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May 29, 2005
Water
This weekend I was by Lake Union for a while. I got together with a bunch of girls and went out for drinks. I didn't get a margarita, though. I got Sierra Nevada pale ale.
About halfway through the pint, this girl who'd earlier showed everyone her sequined pink shoes says, "Has anyone read that book, He's Just Not That Into You?" This is followed by a buzz of general assent.
(Am I the only one who hasn't heard of it?), I'm thinking, as someone explains, "You only need the first chapter, after that it's redundant." More talk of relationships, and though I'm probably the median age of this group and should be paying attention, I can't help getting distracted by the water.
But then, maybe I wasn't the median age at all. It's not like we went around the table (of about 10) and actually spilled this information. You could get clues from the years people graduated from college, if you were so inclined, and backcalculate. But whatever. After a certain period of time it doesn't really matter about ages. Maybe I'm only saying that 'cause I've crossed into my thirties. It's so funny when I mention how I just turned to others in this bracket and they say, "Join the club." Like it's Dead Poets Society or something.
Posted by Dipika at 8:12 PM | Comments (0)
May 28, 2005
Weather Report
"Looks like it's going to be another scorcher." Akira says this as he puts down the coffee thermos and picks up a peach. It's noon and we're at the garden a block from our apartment and two from Broadway. One couple wanders in and sees us through the stems, nods politely beneath broad sun hats. Flowers are bright, it's spring.
Yesterday it was a record-high 89, according to the front page of the paper that belongs to Apartment 17. Sunny Seattle is where we are now, it's odd after all the intense drizzly storms that seemed to punctuate most of the rest of the days of the year.
Posted by Dipika at 1:33 PM | Comments (0)
May 25, 2005
Center
Everyone has to get lost before they can find center. That's something I put in an e-mail one day, and getting to that thought is the reason I'm going to Philadelphia next month and Vegas in September. Traveling the circumference, you can't always remember where you started, what you were thinking at the start. But there is a center. A fixating radius that holds you, the force of attraction inversely proportional to the radius squared.
No one ever tells you that you're going to get off track, though. But somewhere along the way it happens. You might be 17 and in a funk, it's raining and you're just walking, thinking, not sure of where you're going. You might be older, much older, going through a mid-life crisis. But it is necessary to veer off track if you want to get to the middle again. And when you're there it's immediately clear. That place where all that's known and yet to be known to you align perfectly.
Here is a Yeats poem that came across my radar in recent days. This is what got me on this tangent.
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 convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Posted by Dipika at 7:57 PM | Comments (0)
May 24, 2005
Is New York obsessed with Toyko?
The craze seems to go on and on. Following the recent report of Murakami becoming the first Japanese New York Times Best Seller, Interview magazine just came out with its "Tokyo issue" and features pop icons from Utada to Kaneshiro, fashion guru Nigo to super architect Ando. It's an incredible mixture and ridiculously superficial skim-over (with a bunch of typographical and other errors), but what's amazing is that they actually made a whole magazine with nothing but Japanese pop culture. They even managed to squeeze in Donald Richie, who lent a kind of academic cred to the whole idea (and was by far the most interesting article).
Is this a good thing? As a native Japanese living in the States, I am somewhat flattered, for sure. But something feels odd. It's like seeing your own brother who is a brilliant cut-up art poet, appearing in Total Request Live with P. Diddy. Like, you know they don't get it, he's up there for a comic relief or something.
Sure, some of the people covered are doing interesting work (Asano, Kaneshiro, Cornelius, Nara). But they are already gaining a strong foothold as international artists. It seems to me that 'being from Japan' has least to do with their successes; they hinge more on the disappearance of the barriers (language and otherwise) between audiences of different cultures and artists that existed before.
Reading the magazine, it was interesting to note that many artists being interviewed seem aware of this -- that their workplace is becoming increasingly borderless and their work and influences, more international -- themselves, whereas the interviewers don't ("would you like to work in Hollywood?" they keep asking).
So, nothing exciting in it per se. But taken as an indication (that things are very fluid these days, and the mainstream media is playing a catchup), it does seem to open up quite a set of possibilities... Torattoria-Sub Pop mashup, anyone?
Posted by Akira at 12:02 AM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2005
Colorado
For the past week I've been living in a rectangle.
Colorado's shape doesn't differ drastically from the frame of this picture. They had warm, dry weather and the sun really saturated colors. Seattle's wet, West Cork's wet and I realize I like it that way. Someone said Boulder has 330 or so sunny days a year. Not a lot of variety, that.
I saw a lot of Boulder people whiz by on their skinny-framed bikes. Might be why my one souvenir is a pink biking shirt. It's made of some material that supposedly keeps you cool. Right-o.
So, climbing up from Denver airport on a public bus, I got a quick whiff of the thinner air.
"Drink water," people said.
"I'll be grand," I said.
Wrong. I don't think I ever got over altitude sickness. Glad to be grounded again in Seattle, I love sea level.
Posted by Dipika at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
May 20, 2005
Sleepless in Seattle
My better half is in Boulder, CO this week, for a workshop on environmental reporting. I am finding myself not going to bed at night for the sheer lack of discipline. Not that I am being productive; it's mostly net surfing and reading useless stuff in the weeklies. Listening to My Bloody Valentine that our friend lent me, finding that the jangly guitar noise feels oddly comforting very late at night.
