Floating Further Upstream -OR- How Tokyo Got Pwned By Amsterdam

*stretch* aaaaaaahhhhh that feels good.

Happy New Year everyone! How're we all doing? Y'all had a fanblastic hopover into 2k9? As for me, I think it's safe to say this year's transition was the most laid-back I've ever had. But that's getting ahead of things ...

DragonForce's new album ULTRA BEATDOWN is the pwnage!!! The name in itself...my heart jumped of joy when Ari first told me about it. Otherwise it's mostly funk I've been listening to lately. The defining song of winter 2008-09 is Incognito's "Close My Eyes" (from the album Adventures in Black Sunshine), which has made me soar in the skies of my soul about 50 times so far, I'm guessing. Music, music, music, as always, is what keeps me alive & kicking this winter. In fact, it's flat out impossible for me to get a winter depression if I spend an average of 4 hours a day on my music as I currently am, especially since there's so much new stuff involved - mostly me practicing to rap & sing while playing drums or keys at the same time. Quite challenging, but I have high hopes for the fruits it'll eventually bear! One for all, all for the 24th now - Jungle Jamboree Vol. 6, I can't wait!

Besides performing with Mineshaft Spirit Boots (opening act) and Jungle Mic (closing act), I'll also be dancing with the Funky Space Cowboys, the team I put together for Ego's end-of-the-year-party (they're called "forget-the-year parties" in Japanese by the way) on December 20th. It was a dream come true to do a show with an all-star team of my friends to What Planet is This?!, which I'm sure many of you know is one of my favorite songs ever, and one I'd been willing to make a show to ever since I started dancing in autumn 2007. Though the performance was quite messy in the end (as forget-the-year-party dance shows usually are, I hear), it - as well as the organization and practice - was a lot of fun. Here're some pics from an all-night practice session on December 18th:





You're probably thinking "wow, that looks like fun - not!". Right? Well, if good timing makes a good photographer, that just means I've got a long way to go. There were actually eight other people besides the ones pictured above, and it was honestly a ton of fun. Here're two pics from the dinner party after the main (dance) event on the 20th:




Besides FSC, I also danced with Ikeyan: "Ikeyan and Youri's wonderful world" was the name of the team/show, and we went at it with three Hiromi tracks edited together (Time & Space, Dancando no Paraiso and Love & Laughter). Though we didn't get as much feedback afterwards as we'd hoped for, there were three people who approached me later in the evening to say they had been really moved by the show. We were quite surprised - if anything, we were expecting things like "that was original" or "that was really fun", but not "I got tears in my eyes [...] this is what I would ultimately love to do with dance" (from guys as well as girls). Of course we were extremely happy that we were able to have such an impact with our simple creative expression, and we concluded that we should definitely work together on small-scale projects like this again in the future. For now, I'm trying to get a hold of the guy we met at Lake Biwa last summer, who was performing on all kinds of unusual instruments with a couple of friends (see this post from back then), to see if he's up for a musician & dance group performance.

The next day, I went to Osaka to go to a special concert with Sonoe: a duet by Hiromi and a well-known Japanese tapdancer (well-known if you're into tapdancing, I guess):




Especially since I'd danced to Hiromi myself the day before, I was very curious to see how they would organize things. It turned out that I didn't know much about tapdancing, since the guy was more of a musician than a dancer in the sense that it was more about the sound he produced than the visible movements he made. Anticipating the gig, I'd hoped to learn something useful from the tapdancer for my own dance (since, out of all the street dance styles, house dance in particular incorporates quite some tapping). However, the vastness of the gap created by the shoes (specialized tapdancing shoes vs. sneakers) ensured that half of the steps he did would be impossible for street dancers, and the other half makes a lot of cool sounds if you have those kind of shoes and are dancing on a custom-built wooden stage surrounded by expensive mics, but would barely make a difference for my kind of dance, which is almost completely focused on what you can see. Anyway, the show was inspiring enough - they played a couple of Hiromi tracks, some jazz standards and a classical piece, and I went home satisfied and eager to keep at it myself.

During the next couple of days, as is the case with Japan around year's end, parties sprung from out of every corner, and I managed to squeeze a couple of gatherings of my own in between the rest, such as the nabe party where Jesus and Jonfan had the longest arm-wrestling bout I've ever witnessed (Jesus won). Among the ones I attended were a gathering with Ikeyan and his ex-girlfriend the nurse (again), who was accompanied by one of her nurse friends this time. All good fun; I can't get enough of meeting new Japanese people.






