Resident, Japan

The very dead King of Pop did a sparklingly awesome one-gloved performance in Japan back in 1987. Yes, the crotch grabbing and ooh-aahs were Bad. But so were these bangy haired late ’80s Japanese concert goers. Sweet panning shots.

Saw a pig in a pocket on the train today. It looked snug in the pocket of a black shirt of a man in a black suit. The man was with a pretty woman in a black wide-brimmed hat. They looked dapper in what looked like their funeral best as he chatted in an excited but soft voice and she leaned in with a quiet but absorbed look. It is possible they weren’t going to a funeral.

I think it was a plush ducky I saw attached to the man’s wrist but it’s hard to be sure when you’re trying to look like you’re not looking.

Al Franken in the 80s rockin’ it as Mick Jagger in this dead-on impression performance.

This girl is cute yet  kimochi warui (creepy) at the same time in a Japanese way. She has a yearning to be like a guy which she takes just a tad to far. Hey, I like titties but I don’t want to grow a pair.

According to Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of the Lincoln biography ‘A Team of Rivals’ and apparently Obama’s muse the colorful Lyndon Johnson said of rival cabinet members that it’s better to have them inside the tent pissing out, than to have them outside the tent pissing in.

Obama has said he’d like to follow this advice and choose people with various viewpoints to challenge each other to come up with the best solutions to the nation’s problems. The problem is so far it seems like most of his appointees are a team of ex-Clintonites inside the tent, pissing this way and that.

The economic team assembled is the clearest example of this. Obama chose Tim Geithner as Treasury Secretary and Summers as economic coordinator. Being ex-Clintonites is not an automatic black mark but Tim Geithner and the oh-so-tactful Lawrence Summers are disciples of Robert Rubin. Robert Rubin was the Treasury secretary under Clinton and is the current Citigroup bigwig who got Citi in its current mess. Both Summers and Geithner were raised in the ways of extreme deregulation and banks too big to fail at Rubin’s knee. Is this a rivalry? Or is this is a collusion of Rubin/Citigroup figures teaming up to give their team (Citi) a very expensive (to tax payers) ‘get out of jail free’ card?

But hey, let me upend what I just wrote by adding that Nobel laureate Paul Krugman seems impressed by the Obama econ team. What I’ve read from his blog doesn’t say how much he agrees or disagrees with their policy stances, but he does seem happy thatthe grown ups are coming. I’m sure a renown economist with or without a Nobel prize under his belt knows better than me so I’m going to be happy along with Paul.

“It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.”

-Barack Obama, Nov. 5 2008 Victory Speech in Chicago

This line was inspired by ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ Sam Cooke’s masterpiece song about Black struggle and hope.

On the train, just a couple of days ago I saw the ad announcing the retirement of what is arguably the greatest train ever made, the 0 Kei Shinkansen or Type 0 Main Trunk Line (or more fittingly, the bullet train). On November 30th the world’s first bullet train will retire after 44 years in service. The pride, nostalgia, and sadness the Japanese feel for this icon of an era is so evident in the ad and on the website dedicated to the final month of the 0 Kei that shows the Type 0 against the background of the setting sun and the words ‘So long, dream super express’ or said much better in Japanese as ‘Sayonara, yume no chou tokkyu’.

The original shinkansen was the train that along with the Tokyo Olympics re-introduced a peace loving and technologically and economically rising Japan to the world. It was the train that made me fall in love with trains. Today, it’s rounded front may look friendly rather than fast, but I still think no other train in the world looks more like a bullet. Albeit a friendly bullet with big eyes. I first rode this speeding wonder on a family trip to Kyoto when I was ten years old and I’ll never forget looking down from our hotel room window with a sense of wonder at the shinkansens arriving to and leaving from Kyoto Station.

To me the 0 Kei will always be the train for going on trips with Obaachan (grandmother), the train that promised more adventure than any other in the world. It will always be the train that reminds me of why I love this country. I don’t know if I’ll have an opportunity to ride her one last time before she speeds off into the Fall sunset for the final time, but even if not I would like to say ‘Arigatou, yume wo kureta chou tokkyu’.

Fashionable yet snooty, design and lifestyle oriented yet brand obsessed and consumerist… is Monocle confused? Perhaps, but the magazine/e-zine seems to do confusion in style with a lot of love for Japanese and Danish design and lifestyle products. There’s also some politics and international news thrown in for good measure. But I really enjoy the design and culture stuff, even if there is some cheering for blowhard brands like bag maker Louis Vuitton and pen maker to the British royals Conway Stewart. Conway Stewart? Anyway, there is also stuff like a report of UK clothing startup Albam that makes its clothes in England and a Japanese preschool that encourages outdoor activities such as downhill rolling.

Monocle Magazine

Am I living the three hours a night sleep dream? No. Of course it was too good to be true. I’m back to my usual and erratic range of six to nine hours of sleep a night. However, contrary to the concern of some friends the quest for short yet sweet sleep didn’t end with hallucinations or sleep deprived shaking or any other dramatic ill effect on my health. My body simply told me it loves the sweet sugar of sleep and kept sleeping.

Still, this doesn’t mean there isn’t something to be said about efficient and disciplined sleeping habit. And I learned a few things about my sleep needs. I don’t need eight or more hours of sleep to function and feel well. Six or seven will usually do. But I am a slow starter and I do need a good kick start to get out of bed and get my engine started. And if I’m on the low end of the sleep scale then I will probably need a nap. The problems are getting out of bed in the morning and not allowing naps to transform into marathon day time sleeping sessions.

So, I’ve made my peace with sleep and I’ll be enjoying her company with less guilt like I already did last night and today when I slept for about twelve hours total. Ahh, sweet sweet sugary sweet sleep… here comes daddy… yawn.

What is love, and why are some people unable to find it? What is loneliness, and why does it hurt? What are relationships, and how and why do they work the way they do?

The preface of ‘A General Theory of Love’ begins with those questions. They are all questions asked frequently by any of us- several times a day by this love deprived blogger. But this book, written by three psychiatrists, elegantly meshes the sciences of psychiatry and biology with philosophy, literature, and even spirituality to try and answer these questions. It’s well written and I have little doubt that these doctors know what they are talking about on the science end, but what impresses me about this book is how poetic and human it is. Chapters have titles such as ‘The Heart’s Castle’ and ‘A Fiercer Sea’ and the book begins with a poem called the ‘The Secret’. Even the authors acknowledge that some readers will find it strange that a book about psychobiology begins with a poem but as the they firmly note ‘the adventure itself demands it’.

To me this melding of such an intangible yet important thing such as love with hard, cold observations and facts is such as vital endeavor. Perhaps because I am non-religious. Because I believe there doesn’t have to be God crouching hidden behind everything in order for something to be truly meaningful. For me, the wonder is that nature, evolution, the cosmos conspired in such a way to enable us to love so that we might better thrive. I don’t think the biology behind it takes away from love’s power. To reverse that, I don’t think God necessarily adds to the power of love.

The science behind love shouldn’t leave us cold or make us think love is simply a pedestrian mishmash of brain chemicals and physiological reactions that exists to promote procreation or survival of the species. Love as we live it, will always be a bit random, silly, magical, maddening, and saddening, but absolutely essential to our lives. That is why when the main character from a movie about sex, fashion, and girl talk says she came to the city to find love I don’t laugh.