What’s up with me: Past
entries
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K. Bourdaghs homepage
(Entries
for the year 2005 can be found here; those for 2003 can be found here.)
Posted on
December 31, 2004:
The year comes to a sad end with the news
of the awful tsunami in Asia. The death toll is approaching that of the
1923 Tokyo Earthquake (140,000 then, 125.000 and rising, now). If you
haven't done so already, you can donate money to the relief efforts through
numerous organizations, including Oxfam and the American Red Cross. Unfortunately, the disaster has
also provided the Bush Administration with yet another opportunity to embarrass
the United States. I don't know which aspect of their response is more
appalling--the callousness or the ineptitude. It used to be that the
whole world looked to us for leadership at times like this, but that's all gone
now.
On a brighter note, we enjoyed our visit to Minnesota
over Christmas very much. It was a short visit, but we were able to spend
lots of time with family. One of the highlights was an afternoon spent
ice skating at The Depot, a lovely restored train station in
downtown Minneapolis.
We will spend New Year's Eve at home, watching the
"Kôhaku Uta Gassen" (Red-White Musical Spectacular) show, the annual NHK year-end special, on the local Los
Angeles rebroadcast, and then eating a traditional Japanese feast on New Year's
Day.
Lots of exciting plans for 2005, starting with the
January 21-22, 2005 "Translating Universals: Theory
Moves Across Asia"
conference I am co-organizing. It's looking to be a very exciting
event--I don't think anyone has ever tried anything like it before,
anywhere. We'll be bringing together specialists on China, India, Japan,
Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, with participants coming from universities across
Asia, Europe and North America. If you are in the Southern California
area, it will be worth your while to attend!
Best wishes to you all for a joyous and peaceful
2005.
Posted on
December 19, 2004:
We're easing into Christmas vacation
mode--and enjoying it immensely, thank you kindly. Last night we went to
a terrific Korean BBQ restaurant in our neighborhood with a former student--it
was nice to catch up on what's happening with her and to gorge ourselves on
kalbee, kimchee, etc., etc. And our Christmas shopping is nearly done,
just in time for our departure for Minnesota later in the week. I'm told
there is no snow on the ground there yet, but maybe by Christmas.....
I continue to work on arrangements for the January
21-22, 2005 "Translating Universals: Theory
Moves Across Asia"
conference I am co-organizing. It's looking to be a very exciting
event--I don't think anyone has ever tried anything like it before,
anywhere. We'll be bringing together specialists on China, India, Japan,
Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, with participants coming from universities across
Asia, Europe and North America.
Politically, it's been a fascinating week.
The Bush Administration seems determined to redeploy the same strategy it used
to get us into Iraq, but this time Social Security is the target. They
manufacture a phony crisis and say that radical action is needed NOW. And
if you think they bungled Iraq, wait until you see what they have in mind for
Social Security. At least the Democrats seem willing to stand up to the
neocons on this one: Social Security is in fact working pretty well, and
will continued to do so for many more years, even without a fix. And the
long-term problems can be solved through relatively minor adjustments, not the
insanely risky program that the Bush people are trying to enact.
Posted on
December 12, 2004:
We managed to limp over the finish line
of Fall quarter, but it was touch-and-go there for the last few weeks.
They were packed with Ph.D. exams, lectures (including one that I gave last
Monday as part of the UCLA Center for Japanese Studies Colloquium series), making final arrangements for the
huge January 21-22, 2005 "Translating Universals: Theory
Moves Across Asia"
conference I am co-organizing, writing letters of recommendation, refereeing
manuscripts, etc. It seemed appropriate that it all ended this morning
with a good thump to the head: I scraped my scalp on a tree branch in our
front yard and wound up with a trip to the emergency room and four stitches.
There have been some stolen pleasures in the midst of
all the madness, though. We got to watch our oldest in a wonderful school
production of the musical "Peter Pan"--he played Mr. Darling (Wendy's
father) and the crocodile who swallowed a clock. We also managed to finish up watching the Japanese TV series, "Sekai no chushin de, ai o sakebu" (Crying out love at the center of the
world), a tearjerker that was a huge hit this past summer on the TBS network.
And above all, there is the happy realization that I
now go on sabbatical leave for the rest of this academic year, as I use my
University of California President's Research Fellowship in the Humanities to
work on my book manuscript about postwar Japanese popular music. And then
in June we move to Tokyo for two years where I will direct the UC Education
Abroad Program Study Center office there. In other words, having finished
up my classes for Fall '04, the next time I am scheduled to step into a UCLA
classroom is Fall '07. I actually love teaching and will miss working
closely with students, but I am also more than ready for a change of
pace. It will be quite nice to feel like a scholar again!
Posted on
November 28, 2004:
We had a very nice Thanksgiving, one that
involved much experimentation. We tried out a new stuffing recipe that
involved Italian sausage, apples, and walnuts, as well as a new recipes for
sweet potatoes (baked with bananas and pecans), cranberry sauce, and gravy,
too. Quite nice. Then on Friday we went to see the new "SpongeBob SquarePants Movie," and spent the rest of the day
digesting. Already on Sunday, most of our leftovers are gone--a sign of
how good everything tasted.
We used our Thanksgiving break to start watching the
Japanese TV series, “Sekai no
chûshin de, ai o sakebu” (Crying out love at the center of the world), which was a
huge hit this past summer on the TBS network.
It's a bit weepy (a haze of death hangs over the show from the first
episode: the tragic couple at the center of it all even make their first
move at a funeral), but I guess we don't turn to Japanese
TV dramas for subdued and
subtle taste, now, do we? It's interesting how the series weaves together
three different moments in time: the present day, 1987 when the heroes
were high school students, and wartime Japan, when the hero's grandfather
suffered through his own tragic love affair--though this oldest strand is never
recreated for the viewer directly. And the series is marked by a fascination
for the media by which we try to preserve the past--photographs, tape
recordings, etc. Anyhow, don't tell me how it ends (as if I don't already
know....), since I'm only up to episode five out of eleven.
One terrific Internet discovery for the week. Go to Google.com, type in as the search term "weapons
of mass destruction" and then hit the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button
(NOT the regular "Search" button). You'll be taken to a
wonderful little piece of comic agitprop. The right wing may own talk
radio, but the Internet is ours (he hums "The Internationale" as he
types)!
Two more weeks of classes to go at UCLA before winter
break, and they are going to be busy for me--I have several lectures to do, letters
of recommendation to write, etc., etc. But there is definitely light
visible at the end of the tunnel now, and I for one am glad of it.
Posted on
November 21, 2004:
It was a typical busy week of teaching,
writing recommendation letters (it's that time of year again), all the usual
busy-ness. One of the highlights was coming across the wonderful Batgirl's proposal for how ordinary Minnesota Twins fans can help the team
prosper despite its tightwad owner--check out her November 16 entry. It had me laughing out loud.
And I had a rare flash of lucidity driving home in
rush hour, listening to a tape of Matsutoya Yumi's great 1973 debut single, "Hikôkigumo" (recorded
back when she was sitll known as Arai Yumi). My flash: the song is
in fact based on Procol
Harum's 1967
"A Whiter Shade of Pale" (which in turn is based on Bach's "Air
on a G String). I don't know why I never noticed this before; the
relation between the two songs strikes me now as plainly obvious.
