autumn tactics

I am in the 20th arrondissement of Paris on the first blustery autumn day of my trip. A group of old men are playing bocche on a trangular strip of sand between the boulevards. The area around Port de vanves is much cleaner and reformed than much of the city center. The automatic bicycle rentals are an interesting idea. I hope programs like this succeed and flourish.

Storm front is moving in now, the outskirts of a typhoon in Kyushu.  The rapid temperature drop is appreciated, but the wind let’s me know we won’t be dry for long.  I’m on my way to a baseball game anyway, I haven’t hardly had a chance to go all season.  Baseball is dharma, like running or raves.  There is a balance in it you strive for, and a simplicity that loosens your heart. 

My team is the Yakult Swallows, because I lived in Shibuya for eight years, their simple, open air stadium a five minute bike ride from my apartment.  In the States this would be a AAA minor league stadium, but it doesn’t matter.  I’d rather have it that way because it keeps the focus on the game, on the fans.  With their traditional band-led cheers, to the ritualistic raising of umbrellas for every run, it’s honest and open, something rare in the deferring Japanese society.

Baseball isn’t religion, but it can be some kind of salvation.

Today I finally made back to the beach.  Sunday is my day off, but the weather has been difficult to make it work.  This mornig I slept in, but as soon as I woke up, just one word filled my mind: hot. And it was sunny, so I threw together all the beach essentials and barely made in time for the limited express to Fujisawa.  I haven’t been down in Enoshima since last summer, when I was gathering photographs for my exhibition.  There are so many words for this place, so many memories.  Like an old lover you only have the chance to meet once in a long while, Ennoshima has surpassed the realm of precious memories and obtained a humanlike quality.  To me Enoshima isn’t a place, it’s a living person.

More on that later, first beer and some low tech relaxing.

Some things seem over the years to lose meaning in a sense, things like Christmas. As a beloved childhood memory, Christmas was a glorious five weeks starting with Thanksgiving and ending with the trip to my grandmother’s house on Christmas Day. The songs, the lights, the decorations in town. The magic of everyone being kind and considerate to each other, the different crackle in the air. But as I grew older and focused on increasingly daunting pursuits, that magic seemed to fade, like a dream after waking. Christmas changed from a season to a couple of weeks to detox from the stress and bustle my 180bpm lifestyle, punctuated with a couple customs to share with a significant other. As much as I didn’t want to lose the magic of Christmas, I stopped seeing it and wondering what that meant of my soul.

Rooted in religion, commercialized by the 20th century America, adopted by the world’s shopping malls, Christmas means so many things that it’s become fettered in my mind with cynicism. But beyond language or divinity. But beyond language or divinity, the message still rings true with me, like a lone candle left burning after a storm. Peace on earth. Goodwill towards men.

So it’s come to my last day in Thailand. There has been so much packed into the first three days, routinely stating early in the morning, that I really can’t keep track of what’s happened I was thinking of going to Ko Kret today, but I’m so exhausted that I think I may just wander around Bangkok, taking the odd snapshot and looking for some groovy threads.

I wanted to have a mellow time and find some peace in visitn Ayutthaya, but the pressure I put upon myself to take pictures along with my health and the environment did just the opposite. By the end of the day I was so sick of photographing ruins that I couldn’t even finish the last four shots of Ektachrome on the roll. I was so aggravated that I was cursing everything under the sun for the bus ride home. The irony of this pitiful egotism was not lost on me, and I felt more than a little guilty for missing the point entirely. How pompous and superficial my thinking becomes at times. I need to reflect on this.

Buddhism isn’t about statues or temples, castles or amulets, it’s like most religions, a way of believing and acting, and one I haven’t been too good at. Just need to stop and think, without falling asleep for once.

Sometimes you come back to things and they aren’t just what you expect them to be. Times change. People change. That’s the way the cards fall, and you have to be ready to adapt to it.

Being back in southeast Asia is envigorating. The streetside chaos and crumbling disarray of public infrastructure is a nice change to the polished avenues I walk back home.

Boats, paint, trucks,
pastel, odd distribution of space
I’m stronger now, but more somber growing up, growing deeper into something.
Something here but not clear yet.
Something missing.
First breakfast.

