailed the city's greatest atrractions as The Statue of Liberty, Times Square and the Empire State Building while making positively no mention of the city's chief interest, Brooklyn.

8) Airplane wasabi.

Finally, after what seemed longer than Steve Soderbergh's recent, interminably plot-hole-ridden, misconceived neo-noir film, The Good German, the plane landed.

While an Engrish-speaking flight attendant asked us please kindly to allow the First and Business Class passengers to depart before arising from our Economy seats, I hurdled to the front of the plane.

A stream of Japanese airline employees, steward, stewardess and pilot alike, bowed and thanked me in excessively polite language for my patronage.

As a Brooklynite gaijin (foreigner), long-estranged from and at last reunited with her homeland, I responded the only way that seemed appropriate:

With a flippant yet dignified full-length bow: "You're welcome!"

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2007-01-09T21:16:00.000-05:00

Leaving Inabe.

With only 8 minutes to go until my liberation from all things ricey for the tenure of the year 2006, I brace myself to endure Inabe's cruelly sluggish temporality whilst feeling my heart expand.

What shall I do for these final 7.6 minutes? Why I could do anything:
-check my email
-check my email again
-check it a 3rd time -- even though gmail auto-refreshes.

I allow my rice-weary fingertips to dangle in their states of sensory elation while they prepare for a 4th gmail-refresh mouse click, when:

"Herro, Mahi!"

Ahhh!!!!

"Hi, Mahi, I want for to tark to you."

Oh, tragic fates of rice field, with but 7.19 minutes of winter term at work remaining, why must you cast Ueda-sensei, by far your riciest specimen upon me?

"Mahi, one week after winter horiday bleak, on Jan.. Jan (involuntarily boxes own ears)... Janawary the 16, we have Oral II Communications crass."

Me (restraining my rising sense of atrocity), "Yes, I know, the class we teach together. That's great!"

Ueda-sensei looks solemn and focused. I feel relieved when she does not diagnose me with terminal illness.

"Yes, we have crass on Janary the 16."

"Terrific. Well, so long then. Have a stellar break!"

"Mahi, I want to know if you have any good ideas for Janawary 16 resson."

Crap, my first attempt at deflecting her presence has failed. Now maybe if I look forlorn and stare at my backpack for 5 minutes, she'll disappear.

"I want for to make resson pran about America...
"About immigration to America."

Immigration?!

"Many students immigrate during their bacation...
"They could rearn plocedure for calling hotel and restaurant...
"How for to talk to hotel crack at desk and lestaurant waiter...
"And airline ticket purchasing plocedure..."

Nope, after 5 minutes, I open my eyes and she is still there.

"Right, immigration. Great idea. Well, see you after break, then!"

"MMMmmmmHHHHHMMmmmmmmmmmm."
"MMMmmmmHHHHHMMmmmmmmmmmm."
"MMMmmmmHHHHHMMmmmmmmmmmm."
"MMMmmmmHHHHHMMmmmmmmmmmm."

We go back and forth like this for at least another 4 minutes. It is the only way I know how to be passive-agressive in Japanese.

"MMMmmmmHHHHHMMmmmmmmmmmm."

Yet, she persists.

"So do you have any good ideas for immigration resson?"
"Nope."
"Mmmm."
"Well, I'll check with those self-appointed Mexico border Minutemen."
"So, so, so, so. You know, ordering at restaurant and hotel plocedure. How for to buy airprane ticket."
"Yeah, that kind of thing. Great idea. I'll think it over."

"MMMmmmmHHHHHMMmmmmmmmmmm."
"MMMmmmmHHHHHMMmmmmmmmmmm."
"MMMmmmmHHHHHMMmmmmmmmmmm."

Okay, it is now 4:21. I have officially been liberated from work for upwards of 6 minutes, yet am still stuck at my desk communicating via alto grumble with the office pariah.

"And you will not be at work tomorrow because you have airprane fright to New York City?"

We have discussed this fact upwards of 11 times in the past 2 days.

"Yup, that's right. Good memory."
"MMMmmmmHHHHHMMmmmmmmmmmm."

Not this again! I shut down my laptop and start to gather together my belongings. It is now 4:23.

"It is bery long prane ride to New York City?"
"Yeah, it's long."
"Mmm, very long. It's bery long."
"Yeah, it's a pretty long flight."

I bundle up in my coat and wool cap.

"Well, better hit the road. I have a train to catch and I need time to pack for that long flight and all."

Ueda does not respond.

"Lovely chatting, though. Have a great break!"

She still does not respond. Would it be rude just to bolt?

I force her to communicate the only way I know how:

"MMMmmmmHHHHHMMmmmmmmmmmm."
"MMMmmmmHHHHHMMmmmmmmmmmm."
"MMMmmmmHHHHHMMmmmmmmmmmm."
"MMMmmmmHHHHHMMmmmmmmmmmm."

Ueda looks up at me with a grave expression:

"Mahi. I am plegnant."

???!!!??!!?! (It is 4:27).

"Um, ahh, wow! Great news! Oh my god, pregnant... great news! Congratulations!"
"Yes, I am pregnant."
"Yeah, congratulations!"
"I am pregnant. I am going to have baby."
"I know. That's so great! Congratulations."

She furrows her brow and eyes my tensely clutched mitten.

"I have 2 children already. Now, I am having 3 more children."
"Wait, triplets? Are you kidding? You're pregnant with triplets?"
"Mmmmm. I am having child in the spring."
"One more child or 3 more child -- I mean 3 more children?"
"One child in spring, 2 now already."
"Oh, so you're not pregnant with triplets?"
"I'm plegnant."
"Right, but just with one child?"
"MMMmmmmHHHHHMMmmmmmmmmmm."

4:30. I have now spent my initial 15 minutes of winter vacation playing "Who's on First?" about Ueda-sensei's fertility.

Finally, I pretend to hear my keitai (cell phone) vibrating and excuse myself for running late to a non-existent correspondent. I make my apologies to Ueda and then run away while she's not looking.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of Ueda muttering about morning sickness at my empty desk chair. I can only imagine her unborn baby will have an interesting childhood.

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2006-12-20T23:37:00.000-05:00

Faithful reader, before Rice Field Bl(r)ues takes a much-deserved 2+ week vacation in New York City where there is not a sprout of rice paddy to be found, on my last day in the office -- while time somehow manages to move backwards -- I present you with the following summary of my sentiments about Japan:

Top Ten Things I Will Miss Least About Japan During Winter Break...

10) How the checkout clerks at the grocery stores count your change for you upwards of 7 times before meticulously spreading out the paper yen so that each and every single bill is glaringly visible -- yes, 3 thousand yen, I believe you! Now, if you persist in recounting my change one more time, I will accuse you of monetary error out of misery.

9) Whenever I pass my students biking in the opposite direction as I am, how the boys always pump-fake with their bikes as if they are going to run me off the road and then bolt away before I can identify anything but their gleeful, maaasssss-ridden titterings. (And good thing none of them understand English curse words or I'm pretty sure I would have lost my job by now.)

8) How my bathroom reaches below 0 temperatures during the winter, and then it takes over 10 minutes for the shower water to get hot so it can turn freezing again after lingering in a luke warm state for less than half as long as it took to heat up in the first place.

7) The fact that the walls, floors and ceilings in my apartment building have apparently all been constructed out of origami paper. Thus, whenever someone upstairs walks to the bathroom in the middle of night, the sound appears to come from my own kitchen (a.k.a. my hallway replete with sink, microwave and moldy refrigerator) which sends me paranoidly somnabul-lunging every night for my butcher's chopstick.

6) Buying a plate of spaghetti for dinner and discovering upon my first bite that I have in fact purchased several strategically positioned strands of pasta atop a massive bed of white rice.

5) Eating bagels that taste like giant McDonald's hamburger buns with holes in the middle -- which also bear the subtle after-taste of white rice.

4) Situations in which the finest cheese in the supermarket has been produced by Kraft.

3) Working in an office 5 days a week where the telephone has been positioned strategically less than 2 inches away from my desk and elevated so as to form a perfect straight line between the receiver and my earlobe, and thus also allowing me to enjoy immediate fluency in Japanese phone lingo (it wasn't difficult).

After 5 months, I have yet to overhear a Japanese phone conversation that differs remotely from the paradigm:

"Hai! Hai! Hai! Hai! Hai! Sumimasen! Hai! Hai! .... Hai! ....... Hai! .. Hai! Hai! .. Hai! Sumimasen, sumimasen, SUMIMASEN! MMMmmmHHHmmHHMMMhmmmmm!! SUmimasen! Hai, hai, hai, hai, hai, hai, HAI! Sumimasen! Arigoto GozaiMAASSSSSSSU."

For you non pseudo-J-speakers out there:

Hai = Yes
Arigoto Gozaimasu = Thank you (politely)
MMMMMmmmmmmHHMmMmmmmmm = I exist
Sumimasen = Excuse me

2) Riding on an obscure train line for 30 minutes just to transfer at another station that can be deemed central enough to have trains in it that pass through other places that contain things besides rice fields.

1) Living absolutely isolated in the middle of non-English speaking rural Japanese society in an apartment small enough to be considered spatially affordable in New York City, but that is itself sandwiched between endlessly immense stretches of chronically identical rice fields.

That being said, gentle reader, I wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Jolly Kwanzaa, Mirthful Festivus, and sometime during the week of January 8th (when I return to Inabe), look forward to the most vituperatively bitter edition of Rice Field Bl(r)ues yet written!!

Yours Ever Fondly,
Maggie-sensei

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2006-12-19T00:49:00.000-05:00

"What you gon' do with all that junk?
All that junk inside that trunk?
I'ma get, get, get, get, you drunk,
Get you love drunk off my hump.
What you gon' do with all that ass?
All that ass inside them jeans?
I'm a make, make, make, make you scream
gMake you scream, make you scream.
Cos of my hump (ha), my hump, my hump, my hump (what).
My hump, my hump, my hump (ha), my lovely lady lumps (Check it out)."
-Famous karaoke lyrics by the Black Eyed Peas

Karaoke a la Japan:
The setting: Japan, a country apart. Literally, the entire nation is composed of 3 thousand odd islands which together occupy a space scarcely larger than California. A dark and rainy Saturday night: what to do for fun? Well, let's see, there's the ever-popular drink vodka at someone's flat until you pass out and forget what country you are in option; but since that is what you did last night, and are, in fact, still actively drunk from said festivities, it can be safely (though reluctantly) ruled out.

The next option, wander the streets aimlessly until a meandering police officer tries to arrest you for not having your gaijin (foreigner) ID card... nah, fun, but that's what you did 2 nights ago. Well, that leaves only one remaining option: karaoke!

Upon walking into any of the palatial karaoke abodes -- whose exteriors appear nearly identical to the Pachinko gambling centers' -- that litter nearly every remotely urban street corner in the nation of Japan, the gaijin here should expect to encounter sinisterly immediate success in obtaining a private karaoke room and limitless, discounted amounts of alchohol. The Japanese explanation of this social truth (and loosely translated):

"Oh yes, if the gaijin must insist upon existing, if you please, excuse me, thank you, in our geographical space, the least we can do -- ever so humbly by your tender grace -- is to conceal them in sound-proof, J-Pop and alcohol-ridden, isolated boxes during the 90 to 180 minutes of their peak Saturday evening drunken rowdiness activity, excuse me, thank you, thank you, excuse me, maaasssss. Then, we shall rely on our impossible train schedules to send them scurrying back, thank you, excuse me, excuse me, to their flats before midnight! (maasss)."

Their plots are ingeniously successful. Thus, the rest of this blog post is an expose on the unseen -- but heavily speculated about -- karaoke activity that occurs within said isolated, alcohol-pregnant Saturday night gaijin boxes of song.

A group of gaijin are delivered to their private rooms where they are immediately served excessively vast quantities of alcohol. The interior, bare, uncompromising, yet ominously metallic and neon. The personal microphones, cordless and plentiful. The culturally-charged environmental tension: so thick you can ripple it with a chopstick.

Yet, these gaijin specimen are highly adaptable creatures. Within instants of their arrival at their special, English-translated-song-laden karaoke lairs, a Dionysian energy seizes the mass in its clutch, urging them frantically toward the karaoke song request remote control -- with accompanying English translated song manual. Inevitably, their song queues teem with the couple dozen ill-conceived choices frenetically requested within the first 7 minutes of programming opportunity: a.k.a, cheesy pop music and obscure nostalgic tunage, which overtake the more thoughtfully selected decisions of the evening.

Sadly, despite the focused sessions spent poring over English song manuals that the frustrated gaijin undertake with increasingly greater focus throughout the evening, the cacophanous listening agenda has already been set in stone. Thus, weekend karaoke cements the gaijin in Japan's ineluctable fate: chaos and discord.

However, in addition to their futile song request routines, the gaijin employ a series of elaborate strategies to distract themselves from their mediocre musical choices. These range from alcohol consumption, disrupted attempts at conversation, vague gestures toward going to the bathroom, and, their most significant effort: the on-stage karaoke performance.

You see, Japanese citizens are clever and understand how frustrations arise from the gaijin's chronic lacks of success with early planning. Thus, they structure their foreigner-friendly karaoke spaces to accomodate the needs produced by the gaijin's lack of prescience. Hence, the subtly elevated panels of wood that signify the karaoke room's "performance space," or "diva stage," if you will.

Now the gaijin must sit, nurse their sake and anxiously await a song deemed energetic enough to inspire the idea that anyone of a certain gender or level of familiarity with the music ought immediately to give an on-stage performance for the rest of the group. The arrival of this song inevitably results in one of the following situations:

1) The person whose idea the performance was -- a.k.a. the only one who knows the tune and pacing of the lyrics -- sadistically urges all of her/his "friends" -- a.k.a. the gullible company who are absolutely clueless about the tune and pacing of the lyrics -- to struggle awkwardly for 30 seconds on stage before giving up while said mic-less sadist forcefully hammers out a perfect rendition of the song under her/his breath.

Meanwhile, those lucky, uninvolved elite delight in obliviously drinking beer and fantasizing about how great it will be when it finally comes time for the songs that they requested (which, alas, never arrive).

2) The spirit of the live on-stage karaoke performance overtakes the group, and everyone agrees to dance about wildly in the middle of the room. However, since this scenario only occurs when upwards of 99% of the group is thoroughly inebriated, no one is coordinated enough to record it on camera, nor are they alert enough to make a mental note of the experience. Thus, the frenzied off-beat baying and misplaced microphone-groping manage to elude the dusty digital archives of karaoke on-stage performance history.

3) When that tender and thoroughly obscure song requested by a gaijin of more diva-inclined energies comes up, a very special solo performance occurs, rivaled in its completeness of documentation only by the most significant battles of World War II history.

4) Some song of random significance to two or more members of the group arises, and inspires an impromptu performance. This can also be described as the ritual of the Cacophanously Clashing Trio: one raving drunkard, one surprise diva who is unfortunately drowned out by the volume of the raving drunkard, and, finally, someone lurking off to the side while desperately trying to keep a low profile and regretting the moment s/he sacrificed a frothy beer to the terrors of on-stage karaoke performance.

5) Group orgy ending in unpremeditated mass suicide -- this is the most frequent result of the on-stage performance.

Karaoke Music Videos:

Ah, yes, and what would the evening be without its Japanese-produced music video ambiance?

From my film major's perspective, I can best describe the karaoke monitor music video accompaniment as a cross between Steven Spielberg, certain '70s NY experimental feminist videos and an underfunded tampon commercial. Essentially, any song relating to love, romance or displaced sexual desire inevitably takes place on a beach whilst a sextet of Asian couples, all decked out in white and of ominously ambiguous age gaps, make awkwardly edited flirtatious gestures toward one another's necklines.

Further, country music, a delightfully baffling genre for the karoake music video director, reverts immediately to images of either Mt. Fuji, sumo wrestling and/or ramen noodles. And somehow all lyrical food allusions are literalized by visions of strawberry-flavored stacks of Pocky.

However, since all of said songs frantically requested within the first 7 minutes tend to be of the romantic ilk, images of Asian Lolita's and their Humbert Humbert-san's saturate the evening's aesthetic spectacle.

Finally, the action-charged evening of out-of-tune karaoke mutterings and excessive alcohol consumption culminates in a frenzied and utterly hopeless effort to figure out the bill. Especially compared to the ease with which the gaijin obtain their private room and brimming vats of alcohol, the difficulty of their payment process strikes the native karaoke center employees as frightfully perverse.

After an extended argument between the several elected "Japanese speakers" among the gaijin group about the nuanced linguistic differences between various katakana characters, the least patient -- and often most ignorant of Japanese -- gaijin among them starts rounding up collections of yen and unleashing the group's disorder upon the timid and ever baffled Japanese karaoke center employees.

This ritual frequently transitions into a ten to fifteen interlude of bewildered people exchanging bows and profusely thanking one another.