The Kyushu sumo tournament is now halfway done, and it
is shaking things up. The veteran ozeki Musôyama, who I've always liked, finally gave up
the struggle and retired. Kaiô, another great ozeki, is making a push for
promotion to yokozuna, the highest possible rank, and so far he has looked very
much like a yokozuna. Tochiazuma, yet another ozeki who was kadoban
(meaning he needed at least eight wins to retain his rank) dropped out with an
injury and a losing record, meaning he will drop down to sekiwake next
tournament. In other words, we started the tournament with four ozeki,
but by the end of the tournament we may be down to just one: Chiyôtaikai. On the other hand, sekiwake Wakanosato looks very good and may well earn
promotion to ozeki if he keeps it up over the last week, and Kotomitsuki and Hakuhô may not be too far behind. Asashôryû, the great Mongolian yokozuna, is back
in fine form and should win it all. He is a joy to watch--a great
wrestler at the top of his game. The best and fastest source of
English-language sumo coverage, by the way, can be found here.
We plan a quiet Thanksgiving here at home, with
a few family and friends visiting. Hope the turkey is good wherever you
may be.
Posted on
November 13, 2004:
The highlight of the week was a quick
two-day trip to New York City, where I gave a book talk at Columbia University
about The Dawn That Never Comes. I got to reconnect with some old
friends, plus meet some new ones, so it was a very pleasant little trip.
While in New York, I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I saw the "China: Dawn of a Golden Age, 200-750
AD," and also did
some book and CD shopping. Perhaps best of all, I got a small taste of
autumn weather--the one season of the year that makes me wish I was still
living up in northern climes.
Back at home, it is crunch time, as Fall quarter
enters into the final three or four weeks. I've had tons of
administrative work to do, but have also managed to waste far too much time
playing with "Real Rhapsody," the music service sponsored by the Real
Player people. I'm in my free two-week trial period and am astonished at
how many albums and artists I can call up and listen to instantly--Little
Richard, Rickie Lee Jones, Gram Parsons, Plastic Bertrand, Richard Hell &
The Voidoids, Bootsie Collins, etc., etc. I think I am hooked--that is to
say, I doubt I'll be able to bring myself to cancel it when the free trial
period ends. Sigh.
I am also doing my best to see as many as possible of
the Ozu films being shown this month at the UCLA
Film & Television Archives and at LACMA.
Now, if we can just hang in there for another week and
a half, it will be Thanksgiving, and that means it's almost winter break....
Posted on
November 6, 2004 :
Well, that was a depressing election,
wasn't it?. I guess we learned that hatred of gays trumps all other
issues in enough parts of the country to carry a loser to victory. One of
the dangers those who live in a democracy must be on the alert for is fascism.
We aren't there yet, of course, but it is clear that a sizeable part of the
American population simply wants a strong leader, regardless of his abilities
or qualities. Moreover, they are eager to blame the troubles in their
world on an unpopular and weak minority group. On the other hand, the
Republicans, especially Karl Rove, have shown that if you don't run on
passionate beliefs, you can't excite the electorate. As I understand it,
Rove's philosophy is that there is no such thing as a neutral, undecided voter;
all you have is people whose passions have not yet been tapped into. (Of
course, fascism works by appealing to passion over reason, too).
My favorite response to the election can be found here.
We had a nice Halloween before the election day.
Our youngest went out with friends in Westwood, as well as hitting a few of our
neighbors up here in the Valley. As usual, we were swamped with
trick-or-treaters, around 200 kids. We went through nine bags of candy.
I'm off to NYC later this week to give a talk at
Columbia University. I'm hoping to visit some museums while there.
I'm hoping I'll see some nice autumn weather while there -- it's the one season
that makes me really miss living up north.
Posted on
October 28, 2004:
We had a bit of a pumpkin-carving contest
at our house last Saturday night. Below is a sample of our handiwork--you
can see the rest this Sunday night if you stop by to trick-or-treat at our
house. In the meanwhile, what a lovely week for baseball this has been--and it
is looking more and more like this will be Massachusetts' year for big
victories. Don't forget to vote next Tuesday.....
Posted on
October 17, 2004:
It was, to be frank, a crummy week,
filled with sick kids, pressing administrative duties, bad news about old
friends, and other unpleasantries. The less said about it, the
better. Here's hoping the coming week brings better things.
But one question before I go: if John Kerry is
the "most liberal member of the U.S. Senate," that is, if he is a
zealot for the far left, then how can he possibly be a "flip-flopper"
with no core principles? The fact that the Bush campaign would lurch from
one charge to a completely contradictory charge tells us very little, I think,
about Kerry--and a great deal about what a desperate, failed presidency looks
like as it slides down the toilet.
Posted on
October 10, 2004:
The week started out Monday with a very interesting lecture by
Yukio Lippit on Sesshu's splashed-ink landscape painting--the
point was, I think, that to cut through the accrued nonsense about Zen
nothingness, etc., that has surrounded Sesshu since at least the 1930s, we need
to place his works in their historical situation, to understand the
well-established techniques and modes that Sesshu was calling on in his
picture, as well as the politics of the situation within which he was
painting.
Then, on Wednesday night, I made my first ever visit
to The Troubadour
nightclub in West Hollywood and saw The Muffs in concert -- a really fun show that had
me bouncing up and down from beginning to end. The opening band, Visqueen from Seattle, were also a pleasant
surprise -- I'm going to have to order a copy of their CD.
And on Saturday morning, some old friends were in town
from Seattle, and so we met them at the Santa Monica Pier for a pleasant few hours -- the first time we've made it down to
the Pier this year.
But beyond all that, much of the week was spent
watching my beloved Minnesota Twins go down the drain. The results of the
ALDS playoffs against the Yankees were exactly the same as last year: we
won game one in New York, but then lost the next three to end our season.
But last year, that result seemed just: the Bronx Bombers were as
loathsome as ever, but they were by far the better team. This year,
though, was a matter of heartbreak. We should have won it.... Game Two,
when we went ahead in the top of the twelfth inning, only to lose it in the
bottom when Joe Nathan finally ran out of gas, was unbearably sad. Game
Four, when we had a 5-1 lead in the eighth inning, only to surrender four runs,
and then gave up the winning run in the eleventh inning on a wild pitch, was
even sadder, if such a thing is possible. The team had two Achilles'
heels this year: we lacked a good third starting pitcher and one more
solid bullpen arm. And, as fate would have it, it was those two flaws
that cost us the series. The Angels and the Dodgers are done for, as
well. Guess I'll have to become a Red Sox fan for the duration.
Finally, Jacques Derrida, RIP. The New
York Times ran a truly wretched little obituary on him -- shame on them! As happens
increasingly often these days, the Los Angeles Times did a better job in its coverage.
(Postscript as of
10/14/02: Derrida's bereaved colleagues at UC-Irvine and elsewhere have
sent a letter of protest, which was brutally censored by the New York Times'
editors. You can read the uncensored version and even sign on as a
supporter here.)