There’s always something dramatic about international travel, I’ve been in and out of the coutnry four times in the alst year and it still doesn’t get old. Maybe it’s because any reason worth spending over fifteen hundred dollars and a week for is a big deal; it better be for those kind of resources. The first time I flew on a plane as an adult was for my Microsoft job in 2000, ten years ago. I was such a rookie back then, wet behind the ears and fumbling through airports…

This time I’m heading to Thailand, my first visit to southeast Asia in six years. I’m travelling as usual with the prime motivation to shoot some new locations. I have my trustworthy A-1 and about 15 rolls of film with me, backed up by the Konica MG/D. I’m going to visit the ruins of old Thailand, a place I envision as quiet and mysterious, like something from Ico or Illusion of Gaia. There are about twelve temples for me to visit on my list, so I definitely have my work cut out for me.

assigning value to things
artificial life on print, in film
learning more about silver halides
the simple joy of pure science

I can’t remember the last time I was at the ocean at night. Actually, it was probably at a company retreat about four years ago, but that doesn’t count. It wasn’t with friends, or vacation. So the real last time I was at the ocean at night was… San Francisco. When I was at GDC in 2004. That was also for work, but that time I had Amy show me around I think.

The times that stand out in my mind are the ones on dates. Shirahama in 2002 with Nobue my first summer in Japan, or any number of beach weeks at Myrtle with my fraternity.

The humidity is doused with the wind rolling off of the ocean. Today it rained like crazy but tomorrow is going to be a beautiful day; the moon is fulling and peeping out from behind the clouds. There are a few pairs of lovers here and there sitting close in the darkness, lighting sparkles and whispering softly. I almost felt like walking up to them and saying hi, working the rarely seen foreigner angle to help kill the loneliness, but then I remembered when I was eighteen, I would given anything in the world to have a few uninterrupted hours with a girl I was crazy about. So I think I’ll do my past self the same courtesy I received time and time again when I was eighteen, and just make my way back to Hotel Pierre alone to retire for the night.

Long story short, train came late, didn’t die, but almost did dive to subzero temperatures in the compartment; not dwelling on it. Right now I’m in Blumenmarkt, which I wandered on to by accident but am enjoying. A row of little shops on the canal selling not just tulip bulbs but all manner of strange plants that you may “grow from a can”, including Venus Flytraps and “Buddha palms”. Alongside are of course your standard fare trinkets/branded goods. Clogs with the flag, clogs with tulips; clogs with hemp leaves. Hash tin with hash leaves, has tins with tulips, has tines with a silhouette and “red light district” written across them. Oh and a cheese shop! I may go insane buying souvenirs here (mostly for myself). I wondered about the import regulations in Japan for plants and worried about my lonesome roses back in Tokyo.

When I got here this morning I was panicking, having not eaten for over thirteen hours. So I had a frozen hamburger at a sketch middle-eastern bistro in the red light district. But now I can eat famous, natsukashii Dutch food, split pea soup! You have to respect a country where mustard and black bread come standard as a side.

Anyway, the real reason I was inspired to write now was a China dress and paper umbrella I saw outside an oriental porcelain shop. It reminded me of the fabled “white fur china dress” I’d seen in a crane game. I tried and I tried and I tried but no matter what, I couldn’t get it. I never had any trouble with boxed figures like Sakura Taisen or Evangelion, but the dress always eluded me. Arka commented that perhaps the white fur dress was symbolic, an ideal I had in my head that could never really exist. In a world where I win the dress and get some submissive girl to actually wear it for me, I wouldn’t really be happy I wonder…

Unfortunately finding a trance party continues to elude me. Maybe it’s just not meant to be, and I need to coordinate my visit with a particular party. I got excited to find a Trance Nation flyer until I realized it was for next month. Every venue sees geared up for tomorrow, but I worry if I’ll even be able to get in to one of these countdown house events. I get the impression every place is going to be packed and right now I’d give 4:1 odds that when the clock strikes 2010 I’ll be at some random street corner and just crack open a beer after kissing my cellphone. Let’s do a quick Japan-era reacp of New Year’s Eves’ past:

2009: had the flu at home, went to bed before midnight
2008: went to Iwate New Year’s Day
2007: homeless, went to midnight hatsumode with Ai during a Rocky marathon, spent New Year’s Day in Kyoto
2006: Seoul, countdown in town square with other hostel people
2005: New Year’s party in the states with Mike and co.
2004: went to Akita with Miki
2003: Akihabara and weekly mansion with Nobue while job-hunting

Wow, that was a dumb idea. I went from giddy to depressed as hell in about twenty minutes.

There are some parts of me that don’t like people watching, because it feels like a waste of time, that value equation thing again, with production of something being up on the value side. Anyway, people watching is good somethings because it’s just engaging enough to let your mind sort out things without becoming nervous.

