aya's travels

Day Four: tourist day

2011-11-16T17:13:00.001-05:00

After meeting with an international tax accountant, we found ourselves out and about in Tokyo so we decided to go to Asakusa, then take a boat down the Sumida River.

Day Three Tokyo

2011-11-15T08:58:00.001-05:00

This morning as I was walking to my brother's house, I came upon the typical sight of plastic water bottles, full of water, placed along the street corner.

Japanese people do this because they think it will keep stray cats away, keep them from peeing in that area. I've never read any evidence about this actually working as a deterrent but people do it anyway. One of those strange things about the Japanese -- among many.

I also came across a small patch of preserved green space in between several large apartment complexes.

The little shrine was in the center of the green space.

Here is the view from the hospital ward.

In the evening I met up with Mari at my favorite restaurant, Nakamuraya. It was actually in a temporary space next door as they were reconstructing their old entire building. They said it was going to take 4 years to complete. Here's my favorite dish, the Napolitano. It is not really Italian, kind of Chinese. A tomato/pork/clam broth with flat and curly egg noodles. YUMMERS!

Mari is actually preggers (4 - 5 onths) and after dinner she still wanted dessert so we went to this crazy fruit palace and had parfaits...

Dessert cost as much, maybe more, than our meals! But it was worth it!

Day Two: Brother

2011-11-14T19:16:00.001-05:00

It was a busy day, first running errands, then going back to the hospital, then out to lunch and an onsen.

Here's the bicycle shop:

Here is the ramen spot. yummy!

the actual ramen:

Tokyo Trip Day One

2011-11-13T15:56:00.001-05:00

Sorry I've neglected this blog for so long. I had a baby, and then there was travel, but always too harried to document.

I'm in Tokyo now, staying with my friend Shirotama. Below are Shirotama's 21 year old cat Mapu, and the amazing uni dinner we had... yum!

A Week on Fire Island

2009-08-25T14:13:00.001-04:00

And our second wedding....

2009-08-05T17:24:00.002-04:00

Trip to California for an Ogawa family reunion and second wedding. fyi I'm 7 months pregnant in these pix!

Moon of Honey

2009-04-09T10:14:00.002-04:00

We got back from St. Martin. Not much to say except it was amazing and beautiful and we definitely want to go back! the pictures speak for themselves....

Off to St. Martin

2009-04-02T16:54:00.003-04:00

Oh hello.
By the way, I got married a few weeks ago.
I'm going on my honeymoon to St. Martin tomorrow. Boy am I looking forward to nothing but beachiness.

Mah Jongg Christmas!

2008-12-25T23:13:00.004-05:00

This morning we gave everybody their gifts: We'd gotten Milo this awesome Paul Frank hoodie with dinosaur scales up the center of the hood; a digital photo display for the parents; a Muji document holder for Karin; and a book for Melvin.

Then we played tennis. It was a really beautiful day, so warm and sunny!

Last night we'd dug up an old set of mah-jongg tiles and looked up the rules on the internet. Tonight we played three rounds. So fun!
It's actually a lot like the game Beanie, which I've been obsessed with for years...

I can't believe Irwin won the last game!!

Christmas in Nashville

2008-12-24T13:14:00.007-05:00

I'm spending Christmas holiday with the Taiwanese atheists in Nashville, Tennessee, the Chen family!
Because we are combining this trip with our trip to Monterey, our flight to Nashville was broken into two legs.
The weather here is pretty unseasonably warm but grey and rainy.

This morning we went shopping for paella ingredients with Irwin's parents Fu-Ming and Katherine and Milo, Irwin's almost 2-year-old nephew, who is, hands-down, the star of the family. He is so articulate and lucid! He is the best.

We decided that this would be a good time for Milo to get a haircut.

End result:
CUTE!

Why is smoking healthy in Europe?

2008-10-20T16:11:00.003-04:00

Sure, the cigarette packs still say stuff like "SMOKING KILLS" (in the native language of course) but that doesn't stop men, women, boys and girls, grandmas and grandpas from smoking everywhere and anywhere! It kind of reminded me of Japan in the 1980s where people smoked everywhere, in restaurants, departments stores, train stations, etc. (Now, you can hardly smoke anywhere in Japan except in little designated boxes). In the guidebook I had on Spain, it said that they had finally passed a law that made it illegal to smoke in restaurants -- but I did not see this law enforced anywhere I ate.

There is something amazing about the different mentality of how to enjoy life in Spain, though. The nation-wide (mandatory) siesta from 2pm - 5pm. Wine with lunch, party til 2am. Play is as important as work -- whereas in NY it feels as though play IS work. I feel like the smoking thing is part of it. Smoking in NY, it's like you are an evil anti-social person who is going to die imminently of horrible cancer, versus smoking in Spain, you are a lover of life and enjoy yourself like anybody else. Irwin thinks it's the difference between the guilt-ridden puritanical thinking of Protestants and the Catholics (whose guilt is absolved on a regular basis?).

Asian in Europe

2008-10-08T14:42:00.003-04:00

I saw Vicky Christina Barcelona with Irwin last week, after we returned from Spain. Asides from what I thought about the film on an artistic level, what struck me was (and as in most Woody Allen films) was that all of these characters were like super white and super wealthy.
Ok but that's not my point. The movie presented certain ideas/ideals/ideologies that we as Americans tend to associate with Europe --- that they are way more progressive in their thinking, and stuff. Which might be true -- in a lot of ways does seem true, on the surface at least. But one thing I kept thinking about in Spain was "WOW am I like the only Asian person here, or what?" OK there was a small Filipino community there. But besides them, the only other Asians I ever saw were these Chinese people who would appear on street corners after midnight to sell soda, beer, bottled water, and sometimes even sandwiches from cardboard or plastic boxes. It was so weird. Where were these people during the day time? And how did this thing start, where they would stand on street corners selling sandwiches to clubbers and other late-night partyers?

Another phenomenon -- though I only saw a handful of serious Asian food restaurants, there were, in both Madrid and Barcelona, these fast-food-type franchises that had the word "wok" in their name. Like Take a Wok, Wok and Walk, Wok and Roll. I guess they were marketed as quick and healthy stir-fry joints.
I just thought this was kind of weird too.

don't get me wrong...

2008-10-02T15:31:00.006-04:00

Despite my most recent cryptic blog post titles, I had an amazing time in Spain, truly. It was intense, challenging, life-changing, heart and mind-opening. My patience and resourcefulness were tested. I got to spend time and fall in love with a remarkable group of young artists. I got to spend every waking (and possibly sleeping) moment for 2 full weeks, entirely absorbed in making a work of theater (no even my own shows got that kind of attention). And the food, when I was able to eat, was delicious. There's a lot of stuff to process, for sure, and I'd like to keep track of these thoughts here.

I miss the sense of time and days in Spain, and the way the each meal framed a segment of time. The cafe con leche and pastry in the morning, the lunch at 2pm followed by siesta til 5pm, dinner never beginning before 9pm. Most days, from our hostal downtown, we could hear people carousing in the streets til easily 4am. A culture that takes what Americans consider "leisure" (time to eat, time to nap, time to drink wine and party) just as seriously as it takes WORK. Context, context, context.

Today's bonus pic:
Irwin and I stumbled upon this beautifully lit building in Barcelona on our first night there. I think it's like city hall or something?

p.s. my camera died the day before we came back to NY, so there are two whole days in Barcelona that went undocumented by me...

whirlwind end to Madrid

2008-09-29T10:07:00.004-04:00

I'm sorry I hadn't felt much like blogging during the final days in Madrid, partially because I was just so damned busy and exhausted everyday (or too busy playing cards) and also because Irwin came out here and he is, to my knowledge, the only person who was consistently checking my blog in the first place. I will try to back track a bit -- but also at this point I have no idea what day it is, or how much time has passed.

Gearing up towards tech in the theater was a kind of nightmare. The theater was understaffed and limited, and also with the huge misunderstanding about what was going to happen there in the first place, and not having the cooperation of the Artistic Director of the theater, everything kind of came to a screeching halt.