The day after that, I left for Tokyo. I figured that since most of my Kyoto friends would be out of town around the New Year's, or busy with family matters anyway, and my Fukuoka trip didn't come through, I was better off chilling with Yokoo and the others in the East. So I set upon the usual 9-hour, 8-changes, unofficially free train ride.

I spent a total of one week in Tokyo. This time was undoubtedly less exciting than the last, but there's nothing wrong with relaxing, and it was nice to hang out with Yokoo without the time pressures of daily partying and sightseeing (though the reason we didn't go out that much was actually that he'd had strange pains since a couple of days before I came and was diagnosed with overtiredness by his doctor just after I arrived: "take it easy for a week", good timing!). Instead, among other things, we were able to discuss our business plans for the future. It's amazing how these things go; coming to Japan, I'd left everything regarding the future completely open. Just nine months later, the latest plan is 1. finish my MSc at Kyodai, 2. work in consultancy in Japan for a couple of years, saving a lot of money, 3. opening a restaurant on the beach in Thailand with Yokoo and Freddy, and once that's going well, open a jazz club in Tunisia with the same team plus Benkei, who has promised me his full assistance in the business/legal aspects of setting up business there, as well as providing a truckload of business/music/personal contacts - I'm not exagerrating when I say he makes it seem very doable.

Back to the Eastside, however. Met up with some of my other Tokyo homies (Koki, Sumi, Mirai) for a Nabe party on the 29th, and caught the following man in the act at a club called Air.



Though I was a bit disappointed in his choice of music (very deep house only, whereas I prefer a bit of soulful/funky/latin/afro mixed in) and more in the huge amount of people that made it impossible to dance in the main hall, the lounge area was cool too, and I had fun dancing with Koki, some of his teammates, and some other random people.

Just in time for the New Year, Sonoo came back from a couple of weeks' travelling through Switzerland and France. I picked her up at Narita, and she took me around her hometown Yokohama (about an hour away from Tokyo) that day. A very pleasant seaside city, the atmosphere is quite more enjoyable than Tokyo's non-stop hustlebustle - and the Chinese food is killer.
















That evening, Sonoo went home to crash out her travel exhaustion, and I hopped on a train back to Tokyo just in time for the moment supreme, arriving in Shibuya around half an hour before 0. Now Shibuya is one of the busiest places in all of Tokyo, especially at night, and I don't need to tell you Tokyo is one hell of an impressive city, so that means something...but for once, this huge capital was squarely defeated by my own much humbler hometown of Amsterdam. In terms of the amount of people and atmosphere, no question about it (though not by the amount of police officers on the street - I'm quite happy I don't need to pay taxes here). So Japanese New Year is quite different from Dutch New Year, then! I met up with Yokoo, who was coming from his deserted part-time job, at about 5 minutes to 0 and we managed to find the somewhat hidden 5th-floor izakaya where an ex-colleague of his and his friends were chilling at and order and receive a drink with just about 10 seconds on the clock. Thus we celebrated our good timing and very calmly passed on to the next day (I can't remember the last time I was sober at midnight on NY's).

Later that evening, one not-so-interesting club for 2 hours, but then off to my first hatsumoude ever. We went to Meiji Jingu, which is one of the bigger shrines in Tokyo, but because of the early hour (about 4 am), there weren't that many people (were we to have gone 10 hours later, ... see further down for pix from that scenario), and we comfortably cast our first prayer and purchased our first fortune, which turned out to be somewhat of a ripoff, as instead of the desired fortune message we got some lousy poetry by the Meiji emperor from an era long past. If it was any good, we might have forgiven the situation, but with a poem like "if you do not try / you will not accomplish anything", I could not but wonder what kind of person that mighty emperor might have been. Farmer's fart.



During the next couple of days, I met up with a couple of other friends: Aki, who took me on our first exploration of the more obscure neighborhoods of Tokyo, this time to Minami-Senju. She'd done some homework and came prepared with a halfway legible phone pic of a map that showed a recommended walking route to see the sights: a shrine here and there, some statues, a graveyard and, the diva of Minami-Senju, the place where used to be a red-light district - unfortunately invisible to the naked eye today. Because it was January 2nd - still right in the middle of the Japanese national holiday week surrounding New Year's - and this was a very untouristic area (until recently quite dangerous, Aki told me, though I have honestly lost the capacity to imagine what a dangerous Japanese neighborhood must look like - something like the Johannesburg I visited just before coming here, perhaps?), almost all the shops were closed, and it was somewhat like a ghost town. It's fun to get a new perspective like that, so I'm deffy gonna roam around some more with her next time.