Finally, after the bill miraculously sorts itself out in such a fashion that at least 99% of the group is convinced they have overpaid -- and the karaoke center employees that the group has underpaid -- the gaijin depart, wholly inebriated, while gawking at their virtual wealth of digital photography recording the evening's activities.

Tune in next time to find out what happens afterward when the drunken gaijin accidentally stumble into a Pachinko gambling center...

A Public Domain Film Review

2006-12-14T22:28:00.000-05:00

The City of the Dead
Legally available for free at http://www.archive.org

Archive.org helps us online viewers celebrate the vast and exciting world of forgotten or of not-yet-discovered cinema. Yes, many of these films are structurally flawed, radically underfunded and ridden with plot holes larger than the Bush Administration's Iraq War narratives'. Yet, why must mainstream, big-budget codified movies -- the same 4 actors endlessly rehashing permutations of nearly identical stories -- be the only ones that enjoy visibility?

Archive.org -- which sports among millions of other shorts, the 9-minute documentary masterpiece, Free Culture, filmed last spring by me and fellow 2nd Law blogger Thessaly La Force -- challenges film industry structures. With the help of our friend the Internet, it creates an alternative space to Hollywood and big studio pictures.

When Hollywood says Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio crime film, archive.org says 3-part BBC documentary about how al Qaeda and US neo-cons created each other's ideologies and political influence: The Power of Nightmares, check it out. When Hollywood decides Kirsten Dunst, of Bring it On fame, would be best suited to play former infamously beheaded French Queen Marie Antoinette, archive.org, and its sibling youtube.com, simply teem with spoofs and a vital stream of remixed media images that provide engaged and critical commentary reminding us always of Hollywood's latent absurdity. In other words, archive.org and youtube fiercely challenge the mainstream images whose dominant status we often take for granted.

Yes, Internet tv and cinema are indeed noble pastimes. However, I want to focus here on a very special, long-forgotten -- if ever noticed -- archive.org picture: unburied from the dusty vaults of the 1960s pseudo-political B Hollywood archives, I present you a modest film review of John Llewellyn Moxey's 1960 horror film, The City of the Dead...

What do the Salem Witch Trials, Norman Bates and Cold War politics all have in common? The answer to this complex question is accidentally mulled over in Moxey's humble 1960 opus, City of the Dead. The film depicts the academic struggles of an ambitious and free-thinking young blond woman who wishes to research gender cleansing and Puritanical New England witch culture for her university term paper by visiting a sleepy and forgotten former scene of the crime: the Raven's Inn, a bed and breakfast in a small New England town called Whitewood, and the site of many burnings at the stake.

However, little does Nan Barlow (said free-thinking blond protagonist) know that City of the Dead's alternate title is none other than Horror Hotel. That's right, following in the footsteps -- if not in the box-office success -- of Psycho, its recently released source of inspiration, City of the Dead, and Nan's Raven's Inn -- ironically her space outside of university gender tensions -- teem with violence and displaced psychological neuroses.

Moxey culminates his adherence to Hitchcock's formulae by killing off his fiesty blond pseudo-protagonist less than halfway into the film. Further, like Janet Leigh's in Psycho, Nan's impending death is signaled by the visual revelation of her black lingerie -- Bates spies on Marion Crane removing her naughty black undergarments but moments before "Mother" stabs Marion in the shower.

And into the arms of vengeful pagans, the undead witches of Puritanical Whitewood, descendeth Nan's dangerously freewheelin' flesh.

As Nan's controlling and highly concerned older brother quips to her equally assertively distraught, committed boyfriend, "what kind of a girl goes away for the weekend without leaving behind a contact number?"

The answer: Nan Barlow. Not much as the bra-burning, political protesting feminist of the '60s, but just subversively defiant enough of conventional gender codes -- literalized by her black lingeree -- to warrant her violent elimination less than an hour into the film.

In the context of City of the Dead's embeddedness in American Cold War political anxiety, the film's gender/paganism subtext proves highly revealing. As Arthur Miller illustrated in his play, The Crucible, McCarthy communist witch-hunting '50s America and 17th Century Satanic witch-hunting New England enjoy more than a bit of cultural overlap.

Moxey's film, as Cold War Hollywood tended to do for highly practical financial and political reasons, sides with the witch-hunters. The undead antagonists who ravage gentle Nan are none other than the spirits of the "witches" burnt at the stake during the Puritans' heyday. Thus, despite Nan's initial eager ambition to expose the gendered violence bound up in colonial witch-culture, Moxey lends anti-pagan anxiety historical validity -- well, in a manner of speaking.

Further, the feminist spirit in which Nan conceives her deadly project motivates both her own undoing, as well as a wave of pagan violence that threatens her boyfriend and older brother.

Lessons learned:
1) Pagans were tormented and ostracized for a reason.
2) Feminism misses the point and only causes problems for one's boyfriend and older brother.
3) Psycho was successful because it was a good movie, not just because it killed its black lingerie-sporting blond protagonist one hour into the film.

Curious to find out more about forgotten, but politically-charged and fascinating classics like The City of the Dead? Here is a list of other great films you can look forward to finding on archive.org...

His Girl Friday (1940) -- Howard Hawks
My Man Godfrey (1936) -- Gregory La Cava
The Kid (1921) -- Charlie Chaplin
The General (1927) -- Buster Keaton
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) -- Robert Weine
Nosferatu (1922) -- F.W. Murnau
The Power of Nightmares (2004) -- Adam Curtis
Night of the Living Dead (1968) -- George A. Romero
Reefer Madness (1936) -- Louis J. Gasnier
Royal Wedding (1951) -- Stanley Donen
A Farewell to Arms (1932) -- Frank Borzage
The Stranger (1946) -- Orson Welles
D.O.A. (1950) -- Rudolph Mate
Free Culture (2006) -- Thessaly La Force and Maggie Hennefeld
M (1931) -- Fritz Lang
Un Chien Andalou (1925) -- Luis Bunuel
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) -- Alfred Hitchcock
Scarlet Street (1945) -- Fritz Lang
Meet John Doe (1941) -- Frank Capra
Cause for Alarm! (1951) -- Tay Garnett
Rhythm and Blues Revue (1955) -- Joseph Kohn and Leonard Reed
The Phantom of the Opera (1925) -- Rupert Julian
Our Town (1940) -- Sam Wood
Beat the Devil (1953) -- John Huston
Penny Serenade (1941) -- George Stevens
Till the Clouds Roll By (1946) -- Richard Whorf
The Little Princess (1939) -- Walter Lang
Gulliver's Travels (1939) -- Dave Fleischer
Made for Each Other (1939) -- John Cromwell
The Outlaw (1943) -- Howard Hughes
The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954) -- Richard Brooks
The 39 Steps (1935) -- Alfred Hitchcock
Salt of the Earth (1954) -- Herbert J. Biberman

The Muckraker in the Museum

2006-12-13T03:30:00.000-05:00

“BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T LOOK GERMAN” large letters spell out across the front of a building a mere fifty meters from the Brandenburg Gate. Below the sign are placards listing the victims of right-extremist violence in Germany, mainly foreign-born immigrants who were killed because, well, they didn’t look German. Dressing up the façade of the prominent Academy of the Arts [Akademie der Künste] with documentation of provincial bigotry alongside a major tourist landmark is, however, relatively toothless for artist Hans Haacke, the man behind the sign. As “Hans Haacke for Real: Works 1959-2006,” the exhibit inside documents, Haacke’s work often bites the hand that commissions it, turning upon museums and galleries as participants in morally questionable societal practices, and exposing the skeletons in the closet of those places that invite him to create art for them.

For example, Haacke’s Manet-PROJEKT 74, created for the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum’s 1974 exhibition “PROJEKT 74,” chronicled the lives of the owners of the recently acquired Manet canvas Bunch of Asparagus. In so doing, it made public the Nazi-related past of Hermann J. Abs,
the driving force behind the canvas’ acquisition. It called to attention the widespread practice of “sweeping under the rug” of National Socialist past that occurred in the Federal Republic of Germany, a point only doubly proven when the museum declined to exhibit it.Haacke has also been censored when his works do not explicitly target the institution, such as in Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, a Real Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971, which meticulously documents an implicitly immoral real estate practice through a series of photographs and charts. The “political” nature of the piece led to the Guggenheim’s refusal to include it in the show for which it was commissioned, creating one of the most famous cases of censorship of this century—at least until New York Mayor Rudolf Giuliani tried to strip the Brooklyn Museum of Art of its funding in 1999 for showing a painting he thought was offensive.

Because they didn’t look German presents a point upon which educated viewers will doubtlessly agree, as well as exposing reprehensible behavior of a non-white-collar sort that museum owners, trustees, boards, and the like, are not involved in or linked to and can safely condemn. (It also camouflages a building whose appearance Haacke recently likened to a “bank from the Seventies.") However, Haacke’s work needn’t have an implied “up-yours” to challenge the viewer: in many cases, the plethora of information calls upon the onlooker to piece it together. An appreciative glance is not enough to "get" the work, which often seeks above all not to be aesthetically "appreciated" but rather and above all understood.

Thus, the way Haacke’s work defines itself as art leaves a question mark hanging in the air. Those pieces composed of informational plaques or graphs, like Shapolsky, could just as easily be found in a sociological museum or a town-hall citizens gathering or college history class; they become “art” through their location in a museum or gallery. They defy clichéd notions about viewer subjectivity, since statements like “art is what you get out of it” or “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” don’t apply to Haacke’s works. Rather, each has a fairly specific point which cancels out other messages; for Shapolsky, is it obviously not correct to conclude that Haacke is praising Shapolsky’s business acumen.

In fact, Haacke’s use of the phrase “Real Time System” is meant to indicate an art object that continues to function as depicted regardless of viewer perception or presence.[1] In Haacke’s early Conceptualist pieces, like 1965's Blue Sail, where a simple fan blows a blue sheet in the air, this functioning was mechanical. In later works like Shapolsky, it is sociopolitical. The choice to portray his message through the medium of art, then, when it is at times patently sociological and political, has been criticized by Slate editor Judith Shulevitz who encourages Haacke to stop “hiding out in an art museum” and join public discourse through the published journalistic word.

However, the author of “Museums and the Consciousness Industry” knows what he is doing: he picks museums as his medium because he believes they are participants in cultural discourse to an equal degree as newspapers (or online culture rags).[2] Two of these “generators of consciousness” are exhibiting “Hans Haacke for Real” right now: the Academy of Arts here in Berlin until January 14th, and the Deichtorhallen Hamburg until February 4th, with the former focusing on works where politics and history play a central role, the latter on earlier works as well as works which address economic roles of corporations and museum sponsorship.

The Berlin exhibit, filling the downstairs gallery space at the AdK, is curated with an emphasis on dialog between the works, chronologically mixing them in order to create cross-decade correspondences. For example, Manet-PROJEKT 74 is shown alongside Der Bevölkerung, Haacke’s 1999 installation in the Reichstag, presumably since both address Germany’s sometimes selective and reluctant memory of its past. In the latter case disputed memory can be seen more prominently in the response to the work than the work itself: the parliamentary debate about whether or not to install it is shown here on video. Such supplementary explanations throughout the exhibit form a necessary backdrop to understanding Haacke’s work the way he would like; as he states, “When a work of this nature is shown outside its original context, background information needs to be provided so that the viewers can understand the references and the impact it might have had.”[3] The only drawback is that explanations of the work’s cultural relevance are all in German and no supplementary English materials are available, an ironic shame given the imperative to read and understand embedded in Haacke’s ouvre.

The last gallery features Haacke’s latest works, placing pieces critical of American jingoism, flag-waving, and attitudes towards Iraq, alongside his suggestion for a memorial to 9/11 and a smaller commemorative piece, the aptly titled Commemorating 9/11. Responding to a call from arts support group Creative Time for poster suggestions in October 2001, Haacke’s entry is simply a white outline of the World Trade Center’s two towers’ silhouettes, which is posted on top of previously existing billboard paste-ups such that the advertisement composes the body of the towers while white defines the space around them.The silhouette suggestion shows an almost insider’s sensitivity to what the loss means to New Yorkers once familiar with the sight of the World Trade Center.

As seen in the annual re-creation of the buildings’ shape through the high-powered illumination of the Tribute in Light, the towers’ absence is a keenly visual loss to city inhabitants. The tragedy is not minimized but rather referenced with exquisite minimalism by these two projections of light into the sky. Haacke’s recreation of the silhouette even before the first showing of Tribute in Light—the visual memorial was first lit on March 11, 2002, six months after the attack—intuitively exhibits the same metonymy of visual loss for enormous societal loss, which makes sense since Haacke is a long-time resident of the city. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, Creative Time is also behind Tribute in Light).

Unfortunately I didn’t notice that these images of billboards contained a World Trade Center outline and had to read the wall text to put it together, assuming instead it was a commentary on pervasive visual culture in public space. If a native New Yorker equipped with the awareness of cultural context that Haacke describes as equally necessary to his process as “bronze or paint on a canvas,” doesn’t make the connection, then perhaps the need for explanation has gone too far.[4]The opposite problem was apparent with other new works, such as the enormous ripped American flag hanging from the ceiling, or the man wearing a flag-printed hangman’s hat-come-pillowcase that not only blocks his vision and obscures his individual identity but also threatens to smother him. Such simple social commentary seems a bit too obvious and uncomplex after the multivalent works in previous rooms.

Despite the weakness of the survey’s more recent offerings, it nonetheless presents a slice not just of the career of a thought-provoking artist but also snapshots of postwar Western society, through its descriptions of the work’s censorship or resultant political hullabaloo. Haacke’s work itself tries to prod the viewer into doing more than just “visiting a gallery” and the curators here ensure that the visitor sees not just a survey of painting but also of social criticism of the last several decades. And this relevance has no expiration date—with increased restrictions in American civil liberties as well as the growing Neo-Nazi movement in Germany, to name a couple examples, Haacke’s earlier work remains biting and important.

For more on the aesthetic happenings in Berlin, visit my blog A New Yorker in Berlin.

Exhibition catalog: Flügge, Matthias, and Robert Fleck, editors, Hans Haacke for Real: Works 1959-2006 Düsseldorf: Richter Verlag, 2006. (With contributions by Walter Grasskamp, Benjmain Buchloh, Rosalyn Deutsche.)
[1] Walter Grasskamp, Molly Nesbit, and John Bird, eds., Hans Haacke (New York: Phaidon, 2004), 41.
[2] First English publication: Ian North, ed. Art Museums and Big Business (Kingston: Art Museums Association of Australia, 1984), 33-40.
[3] Grasskamp., 12.
[4] Ibid., 12.

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2006-12-12T20:17:00.000-05:00

'Tis the season: Kringle does Inabe

Let's face it, friends, as the holiday season fast approaches, festive spirits and merry songs have forcefully possessed many of our humble world's citizens. In fact, this year, Christmas' unending jolliness and good cheer grace even the most remote stretches of isolated Asian rice fields -- like those of my home town, Inabe, Japan, for example.

While Slutty Santa costumes and suggestively positioned candy canes have infiltrated the local teen hangout centers, the village airwaves simply teem with Mariah Carey's Christmas vocal stylings. Even our own Inabe Sogo Gakuen High School has not escaped the mad grips of Christmas joy and good spirit.

This season, my ever colorful and highly eccentric JTE (Japanese Teacher of English), Ueda-sensei, has asked me to prepare a special speech about Christmas in the States for our students. And yes, this is the same Ueda-sensei who, upon meeting me, inquired whether I knew anyone who died on 9/11 when the wolrd tlade towels were bloken.

In its burst of Christmasy fever, Inabe, Japan has generated even greater visibility surrounding its token figure of all things Western and merry -- a.k.a. myself. However, little do they know that their apparent Christmasite is a JEW... no, literally, very little to absolutely nothing, since most of them have never heard of Judaism.

My modestly unique tale all started a few days ago when Ueda-sensei asked me to prepare a speech about Christmas:

"Mahi-sensei, I have question for you about Chlistmas resson. I need for you to plepare a resson. Talk about, you know, Santa Kraus, his red-nose horse, Rudorph! [pauses to enjoy her favorite pastime of pulling out clumps of own hair] Ludorph, Mariah Carey Christmas music, and the birth of Jesus Christ."

Uhoh, Santa called, he wants his lack of religious significance back!

Granted, holiday benevolence and unity create positive energy in any landscape, no matter how warped and off-base their motivations. However, would I really be doing anyone a favor by catering to commercially-manipulated ideas about mainstream Western culture? After all, aren't I here to defy and to create tensions surrounding cultural and religious stereotypes? Sure, I could prattle on about Santa Kraus and his red-nosed horse Ludorph until the North Pole freezes over and Santa has a heart attack from his morbid obesity, but then would I really be doing my job?

