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!