Things people put in their hair...

Well, sometimes even I am at a loss for words...
However, it doesn't seem to stop me.

I just imagine some intrepid young stylist somewhere thinking, "You know what will make this hair coloring stay in place much longer than normal? The nurturing afterbirth of some young animal!"


Science is a wonderful thing. The process of trial and error, trial and error, trial and error, ad infinitum. But sometimes the end results puzzle me. The above product puzzles me a bit. Maybe if it wasn't named Henna and Placenta I wouldn't be quite as perplexed. This just makes me think that this was marketing joke and mistake. People like rhyme schemes, it helps them remember; however, maybe...well, hell, I can't even figure out what the hell people were thinking when they put this on the shelf.

The placenta in itself is not a gross thing. In fact none of us mammals would be around without it. It is no more gross than a penis, vagina. Maybe many people just don't know what the placenta is or where it comes from. Or maybe people love putting afterbirth in their hair.

The Emptiest of Orchestras

Karaoke literally translates as, "empty orchestra." And this evening, I participated in this hollow pursuit. 


To be honest, I actually love karaoke. I think it is the Japanese part of me, and the half of me that not-so-secretly wants to be the singer in a band. Somewhere out there, in four-track cassette land, there exists a two random tracks of me singing songs recorded with an old college roommate--one an odd emotive country ditty, the other some pogo-punk think with a faux-British accent. Hey, I was nineteen. 


About four years ago, while I was working on my master's degree I took an immersion journalism course. The purpose of this class was to embed oneself into an environment and write about it, much like the journalists who were at the time joining troops in Iraq. My cohorts spent time at nursing homes, bookstores, shelters for runaways; I to the contrary, chose to spend every night for six weeks at a karaoke bar.


At the time I had a passing fancy with karaoke culture. By the end of the class, I was sickened by the who enterprise. A person can only listen to Fly Me to the Moon, Total Eclipse of the Heart, and other songs that allude to celestial bodies a specific number of times during a six-week period before experiencing mental and physical collapse. The number of times one can hear those songs is four. The times I actually heard them was at least thirty. 


Needless to say, it took me a year before I could set foot into a karaoke bar again. 


I don't quite know why I am writing. I am tired...and I nearly got stuck got stuck singing the Aimee Mann version of "One" as opposed to the original Three Dog Night single.

Language Lessons

In my professional life, I share an office with a Taiwanese immigrant who recently gained her citizenship. Often, we have miscommunications. She interprets everything I say literally. And almost all cultural idioms are lost on her at this point in time. Figures of speech are orators on a podium or words on a value chart. It makes things, well, a pain in the ass.


My office mate has been in the United States for almost fifteen years and learned English while she was growing up. Although she is quite fluent, we sometime struggle with some of the nuances of my native tongue. But of course, English is not American...and American is not Uh-Merican...and there ain't no "Uh in Merica."


So every once in a while I have decided to help me office mate in learning more about being 'Merican.


For example, I figured I would post this simple daily reminder on our door. That way she remembers every time she enters and leaves the office that...






This is a pretty big lesson to learn at first. Imagine early man touching the Monolith in 2001: A Space Odessy--It is that glorious, but different.

Also my office mate is quite frugal, which is a wonderful trait to have in ever-environmental oregon, but there is a point of obsession, where I have to tell her, "Just throw the damned paperclip away. It is not going to be recycled!"

My office mate will almost always question, "Why? But I try to recycle everything..."

And I always have to retort, "But you're 'Merican now! And # won ain't # too!"

There are other key 'Merican phrases I am trying to teach her. These consist of the short proto-troglodytic yokelisms of Yup, Git r done, and Jus' move it a pecker hair. Fortunately, she has already mastered the "Well No Shit..." which is both a great interrogative and exclamatory statement.

This linguistic experiment will probably continue for many months. We have to work on accent issues, and the semantics of humor. Since I already believe that irony died along with God, Nietzsche, and Alanis Morisette's portrayal of divinity in Dogma, I know that I cannot instill any of that into her to even fathom what I am trying to create.