Overcome by a fervent and sudden commitment to holiday ethics:

"I'm sorry, Ueda-sensei. I'm Jewish. I don't celebrate Christmas."

You see, in our staff office at Inabe Sogo, we believe foremost in honesty. For example, several days previous, when the Oral I Listening Exam tape that my JTEs and I had spent ages (almost an hour) recording -- and which they treated like my first platinum album -- spontaneously disappeared, along with Kawaii-sensei, my JTE who was responsible for keeping track of the cassette tape, after the tape was later found tucked away behind the garbage can next to Kawaii-sensei's desk, my ever earnest JTE expressed no qualms about personal honesty:

"Excuse me Mahi-sensei, I am sorry about my absence and cassette tape's disappearance. I had severe illness of diarrhea," for the first time hitting his R's in the history of our relationship.

Thus, taking into account the honest and open atmosphere our school's staff office embraces, never did I dream the level of festively-inclined frustration my humble religious confession would incite.

Ueda-sensei scratched her head, which she does periodically either when confused or before about to have a conversation aloud with herself:

"Ah, so, so, so, so, so. Ah, Jewrish? What is Jewrish?"

Holy smokes, Woody Allen was right!

"Judaism is a religion. It is like Christianity, except older and more neurotic."
"Neulotic?"
"Er, we Jews don't celebrate Christmas. It is a Christian holiday. Instead, we light candles for 8 nights and eat chocolate money to celebrate the miracle of the everlasting holy petrol. This, we call Hannukah."
"Rearry? No cereblation of Christmas? So, so, so, so, so, so."
"Nope, just Hannukah. Sorry."
"Hanama is Jewrish Chlistmas?"
"Hannukah. And no, it is a separate holiday that happens to fall around Christmas time."
"MmmmmHHHMmmmmmmHmmmmm."
"It's not very interesting. No jolly fat man comes hurtling down our chimneys in the middle of the night. We just light some candles and exchange presents. Maybe eat some unleavened bread... wait, no, that's Passover."
"Mmmm... So you give speech for class, then, about Jewish Christmas?"
"You mean Hannukah? Um, okay. Like what kind of speech?"

If these students can barely stay awake through their mid-year exams, I don't image they would find my ill-informed rhapsodies about draidles, menorah and Woody Allen terribly invigorating.

"You make speech about Jewish Christmas... your tree with presents under it, and Jewish Chlistmas Carors."
"Hannukah Carols? I'm pretty sure we don't have those. At least none that Mariah Carey would have recorded."
"Mmmmmmmmm."
"You know, Ueda-sensei, I'm not sure how informative my Hannukah speech would be..."

I went in for the kill.

"I am an atheist."
"So, so, so, so, so. You cereblate atheist Christmas horiday?"
"No. I mean, I'm all for gifts and festive merriment and all, but not so much of the religious ilk."

Several strands of synthetic wool on Ueda-sensei's equally puzzled sweater vest stood on end. This, somehow, returned her to her original idea that I should give a speech about Christmas.

"You give speech about Chlistmas in New York City."
"You mean, like what my family does?
"Yes, that's good."
"Well, last year we went to see Brokeback Mountain and then ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant."
"Is that normal?"
"No."
"MMMHHJHMMMMHHHmmmmmmmmmmmmHMMMmmm."

Uhoh, deep guttoral grunts can only signify one thing: more nonsensical questions.

"Is Mexican a Jewrish food?"
"I don't think so."
"But Jewrs eat it on Chlistmas?"
"Well, we only did because the Chinese restaurant was closed."
"MMMMhhhmMMMhhmmmmmMMMmmmmm. So, so, so, so. Mahi, you give speech about Chlistmas for students. You talk about Chlistmas things, like Santa Kraus, Jesus' birth, Ludorph, the horse with the red nose, your trees with presents underneath. Then we all will sing Mariah Carey's "Sirent Night" song together."

In the end, my speech focused on Kwanzaa, which I narrated as the most important Western winter holiday, overshadowed by others like Christmas and Hannukah due only to Kwanzaa's lack of capitalist gift-giving focus, and to latent racial tensions embedded in post-slavery American culture. A baffled Ueda-sensei translated to our wholly comatose roomful of slumbering students.

Then, after I felt satisfied with my attempts to create greater cultural awareness in my new community, Ueda-sensei cranked the cassette player and soothed our gentle spirits while we all sang along with Mariah Carey's Christmas album.

Softly, we marched into Mariah's "sirent" and "hory" night.

You're In Japan

2006-12-07T03:32:00.000-05:00

Posted as a poetic response to the previously blogged comedic musings, "You might be a gaijin (foreigner) in Japan if..."

by David Fowkes, Mie-ken's favorite South African political philosopher.

You're In Japan...

1. If you like the change

Of peeing in your own shoes
When you could exchange
For others in range
And pee in those
Then I suppose

You're in Japan

2. And if you should come

Not to notice skirts
So far up the bum
That they let in the sun
But think trousers look odd
Then, by God

You're in Japan

3. And you know that when

You kick a girl's ankle
She howls, and then
"Sumamisen"
She begs your leave
You have to believe

You're in Japan

4. And now that you bow

At anyone at all
Without batting a brow
And are wondering how
You'll leave strangers alone
When you get home

You're in Japan

5. And though you try to quell

The rude sound when you pee
Think: how much worse is their 'L'?
Furthermore, they, if unwell
So their bowels burst and expel
A most terrible smell
Choose you, to tell

For you're in Japan

Post-Modern Power or Merely Playtime?

2006-12-06T17:17:00.000-05:00

Here in Berlin a competition is taking place. It is between neither football teams nor politicians nor beauty queens, but rather two Ferris wheels: the “World Wheel” and the “Giant Wheel.” Neither has been built yet, but in their planning stages both represent the city’s continual effort to transform into, and literally be able to see itself as, a first-class metropolis of recognizable stature. On the drawing board, the latter wheel is winning, sort of, with 5 meters of height on the merely 175 meter tall World Wheel, although the World Wheel is having an easier time collecting funds—200 million Euros--necessary to start construction. The competition also has a dicey tinge of East-West rivalry to it, with the World located near the famous Western transportation center Zoologischer Garten, and the Giant alongside the newly spruced-up Ostbahnhof, or “East-train-station.”

(Note: both Wheels bear names in the original English. Perhaps the world’s current-day lingua franca is employed to denote construction of international significance, or perhaps the owners simply know where the tourist dollars come from).

As with the London Eye, the premise behind these wheels is a popular and profitable tourist attraction that relies on the giddy pleasure of being high up in the sky and seeing all. And, as was the case in London in the pre-Eye era, there are sufficient extant look-out points in Berlin, for example, the cupola of the Reichstag or the cloud-grazing top of the Fernsehturm, or TV tower, unofficial icon of the city skyline. The added appeal of these wheels, then, is that their slightly peripheral location provides a view of all the viewing points, an ability to take in what you can’t take in if you are in the center of the city trying to take it all in.

But is that all? The paradox of a Ferris wheel is how sharply it exposes one’s atom-like existence compared to the spreading terrain out there while empowering the individual with an expansive gaze otherwise impossible to attain. The panoramic gaze has been a source of delight for centuries; in the United States nineteenth century landscape painters like German-born Albert Bierstadt showed their enormous canvases in conjunction with carefully constructed platforms, lighting, curtains, and curved walls so that the sweeping gaze would feel real, so that the view out over the landscape would be actual. These paintings were presented not as hermetic art but rather as entertainment; Bierstadt was no avant garde artiste but rather a showman.

In fact, George W. Ferris created his eponymous attraction for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair only twenty years after Bierstadt rose to the peak of his fame, at the close of the same era of wild geographic expansion and attempts at consolidation of the American identity. It was incredibly popular, grossing over half a million dollars at fifty cents per ride, and it rose about 80 meters, or 264 feet, off the ground. Its influence has been felt at fairgrounds ever since; the photos here depict an amusement Ferris Wheel from the current Christmas Market in Berlin’s Schlossplatz.

However, to paraphrase Stanley Kubrick's film Full Metal Jacket, “this ain’t your granddaddy’s Ferris Wheel.” Unlike the amusement-park Wheel, which one rode as part of a larger fair experience of entertainment and oddities, and which positioned itself as part of a greater festival atmosphere, the new Wheel is proud of its stand-alone shock value and peddles itself as no more than the all-consuming gaze. These new Mega-Wheels are distinguished by this self-imposed uniqueness, evinced in their sheer enormousness as well as their physical distance. They are not for views of the terrain but rather out and over it; their marketing draw is the all-encompassing nature of their gaze which by definition stems from a point outside. If one is looking at something, one is not of it: the new wheels mark a boundary between onlooker and looked-upon, between individual and urban sphere.

This gaze is not just separate; it is also empowered by its mind-boggling breadth and reach. The equation of an all-seeing gaze with power has been discussed by thinkers like Jeremy Bentham, whose “Panopticon” prison tower posited a world where the threat of constant surveillance, rather than certain punishment, keeps people in line. (The Panopticon was popularized by French theorist Michel Foucault.) Art historian Allan Wallach has called the panoramic gaze in American landscape painting “Panoptic” to connote just these struggles to gain control over the landscape, to come to terms with new geography by forcing that geography to conform to the terms of one’s own vision.

So is this new Mega-Wheel proliferation a post-modern attempt to reconstitute the individual citizen as a powerful agent in the face of ever-larger and ever-more chaotic modern metropolises? Is it a way to make the nearly-atomized viewer, who increasingly counts for less in the over-populated globe, a judge on the perimeter of the brave new world? Perhaps a cultural attempt to figure out what to make of the sprawling society that we’ve created? A push to regain the upperhand over decadent millennial civilization through re-established visual supremacy?Or is it just another way to make money and have fun?

For more commentary about architecture and cultural politics in Berlin, check out the blog: Bagels by the Spree: A New Yorker in Berlin.

SOURCES
If the link above becomes outdated, information about the two wheels can be found in Karin Schmidl, “Das Geld reicht sogar fuer sechs Raeder,” Berliner Zeitung, 30 November 2006, 27.
Wallach’s assertion is in: "Making a Picture of the View from Mount Holyoke," in American Iconology: New Approaches to Nineteenth-Century Art and Literature, ed. David C. Miller (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 73-84.

2006-12-06T01:37:00.001-05:00

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2006-12-01T01:21:00.000-05:00

School Uniforms.

Coming from a small, experimental liberal arts high school, where colorful and non-ripped clothing, shirts with collars and hair not sculpted to exude subversive political statements were deemed aberrant, I was struck and shocked immediately by the Japanese school uniform culture here.

In the sweltering months of summer, and pleasant week of fall we enjoy in Japan, the uniforms represented yet another of the host of alien aesthetic codes that bombarded me on a daily basis. Granted, I was able to detect something at least slightly perverse about the girls' uniforms in particular -- for example, that the girls must walk endlessly hunched over backwards up and down staircases to prevent exposing the entirety of their buttocks and undergarments. Other than that and, well, the extreme awkwardness and visual discomfort of my morning bike rides to school, the whole uniform ordeal remained, for me, just another of the endless but innocuous cultural differences between urban West and rural Japan that already consumed my life.

That being said, I tend to reserve judgment for blogging and/or inner monologues. You see, during the interminable and bureaucratic work weeks I enjoy here at Inabe Sogo Gakuen High School, I like to keep as low a profile as humanly possible. However, my modest attempts at anonymity -- i.e. not being hounded and blatantly gawked at every 4 seconds of my life -- are haunted and thwarted by a colorful array of antagonists...

The Players: My JTEs (Japanese Teachers of English):

Ueda-sensei: The Office Pariah
Defining Characterists:
-always walks hunched over
-likes to mutter to herself in middle of staff room
-has penchant for unfortunately patterned, geriatric-related sweater vests
Favorite Pastime: Spending upwards of 45 minutes per day hovering over my desk while discussing how (a.k.a. endlessly re-establishing that) "the world tlade towels have been bloken."

Music Teacher (whose name I forget): My Stalker
Defining Characteristics:
-has identity crisis if not constantly mid-song (preferably American Christmas Carrolls written for sole purpose of advertising fast food and/or athletic footwear)
-wears springs in shoes and/or on steroids
-likes to bounce
Favorite Pastime (besides bouncing): Approaching my desk at least 8 times a week to ask me how to pronounce lyrics to the song 'Tie a Yerrow Libbon Lound the Old Oak Tree.'

Kawaii-Sensei: His name literally means "cute" in Japanese... this is a profound irony.
Definining Characteristics:
-no sense of personal space
-less sense of volume control
Favorite Pastime: Being strange.

Atsuyou-sensei: Paris Hilton-san
Defining Characteristics:
-never caught dead in rice fields without sporting at least 12 different high-end Western labels -- of the Gucci/Prada/ Burberry/Coach ilk.
-divorced and remarried! scandalous for an inaka (rural) sensei
Favorite Pastime: Lesson plans that involve 4+ hour movie screenings and extensive gossipping about her ex- and current husbands

Ishihara-sensei: The School Uniform Nazi
Defining Characteristics:
-irrationally petrified of me
-does not speak English (not remotely)
-employed by her government to teach children of rice farmers how to speak English
Favorite Pastime: Aggressive enforcement of school uniform regulations

For the purpose of this blog entry, which fancies itself a discourse of sorts on the gender inequalities embedded in the enforcement of Japanese school uniforms, I would like to focus on the last of my list of humble players, Ishihara-sensei, otherwise known among elite groups -- which strictly and exclusively involve myself -- as the School Uniform Nazi.

Suffice it to say that my first impression of Ishihara the School Uniform Nazi, Ishi for short, was neither a positive nor a satisfying one. Sometime in September, before my very first week of classes as an English teacher here in Inabe, Japan, a gaunt yet vigorous woman addressed me in barely audible non-English about something related to rice fields, raw fish and/or lesson plans. (I'm still working on figuring it out. I think it may be communist code...)

Ever since then, our relationship has undergone a less meaningful evolution than an Evangelical Pentecostal's theory of Creationism:

Ishi: Um (with maddeningly tiny voice and deer-in-headlights expression), excuse me Mahi-sensei... ... ____ ... ??? .... (&&'E#W'''"((")!!!!!!!!!! ...
Moi: Um, yes? ...
Ishi: (....... _____ ???? ...)
Me: YES??!!!!!!!
Ishi: (with ever waning voice) Um, I want for to ask... you..... is you? Do you is? Have?
Me: This week's lesson plan?
Ishi: (doing her best to look bewildered) Huh?
Me: Yes, I wrote this week's lesson plan. Here it is: a copy for you. I hope you like it. Do I think the students will like it? Well, I worry it's not quite as soporific as last week's... but it is longer, has more sheets of paper and thus will provide more comfortable pillow for them. Thanks for stopping by. Lovely chatting. Alright, see you later then.
Ishi: (batting eyelashes and now imitating deer-in-headlights whose mother has just been violently slaughtered by rapidly encroaching, large automobile) Yes, I sink so.
Me: K, glad you agree. Bye, then!

During classes, I rely on Ishi as my sole interpreter. For 45 minutes a week, she assists me while I instruct 18 Japanese students in the remedial fundaments of spoken English. In other words, she translates for me while I attempt to engage -- at a speed itself slow enough to stop time -- the 3 out of 18 non-English speaking students who are awake at any given moment.

Now, if it takes Ishihara-sensei upwards of 5 minutes to understand the word "hello," I can only imagine how she interprets and conveys my lessons to a roomful of already baffled Japanese students. Perhaps they are better off remaining asleep.

Sometimes, however, I grow bold and walk around the room, lightly tapping random, slumbering students on the shoulders -- "SUMIMASEN!" (Excuse me) "I know my lessons are boring, but if I can stay awake through them, so can you!"

However, such extreme lengths of discipline are frowned upon at my school, and rarely employed by the Japanese teachers. After all, the kids are hard at work all day after school playing sports and tilling their families' rice-pregnant soils. Learning comes second... or in my school's case, maybe 12th (during exam week).

Moreover, every time I resort to such militaristically rigorous tactics -- i.e. suggesting the students ought remain awake during my lessons -- Ishi manages to reach deep inside herself and cultivate a spine. "Excuse me, Mahi-sensei, but I sink zey are bery tired."

