Beijing: A Short Introduction

The first thing that struck me about Beijing at night was the signs against the black sky. One after another, red signs passed by the car window as a winter haze hovered around us. It was cold, bitingly cold, a cold that Tokyo knows not the likes of. The congested traffic comforts and annoys me. [...]

The Cobrasnake: Creating Culture

The Cobrasnake (Mark Hunter) takes photographs and makes T-shirts. His brand has expanded; he has infiltrated the clubs and the streets of the world. A casual glance at his website shows only the latest T-shirts available for purchase and a dense archive of Cobrasnake’s photographs. Said simply: the man is busy. The people caught in [...]

Japanicity: Notes on Akihabara

Image via Wikipedia It’s not that I dislike the area of Tokyo known as “Akihabara.” Nonetheless, after several hours of being there, several long hours of being sucked into the ultra-consumerist spirit of the place, I start to change. I begin to count the number of steps back to the station, where I can buy [...]

Sleeping with Sleepbot

Sleepbot is bliss without a botttle: mind-medicine, explorations, other worlds. Last night, I resigned to my bed early and decided to leave Sleepbot on, which, at that time, filled the room with some kind of vocal incantation in a different language. After reading some of Jack Williamson’s “Darker Than You Think,” the light went out. [...]

N/V/E (Noise-Visualization-Experiment)

Kazumoto Endo & Blazen Y Sharp: Ask For it By Name (7″ Vinyl) Gender-Less Kibbutz, USA NOTE: The following is an exercise in imagery. I have had this “Ask For it By Name” record for many years and rediscovered it on a trip back home to the USA this summer. The cover art is black [...]

Runzelstirn and Gurgelstock/Schimpfluch-Gruppe

The following text was written without any editing as the author focused on an exercise of writing + listening. This is simply one attempt to express the images the mind creates when indulging oneself in the sounds of Runzelstirn and Gurgelstock. Although, it must be said that these words do no justice to the music. [...]

The Japanicity of Ken Tanaka and the Social Media Community of Youtube

As stated on his Youtube “helpmefindparents” profile, “Ken Tanaka lives in a reality that is likely very different from your own. In this reality, rather unreal things can and do happen.” I have been fascinated by Ken Tanaka ever since seeing his first Youtube video last year. At the time of writing this, having achieved [...]