I just believe that Shaw, Quine, and Chomski would be proud...in some sick, sick way.

Slightly Dirty...

I figure we are all adults reading this, so I don't believe have to be to afraid to post some semi-risque images that I found today I while I was sitting at my neighborhood bar, The B-Side. 

I don't think they are too absurd. No flesh is revealed...no blood, guts, or vulgarity is even spoken.

Just pen and ink drawings on a bar table...Of Batgirl...

I officially have a new favorite place to sit while reading about super heroes.

Standing by...

Two nights ago, I downloaded fifty songs by Ben E. King. 

Yup...

That is about all I have to say right about that.

Sometimes people poke fun, make jest of my musical tastes. But you know what? Just because I might want to listen to C.W. McCall sing Convoy, or listen to the Archies sing Sugar, Sugar at least once a month, I am not a lesser person.

And yes, I am fully aware that both of these musical acts are not entirely "real." Yes there is a physical song, even a physical album that could be purchases, and even a string of ones and zeroes that make up our MP3s, but the actual people that wrote these songs were complete fictions. 

The Archies, of course were comic book characters. C.W. McCall was a fictional truck driver popular during the days of CB radio. Convoy was actually the jingle for a bread company commercial.

Metatext and metafictions aside, let me elaborate on how the world truly stays in orbit and how all of us do not dissolve into a realm of entropy.

Do you remember the video for A-Ha's Take on Me? Well, if you don't brief synopsis. A young woman sits in an all night diner reading a comic book. The hero of the book magically winks at her from the a panel in the paper. And a hand reaches out from the page and draws her into the comic book. The real world has been drawn (no pun intended) into a the world of a comic book. All courtesy of a song. A-Ha does not have a real comic book, but they are a real band. 

In contrast, the Archies, represent a polarity of musical and comic book reason. The Archies have real existence in comic books, yet their musical representation in the concrete realm of Riverdale will never cross to the realm of three-dimensions. Archie, Jughead, Veronica, and Betty exist purely in the realm of comics; real people are not pulled into their realm. However, through a song, they have asserted a real physical entity into the physical world making them a real band manifest on the pop charts of the 1960s.

The simple balance of the cosmic order rests upon these too entities. During the late 60s and through the 70s there were years of unrest. And why? Because the cartoon world of the Archies had dominated for too long leading to LSD, war, hippies, Woodstock, Altamont, Nixon, Watergate, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. All of this lead to the 80s and the virtual and cultural dead time of Reagan. When A-Ha appeared, they balanced the scale. However, because the counterweights had been absent for so long, we are still awaiting true equilibrium to appear. 

If A-Ha had not appeared at that point in time. Who knows what might have appeared? I firmly believe it would have been entropy...or...some combination of beastial entity fused from the dark dreams of Eddie Money's attempts to sell albums on QVC, the sweat of Morton Downy Jr. after a long day's broadcast, Senator Bob Packwood's dirty hands, and the bastard love child of Nancy Reagan holding a Carebear.

To make the comparison of Yin and Yang, is too simple, and I believe the comparison to be much to trite. I like to think of it more like the alchemical balance between lead and gold. The transmutations take precision, time, effort, and an understanding of arcane symbols. The Archies and A-Ha both understand that moving picture and the still caption can capture the soul...and that the sound, the circle of fifths can create celestial harmonies.

Who lives in your neighborhood?

There are few times that I have found myself completely stars struck.


One of those moments came a few years ago when a very important individual came to former place of employment.


The picture is small so I apologize.


But this is Mr. Bob McGrath. Bob from Sesame Street.


He signed an old album of Sing: The Hit Songs of Hit Sesame Street which featured a picture of him and Maria thirty-five years younger, while I stood there stuttering about how I grew up watching him every morning on television. Bob mentioned how he hadn't seen a copy of this album in decades. 


Unlike other "celebrities" I have encountered, Mr. McGrath was quite like meeting a forgotten grandfather. He was super nice, very friendly, no pretension, or level of arrogance and self-importance. 


