whitebait

matsuri

Sometimes Whitebait just sits at his desk bristling with warm delight at the incredibly talented and generous people who come and go in my life. Special among these individuals are two of my main Tokyo guides, Dr E (also known as 'Kuka') and Ms. L.

Dr E. has previously made a few appearances in the lines of this blog and, in particular, in a guest, photographic blog post of Tokyo train commuters. He's an academic at Waseda University in Tokyo at the moment but has managed to grab a few breathing moments thanks to his institution (and a number of others) being shut down due to a measles outbreak.

These fabulous photos are from the Sanja festival in the Asakusa area. Festivals (matsuri) like this are one of things that make me go weak at the knees when Whitebait considers the things he really loves about Japan (see this old post about one of the matsuri attended by W. in his previous sojourn in Tokyo - it is worth it just for the Chris Marker quote).

 

the shogun's favourite dish

I received this delightful quote from a Tokyo friend yesterday (was that you C?). Thanks friend - it tickled Whitebait pink.

It was, so the story goes, the shogun's appreciation of a good dish of whitebait--those tiny fish whose name explains their color and the use to which they are normally put--that led to the establishment of Tsukudajima ('Island of the Cultivated Rice Fields', which still exist in today's Tokyo). About 1615 Ieyasu or his son Hidetda ordered a community of skilled whitebait fishermen to pack up their belonging and move from their native village of Tsukuda in Settsu province (now within the confines of Osaka) to the country's new military capital to fish in the bounteous waters at the mouth of the Sumida river. That was the official story. The real reason was rather less ingenuous: these fishermen were spies, seasoned navigators of the waters of the Inland Sea. Their brief was to keep the shogun's censors informed of any suspicious movement of boats in the bay.

                                    --from Tokyo: City of Stories by Paul Waley. p.110

moving on

Whitebait was talking with his old neighbour in Tokyo via skype today. Some major construction work is evidently in progress in our old 'street'. My friend was saying that a pleasant older man who lived next door to us and was part of a multi-generational family living across two properties died not so long ago. Meaning, it seems, that a bedroom is now superfluous. So what else to do but rip out the walls, leave the roof frame and ... hey presto, a carport. But, as you can see from my old photos of the street below, backing in will be a regular challenge ....

a musical interlude

While Whitebait collects his thoughts and gets ready to post feel free to check out quiverclean, a freshly uploaded tune from his music alter-ego psybait. Stylewise it is somewhere between progressive trance and house and is a reworking of an older tune that I was never quite satisfied with. Also uploaded is  the psytrance stomper, drifter, which features a lovely guest flute turn early on by frauleindrdr (processed just a bit!)

And don't forget that you can still hear more soothing but still pumping downtempo numbers from carsinthesky (the combo of frauleindrdr whitebait). Frauleindrdr is just putting the finishing touches on the final draft of her fabulous book Smart Living:Lifestyle Media and Popular Expertise so some new songs in the works will hopefully get some attention and a release soon.

The image here is of Tokyo Tower, the city's answer to the Eiffel Tower constructed in 1958. I took the photo from the expressway during a snowstorm - it was great if not a little surreal. My friend had borrowed a car and we did a series of loops around much of the city (the startling thing about the Shuto (metropolitan) expressway system is its elevation and the pretty brutal manner in which it cuts through the verticality of the cityscape).

photo album time

Have just purchased the most excellent widescreen 19 inch LCD monitor to supplement my laptop and by god it is fantastic. If anyone is interested, these Acer monitors appear to be end of line and going for a song at the moment at Officeworks ($319). I have been checking the Whitebait's photo collection and it has taken on a new lease of life. So expect me to post the occasional image from the crate in the next few weeks. To start the ball rolling here is a snap of the Dior building on Omotesando in Harajuku, Tokyo.

babel

It was another sandblastingly hot day in Melbourne yesterday so Whitebait and FrauDrDr headed out with a friend to the Nova to see Babel. This is the new film from the team of director Alejandro González Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga (who made Amores Perros and 21 Grams) but who have since reportedly had a falling out. Anyway the film is simply fantastic at a whole lot of levels and I'd strongly recommend you check it out. Don't just be swayed by reviews that marvel at the 'interconnected plot lines linking four diverse places around the globe' angle: that aspect of the film is good to be sure, as are all the actors,  but what is really superb is the palette of moods and feelings around the places--a  Moroccan village, a Mexican town, central Tokyo, San Diego--that are juxtaposed here. The combination of beautiful/harsh land and cityscapes, and their coupling with a great soundtrack, works superbly. Sure it could have been edited a little more - while you're marvelling at the helicopter flying in over the desert to the city you have to wonder why quite so many shots ... but damn it does look and sound good in the poetic way that made Beau Travail a favourite film for me. But it isn't simply cinematic candy as it seems to me that there are some interesting critiques (restrained but not ineffective) of forms of colonialism, the 'war on terror', globalisation and difference, integrated within the film.

Make sure you see it at a cinema with a half-decent sound system (ie, don't wait for the dvd).

For those interested in Tokyo and/or movie magic do see this special fx report on the use of cgi in making the final shot of the film which features a simulated reverse helicopter zoom. Click on the photo at the linked article to see some terrific before and after effects.

300 posts

remain in light

Because it always makes a good photo: the view from Hachiko Crossing in Shibuya. The number of screeens seems to have increased even in the last six months that Whitebait has been away. One of my architect/academic friends tells me there are some major redevelopment plans in the wind for this area. Does anyone know anything about these plans or can point me in the right direction?

yokoso!

Whitebait got a lovely welcome to Tokyo from his friends recently - thanks everyone!

Was just browsing my blog photo folder and saw this great image -- possibly, 'if memory serves me well', from one of John Dower's books (sent by Dr E who is busy lecturing up a storm across Israel).

bath remains

The now exposed remains of a sento (public bath house) adjacent to the footpath running down Tokyo's busy and permanently under (re)construction Yamate Dori. Most sentos feature an image of Mount Fuji or a similarly enticing landscape.

And an image from here of what they look like beforehand. The accompanying article (2002) suggests a nostalgic revival of the sento but my sense is that this would be challenged by a continuing contemporary association of them with poverty (ie, you go because you can't afford a bath in your own home). Though I guess nostalgia and fashionable poverty (or connotations of it at least) have in other cases been pretty successfully reconciled.