Our Man in Abiko's Blog, page 21

BACK TO SCHOOL FOR OUR MAN

As Our Man types this little note, Our Woman is feverishly sewing the last stitches in a bag for Our Littlest One's earthquake protection hat (see pic here) that all elementary school kids are issued with, but hopefully will never need. Again.

And it's back to school for Our Man. The sweatfest of August is history, and he can get on with the important stuff. Like, er, well lots of stuff. He's got an outline of his next essay. It's about Tokyo Disneyland. Well, it's ostensibly about the place, but it's more about North Korea; the crossovers between capitalism and communism; and the nature of slavery. Something for everyone. Er, that is, it's a small world after all, eh readers?

And Our Man should really get back into following what's going on over here politically. There are a couple of things that have finally got through his thick skull:

The Japanese government is less a ship of state than a fibre-glass swan paddle boat adrift in the Abikan inland sea.And the opposition is no better.Where does that leave Japan?When the Yomiuri Shimbun drops the opposition Liberal Democratic Party to go courting Hashimoto, the "charismatic" "unaligned" "populist" "nutjob", and you can actually see why...... then you know we are in trouble.Our Man humbly suggests we all ought to sit up and make sure our papers are in order. Shisaku has an excellent post about the rise of Hashimoto -- yes H-san is a Comfort Women Denier. See also this excellent piece about Hashimoto by Spike Japan, rapidly becoming Our Man's favourite essayist. Well, of essayists who are still alive at least. Speaking of which, it's about time that Armchair Asia rose from the dead and weighed in too, the political dialogue here has veered, no doubt much to her dismay, into her territory. 
Abiko expects.
Well, you have your orders, what are you waiting for? Carry on.

SUPERHUMANS UNITED

There's another Olympics thing going on, only this time it looks a lot more worthwhile (if you click on the link here you can watch a really moving video promoting the Paralympics that the pic is lifted from).  Our Man watched the explosions and thought about the limbs being blown off and wondered: do disfigured Afghani civilians get to compete against maimed NATO troops? Because that would sure as hell be some powerful healing-the-differences-that-divide-us-through-sport shit.

Or is this just another chance to tot up how many medals our nation gets against others? Our Man hopes that all the struggles the Paralympians have gone through cement a sense of unity rather than national division. Not being in Blighty he has no reliable way of reading the local mood, but he hopes it won't become another exercise in flag waving, as the bunting on the athletes' shirts implies.

Carry on.

ROUTINE CREATIVITY

“When you're a kid, if you watch 'The Jeffersons' with your family at seven o'clock, it seems like a natural phenomenon, like the sun setting. The universe is a strange, strange place when all of a sudden you can't use your glass with the Bionic Woman on it any more.” ― Heather O'Neill,  Lullabies for Little Criminals
Our Man said to himself he would take August off, and he has. And it's been Hell -- he hasn't written a thing worth keeping. He's coming round to the view that far from being constraining, routine is vital to creativity. Or put it this way, if he doesn't force himself to sit down in front of the computer for at least an hour or two every day, he just doesn't write. Without that discipline to stick to the routine, the routine distractions of life take over.

So be it. 
From September, Our Man is gonna grab that work ethic like a Puritan in heat, and dust off a few projects that have been tugging at his heart, including:An essay on Tokyo Disneyland. He can barely bring himself to write it as his feelings toward the place are as, how you say, conflicted as those he has toward the Olympics, Japanese school sports days and North Korea. But write it he must as the research involved will provide background fodder for...The sequel to Hana Walker's Half-Life 2:46... codenamed Escape. Our Man has already written the bare bones of Chapter 1 -- as a 500-word short story for Kimie Cat's fiction contest; he knows how the book's gonna end and he's got the hang of using italics, so the rest is just about routine, aka putting-backside-in-chair-and-getting-off-twitter.Inputting corrections to Half-Life and How to Write About Japan (notably confusion between a moose and a mousse) and exploring non-Amazon ways to get the books out, including...Publishing a print version of Half-Life.Start work on a long-term literary-ish project, so dastardly, so unlikely, so half-baked that it doesn't even have a code name yet.BTW, Our Man took this pic late last night on the meander home in the tunnel under the tracks that Hana Walker ran barefoot through in her book, as Our Man is sure you all remember, ahem.
Carry on.

TOKYO QUAKE STORY

Our Man is back in the bunker and first item in the overflowing in-box is this rather good documentary from last year that Our Man was lucky enough to be featured in. Matt Schley did a lovely job of pulling this all together a month or so after the quake and just released it for public consumption last week.

Things have changed of course since the movie was shot and Herr Schley was good enough to do a postscript interview in which Our Man was given free rein to say what he thought now that a decent chunk of time has passed. Our Man would only add to THAT INTERVIEW that he is not nearly as critical of the foreign media as the documentary might make him appear.

Our Man would rather err on the side of sensationalism than suck up a bucket of government propaganda any day.

Anyway, make of it all what you will. Carry on.

NO DEBRIEFING FOR A WHILE

Our Man is going deep undercover for a week or so. If he can post an update or two without compromising himself, he'll happily debrief you, as and when.

Carry on.