I think that ultimately I have to make things, and I have to break them apart and master them on my own, but I still need an audience, I need someone to share them with. Fundamentally I buy off on that, and I recognize that belonging is a basic human need. I guess I just need to work on deepening my connections with others. If I could really convince myself of the value of deep relationships, fruitful, balanced relationships, I think I would be more leaning towards respecting them. Things of value require care, I know that in my head. but I don’t know it in my heart. That’s what I need, knowing in the heart. Is there any way other to figure that out then breaking all my things? Is that even a route that leads to success? No. And I’ll tell you why. because as soon as I break something I can easily replace it with something shiny and new. that’s what my charisma/looks/confidence/exoticism (the Dave appeal equation) gets me. Blessing and a curse, I don’t have to work hard for koi, it comes for the free and it’s expected. In other words–

I take it for granted.

So, because of this I don:t think the breaking things is going to lead to that valuing deeper relationships… so what is??

Somehow, German draft beer on a leather love-seat while reading Faust and listening to the Foo Fighters just feels right. Most of my favorite music in high school was stolen from my car in Pittsburgh by a crack head, over two hundred CDs and eight years of music.

Recently I’ve started yearning more and more for those old songs, especially as the fire to play guitar burns hotter and hotter in my soul Foo Fighters, Nirvana, STP, this was the music I blared through my Charger’s Blaupunkt system while driving around northern Frederick. My girlfriend at the time, Mari, cooed at how I pounded the gear shift to the bass line of Cake’s The Distance, a damn great song. Driving a car of my own, a dream unknown to most Japanese teenagers, taken for granted by most Americans. Unique myself lost that special freedom, so long suffering since my father sold my car.

Before I bought it myself, I think I copied this album from Adam and had it on my Walkman. I remember walking around and listening to it, Offspring, Bush, and Everclear. Oh the wailing of guitar, fed into effects so it layers and distorts like a heavy static or a buzz saw. Could I ever cover this in front of Yoyoko in an impromptu live someday? Get Phil and Hayashi?

2010 New Year’s Resolution: no matter what I _will_ take guitar lessons and practice more. I will have at least two exhibition, I will make at least a CDs worth of electronic music.

I don’t know, track ?? just triggered a cascade of memories of Holly, the bad girl from the other side of the tracks (literally) that was on my periphery while dating Mari. We kissed, I came to her house once and we listened to Revolver on her water bed. She had bead curtains to her bedroom. Posa was all excited when we started dating. We went and laid by the river next to Church of the Brethern… she smells like cigarettes and pot. I gotta find and email her…. I was in Berlin and thought of you,

Why didn’t it work out? She had a part-time job at the 7-11 on East Street, sweet. I want to email Phil so much right now and say, “Let’s make a band!”

…

It’s about 7:20 now, well past my bedtime of late. I admit I’m quite bleary. I’m up to the 300-page tier or Faust, sleep, neck hurts. But my train isn’t for another five hours and I’ve no bed.

So, I’ve got to tough it out. I’ve though about hitting up U5 but they don’t open (assuming they’re open on Tuesday), until 800, so I guess it:s another forty minutes of Faust. Poor Gretchen! [in the end, U5 never opened...only weekends it seems]

22:15

Talk about efficient. I got from Fr. Tor to H. Bahnhof in about eleven minutes. That’s roughly ten stations and one transfer. This reinforces my theory that German transit is either faster, or the stations are even closer together that Tokyo. Anyway, the trouble now is my mass market dilemma. I can’t hope to completely avoid Foo Fighters when I travel, but I try to swear offf American bands. Unfortunately the long arm of democratic capitalism has me corner here. I was hoping to get at last one pretzel before I left Germany, I was thinking the Kasse here in Hauptbanhof but they’ve run out. It was either the fourth hoagie in three days, or face Big Brother. So I was left with Pizza Hut or BK, and the question was which would torture my digesting system less in an already long day.

More interesting is the young, Asian tourist couple next to me. How unwittingly they display the stereotypical man/woman disconnect, reinforced by racial stereotypes! The man is fervently trying to fold his receipt into an aerodynamic vessel while the girl stares glassy-eyed into her phone email. If only they could realize the absurd clarity of textbook dysfunctionality they exhibit. After upgrading his plane for supersonic flight and checking its wingspan, the male opens his subcompact laptop and being typing. How droll! The irony. How much time do we spend together communication but not with the person right in front of our faces? So sad, with today’s society affairs of the heart, never physically consummated, yes just as if not more so devastating.

Oh, so much insight to the human tragedy, inwards and out this week. This isn’t a journey of inter-nation, this is a journey of condemnation. The tragedy… and speaking of tragedy, poor Gretchen. I’ll be finished reading of her by tomorrow at this pace. Then what I will do with the rest of my rainy week? Smoke?

