“A Day of Cool Man Life” was produced by Suki Jarashi, a student at the Japanese Institute of Arts and Sciences. The video demonstrates the utility and benefits of a handheld device that Suki designed – a phone with a physical presence that far surpasses your phone’s vibrate function. Like any helpful girlfriend, it wakes you up with a gentle nudge, helps you find your way to work…and exhibits perceivable suffering when its, em, batteries run low.

What I found so interesting about the video, and Suki’s device, is that it’s another baby-step toward realizing a sophisticated transhuman relationship. If you recall, last year a Japanese man by the pseudonym of Sal 9000, married his in-game girlfriend, Nene Agasaki:

No doubt, a merger of a virtual partners such as those featured in “Love Plus”, with something similar to Suki’s device will be a natural progression. As per my own experience, I can see certain benefits in this sort of unholy union – rarely do I ever wake up to my iPhone alarm, usually I just turn it off, throw it across the room and sleep in, missing whatever important appointments (none) I had that day. But if I had a pocket boo, lovingly nudging me awake, I might be a bit more punctual in my day to day routine. Now watch this documentary film, “Guys and Dolls”, and imagine all of the amazing/depressing possibilities transhuman relationships will soon allow for:

Okinawa_Soba is the nom de plume of an American fellow living in Okinawa who presides over a stockpile of 60,000 antique Japanese photographs. To the benefit of photography enthusiasts and nipponophiles everywhere, he has decided to scan and upload a choice selection of the photos to his flickr photostream. How did one individual happen to come into the ownership of such a magnificient photographic treasury? According to Soba, it was rather simple:

“95 % of the stream came from photography dealers and collectors in several countries — the majority of images found during business travels to NORTH AMERICA. The part that was not found in North America was tediously acquired from several other countries of the world via “snail mail” correspondence, phone calls, and looking at Xerox copies of single images (and whole collections) that were available. Over 30 years of business travel in and out of Japan allowed me to frequent Antique photography and Ephemera Shows, as well as other venues that centered around the buying and selling of vintage photography. As a member of the National Stereoscopic Association, attendance at our Conventions and Trade Shows naturally resulted in the accumulation of old 3-D images of Japan and elsewhere.”

Note: I predict that hand-colouring will emerge as an avant-garde photo trend in 2010. Soon after it will be available as an iPhone app. Or maybe that’s already happened and I missed it.

Tokyo’s major districts  – Roppongi, Shibuya, and Shinjuku, are all must sees for different reasons, but they aren’t really the types of bergs you want to be packed into on a daily basis. For a more relaxed and independent lifestyle, you’ve got to go a bit deeper and check out the lesser-known, niché neighbourhoods like Kichijoji, Takadanobaba, Shimokitazawa and so on. One of the most interesting spots right now is Koenji – a bohemian neighbourhood known for its diversity, vegan cuisine and abundance of used-clothing stores and record shops.

Koenji is the birthplace of Tokyo’s punk scene and is also home to the “amatuer revolt”: a community of students, activists, shop-owners and artists whose aim is to create/maintain a neighbourhood where people can live and enjoy life without money. The berg still has a youthful idealism that’s yet to be corrupted by overt commercialism and cynicism – unique in a city the size of Tokyo, especially considering how similar neighbourhoods in NYC and London have been rapidly gentrified while Koenji has been able to retain its style and affordability.

PBLKS correspondent Allison O’Connor was recently in the neighbourhood, where she chatted up a random 41-year old restaurateur:

What kind of place is Koenji? Hmm…Well there are a lot of used clothing shops and the prices around here are low so its a good place for young people. There are also some bars that open from 5am so taxi drivers that have worked all night can stop in for a drink.

Would you say there is a ‘Koenji Type’ person? [hmm, haw] Generally speaking, I don’t have a very good image of people in Koenji. Its kind of an image of hippies, lazy people. Oh a lot of foreigners come here too.

There’s a lot of grafitti here, what do you think about it? Oh yeah, I don’t like it, but that’s because I’m an old man.

Snaps by A.O.

]]> http://pblks.com/2009/08/the-next-burg-koenji/feed/ 4 http://pblks.com/2009/06/the-38th-chamber/ http://pblks.com/2009/06/the-38th-chamber/#comments Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:16:00 +0000 Douglas Haddow http://pblks.com/?p=922

Beats by El Michels Affair, via Wu Tang Clan. Visuals courtesy of Nakagawa, Okamoto & Shinoda. Inspired by Samurai cinema/Chanbara poster design:

Japan and Iran both have excellent snacking cultures that exist on opposite sides of the global snack spectrum. As the Japanese are naturally inclined towards mass production and hi-tech innovation, their snacks come in a variety of easily consumed formats that range from complex potato chip flavours (fried mayonnaise, raw egg, etc) to biscuity microsnacks like Pocky and Pretz. The Persians, with a resourced-based economy and underdeveloped snack import infrastructure, tend to favour healthier and more natural snack forms like sangak w/ tahini humous, peeled walnuts and unripe plums.

But one similarity both cultures possess is a love of milky soft drinks. In Japan, they drink Calpis, which is what you would get if you mixed skim milk with 7-Up, only the citrus has been replaced with a distinct chalky aftertaste that reminds one of that dusty ol’ bowl of hard candy grandma used to keep on her end table next to the her collection of discount fabergé eggs.

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, they go for Doogh: a sugarless mix of club soda and yogurt that makes for the perfect summertime cooldown. Yeah I know what you’re thinking - gross! - and it is. It’s quite possibly the most disgusting thing you’ll ever gargle down your gullet, but that’s irrelevant, because in the world of carbonated lactose-based beverages, it still ranks pretty high.

So if you’ve tired of the same old glass of plain-jane whitebread milk and want to jazz it up a little bit of ethnic spontaneity, head on down to your local Persian market or Japanese convenience store and check out one of these exciting, calcium-filled soda-pop-esque beverages.