Dealing with projections was a fucking nightmare. I have truly learned my lesson here. I am not a technician, I am not specializing in video or computers or anything at all, but somehow I became responsible for the video images in our piece, which meant that I had to give a shit about the way things were set up. The placement of the projector could never be solidified/set, which meant that EVERY SINGLE DAY the projector had to be tested and re-set, and images re-adjusted for that day's set-up. Never never never again. Here is Valerie, dealing with the same thing,
In the evening after a long long tech day during which not much occurred, we had to attend the opening ceremony of the World Congress. The venue of the congress had to be changed at the last minute (?) or at least I had not been aware of this change since 3 weeks ago, so by the time we located it, the speeches had already begun inside. Outside there were these awesome stilted puppets, representing historical figures from Spanish history.
There was a reception with booze and apps afterwards, but by the time we got out of there, all the restaurants were closed (plus it was Monday, so most places were closed anyway) and I had to go to bed without dinner that night. This was not the first or only night this happened.

The next day (Tuesday) we had another tech day. These tech days I can't remember what we did except wait around. I think there may have been some attempt at running, but actually I don't think so. Emilya had scored us all tickets to the hottest show in town, so we all tried to get out shit together to go. Juan and Esther look at the map and discuss the closest route to the theater as Kevin looks on, disconcerted.
This was the show we saw -- by a pretty famous theater company, known for their spectacle. This particular piece was about (and in fact emulated) the 2002 Chechen takeover of a Russian theater. Drawing parallels to Russian history and contemporary acts of terrorism -- it would have been an interesting piece if the surtitles weren't so difficult to read, and if there were a further point to be made in the script, besides the comparison and attempt at humanizing the terrorists.

These last few days I found great relief in card-playing with the b-boys. I guess it started when I was getting a picture file from Liam in his room when he pulled out a deck of cards, and then it was over. We played many games, but in particular one called Pest (a lot like UNO) and another unnamed game which requires a lot of gesturing and speed. Good times. Every night Abdel would stumble home around 2am with stinky feet and join the game at hand.
On opening night, we were called for a run at 6pm. During the day I went shopping with Liam -- or more like I helped Liam shop for a suit, which he purchased at ZARA.

Backstage before opening night. his was after I'd had another crying fit in the courtyard over the insanity of it all, and just pure exhaustion.
The boys' dressing room.
And after the show:
We went out for drinks, and that was very nice, but again we ran into the problem that all the restaurants closed before we could get a proper meal. So much to my dismay, I ended up having to eat this nasty sandwich we got out of the vending machine at the youth hostal. Supposed to be salami and cheese or something??
The next day (Thursday) was our day off -- and Irwin arived in Madrid. After moving into another hostal in a different part of town, we met up with some folks for some "site-seeing".

Liam in the Metro.

The boys in front of the Palace.
Liam in air.
Juan dry-humping an ice cream cone.
After the boys spent a good couple of hours taking photos of themselves doing all sorts of tricks in front of monuments, they were thirsty. So we stopped at this tourist trap of a cafe where a Coca Cola was 3.50 Euro ($5US???).
Later this afternoon we went to the Reina Sofia and saw some Dali and Guernica, but by this point Irwin's jetlag was geting to him. We took a nap and then later went to an awesome Basque tapas place. (Pics of this on Irwin's picasa page).

The next day, before the show, we met up with Juan and Esther and kevin for lunch. But before that, we stopped at this bakery for coffee, and I noticed how small the holes in the Spanish bagels were!!!!! wtf?!
Our call was 6pm (for a 9pm show?!) so Irwin came with me to the theater and then sat across the street with his beer.

Backstage, Vita on headset calling the cues...
After the show, there was general chaos in getting everything out of the theater, showing up at the reception sponsored by the Croatian Embassy. All of us were staying another full day for the post-mortem, except Juan who was leaving the next morning. So after playing a round of cards,
We went out until he had to catch a taxi to the airport at 4.30AM. We tried to find a club to go dancing, but everything was gross or had a cover, or overcrowded or whatever, so we just wandered around and went into a Dominican restaurant that had 1E beers.
Esther & Juan hugging goodbye.

I was also so sad to see Juan go -- he had been my buddy during this whole trip. It's hard to believe that i won't be able to just walk downstairs and knock on his door, have lunch with him, or drag him across the floor in a big piece of fabric.

Saturday morning Irwin and I had churros dipped in chocolate for breakfast. Sickness.
I went over to give Robert a massage, and then we headed to our last supper at Extramadura -- the same place where we had our first dinner together. Andres & Gunther.
In the evening, we caught a part of the closing ceremony of the Congress. Sylvia and Esther.
Paloma & Sai.
This was to be our last night all together! Paloma, Esther, Kevin, Irwin and I went all the way to the youth hostal to pick up the boys, who we knew would need some persuasion to come out with us. Paloma in the elevator.
When we got to the youth hostal, they were like, no we're not going out. I couldn't believe it. I took a picture of them sitting on their beds, thinking that this was how I was going to remember them.
Robert was watching The Simpsons.
But somehow, miraculously, we got them to come out with us -- and the bar was kinda far away too, we had to take the subway! But they came. yeay!

At a bar near Reina Sofia, we had a last round of drinks. I said goodbye to Valerie.Group photo.
Half of us went to go dancing, but I was beat. I bid Robert and Liam farewell at El Brillante.
Irwin and I got our midnight snack here -- their famous calamari sandwich. It could have used a bucketload of tartar sauce. I was like "tiene salsa de tartar?" but they did not understand.
The next morning after 3 hours of sleep we got up to take the high-speed train to Barcelona. I was so fucking bleary-eyed and sad and delirious...
Some pics of Barcelona at night:
Amazing Celta Bar pulpo:
Irwin trying to cure his hiccups.

I have Rihana's song "Umbrella" stuck in my head, and it won't go away.
It will take a while for me to make sense of all that happened to me in the last 2 weeks. Only two weeks?!?! Unbelievable. It felt like a year, honestly. It's amazing how much can happen in such a short period of time...

I spoke too soon

2008-09-23T21:58:00.002-04:00

Well, let me just say that the challenges in this piece have not much improved. We open tomorrow, believe it or not, and the whole thing feels bizarre, absurd, magical at times, but just really.... like... weird. Most of the logisitcal problems stem from poor communication and misunderstandings from the theater venue. And the artistic disappointments come from the directors not coming from a collaborative theater-making background. Today there was drama galore. I don't even want to get into it.

Suffice it to say that being here has forced me to do things i would never ordinarily do. Drink coffee twice a day, drink wine every night, stay up til 4am and get up at 9am. Not a sustainable lifestyle...

no photos worth posting. mostly of people in the theater.

WOW possibly the worst day ever

2008-09-20T19:19:00.002-04:00

Today, was so nerve-wracking and frustrating and compounded with a lot of different things and overwhelmed by a lot of shit, I spent a good hour or two crying, which was actually great because I hadn't had a terrifically good cry in years. Juan was with me while I was crying on the street, so I'm sure about a dozen Spanish people thought we were breaking up. ha.

Then just as I was getting finished crying in my room Liam (one of the b-boys helping me with video stuff) came knocking on my door. Embarrassing.

Anyway, why so frustrating? Our first scene (made by the U.S. team) was conceived and re-conceived already a few times, and the latest incarnation was very much influenced by conversations with the Belgian Valerie who is handling video for the whole show, and who supposedly know how to use Isadora. She showed us how she can manipulate video and images in projections, changing their positions and sizes as we went along. The other day we had a really frustrating rehearsal because essentially all rehearsal was moot without being able to be in the theater with the projector in the correct placement. Today finally we have a chunk of time in the theater, the projector was in place (sort of) and suddenly we discovered different limitations to the video and use of Isadora. I srsly wanted to blow my brains out. We go into tech in 2 days, our first show is in 4 days, we have not DONE this scene for real, EVER, and what the fuck am I doing in this place in the first place? I had one of those crazy like flashback-life-collapsing moments... I was remembering all those stressful times with the WOW company, working in a foreign country, and being with a tight group of amazing artists, and how much LOVE is born out of working in the theater, and how heart-breaking it is to have art be so imperfect and ephemeral, and how much people grow apart... I think about so many people I've met who really changed me or moved me, and now I have no idea where they are... And on and on... I feel so lucky, and so cursed, and just so full of intense like.... I don't know what to call it.

