Shirakawa-go

This past weekend I went with my friend Mika to Shirakawa-go, a World Heritage site meant to commemorate the mountain lifestyle of Japanese farmers in Gifu Prefecture around the turn of the century.

I met Mika back in July at a party in Nagoya, and we started seeing each other when I returned from the Philippines.

This weekend was our first and possibly last weekend outing because Mika is moving to Seattle later this month. She's taken a job with CICD to work with and assist Japanese residents in the Seattle area.

Anyway, we drove up to Gifu Saturday morning and spent the day walking around Shirakawa Village checking out all the gassho-style farmhouses and taking in the colorful mountain scenery.

That night we stayed in a minshuku, had an incredible Japanese feast, and took a relaxing onsen.

Sunday morning we drove over to Takayama and walked in and out of the tourist shops snacking on ALL the local delicacies. Dango, Gohei-mochi, Hida-beef koroke, Hida-beef sushi, Hoba-miso, giant sembei, Takayama Ji-zake. You name it.

I took quite a few picture over the course of the weekend, so I put them together in a photo album using my dotmac account.

To view my photo album please click here: Shirakawa-go Photos.

Supreme Court

My New 'Old' Toy

Since I started using iTunes about a year ago, all I've listened to is mp3 formatted music. If I buy a CD, I immediately encode it, put it on my iPod, and put the disc on the shelf never to be noticed again.

Due to this massive evolution in my listening habits, I decided I need to have some kind of balance.

I bought this second hand record player while shopping for a replacement center speaker which I blew at a home party about a month ago.

With the cold starting to creep in through my paper doors and tatami mats, I've been curling up under the kotatsu table; only getting up to flip the record and drop the needle.

It's gonna be an interesting winter.

Film file-sharer sent to prison

BBC NEWS | Technology | Film file-sharer sent to prison

A Hong Kong man has been jailed for three months for film piracy after he shared movie files over the internet.

The authorities say he is the first person in the world to be prosecuted for passing on files using a popular file-sharing program called BitTorrent.

It makes the sharing of material easy by breaking a file up into fragments and then distributing them.

The film industry says it hopes the sentence handed down to Chan Nai-ming will prove a deterrent to others.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4413540.stm

US death toll in Iraq hits 2,000

BBC NEWS | Middle East | US death toll in Iraq hits 2,000

Two thousand United States military personnel have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq, according to figures issued by Pentagon.

A sergeant wounded by a bomb in the insurgent stronghold of Samarra earlier this month died of his wounds and officially became the 2,000th death.

Unofficial estimates put Iraqi civilian deaths at at least 25,000 since the US-led invasion began in March 2003.

President Bush has called on troops to persevere in "spreading freedom".

Staff Sgt George T Alexander Jr, 34, died in hospital in Texas of wounds he received when a bomb hit his vehicle in Samarra on 17 October.

A spokesman for the American-led multinational force in Baghdad appealed to media not to make too much of the 2,000 figure.

"The 2,000 service members killed in Iraq supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom is not a milestone," Lt Col Steve Boylan told AP news agency.

"It is an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives."

Tiff's Sayonara Party

This past weekend my good friend Tiffany returned to France to be with her beautiful young daughter.

Tiffany was instrumental in starting our bi-lingual magazine LightHouse and helping me learn the joys of creativity.

She will be greatly missed by all, and we wish her the best of luck in France with her family.

Flower Headland Festival 2005

My writing has fallen way off this past year, and I kind of like the idea of making this blog a multimedia experierence, so I recorded this post in audio.

Click here to listen to my audio post: Flower Headland Festival.m4a











The Flower Headland site



Prankster #1




Prankster #2



Click here to watch the video: Afro-Stilts



Click here to watch the video: The Mask



Prankster #3



Teepee Stage w/ a mushroom



Autumn Sunset

Asagiri Jam 2005

I've had several problems with this post and I don't have time to write the full story or captions. I'm just ready to get this up and out of the way.

The pictures (and now videos) will have to tell the story of the amazing people and wonderful weather.


















Click here to watch a video: Yosuke Improv






Thank you to all the people who shared their photos with me for this post, and special thanks goes out to Tiffany who will be leaving Japan soon.

Tiff, you will be missed.

DJ Shadow/Kenji Yanobe/BBQ Party/107+1

Last weekend was legendary.

It started Thursday night when DJ Shadow, Keb Darge, and Dante came through Nagoya with their special brand of Deep Funk.

They played a really small, underground club called JB's, and the majority of the audience were Europeans working at the Aichi Expo. It's the first time I've been to a concert in Japan where the foreigners outnumbered the Japanese and I couldn't see over everyone's head.

Rather than each DJ playing their own set, it was an all at once, triple tag-team, onslaught of what Shadow called 'body movin music.' The tiny club heated up like a sauna while they spun lots of 60s and 70s funk on vinyl 45s.

On of the funkiest Nagoya nights on record!

Keb Darge

Our posse

Scary Will

James

Hey!