Posted on
October 3, 2004:
The baseball regular season ended
today--always a sad thing, except that the postseason holds so much promise
this year. Yesterday was perhaps the most exciting day in Los Angeles
baseball history, with both the Angels and the Dodgers clinching their
divisional championships with late-inning comebacks. And of course the
Twins are in it again this year. Last year, I was at the Metrodome for Game 5 of the first round of the playoffs and saw the Yankees eliminate the Twinks,
who simply didn't belong on the same field with the Bronx Bombers. This
year, though, I think we Minnesota fans have reasons for optimism: our
pitching, both starting and relief, is strong, albeit shallow, and we have a
whole slew of good young hitters. Maybe, just maybe, we can slip past the
Yankees this time.... And of course the Red Sox are in it this year, too, though
the Cubbies did a remarkable job of choking during the last week of the
season. At any rate, I expect to waste a great deal of time watching the
playoffs in the coming weeks.
I was supposed to go with Satoko last Wednesday
night to see the newly reformed Zombies
(with Jim Rodford, late of the Kinks, on bass) and Arthur Lee and Love in concert. Influenza took out our babysitter, though, so I
stayed home with the kids--but Satoko assures me it was a terrific show.
(I'll get my revenge this coming Wednesday night, though, when Satoko babysits
while I go see The Muffs at the legendary Troubadour nightclub). UCLA classes started
rather uneventfully on Thursday, and on Saturday we all went to a very nice
barbeque at a friend's house.
And of course Thursday night's debate between Kerry
and Bush was a highlight of the week. Watching the debate then, and
watching the campaign speeches the two candidates have given in the days since,
it strikes me that Bush is sounding more and more like a broken record,
skipping back to repeat the same annoying refrain over and over. And, as
he has for so much of the past two years, he looked during the debate like he
was in completely over his head. Can't wait to see Cheney and Edwards go
at it next Tuesday.....
Posted on
September 26, 2004:
Last Saturday, while Satoko was off
attending a conference at UC-Davis, the kids and I paid our first ever visit to
the Suihoen Japanese Garden in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation
Center--very pleasant. We also managed to finish re-oiling our wooden
lawn furniture before Mom came back, so it was a very productive weekend.
The week was uneventful: the highlight was
having the plumbing in our house fixed. But I won't complain about a
quiet week.
This weekend kicked off Saturday morning with a
lovely wedding at La Venta Inn in Palos Verdes. Sonia was a flower
girl and looked quite grown up in her dress. Then, on Sunday, we
brought a carload of outgrown clothes, under-used toys, excess plates and
dishes, etc., to a garage sale my sister was having in Hollywood. It was
a very pleasant day for all of us, and we even managed to sell off some of our
excess belongings.
The sumo tournament ended today with ozeki
Kaio the winner. The great Mongolian yokozuna Asashoryu never quite hit
his stride this tournament; he had his wedding celebration last month and was
unable to get in enough training. Asashoryu finished with a 9-6 record;
I'd hate to have to face him in the next tournament in November: he'll be
out for revenge, I imagine.
UCLA classes start this Thursday. It's time to
go back to work, I'm afraid.
Posted on
September 18, 2004:
Last Sunday, I snuck into Westwood
briefly to catch the last day of the exhibit "Made in Mexico" at the UCLA Hammer Museum. That show, a collection of works
by contemporary artists who work in/around/from Mexico, was only mildly
interesting, but on my way out of the museum I stopped by the small lobby
gallery, where works by Rob Voerman,
a Dutch artist, were on display. They were quite striking, especially his
large prints, mock urban planning diagrams of cityscapes in which the center is
occupied by enormous structures built out of scraps and junk, forming a sharp
contrast with the steel-and-glass skyscrapers around them.
The rest of the week was quiet. I continue to
slowly gear up for the start of classes at UCLA, plugging away at syllabi and
trying to finish up a few last summer projects. One highlight of the week
was to read a very positive review by James Fujii of my book, The Dawn That Never Comes,
in the latest issue of The Journal of Asian Studies. The latest issue of The Journal of Japanese Studies also features a nice review by Douglas Howland of the translation
I edited of Kamei Hideo's Transformations of Sensibility.
The kids had Thursday off from school, so we made a
visit to Westwood Park in the afternoon. And I've been doing my best to
keep up with the ongoing sumo tournament in Japan, which is still wide open
after one week: Asashoryu, the great yokozuna who is trying to win
his fifth tournament in a row, has already been knocked off twice.
This weekend, Satoko is off attending a conference up
at UC-Davis, so the kids and I are on our own. We'll spend our time
doing some odd jobs around the house, watching DVDs, and basically just
relaxing. 'Cuz it's the weekend, ya know.
Posted on
September 11, 2004:
Summer vacation is over--alack the
day! The kids began school last Thursday, and even though Satoko's and my
classes at UCLA don't
begin for a couple more weeks, it's clear that we have switched into our
academic year mode of existence. I spent my weekdays on campus these
days, attending oral exams for some grad students, reading dissertation chapter
drafts for others, and slowly gearing up to start teach again at the end of the
month.
I am hoping for a quiet, reflective year. I am
no longer director of graduate studies for our department, and I will be on
sabbatical leave winter and spring quarters. In other words, after a year
spent mainly as an administrator, I hope to do some reading, thinking, and
writing this year--that is, I hope to resume functioning as a scholar.
Our major accomplishment for the weekend: to
make our first ever trip to Pink's, Hollywood's hot dog stand extraordinaire. It was an
uncomfortably hot day, we had to wait in line for twenty minutes, and the kids
were in a sullen mood, but we have now eaten their classic chili dogs.
They even had bottles of Orange Crush and Bubble Up, legendary soda pop brands
from my youth. Burp.
Posted on
September 1, 2004:
Back in California now, after our
vacation in Minnesota. During our last week there, we took a three-day
road trip through Wisconsin, where we visited the Wisconsin
Dells and rode on the Original Wisconsin Duck Boats and ate at the terrific vegetarian restaurant, the Cheese Factory. Then we headed off to Milwaukee for a lovely visit with
old friends--and a morning at the Milwaukee County Zoo. Finally, we headed to Pepin,
Wisconsin, to visit
"The Little House in the Big Woods," the birthplace of Laura Ingalls
Wilder and to pick pebbles out of Lake Pepin, just as Laura and her sister Mary
did 130 years ago.
Then it was back to St. Paul for a day at the fabulous
Minnesota State Fair, where we rode the ferris wheel, played carnival games (both
Walter and Sonia won stuffed animals), and ate: foot-long hot dogs,
deep-fried cheese curds, french fries, Rainbow ice cream cones, lemonade, mini
donuts, milk (at the all-you-can-drink booth), onion rings, garlic fries, root
beer floats, and probably a few other things that I've forgotten. In the
evening after the kids went home with Grandma, Satoko and I watched Little
Feat in concert and
walked through the Midway again--this time, with all the lights on. If
you grew up in Minnesota, the State Fair was a necessary end-of-summer ritual,
and it was very nice to get there again this year.
The next day, our last in Minnesota, we celebrated my
43rd birthday--a few days early. And then it was back to Los Angeles this
past Monday, and back to work for me. The kids have another week before
school starts, and we hope to use it wisely: the beach, baseball games,
etc. Hope you all have a fine Labor Day weekend.