Apparently, these people declared May "the Better Sleep Month." It's probably time to hit the sack now...
Posted by Akira at 3:02 AM | Comments (2)
May 11, 2005
Soft rain
Like anyone else who lives here, I'm delighted when we get sunny days. After three years in Ireland I've learned to really appreciate any peek of sun.
"Lovely day, isn't it?" people on Skibbereen's Main Street would say.
A nod in reply, and the standard, "Grand altogether." Always returned with a smile on truly pretty days.
With rain, which is most of the time, it goes like this.
"Fierce miserable weather, isn't it?"
"Desperate, like," comes the volley. But no one really cares if it's raining, that's the thing.
So for a few days now we've gotten a good wash in Seattle. This weekend there was a soft, misty rain that really brought me back to West Cork. The kind that makes forty shades of green. It's calming to see it again, even nicer to walk about and let it drizzle upon the skin.
Posted by Dipika at 9:51 PM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2005
Why I left Old Skibbereen
A friend of ours from France (hi Eric!) sent us a link to his crazy collection of pictures from Ireland, and it got me thinking about the how and why of my whereabouts. You see, it's been exactly one year since I arrived to Seattle from the hills of Skibbereen. It's been a good year, definitely, but there has been a lot of adjusting for sure.
The farmers, cows and sheep that roam on the roads, the pubs where people sing and talk to strangers as if they are part of a family, the ever-changing sky and lights on the green hills... West Cork was every bit strange and foreign to me, yet something in the place really spoke to me, like I'd known it all along. Something in me still misses it.
So why did I leave? Well, it was a matter of putting an end to what I had always known would end sometime. I was not from Ireland, and I had no Irish in me -- there was no way I was going to settle there. As wonderful as the culture of Ireland is, it's also very, how shall I put it, Irish. I was just a hired hand in a small enterprise, and sadly there was nothing to tie me to the place, after three years.
Is it any different here? Maybe not. I am not American (yet), and I still haven't really found my niche here. But in the city, you are not alone 'not belonging' anywhere - it's more a matter of fact, a byproduct of the lifestyle. I guess I am more of a city rat.
I do love the expansiveness of the Northwest. The perspective it gives me, of the mountains and oceans afar, skyscrapers and old buildings near. In Tokyo, you have no sense of space. Everything and everyone is constantly in your face.
You could say I choose the middle ground, a sort of a compromise. This city has a lot of influences from the East, and there are lots of perks to being one of the closest port from Tokyo. The weather and landscape is reminiscent of Ireland (to me). I get to eat well, live close to everything, but there's still a sort of small-town feel left. It's a good place to live, and I am pretty content so far in it.
Of course, it helps that I actually do like the rain. Gives me all the excuse I need to stay home and read!
Posted by Akira at 8:52 PM | Comments (0)
May 9, 2005
Seymour
Mixed feelings on Sunday when Akira snapped this pic. Great fun to repot a plant in the great outdoors, but what really knocked me out this week was a bloodcurdling trip to the dentist. At the time the conversations didn't sink in, but days later I can process them. What I'd experienced has finally taken root.
Those who appear ancy, I learned, are given headphones and a CD player. "Do you like any special kind of music?" asks the dental assitant, who will soon chat away about restaurants down the street and what's happened with the open spot at her last job.
"Yeah," I say, noticing my mouth going numb. "Jazz."
"Like, Norah Jones?"
I make a face.
I get Ella Fitzgerald, though even with the walkman there's no way to get away from that silvery drill sound. I mean, it is in your head.
So even though I'm smiling in this pic from Sunday, I'm still a little irked about the four fillings.
Our plant got a new name, too. Say hi to Seymour.
Posted by Dipika at 7:40 PM | Comments (0)
May 7, 2005
Day trip
Every once in a while you have to get out of your routine. Akira and I both live and work in downtown Seattle, so it's refreshing when we find ourselves outside these urban bounds. (Those who know about our Ireland days will remember the farm we talked about, but we've been here a year and our vocabulary's somehow changed.)
Skagit Valley's tulips were pretty, but the signs directing you there were a little cheesy. People warned us about traffic, so we left with friends on a Sunday at 8 a.m. (their idea). A couple of families, some kids jumping around in the mud. After snapping this series, we got some purple potted tulips. They've seemed to take well to Capitol Hill.
Posted by Dipika at 9:35 PM
May 6, 2005
music fridays at Chin Music
There has been a bit a of hiatus since my last (well, first) music-related entry. Well, things have been brewing underground, ideas have been crossing overhead, and I am now a published columnist! Chin Music Press, a purveyor of all things beautiful and quirky (they made a "literary object" called Kuhaku, which is available in select bookstores everywhere, and here), and a champion of independent media outlets, has agreed to publish my music musings in their eclectic, often hilarious blog. Titled "Friday Music," the weekly column features a Japanese band/artist and their work, chosen by yours truly on the merits exclusively related to my personal taste.
Right. Big deal. The last thing the world needs is another man's opinion about obscure popular culture commodities (Amazon reviews, anyone?). I know, I know... But just in case you are feeling charitable, or curious, for whatever reasons unfathomable, here's the link to the first story. Enjoy...
Posted by Akira at 4:15 PM | Comments (0)