I have always worried about how intensely I experience my emotions and thought that I'd pretty much had it under control, but today I felt like I was back being 23 years old again. This is a difficult project led by people who have never led such a project before -- the raw energy and magic of th ensemble is so immense and ineffable -- and there seems to be no way to aptly capture this thing, this amazing, magical wonderful electricity of a group of people (a community) -- this thing that is the reason why people do theater in the first place, and the thing that also disappoints people so much and causes them to leave the theater.

I think we have some possible solutions to the video problem, but again I feel uneasy at being responsible for video images when I am not a video or visual artists perse. Oh well. So it goes in Madrid.

I will leave you with some pics of the stupid night we had last night, going dancing in an Irish pub, and tonight, this amazing bookstore around the corner, which is also a cafe and a bar and a club at night.

Ok time to edit more video.

feel like month #2

2008-09-20T03:50:00.002-04:00

I'm utterly useless and non-existent without the internet, eh? It was down for 24 hours and I couldn't communicate with anyone except the people directly around me. It used to be like that for everyone. What happened?

I can't even keep track of all that's happened. Anyway a lot of this and that, the directors imposing, the other resisting, I do not feel that this is a piece that is being generated collaboratively, but rather being cobbled together somewhat collaboratively. I do not feel that there is an agreement about what it is trying to be accomplished.

Went and got paella with a group, two nights ago. Excellent! Sylvia and Paloma, the Spanish contingent.

Then we went out for fancy ice cream. Here is Abdel -- the life and baby of the production. Serisouly this guy is NON STOP energy -- a walking, continuous youtube.
Valery in rehearsal yesterday.
The "internet cafe" we are making off stage. We are supposed to be always on stage surrounding the action...
After rehearsal, Marco & Liam hanging off a tree.
I feel utterly destroyed in the mornings. Physically and otherwise.
Wish we could have started in a place BEFORE concept, BEFORE choreography, where everyone who is going to BE on stage could have met on stage just as they are/were. Strip away the skill sets.

Must run to rehearsal now. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

Hell to Heaven in a day

2008-09-17T19:14:00.004-04:00

Before I bore you to death with details of artistic strife, I will show lovely portraits of the artist teams from each country except for the U.S. team which you've seen plenty of already. Here are the Germans, from left to right: Kevin (opera singer), Jochen (composer), Esther (opera singer), Gunther (yes the one and only), and Frank (opera director).
The Belgium team -- Valery! One person, awesome video artist.
From Cameroon: Andray, Evelyn, and Valery.
Spain: Paloma & Sylvia -- who is an amazing actress.
From the Phillippines: Sai (dancer) and Ruell (musician)
So. I don;t know, an incredibly frustrating morning rehearsal -- discovering the limitations of the technology & video... and just dealing with the weird structure of this project in terms of decision-making... These "collaborations" with directors... like... may I quote one of my own plays and say, yes "theater is not a democracy" for sure, but also there are ways to organize in a way that still respects and encourages creativity, rather than suppressing such. The Europeans seem to conceptualize so much, they don't trust the real live on-the-feet solutions. It's a shame, actually...

Anyway, in the morning I thought I might murder someone or myself, and the afternoon was frustrating in certain ways as well, but in the evening we went out for the first time with the German opera singers, both 26 years old. We had a great lovely time at La Musa restaurant, which was actually some kind of weird Asian fusion place that served... venison. Ah, but before dinner, we went to a bar next door and had a drink. Everywhere, the red wine is delicious.

Juan holding what I thought might be a bagel but was not, I don't think...
Kevin the German opera singer, Juan, and Valery.
Kevin and Kevin the opera singer, when we were checking out the bathroom area. There was like a tunnel of bamboo curtains.
Venison.
on our way home we ran into two of the b-boys having a smoke, and then we crammed ourselves into the little elevator. Robert, who can do AMAZING things, and Liam, who can also do AMAZING things, and Valery, who is a stand-up comedian as well as an actor.
some moments i am like what the fuck am i doing here?? and other moments, i'm like (as Juan is practically ALL the time...) this is amazing and wonderful.
my shoulders hurt, i have bruises and wounds all over my feet and legs. another day tomorrow of artistic strife and the test of the human spirit. good night.

Working Day 3 or something?

2008-09-16T20:17:00.002-04:00

First of all, look at what we have available to us as breakfast at the youth hostal: coffee, tang and little muffins....
Here is a pic of the hostal from the 4th floor where Hana and I stay. The square windows -- eerily similar to the Hotel Washington I stayed in in Tokyo, no?
Productive morning rehearsal, figuring out a sequence for images and monologues in different languages about identity.
At lunch I went to the phoe store where Hana and Juan were buying phones. I looked down at my feet and noticed how disgusting they were.
At afternoon rehearsal, here is the Netherlands team, Ellen with ISH.
Trying to take a photo of the b-boys is like trying to photograph a shooting star. Pretty sure that is Liam in that blur.
The Camaroonian piece, with Andre in the striped, Evelyn in the center and Valery in red.
After rehearsal we went to this awesome old-school taberna and had some specialty dishes, including deep-fried eggplant with honey, and pata negra, some kind of dried/cured pig leg thinly sliced. It was pretty awesome.We wanted more so we walked down to Puerta de Sol, the center of the city. Passed by this gi-normous ham shop. This city is ALL ABOUT the pig, man.
Ended in a bar. Any house red wine will do much good, and usually for a Euro and a half. Me, Valery and Juan. Everyone here smokes, and all my clothes get smokey.
I am so tired.
Oh so today we had African dancing warm-up. Awesome.
I forgot what it's like to be an actor. Actually great pleasure in just manifesting yourself. I don't know how else to explain. Also waking up thinking about the piece and rolling over in my bed and talking to Hana about it, first thing -- what a wonderful luxury, to be able to spend practically 24 hours a day just thinking about a piece. Even my own plays don't get this kind of attention from me. This is how it should be, for God's sake.

The process is inevitably frustrating, at times magical, sometimes tedious. But I feel good, still coming out with admiration for the people here -- especially the people on the U.S. team with me. Hana, for being always calm, clear-minded, direct without getting exasperated; Juan for always maintaining a positive enthusiasm and spirit of yes yes yes. I feel like I am trying to learn how to have fun again.

Working Day #2: Chaos and Contradiction

2008-09-15T19:20:00.004-04:00

Now I've gotten past the phase of being in love with this city.

So back tracking for a moment. Last night after dinner Juan and I went strolling around Madrid and I found a Muji store! Nice to know.
In the morning Juan, Hana and I refined the interrogation section of our piece, figured out how we can transition out of the Jordanian film, and recorded a new voice file. Of course this probably means absolutely nothing to anyone except for me and Hana and Juan.. I'll try to post a vid when we get something finalized... The idea was that we would work in our groups in the morning and come together in the afternoon.

For lunch Juan and I went just around the corner to this awesome, very Spanish like, restaurant full of Spanish business men who seemed to be there for hours eating and smoking and hours later still smoking on the sidewalk outside the place. Juan had this huge-ass steak that was practically raw. I had a steak too, it was quite nice. But expensive.

In the afternoon, rehearsal started off pretty great with hip-hop dance. We were all so friggin sweaty after dancing for an hour or whatever, esp under the halogen lights, but it was great fun to be up on our feet and playing. After that, each of the teams were given some time to try to incorporate other team members into their piece. We were able to sketch out our ideas, but there was also a lot of sitting around. By the end there was a lot of conflict about how people were using each other. Like, the b-boys were being used everywhere, the opera singing was being used irresponsibly, people were making unreasonable tech demands. Well this is not the complete picture, but there was definitely an artistic direction crisis at hand, where the idea of integration was not working as well as everyone had hoped, and that people were feeling like the integration was blowing their wad so to speak, or stealing their thunder, kind of. But for chrissake, it's like this is our second day working together, and we're not really in a place to start making editting decisions yet. A lot of MEN (white) talking a lot and stroking their egos... Thankfully I'm not a part of the director's group, although I kind of wish I were, but then again I'm sure I would have killed some people by now? Why can't we all just get along?

