Japan Post

Ten second photo narrative of the Japanese postal service.

Field Trip!

Numero dos on our media excursion tour. The Bill Viola exhibit was pretty nifty. Lots of fancy big time sound work. Everything was a little bit "slo-mo" though. Who got creeped out in the green field with the whispering voice? Pretty eerie. The last installment got me. There was one all done in blue. A guy diving in or out of the water or something. The magic was what it was before you knew it was just some displaced water. The effect it had on me was something I remember from high school. I used to always wonder what it would be like to lose everything. How it would feel to be away from everyone and everything but not dead. I used to weigh the good and bad trying to determine if it would be a curse or a blessing. My eyes were glued to that screen as I felt with each passing second the distance and serenity that grew between myself and all that I know. I would shudder or weep at the thought when I was growing up and the reason why I didn't this time is probably the answer to why getting older is bitter. The mystery is gone. I start to imagine sometimes that being senile is a longing for that naive youthfulness.
Anywho, it was a cool trip. Great gift shop too, the Murakami and Nara knick knacks sure beat all the gold plated Americana you find in galleries back home. Our group could have used a little more patriotism towards class however. Many of us got split up which is unfortunate because I understand Ron was buying at a coffee shop where happy gatherers celebrated Mariko's birthday! Omedeto gozaimasu, Mari-chan!!
By the way, I posted my International assignment on Google video and it looks, well, like crap! The pictures, once transfered to Google, came out horrible compared to what they really look like. Does anyone know how I can fix it up so that it looks all puurtty the way it should?! Check it above

Another Day, Another Deadline, Another Marek

If you can read this than you're dealing with school better than I am. You ever want to shake your papers out the window onto the street and just walk away into the woods to start a new life? Or wish the world would decide on just one language so you could find that best friend who just won't quit on you? That'll be my gripe for now.

On the upside, I'm guessing everyone had a good one on one with Ron and Irene two sessions ago? And the last class was uplifting. It's an experimental class that puts the burden of creating our own rules upon each other, but there is nothing but positive support in this course. (brown nosing) Really though, I feel more guided than taught in this class. The pitfall in that is, unless you're bent on learning, the tendency (temptation) to coast along is more than possible. So let's not burn hard earned college money whether it's your own or others' and get something valuable out of this. It's tough when there are strict classes out there that take up priority in our academic rank but remember we are shaping the future of this curriculum, we are pioneers!

I must be a magnet for Polish people. Despite living near the "little Poland" suburb of Wallington, New Jersey, I've had the pleasure on so many hazy nights to buddy with someone from that wonderful country. The people, those that I have met, share an amazing zest for life unattached from whatever hand life has dealt them. The indestructible spirit, wisdom, and honesty is unmistakable and unfortunately the general kindness among these beautiful people has become a guise for imbecility. Another common trait is an absurd tolerance to alcohol which works against the operating hours of your local watering hole. From what I've seen, my Polish friends have sweet-talked the most stern of bartenders into late shifts reaching into the early chirp of morning light. I shouldn't be surprised then to have walked into a pub during last call in my local shitamachi joint to find a bleary eyed stumbling Polish local caressing the already weakened spirit of the mizushobai with sincere verbal ballads imported from the old country. Maybe it's some sort of drinking moniker but why is it every Polish person I've met is named Marek? My, my we had a good time for sure and for the first time I felt truly transplanted from Tokyo to some sweat box towny mahogany hole in blue collar county. Funny, it took meeting someone neither here nor there to make here more like there.

We Are The People

It's such an interesting project to be working with students in different corners of the world. As far away as the places may seem, we vary in culture and climate, remain physiologically identical, and in that I hope to find many similarities keeping the differences pretty much topical. I can only hope that in the current state of world politics the same conclusion can be made about our humanity. Let's pray that the members of the U.N. and our nations' leaders arrive at some kind of wisdom that will allow the the majority, the human race, to live in peace. Let's pray that our hopes in them do not end in disappointment. To have to wish for these things makes me wonder, where have we gone wrong???

La Di Da

It's been a frustrating week and a half. Can you all believe mid-terms are next week already?! Anyway, I think I can safely (hopefully) speak for some of us when I say I'm having trouble pinning down the direction and content of the final project. Does anyone else feel like he/she should be further along in this project? I sure do. Sure, I've got some ideas but it comes down to what I can handle with my limited experience with computers, cameras, recorders, and basically anything that goes "tuk, tuk, zim, zim, whir, whir". I want to create a website, an interactive one, with links on a train map that'll lead to information or video on a station or street. Sounds easy right? But I'm the type of guy that needs to label a remote control so I know which way to point it! If ANYONE has spare time and can help me out building a site I will gladly buy a couple rounds or some equivalent, you name it. Either way, muy gracioso to anyone who can lend a hand. I need help with small stuff (how to manipulate graphics on an existing image) to bigger things like making a decent front page, animation, sound, whatever.
In other news, word up! to all the presentations yesterday. Everyone's got really cool projects underway. If all goes well, we're gonna blow 'em away at the exhibit. Even though everyone had interesting presentations and conclusions to their projects, I was especially impressed with Mariko's VJ style interview in the shotengai; complete with BGM, fades, and her unique personality. Way to go! For some of us, myself included!, I think we did a good job "pulling it off" if you know what I mean. . .