We walked from there to Asakusa, from ghost town to ah-THAT's-where-everybody-was-hiding extremely crowded food stand area next to a major shrine: back in town. And this is also what I meant by the 'glad we did the hatsumoude at 4 am' remark - by the time these people got to their prayer, it would probably be 4 am again.






Running out of breath, so let's wrap up. A modest new-year's party with the 'Japan Hiromi fan club' consisting of all of four members including myself, and organized by Sonoe. The other 2 dudes, who I'd met at the Hiromi gig in Osaka a while back, are interesting, out-of-the-ordinary people: an only slightly crippled dude who lives off of government cash - the guy in the pic - and another guy who works on temporary basis as a...mechanic of sorts. Always good meeting people with who one shares exactly one thing (in this case Hiromi fandom) and getting along all the same.



The first Kyoto pix of 2009...





...and of course some never-failing Superb Chunks of Heaven:




See you in 2010!

P.S. Student part-time workers are often called arubaitosan in Japanese, which I thought I might share with you. Arubaito as in the German 'arbeit', and san as in the honorary suffix. Hooray for Japan!

Dark Whisky Techno Geisha

Last Sunday, I had agreed to meet Ikeyan to go jacket shopping for the dance show. Though that turned out as a futile effort, he did manage to buy shoes really cheaply thanks to a friend working in ABC Shoe Mart, and I - having finally received a long-awaited piece of plastic in the mail - managed to buy my Franc-Franc sofa, though the payment only worked using 2 installments. Since I'd been reckoning with 4 installments in my recent budget calculus, this means I'll be broke until February. No problem! Sofa = happiness > money. It's being delivered on Friday morning and I don't know if it will fit through my door.

A bit later, we met up with his ex-girlfriend from a year or so ago, who was tall by Japanese standards, and I realized Mark's statement about the consequences of living in Asia for a while - you grow tall girl fetish - is an unavoidable truth. I've only been here for seven months, but it's noticeable already. Anyway, she was a nice girl and a relatively strong drinker, though not very daring in thought and speech. We went to a yakitori place (first time for me). Food and beer were good, and around 10 we decided to head to another place for drinks.

All I told Ikeyan was "small", though I emphasized that it was not actually that important. He took us to a place around Sanjo, which wasn't that small but was exactly what I'd been hoping for. Special. No sign outside, it was on the third floor of one of countless buildings with bars and/or apartments in them in the narrow streets making up that area. Though we made fun of him for getting lost a couple of times, in retrospect it's amazing he could find the place at all.

After climbing the stairs to the entrance, passing another bar on the second floor that did have a sign advertising its existence, I figured this might be interesting. Having been to tiny bars in Kobe and elsewhere before, I knew that Japanese bars are more often than not plain cool, so my hopes were high. I was in for a pleasant surprise.

The only light in the place came from a bunch of tealight-size candles spaced about two meters apart, and the music was the kind of spacey hiphop I'd ventured into a bit recently, which just begs for the consumption of hallucinogens. Since it's so dark, there's no point in having a drinks list, so there is none. The place has an oblong shape with plenty of seating, but on weekdays (this was a Sunday) there's barely a soul. There was one person besides the three of us when we entered, and we moved to a corner where I was unable to see the bar area - our own little spacecave.

I only drink whisky on relaxed, special occasions, wishing to savor the taste, and this was one of those occasions. Free popcorn, which simultaneously did and didn't fit in with the setting. It took some time for relaxed conversation to come up, since we were tired and couldn't see each other. When Ikeyan finally did mange to break the silence, it wasn't too surprising - circumstances considered - that the topic was my field of study, what with all the beginning-of-the-universe stories and other abstract space stuff. So I had another attempt at explaining in Japanese what it is I study, and I think I did a better job than last time.

At some point, Ikeyan called his ex-girlfriend over and whispered something in her ear, why I couldn't imagine. Turned out that outside my range of vision (which barely existed at all in that darkness), a geisha had just entered the bar in full traditional outfit and was sitting at the bar. Since our experience with geishas was limited to seeing them get in and out of taxis in Ishibei-Koji street in Gion (which Lonely Planet claims to be "possibly the most beautiful street in Asia"), we kept poking our heads around the corner of our spacecave to see what she was up to.