The evening was much better -- first of all Juan and I found THE nerd store where I bought my brother a birthday present (Darth Vadar t-shirt) and I was this -- Oasmu Tezuka in Spanish. Rock on.
At night we looked in our guide book and planned to go out to this restaurant -- we took the subway and walked to the address -- but it was closed! Friggin Monday! but then we walked around and found a sweet place outdoors. We had ham croquettes, salad wth mango and shrimp, steak and eggs and potatoes, and red peppers stuffed with goat cheese. Yes a great food day, and the asshole that I am, I didn't take any photos. Sorry! But here is Kevin and Juan -- who, by the way has been eating SO MUCH ice cream every night that we joke that i may not be able to drag him across stage the way I have to, if he keeps up this level of helado consumption.
By the time we finished dinner (past midnight) the kitchen was closed and they weren't serving dessert. So we took the subway 4 stops to go to this amazing ice cream and cocktail lounge we'd been walking by on our way to the theater every day.
The place was closing as we arrived but they let us buy ice creams to go. They were amazing. Here is Juan having his second ice cream of the day.
They also had this huge UFO-platter full of truffles. I'm usually not a sweets person, but this place was pretty cool. Plus they have wi-fi! DANGER.

That's all for now -- hoping for a better rehearsal day tomorrow. Although the frustration and tension is inevitable, I also hope that we work through discussion to a place where everyone is happy and working at their highest level of artistic integrity, without some tyrannical imposition.

Everyday I feel SO TIRED by the pm, but then feel awake and energetic around midnight. We've been here only a few days, but it already feels like weeks. So much happens in the day, and it's all broken up by siesta and such... Also I haven't been able to chat with Irwin all day today, it's driving me crazy.

Working Day #1

2008-09-14T14:57:00.002-04:00

An amazing rehearsal day, I am stupid I should have taken more pictures. But it's hard to be present and also documenting, you know? Also, it is amazing enough that I managed to stay awake throughout the day. We began the morning session at 10.30AM, at the Galileo Theater, which is a spacious and lovely facility. The theater is very nice, cut, it kind of reminded me of the Connelly Theater on E 4th St. except with a bit more height or airiness.
We began the morning by first discussing and sharing the root ideas/inspiration of our work for the project. We'd all been given the same "starting points" document that asked many questions about how we represent ourselves in the world, especially in light of technology that permeates our lives. It was good to hear everyone's concerns, and their artistic intentions for what they'd prepared.
By the time we got through each group it was 2PM. We had reserved a place across the street for lunch. We crossed the street and there was our huge-ass banquet table, set up right there on the sidewalk!!!! Friggin' awesome.
It was hard to resist siesta after this lovely sunlit lunch. The weather has been quite nice, beautiful skies and warm. Here are the ISH B-boys catching some rays.

They are like my favorite people right now.

Then in the afternoon session, we all showed our presentations. SO many ideas, and images, so many aspects of identity (cultural, artistic, personal, political) explored and yet several common threads through many pieces -- use of physical materials (swath of white cloth, yellow yarn) masks, music, dance, ritual.Again I didn't take any pics of the really awesome shit. Will try to get it together tomorrow.

Madrid Day One

2008-09-14T03:26:00.003-04:00

I am writing from Madrid, here on the culminating leg of the project I'd been working on in Oregon. I've not even been here 24 hours, but so many different things have happened, and I've felt so many different things I don't know how to express them all.

I got on the plane at Newark, which is such a pain in the ass to get to, but I thought for the first time, was not a bad airport -- in fact it seems much calmer than JFK. The thing about flying east is that you fly forward into the "future" so we were flying into a sunrise.
I barely slept on the plane. Flying over Madrid, the city seemed very spacious and flat. I was supposed to take a taxi from the airport to the hostel we were staying, but once I got off the plane I decided to take the Metro. My initial reactions to Madrid: I love it here!!! On the Metro everything is like orange and green and pink, very clean. Out on the street, beautiful buildings. Reminded me a little bit of Berlin, but not bombed out. Plus my 6 years of middle & high school Spanish is actually paying off now!

I checked into the youth hostel, and then fell into a few hours of fitful sleep -- so mcuh noise going on, terrible 90's alt-rock blaring in the corridor. I got up around 5PM to buy a toothbrush. The only plan for the day was to have dinner with everyone at 9PM. Apparently dinner NEVER happens before 9PM. Also all the stores are closed from 2PM - 5PM for siesta. Waaaa!!!!
I met up with my "team mates" Hana, Juan and Kevin in the afternoon, and we went over some updates. There were some problems with the rehearsal & production. Oh, like, the theater we are supposed to be rehearsing & performing in had recently lost its artistic director and had put its entire staff on break. Great! Also many of the artists had been going through HELL just to get to Madrid -- the Filipinos had to re-book their flight because they needed a special visa (which they didn't have) in order to transfer flights in Amsterdam -- and the Cameroonians having to pay an additional 400 Euro at the airport even though all of their visas and paperwork were in order. (Not clear on what the problem is, vague references to political/bureaucratic corruption) Somehow, none of this was surprising to me. And I also knew that Emilya was fighting to get everything to work out. The woman needs a masseuse to follow her around the world.

At 9PM we went to this restaurant (I am running out of time, so I will speed blog). They didn't let us in for a while because they weren't ready for us.
There was a full moon. Today was also the once-a-year huge all-night arts festival called La Noche en Blanco (The Night in White) where there were performances and art museums open all night til 7AM.
At dinner I just kept looking up and down the table, such a great vibe, and artists from all over the world. SO EXCITING.
Here are Juan (U.S.), Liam (Netherlands) and Kevin (Germany).
A surprise entrance by Gunther!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Unbelievable food and dessert (all food pix for shit).
Frank, the German director -- great to see him, since he was also in Manila 2 years ago. And on the right, Marcos, the hip-hop director/performer, Filipino raised in Belgium, now in Amsterdam. He had such amazing energy, and great stories.
Juan, Hana and I ventured into the night. There was going to be a man walking a tightrope across two buildings. THOUSANDS of people on the street. The tightrope however, did not happen, as the wind was too strong. Mob scene almost killed us.

What happaned in Oregon?

2008-09-05T16:46:00.002-04:00

Boy I seriously pooped out on blogging my trip to Oregon. Mostly because I was working the whole time and didn't have a whole lot of tangible activity to report. Here's our beautifully sunlit room in which we spent most of day 2 & 3. There were many beautiful meals, because Emilya always makes sure that we are extremely well fed...
And there were several shows we caught at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the highlight of which was Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge, which Juan was in. I'd forgotten how great Miller is, and was surprised at how Shakespearean in tragedy this play is

Theatrical collaboration, especially with people who you don't know very well, and with different backgrounds can be extremely challenging... ESPECIALLY when there is no designation of each person's role in the process and no hierarchy of decision-making in place. I feel fortunate that the two people I'm working with on the U.S. team of Ifdentity are very intelligent, imaginative, reasonable, resourceful and, basically, game.

I regret that we may have spent too much of our time talking about ideas and structures, and not enough time on our feet, figuring out the details of arc and what actually works (and doesn't work). Although we came out of the weekend (and are going into our trip to Spain next week) without a definite structure to our "piece", we do have strong scene-ideas and elements.

A bit I particularly liked was a sequence we made with the 10 yards of ivory muslin. The fabric is light and sturdy enough that we can mask our faces with it, drag each other across the floor on it, wrap ourselves and each other in it.

And then there were these masks...

working it out

2008-08-31T01:39:00.007-04:00

Grey, mostly overcast day today, considerably colder than it was yesterday.We were back in our first working day today, refreshing our memories and throwing out a lot of new ideas. During our last work session in April, our exploration of "identity" led us to these thoughts:

Identity is a construct that is fluid and changes based on context. In other words, in the absence of relationship (whether with another individual or with any other entity) identity is moot. One identifies him/herself IN RELATION to an‘other’ -- the ‘other‘ is essential for the process of definition. The other can be an individual, a culture, the state, an institution, God, any other entity; anything that exists outside the self.

Identity functions on several levels – the personal, the socio-political, and the virtual. Identity may be forced upon an individual from the outside, or can be internally generated by the individual. The act of imposing identity begins with the impulse, whether external or internal, to examine , define, or label the individual. The process of constructing an identity to interface with the ‘other’ eventually becomes a process of compartmentalization, categorization and ultimately, fragmentation. The constructed identity (or avatar) can never be/represent the whole that is the person.