Posted on
August 19, 2004:
We're all enjoying our stay in Minnesota
very much. The weather has been lovely, sunny and cool--it almost feels
like autumn. The kids have been thrilled to spend time with their
grandparents here. Yesterday, we were down by the banks of the
Mississippi with my father, skipping rocks on the water and looking for
fossils, while today they played board games with my mother). We've
managed to visit a few old friends, with more visits planned in the coming
days.
Tomorrow, Walter and I will go to the Twins' game with
an old friend, and over the weekend we will be getting together with a number
of my cousins and their kids. Next Tuesday, we leave on a three-day road
trip through Wisconsin, which will take us through the fabulous Wisconsin
Dells, to the house of some old friends in Milwaukee, and then to the shores of
Lake Pepin--the site of Laura Ingalls Wilder's first home, where Little
House in the Big Woods is set. Then, back to St. Paul for a few more
days, including a visit to the Minnesota State Fair, before we return to LA.
Work has managed to follow me to Minnesota, but it
isn't taking up too much time or energy. And we have been eating quite
well, in case you were worried. All in all, a fine vacation trip so
far. It will be hard to return to 'real life' back in California.
Posted on
August 8, 2004:
The past week saw us host birthday
parties for our two kids, both at a neighborhood bowling alley (their choice,
not outs). On Tuesday night, a few of Walter's friends came for an hour
of bowling and then dinner to commemorate his thirteenth. The whole
restaurant wait staff sang "Happy Birthday" to him. Then
yesterday afternoon, fifteen (!!!) of Sonia's buddies turned out for her eighth
birthday--and they all seemed to have a good time. Several of the
attendees had never bowled before, but they all did quite well. Why
didn't they have bumpers when I was a kid? At any rate, we don't often
throw big bashes for Walter and Sonia, so it was nice to be able to do it this
year.
As for my major accomplishment of the summer: I
am officially graduating this week from the first book in the Suzuki method of
piano instruction--about two months behind Sonia, who is already several songs
deep into the second-level book. She zooms on ahead, and I keep plunking
away (quite literally). I'll never acquire anything like proficiency, but
I've wanted to be able to play the piano for as long as I can remember.
In my scholarly work, I am just trying to wrap up some
loose ends, meet a few deadlines--nothing too ambitious. We leave for two
weeks in Minnesota next Saturday, which is just enough to dissuade me from
trying to start any new projects just now.
In sum, it's been a terrific summer vacation for us
all so far, but it is flying past at 100 miles an hour. We still have a
month left, though, to squeeze out some more fun and relaxation.
Posted on
July 31, 2004:
Back in LA now, and we are all slowly
easing out of jetlag--I hope. The trip to Japan was a great success.
At the end we all wished we had an extra day or two more to stay on. I
spent the last several days up in Sendai, staying with Satoko and the kids at
her parents' house. Mostly, I spent my time there sprawled out on the
tatami mats, staring through the window at the lush garden outside. Very
relaxing, very nice.
Walter tracked down a couple of old friends from four years
ago, when he attended third grade in Sendai. Sonia hung out with her old
gang of girls from the neighborhood, too, and Satoko and I tracked down a
number of old friends, some of whom we hadn't seen in fifteen years. I
was also able to get a fair amount of research done, as well as catch up on
many current films in Japan (see "My Movie Challenge" below), buy a
huge stack of CDs (see "What I'm Listening To" below), browse the
shelves at bookstores, etc. I also managed to gain five pounds on the
trip, a pretty remarkable feat when you consider that the heat and humidity
largely stifled one's appetite.
We also learned while in Japan that there is a strong chance
that we will move to Tokyo for two years starting next summer. It's a
very exciting possibility for us all, and I hope to finalize the arrangements
in the coming few weeks. We haven't lived in Tokyo since 1989, and it is
perhaps my favorite city on earth. Stay tuned....
The coming week will see us host not one but two birthday
parties for the kids. Of course, I will also be trying to lose the Tokyo
addition to my waistline--no seconds on birthday cake for me.
Posted on
July 20, 2004:
Greetings from muggy, sweaty, sticky
Tokyo. We've been here in Japan for a week and a half now. The kids
are having a great time in Sendai, playing with their grandparents, and Satoko
is enjoying shopping in a land where her size is considered mainstream and
doesn't require visits to the petit section.
I've mostly been sweating it out in Tokyo, with a
brief weekend visit to Sendai to visit old friends and colleagues. I did
manage to get down to Nagoya one day to watch the sumo tournament -- and it
turned out to be a very exciting day indeed, as Tochiazuma defeated the great
yokozuna Asashôryû, much to the delight of the crowd. Other than that,
have been spending my time in libraries, bookstores, and other such places, trying
to catch up on some research. I've also been able to touch base with many
old friends, students, teachers, etc. Tomorrow night I'll be going to my
first-ever Japanese minor league baseball game at the Tokyo Dome, which is just
a ten-minute walk from my hotel. Satoko and the kids, meanwhile, will
spend tomorrow night at a hot springs resort near Sendai.
Now if the weather would only cooperate....It's been
very hot and muggy everyday in Tokyo so far, with no relief in sight yet.
Thank god for air conditioning.
Hope you are having a good summer, wherever you
are. We'll be back in LA toward the end of next week.
Posted on
July 7, 2004:
We had a lovely Fourth of July weekend
here, quite fun and relaxing. On Friday afternoon, I took Walter and a
friend to see Spiderman 2. On Saturday, we went to a nice barbeque
at a colleague's house. And on Sunday, we drove up to Lancaster to watch
a minor league baseball game: the Lancaster Jethawks against the Bakersfield Blaze, both of the Single A level California League. It's a nice little ballpark there, and it was completely sold
out. They had a flyover by two F-16s from nearby Edwards Airforce Base
after the national anthem, and fireworks at the end of the evening. We
even won two free tickets to a future game at the "Launch a Ball"
contest, and Sonia got to run around the bases following the game, along with
about five hundred other kids. Monday, my sister and her husband came
over for another barbeque: shishkebobs, quite tasty. So we've eaten
well, my friends.
Thursday, we leave for three weeks in Japan, our first
visit there in a year and a half. We're all looking forward to seeing old
friends and family. For me, it's sheer pleasure just to wander the
bookshops and CD stores, seeing what is new, what has faded, etc., etc.
I'll be doing my best to catch up on the latest Japanese films, as well.
And then there's the food. People say it's been a very hot and muggy
summer in Tokyo--as usual. Satoko and the kids will be staying mainly
with her family up in Sendai, while I'll be bouncing back and forth between there
and Tokyo, trying to get some research done.
Posted on
June 27, 2004:
I have nearly wrapped up the
administrative year-end business and am slowly (and thankfully) shifting to
summer vacation mode. I have a couple of book reviews to finish writing
in the coming weeks, am trying to get organized on a couple of conferences for
next year, and have to get ready for a research trip to Japan next
month. But I can come and go at the office as I please, very nice.
I am even able to set aside a little time for fiction writing, something I
haven't done in many months.
Other recent highlights: we went bowling
yesterday and Sonia ended up with the highest score in the family. After
that, I spent the afternoon trimming the trees around our house. And
today we went ice-skating--the first time I've been on ice skates since 1995, I
think. Now my body is sore in all sorts of places.....