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS WITH VAGUELY OLYMPIC THEME

Things that happened to Our Man today.
He had to talk knowledgeably about the Olympics for one hour and ten minutes (Oh, so now you think you can run for Pres? - ed.)To celebrate this gold medal of an achievement, Our Man ordered a mixed pizza, a Caesar salad and a draught beer from his local Gasto - think Little Chef  (if you are familiar with the ways they try to kill you in Britain).Our Man is desperately trying to find meaning in this stream of consciousness, but if he doesn't make it at least he has avoided watching Japanese muscly teens falling on gym mats that is keeping Our Woman, if not engrossed, then awake between scouring the twitter for signs of intelligent life.It may be that the Olympics will provide some meaning to this post, but beyond the hype of the opening ceremony, which Our Man missed, he has little to say. That is, if you enjoy the Olympics, it would be churlish of him to criticise. Other than everything about it. Sure, Our Man thinks the Olympics are fascism lite, but they are at least in a recognisable place to him -- London -- even if the font is messed up. And he would like the old homeland to acquit itself well on the world stage.But that doesn't mean he has to watch it.Our Man did find himself savouring the reposte from David Cameron of all people to Mitt Romney's kak-handed slagging of London's Olympic preparations: "We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities in the world. Of course it's easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere." Touche, Mormon-boy. See what nationalism does?But Our Man will refrain from overslagging Romney because who enjoys snotty-nosed foreigners getting the wrong end of the stick and coming off as out of touch?Certainly not Our Man.*Oh, and if you only watch one Olympic vid this summer, make sure it's this one. Genuinely moving, and gave Our Man pause in his usually steady flow of cynicism.

Carry on.

*Thinking you know more than the locals is a dangerous thing. As amusing as the video is from Our Brothers and Sisters at the Guardian, remember when the paper decided to try to influence the 2004 US elections by getting a bunch of smug British champagne socialist readers to lecture folks in swing US races on why they shouldn't vote Republican? Yep. You can imagine how successful that was.

MIDNIGHT RAMBLINGS ON PUBLISHING

Just a few notes from Our Man's blotter you might be interested in...
Our Man has yet to see a penny from all his publishing activities, and when he does they will be less in the order of a tea and scones at the Ritz than a trip to McDonald's, but still...Doing the self-publishing thing is more fun than you could shake a stick at. That is, if you share the same definition of fun as Our Man: working into the wee hours on a pet project that few others can see the point of, challenging yourself, getting over your fear of making an ass of yourself in public, trying things that work, trying things that don't, creating a book you are proud of, creating one you know is not perfect, but is the best you can do at the time, making the odd enemy, making the odd friend. And picking up the odd review. Like this one here from Nictos, who could be described as the sempai, or at least the odd friend Our Man has never met. Something he must rectify before long.Our Man is learning the self-publishing biz as he goes by trial and error. He's getting the hang of the mechanics of formatting a book, what copy flow to follow and what more he needs to learn.And there is much he still must learn, which he will--no doubt the hard way.But right now, he's just concentrating on getting more writing fit for human consumption. Other projects include two or three more posts from this blog that Our Man reckons would make good 99-cent essays on Amazon; the sequel to Hana Walker's Half-Life; and a collaborative book with Our Woman in Abiko for the Japanese market. Kindle is coming to Japan soon, you know, and Kobo is already here...And no, Our Man didn't make the Man Booker longlist this year again. There's always next year.

HOW TO WRITE ABOUT JAPAN: THE TRUTH. KINDA

Our Man's latest book is available now. Well, it's an ebook. Well, an essay. But it is available now. And it's really cheap. Er value for money. Click HERE for details. Carry on.

CURSE OF THE NEWSPAPER HACK

Our Man really doesn't want to be the sanctimonious ass, but seems it's a role he has no choice but to play. And he's quite good at it, even if he says so himself. Well, he gets so much practice.

The above story (screen grabbed from the Irish Independent before it gets deleted like the original was) didn't offend Our Man exactly -- Lord knows he's been ordered to write worse in his years as an ink-stained wretch. He knows exactly how such tripe gets produced -- there's a big story and the editor wants every angle covered. The deputy editor knows he is a talentless brown-noser but has to justify his inflated salary somehow, so orders that panels be written. Ooh, there's a Batman angle to the massacre! Do a panel on The Curse of Batman! Tasteless? Utter, utter horseshit? Doesn't matter, just do it, if you know what your job's worth...

Our Man knows exactly what that job is worth. Nothing. That the story was written by the Daily Telegraph, a broadsheet, with sub-editors and layers of pros who are supposed to ensure quality... and this gets through... well. They will bleat it's the internet's fault because they've had to skimp on their sub-editors to compete with the semi-pro hacks out there. Our Man doesn't buy this argument. Shite like this gets through not despite the system, but because of it.

Our Man has long argued that the time is up for newspapers, but today he finally sees the myth of the gatekeeper as bastion of quality is just that: a toothless myth. So, to hell with The Telegraph. To hell with the gatekeepers.

Newspapers, your time is up. It's time we the people wrote our own journalism. Now, if you'll excuse Our Man, he's gonna do just that RIGHT HERE .

WHO IS HANA WALKER?

So, here Our Man answers the vital questions of the day: Who is Hana Walker? What's it mean to grow up a hafu in Japan and why does K-pop beat J-pop? (Someone tell that piano player to learn a new tune - ed.)