Tag Archive for ‘東京’ at Electric Pig

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Exhibitionism

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on June 30, 2008

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This weekend, Eri and I realised that about 3 separate exhibitions that we had meant to see for ages were all ending, and with an impending hangover on Sunday, Saturday was the only day we had free. So, five exhibitions in a day then...

First up was the double Moriyama Daido exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. The exhibition, in two parts was a retrospective of his work in one gallery and then large prints of his Hawaii series in the second. I found that his photos generally got more interesting the older they were. I found a lot of the exhibition a little confusing and realised that I don't really have any idea what made certain shots "good" or not, but a lot of the older ones, particularly the Light and Shadow series, were beautiful.

I wasn't as impressed by the Hawaii series. Some of them are quite nice, but on the whole I find Moriyama's style doesn't work as well outside Japan. I found some of the Buenos Aires ones a little dry for the same reason, although Eri said she liked the Buenos Aires ones most of all, and, being a lot more artistically inclined than me, she could well be right.

After Moriyama, we went down to the basement of the museum for the World Press Photo 2008 exhibition. I enjoyed this far more than the Moriyama. I prefer photojournalism to "art" photos, so this was always going to be far more suited to me. Some of the shots on display here were awe-inspiringly good. I think the photo below is probably the one I liked most; there is a very strange and ominous atmosphere to the position of the men in it that I really love. Click to see some of the other highlights.

After the photos were went to Omotesando for Eri's Blythe Once Upon A Wonder World Exhibition and Beauty Contest. Eri has come out recently as a bit of a Blythe fan, despite hating herself for doing so. Girls and women who like Blythe in Japan have a (deserved) reputation as being on the verge of the goth-loli cosplay kind of scene that Eri loathes, but nonetheless, she finds herself liking the doll itself. I can't really complain, considering my own interest in toys though. The Blythe exhibition was properly wierd. There were six areas where Blythe dolls had been dressed up in costumes to represent characters in Fairy Stories (Little Red Riding Hood etc), and then in the middle of the room were are hoardes of Blythes all in costumes designed by international fashion houses. Serious looking women were walking round with voting ballots choosing the costumes they liked best. There's a big gala event in July to crown the winner...which just kind of beggars belief. (Photo by Bubujojo)

Last was the yearly Medicom Exhibition in the Parco Art Gallery in Shibuya. I thought the gallery space itself was a little less nicely designed than in previous years, and there seemed less on display too. The highlights for me were the (much lauded) wooden Bearbricks, the new Star Wars figures, and the Mick Jagger doll. I didn't win a prize this year though, which somewhat ruined the event for me.

Omens?

Published

Electric Pig

on May 29, 2008

in Japan, Kichijoji, Park and Sanpo

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Incident 1: On Tuesday evening, I had just finished a jog (stagger) round the local park and was walking down one of the little backstreets that leads from the park back to my house. Just up the road were three large crows, the type that can often be seen loitering on the streets of Tokyo. Crows in Tokyo are everywhere and are huge. This is due to an incident in the 60's where nuclear waste was spilled on a pile of rubbish which was then eaten by some crows that mutated and caused a race of mecha-crow that killed all the normal crows and now rule all of Tokyo. They can be seen every money ripping apart rubbish bags, extorting lunch money from little kids and mugging old women.

This time, one crow was walking down the road and the other two were sitting on telephone wires on either side. As I approached, they started squarking, much more than usual. I chuckled to myself, not realising the Tippi Hedren danger I was in, and walked on until I was anout 20 feet from the crow in the middle of the road. Suddenly, I heard a massive swooosh and felt wings hitting my head, as one of the two crows divebombed me from behind and flew only centimeters above me. No sooner had I ducked, pointlessly late, when again, with a swoooosh, the other crow narrowly missed me. A little spooked, I checked to see that no-one was watching, luckily they weren't, and I started walking/trotting a little faster. By now I was only a few feet from the crow on the ground, and suddenly one of the first two blitzkrieg crows swooped down, screaming as it did so and just avoided hitting me again. The crow on the ground then started jumping towards me too, and again, the third crow attacked. This time, I couldn't have given a shit who was watching and I started running off down the street. After about 30 metres, the attacks stopped and I had a chance to catch my breath, exhausted after this extra unwanted exercise. Turning round, I saw the crows attacking another guy walking down the street. Obviously braver or, perhaps, more stupid than me, he was fighting back and aiming punches at the swooping death-birds. I didn't see much after he fell and, screaming, was set upon.

Incident 2: Yesterday, on my way out of school, I was chased by a FUCKING TORNADO. That is all. I think something may be trying to tell me something...

Evil

Things that annoy me: No.3: Sardined

Published

Electric Pig

on May 23, 2008

in Annoying

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It started innocently enough. A father, sitting opposite me with his son. I'd noticed the man before on my commute - he was one of the regulars, transported to work in the bowels of the city every morning. Since April though, his young son, now of elementary school age, has joined him as far as Iidabashi station, about a third of the way through my commute. I found it quite touching to see a man in public take such pleasure in being with his son - you don't often see it in the mornings in Japan. He reads the paper to him, and explains things like baseball and the share market, and thoughtfully skims past the naked women and racially sensitive outbursts. When the boy got off the train at first, his father accompanied him, holding his hand. Now, as the train pulls out of the station, he cranes his neck to watch the boy and his little friends as they wander off together, in their little sailor suits, through the station ticket machines. It takes a few stops for the smile to fade as we commute on.