Sonia and I have been reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder
books for the past year or two, and now we've started renting DVD versions of
the old Michael Landon TV series. The biggest change I've noticed is that
the television version erases the real poverty that is plainly evident in the
books. In The Long Winter, for example, Laura and her family come
close to actual starvation, and their father resorts to violence to get food to
keep his family alive. On the tube, though, they seem to live a
comfortable, bourgeois lifestyle: they talk about being short of money,
but they sure don't look it. Hmmm. Later in the summer, we'll visit
Lake Pepin in Wisconsin, site of the original "Little House in the Big
Woods."
Posted on
June 20, 2004:
Happy Father's Day to you all, even to
those of you who have never been fathers. We plan a quiet day at home;
there's a Japanese pro baseball game on TV Japan this afternoon that sounds just about my speed right
now. Tonight, Sonia promises to cook me dinner: I have to choose
between shish kebabs and Swedish meatballs.
We went to Sonia's first ballet recital last night, a
lovely affair. She attends a very
serious dance academy,
and they put on a first-rate show, with professional choreographers, costumes,
and sets--Aladdin even rode a flying carpet into the air! There was added
excitement because a celebrity was in attendance in the audience last night:
Fayard Nicholas of the fabulous Nicholas Brothers, fixtures at the Cotton Club in the 1930s and perhaps the
greatest tap dancing team of all time. Sonia performed her role, one of
the Pearls in "Aladdin" quite well.
Walter missed the recital to attend the bar mitzvah of
a friend, where he was able to play Blackjack to his heart's content. He
had a splendid time, he says. He doesn't seem to mind having missed his
little sister's dance performance.
Satoko is all done with her grading; I have a few grad
student papers left to read, but am nearly done. So we are easing into
summer vacation mode now. It's a nice feeling....
Posted on
June 16, 2004:
My 25th high school reunion back in Saint
Paul last weekend was a low key affair. The turn out was rather
disappointing (only about fifteen out of a class of seventyeight), but I did
enjoy good conversations with old friends, some of whom I hadn't seen since
graduation back in 1979. It's always interesting to pick up on people's
lives after a few decades, to see where they've been and what they've done with
themselves. The quick trip to Minnesota also allowed me to see family and
friends, though only briefly.
Then it was back to LA on Sunday, where I arrived with
a sore throat and woozy head. I stayed home from work on Monday -- along
with Sonia, who stayed home with similar symptoms. Then it was back to
work on Tuesday, as I try to finish up my grading, as well as my year-end tasks
as Director of Graduate Studies. I hope to wrap it all up by this
Friday.
The kids get out of school tomorrow, and Satoko is
already done with her grading. Summer vacation is so close, I can smell
it. We are all more than ready for it. It will start off with a
bang, too: Sonia's first ballet recital, scheduled for this Saturday.
Posted on
June 8, 2004:
It's that time of year: the two weeks of classes that for no good reason
are scheduled after Memorial Day here at UCLA. There's something morally
suspect about having to teach classes at the university level in the month of
June.....
But the end is in sight: the quarter ends this
Friday. And we are in the midst of a flurry of year-end musical
performances, ballet recitals, etc., for the kids.
Last weekend, we hosted a farewell party for a
colleague who is bound for Japan on a Fulbright. It was a fun evening
with the adults sitting around, chatting in unusually relaxed fashion, and the
kids running around like mad, having a fine old time of it. And now we
are gorging ourselves on leftover Thai food and fruit tarts.
This weekend, I'm off to Minnesota for a couple of
days to attend my 25th high school reunion, plus to see some family and
friends. It'll be just a quick pass through; our whole family will make a
more substantial visit in August, in time for the State Fair. At any
rate, I fly back to LA this Sunday, just in time to do my spring quarter
grading.
Posted on
May 29, 2004:
I didn't eat a single home-cooked supper this past week, a sign of the kind of
week it was. The week began with Naoki Sakai--one of my old professors
from Cornell--arriving here at UCLA to give a couple of talks. We had a
series of parties and dinners to welcome him. On Monday, he spoke as part
of a workshop on "Translating Universals: Theory Moves Across
Asia" that I helped organize: a very good session, with four quite
interesting papers. On Tuesday, he delivered a terrific talk on the
theory of translation and ethnolinguistic nationalism, followed by a lively
question-and-answer session. Wednesday night, our department held a
dinner honoring Robert Buswell, who is stepping down as our chair after nine
years of brilliant leadership. And Thursday night was Open House night at
Sonia's school.
Thank goodness we have a quiet Memorial Day weekend
planned. I brought home lots of work with me (undergraduate paper drafts
to grade, a Ph.D. dissertation to read, plus the usual stack of books and
articles), but at least I will be able to eat at home. The bowl of Rice
Krispies I had for breakfast today never tasted better....
A recent happy discovery: 103.1 FM here in Los
Angeles, an independent rock/punk/metal radio station that plays a wide range
of songs from the 1970s through today. Steve Jones, formerly of the Sex
Pistols, is their noontime deejay. He is joyful and avuncular, lecturing
the kiddies on the dangers of inauthenticity and on the wonders of a good rock
tune, all with tongue firmly in cheek.
Posted on
May 21, 2004:
Another hectic week of running hither and
thither, without a great deal to show for it. The conference on critical
geography in Korea last weekend was quite interesting. And I spent much
time this week brainstorming with colleagues at other schools about a series of
events over the next few years that will focus on Natsume Soseki's major work
of literary theory, Bungakuron (Theory of literature), first published
back in 1907.
The week began with a lecture at UCLA by Sumie Jones on shunga,
Edo-period erotic woodblock prints. The lecture was accompanied by some
rather striking illustrations.....Tuesday night, I was kindly invited by one of
my students to attend the UCLA Regent Scholars Society Faculty Dinner, a very
pleasant event. Wednesday I taught my seminar and had office hours--a
busy session this time, as students are starting to panic about their final
papers. Thursday's highlights included a trip to the dentist in the
morning and piano lessons in the evening. And Friday brought the week to
a rather jarring conclusion: we received a call at my office telling us
that our house alarm was going off. We raced home and found nothing
amiss: we'd forgotten to lock the back door and the wind had blown it
open. But our hearts were racing there for a few minutes....
Naoki Sakai, one of my old professors from Cornell, will be giving
two talks next week at UCLA. We will have a party at our house to welcome
him to Los Angeles. And we are all waiting for summer vacation,
impatiently.
Posted on
May 10, 2004:
Much of our past weekend was spent trying
to decide what to do with the rest of our lives: we were given an
opportunity to start over from scratch in a new country, as I was offered a
position at a university on the other side of the world. It was an
attractive possibility, and we came close to accepting it. But in the
end, we decided to stay at UCLA. I have terrific colleagues and students
here that would be very hard to leave-- they make they strain and stress of
life in Los Angeles bearable. We will concentrate instead on piecing
together a more human way of life here.
With that decision behind us, we can start looking forward again.
I think the next few years will be very exciting ones. There are a number
of long-term projects that I can start actively pursuing now, which is a good
feeling.
