Across the street from where Sunny’s was playing, there was this doo-wop group called Soul Smash. They were pretty good and quite funny. I only got to catch one song, which was about traditional Japanese festivals, since that night was one of the bigger summer festivals in the area. I got to walk around by myself and look at all the couples all dressed up in yukata and having a good time. Bleh.
These guys were out in front of Shinjuku Station with their tiny little setup. They were really nice, and after their set I bought a CD. Inside the case was a photo of them playing outside Shinjuku Station. I guess that’s their main thing. They’re actually quite a bit better live. Sunny’s is their name, if you’re interested. Well, I guess it’s their name even if you’re not interested.
Yesterday’s traffic accidents (inside city) Deaths: 1 Injuries: 284
I was sitting around Harajuku working on my Lit final when this punk band came out of nowhere, set up their kwipment, and started playing on this foot bridge. This is by no means an unusual occurence in Tokyo; walking around for a weekend will find you passing several free shows by small-time bands hoping to make it big some day. These guys were pretty energetic, and the crowd they drew was equally so. The fans all seemed to be wearing shirts that read “Fungus”, and they would chant “Fungus, Fungus, Fungus” between songs, so I imagine that is the band’s name.
“The CUT IT OUT ingredient activates when you spray it!”
My final paper for linguistics was about new forms of communication unique to real-time text-based communication over the internet, and my presentation focused on emoticons like O_o. Everyone else covered really lame, boring topics like “Semantics: Polysemy and Homophony; Lexical Ambiguity”. Bleh.
This is the photo that [Emotion Eric][1] took of the same angel on Sunday. [1]: http://www.emotioneric.com
I’ve been thinking about getting a really good photo of some wacked out goth-loli in Harajuku and then making it into a CD cover for [Shattered Angel][1]. [Emotion Eric][2], some other folks, and I all met for dinner one Sunday night; Sunday is the day that people get all dressed up so I took ’em to the “Freak Bridge” in Harajuku to see if we couldn’t find some good photo material. There was this angel just sitting there, and she was really nice about having her picture taken. I tinkered around with this picture in [Fireworks][3] and ended up with a [Shattered Angel desktop image][4]. [1]: http://www.shatteredangel.com [2]: http://www.emotioneric.com [3]: http://www.macromedia.com [4]: http://jetfuel.metalbat.com/blah/intothedarkdesktop.jpg
Sega Joypolis is a three-floor indoor amusement park and arcade. On the top floor they have a number of haunted-house type thingies, some of which are redone every now and then to fit current promotional themes. Right now there’s a Men In Black II one set up, and it was one of the most fun things we did there. It was a pretty slow day, so when we arrived the two attendants were just standing around, and the guy started doing acrobatics for us while we waited. Then the girl started to guide us through. We assured her that we knew enough Japanese, but she went through most of it in a **very** melodramatic Japanese/English hybrid. I’m not sure if we got special treatment for being gaijin, but she really went over the top and we played along, screaming in horror at the lame rubber aliens.
The guy who sits next to me in Philosophical Approaches to Buddhism noticed that I’ve got a [PowerBook][1]. It turns out he’s got one too, and that in the USA he works at the [Apple Store][2]. It also turns out that he was planning to go out to the huge Sega arcade in Odaiba with the guy from my Japanese Religions presentation group. They invited me, and we went out to beautiful Odaiba, where I was surprised to find that they have their own Statue of Liberty. They call her “Jiyuu no Megami”, or “Goddess of Freedom”. The story goes that France gave Japan their own Liberty, who usually stands by the Seine, for one year, but Japan liked her so much that when France took her back they also built Japan their own copy. And here she is. [1]: http://www.apple.com/powerbook [2]: http://www.apple.com/retail
Hajime Chitose is a singer with a really unique voice who’s been getting a lot of attention lately. I went to Shinjuku on the way home from school to pick up her new CD the day it was released, and on my way out of the station to go find a CD store, I heard her song. It was this little stand that had been set up just to sell the new CD. I stood there and watched the video for a few minutes, then bought the CD, which came with 2 postcards. Hey, here’s an idea: the first 2 people to [ask][1] will get a Hajime Chitose postcard. [1]: mailto:jetfuel@metalbat.com
Water in Tokyo is really, really dirty. This is all the crap that has accumulated at a point where the river narrows to pass under a bridge. If you look closely, you can see a mannequin head in there.
L. Ron Hubbard’s wacky, creepy Scientology represents. Japanese people, too, have the opportunity to become [Operating Thetans][1]. I had to do a big project on [Soka Gakkai][2] for Japanese Religions class, and I was tempted to title my paper, “Soka Gakkai: It’s Like Scientology Except You Can’t Fry Bugs With Your Mind”. [1]: http://www.xenu.net [2]: http://www.sgi.org
[Eric][1] conveys… “interest in my phone”. [1]: http://www.emotioneric.com