American Identity
As “Americans” we are citizens of a nation of immigrants. The mythology of the American Dream is founded on the belief in the freedom to succeed through hard work, without the constraints imposed by class, caste, race, or ethnicity. The reality is that we are essentially a nation of “others” attempting to establish a community and stake claim to our piece of the American Pie. The question of cultural/ethnic/racial identity becomes an imperative which sparks great anxiety, segregation, pride, confusion, contention and dissension. Name, race, facial and physical features are not definitive markers but become elusive signifiers of identification. The question that is repeatedly asked of us is: Where are you from? As if the subject cannot be a person of native origin or does not belong here. As Americans, displacement seems to be part of the given circumstances. Within that, hierarchies and power struggles emerge.

From here, we were filtering through some other ideas -- What is the theatrical identity, theatrical tradition in the U.S., and how do we as artists set ourselves in relation to these?
We shared a bunch of classic American movie clips with each other, since the tradition of cinema, we felt, was one of the strongest performance traditions in this country. Here are some highlights:

We also had this amazing swath of creme colored gauze fabric, which we were playing around with, veiling/unveiling, imprisoning, dragging each other's bodies across the floor with.

In the evening we got to see Our Town in the Globe Theater. It was very chilly in the evening, but beautiful. One of my favorite plays, actually, and one of my favorite playwrights. In fact the production of The Skin of Our Teeth that we put on in high school may have been one of the reasons I continued to pursue theater. Anyway, in the Globe, during the black outs, you could see the stars filling out the sky. Beautiful.

Back in Ashland, OR

2008-08-30T00:28:00.003-04:00

I am in Oregon now. It's been 3 months since I was last here, to work on the Ifdentity project with these fine folks, but it feels like a year.
Painfully early flight out of JFK, I had to get up at 4.30am. I met up with Hana and Emilya at the airport, where for some reason, the Westin Hotel was giving out complimentary blankets and pillows. ???
I slept through most of the flight out to SFO. There, Emilya took us into the Red Carpet Club, or whatever it's called -- the business class lounge, or preferred member lounge. Little did I know that it would be a whole alternate universe inside the airport! We went through some very inconspicuous doors that opened into a grand hallway. It felt like we had stepped into a hotel. The lounge itself was pretty simple, but nice. Big cushy chairs, plenty of outlets, complimentary refreshments, etc. We got to Medford, and the weather is amazing, gorgeously dry and warm. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is in full swing. After picking up groceries at the food co-op, we unloaded our things in the apartments where we are staying in town (not Buckhorn Springs) and met up with Juan at Amuse Restaurant.
We had been here the last time too -- the food is quite amazing. Extensive wine list, local cheeses, and this time we were in the outside patio where we ate to the accompaniment of a live classical guitarist. Here is Juan looking mighty apprehensive.

We kind of on top of the hill, just a few blocks away from the theaters. The view is amazing.
Emilya and Kevin were going to see the 3 hour 15 minute Othello in the Globe Theater. Hana and I went to catch Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner.

But I'm still feeling groggy from all the traveling. I had just spent the last 5 days trying to get back onto NY time, and here I am again on the west coast.
Tomorrow we begin rehearsals.

the sky flying back to ny from cali

2008-08-26T00:21:00.000-04:00

Big Sur briefly

2008-08-25T11:52:00.003-04:00

On our last full day in California, Irwin and I drove down to Big Sur, arguably one of the most beautiful places on earth. We had been thinking about some part of our wedding celebration taking place there -- but outright camping seemed like a difficult option with our urbanized family and such. I mean it would certainly be a strong choice, but one that would dictate a lot about how everything would be structured.

Here Irwin is with his latte, standing in front of a big redwood tree. Below you can see the fire damage from the recent forest fires that swept through California. It was pretty amazing to see so much of the land just scorched. And so close to Highway 1.
One beautiful option was Big Sur Lodge. Located at the mouth of Julia Pfeiffer State Park, this establishments runs a gorgeous restaurant and a few dozen modest cottage/cabins, some with kitchens and fireplaces. There's also a swimming pool. We could imagine a weekend of camping, cooking, swimming and beanie-playing in the forest.
We also wanted to check out the Big Sur Bakery, which my friend Clint and many others on yelp have raved about. Unfortunately we got there at 3pm, 15 minutes after their last seating for brunch. Next time.
For dinner we went out to Casanova in Carmel. One of the plethora of pan-European restaurants in the area. It is a very cute place, a whole dining section with glass ceiling built around some trees. The meal itself was all right, nothing to swoon over.

sickness

2008-08-23T12:15:00.002-04:00

I've been sicker since Thursday -- mostly in my throat and sinuses. I guess I never got over the first cold entirely. Stayed in most of the day yesterday and watched some Battle Star Galactica. Cold and grey again...

the hunt

2008-08-22T01:46:00.004-04:00

So the main reason Irwin even bothered to come out to Cali this time for such a short visit is so that we could investigate potential wedding locations. I'd done a fair bit of research on-line and had a selection of places, both on the Peninsula and farther south towards Big Sur, I wanted to look at.
In Marina, the farthest northern city among the Monterey cluster, there was the Sanctuary Beach Resort, in the middle of the sand dunes of a nature preserve. The units are spread out over the property, unlike a mongo hotel building, and guests are given a golf cart to get around in. There is also a spa on-site.Kevin gave us a tour of the property, including the short trail to the beach, where their beach wedding ceremonies ordinarily take place. As you can see it was a pretty overcast day. Kevin, who must have been like 20 years old, gave us his very honest opinion about the place. That is was always cold and foggy there, and that a while back, there was a shark attack right off the beach where we were standing -- which was even featured on the Discovery channel. Great.
Next, closer to Monterey (and across the way from a huge shopping outlet housing Costco, Target, and Circuit City) was the Monterey Beach Resort, formerly known to me as the Monterey Beach Hotel. I remembered the place as pretty quaint and rather decrepit (in an old-timey way) when I was invited to an all-county honor student dinner hosted by the Monterey Herald, over 15 years ago.
Now this place had become a Best Western, and near the end of their renovation project. This ocean wall and beach deck would be complete by December 2008.
Pretty glam for a hometown place, I'd say. Valerie, the on-site wedding consultant explained the whole wedding package to us. I mean, if we were different kinds of people, fundamentally, it might have been a perfect situation for us...
We also stopped off at Adventures by the Sea, a company who organizes beach party weddings complete with BBQ, bonfires (both sounding good) and their in-house DJ who would be the MC for the evening. Screeching halt. I could just picture, our families (you know, ASIAN) reacting to some white guy middle-aged DJ on the mic making stupid jokes and stuff.... Disaster.
For lunch we stopped by for fish tacos, which were excellent.

After lunch I took Irwin back to Asilomar, and we both felt it was the right place for us. Secluded in forest and dunes, a walk to the beach, capacity for bonfires, BBQ, ping pong and pool, intimate and in nature, and our guests could stay on site yet be just a few minutes drive away from the rest of Monterey. We could even have the ceremony on the beach if we wanted.
So we put in an application! Wow, very exciting. Seriously I am the least like bride-minded person, so it was a relief to find a great low-key place. Simple and classy and convenient. Fingers crossed.
For dinner we went out to sushi with my Mom and Clint.
We ordered monkfish liver, and it came in a humongous portion. Irwin and I could barely put a dent in it... Generally sushi was pretty good at Akaoni in Carmel.Unfortunately I am sick again. Going to sleep it off...

Irwin arrives

2008-08-22T01:13:00.002-04:00

At this point you may be asking if I am going to take pictures of my dog on the beach everyday, and the answer is yes.

This is Kuro before the beach.
This was glorious Carmel beach on Wednesday.
Us at beach.
Look at that smile:
This photo was taken by a very nice woman named Carol who was at the beach with her Doberman. Turns out she is very good friends with the mother of Taylor Mac, who is a fantastic performer whose one-man shows went up at HERE after oph3lia. Small world!
Satisfaction.In the evening I went over to see Clint in Salinas. Catching up on our lives and gossip.His head is not tiny, that is just the camera angle.
I picked up Irwin at San Jose Airport, which was an f*cking nightmare, but then we headed over to La Vic, a taco joint that got rave reviews on yelp.com. If it had been earlier we would have gone to Kayo's parents' place. Alas, we settled for tacos and special orange sauce.The tacos were filling, for sure. But too much meat, if you can believe it. Not a very good balance -- wanted more salsa/pico de gallo/lettuce...