When we weren't tormenting ourselves over our decision, we
had a nice weekend. On Saturday, we all went to a nice bar mitzvah for
one of Walter's classmates--we ate and danced and chatted all night long.
We spent a quiet Mother's Day at home -- I barbequed chicken for supper and
Satoko and I shared a bottle of champagne.
And today it was back to work, for week six of spring
quarter. This weekend I'll be participating in the Constructed Places/Contested Spaces: Critical Geographies in
Korea conference
organized by Tim Tangherlini, which looks to be terrific.
Posted on
April 24, 2004:
This past week brought us a rather
startling development that I can't discuss in any detail here--sorry to be so
dramatic and mysterious about it. At any rate, we have been presented
with an opportunity to leap into a drastically new lifestyle, one that might
well be better for all of us. Like all major changes, this one presents
itself as both attractive and terrifying, and the decision we have to make now
has left me utterly discombobulated (a word I like to use whenever the occasion
arises, since it arises so infrequently). We will spend the next two
weeks or so thinking hard about what is really important in life: if
nothing else, this development has given us a chance to go back and rethink
first principles, always a good thing to do.
Other than that, a mostly quiet but busy week. Walter
missed a day of school feeling a bit under the weather, Sonia and I resumed our
piano lessons after a brief hiatus, and we started our weekend off last night
by barbequing steaks in the backyard. A fairly quiet weekend is
planned: Sonia has her ballet lessons and a birthday party today, Walter
and Satoko have their aikido lessons tomorrow, and I have (surprise surprise)
work to do.
Hope you are all fine and healthy and happy, wherever
you may be.
Posted on
April 18, 2004:
We brought Satoko's parents to LAX this
morning and saw them off on their return to Japan. It was sad to say
goodbye, of course, but we had a great time with them during their three weeks
here, and we expect to see them again in just a few months, when we visit Japan
this summer. For the kids, the visit was a great chance to reconnect with
their Japanese grandparents, whom they hadn't seen in nearly a year-and-a-half.
Walter got to go on many long walks with his grandfather, while Sonia worked
with her grandmother to put together a whole slew of jigsaw puzzles. We
got the rare chance to celebrate Easter with them, as well.
One of the highlights of the visit for me was bringing
Walter and his Japanese grandfather to Dodger Stadium a week ago Saturday to
see Hideo Nomo pitch a nifty game and beat the Rockies. Both the Dodgers
and the Angels are off to a good start this year, as are the Twins, who
continue to win despite suffering an unbelievable string of injuries. And
now that we've subscribed to TV Japan, I even get to watch Japanese baseball
every now and then. Summer's here in spirit--if not in letter, since
Spring quarter at UCLA still has eight weeks to go.
And now it's back to the usual routine, just the kids
and us. I have to teach one more week in my graduate seminar, after which
the students go off on their own to write their papers, so things will ease up
a bit after this week -- I hope.
Posted on
April 10, 2004:
UCLA's Spring quarter began this week. I'm teaching a
freshman seminar on cinema in East Asia, my first attempt at teaching a film
class, plus the continuation of my graduate seminar from last quarter on
discourses of the family in Meiji fiction. There will also be a good deal
of administrative work to take care of in the graduate studies program.
Satoko will be busy too--for the first time, she is teaching first-year
Japanese in addition to her usual second-year Japanese classes. Spring
quarter is always the hardest to teach (and, I imagine, to enroll in as a
student): our classes go until mid June, and it's very hard to convince
anyone that we have any business being in the classroom past Memorial Day.
Satoko's
parents are here for one more week. Last weekend, we drove down to
Carlsbad to see the Flower Fields there and to partake in the Strawberry
Festival. We also went out to dinner at Gladstone's on Will Roger's State
Beach--and miraculously got a seaside window table. The kids were on
spring break this past week and enjoyed having the chance to spend time with
their Japanese grandparents. This weekend, the male contingent is off to
see the Dodgers play tonight, and then of course a visit from the Easter Bunny
is expected tomorrow.
The kids go
back to school on Monday morning, so it will be back to the usual rushed
routine for all of us then.
Posted on
Apr. 1, 2004:
Returned to LA yesterday from several days in Iowa City--a town that reminds me
very much of Ithaca, New York, where I spent my graduate student days (except,
of course, Iowa City is flatter and has fewer waterfalls). I had a nice
time in Iowa, met some good people whose work I had known for years, and even
saw a few snowflakes. While there, I ate my first bleu cheese sushi,
which was not nearly as bad as it sounds.
Satoko's parents are here from Japan for a few weeks
now, the first time we've seen them in more than a year. The kids are
enjoying the chance to spend time with their Japanese grandparents, of
course. Friday, we will take them to Sonia's school for the annual
"Spring Sing" concert.
It is supposed to be Spring Break for us at UCLA this week,
but what with my trip to Iowa and a large number of administrative tasks to be
performed in the coming days, it doesn't feel like much of a vacation. On
top of everything else, I'm trying desperately to get ready to reach a brand
new class next quarter, a small freshman seminar on cinema in East Asia.
If I'm lucky, I'll have the syllabus ready tomorrow, a mere five days before
the first class meeting. Such is life in the big city.
Posted on
Mar. 21, 2004:
Back in LA now after a quite lovely visit to New Zealand--my first time ever
across the equator. And no, I have reported to my children, I didn't feel
the blood rushing to my head from having to stand upside down all the time, nor
did I notice the water swirling in the opposite direction when I flushed the
toilet. Auckland is a beautiful city, and we were greeted with generally
fine weather. I met a number of very interesting people at the University
there, and spent much time walking the friendly streets of the city.
The family seems to have survived in my absence with
only minor mishaps--including a day when the stoplight at the intersection of
Mulholland and Beverly Glen was on the blink, meaning Walter got to school
twenty minutes late. Such is life in the big city.
Here at UCLA, we are now in finals week. Luckily
I only have a smattering of grading to do this quarter (I am not, however,
looking forward to the end of spring quarter, when I will have a large number
of student seminar papers to read through). I am looking forward to
visits by old friends from Miyagi University of Education on Monday, and then
next Saturday Satoko's parents will arrive for a three-week visit. And it
will be Satoko's birthday on Tuesday, so I expect I have some baking of cakes
ahead of me in my short-term future.
Posted on
Mar. 13, 2004:
Another busy week
for all of us. I hit the ground running on Monday, with a day-long
workshop in the "Translating Universals: Theory Moves Across
Asia" series that I helped organized. It was a very good session,
with interesting papers and discussion. Among the papers was one on the
literary critic Kobayashi Hideo and his conception of
"Japanese-ness," which was presented by Richard Calichman (City
College of New York), an old friend from Cornell. The workshop was
followed by a late-afternoon lecture on "Absolute Erotic, Absolute
Grotesque" by Mark Driscoll (University of North Carolina), yet another
old friend from Cornell. The lecture was funny, sophisticated, and
exciting: it suggested new ways to conceptualize the relationship between
Japan's growing empire and its ero-guro-nonsense culture from the 1920s and
30s.
Classes are winding down at UCLA, and Satoko and I are both
looking forward to spring break, when her parents will come to visit. The
kids had another busy week of aikido practice, piano lessons, choral
rehearsals, etc., etc. And if you visit my office these days, you're
almost certain to find me listening to the Twins' spring training games over
the Internet.....
