Now where was I?
Right. The weekend before last, I went with my the staff of my junior high school on their trip. The first destination on our trip was a theatre. "Oh! A theatre!" I hear you cry. "Something classy and cultural, am I right?" No. You're most certainly wrong about that. We went to see 'Muscle Musical', a circus-like variety show featuring a bevy of shirtless men. I mean, it had broader appeal than just that (some of the stunts were genuinely impressive), but I couldn't help but feel that I was just watching a trashy version of a Cirque show. Speaking of Cirque, 'Muscle Musical' is actually playing in Las Vegas at the Imperial Palace under the name 'Matsuri', I think. Anyway, the most exciting part of the show was when they broke the record for the most jumps on a jump rope in 60 seconds. They did it live and had it verified and everything.
Sorry about my English tonight. I sometimes feel like it's becoming my second language.
After that, we went over to Ebisu and made a quick stop at the Beer Museum before heading off to dinner. Drinking and dining with your co-workers is a cultural embedded activity in which the professionalism of the workplace is thrown out the window... on the condition that it is never spoke of again after that night. Summarily, my vice-principal got quite drunk. We went out to karaoke afterwards, and at one point he started singing a song by Kinki Kids, and he turned to me and said in English, "Kinky. Get it?" He also bought a bicycle horn beforehand which he honked whenever someone said something inappropriate.
I had canceled my hotel reservation earlier that week because of my cold, so after karaoke, I made the long trek home. Probably about an hour and a half of trains.
Flashing forward to Tuesday: We had the first day of our Saitama JET mid-year conference. One of my junior high teachers, Mr. Takeuchi went with me. During the first day, I discovered that the way my junior high classes are run is not necessarily 'normal', and if I think they suck (which they do), I should really try harder to do something about it. So now I am. It's a slow process, but I'm just going to be a persistent little mosquito buzzing in the ears of my English teachers. On day two, the guest speaker in the morning was fantastic (gave me a lot of great ideas for class), but the afternoon workshops were a bore because they were mostly pertinent only to high school ALTs.
Moving on to the weekend now:
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
The Pall is Lifted
Two weeks ago, I went with Marisa to far away Waseda University to see an amazing concert. Three acts were playing: Eiko Ishibashi & (some other guy), mama!Milk, and the performer who we'd really come to see, Shugo Tokumaru. The concert took place in a campus hall that doubles as a Christian church on Sundays. The spectators sat in rows of chairs arranged like pews facing a small stage with a giant organ behind it. In front of the organ, a painting of a desolate beach dune; to the right, a bunch of twigs propped up to invoke a tree; and to the right, a number of glass vessels filled with water, illuminated by a strategically placed spotlight.
The first act was basically some guy using delay pedals and an electric violin to layer a sound that was mirrored in the desolate picture behind him. As he did this, Ishibashi blew into a flute to make the sound of the wind, played piano a little, and sang.
Tokumaru was on next. His 30 minute set was painfully short considering how mind-blowingly fantabulous the performance was. I was already a huge fan of his after last year's 'Exit', but now he's pretty much been elevated to the pinnacle of awesome. We were treated with compositions consisting of a percussion part played on overturned ashtrays, buckets, and wood blocks, and accompanied by one of those cans that when you shake it, bird noises come out. It was pretty much everything I like about music on display. Most mind-blowing part? When I learned that the intro to 'Parachute' is not played on multiple guitars, but just played by him. On guitar. By himself. It looked like his fingers were going to fall off.
Mama!milk, on the other hand, was just about the sexiest contra-bass and accordion duo I'd ever seen. In fact, I'm almost sure it's the only contra-bass and accordion duo I'd ever seen, but even still... The way the man kept smacking the bass and the way the woman would breath so heavily before arching her back to open up the red folds of her accordion... It was really bizarre.
After that amazing Sunday concert day, came Halloween week. I say "week" because I wore my costume 3 out of the 5 days. I was permitted to teach my classes dressed as Spiderman, and, of course, I couldn't resist. Here's a picture.