The Great Divide



Tentatively this splotch that looks like a shrink's flash card is a link to a pretty shoddy map I put together of the intersection I've decided to call the "serpent" which is a block away from Keio University. When my tech skills get on par I'll give a go at trying to fix it. This installment of the first assignment fulfills part two of the final day of my interaction with the Minato-ku neighborhood Mita. Now, I know that as an objective observer I am not supposed to make assumptions about behavior but the patterns in the flow of foot traffic were irresistible. On the weekends the people walking around vary of age and nothing about their strolls along the walkways indicate a purposeful duty. Return on an early weekday morning and you can expect to find a completely different public design. It looks as if the division that Sakurada Dori pierces through the neighborhood demographically also extends sociologically as well. As I later learned, the relationship between an adult and a student in Tokyo is one of disregard for the younger generation. This information helps explain why the main street parts the sidewalks into separate herds of distinct dress. On one side there are packs of students meandering their way to their classes and on the opposite side of the street are the shuffling suits and dresses of the morning commuters. Like oil and water they exist naturally separate from each other. If you haven't guessed from the legend on the map, the times indicate the length of the cycles of each traffic light in alphabetical sequence. After the observational part of the assignment I noticed that the commuters had all chosen to use the apparently burdensome "serpent" crossing over the crossing at the entrance of Keio University. After several experiments timing the lights and walking back and forth between them at different interval changes, I concluded that the "serpent" crossing is surprisingly more convenient. Between both intersections the "serpent" has a waiting time two seconds less than the Keio crossing. At the longest possible wait at the Keio crossing (approaching just as it turned red), walking at an average 3.5 miles per hour towards the "serpent" crossing measured an average 79 seconds and arriving to an expected 12 second light change in waiting time. In total the most a pedestrian can save by crossing at the "serpent" is 19 seconds. That's the difference between getting a can of coffee at the vending machine versus receiving reprimand at a meeting for yawning. Have the morning commuters over the years discovered this crosswalk phenomenon or has the natural parting of the classes coincidentally worked in favor of the salaryman? Further, could it be a grand design of the city's planners?

Surreal Reading

The texts in the "Center-City, Empty Center" and "Seiburealism" posses great answers and insight for those of us that have entered this city scratching our heads. How many of us have been perplexed by the complexity and absurdity of the address system? But to approach a system apart from the western ideaology that rationality and efficiency go hand in hand is to be open to other systems of relation. Ignorance is the blindfold in this case for those that deny that Tokyo's seemingly cold mapping system in itself creates a very warm interpersonal relation with its people. Only after reading the handout did I realize that the vague help a map provides forces people, myself included, to draw a mental map of landmarks in order to distinguish one locale from another. In a precisely structured cityscape like a New York City grid you would not find the same kind of ingenuity within each person trying to get to a destination. In Tokyo everyone creates an individual connection with the city and has his/her own interpretation on how to get around. How a person directs another reveals what reflection the city has upon he/she and the details are a big part of each's character. I won't forget the quote by the Kabuki actor Zeami that was mentioned in the handout - "labored with more reserve than the mind, the fabrication of the address greatly prevailed over the address itself, and, fascinated, I could have hoped it would take hours to give me that address". The city's unstructured imprint would now seem in contrast to have more life than that of the straightforward exactness found in the efficiency of a western metropolis.
There's so much to appreciate about the "Seiburealism" handout. The observations couldn't be made easily unless one were a foreigner. I too have wondered why such a reserved and peaceful society, at the core, contained such violent and disturbing forms of stimulation. We are all animals I guess afterall and the thirst for blood must be quenched one way or another whether in a manga or on the streets. Hey, censors out there, you getting all of this?!! The example of change in the city while maintaining a charm from the past couldn't have been better given than in the description of the digitization of Mount Fuji. How the flashes of the great monument between the concrete stalks in the past are today replaced by the same flashes only now on the buildings themselves so as not to completely imprison the city from the country are part of a transition so subtle its existence is most probably known only to those that have never known the city to begin with.

Ramen Wrap Up

My hot bowl of carnage down at Jiro demanded some ramen recovery time. See "Oodles of Noodles". Two days of tofu, natto, and saba was all I needed before my appetite for ramen, also known as shina-soba, returned. Note- use caution with the word 'shina', it is highly offensive to the Chinese. What made comparing Ikkei to Jiro difficult was the great differences between the two. Like apples and oranges, both fruit that grow on trees, these were two bowls of noodles but of extreme differences. In contrast to Jiro that serves a dish many Tokyoites refuse to refer to as 'ramen', Ikkei is typical of the vast majority of ramen-ya punctuated all over the city. Nothing too remarkable about the food. What you can expect is a basic tonkotsu base, a little heavy on the lard chips, with noodles (frozen) that are sharper than most. Heavy on the bean sprouts (mixed with rayu) and some lopsided cha-shu arranged haphazardly with a blind hand all for the median rate of 800 yen. The unusual interior, however, entertains over the ho-hum of the food. The owner (a tattooed bandanna man) jams the place with colorful hand painted signs and knick knacks that tell-tale of his obsession with Elvis, motorcycles, pin-up girls, and Americana. The food was not bad, just common and worlds away in terms of fair comparison with Jiro's bistro of exploding bowls. Which is why it makes the mystery behind the difference in patronage much more confounded.