But I digress. I promised a discussion of gender and school uniforms, did I not? Lately, as the sole space I allow myself outside of my low-profile-keeping ambitions, I have launched a campaign against the sexism latent in winter-time enforcement of Japanese school uniform regulations. Briefly:

Ueda-sensei: Mahi, you flom New York?
Me: Yes, again, that's correct. It is unfortunate that the world tlade towels have been bloken but, like the changing seasons, we must be bold and press on.
Ueda-sensei: So you flom New York City in New York State?
Me: Ueda-sensei, what do you think about school uniforms?
Ueda-sensei: Huh... yes, all students must wear uniforms.
Me: And the girls, their uniform is different from the boys'... well, what would happen if a girl came to school in a boys uniform?
Ueda-sensei: No, girls wear girl school uniforms and boys wear boy school uniforms.
Me: Right, but what would happen? The girl would get sent home, right?
Ueda-sense: Girl would get sent home and come back when she put on girls school uniforms.
Me: But what about in the winter? It gets very cold, the school is not properly heated, and the all of the girls can barely sleep through their classes in those little miniskirts. Meanwhile, all the boys and female teachers get to wear pants.
Ueda-sensei: Boys wear boy school uniform and teachers wear whatever they want.
Me: But the girls are cold! Can't you see? Why can't they wear their track pants under their skirts?
Ueda-sensei: They can wear their gym shorts under their skirts.
Me: Yes, but their gym shorts are the same lenght as their skirts.
Ueda-sensei: Then they put blanket over their skirt during class.
Me: Yes, but those blankets are also the same length as their skirts.
Ueda-sensei: (after interrupting our conversation to have lengthy conversation with herself about style and sweater vests) I'm sorry. You don't wear uniform in New York City high school, and you don't understand. It is different. I can't explain.

So Ueda-sensei, the one woman in the office who I thought might understand my point about gender, under-heated classrooms, and the enforced December-February sporting of miniskirts, has chalked the whole debate up to cultural difference.

Cut to one week later:
It is almost December now. The classrooms have been chilly all month but they are now so cold that I wear my winter coat and scarf during lessons. The girls in my classes, visibly shivering, can barely stay asleep.

Ishi and I walk through the corridor, I out in front, and Ishi cowering in her own shadow, lest I address her in English. We arrive in the classroom and are greeted by a vitriolic round of snores. I feign indifference and contemplate enlisting the uber-soprano music teacher to shake my students out of their inertia with some "Jingre Berr Lock."

Suddenly, Ishi's face alights and her dubiously flaccid limbs sprout wings, as if possessed by a fugitive vitality.

"No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 暗号化を用いるサービスがございま!!!!!!!UNIFORM!!!!!!!!を利用可能なブラウザをご利用になることをお奨めします!!!!!!!!!UNIFORM!!!!!!による暗号化について、詳しくは、こちらをご覧ください!!!!!!!!UNIFORM!!!!!!!!"

Ishi proceeds abruptly to thrust several young female students out of their mid-morning slumbers and discipline them for sporting track pants under their miniskirts. The students look sheepish while Ishi chucks them out of the classroom. Oh well, I guess they can fall asleep just as easily in the hallway.

"Umm, what just happened?"

Ishi reverts to her normal passive demeanor and timidly mutters something about uniform rules -- though, for all I could decipher, she may just as plausibly have been talking about Barabra Streisand and Quaker Oats breakfast cereals.

"Are you serious? But it's so cold in here. I can barely stay warm in my pants and winter coat.. and it's only November."

Ishi contracts further, perhaps trying to revolutionize ideas about negative physical space; she points to the remaining rows of slumbering students (the majority now male) to signify that it is time to teach.

"Yeah, cause God forbid the girls wear pants or feel warm while sleeping through my class."

She pretends not to hear this. I drone on in slow motion with my diligently ignored English lesson...

And that is why, ever since this day, Ishihara-sensei has been known, exclusively to myself, as the School Uniform Nazi.

From the Archives

2006-11-30T20:47:00.000-05:00

(Lifted from Harpers Readings 12/06)

From a November 10, 1962, letter by Rose Kennedy to her son, President John F. Kennedy, among 252 boxes of her notes and letters released in September by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

Dear Jack,
In looking over my old diary, I found that you were urged on one occasion, when you were five years old, to wish for a happy death. But you turned down this suggestion and said that you would like to wish for two dogs instead. So do not blame the Bouviers if John has similar ideas.
Much love, dear Jack.

don't crucify me.. or do

2006-11-27T18:03:00.001-05:00

could i get a small show of hands of people who think that iranian president, mahmoud ahmadinejad,
in serious spite of being rather crazy, heinously anti-semitic, and at least as scary and corrupt as bush if not significantly more...

is still kind of ... hot?

9/11: The Way We Were

2006-11-16T13:18:00.000-05:00

Back in March, Maggie made a post about the film Loose Change, generating much discussion, both online and off. At the time, I argued that the film was sloppy and propagandistic -- and as such, a contribution to the dumbing down of American political discourse. A month or so ago, my roommate introduced me to another 9/11 film (approriately titled 9/11), which I would like to offer as an alternative to Loose Change.

In the months before September 11th, two French filmmakers, brothers Jules and Gédéon Naudet, came to New York to make a documentary about a rookie firefighter. The first months of shooting were uneventful, but on September 11^th the brothers were there filming with the fire department. The film contains one of the only two known recordings of the first plane hitting the Trade Center, as well as the only footage shot inside the towers on September 11th.

Unlike Loose Change (as well other documentaries such as Fahrenheit 9/11 and Why We Fight) 9/11 is not propagandistic. Nor does it turn its subject matter into a melodrama as have some fictional films on the subject. Unlike the former films, it is a documentary in the sense that it actually documents, to a large extent, what it was like to be a firemen inside the towers, as well as in the time before and after the crash.

Watching 9/11, one remembers how unprecedented the event was which it depicts – something easy to forget after five years of having it abstracted and hammered into our political subconscious. As a film, it is deceptively simple: it seems to be little more than the Naudet brothers’ footage skillfully edited and honestly narrated. But as one watches, it quickly becomes clear how much has changed in the five intervening years since it was shot. Today, the firefighters' can-do attitude seems like innocence almost unimaginable in a world of terrorist threat levels and electronic surveillance. When the firemen close off one of the exits of Tower One or put labels on the front desk “just to make it obvious to people” which tower they are in, it seems almost naïve. Today, even when the subway stops for 10 minutes to wait for clearance it’s hard not to have a moment of panic.

It almost seems appropriate then, when during the break (in the TV version), we are treated to mini-lecture from Tom Ridge on the necessity for a Department of Homeland Security. Obviously this is not actually part of the movie, but viewed from the vantage point of 2006, it seems a clear example of how the emotion of 9/11 was expressed (or, if you will, manipulated) politically. For me, one of the most fascinating parts of 9/11 is contrasting the mentality of five years ago with today's, and this "commercial break" provides a clue about how this transition came about.

Although it is a bit long and at moments heart-wrenching to watch, 9/11 is definitely worth seeing even if only to remind us of the way we were. It received very little press in the US (or at least little that I can remember, and certainly little in comparison to Fahrenheit 9/11) which I find surprising since it is by far the best contemporary documentary I have seen in a while. It is available here from google video with French narration and here as it was aired on ABC.

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2006-11-14T01:44:00.000-05:00

Engrish for Beginners.

The life of the inaka rice-field-dwelling Assistant Language Teacher in rural Inabe, Japan has a tendency to grow rather tedious. You see, contrary to common belief -- i.e. my pre-Japan expectations -- when I walk out of my apartment and down my local road, empty rectangular plots of rice field do not spontaneously metamorphasize into vibrant, jazz-blaring coffee shops, hipster boutiques and trendy wine and cheese-bearing delicatessens. Rather, they defy the laws of urban decency by remaining rice fields. Alas, oh, brave Dean & Deluca: in tragic urgent longing doest I apostrasize thee!

That being said, I seek pockets of pleasure and entertainment where I can find them...

Enter Engrish: the accidental clash of English-inclined native Japanese speakers, meaning, and the syllables "R" and "L". As a gaijin in Japan, one sees it everywhere. While the Engrish signs of decent establishments teem with unintentional sexual innuendos, a host of nonsense-ridden mispelled English words haunt the local fashion, media and restuarant cultures here.

Now, if such explosions of Engrish-charged chaos limit themselves mainly to Japan's cosmpolitan cities and large, suburban commercial centers, just imagine the Engrish-related madness that graces a humble, pseudo-modern, rice-field-sandwiched Japanese learning establishment.

Enter Inabe Sogo Gakuen High School:

As the lone gaijin native English speaker in ISG's thriving Engrish program, my life has been consumed by a host of malapropisms, misplaced L's and R's, and accidental sexual invitations from 15 to 70 year-old Japanese folk, men and women alike.

For example, in my 2nd year Oral I class yesterday, when an unlucky fate cast the word "chicken" upon my lesson plan, a skinny boy with a buzz cut in the front row found himself seized by the cruel grips of Engrish:

"Chicken!" he shouted, "cheeekin! cheekein! shickin! CHICKEN!"
"Er, yes, chicken. That's right. Good! Let's move on..."
"Cheeeeekin!"
"Ummm..."
"CHICKKKINSSS!"
Several ever slumbering boys in the 3rd row feign gestures of mental alertness.
"CHeeeeekINNNN!"
"Hah. Yeah, chicken... great word. So the thing about English adjectives! --"
"CHIKINNNNNN!"
Oh my God. The mascara and lip gloss-plastered girls in the corner have stopped texting each other on their keitai (cell phones) to behold the Engrish spectacle.
"You got it. Wow, you realllly have that word down. I'm so proud. Now, moving on..."
"Mally me sexy CHEEEKIN mama!!!!"

You see how rapidly this modest, energy-drained attempt at English language instruction unraveled into a steamy pick-up line -- its baseness rivaled only by its lack of deliberate meaning. This vile pornography latent in the Engrish language manifests itself at even the most innocently-motivated opportunities.

Take Ueda-sensei -- my crazy JTE (Japanese Teacher of English): ambitious, office pariah and an ENTIRELY different story desrving of its own blog post -- when she tries to demostrate a model dialogue during our "Eating at a Mexican Restaurant" Oral II lesson. In the dialogue, a man named Dick tries to order a burrito and some iced cola from a Mexican clerk:

Ueda-sensei: Maggie, I'll be Dick and you be the Mexican Crack. OK? Dick (points to self), Mexican Crack (points to me).
Me (fainting): But, do you know what you've just said! Why, my American puritanism-embedded ears!
Ueda-sensei: OK. Hi, Mexican Crack! I am Dick.
Me: Um, is this the part when W. Mark Felt jumps out from under the chair?
Ueda-sensei: Let's see, Crack... I, Dick, would rike a bullito and an iced cora prease.
(I faint.)
Ueda-sensei: Mexican Crack?

That being said, lest my bawdy pen shock any of my readers into running against me on the GOP ticket for political office... here is a totally 100% UNcensored version of my Daily Engl(r)ish class' recent dialogue-writing assignment:

The following has been written by real students in Maggie-sensei's Monday morning Daily English class... the grammar and spelling mistakes, malapropisms and accidental innuendos, are Real.

"what are you doing?"
"tetris! it's cool."
"How to play it?"
"Drops blocs. And line is disappeared."
"Oh my God!"

"My name is Kimu Johniru."
"What's your dream?"
"My dream is world peace."
"But you have nuclear weapon."
"No I don't have."
"You say a lie."
"I'm honesty. Because it is my toy."

"Hey! Don't enter in my house."
"Why? Please invite me."
"No! Because I don't know you!"
"HAHAHA! ok. ok! I know, but I like you . Please invite me to your party."
"Listen! I can't invite you."
"Please!"
"I can't invite you! OK!?"
"I hate you!"

"Oh... my son is studying hard... sweet!" (I taught them some slang.)
"He must become doctor or great politician. My son is very clever."
"I'm not studying. I'm reading comic! My mother don't know... cool."

"Hello."
"Hello."
"How are old are you?"
"Oh... I'm fifteen years old."
"What's!?"
"You are rude!"
"You are liar."
"Don't judge a man by his appearance."

"I want to be a sailar."
"Sweet!"
"But... I can't swim."
"Nevermind! I want to be a pilot but I can't fly in the sky!"

"I have not seed."
"Oh, no! It can't be true."
"Lol! You are cool!!"
"I'm more expensive than you."
"What a shame."

"What are you doing."
"I am primitive man."
"Are you pulling you reg."
"It's true!!"
"Are you a crazy."
"You are a crazy."

"Hi! How old are you?"
"Hi! I'm 15 years old."
"What's!?"
"So I'm young and beautiful!!!"
"It's crazy."
"It's shameful of you!"
"Are you a girl?"
"Yes. I am. I have boy friend."

"Hello! How are you?"
"I'm fine."
"I came to see you."
"Thank you!"
"You are still cool."
"You are still ugly!"
"I want not to see you again!"

"I'm begetarian."
"I delivering pizza."
"Me too."
"Shut up! You should eat beef."
"Soot up."
"No, I can't."
"Get back your name!"
"You must eat beef!"

"Good morning, father."
"I'm not your father."
"What's the matter?"
"I don't think I've seen your before."
"Are you stupid?"
"Let's see..."
"Shut your mouth!"
"I'm better."

"Are you Ouma?"
"No, my name is Matumoto."
"Matumoto?"
"Yes, Matumoto Tizuo."
"Oh, my god."
"Why?"
"You are Oumu."
"Rearry?"

"Who are you?"
"I am god."
"Aar you god."
"Hahahahaha."
"What?"
"I'm sorry."
"Hahaha."
"Hahaha."

"Hello."
"How are you."
"I'm fine."
"Do you like fish?"
"No, I don't."
"I am a fish."
"How about you?"
"Eat me."

Post-Election Squirrel Interview

2006-11-09T23:10:00.000-05:00

Mr. Squirrelingworth, you made yourself the most controversial election-day rodent this year by chewing through the power cable of a voting machine, thus disrupting the electoral process.

That's correct.

What motivated your subversive behavior? Do you disapprove of American party politics?

Politics, politics, politics. In what universe do human congressional elections define American party politcs?

Well, in a human one I suppose.

Precisely, squirrels don't elevate their own elections to the status of God. Pop quiz: do American squirrels outpopulate humans?

Umm...

Yes, they do. And don't get me started about elevators... elevators?! Is an elevator required to accomplish nimble feats of vertical ascension?

Well, naturally.

Naturally to whom?! You're lucky American acorn culture keeps the squirrel here complacent or else there would be far more revolutionary outcries like mine from the rodent community.

I see.

No, I don't believe you do. A squirrel can barely claw up a newspaper without being exposed to human political culture in this country. Meanwhile, you tromp along with your voracious canines wholly uncognizant of the American squirrel's political climate.

Wait a minute --

Just last year a construction team devestated a row of Diebranch voting machines and caused enormous delays in electing our new Tree of Representatives.

I'm very sorry to hear that. I, er, suppose I didn't read about it at the time.

Of course not, why would a human ever pick up a copy of the Daily Acorn? Why, I bet you've never even read the Central Park Times.

I'm sorry, Mr. Squirrelingworth. I haven't.

Meanwhile, you and your own papers prattle on about war in Iraq, the economy and nuclear holocaust.

Say, those are pretty important issues.

Please don't interrupt me. It is precious rare that the American media pays lip-service to the squirrel. Sure, it's a bad situation in Iraq, but you discuss it like it's the only war in existence.

So you're concerned our focus on the Iraq War makes other international violence less visible?

Precisely. For example, the Mongolian squirrel community has been racked with strife between its natives and post-Cold War Soviet squirrel refugees. Over a decade has passed and the human community with all of its powerful big sticks and nuclear weapons has done nothing to mitigate the squirrel-on-squirrel violence in Mongolia.

In Mongolia? No, I've never heard about this.

And that's just a lone example! Don't get me started about the great African acorn famine of 2005. Or what your people's ethically devestating CO2 emission culture has done to the Alaskan rodent community... and what it threatens to do to squirrels all around the world.

Yes, global warming faces all Earthly populations with imminent crisis.

I know! But all you ever read about in the news is how it's been slightly destructive to societies of poor people -- in Africa, South America, South East Asia, and maybe once in New Orleans.

That's not exactly true --

Hasn't your media learned by now that you humans are utterly incapable of identifying with your poorest communities? Sure, if you want a few pity tears, more parliamentary jargon about the economy and maybe another bible or 2 thrown towards Africa, keep rhapsodizing aesthetically about 3rd World poverty all you want.

How do you propose the media handle this discourse, Mr. Squirrelingworth?

I'll tell you how. Global warming affects rich squirrels and poor squirrels alike. There's a lot for you humans to identify with in our culture. All over the world: we rob each other, make passionate love to each other, our elite hordes its acorns whilst our poorest squirrel communities suffer famines.

So what your saying is that the squirrel and human communities would benefit from better understanding one another?

Why, even our Eastern European squirrelostocracy suffers from imbreeding!

Right, I'm afraid you've lost me again...

To paraphrase one of your greatest literary minds: if we hibernate, eat acorns and live inside tree cubby holes, do we not breathe?

Um. So, is that why you sabotaged our election, Mr. Squirrelingworth?

And if you oppress us, stereotype us, inflict passive violence upon us and then fail to register its repercussions, while narrating our advanced acorn technology out of your scientific journals, do we not seek revenge?