Observing her change from not speaking to anyone to speaking very openly with the bartender, all the while with perfect posture...is the guy next to her her customer? But now he's leaving... Or is she waiting for her next customer? That seems likely, since you usually don't see geishas (especially in their formal outfits) unless they're at work. ... No one seems to be coming, though, and she's awfully chattery with the bartender. Okay, here's an idea ...

And so we managed to figure out by heading past her one-by-one on restroom trips that she had, in fact, come alone.

You must realize that I have no words for describing the change in the already fascinating atmosphere that her presence invoked. But since, gyaku ni (to use a Japanese expression), words are all I have, it's up to you to use your power of imagination and enter the realm of this particular story. To recap, it was 1 am on a Sunday night, with most people off to bed for an early rise the next morning, and we were in a black spacecave whose nature was revealed only by a rough Japanese fellow rising from the darkness every once in a while to refill our drinks. And then a white-faced geisha came in and sat herself at the bar.

We wondered whether we'd be able to strike up a chat, but I was definitely not up for committing a potential social sin by approaching her directly. After all, it's well-known that the only way to meet geishas is through elaborate preparations by a mutual acquaintance, and usually there's lots of money involved. But Ikeyan, being the awesome fellow he is (I'm happy to say we're becoming good friends), headed for the bartender and asked him whether it would be possible to talk to her. As expected, but still disappointing, the answer was no. Oh well, things are interesting as they are already, so let's just enjoy our evening the three of us, we decided.

A couple of minutes later, however, the bartender made a quick appearance, disappearing before he actually appeared, leaving us the words "it's alright". Um, what exactly? And behold, the geisha graciously enters our spacecave. I move over a bit so she can sit. Next to me. The four of us start talking, though we were so flabbergasted she did most of it, while the bartender (who turned out to be a friend of hers) brings us expensive tequila and CDJs a bit in the shadows. It's still Sunday night and we're still in a black spacecave, but now we have techno, tequila and the company of a geisha.

Not just any geisha, as it turns out. Originally from Yokohama, she came to Kyoto when she was sixteen, backed by her mother and opposed by her father, and followed the traditional (and only) way up the ladder towards becoming a geisha. From fragments of information, I was able to gather that she must be around 36 now, though I'm not entirely sure. 36 is a respectable age for a geisha, and since there are so few geisha around in this day and age, I thought she might have a lot of experience. Indeed, she wasn't hesitant to tell us all about it: "You're from Holland? I've never been there .. but I go on business trips now and then, so I've been to Dubai, Los Angeles, Paris and so on." Furthermore, she regularly meets with foreign politicians: "You know the G8? [last June on Hokkaido, with a preliminary meeting of foreign ministers in Kyoto] Yeah, I was quite busy around that time."

In fact, ever since I read Memoirs of a Geisha and some semi-classical Japanese literature which included geishas, I'd been very eager to speak to one myself, since among the many arts they must master (of which tequila drinking sure as hell seems to be one these days) is the wonderful art of conversation. I love conversation, especially good conversation, and I've become very aware over the past year or two that the latter is very difficult to find. So, having imagined a scenario like this (minus the black spacecave) a number of times previously, I was probably the most 'prepared' out of the three of us, and I was eager to make the most of this fantastic opportunity. Still, the combination of being trained in the art of conversation and consuming significant amounts of tequila meant any attempt of mine at feedback or questioning was like trying to jump through a waterfall without getting wet - she was on a roll.

I did manage to ask her things like what she does when abroad for business, since I couldn't imagine the tea ceremony, traditional dance and conversation (she doesn't speak much English, though more than her humility made me think) going off as smoothly in Dubai as they do in Kyoto. I loved her answer: before you set off for another country, study the culture of that country. Once you arrive, deal with cultural differences by compromising between the Japanese and the foreign culture. Thinking about it a bit more, I guess she wouldn't have any other choice, but it was still a wonderful moment of globalization to hear her say that.

She spoke in the friendly Kansai dialect that permits a level of formality in between the informal and the formal of normal Japanese, which fortunately I'm getting better at every day. And she seemed as much at home in our black spacecave as she would be in a tatami-covered tea-house room, all the while maintaining perfect posture and relaxation, pouring drinks and replacing burned-out candles. It was almost like the feeling you have when you know you're close to waking up and you're waiting for your dream to end.