It’s cold, even sitting in the back of the Pizza Hut. My clothes reek of CK-1, since I spilled a tester on myself the other day, and I only have one set this week. Cold and stinking of Calvin Klein, a theme for inaugural trek. If I went to America, but the middle of nowhere, would that be a vacation worth taking? Fly to Vegas then rent a car and drive out to Oklahoma or Nebraska, or somewhere. Hmm, driving alone for hours all day. Could I handle that? If I:m going to do that, why not get a Japanese license finally and drive to Kyushu? The cost would probably end up being more in highway tolls and gasoline, ha. So tired. If this train comes late, I may just die.

Somehow, I manged to sleep over twelve hours without any difficulty. I don’t think I would have been able to get up and go look for a club anyway, so now I have a while day afead of me, refreshed and envigorated. Yesterday I made two arcs through the city centre, one from Hauptbahnhof through Brandenburg Gate and then more or less along the Spree visiting Alexandre Platz, the carnivals and the largest remaining section of the Wall in Ostbahnhof. The second route started in Mauer Park where I bought an old poster for an Eastern German performance of Ivanhoe. Afterwards I visited the Berlin Wall memorial and took some photographs through the wall into the Death Strip. I remember vaguely as a fourth grader of learning that the Berlin wall was torn down, but at the time it didn’t make much sense to me. A wall is for holidng up a house, or rounding out a garden, so the idea of a wall that went through a city to keep people apart was confusing. Most of the literature in the memorials has been in English so I’ve gotten a lot out of it. I felt a slight, sobering shiver looking at the electrical equpiment in the Death Strip, but I think I’ll have to meditate on it more today, perhaps at Volkspark.

10:30

Knowing that all of this is tied to the DDR and the Berlin Wall, can we still (should we) evaluate the works of art on their own?

‘Modern history’?!

Two perspectives on the same object, video vs. photography.

Artists don’t shy from the filth, waste, and destruction. They show what is there, and what is affecting our lives, regardless of its conent.

Is time constant? Does our perception distort its passage? So many speeds in these videos, perhaps changing dynamically, subtlely?

12:00

I’m beginning to feel like I was a fool for not having an exhibition in 2009. I need to keep pushing myself and just exhibit because without exhibiting I produce nothing, which was obvious from my 2009 nengajyou selection. I had virtually nothing suitable to choose from. Why? I didn’t take any pictures? Why? I had no burning pressure to produce for a show. I swear I will do at least two expos in 2010!!!

Thus media magnate Elliot Carver rued after discovering that yet again, james Bond had eluded his Arian hitman. The train from Amsterdam ended up leaving five hours late due to locomotive difficulties. We received one notice during those five, but I’m not what it said. Inany case, we had our sleeper couchettes so it wasn’t that bad. To be hoenst, I preferred th edealy because it meant more time for rest in a train that was scheduled to arrive in Berlin at 4:21 a.m. I spent th efirst three hours chatting with a Parisian student from Hong Kong and two Puerto Rican girls.

The days are short here. It’s quarter to eight and the sun still hasn’t come up. In a short while I suppose I’ll trek out and start walking, or perhaps take the S-bahn. There are a number of markets that open on Sunday I’d like to see. Currently I’m debating whether I should change into my long johns. Hopefully toilets don’t carry a charge here as well. To me there’s something very appealing about this all, not knowing when or where your next chance for comfort/self-preservation will come. This follows in the Rob canon of never turn down a chance to use the restroom. Food, warmth, and toilet are all things that you never want to be stuck hunting for, so best take advantage of the opportunities as they come.

…

17:10

Behold! Tegernseer Hell! The dignified white and blue label of true German pride and an unassuming 500ml bottle to match. Germans don’t fuck around with pissy 333ml bottles, hell no. Germans know bier. Brie, not so much. Chene d’Argent “fresh” style brie is virtually flavorless, odorless, and a waste of space. Forget about it. Sausage? Sure, I had me a Bochwurst in a rolee for 2,50 euros at Mauer Park Flea Market. Sucker was over 1.4 feet long if an inch and wide as a half-dollar. The roll is not so much a pitiful concession to carbohydrates as it is an edible napkin, so you don’t get your manly hands greasy. The dude asked if I wanted mustard. What’s German for, “Hell yes I do!”? According to Matt’s hostel guide to Berlin, “Do you have any horny single relatives?”, is… well, suffice it to say it’s past stupid o’clock my knickerbockered friends. As I was trudging back from Kaiser’s I spied a ‘Minimarkt’ across the street and said aloud to myself, “‘MiniMARKT’…’E'?! We don’t need no stinkin’ ‘E’ to spell MARKT!”