News for the Politically Literate (election edition!)

2006-11-07T02:13:00.000-05:00

Ethiopian Starbucks accused of underpaying local farmers. One woman ponders why her weekly salary is less than price of Tall Tazo Chai Latte.

Father of Malawian child now backs Madonna's adoption. He goes on the record, "It was a tough choice, but in the end I decided wealth, luxury and prestigious education would be better for my son than 3rd world orphanage poverty."

GOP moves fast to reignite issue of gay marriage. Hurry up, GOP, or Americans might get the idea that they're not supposed to vote based entirely on one issue.

Democrats worry about blacks' turnout at the polls. Thus, they recruit Michael Jackson to perform on election day. Wow, I guess the party really is THAT out-of-touch.

Lower calorie diets extend lives of monkeys. In related news, scientists theorize that Calista Flockhart immortal.

Circulation plunges at major newspapers. 2nd Law blames itself.

World failing on hunger pledges. Thankfully, Africa to meet yearly bible quota.

North Korea says it will rejoin nuclear negotiations. Bush and staff go into immediate conference to figure out best way to mess this up.

South Africa apartheid-era leader dies at 90. In final words, he expresses wish that heaven and hell be separate but equal.

Reese and Ryan split after 7 years. Nice move, Ryan. Good thing you have your acting talent to fall back on.

China bars all but highest court from approving executions. However, new law complicated by fact that all courts are 'highest court' in communist country.

Kerry calls his GOP critics "right-wing nut jobs." He adds that "flip-flop" is not a verb and, "fuck you, there were 3 purple hearts!!!"

Voting machine company submits to inquiry. Government hopes to clear up this issue in time to ignore gerrymandering and racist voter ID requirements.

New research shows that elephants can recognize themselves in mirrors. In related news, animal rights activists accuse French theorist Jacques Lacan of being "elephant-cist."

KFC to reduce artery-clogging fats. In spirit of reform, Colonel Sanders to join Weight Watchers.

US debates value of North Korea talks. However, Bush boycotts these debates due to belief they are of little value.

New York plans to make gender a personal choice. And the thousands of New Yorkers who already have made gender a personal choice "plan" not to care.

For France, video games are as artful as cinema. Further, Jean-Luc Godard to direct upcoming version of Grand Theft Auto.

Japanese champ eats 97 burgers in eight minutes, setting a new world record. His explanation of how he did it: "easy, I was just that happy not to be eating rice."

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2006-11-04T21:39:00.000-05:00

Inabe Geography 101

Once upon time, a great president died and his successor inherited a war that was already over. However, taking advantage of how few people understood the war was over, the ambitious successor ended it with an unnecessary bang, thus making an ethically-devestating but strategic move in an impending cold war against the Soviet Union and communism.

The Players:
Great President: Franklin D. Roosevelt
Successor: Harry S. Truman
Unlucky Country that Got Nuked: Japan

Of course, this is a somewhat simplistic reading of history, but every action has a cause and effect. Rather, it has a number of complex and intertwined causes and effects that play out in surprising ways -- often to unrecognizable degrees -- for decades unto milennia.

Then, in light of these WWII histories, which every American schoolchild is taught to memorize (with varying degrees of accuracy), upon setting out for Japan last summer, I was haunted by a latent sense of ally guilt for the unforgiveable atrocities that my countrymen committed upon this soil. Further, a host of curiosities fascinated me regarding how and in what ways the violence of WWII is still visible in Japanese society.

Images of conspicuous poverty, awkward and tense sites of Americanization and the remnants of devestated landscapes flitted across my mind. So far off was I...

The thing about Japan, after the post-war occupation, the structures of Japanese society tightened into rigid bureaucracies: while procedure replaced imagination, heaps of meticulous paperwork were exchanged for common sense. In other words, reconstruction struck a surprising combination of the painstaking and the haphazard.

Now, to the Easternly-untrained eyes of the Western gaijin foreigner, how are the results of this bureaucratically illogical rebuilding process striking and visible? How and where does one see the war? Do its manifestations confont the gaijin as upsetting? Confusing? Recognizable? Comedic? Ironic? Postmodern?

Yes. Yes!!!! Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And, if ever an appropriate example existed of a remarkably post-post-war landscape, Inabe, Japan would stand proudly, geometrically and clashingly alongside that example.

1) ZONING!!!!!

Somewhere along the lines, through some cruel twist of contingency, a Japanese bureaucrat with a fierce case of ennui misplaced the word "ZONING" from his Essential Reconstruction Priorities list.

Inabe, a humble stretch of urban-rural pastiche... what do you call those? Suburbs? No, suburbs exist on the skirt-hems of cities and are composed mostly of residential housing with big parking lots in which mean-spirited, dirty-blond-haired children play soccer.

If not suburbs, then, rural? Urban? Well, what is it?

Every day, I ride my bike 20 minutes to school. My eyes wander mechanically through their tree and metal pole-dodging duties -- sometimes with success -- while the friendly breeze from a nearby typhoon racks my bicycle chains, thus providing me with a pleasantly melodious ambient din.

I bike down my driveway through my little housing complex and am immediately engulfed by a horde of rice fields. What do I see? Rice field, rice field, rice field... rice field... another rice field... some village peasants drinking vending machine coffee on the side of a rice field. Oh look! How pleasant, another rice field.

Imagine my initial shock when, turning my head for a scenic nod to a passing rice field, I was instead confronted by a violent and jutting neon mass of Pachinko gambling centers.

Inabe sports the Pachinko triumvirate: adjacent Eisu, Pachinko Palace and Paradise Slot, all sandwiched between the town's Jusco shopping center on one side, and a visibly interminable stretch of rice fields on the other.

In a town whose population is 99% composed of rice farmers and factory workers, by what spin of logic do three enormous Pachinko gambling palaces become necessary and/or profitable?

Granted, I have never spent too many days hard at labor tilling my rice-pregnant soils, but after long bouts of exposure to exercise, fresh air and outdoor activity, my next idea has never been: now, what I REALLY want to do is sit in front of a slot machine and chainsmoke for 8 hours while watching all my hard-earned profits, yen by yen, disappear into thin air.

2) ZONING!!!!!!! cont'd

As mentioned above, aside from the rice farmers who constitute a healthy bulk of Inabe's population, many local factory workers proudly call Inabe their homes. This is where the logic of Japanese zoning becomes further interesting: the lanscapes of rural farming and of industrial production have been relegated to the same spatial domains.

Literally, after biking 20 minutes to school everyday -- to reach the distant bridge that takes me across the creek to my school which, geographically, should only be 5 minutes away from home -- I ride past a chicken farm, more rice fields of course, a large and smoky factory, and then arrive, on the very same block, at Inabe's big and modern high school building.

It's like traveling from Nebraska, to Kansas, back to Nebraska, to Detroit, back to Nebraska again, only to arrive in Long Island: and all in but a mere handful of bike pedals.

3) Engrish

Even more perverse than the cluster of gambling establishments which serves as the town's only source of entertainment -- there are no movie theaters or cultural centers in Inabe -- stand the awkward but forceful signs of the city's Western influence.

Exiting the high school's microcosm of modernity, if you turn west and follow the non-factory/non-chicken-farm road, you will, well, first traverse another expanse of rice fields, then, bike up a steep hill of residential housing, until you arrive at what I like to call the city's red light district: a Lawson's convenience store, the Inabe Municipal Office, a Bonanza City shopping center with a McDonalds, and, finally, a modest row of elegant yet unpretentious restaurant fare.

On my 3rd day in Inabe, a co-worker took me to the hamlet's boldest example of Western cuisine: Popo Cafe. Just adjacent to the Municipal Office, the Popo prestige attracts Inabe's most elite crowds, ranging from rice chiefs and factory managers to a handful of white-collar bureaucrats.

I like to describe the decor as a cross between a quaint Parisian cafe, an affluent Japanese household and a Dunkin Donuts. All this is elevated to the status of accidental self-insight by the sign proudly sported in gold lettering across Popo's front window: "It is always happy and smile at Popo Cafe." Dickens could have never fathomed a greater visible irony of rural class divisions.

(Nor could Said have more blatantly manipulated the aesthetic politics of my post-war-occupation Western ally guilt).

4) Good Ole Inabe!

Personally, I have quite warmed up to Inabe-shi, Mie-ken, Japan as my new home for the year. After reaching the important decision to avoid Popo Cafe like the plague for the tenure of my stay here, I have discovered all the things I truly love about Inabe:

a) strategically lit fires at the edges of rice fields furnish the air here with a constant and toasty aroma of Asian barbeque
b) sunsets over the rice fields provide relief for the eyes of the wandering, ex-pat aesthete like nothing experienced outside of a Paradise Slot Pachinko center
c) the musical culture: rattling bike chains aside, my pint-size but vixen-like Japanese canine neighbor serenades me everyday after school with Mozart's "Barking Sonata:"

woof. woof. woof. yelp. arooooooooooooooo.

d) passive-agressive bike races with my Japanese high school students every morning en route to work
e) most importantly, how many chances in life would I have gotten elsewhere to cultivate my full Japanese bow at passing rice farmers while in the process of riding a bicycle? (Good thing I always have the rice to break my fall).

5) Conclusions

Inabe, what is it? Something unremarkable? Something deeply remarkable and highly revealing? An argument for zoning? An accident? An ironic lesson in the post-modern politics of post-war colonization? Perhaps even a landscape that exists outside the logic of Western ideas?

Well, my answer grows simpler everyday: Inabe is my home.

Tharp on Dylan

2006-10-30T01:39:00.001-05:00

Twyla Tharp's latest juke-box musical, The Times They Are A-Changin, has hit Broadway to the tune of mixed reviews. Ranging from Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal's condemnation, "so bad that it makes you forget how good the songs are," to Ben Brantley of the NY Times Theater Review's, "even as the dancers seem to fly, Mr. Dylan's lyrics are hammered, one by one, into the ground," the musical's coverage has left Tharp feeling Subterannean Homesick Blue.

Although I am currently in Japan so have clearly not had the pleasure of watching all of my favorite songs defiled and stripped of nuance, I am skeptical about Tharp's bad press.

Tharp's tendencies to literalize Dylan's metaphorically-pregnant characters in her musical have elicited perhaps the loudest groans of rage from her critics. For example, Cinderella in "Desolation Row" materializes at center stage mid-apostrophe. Similarly, the song "Like a Rolling Stone" is pushed further downhill when Tharp conjures a vibrant vision of Dylan's "Napoleon in rags."

You used to be so amused
at Napoleon in rags and the language that he used.

Tharp exposes Napoleon's allusion and thereby strips him of his amusing language, reducing him to another of a swarm of manipulative images that compose the cultural landscape Dylan's music attempts to subvert.

[I am curious to see whether Tharp restrains herself with "your diplomat who carried on his shoulder a siamese cat."]

Dylan's amorphous image and mystifying sleight-of-tongue have for so long kept his lyrics fresh and ambiguous, and thereby protected them from the terrifying realm of the literal. Thus, Tharp stands accused of appropriating images to slaughter words: her aesthetics annihilate Dylan's sound.

However, I remain skeptical.

By confronting Dylan's language with the images they invoke, Tharp effectively revitalizes them: she adds a new layer of sensory perception to Dylan's absurdity. After all, what part of a woman balancing a leopard-skin pillbox hat on her head like a "mattress balances on top of a bottle wine" precludes visual explicitness?

As I said, due to my current geographical relegation to the country of Japan, I have yet to see this musical. However, I wonder if the marriage of Dylan's fugitive verse to Tharp's absurdly literal mise-en-scene does not invite more space for tension and dynamic reflection than her tough newspaper reviewers admit?

Well, especially for you NY bloggers out there, if you doubt my wisdom, see the musical and tell me about it!

And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing
He's getting ready for the show...

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2006-10-26T01:24:00.000-04:00

Omiyage: an institution of ginger-flavored corruption.

"It is time we blew the lid off this whole omiyage operation: you do not care about whether I would enjoy a chocolate-covered fermented soy bean. I will no longer accept your blood money, and neither will the good people of this fair nation."
-Winston Churchill

Here at Inabe Sogo Gakuen High School, us teachers partake in a ritual deeply embedded in Japanese culture: the exchange of omiyage -- gifts, souvenirs, established tokens of politeness.

That's right. In the mad rush of packing and frantically purchasing beloved American goods during the few days leading up to my departure for Japan, what do you think I was buying? Delicious American foods, toothpaste -- Japanese toothpaste lacks fluoride -- and high-impact Western deodorant? Well, yes. But also omiyage: Red, white and blue tattooed pencils, NY Mets ties and pre-packaged, fun-sized Butterfinger bars to give to my new Japanese co-workers in exchange for their respect and politeness. (Wouldn't Kit Kats have been acceptable? Noooo, they already have those in Japan. They wanted to try new and exotic candies like Butterfingers.)

What troubles me even more than their resistance to gifts they can buy in their own convenience stores -- it's the thought that counts, right? -- is this ritual they've established of exchanging tacit vows of common courtesy for material objects. A.ka. "You finance my and my office buddies' exotic Butterfinger afternoon snack for today, and we'll watch your back for a couple of months."

When I break the office xerox machine and require a team of expertly-trained JTEs (Japanese Teachers of English) promptly to drop exactly everything they are doing to assist me in repairing the damage in time for my class in less than 4 minutes, for example, my assurance of their aid should not have to depend on the exchange status of something as arbitrary as a fun-sized Butterfinger bar!

"These rotten branches you sport have corrupted your soil."
-Aristotle

Even more dubious than their obsession with small gifts to motivate their flawlessly stellar and helpful behavior is their inability to call a spade a spade: to see omiyage as tokens of latent materialism and corruption. Rather, they view the omiyage as pleasantly innocuous, emotionally-charged objects that establish bonds between the exchangee (the receiver of the small/token gift) and the exchanger (the giver). In other words, the exchanger re-narrates the exchangee's geographical histories by sharing with her/him a small symbol of the distant landscape from which the omiyage was purchased.

When I climbed Mt Fuji -- a far less sinister endeavor than the whole omiyage ordeal -- I was advised to purchase some small food-related souvenirs to share my experience with the office co-workers. Although these people have lived in Japan for their whole lives, surprisingly few have ever climbed Mt Fuji. The Fuji experience exists under the gaijin (foreigner) domain: cave canem, Japanese! But what ilk of Fuji keepsake did they desire? A hunk of Fuji gravel from the summit? A photo? The pilfered neon fannypack of a Swedish Fuji-bound tourist?

"These rotten branches you sport have always already corrupted your soil."
-Jacques Derrida

Hardly. It was the pre-packaged, Fuji-stamped generic omiyage they craved: a piece of milk chocolate; a cookie; a squishy clump of breaded sweet bean paste. No matter the content of the gift -- all Japanese omiyage are of kindred ingredients -- it was the Fuji-form that so fascinated and enticed them. The authentic Fuji lettering on the box that contained a horde of small, unsurprising and identical food-related items.

In other words, as long as the appearance of the container of the omiyage signified Fuji, the established gift-for-politeness transaction was legit.

"Wakarimashita?"
"Yes, understood."

"This omiyage culture represents a system of instutionalized racism: 'you' is always the other. No, I do not want to meet you, to get to know you... I want to reify you by exchanging my polite behavior for a chocolate-coated, sesame-infused symbol of 'you'."
-Susan Sontag

Upon arriving in Japan, I was at first unnerved by the idea of passing out mass quantities of identically packaged gifts to my new office friends -- even ones of as untouchable a status as the exotic Butterfinger. Whom do I give them to? Did I bring enough? What if I have some left over? Is it rude to eat the leftovers of your own omiyage? Could I simply give some co-workers greater quantities of omiyage than others? But then what if the ones who received only single quantities of omiyage spot the ones who received double quantities and then feel offended by the fact that they have only received a single portion whilst others have received doubles? Would they still offer me in exchange their tacit vows of 2-month tenured politeness if they feel they have gotten short shrift?

What do I even say to them while I hand them their fun-size gifts? Could I simply aver, "omiyage?"

"Hai, dozo. Omiyage." (Here you go, a gift.)
"Hai, dozo. Omiyage."
"Hai, dozo. Omiyage."
"Hai, dozo. Omiyage."
"Hai, dozo. Omiyage."
"Hai, dozo. Omiyage."

What if they tell me their name and I don't remember it? I could give just a couple people an omiyage per day and pace myself...

But what if one of my co-workers upon whom I have yet to bestow an orange-papered Butterfinger omiyage is in a position to exchange polite behavior with me? If they misunderstand, and are rude, when I later give them their omiyage, do they expect me to make allowances for retroactive polite behavior exchange? Will we rewrite history together under our new omiyage-charged bond? The way we pretend I am sharing with them a piece of Mt Fuji when I am actually exchanging a generically-produced, Fuji-stamped rice cookie biscuit?