On Saturday, I attended two Halloween party. The first was at the house of the head of the PTA at my junior high school, Mr. Oogushi. Marisa came with me (dressed as Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction) expecting that it would probably be an adult costume party sort of situation, analogous to what you might see in the U.S. Not so. People don't really celebrate Halloween in Japan, so I guess I should have seen this coming, but it was actually a party thrown for the neighborhood kids, mostly my students from Gongendo Elementary. There was a costume contest, bingo, and Mr. Oogushi even set up the chance for kids to trick or treat at one of the other parent's houses. It was adorable.
From there, Marisa and I biked across town in the dead of night to our friend Lauren's party. Long story incredibly short: I fell asleep on one of her extra futons.
I rode home through the brisk morning air and later that day, by 7pm, my throat felt like sandpaper. Sandpaper lined with hot coals. I was sick through the rest of the week (luckily Tuesday was a holiday; Culture Day! You remember, right?). On Wednesday, they sent me home from work so that I could go to the hospital for a fever. Everyone's so H1N1 crazy that they can't take any chances, so the hospital it is. It was an educational experience. When the nurse moves to put a tiny q-tip like object up your nose and says, "This is going to hurt", you can bet that it's going to hurt. Luckily, I didn't have the flu. I use the past tense here to emphasize that I'm nearly cured! Huzzah!
Stay tuned for another update soon. (P.S. I embeded a video of 'Parachute' just in case anyone was curious about that intro I mentioned)
The first act was basically some guy using delay pedals and an electric violin to layer a sound that was mirrored in the desolate picture behind him. As he did this, Ishibashi blew into a flute to make the sound of the wind, played piano a little, and sang.
Tokumaru was on next. His 30 minute set was painfully short considering how mind-blowingly fantabulous the performance was. I was already a huge fan of his after last year's 'Exit', but now he's pretty much been elevated to the pinnacle of awesome. We were treated with compositions consisting of a percussion part played on overturned ashtrays, buckets, and wood blocks, and accompanied by one of those cans that when you shake it, bird noises come out. It was pretty much everything I like about music on display. Most mind-blowing part? When I learned that the intro to 'Parachute' is not played on multiple guitars, but just played by him. On guitar. By himself. It looked like his fingers were going to fall off.
Mama!milk, on the other hand, was just about the sexiest contra-bass and accordion duo I'd ever seen. In fact, I'm almost sure it's the only contra-bass and accordion duo I'd ever seen, but even still... The way the man kept smacking the bass and the way the woman would breath so heavily before arching her back to open up the red folds of her accordion... It was really bizarre.
After that amazing Sunday concert day, came Halloween week. I say "week" because I wore my costume 3 out of the 5 days. I was permitted to teach my classes dressed as Spiderman, and, of course, I couldn't resist. Here's a picture.
On Saturday, I attended two Halloween party. The first was at the house of the head of the PTA at my junior high school, Mr. Oogushi. Marisa came with me (dressed as Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction) expecting that it would probably be an adult costume party sort of situation, analogous to what you might see in the U.S. Not so. People don't really celebrate Halloween in Japan, so I guess I should have seen this coming, but it was actually a party thrown for the neighborhood kids, mostly my students from Gongendo Elementary. There was a costume contest, bingo, and Mr. Oogushi even set up the chance for kids to trick or treat at one of the other parent's houses. It was adorable.
From there, Marisa and I biked across town in the dead of night to our friend Lauren's party. Long story incredibly short: I fell asleep on one of her extra futons.
I rode home through the brisk morning air and later that day, by 7pm, my throat felt like sandpaper. Sandpaper lined with hot coals. I was sick through the rest of the week (luckily Tuesday was a holiday; Culture Day! You remember, right?). On Wednesday, they sent me home from work so that I could go to the hospital for a fever. Everyone's so H1N1 crazy that they can't take any chances, so the hospital it is. It was an educational experience. When the nurse moves to put a tiny q-tip like object up your nose and says, "This is going to hurt", you can bet that it's going to hurt. Luckily, I didn't have the flu. I use the past tense here to emphasize that I'm nearly cured! Huzzah!
Stay tuned for another update soon. (P.S. I embeded a video of 'Parachute' just in case anyone was curious about that intro I mentioned)
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