Drove home and arrived near midnight and crashed.

socializing

2008-08-20T00:26:00.002-04:00

Another beautiful sunny day! We went to Carmel Beach. Part of the reason I love this beach is that it's a dog park. But people are really good about keeping it clean. On good days, all the folks with bg dogs are out, letting their canines run about. Kuro is very happy to be a part of this. (She is on the far right in this pic)
And the ocean today was so calm and clear... If I had my bathing suit I would have jumped in.
Today we went out for pho with Hiromi, in Seaside.

After lunch she convinced me to look at some possible wedding locations near her home in Pacific Grove. First we went to the something something golf club. Not really into it, but it is near the ocean...Then we went to Asilomar conference Center. I actually quite liked what was happening here. Designed by architect Julia Morgan, all the buildings here (originally designed to be an educational/vocational facility of the YWCA) are built in harmony with their environment. Wood and stone structures, all elegantly designed, and steps away to the beach.
There were several buildings that could hold a ceremony/reception. Here is the inside of the Chapel, for example.
But the seats here are immovable, and there could be no reception here. Hiromi kept calling it classic Northern California style (architecture, aesthetic). I like that.

We dropped her off at her home, where her dog Blue was waiting for her return.In the evening, we had my mom's neighbor over for dinner. Julie is a marine biology phd candidate, living in a big house with her black dog Tara. I made pasta with sausage tomato sauce. She had returned from a wedding in Sri Lanka, and gave us some tea. After dinner I taught her how to play beanie -- she turned out to be quite a card shark!

This was more socializing than I'd done in like 5 days. Wiped out! No work done!
Irwin arrives tomorrow!

finally, the sun

2008-08-19T00:07:00.002-04:00

Beautiful day today.

It's funny how being at home changes the feeling and pace of life. Part of it is a conscious or unconscious fighting against slipping into who I was when I actually lived with at home. Who was I? Like an angsty, self-conscious, hot-headed, insecure, hormonally unbalanced, melodramatic teenager? Now I'm just an irritable 30-something-year-old? I spent so much time and energy putting as much distance as I could (emotionally, geographically) between myself and home. Now somehow everything here seems so beautiful and idyllic. Even when cold and foggy.

I have all this work to do, that I haven't even touched. I've fallen into veg-out mode. Help. Sputter.

caught a cold, recovering

2008-08-18T05:13:00.003-04:00

Honestly I can't remember the last time I caught a cold. Like a classic, runny nose, sore throat, sinus headache kind. In a way (a perverse way) I feel nostalgic for this "can't breathe through my nose" sensation. Well, sick or no, my dog Kuro expects me to entertain her all the time when I am home. In the morning it takes all her patience to wait for me to get up and eat breakfast. After I'm done, if i haven't put on my socks within 5 minutes, she is howling and barking at me! In the afternoon before her dinner time, it's the same thing. Her first visible sign of anticipation is when she trots up to me and shakes her head vigorously, as if to say "shake off that laziness and come outside!" This is usually followed by a fabulous downward-facing dog. If that doesn't send me running to put on my shoes, then she will berate me vocally and paw at me. Who's the pet and who's the master, I ask you.

Like I said the weather has not been particularly friendly, but here we are on our way to the beach.
And here is Kuro, where she is happiest.
I am pretty happy here too, on Carmel Beach one of my most favorite places in the world. Depite the cold and grey.

in cali

2008-08-16T00:36:00.002-04:00

People think California is all balmy weather, palm trees, sunshine and rollerblading on the boardwalk. But it's not. Where I'm from, the Monterey Peninsula, can be cold and foggy, in fact most of the time you need a hoodie or sweater. I couldn't bring my jeans because last night I went to see Hotel Pool and got completely sopping wet. Gotta go shopping. A-choo.

Getting ready for the next flight

2008-08-11T12:51:00.002-04:00

Perhaps not the most exotic of destinations, but nonetheless I am looking forward to visiting Monterey on Friday. As always I plan to do minimal packing/preparations for the trip. Stuff 5 pairs of underwear and my laptop into my crummy backpack and make sure my Metrocard's got $5 on it. I'm excited to see my mom and my dog Kuro,

also excited for Irwin to come out there, but very excited to have another respite from work.

one of the best things from japan

2008-08-04T09:55:00.005-04:00

It's not even a full week since we got back from Japan, but it feels like months! Sleep has been irregular, my body's been going through wonky things like unexplained hives and lost appetite, and frankly I'm wondering whether I've developed some kind of allergy to New York. Although it's not as if I want to settle down in Japan. It's hard to imagine thriving in that kind of monolithic monoculture that pervades every aspect of life.

But anyway, today I want to introduce my single most treasured purchase I made that brings a piece of Japan back into my Brooklyn home. The towelket.What is "towelket" you ask? It is the pinnacle of comfort, the embodiment of home, something that can invoke a sense of security and wrap you in light warmth. It is the love child of the TOWEL and blanKET, and I can't believe it doesn't exist in the U.S.! I have fond memories of the towelket as a kid growing up in the sweltering heat of Tokyo. Towelkets were the perfect thing to sleep with on those summer nights because they were light, and soaked up your sweat. It's hard to find a towelket big enough for two people, but I found mine at the Muji store in Chofu, double size organic cotton. Heaven!

The danger of the towelket is the temptation to use it as a towel. Please, don't soil your towelket with your runny nose, shower-wet body, dirty dishwater hands or post-coital drip! With proper use the towelket will keep you lightly protected from overactive air conditioners and keep your heat worn body nice, cool and dry.

The last day...

2008-07-31T12:03:00.003-04:00

On the morning of our last day in Japan, we bid farewell to Chie, who was off to a meeting at a university. :(
We spent the early part of the day getting our final soaks in at the onsen, and then we were off to taste the famous Yonezawa Ramen. Actually I don't know if it is famous, but Ryo's dad goes out of his way to eat at this place. We got there right at noon and got the last table available. Pretty soon the place was packed with people waiting in the doorway. It was great to see all the locals, families, business people, retired folks all come out to this place.
This bowl of ramen was seriously near perfect. Very simple, light soup, great crinkly noodles with perfect width and texture.

After ramen, we went to a shaved ice parlor, the same store which Ryo's mother used frequent as a child. Back then, ices cost a mere 5 yen.Now, the prices reflect the times, but the method of making the ice remains the same.
This old lady hand-shaves the ice. That piece of wood with small spikes in it is used to grip the ice as she slides over the shaver. She also hand-makes the syrup, and mixes the ingredients before your eyes.Voila! This is Irwin's fresh lemon ice.I don't think anyone could finish the ice.

Then it was time to get on the shinkansen back to Tokyo. So sad to leave... Ryo and Mari looking at chotchkies at the train station kiosk before we got on the train. Goodbye Yamagata! Thank you Ryo-chan!It was a very nice surprise that my brother was spending the whole day at Narita (to pick up Ed Norton and Liv Tyler for promo for The Hulk) so I got to have a quick bite to eat with him.
It's hard to believe how much happened in two weeks. And now that I'm back in NY, I'm having seriously vacation withdrawal. It's hard to really give a shit about all the BS in regular life when you've been away for a while...

Yamagata onsen

2008-07-30T11:41:00.003-04:00

Ahhhh... Yamagata...
On our third day in Yamagata, we woke up early (here is where the jetlag still pays off -- can't help but wake up early! Except now, back in NY it is totally kicking my butt... I thought it was still 6AM but in fact it was already 10.30AM -- late for work!!) and drove to Zao to go up a mountain. Our destination was to view the "Okama" which confused me, because the word okama means rice pot, but also means gay (as in homosexual) so I was like, why do we have to go see the gay community in Yamagata? In fact, the okama we were aiming to visit was a body of rainwater that had collected in the crated of an extinct volcano, though I'm still not quite sure why it is called an okama...

I order to reach the okama, we had to drive 30 minutes out of Yamagata (and into Miyagi Prefecture), up a winding mountain road to a parking lot where there was a lift.

We got on the single-chair lift and rode up to a higher plateau.
Then, a five-minute hike...
took us to this amazing view.
Apparently the water in the okama is too rich in mineral or acid to support any life. It was a bright unreal blue-green color.

After a takoyaki snack at the base of the lift, we met Ryo's mom and grandma at Konnyaku Bansho, this elegantly situated restaurant/gift shop specializing in... konnyaku.