"Omiyage, jeeeeeeeeeeez-oooooo-eeeeeeeeeeez-ahhhhhhhhhhh. Man, take me off your frying pan. I can't breathe under this tan. I'd rather live in Iran."
-Bob Dylan

In the end, the exchange process reads something like this:

"Omiyage."
"Maaasss." (polite ending tacked on to any number of Japanese words often employed in exchange for language.)

"Omiyage."
"ゆるぱそ』ブログに、「芸術の秋、小さなアートのある暮らし」を掲載しました。「週刊ぱそらいふ電子マネーもパソコンでチャージ～」を掲載しました。弊社製ノートパソコンをご使用のお客様へ"
"Hai (yes), omiyage."

"Omiyage."
"Maassss."

"Omiyage."
"ゆるぱそ』ブログに、「芸術の秋、小さなアートのある暮らし」を掲載しました。「週刊ぱそらいふ～電子マネーもパソコンでチャージ～」を掲載しました。弊社製ノートパソコンをご使用のお客様"
"Hai, omiyage."

"Omiyage."
"Maassss."

etc, etc, etc...

As for the co-workers who are not at their desk when I exchange with them their omiyage:

"Herroo. Mahi-sensei," holding up omiyage, "this is flom you?"
"Yes, you're welcome."
Co-worker squints, continues to hold up omiyage and smiles while nodding exuberantly.
"Yes. Sank you. It is velly good."
Suspicious! How would s/he know it is good without having first sampled it?
"Oh, I'm glad you like it. You're so welcome."
"Yes. Sank you. 掲載しました。「週"
"Huh?"
"Fuji-san! I said... Fuji-san. Zis is from Fuji-san, no?"
Points to large, embossed Fuji-san lettering on biscuit package.
"Yes, it is from the gift shop near Mount Fuji."
"Ohhhhh. MMMMmmmmmmmHHHHHmmmmmm. You crimb Fuji-san?"
"Yes."
"Ohhhhh. MMMMmmmmmmmHHHHHmmmmmm. I," points to nipple, "HAVE NEVER CRIMBED FUJI-SAN!"
"Oh, wow. Really? Yeah, it's not worth it. You're better off. Good gift shop biscuits though... that was really the highlight."
"MMMMmmmmmmmHHHHHmmmmmm. チャージ～」を掲載しました... Yes, sank you."
"You're welcome."
Walks .2 steps away and continues to wave.
"Yes, sank you. Sank you."
"Oh, no worries. You're welcome."
Christ, is this the long-lost Japanese kin of Julia Roberts?
"Sank you. Sank you."
"Really, it's quite alright!"
"What? アートのある暮らし」を掲載"
"No... I just said, you're welcome!"
"Oh," with grin that implies, 'well, rittre Miss Gaijin (foreigner), you just want me to sank you again', "SANK YOU!"

News for the Politically Literate

2006-10-23T22:43:00.000-04:00

This week in the news

New laws and machines may spell voting chaos. That's funny, I always thought voting chaos was spelled R-A-C-I-S-M.

Bloomberg's car is stolen in New Jersey. NY Mayor goes on record, "Jersey is NOT the new Brooklyn."

North Korean defectors find it easier to buy way out of country. Kim Jong-Il threatens all illegal emigrants with "sanctions beyond their wildest imaginations."

1/3 people worldwide support 'some torture.' You know, whips, ropes, sexual humiliation, provacative religious blasphemy and fierce, starving animals are OK, but sometimes those ominously masked torturers just take things TOO far.

Growing absentee voting is reshaping campaigns. Rural Chinese tv viewers interested to learn how great of candidate Hillary Clinton is for senate.

US undertakers admit to stealing body parts for transplants. In related news, corpse sues rehabilitated geriatric for Pulmonary Larceny in the first degree.

Dozens seized in Italy mafia raid. Venetian crime father blames writing team of Sopranos.

DR Congo hippos face extinction. In urgent nod of respect for African hippo, Dave Chappelle to cancel next season of his tv show.

As rest of G.O.P. mopes, Bush adds the title of Optimist in Chief. White House will appoint Big Gay Al to head new Foreign Policy team: "Iraq is thuuuper! Thank'th for athking!!!"

US adopts tough new space policy. Reduced freeze-dried ice cream rations for anyone who tries to beat US to colonizing Mars.

Bungling Borat gets a surprise invitation to visit Kazakhstan. Actor Sacha Baron Cohen strategizes new preface for 90% of jokes because saying, "in my counnntry...", while already "in" his country, simply would not make sense.

Oslo gay animal show draws crowds. Audiences especially baffled by lesbian praying mantis exhibit.

Jane Wyatt, the mother on 'Father Knows Best,' dies at 95. Her last words, "I lived through it all: 2nd Wave Feminism, Taco Bell, the Internet... but I never thought I'd see Kirsten Dunst play beheaded French queen, Marie Antoinette. R.I.P. cinema."

IBM sues Amazon over technology patents. Right on, IBM! It's not like we innovate new technologies for people to use them. You want open code? Go to Sweden.

Blair urges climate change action. Since cutting CO2 emissions would clearly compromise the economy, this weekend, Blair and Bush to plant tree in park.

Plea for action on child poverty. UN looks into new Child Labor for Food program.

Priest claims former relationship with Foley. Very special hour-long program, "Hi I'm a scandalized former Republican Congressman and as an altar boy I was repeatedly molested by my gay Catholic priest," coming up this week on the Ricki Lake Show.

Researchers see privacy pitfalls in no-swipe credit cards. One investigator calls cards greater threat to identity security than the NSA.

Panamanians vote to expand canal. Venice advises caution.

Scientists create the world's first working invisibilty cloak. J.K. Rowling disappointed to learn she can't sue under trademark law.

Jumping stingray stabs US boater. However, stingray later discovered to be former Republican Congressman Mark Foley in invisibility cloak.

Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

2006-10-18T22:16:00.001-04:00

And a hellhound on my tlair

Name: Maggie-sensei
Occupation: Rice field-dwelling ex-pat / English teacher at rural Japanese highschool
Pet peeve: Rice
Favorite type of rice: white, it's the only kind.

Do you know what it feels like, for the first time in your life, to
wake up on a crisp October morning without the creeping burdens of
unwritten essays, unread texts and unfiltered cigarette-hangovers
overcoming your desire to make that final push out from under the
covers?

Yeah, I do. That's right: my name is Maggie and I am 9-5
working stiff college graduate. However, my life since college hasn't
always been this way. Far from it, in fact.

Ever since that fateful and ominously cold May morning when the
president of my university advised me to swing that wandering tassel
to the other side of my graduation cap -- even though I had been
confused and put it there already -- all senses of time, structure and
purpose in my life have become forcefully unwound.

What does an October Sunday mean if not shrouded in a muddle of
procrastination-ridden bouts of scholary paper writing? Does the day
still move? Or has it ended before even starting, rupturing time?

One senseless heap of days -- endless and bureaucratic 40 hour work weeks, punctuated by aimless and meandering spurts of sleep, food and pleasure -- that mass together and form a clutter of erect humps. That's right, humps: I am a camel, storing youthful energy and mental vigor for that Saharan Sunday. Except,
there are none to be found. Rather, I am a camel lost in the Amazon,
and the whole world is a rainy Sunday.

Enough!

Though, at first it seemed like an Edenic existence: watch some
reality tv, eat some crispy potato chips, scratch that nascent humplet
sprouting between my shoulder-blades...

But that was the summer. Now the "schoolyear" -- I am a 9-5 English
teacher in teacher in Japan with 4.5 class per week workload (except
many are often cancelled) -- feels like the alter-ego of summer: this
year is a bizarro-summer.

Sure, my life in Japan is cool. I have enough rice to breed my own
Maoist colonies; I FINALLY got caught up on the reading from my spring semester history syllabus; I have successfully replaced my Western God with a latent charge of tacit vitality exchanged between me and all other animate forces; most importantly, I learned that if you go around muttering the word "maasss" at people, they will 9 times out of 10 mistake you for a fluent Japanese speaker.

Yet, I still long for those tumultuously anxiety-pregnant Sundays of old. A tyrant-sized bag of Peanut M&Ms, a dusty laptop that's missing its H key, frequent coffee breaks: Heaven.

These days, my Sundays read something like this:

1) Sleep in until noise from parking lot 3 inches outside ground floor window wakes me up: approx 10am.

2) Walk 4 steps across tatami mat to bathroom on other side of apartment.

3) Exit toilet room and walk half shimmy to separate shower room -- make sure to trip over step when exiting elevated shower room.

4) Do laundry -- make sure vibration of washing machine upends at least 95% of objects in apartment.

5) Dry clothes on line while being stared down by hordes of peasant village rice farmers (a.k.a. my neighbors) while they work in nearby rice paddies.

6) Bike through rice fields to Jusco -- nearby supermarket -- for food for the week; NB! do NOT forget to be stared down by EVERY senior citizen and small child in supermarket; this is especially important in checkout line and frozen food section, so do not forget; make sure to spend the same amount on 1 apple as on entire plate of sushi; nod at gibberish that seems to come out of cashier's mouth and smile sweetly when she gives me look that seems to say, "oh boy, you really are out of your element here, aren't you?"

7) Overload bicycle front basket with groceries so it takes twice as long to bike home and vehicle weaves awkwardly from side to side across max 3-inch bike lane.

8) Be disappointed by dinner and flaberghasted by whatever filling spontaneously emerges from onigiri seaweed triangle.

9) Download movies until computer crashes.

10) Hear rain and SUDDENLY remember to take in laundry from clothes line. (NB make sure not to do this until all of clothes on line are thoroughly soaked).

11) Wait up until it is late enough in States for weekly phone call to parents: call, shout, "hi, it's me, call me back!" and hang up immediately not to waste a single yen on dead phone time; receive return call; express mutual fatigue and frustration over 13 hour time difference; end convo, express excitement about talking again next week and hang up.

12) Spend 4 to 127 minutes reflecting on meaning of universe; go to bed.

Just another average Sunday as a Philly post-grad, Brooklyn ex-pat, latently Parisian, Japanese rice field-dwelling gaijin in the mean bike lanes of Inabe.

Tune in next time to learn all about my impending, genetically-baffling struggle with Tourette's Syndrome...

Joe Maguire fired from Reuters

2006-10-18T10:58:00.000-04:00

Don't mean to bring the Coulter curse upon our blog once more but...
Joe Maguire, former Reuters employee discussed his book, “Brainless: The Lies and Lunacy of Ann Coulter” and how the book's publication got him fired from Reuters, last night at the People of the American Way Foundation on Fifth Avenue.

The event began at 8:30 p.m. with a clear acknowledgment from Maguire that Reuters fired him because of his book, which was previously unconfirmed.

According to Reuters, his book broke the company’s trust principal.

“I was a financial news director. I don’t see how this book indicated in any way that my bond coverage was going to be slanted,” said Maguire.

Maguire was called into a meeting with the regional manager and suggested that they read the galley copy before they make their final decision.

“They called me into meeting the next day and they said it would be my last meeting at Reuters,” said Maguire. “It literally happened overnight.”

According to Maguire, Reuters had a catalog of conditions. The two main specifications were that the book could not be a political satire and it could not incorporate the Reuters name.

Abiding by both conditions Maguire still got fired.

The New York Times and blogs such as Crooks and Liars picked up the story. The clout of the Times and the power of the Internet worked as a publicity mechanism, steadily boosting sales.

“I watched the sales soar from top 5,000, to top 2,500, to top 500,000 and finally to top 100,000,” said Maguire.

Although, satisfied by sales Maguire was upset by Reuter’s actions and defended his own.

“I didn’t expect Reuters to throw me a party or to promote the book in any way, but I didn’t think that they would throw me out of my job for a personal endeavor,” said Maguire.

“This was entirely a personal endeavor. I believe it was my right as a citizen and my civic duty to disagree with Ann Coulter,” said Maguire.

“I’m an absolutist when it comes to the first amendment,” he said.

But Maguire did admit that book was released at a sensitive time. Since Reuters published a doctored photo of Beirut that enhanced smoke billowing in the background, the organization has been very conscious of its reputation. Beyond the photo scandal, Coulter is an extremely polarizing figure.

“I can see why Reuters didn’t want to have their name associated with it,” said Maguire.

But Maguire felt it was necessary to refute Coulter who has an Ivy League education (Cornell) and a degree from Michigan Law School.

“She must be highly intelligent,” said Maguire. “So her motivation must come from her narcissistic personality disorder, which you can see when she flips her hair bats her eyelashes.”

“I just thought 'get over yourself.' I will help you get over yourself,” said Maguire who believes the reporter’s job is to be objective and to speak the truth.

But still Maguire defends Coulter’s right to lie, just as he defends his right to say that she is lying, because of his fierce belief in the first amendment.

“The political discourse in this country has reached unfathomably low levels in this country. Ann Coulter is a leader in dragging down the political discourse.” And unfortunately so has the press for covering Ann Coulter and so has Reuters for denying a combatant like Maguire.

News for the Politically Literate

2006-10-17T19:52:00.001-04:00

This Week in the News

Japanese woman surrogate gives birth to own grandchild. In related news, Gary Coleman fathers own identical twin.

North Korea condemns UN sanctions. In retaliation, Kim Jong-Il to put citizens on mass hunger strike.

UN missed Darfur crisis signs. Unfortunately, they were distracted by reading their online daily horoscope. Kofi Annan, reportedly, loves those things.

Afghan attacks bring total number of Canadians killed to 82. And 12,000 if you count the statistics reported in Michael Moore's latest newsletter.

Israel police recommend charges against president. President responds by accusing police of anti-semitism.

In final weeks, G.O.P. focuses on best bets. Somehow these options include Bill O'Reilly, Jesus, Domino's pizza and cyber-pedophilac former Republican Congressman Mark Foley. lol, totes.

Blair says Muslim veil is a 'mark of separation.' He adds that it has got to be the least white thing he has seen since Hoop Dreams.

Defense lawyer gets prison term in terrorism case. Lawyer to be replaced by three-foot cardboard cutout of Taco Bell chihuahua.

Walmart reportedly to acquire Chinese retail chain. Because what could be more communist Chinese than notoriously anti-union corporation Walmart?

Schwarzenegger visits Bloomberg's New York. Actor-cum-governator sadly had to terminate local vendor for presumptuously serving him Polish hotdog.

(Let's not forget the last time a Pole messed with an Austrian ex-pat courting political power in a foreign country...)

US population to hit 300 million. China claims to be less intimidated than "Paris Hilton would be if Tori Spelling tried to hit on her boyfriend."

Iraq's Christians flee as extremist threat worsens. Bush reassures Iraq that there is no timetable for American withdrawal.

A strong earthquake battles Hawaii. Religious right blames God. God blames the WB for distracting Him with their hip new tv Thursday night lineup.

Law on overseas brides is keeping couples apart. Woody Allen threatens to sue government over 7 year-old Malaysian Internet fiancee.

Some democrats send a more conservative immigration message. New England senator still pissed at colonies for letting in those "lame-ass 17th Century Puritans."

Senator Reid used donations as condo tips. You know, kindof like that time Bush used war expenses as excuse for tax cuts, except different.

Health experts concerned by early onset of puberty in some pre-school students. Catholic clergy wonders about grey area regarding post-pubescent altar boys.

Disney says it will market for healthy nutrition. Their latest projects to include: Alice in Tofu Land, Spinning Beauty, James and the Giant Organic Peach and Soy Story XI.

China boosts North Korea border inspections. Somehow, this results in frisking of Arab man in US airport.

Indonesian bird flu toll hits 55. In surprising surge of empathy, Cheney suits up in duck hunting attire and vows revenge...

Japan agrees to halve its tuna quota. Randomly selected restaurant tuna rolls to be refilled with white rice.

A Letter from 2nd Law

2006-10-16T22:58:00.000-04:00

You will have to forgive us, dear readers, for having undergone a severe haitus without telling anyone. Upon graduating from college the bloggers of 2nd Law scattered across the world (or simply across New York) with neither a sense of direction nor halting point. We had considered ourselves forewarned about post-grad life; but preperation does not entail experience. Knowing we were in for a year of transition did not stop what seemed like an endless and frustrating summer vacation.

By now, as you will soon come to realize, we have settled in a bit. Enough, at least, to get our bearings. Some of us are abroad (Germany, Japan, Mexico), most of us still in New York City (although we've now extended into Brooklyn). Regardless of our locations, we are ready to start writing again. Curiously enough, we created 2nd Law with this very diaspora in mind: what better way for us to keep in touch than to create a blog where any one of us can log in from anywhere and post updates, observations, and thoughts. We had no idea, however, that the shock of transition would leave us too overwhelmed and stimulated to collect ourselves in print.

So with that, allow us to reintroduce 2nd Law. These days magazine and blog launches seem to be fired off in rapid succession without much effect or thought, so we shall forgoe any hubub or fanfare in favor of a sincere and simple message: our apologies for the delay; and welcome back.