After an hour or so, she found an excuse to leave us and sat herself back at the bar. I had some good spacey conversation with Ikeyan while the lady in our group crashed from the tequila, and the three of us left around 3 am. On the way out, we passed our new acquaintance at the bar, who told us goodbye and made me promise to bring my mother along to the bar someday, since she wanted to meet her. Despite the snow-white make-up, her face made it clear she was well beyond soberness by now, but her presence was still awe-inspiring.

I am very satisfied. Though deeply moved by this woman's presence, I was able to have a meaningful time with her, and though I can't find the right words here, I guess I was able to appreciate her in the way I think the Japanese people, particularly geisha clients, have traditionally appreciated them. A personal experience of a unique aspect of Japanese culture.

-

Two notes: 1. The reason why she was in formal outfit was because she'd just come from a party with foreigners (who I can only assume must be powerful people) that required the outfit - even geishas dress normally, normally, when they head for drinks at their favorite bar. 2. I left out her name because I have her name card but can't read it.

P.S. I said I had a wonderful moment of globalization there, sparked by her talking about cultural compromise. Though I love the practice of cultural compromise, I can't help but think that if made into a standard, it would erode the uniqueness of cultures as it exists now. Much as I idolize it and strive to experience it, I fear my utopian version of the cultural mishmash of the future - as beautifully illustrated in my favorite anime Cowboy Bebop - might be a dream never to come true. Your thoughts and ideas are very welcome.

Finallies Scattered Across Autumn

YES! I finally got it! That spine-tingling feeling running through all my neurons, muscles and veins at once! Though it’s never been gone, the move to my new place as well as dance and music have been sucking it out of me recently. I’ve been waiting for weeks for it to arrive at a time like this, knowing that it should arrive at some point, and here it is, FINALLY enabling me to write again! Of course I’m talking about INSPIRATION! That great evasive power which moves me to do the things that make life worthwhile... one of the elementary forces in my own circle of life: the cause and the effect, the product and the creator, the black and the white and all the colors you’ve never seen, the essence of my life force, and something that has a fascinating link to the concept of living in the NOW!

I was planning to give you a short list of contributing factors to the “why now (and not a week ago)?” issue, but after 208 words and realizing that I wasn’t even halfway, I figured I’d make it into the theme of this entry … so here we go!

Three days ago. I went to FrancFranc to buy a present for Nonchan’s birthday, and was extremely relieved to see that the 100.000-yen sofa of my dreams (one of those corner models that fits like 4 people) was still available despite being taken out of the internet catalogue. Even better, they tripled the amount of available colors, so, until my creditcard arrives, I’m stuck with the pleasant problem of which color best matches my apartment.

Three days ago. I finished my part of the choreography for Heartbeat Collective’s show at the university festival later this month, and it’s FUNKY! Can’t wait to have 6 people executing my movements. In 11 days, we need to show it to a judge of dance circle senpais in an effort to be selected to perform for the real thing on the 24th. Only half of the teams will pass the test, so tomorrow is a very important practice day. For the dance music heads out there, I went with that haughty naughty track called “Put Your Hands Up For Detroit” – for which I believe I owe Alexander Groot one.

Two days ago. I finished reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. After all these years of wondering what the hell that title meant, I now know that it was just waiting for the perfect time to drop into my life and help me further develop my own philosophy. There are two important things I got from this book. The first is a long-sought connection with someone else who shares my ideas about rationality, science and the union of the “classic” and the “romantic” perspective. The fact that that person, being fictional, wouldn’t qualify as “real” by all the classically thinking people doesn’t make much of a difference, as evidenced by this article about Japanese people who are serious about marrying manga characters. (Doesn’t it sound catchy though? "Come on, lose the 3D world already .. that’s so 21st-century!" - once again, Japan is on top of its game of pioneering the future and doing ridiculous crazy shit, and my growing sense of identity with this country allows me to say I’M PROUD OF IT!). Furthermore, in a fateful plot twist, I’m quite unconcerned with the insanity that that kind of deep thinking apparently tends to lead to (the main character completely loses it once and gets very close to a second disaster, but then there’s a sudden happy end), since I’ve gathered from various people that my old man had some serious brain discrepancies of his own, which fit beautifully into the picture.