Konnyaku is this kind of strachy food derived from a vegetable. It's most notable trait is its jello-like rubbery consistency -- and lack of flavor. Japanese people have tooted konnyaku as a great diet food because it has little to no calories. It's most commonly served in grey blocks with black speckles, in stews like oden. If you've never had konnyaku, it's really hard to aptly describe what it is like... I realize now that I'd been describing it as a kind of potato, but in fact it is more corn-like. Anyway this restaurant specialized in all things konnyaku -- as in konnyaku made to look and taste like chicken, noodles, sashimi, fruit jelly, seaweed, you name it.

It's a hell of a lot fancier than Garlic World in Gilroy, but the idea behind it is the same -- except with konnyaku!Three generations of women!

Irwin could barely get through the konnyaku meal. Honestly I thought he might throw up in the middle. The thing about konnyaku is that you can infuse it with almost any kind of flavor, but it's really hard to change or mask its rubbery texture. I said earlier that konnyaku was a popular diet food in Japan, but because of several cases in which old people and children had choked on the food and suffocated, there are now warnings on konnyaku packages about consumption.

After lunch, we went to Ryo's mom, Ewiko-san's traditional Japanese dance teacher's place.I had mistakenly thought we were in for some kind of dance class or demonstration, but what actually followed was a big dress-up party. All of us got dressed in the yukata that Wakayagi sensei and Eiko-san had prepared for us. Dressing and learning to tie a simple obi took maybe an hour of more. After we were properly attired, we had a quick lesson in etiquette (bowing, walking, fanning) and then we were off to the onsen!

We went to the Sanshuyu Ryokan in the Akayu Onsen area. Ryo had been there before, and we thought it would be the best bet for our money. It was amazing! We had a suite to ourselves, complete with a sleeping room, a dining room, and living room, a dressing area and shower, and our own private outdoor onsen tub in our own provate garden. There were also the big common tubs (indoor and outdoor) down the hall, but because each room/suite has its own private tub, you rarely saw anyone outside. We spent the first hour there taking photographs of ourselves in our outfits...But then we all got out of our formal wear and into the ryokan-provided outfits (choices of prisoner-like comfy sweats, yuakata robes or heavy hooded bathrobes, pictures on Mari and me here:)We had an evening of pure luxury and relaxation -- kaiseki dinner served in our room, bathing, napping and playing beanie!

I leave you with Mari in her yukata -- the epitome of Japanese beauty! lol

Yamagata Living

2008-07-29T15:56:00.003-04:00

Day two in Yamagata was an incredible day of leisure. In the morning Ryo's father, Yuu-san, took us fishing in a river about 30 minutes away. 20 minutes in the car and we were surrounded by lush green and mountains. We had to look for the perfect fishing spot. Yuu-san then donned his fishing pant/boots.

...and so did Irwin. LOL. Pic is too cute not to include.
Yuu-san showed us how to hook our worms, and then how to cast and move the bait through the water, targeting the places where the water was running fast but deep. On his thrid cast, he caught this little guy, which made us believe that river-fishing was a piece of cake.
Of course an hour or more went by with Irwin and I catching nothing but some sunshine and prime cicada singing. Ryo also hooked a little guy, which she released. In any case it was a beautiful day to be outside, immersed in nature.
After fishing we picked up Chie at the train station, ate some famous Yamagata soba (much thicker than your usual soba, and cooked al dente), and climbed up a big mountain to Yamadera Temple where clusters of altars, temples and resting places were perched atop cliffs overlooking a marvelous landscape.

Following our sweaty hike, we went to the local farmer's market. There we found incredible fresh produce, and pictures of the people who grew them:We bought our veggies here and our meats at a supermarket for this evening's barbecue! Mari was able to join us by evening, and Irwin got some good flames going in the new grill. That Black Jack fan sure did come in handy.I can't remember if this is before or after Yuu-san was fighting the roaring flames of the grease fire.And the fish that Yuu-san caught met with this fate.Ryo and Chie scarfing down food.We capped off the evening with a true Japanese summer experience -- fireworks! Our cheap-o packet of assorted fireworks were slightly disappointing (most of the fireworks were made in China, and we wanted to place the blame there) but still we all had good fun.

Catching up: Last Day in Kyoto & Meeting the Nagasawas

2008-07-29T11:30:00.004-04:00

I'm already back in NY but have fallen so behind in my chronicling my trip because of spotty internet and, well, being so darned busy! I have to backtrack now and fill in the gaps.

So what I neglected to mention is that last Thursday, on our last full day in Kyoto, Irwin asked me to marry him. We had been discussing this amongst our many future plans, but I had no idea that this would be coming to me in this way at this moment. My brain exploded a little bit when he presented me with the ring, and when Chie came home from work, she immediately sensed something was up. It took me a couple hours to feel more grounded.
On Friday, we had ambitious plans to wake up very early and go to a special festival.　The Mitarashi Festival at Shimogamo Shrine involves walking through the river to purify yourself.

Later we went to a GIGANTIC flea market at Kitano TenMangu Shrine, where every month on the 25th, everything and anything you could possibly want to buy, or didn't even know you wanted to buy is put on display. The photo below doesn't really capture the density and variety of wares, nor the oppressive heat of the morning.
We met with Chie for lunch before getting on the shinkansen -- also met with Naoto Moriyama, who is on the faculty at Kyoto University of Arts & Design. This was Chie's way of planting the seeds of the idea of touring oph3lia to Kyoto -- how amazing would that be?!And then we were off! Our plan was to meet up with Ryo at Tokyo station and then continue on to Yamagata. Ryo is a friend of mine from work -- her cubicle is right behind mine. She works in the film program and has, over the years become one of the people I adore the most. So I was really looking forward to seeing her hometown, and her home.

I have to confess that, though I was super super excited about this plan of ours to meet up and hang out in Japan together, I was also extremely paranoid and worried that somehow my Japanese friends would be "different" in Japan (i.e. a different context than NYC, America) and that they would like be mean to me in Japan. These kinds of things happened to me a lot as a kid I guess, where you thought you were friends with someone, but then in a different context, they are too cool to be your friend or whatever. And being in Japan is always some key into my childhood psyche.

But all told my fears were completely unfounded, and visiting Yamagata with Ryo was one of the most awesome legs of this trip. Here we've just arrived at Yamagata station. We walked just a few blocks down the main drag -- during which Ryo ran into a family friend. This night Ryo's parents' theater had just had a special screening of Godzilla, followed by a talkback with a Godzilla expert (?!?!). We walked by their movie theater Forum (named in honor of Film Forum, I think!)And the posters of upcoming movies.Next door was L'atelier de Charlotte, a little bistro run by a couple who were huge movie freaks and fans of Charlotte Gainsbourg. The cute place was chock-full of everything Charlotte. This was the setting for the post-Godzilla dinner celebration.We were joined by Ryo's brother Jun, who had recently come back to Yamagata to start learning the family business to eventually take it over. He had spent 8 years in the boondocks as a music teacher in a middle school. He was a very serious guy!After several nice appetizers, the owner of the restaurant put on a great show with crepe suzette -- pouring blazing Grand Marnier down a spiral of orange peel. Ryo and her Mom look on.After dinner we walked another few blocks to their apartment. We were staying in her grandmother's apartment, which is on the same floor as her parents' unit -- in fact they were connected by a wraparound balcony with a great view of Yamagata -- mountains all around. Ryo stayed in the room with her grandfather's shrine.Her grandmother was staying with her parents while we were visiting! So gracious. Grandma has a 19 year-old cat named Tono who yowled a lot but was generally a cuddle slut. Apparently he and Grandma are inseparable. Ryo and her mom joked that her grandfather's spirit has inhabited the cat, and that is why the cat will not leave her alone.
The view from the balcony before going to sleep.

Last stretch, Yamagata

2008-07-26T18:47:00.002-04:00

limited internet in Yamagata! Yesterday we went fishing, had handmade soba, climber up an amazing mountain and had a bbq! Today we go to a volcanic mountain lake, to a Japanese traditional dance place, and then to onsen! More pix and details later... Don't want to go back to nyc.

a day like no other...