On the topic of Coulter, Hitler, and animals that look remarkably like people (or vice versa)

2006-08-03T22:28:00.000-04:00

This charming quiz asks us to identify who said it --- Hitler or Coulter???
Such a toughie...

And this is self-explanatory.

Coulter writes review for own book

2006-06-09T16:11:00.000-04:00

Poor Coulter. Where does she hide when the The Daily News calls her cruel on their Wednesday front page and hopelessly misrepresents her earnest attack on the liberalism that has creeped into every throbbing oriface of our once virginal values? On her website, of course. ‘Hey you, browsing Godless’—buy the book or get out!’ titles the review she wrote for her own book, in a pre-emptive defensive move against The New York Times reviewer who, she predicts, will "only talk about the Ann Coulter action-figure doll." It’s the sort of merry invitation that makes you wonder how her prose could possibly leave the nasty taste of stale polemics in the mouths of her critics.

Though reviews sometimes scrutinize the works in question, Coulter discards this useless formula and goes straight for those scrawny liberal throats. And not a moment too soon. Liberalism, "our official state religion" (out with Church bake sales, in with abortions), has the troubled habit of teaching children to masturbate about how we descended from earth worms. Everyone knows masturbation causes cancer and that we descended from Charlton Heston’s ample loins.

In case her readers missed the point the first time, she concludes her book review with a logical breakdown of those silly evolutionist theories: "it would take less time for (1) a single-celled organism to evolve into a human being through mutation and natural selection than for (2) Darwinists to admit they have no proof of (1)." Yeah! Why won’t those monkey fuckers admit they’ve got no proof whatsoever? None!

Laura Bush

2006-06-03T18:34:00.000-04:00

There is a rumor circulating the Internet that First Lady Laura Bush has recently checked into the Mayfair Hotel due to scandal surrounding a certain torrid relationship between her husband, President George W. Bush, and his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Although this rumor, which seems easy enough to verify, may be entirely unwarranted--I'd think Bush could do a whole lot better than Condi--it seems an appropriate strategy for debunking the legitimacy of the Bush Administration.

We are in an election year. Further, numerous presidential candidates are announcing their 2008 ambitions. Last year, the Administration's vindictive leaking of an unfriendly reporter's wife's CIA identity, which remained a hot news story for the duration of the summer, all but disappeared from media attention. Although Fitzgerald continues to cause anxiety for "Scooter" Libby and Rove for their little Plame leak, this issue has not proven effective in alerting the public to the Administration's reckless disregard for ethics.

This spring, our Vice President shot someone and then the Administration worked its magic to elicit a public apology from Cheney's wounded victim for the role his being shot by the Vice President played in undermining the Bush Team's reputation.

The economy is in terrible shape. The dollar continues to fall against the pound, euro and the yen. Countless Iraqi civilians have been slaughtered by US troops in the last few years and no sign of order has been restored to Iraq's political landscape. We are not curbing our CO2 emissions. We are not any better equipped to protect ourselves from terrorism despite the hotbed of anxiety that Bush's civil-liberty-annihilating Patriot Act and telephone party with the NSA have induced.

I repeat the rumor: due to her outrage at discovering her husband's torrid affair with Condi, Laura Bush has left the White House temporarily and checked into the Mayfair Hotel. Is this the final frontier of Bush bashing? I guess the only people who know the truth about this rumor are George, Laura, and Bush's team of terrorist-fighting eavesdroppers at the NSA.

I feel safer.

Terror Movies

2006-05-02T03:58:00.000-04:00

Lately my roommate and I have become increasingly more invested in watching horror movies. However, we coined the term "terror movies" to describe our specific fascination with the genre.

Horror movies range from visually explicit and unmeditative displays of grotesque images to highly nuanced films with tightly-woven narratives and suggestively subtle aesthetics. Although the genre tends to foster bizarre cult followings, which haunt even its most vapid and gratuitously grotesque examples—-I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Grudge, White Noise, etc.-—many horror films bear latent political implications.

For example, one of my recent discoveries, The Skeleton Key, grapples with the relationship between modern technology’s mediation of the supernatural and the evolution of Southern American racism. This surprisingly Foucauldian text does not stand alone within the genre: for other politically-charged examples from this recent wave of psychological thriller/horror hybrids, view Frailty, the Others or even Saw.

Unfortunately, my friend Sandra and I have a problem: our most recent rentals resist this delicate balance between narrative complexity and satisfyingly manipulative depictions of the uncanny—-which we relish and call "terror films." Instead, they reproduce the same hackneyed plot twists and oppressively unnecessary graphic images over and over again—-our latest strikeouts include The Gift, Feed, The Ring II and The Legend of Hell House.

Sandra and I yearn for the days of our successful terror rentals—-among which include Cube, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Innocents and the Skeleton Key. These films demonstrate the artistic and critical potentialities of otherwise violent and repulsive images.

Thus, we beseech all bloggers reading this entry: post your feedback with recommendations for what you believe are the greatest terror movies of all time.

The success of our post-finals attempts to distract ourselves from burgeoning alcoholism depends on your film recommendations…

John McCain Does Not Speak For Us

2006-04-25T21:41:00.000-04:00

This June, Senator John McCain will speak for Columbia College's Class Day.

Every year students of the American University system are given a chance to select their graduation speaker. The outcome is difficult to predict. In some instances, it can be satirical, like when Ali G (aka Sasha Baron Cohen) spoke at Harvard. In others, it can be glamorous, as is the case this year with Jodie Foster and UPenn. Other times, it can be painfully boring: UChicago - unsurprisingly - only chooses a speaker within the faculty. There are highs (George W. Bush came to Yale one year) and there are lows (George Stephanopoulos came to Columbia in another). And always, there are politics.

Understandably. Graduation is perhaps the only day (other than those awkward early years of recruitment) that a university will admit to being completely devoted to you. Emotionally, monetarily, temporally, physically. It is the only day from which most of us will enjoy an entire week of partying (thrown in our name and with no shame in a hangover). The only day our families will be forced to mingle and discuss our accomplishments. The only day we are compelled to wear a $44 (and up) article of clothing that is more poorly assembled than my grandmother's sofa-covers. It is special, and most of us - even if we say we don't care - want it to be perfect.

So, what did we expect when Senator John McCain was chosen as the speaker for Columbia College's Class of 2006? In 2000, this might have been acceptable. Back then, he was espoused by the left as a rare Republican who voted with intelligence. In the words of The New Republic: "In addition to shepherding campaign finance reform through Congress - against the administration's efforts to kill it quietly - he co-sponsored a patients' bill of rights with John Edwards and Ted Kennedy; co-sponsored with Charles Schumer a measure to allow the importation of generic prescription drugs; co-sponsored with John Kerry legislation to raise auto emissions standards; and co-sponsored legislation with Joe Lieberman to close the "gun-show loophole" and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in compliance with the Kyoto accords." He was socially aware too - supporting stem cell research and the precedent in Roe v. Wade.

After his brutal loss of the 2000 primary in South Carolina to the foul play of mastermind Karl Rove, a new McCain began to emerge from the folds of the Republican party. This Senator voted for tax-cuts, supported teaching "intelligent design", and endorsed the new anti-abortion legislation that recently passed in South Dakota. And despite originally voting against the Federal Marriage Amendment (which allows marriage to be defined as only between a man and a woman), McCain now supports an initiative to ban same-sex marriage in his home state, and opposes the Employment Non-Discrimination Act which would make it illegal for employers to dismiss employees based on sexual orientation.

To add insult to injury, McCain will also be speaking at the graduation ceremony of Liberty University (One need look no further than the recent NYTime's Magazine story on Liberty University's debate team. Shame on you, Liberty U, publicly lording your debate victories over Columbia's prestigious debate team). The school - located in Lynchburg, Virginia - was founded in 1971 by the spirited conservative Christian Jerry Falwell. For those of you unfamiliar with Falwell's fiery polemics, I shall not hesitate to include one of my favorite of his quotations: "AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharaoh's charioteers ... AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals." Falwell is the very same man who McCain once (and reasonably so) denounced as an agent of "intolerance."

In response, Columbia students have circulated a petition online titled "John McCain Does Not Speak For Us." Most of the signers respect McCain's right to speak, but are taking the opportunity to show their objection to his political views. As my classmate Wayne Ting wrote, "I believe Senator McCain has the right to speak at Class Day. I don't expect that this petition will stop him from speaking, but I do believe it will send a message that homophobia will not be tolerated."

Indeed, Class Day is a special moment for us all. It is a moment of supreme recognition: our names will be called, we will walk on-stage, and we will be acknowledged and congratulated by the University as graduates. In turn, however, we should use this recognition to call attention to politics and beliefs we find hateful and inconsistent. I encourage everyone to sign the petition here.

News for the Politically Literate

2006-04-24T23:52:00.000-04:00

Young officers join the debate over Rumsfeld. For the pro-Rumsfeld side of this debate exclusively, please view Fox News' coverage.

Political distress in Nepal overwhelms a hospital. NBC to pick up the high concept, ER: SNU (Special Nepalese Unit).

Katrina's tide carries many to hopeful shores. And the others to separate but equal, less hopeful shores.

Immigrant workers find support in a growing network of assistance centers. However, support complicated by centers' location in Mexico, Eastern Europe and Mongolia.

CIA director has made plugging leaks a top priority. Valerie Plame feels really reassured.

Italian national election remains too close to call. Winner will be decided by Florida hanging chad ballots from 2000 election.

Britain confirms case of bird flu in dead swan. Reportedly, the swan contracted its lethal disease just moments before being shot by Dick Cheney.

Star Trek star talks about challenges of coming out. He says the hardest part was explaining random spandex grabs to Leonard Nemoy.

New York tries yet more ways to fix schools. But they hold out on investing more than $2.

Penn Glee Club grad makes a career of his whistling. In related news, Ben Affleck makes a career of his acting.

Ban on most caviar extended indefinitely. Fancy catering services start garnishing their cheese plates with racoon eggs.

Fossil found in Africa helps connect human evolution dots. If by "fossil" you mean "Jesus" and by "Africa" you mean "your heart" and by "connect human evolution dots" you mean "stone the gays," then America agrees.

Drug plan's side effect is severe. FDA warns it may produce feelings of elation, uncontrollable fits of laughter and spontaneous increases in appetite for Cool Ranch Doritos.

Paris protests stop classes abroad for Penn students. Students severely disappointed to be abroad in Europe with no school.

Iowa college town reels in wake of tornado strikes. Student compares sensation to watching episode of 7th Heaven.

Katrina report recommends improving disaster response. In a similar report, comedian Chris Farley posthumously recommends low-fat salad.

The rising Danube causes floods in Europe. Venice has identity crisis.

Enron prosecutors question Skilling's story. Audience baffled prosecutor wouldn't just take Skilling at his word.

Europe starts to take harder line on terror suspects. In Paris, anyone caught trying to hijjack a plane will be sentenced to 10 days without wine, cheese or cigarettes.

Scientists unveil world's oldest ice block. Found inside, yo mamma.

The Soccer War

2006-04-17T19:14:00.002-04:00

A revolution every day...

Although, as a college student, I rarely get to read books for pleasure, I recently finished Ryszard Kapuscinski’s slim (at just over 200 pages) novel The Soccer War. Dubbed by LA Weekly as "the great prose-poet of international disorder,” during his career as a foreign correspondent for the Polish Press Agency, Kapuscinski covered over 27 coups and revolutions, was sentenced to death four times, and was acquainted with Lumumba, Allende, Guevara and numerous other figures of third-world emancipation. From its modest beginning in Accra the year after Ghana became the first African colony to gain independence from

Britain

, The Soccer War seamlessly jumps to places as varied as the Congo, Nigeria, Palestine, El Salvador, Algeria, Honduras, and Cyprus in the period between 1958 and 1976.

I wouldn’t normally spend time talking about a book published nearly three decades ago, but since many of us will soon be leaving our small island for disparate parts of the world, I thought that it might be enlightening to revisit an era crucial in shaping the structure of that world. While we, the under 30s, are familiar with the sexual revolution, Vietnam, and the Civil Rights Movement, the massive global political transformation that occurred during the 1960s is far less present in our collective consciousness. It has been lamented that contemporary journalism on the developing world, and Africa especially, is often void of historical perspective. Media coverage may give sparse background as it is directly related to the story, but related historical context is usually skimmed over. For those of us who think we know or care about the developing world, the spirit of the era Kapuscinski documents is perhaps worth revisiting.

As a Polish journalist, Kapuscinski’s perspective has little of the latent self-importance or white guilt which might underlie that of a British, French, Belgian, or even American journalist in the same position. As he explains to some Ghanaians in Mpango towards the end of the book, “My country has no colonies, and there was a time when my country was a colony… There were camps, war, executions… That was what we called fascism. It’s the worst kind of colonialism.” Perhaps this background, and the fact that his roots lay behind the iron curtain, gives Kapuscinski’s prose a humility found rarely with other western writers.

Kapuscinski reminds us frequently throughout his narrative that what he is writing is not a book, but “disjointed fragments;” the plan of an unwritten book fit into the spaces between dispatches and chapters of other non-existent books. Ironically, it is this fragmentation which gives The Soccer War its cohesion; had it dealt with each subject comprehensively it would have quickly grown into a massive unreadable volume; had it focused solely on a few subjects it would have failed to capture the spirit of an era marked global transformation.

The book takes its title from the 1969 war between Honduras and El Salvador; a war which grew from the conflict surrounding a soccer match. Kapuscinski narrates his experience of the war and its beginnings with impassive candor; the war seems at the same time so fantastic and so ordinary that it could be an episode out of Garcia Marquez. In another chapter, Kapuscinski describes driving out of Lagos through enemy territory during the Biafran war.
Each roadblock he passes demands money and exacts a heavy price upon failure to pay. Along the road Kapuscinski passes burning cars and charred bodies. After two road blocks he has been beaten near unconsciousness, doused with kerosene, and nearly burned alive. Knowing that he has no money left, he decides to run the next roadblock, dodging Molotov cocktails and gunfire in a borrowed Peugeot.

Driving out of Lagos a few months ago, it would have been difficult for me to imagine that only 30 years ago, on the very same road, Kapuscinski might have been dodging homemade bombs and speeding over flaming roadblocks. Much has changed, but, although I was not there in the 60s to judge, I imagine that much has also stayed the same. Although driving out of Lagos is a vastly different experience today, there are still roadblocks every few kilometers and often you still have to pay a "dash" to the policemen manning them. Although I was dismayed by the sad state of the roads and the rampant corruption, reading The Soccer War a few months later put these things into jarring historical perspective. I don’t mean to imply that the problems of the present should be written off in light of the past, but rather that a little bit of historical context can go a long way when looking at the contemporary world. Prior to reading The Soccer War, my understanding of the events Kapuscinski narrates existed in a historical vacuum. The Algerian War for Independence, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the Biafran War, the 1973 Chilean coup, the Soccer War, and a host of other contemporaneous events were unconnected in my mind. By jumping unhesitatingly through time and across oceans, drawing philosophic (and occasionally questionable) conclusions about events often difficult to believe, Kapuscinski’s narrative connects events which, to those learning about them from safe inside the Ivy League, would otherwise remain unconnected.

After finishing The Soccer War it is impossible not to wonder what drives someone to put themselves in the near death situations Kapuscinski routinely encounters. Such a person, as one of my friends remarked, “must have a death wish.” While this may certainly be part of the equation, in the subtext of the book Kapuscinski himself offers another explanation. Before he begins the narrative of his death-defying drive out of Lagos, he mentions the inexplicable feeling of passing close to a lion in the wild. “I knew no one could describe it to me,” he writes. “And I cannot explain it myself.” As he cannot describe this or Poland to the Ghanaians in Mpango, so is it impossible to really describe the events covered in The Soccer War. However, Kapuscinski’s blend of personal and political, prose and poetry, fact and (presumably) fiction, makes these events as accessible as is possible to to those of us who did not actually wittness them.

Interview with a Squirrel

2006-04-13T11:43:00.000-04:00

For those of you who don't know, I am a student at the University of Pennsylvania. Due to an overwhelming level of recent interest in Penn's squirrel community, I decided to conduct a personal interview with a campus squirrel.

Me: Were you born on campus, Squirrel?

Campus Squirrel: No, my family emigrated from war-torn Czechoslovakia after the Iron Curtain fell in '89. I was conceived upon an ocean liner while it was crossing the Atlantic.

Me: So you've spent your life on campus, then?

CS: For the most part. My parents also have a tree on the Jersey Shore, so we go there sometimes.

Me: But you hibernate on Penn's campus?