The coming week should be exciting: I am off on my
first visit to New Zealand later today. I'll be giving a talk at
the University of Auckland next Wednesday, and I look forward to seeing the
place and meeting the faculty and students there. I'll be back here in
Los Angeles on Saturday, just in time to do my grading for winter quarter
Posted on
Mar. 6, 2004:
A week of many events. Walter spent
Monday through Wednesday on a class trip to Catalina Island, where he seems to
have had a great time snorkeling, kayaking, hiking, etc. Sonia learned
that she would be her class "student of the week" next week.
And Satoko traveled down to San Diego for the Association of Teachers of
Japanese annual meeting on Thursday.
In between all of this, I hosted the "Nikkei Bruin
Conference on Japanese Popular Music," which was great fun. Good
papers from all of the participants -- E. Taylor Atkins (Northern Illinois
University), Michael Molasky (University of Minnesota), Loren Kajikawa (UCLA),
Mark Anderson (University of Minnesota) and Christine Yano (University of
Hawai'I at Manoa). My own paper on Kurosawa Akira and Kasagi Shizuko went
smoothly, and I received useful feedback that will help me as I pursue the
project. All in all, a very pleasant experience.
Then, on Thursday, I learned that I had been awarded a
2004-2005 University of California President's Fellowship in the Humanities,
meaning I will be able to devote most of next year to my research, rather than
teach. Very good news indeed!
On top of that, baseball spring training is underway (I
listened to the Twins' game on Friday), the rain has stopped, the sun has come
out, and they tell us temperatures here will be in the 80s tomorrow. We have another workshop in our
"Translating Universals: Theory Moves Across Asia" series
scheduled for next Monday, and a lecture by Mark Driscoll (University of North
Caroline) scheduled for the same day, so it will be another busy week.
Posted on
Feb. 28, 2004:
It was a cold and rainy week here in
LA--though thankfully we are back to warm sunshine now. The week began on
Monday with a very interesting lecture from Thomas Keirstead of Indiana
University on the great historian Amino Yoshihiko and his impact since the
1970s in creating an entirely new image of Japan's medieval period:
shifting the focus away from feudal lords, warriors, and peasants and recentering
our understanding of the period instead on other groups: women, artisans,
artists, outcasts, etc. As Prof. Keirstead demonstrated, Amino's
creative redefinition of the past has permeated to all levels of contemporary
Japanese culture--popular, mass, middle-brow and elite.
The week ended with the sad news that Amino died on
Friday in Tokyo after a battle with cancer. I only had the chance to see
him speak once, back when I was a graduate student. But we will all be
carrying on his legacy for many years to come.
I spent my work time during the week throwing together
the paper that I will present next Wednesday at the UCLA Nikkei Bruin Conference on Japanese Popular
Music, which I hope will be a fun and
interesting event. Mainly for reasons of exhaustion, I've decided to pass
up the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies next weekend in San
Diego, though Satoko will go down there for a day to attend the Association of
Teachers of Japanese meetings, held concurrently.
Now if the weather will only stay nice....
Posted on Feb. 21, 2004:
Walter went to his first bar mitzvah this past weekend, a swank
affair with a party held in the clubroom at Dodger's Stadium. I made sure
to walk through the joint as I dropped him off and picked him--it being, after
all, highly unlikely I'll ever have the chance to go there again!
On Monday evening my sister and her husband babysat,
and Satoko and I went to see the UCLA Nikkei Student Association's annual
Culture Night. The taiko drummers stole the show, as is their wont.
It went on a bit long (3+ hours!), but it was fun to see our students full of
energy and laughter--a bit different from how they look in the classroom....
Tuesday, Sonia was sick with a cough, so I stayed home with
her, a nice chance to spend some time together. And on Friday, I managed
to slam my right index finger in a car door. It's about the ugliest thing
you'd ever want to see, the fingernail broken in half, all the skin purplish,
and dried blood everywhere. It makes typing this message, among other
things, quite challenging. Sigh.
Two bits of good news to help me keep
going: Dave Davies said in a radio interview this past week that he and
brother Ray would reform the Kinks and tour this year. And the Twins'
pitchers and catchers report to spring training tomorrow.
The project that will dominate my life for the next
week: trying to throw together my paper on film director Kurosawa Akira
and jazz singer Kasagi Shizuko, which I'm supposed to present at a conference
here in about ten days. No rest for the wicked.
Posted on Feb. 14, 2004:
Happy Valentine's Day to one and all!
The week began with an interesting lecture by Miryam
Sas from UC-Berkeley on Japanese experimental theater and art, unpacking the
various ways different artists theorized the encounter between specatator and
artwork as a site for potential destabilization. We had a very pleasant
evening out on the town with Miryam and our graduate students the night before,
as well.
I finished up my stint of lecturing on Japanese
postwar society and culture in the General Education course I am
co-teaching. I got to show the videoclip from 101st Proposal, the
hit 1991 tv series, where the hero throws himself in front of an oncoming truck
to prove his love to the heroine: one of the great cheesy moments in
television history. I am constantly looking for excuses to show it to
people. Anyhow, the students seemed to enjoy it.
The rest of the week was spent writing applications,
managing graduate admissions, etc. I spend more and more of my time
as an administrator these days, which inevitably squeezes out the time I have
for research and teaching. The fate of all university faculty, I
suppose.
Finally, the special "Japan" issue of BigCityLit.com that I helped guest edit is now available, including some
translations I did of Kikaku's haiku. Check it out--some very cool stuff there
Posted on Feb. 8. 2004:
Another busy
week that flew past. I am in the midst of my section of the team-taught
Freshman cluster course on East Asian urban popular culture. I had a very
subtle lecture worked out for last Monday's class on the problems of
emasculation and castration anxiety for Japanese men under the U.S.
Occupation--all developed out of a close reading of the opening scene from
Kurosawa's 1949 film, "Stray Dog," which I was going to show
first Then, of course, the video projector didn't work in the actual
lecture, so I find myself standing up there in front of 120 freshmen, wondering
if I should act out the scene or what. So instead, I just blurt
out,"Well, it's all about castration," and get the oddest look from
the class. Luckily, Wednesday's lecture, on early postwar popular music,
went better. Tomorrow, I do my last lecture for this quarter, on Japanese
consumerism and popular culture since the 1970s.
Walter went to his first chess tournament in many months on
Saturday afteroon. He didn't come home with a trophy, but fared pretty
well against tough competition. It was good to see the old chess parents
crowd again. Then, on Sunday, he passed through his first test in Aikido,
so that he is now officially ranked in that world.
Sonia and I started taking piano lessons together last
month. For the first few weeks, I was holding my own, but last week she
basically lapped me. I'm still trying to figure out the intricacies of
"London Bridge" and "Go Tell Aunt Rhody," while she's
blazing ahead into songs with titles like "Allegretto."
Sigh.
Finally, the special "Japan" issue of BigCityLit.com
that I helped guest edit is now available, including some translations I did of
Kikaku's haiku.
Check it out--some very cool stuff there.