Currently I am reading, Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street , by Michael Davis. It is amazing how this show of rag-tag creative people revolutionized how people raised children. And it amazes me how things have changed to this day. Today, the show is not what it was. Puppets are replaced by computer animations. And I think the children on the show have been replaced by androids...but I may be wrong.


Today, I don't live with television. Which is perfectly fine with me. But let me ask you this: Who lives your fuckin' neighborhood?

Visit

Hi Everyone...


I was thinking about writing about the NY TImes Magazine Travel Edition article I read today about unique boutique shops in Portland. But then I started to rethink that.


Instead, I found it much more important to post two pictures that I took of a squirrel that I saw when I was walking with a friend this weekend.


Sometimes I just need to weigh my priorities. And sometimes, squirrels are much more important than puff pieces about hipster boutiques.

Tiny Objects

I am constantly amazed by the intricacy of tiny objects and by the ability of the Japanese to perfect creation of tiny objects.


Since I was little I was a collector of doll house miniatures. When I was a child my parents took me to a tourist trap in Victoria, British Columbia, called Miniature World. This little walk though attraction featured dozens of tiny dioramas of towns, historical events, doll houses, and everything imaginable small scenario in the world, well everything except for the "Nutshell Studies."  


For a number of years now, Re-Ment, a Japanese toy company has been producing spectacular food miniatures.  Here is a portion of my collection:





The thing that I love about these, tiny pieces of plastic is very difficult to elaborate clearly and in precise words. On one hand there is the childhood fascination with a fabricated world--a moldable, moveable controlled environment of color and organization. There is an element of nostalgia for those childhood strolls through museums and the dreams of having my own diorama some day. Another element is a bit more hard to pin down but is more closely tied to my Japanese heritage.

Neurosis. Perhaps that is the best way to explain the precision, the intricacy, detail, and desire to make something so small.  As a Japanese American, I do not have a problem making the following statement, but I firmly believe that the Japanese are the most neurotic people on the face of the planet. Broad sweeping generalization time: there are so many odd quirks, obsession with honor, obsession with cuteness, obsession with precision, obsession with education, work ethic, the way food is presented, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 

Think of the following items: Square watermelons. This is not an American invention, This can only be a Japanese invention. Same with the recently developed Heart-Shaped Melon. Japan is the only place where a person will exercise in public with hundreds of coworkers in the morning, work for twelve hours, and commit suicide if a business deal falls through in order to preserve honor for the sale of cute objects with the face of a kitty cat on it.

I still have more of these tiny objects, more miniature traditional Japanese foods, and other small items of plastic to be organized and sorted, catalogued and indexed, placed and arranged. 

The Body is a Marvelous Plastic Machine: Part Sequel

For the second lesson of Medicine for Times of Economic Collapse, I want to continue on the brief and broad sweeping overview of the gross human body.

Last time we covered the parts of the body used for the eating of food things and getting rid of them, and those parts for thinking, and those other parts used for breathing.
Now we cover the most important organ of them all, other than the one used for thinking. The one used for love and pumping: the Heart.

This, to the contrary is not your heart, but is the heart of a swine. No, not that ex-boyfriend/boss/mouth-breathing-weird looks bar. These are from the animal that make the most important food known to humanity...bacon. Which has the hazard of stopping the heart, but all blessings have their ouchie parts.

The next image is of your kidneys. These are bean-like shaped organs for which the legume is named. They filter stuff, make pee, and keep your electrolytes in check. Pretty cool. They are kind of like the aquarium filter of your body like your liver, but different. 

And when you stick all of the stuff together and put into one big shell of a person...it goes into this thing.

On a more positive note...

In regards to two of my recent posts, I want to send out apologies.

I am not a hater of people who are non-natives of Portland. Nor am I anti-vegan, or against my neighborhood vegan grocery store.

Those two posts were written fairly close after a recent surgery, and, well, writing a pain pills are never an eloquent combination. All literary cliches considered, they just don't work.

Excuses aside, if I offended, in this instance, I apologize. 

So here is a picture of a giant fiberglass bull: