On Japan #1

As I've been living in Japan for about two months now, I figured it's long past time that I wrote something about it. In list form!

1) Osaka! To my unending glee, I currently live in Osaka, my favorite city in Japan and my third favorite city in the world (silver goes to London, gold to New York). Most people are surprised or baffled when I mention this, because - according to others - Osaka's not all that remarkable. It's not known for being a particularly beautiful city, not like Kobe or Sapporo, and I've even heard it described by more than a few people as one of the ugliest cities they've ever visited.

I've tried countless times to explain why I love Osaka so much, but it's always been a challenge and ultimately I've never really communicated it well. I can only say that when I studied abroad in Kobe two years ago, I took the train to Osaka almost every day after class, and I'd usually stay until nightfall. I'd get lost on purpose, spend hours wandering the city, and at the end of my summer in Japan, I missed it more than Kobe. (However, now that I actually live in Osaka, I can appreciate the relative peace and greenery of Kobe compared with the harried pace and generally gray landscape of Osaka. All about perspective.)

Why Osaka? It's the people. It's the Osaka dialect. It's the views at night from Umeda Sky Tower and the Dotonbori Bridge. It's Namba Walk and the mini Fifth Avenue in Shinsaibashi and Amemura. It's Osaka Castle, Hep Five, Osaka Aquarium, Spa World, and Shitennoji Temple.

And it's the octopus balls.

2) My apartment! It's about average size for a studio in Japan, which means that in only ten economical strides, I can cook breakfast, take a shower, select my daily attire, check my email, vacuum, turn on some background music, open the window, hang some laundry, and still have nine steps left over with which I can jog four laps around the footstool/coffee table.

3) Transportation! I've owned two bicycles since arriving in Japan. The first one was stolen while I was at work even though I left it locked with two chains. I now own a second bike that's protected by three locks and a decently-sized, if possibly illegal, clone of Cerberus.

4) Hair! I've had two hair colors since I got here two months ago. When I got here, it was dirty blonde, and now it's dark brown. I went to K Salon (http://www.ksny.jp/en/staff.html), a fantastic salon run by Keiko and Hiroshi Fukumoto. They lived in New York for twenty years and owned a salon on Madison Avenue. They're both extremely kind and they were happy to talk to a foreigner who considers herself part New Yorker. I got a 20% discount since it was my first visit to the salon, an especially awesome addition to the experience since the price was already reasonable. I'm really happy with the color and I loved hanging out with Keiko and Hiroshi, so I'm definitely going back.

5) Summer! Summer in Osaka is wretched. Like, think every word that means awful or uncomfortable or Apocalyptically dismal. I mean, my love for Osaka is pretty damn impressive, but so too is the heat. Temperature on September 10th: 94 degrees; humidity: 70. Please repeat: GAH.

6) Linkin Park! I fully expect their new album to be stellar, so I plan on getting two: the one I'll download from iTunes once it's released, and the tangible one I'll buy here in Osaka.

9/15!
9/14!
9/15!
9/14!

(The album I preordered comes out on 9/14, but the Japanese release date is 9/15, and I'm a colossal dork for looking that up.)

Seriously, finally having the entire album on iTunes will be a great relief. I've been listening obsessively to "Blackout" on YouTube where I have to manually restart it every time the song ends. I need the song on iTunes where it'll repeat automatically. I need it like I need air conditioning, a dish of cookie dough ice cream, and seven down pillows spritzed with lavender.

The Piano Tribute Players and Linkin Park Writing Exercise

Voila! A writing exercise with an arbitrarily long name!

The Piano Tribute Players and Linkin Park Writing Exercise

How to do it:

1. Find a music video.
2. Find an instrumental piece.
3. Play the video on mute in time with the song.
4. Write something based on what you see and hear.

I did this with Linkin Park's video for "Leave Out All the Rest" and Piano Tribute Player's cover of The Fray's "You Found Me," and it turned out to be a fantastic combination. The piano changes the entire mood of the video, and the decrescendo at the end of the song is an eerie complement to the end of the video. I picked these two at random, but the exercise can probably be done with most any combination.

Using an instrumental piece completely takes the attention off lyrics. By using only sound and visuals, you give yourself more freedom in how you interpret the two as a whole.

(Doing this totally made me think of the Mary Poppins trailer recut to look like a horror movie.)

So! This is what I wrote:


Your new job in this place is tedious, and you know they only gave it to you because they don't trust you to do more after your last series of mistakes. But you get bored, so you entertain yourself by checking over everyone else's work while they sleep. It settles your mind in a way that sleeping can't.

Then one night you find an error in the ship's trajectory. A fatal one. The others obviously don't believe it's there, and Jacob, who should be especially grateful to you for pointing it out considering it's his mistake, asks cautiously if you've been sleeping enough. You tell Jacob he's not doing his job right and that the number of hours you've slept has nothing to do with that. He takes offense, predictably, and you push away from the table in disgust.

No one bothers you for the rest of the night, and no one fixes the error. No one even checks to see if it's there. One by one they go to sleep, and Jacob shakes his head at you on his way up the ladder.

You stay up. You go into the engine room and call up a field of stars. You stand in the middle of the galaxy and look at all the places you could have gone instead.

When the alarm sounds, you climb down to the observation deck. Whorls of fire expand and fill the window. The heat makes you grimace.

The one thing you ever did right, and it didn't change a thing.

One by one they join you, stand beside you, and you can tell Jacob is looking at you. He doesn't apologize, and if you didn't know him as well as you do, you'd wonder if he blames you.

Maybe he does. You can't read his expression because you never look away from the light.

Then, all at once, it devours you.


And that's the exercise! Give it a shot!

OneWord Exercise: Anxiety (Day 30 of 30)

Sasha's train sped past her in a gust of wind. She watched it diminish into a single point on the horizon and thought, How am I going to get to the match now?

[ One Word]

Whoo! That was fun.

OneWord Exercise: Stereo (Day 29 of 30)

Natasha set the stereo on a rock far from the water and turned the volume up as far as it could go. Even though the music couldn't follow her into the waves, she had the pulse of it in her head by the time she dove in.

[ One Word ]

OneWord Exercise: Licorice (Day 28 of 30)

Alex left most of the licorice in the car before school. What he brought with him he ate in homeroom and spent the rest of the day wondering whether or not licorice melts.

So he's kind of caught off-guard when the gym explodes.

[ One Word ]

OneWord Exercise: Cigarette (Day 27 of 30)

After her family leaves, Cynthia spins a cigarette between her fingers like a small baton and stares out the window of her hospital room, mildly hating everyone and everything. She's so intent on maintaining a constant degree of hatred that she doesn't notice Royce enter the room, pick up the remote and change the channel to America's Top Model.

[ One Word ]

OneWord Exercise: Constant (Day 26 of 30)

The only constant in Joey's life happens to be a Border Collie with co-dependency issues. So after all the devotion Michaela has showed him, what kind of merciless asshole would he be if he didn't repay her by keeping her company every Friday night?

Joey kind of starts to hate himself if he thinks about this too long.

[ One Word ]

OneWord Exercise: Fate (Day 25 of 30)

Nicholas meets Kelan in 1912 a week before the Titanic sails. Kelan watches from across the pub as Nicholas meticulously drinks his way to senselessness. Nicholas wakes up the next day under Kelan's arm and never receives his mother's telegram offering him a second class ticket.

[ One Word ]

OneWord Exercise: Pit (Day 24 of 30)

Milo changes direction and skids into the pit. Despite his solid grip on the handlebars, sticks and rocks and mud make for a clumsy descent that nearly flings Milo off his seat. Up on the road, he hears Samantha yell, "Give it back!"

[ One Word ]

OneWord Exercise: Teacher (Day 23 of 30)

"You weren't a very good teacher," Mika said.

Johnny shrugged. "I wasn't trying to teach you. If I'd known you were paying attention, I would have done things differently. I'm actually an excellent teacher, but a poor human being, so if you wanted to learn, you ought to have warned me before you took notes."

[ One Word ]

OneWord Exercise: Assume (Day 22 of 30)

"I assume you didn't mean to come here," Lucas said with a smile.

I kept trying to push the door shut, but with a hinge missing, the door was uneven and had gotten stuck between the floorboards. I used this as an excuse not to answer him.

"I'm not letting you stay unless you talk to me," Lucas continued cheerfully.

I considered.


[ One Word ]

OneWord Exercise: Sneeze (Day 21 of 30)

Class ended on a low note. Mr. Addison wouldn't look at them when the bell rang, and most kids seemed relieved to be let go silently. Only Danielle stayed after everyone else left, and only she stayed when the Headmaster appeared at the door.

(...This had nothing to do with sneezing. Oops. Take two!)

Melanie let the kite soar above the trees for an hour before she dragged it down again. She began to coil the string around her fist when she heard an unusual sneeze. Above her, a small voice said, "Pardon me."

(That's more like it. Stay with me, brain.)

[ One Word ]

OneWord Exercise: Habitat (Day 20 of 30)

Wild cats aren't meant to live in houses, no matter the size or luxury. This is a belief Thalia has held ever since she watched Aladdin as a little girl. But apparently jaguars can be very happy in a castle after they've been domesticated over six generations and tied to humankind by a love of baguettes.

[ One Word ]

OneWord Exercise: Bars (Day 19 of 30)

Someday, Elliott won't need to use public transportation to get to work, because he'll work from home in the countryside. He'll have a house somewhere in Europe, maybe Spain, and he'll own a bar (pub, that's what they call them over there) or a sheep farm or maybe he'll just keep a blog about his hilarious escapades as a lifetime New Yorker owning a sheep farm in Europe.

[ One Word ]

OneWord Exercise: Gym (Day 18 of 30)

The front of the gym is the first thing Miranda notices as she climbs out of the bus. The windows are glowing and the walls have been fractured. Charred pairs of shoes surround the blinking angel whose landing destroyed half the block.

[ One Word ]