Posted on Jan. 31, 2004:
The week was bookended with two very interesting lectures at
UCLA. On Monday, Takeyuki Tsuda (Comparative Immigration Studies, UC-San
Diego) spoke about the experiences of recent ethnic-Japanese immigrants from
Brazil to Japan--and about how the experience tends to reinforce their sense of
identity as Brazilian, rather than as Japanese.
Then on Friday, Prasenjit Duara (History, University
of Chicago) spoke on "Decolonization: From a Postcolonial
Perspective," also a very useful talk, based on his forthcoming edited
volume, Decolonization: Rewriting Histories, a reader of classic
and recent essays on the problem of decolonization. His point, as I
understood it, was to stress the importance of capturing and recording the
idealism that drove decolonization around the world in the
mid-twentieth-century, an idealism that is now rapidly vanishing in the wake of
the seemingly unstoppable triumph of capitalist globalization and an idealism
that may contains hints for new modes of action and agency that may prove more
useful than abstract postcolonial theory.
Otherwise, much of the week was spent on the
administrative duties of being Director of Graduate Studies for our
department: managing the admissions process, revising our graduate
program requirements, etc. That will continue in the coming week, with a
major funding proposal due. And on top of that, the coming two weeks mark
the "Japan" portion of the cluster course, "Politics, Society
and Urban Culture in East Asian," that I am co-teaching--meaning I have to
write and deliver three lectures on Japanese culture since 1945. So much
for having the weekend off.....
Posted on Jan 24, 2004:
A hectic
week--meaning, more of the same-old same old. It started off with a very
pleasant visit to the Thai temple in North Hollywood, just a couple of miles
from our house. Every weekend there, they set up a dozen or so food
booths offering pad thai, satay, green papaya salad, fried plaintains and fried
sweet potatoes, etc. It's a bit like going to a Japanese matsuri, very
cheap and delicious. Quite nice!
Then it was into the usual school routine for the
week, plus the ordinary crisis management that comes with being Director of
Graduate Studies, conference organizer, etc. We should find out in the
coming days just how much our graduate student budget has been cut for next
year -- we seem to be one of Gov. Terminator's favorite punching bags.
And in between it all, I've been trying to watch the
sumo tournament that will come to an end late tonight. I even broke down
and subscribed to TV Japan so I can watch the matches live. Going into
the tournament two weeks back, everyone was talking about ozeki (champion)
Tochiazuma, the winner of the last tournament: if he won this tournament
with a record of at least 13-2, he would be promoted to yokozuna (grand
champion, the highest rank). This all connects back to the ongoing soap
opera of Asashoryu, the sole current yokozuna, who is not only Mongolian,
but--to make matters worse--refuses to bow and grovel before the powers-that-be
in the Sumo Association. And so of course they are desperate to get
another yokozuna, one who is both Japanese and docile. Alack the day,
Tochiazuma bombed out (he is 8-5 as of yesterday), and to make matters worse
Asashoryu has completely dominated the tournament (13-0 as of yesterday).
None of his opponents have even been able to make the matches
interesting. Asashoryu is clearly the best wrestler since the great Chiyonofuji--and
he's really rubbing it into the noses of the Sumo Association this
tournament. (Update on 1/25/04:
Asashoryu went to a 15-0 victory in the tournament, the first perfect score in
nearly eight years.)
Posted on Jan. 17, 2004:
As I write
this, I'm listening via the Reel
Radio Top 40 Radio Archive to Casey
Kasem's "American Top 40" radio show from January 20, 1973, first
broadcast when I was twelve years old and a confirmed AM radio addict -- KDWB
and WDGY were my homes-away-from-home back in junior high school in St.
Paul. Like you, I was a lonely adolescent, and often found solace in late
night deejays and in the passion (love or hatred) that top 40 songs produced.
Many of the songs are classics I've heard over and over in the years since --
Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man," Curtis Mayfield's "Superfly,"
or Paul McCartney & Wings' "Hi Hi Hi" -- and it's great to hear
them again. But it's a spinetingling experience to hear the utterly
forgettable songs that I haven't encountered in thirty years, songs I once knew
by heart but that quickly vanished into wherever it is that pop ephemera
disappears to: Hurricane Smith's "Oh Babe, What Would You
Say?," Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Clare," Johnny Rivers'
"Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu," or Donna Fargo's
"Funny Face." That's why pop songs are so damned
important--they literally get under your skin and stay there, lying dormant for
decades, until they unexpectedly resurface one day and bring tears to your
eyes.
Anyhow, it's back to the usual routine here, teaching the
freshman cluster course on East Asian and my graduate seminar (the topic this
year: discourses of the family in literature from the Meiji
period). I'm also managing our department's graduate admissions process
for the first time, a process made more challenging by impending but undefined
budget cuts.
Posted on Jan. 11, 2004:
The theme of
the week was trying to squeeze a few more days of pleasure out of the holidays
before returning to the usual grind. We conveniently ignored the fact
that Satoko and I had to return to teaching as of last Thursday and instead
tried to spend as much family-and-friends time as possible. Earlier today
we had an old friend over for brunch, and then in the evening my sister and her
husband stopped by for a belated Christmas/New Year celebration.
Sonia and I have started taking piano lessons
together. I've wanted for many years to learn how to play, and this gives
the two of us a chance to spend some father-daughter time together every
week. Plus, our teacher is Japanese, so we get bonus language practice at
no extra charge. In the meanwhile, Satoko has started taking Aikido lessons,
alongside Walter.
It was an up-and-down beginning of the year for one of
my heroes, Kinks' leader Ray Davies. He was granted a "Commander of
the British Empire" award by the Queen on New Year's Day, an honor second
only to a full knighthood--and then got shot a few days later in New Orleans,
trying to break up a mugging. He wasn't hurt seriously, thank God.
A police spokesman was quoted in one news outlet as saying that Ray showed poor
judgment in going after the robbers. What a surprise--Ray Davies showing
poor judgment!
Posted on Jan. 3, 2004:
It was a
quiet New Year's Eve in our house. I spent most of the day in a panic,
trying to finish up my referee's report on a book manuscript for a university
press--I'd promised to send it by the end of the month. But at 5:00 it
was done; I raced off to the post office and got it in the mail in time for the
Dec. 31 postmark, so I went into the year end with a small feeling of
accomplishment--or, at least, of relief. For supper, we grilled Omaha
steaks (which Santa Claus brought us) and a few minutes before midnight we had
our Japanese "toshikoshi" soba noodles. Sonia conked out about
11:30, but the rest of us rocked in the New Year in the company of Dick Clark,
who looks a little worse every year (perhaps he shares surgeons with Michael Jackson?).
We finally dragged ourselves off to bed around one o'clock.
On New Year's Day, we had a feast: Satoko prepared
"Osetchi ryori" (Japanese New Year's food), including my personal
request for torikaraage (fried chicken), which may not be purely
traditional. All afternoon, we watched the "Kohaku uta gassen,"
the annual song-and-dance spectacular show on NHK. The white team (the
boys) won this year, hands down, much to the consternation of Sonia, who was
rooting for the red.
UCLA classes start up again next week (already!), but we're
trying to squeeze in a few more visits with friends. Hope your New Year
is off to a good start -- and that 2004 brings us all a better world than 2003
did.
(Entries
for the year 2005 can be found here; those for 2003 can be found here.)