The very next day I went with a group of friends to the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art to see a Kenji Yanobe exhibit titled Kindergarten.

Kenji Yanobe is a native of Osaka and creative brain-child of the fabled Expo '70. He created Kindergarten to put a cheeky twist on the current Aichi Expo's theme of Nature's Wisdom... adding an apocalyptic twist.

7.5 meter tall robot

Rocking Mammoth

Tora-yan

The day after that I hosted a small private BBQ party at my house for some close friends. It was a pretty relaxing day cooking meat until about midnight when a large group of JET teachers came over and we started blasting music and watching DVDs.

I introduced them to a really crazy Japanese band called Hifana, which is kind of like if Future Man from the Flecktones was crossed with Mix Master Mike, multiplied by two, and had a dash of Japanese thrown into the jumble for good measure. Later I cranked out the Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots 5.1 at full volume and blew out my center channel!

I polished off the already great weekend by going into Nagoya Sunday afternoon to see a special screening of a Japanese documentary film called Tentsuku 107+1.

Simply put, it was about a group of people in Okinawa trying to make positive impact on their local surroundings by completing three projects: 1) raising a town's awareness of solid waste management, 2) knitting a 1km long rainbow scarf for children in Afghanistan, and 3) rowing a canoe from Okinawa all the way to Kagoshima.

This was the first time for the film to be seen with English subtitles so foreigners could understand and enjoy it, but it was also cool because it was shown in a Rakugo theater behind a Shinto shrine.

Rokugo Theater

I can't say enough good things about last weekend. It left me feeling funky, artsy, noisy, and pro-active. All the things I truly enjoy in life.

Lotus

I wanted to write about this weekend is great detail. I wanted to tell the story of how my friend Toku missed the exit off the highway when he was coming to pick me up in Toyohashi, so I had to take a local train to meet him in the next town of Hamamatsu.

I wanted to write about the full moon concert the band Lotus played in Shizuoka Prefecture and how it traveled through a cloudless sky for the duration of the night.

I wanted to write about the largest fireworks show I've ever seen in Tahara-shi

Instead, things are happening too fast here for me to keep up this blog, so I just posted a few pictures and movies of the event.

Lotus playing in a tee-pee.

Tee-pee Moonrise

Tee-pee Moonset

Above is a short video clip of Lotus playing in the tee-pee while a Japanese lighting engineer called OverHeads projected insanity on the tee-pee. Please click here to watch the video.

Mt. Fuji at sunrise.

This is a short video clip of the sunrise over the mountains while Lotus is playing in the background. Mt. Fuji can be see in the distance. Click here to watch the clip.

This is a short video the Ozutsu in Tahara-shi. Ozutsu are kind of like giant roman candles crossed with sparklers. They are carried out platforms by teams of about forty young men. It's quite the spectacle. Click here to watch the video.

Tahara fireworks

Hurricane Katrina Timeline

Timeline

Friday, Aug. 26: Gov. Kathleen Blanco declares a state of emergency in Louisiana and requests troop assistance.

Saturday, Aug. 27: Gov. Blanco asks for federal state of emergency. A federal emergency is declared giving federal officials the authority to get involved.

Sunday, Aug. 28: Mayor Ray Nagin orders mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. President Bush warned of Levee failure by National Hurricane Center. National Weather Service predicts area will be "uninhabitable" after Hurricane arrives. First reports of water toppling over the levee appear in local paper.

Monday, Aug. 29: Levee breaches and New Orleans begins to fill with water, Bush travels to Arizona and California to discuss Medicare. FEMA chief finally responds to federal emergency, dispatching employees but giving them two days to arrive on site.

Tuesday, Aug. 30: Mass looting reported, security shortage cited in New Orleans. Pentagon says that local authorities have adequate National Guard units to handle hurricane needs despite governor's earlier request. Bush returns to Crawford for final day of vacation. TV coverage is around-the-clock Hurricane news.

Wednesday, Aug. 31: Tens of thousands trapped in New Orleans including at Convention Center and Superdome in "medieval" conditions. President Bush finally returns to Washington to establish a task force to coordinate federal response. Local authorities run out of food and water supplies.

Thursday, Sept. 1: New Orleans descends into anarchy. New Orleans Mayor issues a "Desperate SOS" to federal government. Bush claims nobody predicted the breach of the levees despite multiple warnings and his earlier briefing.

Friday, Sept. 2: Karl Rove begins Bush administration campaign to blame state and local officials—despite their repeated requests for help. Bush stages a photo-op—diverting Coast Guard helicopters and crew to act as backdrop for cameras. Levee repair work orchestrated for president's visit and White House press corps.

Saturday, Sept. 3: Bush blames state and local officials. Senior administration official (possibly Rove) caught in a lie claiming Gov. Blanco had not declared a state of emergency or asked for help.

Monday, Sept. 5: New Orleans officials begin to collect their dead.

(Adapted from: Katrina Timeline, http://thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline/ )