The problem is, that this angelic little urchin has started to make friends. Too many friends. Who all seem to live in Mitaka, the station before mine, first on the train route. The seating on the 6.52 to Myoden was always a delicate balance - I always got a seat, but it was usually one of the last two or three. Now, these little scavengers have disturbed the whole ecosystem. Now, I've started to find myself standing in the mornings on the way to work. The only good thing about my morning journey used to be that it was obscenely early enough for me to be able to get a seat. Now, that one small consolation has been taken away.

I normally decide to stand in front of the boy and his friends, certain that, at the least, I will be assured of a seat by the time to train gets to Iidabashi. Inevitably though, about 4 stops before, a whole other crowd of kids get on and suddenly I am surrounded by these little creatures, being kicked and elbowed and bumped and having my reading disturbed by endless games of Jan Ken Pon. I've found myself unconsciously tutting and sucking my teeth at them, like the mad old women who used to hit random kids with her umbrella for cycling on the pavement back home. And on top of everything, it wasn't helped by being stabbed this morning by one of the regulation crucifixes hanging from their bags and the realisation that they were both regularly annoying and Christians.

Not only do I have to pander to little bastards like this all day long at work, but now I have to do it on my way to work too. Something is going to snap soon.

One Love Jamaica Festival

Published

Electric Pig

on May 20, 2008

in Festivals, Food & Drink, Park and Photography

. 6 Comments

This Sunday was the annual One Love Jamaica Festival. Organised partly by the Jamaican embassy, it is one of the many "international" (Thailand, Brazil, the all-encompassing Africa etc), festivals in Tokyo in the late spring/early summer. The Jamaican festival has lives acts, performances by Japanese dancehall queens (including Junko, the Japanese dancer who - astonishingly - beat Jamaican girls at their own game and won the World Dancehall Queen contest), and an ill-conceived Bob Marley song contest. There are stalls selling general "ethnic" tat, the same ones that were selling the same stuff last week, bedecked with Thai flags at the Thai Festival, here again, this time with their Jamaican flags. Most importantly though, there are Jerk Chicken stalls. Ummmmmmm, Jerrrk Chicken...I love me some Jerk Chicken.

This year, Eri and I arrived late, about 5 o'clock. Honestly though, it was pretty amazing that I felt well enough to go at all as I was pretty hung over after the previous night's stag festivities. Unfortunately, (though I didn't let Eri see how annoyed I was), we missed the dancehall queen show, and arrived in the middle of the Marley song contest which we quickly left. Walking through the stalls, we stopped at the hilarious "Speak like a Jamaican" stand, organised by the Jamaican Embassy people. Here, an "authentic" Jamaican was teaching Japanese people how to speak Jamaican. It was brilliant, like a wierd version of one of my lesson's, with all the embarrassment factor of when one of the elderly teachers asks you to teach the kids "something youthful" and ends up greeting you as "blud" for the rest of your time in the school. The Jamaican teacher was shouting out:

"Repeat after me: Wha gwarn?!"

The crowd shout back: "Eeto Huwa guwarnu?"

Brilliant.

The jerk chicken queue though, was long. It took us about an hour to get to the front of the queue where I found, to my horror, that the proper rice and peas had been sold out and replaced with just white rice. Sacrilege. Still the jerk chicken was good. The other that that we really noticed was that in the years we have gone to the Jamaican festival, the crowd has really changed. At first, the crowd was much more of a roots/reggae style crowd, more hippys and lots of smelly hair. Now though, it's become much more dancehall, loads more girls in little tops and (strangely for Japan), better endowed. As ever though, the larger endowment has been followed by a bit more of an aggressive attitude, not quite as nice as it used to be. Still, everything has its price...

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Stag!

Published

Electric Pig

on May 19, 2008

in Photography

. 4 Comments

Saturday night was my friend Steve's stag night in preparation for his nuptuals next weekend. I took the Lomo with me and the flash, but for some reason the photos all came out a little, well, shit. These are probably the best of a bad bunch. Also, I am going to experiment a little here with the "continue reading..." function of the blog. I think the lightwindow gallery confuses some people and they don't see all the photos, so hopefully this should help fix that. For those that know how to use the lightwindow and prefer that, the usual gallery is still there, click this first photo, otherwise click the "continue reading" link:

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Golden Week T2s

Published

Electric Pig

on May 7, 2008

in Photography

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Golden week has finished. It wasn't the best one to be honest; I was in bed for the first two days with a cold, and then the weather wasn't great for our barbeque on the third day, but it was still a nice break from work. These are some photos I took over the weekend (and a couple from a bit earlier) with my T2. I think I am starting to get the hang of it a little more and I really like the colours the camera produces. Really nice greens. Click the photo below to see the rest:

WTF? Iain Lee?!

Published

Electric Pig

on April 7, 2008

in Kichijoji

. 2 Comments

I just wandered out of my apartment block to go and buy a yoghurt (blueberry) from the store across the street, and sheltering from the rain in the lobby of the block was Iain Lee (off the 11 O'Clock show). Now, I know that seeing Iain Lee is not exactly on a par with Tom Cruise or Hitler or whatever (sorry Iain Lee), but it properly wierded me out. I used to watch the 11 o'clock show pretty regularly, so suddenly seeing its presenter was a bit of a shock. He's tall as well, and has quite a fit missus (both of which added to the shock). He even appeared to be speaking a little Nihongo as well, to the guy who had been performing in Mandala (the live venue in the basement, which they had obviously been to see). I don't know what to think?

I guess it just wasn't what I was expecting on a rainy night in suburban Tokyo...