Accordingly to my body it’s 1:15 Monday morning which means I just got my first shower and bed in 38 hours. Oh hell yes I am bushed. I have no fucking clue what it will do to my body to sleep now at 5:30 p.m. but I don’t really give a damn. It’s dark out and my muscles are so sore I can hardly move the pencil anymore. It’s time for more HELL, shitty brie francais and Fause. Ack!

Schiphol airport is clean, vast, and smartly lit. The immigration officer spoke Japanese, though I’m not sure if that’s a personal thing or common between all the staff. One hustler started speaking French to me, and when I replied no, he switched to Italian. I think it’s a tribute to living abroad that I’ve lost my American vibe. Very rarely do people place me as such any more, usally I’m tagged as French or Italian. This is my second time in Europe in two years; last year I visited Vienna and Venice after finishing Lips. The continent is such an eccelective mix of nice and dirty. Better than some parts of the states, but not as orderly as Japan. At four-thirty it’s already drak outside, a recent light rain has wet the cars and road. It’s warm, the lower forties with no wind, not much cooler than Tokyo, though I expect Berlin will be harsher.

…

Okay, I take back what I said about the warm part. After sitting on the cold floor of Amsterdam Centaal for a few minutes the cold leaves its mark. In retrospect, staying at the airport would have been more accomodating. I have an hour and half until my train for Berlin leaves. The train station, at leat the part I’m in, is a lot smaller than I expected and there’s really no place to sit. So it’s my lot to camp out here in the middle of the hall with the other backpackers and fight to stay awake another ninety minutes or so.

…

In my hurrying to leave I didn’t restock my iPod, but for now I have the Eternal Sunshine soundtrack on. In fact, I left all toiletries at home, including my oral positioner unfortunately. Waking up in Tokyo this morning was methodical and disconnected from what I was really doing. There was a three-line conversation that just repeated itself endlessly in my mind. I was talking with my co-workers and we were very clinically evaluating my state from a dispassionate third-person perspective. If I didn’t get up and get the hell out of the house, I’d be out of the whole trip and three grand. It was that simple. The insobriety had walled off all but th emost critical pathways in my brain. There was no discussion, no debate about what to ready/pack. All I saw was shower, ruck, passport, and go. I only had twenty minutes from the time I rose to when I left the house. That’s all there was to it. Anyway, I have European stylish toothpaste and brush from HEMA and some cheap bread goods from Albert Puyn to go, so I won’t starve or die of toothdecay in the next twenty-four hours. Tired, so tired; too tired to even notice how badly I need a shower. No, I’m in stripped down standby mode. I may fall asleep reading Faust now.

So by some sort of miracle I’ve managed to get on the plane with a window seat and no serious ill effects. I’m a little hung over but given that I got only two hours’ sleep on a wide assortment of twelve drinks, I’m doing pretty damn fine. I didn’t get a number of things into my bag that would have been helpful, but packing Thursday was the smartest thing I’ve done in ages and I do have the essentials.

I ask myself how I ended up with such a precarious balance of self-destruction and success, but truthfully it was just a complete lack of judgement coupled with a virtually non-ending string of good luck. VERY lucky: lucky I didn’t say anything more self-centered or obnoxious to my co-workers, lucky I somehow paced myself drinking through the night; lucky we didn’t all split up at midnight and call it a day, lucky we went back to The Hub, stole a good table and the girls we chatted up were just the right level of drunk to screw around with for hours. I must have bought a lot of karma in sending those nengajou (New Year’s cards), because I was just on fire from the minute we left the office last night until I walked down the boarding ramp. What adventures lay in store for me now?

Pure. Unadultered. Mayhem.

I’d write about it, but the crusted sunburn of my victory is far too sweet for words. I am just going to sit here and let it slowly waft off of my skin while the mind reels in nirvana.

Sometime earlier this week Rob was joing about me going to Amsterdam hung over. I told him in earnest I have had the displeasure of flying wrecked before and it was so terrible I’d never do it again. So he administered then that I just stay drunk from Friday night’s excursion, and then I related how I’d eventually come down and feel terrible. This is the poin t in which he introduced the novel idea that I just stay drunk for the entire week, which I was even less enamoured with. No, I would be completely sover by the time I got on the place to Amsterdam. Oh, the best laid schemes…

Somehow, yes, I was drinking until 4:00. Somehow, yes, I am still drunk, and my mind was swimming with a 1000 racy delights on the train here. The black tight-bound leg to my left was so tantalizing I nearly clawed my eyes out in lust. Oh, this week cannot end in anything but debauchery and mayhem. How fitting I’ve brought Faust along with me for the ride.