CS: Actually, it is a fallacy that all squirrels hibernate. Although most American campus squirrels are "scatter-hoarders" [a highly intelligent species of squirrel that still practices hibernation], post-Cold War diasporic squirrel communities have significantly complicated hibernation politics in the U.S.

Me: So you don't hibernate?

CS: No, I do not. I feed off the supple grain that litters Penn's campus.

Me: You mean like acorns?

CS: Actually, I have never had much of a taste for acorns. I like food cart leftovers. The sorority culture at Penn tends to foster the disposal of carbohydrate-heavy foods, which I enjoy.

Me: Like what?

CS: You know, like those pitas they give you at the Magic Carpet cart. If I'm lucky, they'll contain a magic meatball or two. I see a lot of discarded rice from Houston Hall sushi, bread rolls that come with those salads, Dijon-tinged crepe shells.

Me: Sounds delicious.

CS: You have no idea. I have to restrain myself from overeating as many of my rotund, squirrely peers have done. Spring Fling was a feast. I'll have to spend a couple extra hours on the Branchmaster this week [pats his stomach].

Me: The Branchmaster?

CS: A popular squirrel exercise machine.

Me: Is it like a Stairmaster except it simulates branches instead of stairs?

CS: Brilliant, you must go to an Ivy League school!

Me: [awkward silence] Well ... do you like living at Penn? I always thought that if I were a squirrel, I'd get pissed at all those tourists who come through and take my picture.

CS: Meh, I fancy myself rather photogenic. The attention makes me feel like a movie star.

Me: So next stop Hollywood?

CS: I'm afraid not. I prefer the East Coast where people are more down to Earth.

The End of the World: An Alternative to I-Banking

2006-04-12T00:37:00.000-04:00

As first published in The Current: Spring 2006, with permission from the author.
By Birk Oxholm

I'm graduating in three months. I've never paid a bill, written a check, or had a steady girlfriend. I've only had sex once, which is far worse than being a virgin. The replacement counts during my time at Columbia for my mail key, ID, and credit card stand at fifteen, nine, and six, respectively. And actually, I heard we were supposed to sign some form in order to graduate, which I haven't signed, so I guess I'm not graduating in three months.
But at least I'm an educated person, right? Well, sure, except that I don't really know, or care, about art or music, or math and science for that matter. But at least I've got a lot of great books, though, and I'm steeped in the Western canon, right? Well, yeah, I've got loads of books, hundreds of them, of which I've opened exactly 19% (I counted). Those books really make the room look smart, just smart enough for a woman to comment on them and then leave.

But at least I've learned how to think. Because if there is an essence to thinking, surely it consists in either unceasing, self-flagellating-cum-self-aggrandizing self-analysis or violently generalizing, obscenely pointless cross-cultural enterprises like "Zen and Kant," and "Squanto and Shinto." One of these papers, I won't say which one, is still waiting from last semester to be written, which is another reason why I probably won't graduate.

The only way I could possibly get a job, assuming I actually filled out an application and came to an interview, would be if I were asked the question, "What are your weaknesses?" at which point I would thoroughly impress them with my impassioned, eloquent, well-organized explanation of my manifold flaws and neuroses. All in keeping with the mantra of my career services counselor, who, after keeping my smelly ass away from the finance interviews, advised me to "turn your weaknesses into strengths." This was after she told me I had "summed it up pretty good" with my assessment that "they probably won't want a writer who doesn't actually write."

So the job prospects are looking bleak at the moment. But don't feel sorry for me. I'm actually pretty set. Because I am unnaturally skilled at falling, occasionally literally, ass-backwards into loads of money.

I break a lot of bones. I think the medical term for my condition is osteoporosis. Normally, it's found in elderly women, but hey, I lucked out. I broke my leg in both 8th and 12th grade, not coincidentally critical times in a young man's sexual maturation. But it wasn't until after I broke my leg senior year that I realized I could cash in on my infirmity.

I had pretty much just gotten back on my feet. I was playing quarterback in a touch football game at my job as a camp counselor. I dropped back to pass, and as I let the ball fly, some idiot kid rushed me and hit my thumb with his hand as he tried to block it. "Stupid kid," I thought, "that kinda hurt." If I could find that kid now, I would hug him. By the end of my shift, my thumb had swelled up to the size of an apricot, which, though it sounds small, is actually pretty big compared to a normal thumb.

My boss said I should probably get it checked out. I shrugged it off and drove myself home, then got my mom to take me to the hospital. Sure enough, it was broken: the kid had jammed my thumb a tiny bit back in my hand and a few chips were out of place. I got a cast, went home, skipped work for a couple days (oooh, the pain, the pain), then finally came back to the sympathy of all my colleagues. Towards the end of the day, my boss pulled me aside, and asked the fateful question.

"Have you decided whether to file for worker's comp?"

"Um, yeah, I guess."

"Ok," she said pleasantly, "here's the paperwork."

I thought a little pocket change for my troubles might be nice, so I filled out what I could there, and then took the rest home for my Dad to fill out the insurance stuff. Things got a little complicated with the thumb, to the tune of minor surgery, but the only lasting damage was a series of bumps that appeared on my thumb when I flexed it. I thought it looked like a dinosaur's neck.

I was pumped when I got the settlement in the mail a few months later because I had just gotten a portable CD player, and I wanted to buy some CDs. But when I opened the letter, and looked at the number, my knees buckled, and I started thinking about other kinds of CDs, financial ones (even though I don't know what those are).

Let me explain quickly about how the insurance company determines how much worker's comp you get. It uses a complex formula that takes into account the actual wages lost from missed work, the average amount you work per year, the part of the body that's injured, how well it heals, and potential future-earnings loss. I worked part-time during the school year, and full time during the summer. That averaged out to about 18 hours a week. I only lost a few days wages. The doctor said that my thumb was 98%(!) better. Sometimes I can't help but wonder, what if I could have convinced the doctor to write, say, 94%? Would the sum have been thrice as high? But I put those what-ifs aside when, like last week, my dad calls to congratulate me that the pocket change I was expecting, which he put into a nice little mutual fund, has just cracked five digits.

Thinking about going into I-banking or consulting? Sure, it's lucrative. The hours are rough, hellacious even, but it pays, like 60K a year out of college and you can't beat that, right? Well, consider this: let's say the hours are 60 per week. That's about 3000 hours a year, meaning that you'll be making in the neighborhood of $20 an hour, plus benefits. I had to endure an excruciating .1 seconds, plus approximately six weeks of tedium and a few grueling sets of thumb extensions. For that infinitesimal stretch of agony, I got about 360 million dollars an hour, or about 18 million times what you'll be getting for slaving away at some desk. While you're selling your soul, I'll be cultivating mine in Rishikesh.

You're probably wondering, how can I be like you? Well, you probably can't. Being only 18 at the time of the accident was absolutely critical to the fact that they gave me a shitload of money. But hey, if you're a really young freshman (call me) or a math prodigy (don't), then run recklessly to your place of business and look for the nearest wet floor without a "Wet Floor" sign.

For those of you who lack the over-ossification of youth, the bone-breaking game, like life, gets harder with age. Employers are no longer prone to vastly overestimating your earnings potential and handing you boatloads of cash. Fortunately, with the loss of your ability to get compensated because your employer doesn't realize how much of a fuck-up you're going to be comes the freedom and opportunity of new and exciting ways to leech off the wealthy. I want to introduce you to the second most beautiful phrase in the English language (after "cellar door"): "property liability." Property liability basically means that if you get hurt on someone else's property, and they could have prevented it, they have to pay you for it. This works especially well when that someone is, to paraphrase my friend Jacob McKean, "A multi-billion dollar real-estate corporation masquerading as a diploma mill."

I worked at Columbia this summer, at the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, doing cutting-edge research that involved taking files out of folders, creating new folders, and putting the files into the new folders. I was heading out for some early morning activism one weekend while talking to my mother on the phone. "How you doin', sug?" is the last thing I remember her drawling.

I turned left out of Broadway, and very soon after found myself splayed out on the concrete, in an extraordinary amount of shock and pain. I was walking on the wire mesh grating next to the dorm. I was wearing flip-flops. The front corner of one of the grates was curved up slightly, but not so much that it was easily visible. As I was walking, my sandal slipped underneath the curved-up grate, cutting the shit out of my foot, and serving as the fulcrum for a lever with me on one side and the entire earth on the other. It only takes a rudimentary knowledge of physics to understand that I ate pavement really, really hard. My phone clattered out into the street. I groaned and crawled over and told my mom I'd have to call her back. Then I rolled over and groaned again. It would have been appropriate at this point if a dog, a pug, had peed on me.

I hobbled over to meet my friends and tell them that my part in the revolution would have to wait another day, then carried on to St. Luke's. It was relatively empty, so I got through everything—waiting, blood pressure, insurance, waiting, initial exam, broken wrist, x-ray, broken wrist, waiting, casting, prescription drugs, waiting, thinking…broken wrist — pretty quickly. I quit my job the next day

I didn't want to pressure Columbia for compensation. I'm not like that. But it did seem pretty clearly to be their fault, and, although my father was paying for my rent and food, I still had to make a living. The only means by which I could afford to, um, read and eat pain pills was my other job: babysitting an autistic kid. In the end, however, the fight was about one thing: justice. I had been somewhat embarrassed when I fell. And there was a slim to moderate chance that I could develop a mild case of Carpal-Tunnel Syndrome. How easily could they have fixed that grate? And what about those who would come after me? I couldn't let others be victimized. So I called my uncle, a high-powered attorney, and he called the lead counsel for the university, and they worked something out, getting me back my lost wages. Justice, in the tradition of Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

It wasn't easy justice. I had to track down like ten hospital records, and give a couple statements recounting the trauma, and, for a few of these tasks, I was not on Vicodin. Also, for this accident, which was much more painful that the last one, I was compensated at the comparatively low rate of 97.2 million dollars an hour (still nearly five million times the wage rate of an entry-level I-Banking position).

But the business had changed since I was young. You couldn't just have one big score and get out. The only way to survive was—is—to settle into a nice routine, pulling a few small jobs a year. Which is why I was so grateful to find myself, a scant three months later, lying in a puddle outside of East Campus with a dull, aching pain in my wrist.

I had left a party in EC that night, sometime during that 40-day stretch of rain last semester. I was walking and talking with a girl I had met in the elevator, which should have been my first clue that something weird was about to happen. Sure enough, as I turned the corner onto EC Plaza, my foot slipped out from under me on one of those super-slick blocks of granite, and, sagaciously, I tried, and failed, to catch myself with my newly reattached ulna. Clutching my wrist and grinning, I assured the young lady that I would be all right, I just needed to go to the hospital. Struggling to contain my glee, I wished her a pleasant evening and then made for St. Luke's. I stopped by my room to pick up a book—Religion and Nothingness, I'm not even kidding—and arrived at the hospital at about 2 a.m. After a familiar routine—I know it's boring but a job is a job—praise Jesus, it was broken.

Once again I faced a tough decision. I mean, ya'll know how slippery that stone is. I'm sure everyone here at some point hydroplanes outside Butler. And, are you really going to tell me that Columbia, she of the five billion dollar endowment (I would have to work for nearly an entire day to get that), cannot afford to dig up all the granite paths on campus and replace them with something safer for the rain, like Velcro or gravel? So really, it wasn't that tough a decision. I'm currently in talks with Columbia, and I'm only asking her to pay my medical bills. But if she doesn't, she can expect to see me in a court of law, where undeniable arguments will be advanced. And Columbia, who, to her credit, has been exceedingly cooperative heretofore, will come to know with whom she is fucking if she does not accede to my demands. I'm feeling brittle…and clumsy…

Now one thing to understand is that not everyone can be me. I've been cursed with a gift—a penchant for mischance. Perhaps my children will be so lucky.

But there are things that anyone can do in order to increase the likelihood of a profitable calamity. To be clear, we're not deliberately injuring ourselves. That's disgusting, depraved, and besides, it's fraud. We're simply taking advantage of our God-given weakness and frailty. To that end, there are three attitudes to take up to facilitate disaster:

Rule # 1: Be Aggressive. Run around a lot at work. Take chances. Subtly provoke. Remember it only takes one slip up, on anyone's part, to make you the victim.

Rule #2: Be Proud. Remember that these companies you're working for are very likely part of the corporate cabal financing the military-industrial complex and profiting from the American imperialist war machine. They will easily be able to give you the small settlement you deserve for your pain and suffering.

Rule #3: Be stupid, blissfully unaware, and lacking any common sense. Consider: before I tripped on the grate, I was talking loudly and inanely on the phone without paying any attention at all to where I was going; when I slipped in the rain, I was wearing flip-flops, like a complete idiot; and when I got hurt playing football, well, I sure as hell wasn't gonna get beat by some punk third-graders, so I put a little something extra on the pass, causing my thumb to hit his hand just hard enough to finance two years of travel in India. A thoughtful, accountable person would never do any of these things, thus, we must be constantly vigilant against all forms of responsibility.

By following these three rules, one finds oneself on the path to abject failure, and thus success. Although one must also be blessed with moral ambivalence, physical wretchedness, and felicitous misfortune, constant laziness and blame-shifting will take one far. Verily I say unto you, blessed are the weak, for we shall inherit the earth.

BIRK OXHOLM is a senior in Columbia College. He has written in the margins of many books, including his mother's People Magazine from the late 90's (he finished the crossword). Hope springs eternal.

New Yorkers and the Touch-Screen

2006-04-11T15:33:00.000-04:00

NYC Dorkbot at Location One: Dexterous Technology

Most New Yorkers are familiar with the touch-screen. Ever since the station-agents stopped selling tokens (does anyone know in what year?), the entrance to the underground is purchased from the automated tellers that line the tile walls of any station. Beginning with the universal prompt, Touch screen to begin and available in three languages or more, one can have anything from the single-ride to the unlimited metro pass.

However, as Jeff Han from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NYU explained, touch-screens such as the MTA's are fairly basic in their capabilities. The single point of contact is a limiting system, as the command of action becomes dependent on the first touch and renders the rest of the screen useless. Han believes that touch-screens could become much more complex, and is currently leading a team on multi-touch interaction research (that is, a screen that responds to multiple touches at the same time). As Han says of the possibilities, While touch sensing is commonplace for single points of contact, multi-touch sensing enables a user to interact with a system with more than one finger at a time, as in chording and bi-manual operations. Such sensing devices are inherently also able to accommodate multiple users simultaneously, which is especially useful for larger interaction scenarios such as interactive walls and tabletops.

Han gave a presentation on his research on multi-touch screens at the Location One Gallery last Wednesday, at an event hosted by New Yorks dorkbot. His neglect in explaining the more technical aspects of the multi-touch system (they call it frustrated total internal reflection) was forgiven by the beautiful videos of the teams researchers playing with various programs designed for the multi-touch screen. The multiple and simultaneous commands provide an amazingly different type of interface with graphic design, photo and video editing, board games, and map searches (to cite a few of the demostrations). They also provide dexterious alternatives to the keyboard and mouse, opening the way in making technology more compatible to our human form. As one audience member called out, When can we play?

To check out videos of the touch screen, click here.

Because No Human Being is Illegal

2006-04-09T21:26:00.000-04:00

Sorry to be a downer in the witty world of blogs, but there's not much more to say than this (see the press release below) except that you should find out more about the Sensenbrenner Bill (which is being pushed through the Senate to make being or assisting an undocumented immigrant a FELONY), and do something in your power to oppose it. Like join the rally tomorrow, Monday, that is going from City Hall to Battery park, starting at 1 pm.

If you're curious about the specifics of the bill, H.R. 4437, click here to read more.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEWS CONFERENCE

Sunday, April 9, 2006
12:00 p.m.
Our Lady of Guadalupe Church
710 S. Sultana Ave., Ontario, CA 91761

Louise Corales, whose 14 year-old son, Anthony Soltero, died on April 1 after committing suicide, will speak to the community and ask for a prayer for her son this Sunday, following the 11:00 a.m. mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Ontario, California.

Eighth grader Anthony Soltero shot himself on Thursday, March 30, after the assistant principal at De Anza Middle School told him that he was going to prison for three years because of his involvement as an organizer of the April 28 school walk-outs to protest the anti-immigrant legislation in Washington. The vice principal also forbade Anthony from attending graduation activities and threatened to fine his mother for Anthony's truancy and participation in the student protests."Anthony was learning about the importance of civic duties and rights in his eighth grade class. Ironically, he died because the vice principal at his school threatened him for speaking out and exercising those rights," Ms. Corales said today. "I want to speak out to other parents, whose children are attending the continuing protests this week. We have to let the schools know that they can't punish our children for exercising their rights."

Anthony's death is likely the first fatality arising from the protests against the immigration legislation being considered in Washington, D.C. Anthony, who was a very good student at De Anza Middle School in the Ontario-Montclair School District, believed in justice and was passionate about the immigration issue. He is survived by his mother, Louise Corales, his father, a younger sister, and a baby brother.