The second thing I got from ZATAOMM (if my second band’s name wouldn’t already be Mindshaft Spirit Boots – making metal with Ari, Benkei and a Japanese chap called Taro since a month ago – I would probably make it this) is a decision to get my motorcycle license as soon as I can afford it. Cowabunga! From what I hear, it’s very cheap. Take this, for example. Something I’ve recently become aware of. Yet another advantage of living in Japan…did you think of this one yet? Here it is. ALL MOTORCYCLES COME FROM JAPAN. Well, almost. Anyway, they’re dirt cheap and there’s a terrific bike culture going on. Though I briefly wondered whether I should reconsider my idea that “bikers = coolness” after noticing that every other granny rides one here, I decided that it’s more entertaining to stick with the old thought…The Japanese are so cool! Honestly though, I already have a couple of friends that would be more than willing to go on long bike trips with me, and this is one temptation I’m eager to give in to.

Two days ago. I met up with Ikeyan and Nonchan for lunch, and to my very pleasant surprise we went to the most romantic café I’ve been to so far. Ikeyan found it online while looking for “good bread and coffee”. There’s no sign whatsoever on the outside, and even on looking through the undecorated windows I thought that it was just some family-run cardboard-box-selling business like the one next to my apartment. But no! Thou shalt look farther than thy eye beholdeth. It is in fact a bagel shop with exactly one employee, introspective music, photograph books about Tokyo in the 70s, the odd reference to French culture, a second floor with large windows letting in large doses of warm autumn sunlight, and delicious bagels (I went with fried pineapple/cream cheese, fried pork/cream cheese and something like peanut butter but made from something Japanese that is not peanuts). The specialty herbal tea (named after nearby Shimogamo shrine) was a delight, and I think I’ll have some good relaxed afternoons there this winter. Come to think of it, it reminds me a lot of winters a couple of years ago at my aunt Syl’s place. Same peace, same warmth.

Yesterday. Decided on the arrangement for the Jungle Mic song next in line for recording (starting on the 15th), and it’s getting groovier every time. Hung out at the studio for a couple of hours after practice finished – great atmosphere.

Today. Mail. I got a letter from my ISP today announcing the day – Wednesday next week - that my internet will FINALLY be connected. Despite 3 failed attempts at registrations and engineering works so far, I am kind of confident that this one will come through successfully. I also got mail from the University of Amsterdam – three copies of the monthly physics/math student magazine, this time containing an interview with me about studying in Japan. The effect of receiving an envelope with the UvA logo on it was very strong, and I could vividly imagine the NSA office and all the usual hustle and bustle back in Amsterdam. Reading that Wout and Joeri won the freshman-weekend beer competition also gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Today. I finished my Anki revisions in the afternoon for once, instead of at 2 am like every day lately.

Today. I just finished watching the last episode of Great Teacher Onizuka, an anime that has done a lot for me recently, most notably helping me to feel at home in my new place since I moved about a month ago, but also filling me in on what it means to be a teacher, what it means to be a teacher in Japan, and the coolness of motorbikes. The trigger for writing this entry…Highly recommended!

Today. My keyboard bricked out on me again and I’m waiting for instructions from the distributor on how to ship it back for repairs once more, freeing me from the sense of responsibility to organize performances for Jungle Mic. I was very aware of the risk involved with an attempted firmware update, almost assuming it to go wrong, so the disappointment was much less than last time. But with a riverside gig on Saturday, a club gig on the 14th, and recording on the 15th, time is more pressing this time. Fortunately, my man in Tokyo seems to be on it.

So you see, as long as you have about twenty awesome things happening in three days, you'll be sure to find inspiration enough to write another blog entry. Let's hope the next one will be shorter in the coming.



P.S. For those of you wondering how best to hold on to inspiration once you’ve got it: If you care to tell me how you do it, I’d be very happy, since I think it’s a very useful skill for anyone involved in any way with creative work, art, performance, expression and so on. I can tell you how I did it this time (I actually use this method quite a lot), but I’m convinced everyone has their own way, so the disclaimer reads “I cannot take any responsibility for the sense of loss and boredom you get after trying the following. However, if you do achieve success by these means, you are required to send 2.5 kg of homemade brownies to me by next-day delivery express mail.” Haven’t had brownies in ages.

Finally, then, the magic formula that enabled me to continue writing more than one paragraph…

*drumroll*


Listen to Cowboy Bebop and Naruto soundtracks.

Alrighty, I’m off to give Misa her Jordanian bath salt! Have a GRRRRRREAT Tuesday night!

P.P.S. You can check out Jungle Mic’s site-under-construction (check out the blog! Japanese, but with pix) here.