I can understand half of spoken Tokyo Japanese now, given how much entertainment I have watched. They have very good channeled work. Truth as fiction so to speak.

In US, there is Gandahar movie. On Hulu, there is Heroic Age. Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Netflix has Guardian of the Sacred spirit.

I know nobody is reading this, so…

You might be surprised at those of us Watching.

Something that she said to me that is relevant to today is this: With her new American friends she once described herself to them as the only “Oriental”. She was surprised if not shocked at their reaction. “No,” they said, “you are ‘Asian'”. How odd. Even to this day she can’t properly pronounce the word “Asian”. It comes out like “Aaaaa-see-un”. She doesn’t like it but if it makes her friends happy.

That was nearly five years ago that she related that story to me. Her “friends” were white Western women…imposing their dogma…on her.

Shame on women for engaging in this disgusting behavior. Shame on all women for allowing this behavior to go unpunished.

Japanese is a “Reverse Polish Language” meaning that word order is reversed from what we are accustomed to in English.

For example, the sentence:
“Aishite onegai dokomademo” literally translates to “Love please everywhere”

Furthermore, the word “Aishite” isn’t merely “Love”. It has action. It is closer to “loving”.

My Japanese tutor, in her gracious way, would argue against “Love” being equal to “Loving”. “Aishite” or “Loving” is action. It’s here. It’s now. It’s passionate. “Love” on the other hand is something you might read in a user manual, as she once quipped.

With this in mind I’d like to introduce “Golden Half”, a Japanese girl’s group from that era sharing one distinct feature: mom is Japanese, dad is not.

The attached YT video is from early 70s. Two back-to-back tunes: “24000 Kisses” and “Adam and Eve”. It is pure, unadulterated Japanese pop with a sexy twist:

“Watashi, Anata ga suki” — I like you.
“Anata, Watashi ga suki” — You like me.
“suki, kisu, kisu, kisu no kisu” — like, kiss, kiss, kiss upon kiss.

The next tune is “Adam and Eve” with its iconic:

“Aishite onegai dokomademo” — Please love me everywhere.
“Aishite onegai itsumademo” — Please love me forever and ever.

Why can’t they make music like this anymore??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e7j7m6CidQ

I never got into Godzilla but I do like Japanese film. Nearly ten years ago I grew tired of modern Hollywood fare. Using Netflix I sampled Japanese, Korean, Thai, and Chinese movies. Of them all I discovered that I could easily build up a basic Japanese vocabulary by listening and then looking at the subtitles. “Watashi” meant “I”, and “Nani” meant “What”. I did not have the same success with the other languages.

Shortly thereafter I enrolled in a 10-session Japanese language course in NYC. My classmates were two young men and a woman. The young lady dropped out soon afterwards. She was bright but was emotionally devastated by the recent 2008 economic collapse. From my discussions with her, she had plans to become a titan in International Finance. I tried to console her that recessions come and go but she seemed determined to see it as the end of her world.

The two fellows stuck it out. They were much better than I. The one guy wanted to be an Anime artist after graduating high school. The other fellow was a fashion student. One Saturday night the three of us emailed each other after an exciting day of Japanese lessons. The fashion student was into movies. I told him about a movie that I had just seen on Netflix called “Noriko’s Dinner Table”. The next morning he emailed me after streaming the movie, and I couldn’t shut him up. It was the best thing he had ever watched.

“Noriko’s Dinner Table” is cerebral. It is the sequel to “Suicide Club” which is fast-paced and gritty. It is, after much contemplation, the slow motion destruction of an otherwise happy Japanese family: husband, wife, and two teenage daughters. The eldest girl fails first. She joins an internet chat group and is invited to travel to Tokyo to meet new friends. Soon this becomes her world. She disappears from home one night without a word to her parents. The mother is distraught, blaming herself. (Japanese culture is very conservative.) For failing to keep her family together, she commits suicide. The husband vows to find his daughter and return her home. He travels to Tokyo and learns that she has become somewhat of an “escort”. Not the kind that performs sexual favors but one who allows the client to act out, due to some repressed trauma. It all happens at Noriko’s Dinner Table where a good meal is served but then it devolves. Unbeknownst to her, her father has found her, and along with his friend, they will confront her.

I don’t want to spoil it for you!

Many people who saw “Suicide Club” first are disappointed by “Noriko’s Dinner Table”. I’m glad I saw it in reverse order.

AesopFan: The Castro Theatre in San Francisco is a gorgeous old-style theater legendary for its Wurlitzer. The old guy who played was something of a local hero. If you were gay in SF, you knew his name. I wasn’t and don’t, but I saw some good shows there.

According to the web, the Castro has doubled down:

“The Castro Theatre Is About to Get the Biggest Organ in the World”
https://www.sfweekly.com/culture/the-castro-theatre-is-about-to-get-the-biggest-organ-in-the-world/

The title is a double entendre that I’m sure the SF Weekly relished.

Of course!!! 🙂

Great travel down a good memory lane

The entire plot line of the movie musical “Singing in the Rain” revolves around the discovery that the leading actress….
well, if you haven’t seen it, I don’t want to spoil the story.

“No, no!”
“Yes, yes!”

The unintended consequence of talkies was putting all the movie theater orchestra members out of a job.
Until that happened, a lot of the smaller theaters would use a Mighty Wurlitzer Organ, which was outfitted with the usual organ pipes & keyboard, but also “could produce numerous inventive sound effects, including train and boat whistles, car horns and bird whistles, and some could even simulate pistol shots, ringing phones, the sound of surf, horses’ hooves, smashing pottery, thunder and rain” — all the the literal “bells and whistles” of the familiar idiom.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/its-a-wurlitzer-61398212/
(2002)

When we lived in Utah in the 1970s, there was a restaurant that had a restored organ and patrons were allowed to play it.
Fun!

There are some still in operation.
https://byrdtheatre.org/programming/the-mighty-wurlitzer-organ/

https://friendsofmusichall.org/history/music-halls-organs/the-albee-mighty-wurlitzer-organ-in-music-hall/

“Comet NEOWISE now visible in the evening sky”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/07/13/comet-neowise-now-visible-in-the-evening-sky/