2008-07-24T10:41:00.004-04:00

Waking up in Chie's apartment is amazing. The view of the mountains, the incessant screaming of cicadas and crying of crows. It's intense, it's summer, it's beautiful. Chie managed to get some time off of her work this morning and accompanied us to some very special spots. Hounenin Temple, Tanaka Miho's Plant Shop and Coffee Shop, and Mo-An Cafe.

In the afternoon Irwin and I went to Maniac Star, another awesome cafe full of Star Wars paraphernalia and Japanese punk rock music. Irwin had a C3PO Smoothie.In the evening we went to a tea ceremony where Chie takes lessons, at Daigo Temple. We were lucky enough to receive a private tour of the grounds with a monk and tea prepared by Chie's teacher himself.
Irwin made dinner.

The Kyoto Heat Wave

2008-07-23T10:26:00.003-04:00

Ordinarily I would not be one to be so affected by heat, but the temperature in Kyoto the last 24 hours has been no joke!

The first thing we noticed when we arrived at the Kyoto station were all these posters and signs for the Osamu Tezuka World. Here I am with Pinoko.
Unfortunately the Tezuka "world" was more like a corner that occupied a section of the lobby of the theater above the station where the upcoming shows were Westside Story and Anne of Green Gables (no, not imports, but performed by Japanese actors.... need I say more?) But we managed to buy some key Black Jack paraphernalia and I got this pic of Irwin with his hero, the unlicensed playboy doctor.
On the first evening, we walked the Philosopher's Path and met up with Chie for dinner at her University where she hates working -- the Kyoto University of Art & Design's Art Center. It was a pretty impressive campus from an outsider's perspective. Buildings had goofy names like Ningen-kan (the Human Wing) and Kibo-kan (the Wing of Hope). There was an exhibition we peeked into which featured a humongous robot, which apparently also talked.

This morning we started off on Chie's bikes to a brief temple visit, and then to an old downtown stretch of shops on Nishiki Dori, specializing in foods an food-related items. Here's Irwin drooling over kitchenware.We were going to go to a ramen shop for lunch, but when we got there it was inexplicably closed, so we went to a soba joint next door instead. We had to share our table with another couple who were apparently on a date. It was pretty funny actually, overhearing their conversation. The guy was talking about how he had had 2 dogs, both labrador retrievers, but one of them died of cancer, and the girl was like, I didn't know dogs got cancer. We left the restaurant, biked over towards the river and spotted a cute cafe. We went in for some tea and cake, and found the SAME COUPLE continuing their date at this cafe! They must have thought we were stalking them. It was pretty funny and cute, actually. Well, at least we had found all the cute date spots in Kyoto!

In the early evening, after some time at the Keibunsha bookstore, we met up with Chie to go deep into the forest to Kurama, where there was a lovely simple onsen. The train ride into the mountain forest area was lovely, as was our bath. There was a seasonal eating area set up right over the river, but the meal courses were way too expensive for us, so we came back into town for dinner.Ramen-gai (or Ramen Street) was just a block away from Keibunsha bookstore, and it was basically our wet dream come true. Ramen places lining both sides of the street. We chose this place for its great facade.They were famous for their soup, created from seafood, vegetables and meat broth. I had their classic ramen, pictured below. I have nothing at all to complain about -- it was delicious!
Looking back on the day we accomplished quite a lot, especially considering the heat is seriously melting my brain. Irwin and I both got a bit sunburnt from our bike-riding. We got Chie some electric fans to stave off the heat. We need to plan a bit better tomorrow -- ploting our way across town from one air-conditioned spot to the next....

Irwin's Birthday

2008-07-21T19:21:00.004-04:00

Soshigaya Okura, off the Odakyu line, is where my brother lives, and though I forget the reason, it is has dubbed its main shopping area Ultraman Street. I think the story is that the Ultraman factory (?) is near by or something. Anyway there are random Ultraman posters all around the station and an Ultraman statue in front of the pachinko parlor by the station.

We celebrated Irwin's birthday with my brother and his family which included shopping at UNIQLO (the largest store in the Kanto area -- with an onsen spa upstairs! What?!)

and then we went to the onsen at Yukari/Jindaiji.
This morning, Tsukiji fish market and uni breakfast YEAH!

Can someone PLEASE tell me what the heck these are???? Gross!!!!

A few hours later we were on a Shinkansen to Kyoto. We just arrived (it's almost 5pm). We're staying at Chie's place, which is so cute! More pics later.

DISASTER!

2008-07-20T08:12:00.005-04:00

OMG what happened?? We were having a perfectly wonderful time until this afternoon. In the morning we got breakfast at a cafe, and then we headed over to Takashimaya for some shopping and lunch. I had been up to the restaurant park there and saw this restaurant which looked very appealing. Truth be told I've been craving pasta for the last few days, so I was excited when Irwin wanted to try it out too. Japanese people love pasta, and they've really made it their own.

This display outside, as well as the people lined up to get into the restaurant, made me think it would be a good idea to go.Well as you may have guessed, this turned out to be a bad bad bad bad bad idea. Irwin's chili tomato carbonara came with a raw egg cracked open on top. 30 minutes after he ate it, while we were looking at bedding at Tokyu Hands, he had to run to the bathroom and didn't come out for 30 minutes. When he finally did emerge, he looked all pale and sweaty and awful. He said he thought he was going to die. He promptly had to go back into the bathroom again, and came out another 20 minutes later. We think it was food poisoning. We went back to the hotel and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to coax the toxins out of his body.

We did go out in the evening for a little while. I had to get something to eat. But I was also developing an awful problem with a canker sore on my tongue that was so painful every bite of food was shooting excruciating pain into the core of my brain, and impeding my speech as well. Oh yes we were a very happy couple today.

We were supposed to hang out with my brother and his family today, but that didn't happen. Hopefully we can sleep this day away and tomorrow will be just lovely. It's Irwin's 36th birthday!!!! Here is some nice vertical signage against the evening sky.

The Day I met Kim Jong-Il

2008-07-19T21:50:00.006-04:00

Irwin arrived yesterday! Which made me feel a hundred times better about being here. I waited for like an hour for his bus to arrive, and even the bus guy was like maybe you should wait inside because you never know how the traffic's going to be, so I went in and out a bunch but I was there when the bus came and Irwin came out!
So cute!!!

So our plan for the evening was to meet up with several friends of Kayoko's who happen to live in Tokyo. I had chatted with Yoko Kumano several times, and I felt particularly psyched to meet her because we had so many things in common, being bi-lingual, bi-cultural, Northern California etc. Except she was now living and working in Tokyo, which I just can't imagine doing with any reality. We were to meet her at Shinjuku station, at the South Gate in front of the flower shop, and when we got there at the appointed time, there were a billion people there. Irwin was like, what does Yoko look like? And I was like, hmmmm, actually the only real photo of her that I remembered clearly was this one, in which, as she herself claims, she looks just like Kim Jong-Il.So for a while, I was trying to find Kim Jong-Il in the swarming crowd at Shinjuku. Well, then this super cute girl came up to us and was like, hey guys, so glad you found the place. I was shocked, because she didn't look at all like what I was waiting for. ha ha.
We went out to sushi at Sakurajosui, with Jade Yang, another friend of Kayo's, and her friend Saskia, both of whom had just completed an internship with a huge architecture firm in Tokyo and were about to embark on a few weeks of travel, site-seeing and visiting family history.
Washi, Yoko's bf met us at the sushi place. We ate SO MUCH food -- which I'm sure you can read more about on umamimart in a few days. The appetizers were amazing, especially the ankimo (monkfish liver). When the sushi started coming out, though, I started to feel so full that I was seriously afraid that I might throw up. I couldn't believe it, actually, because usually I can eat like a horse, but somehow I had hit my limit while everyone else was still going strong. I managed to drink some green tea and make that extra room for uni (sea urchin) and amaebi (sweet raw shrimp), but that was it.
But the most awesome part was just hanging out with friends in Tokyo. Even though we were meeting each other for the first time essentially, the feeling was so warm and open, it was so so great. I think a testament to how awesome Kayoko is and how other awesome people gravitate towards her.

After sushi we walked to a beer garden nearby. We had another drink and goofed around, then caught the last train back to Shinjuku.
This morning Irwin and I went to Takashimaya and did a little shopping. We had lunch at a pasta place in the top floor restaurant park, but Irwin a few minutes after leaving the restaurant had to go to the bathroom and he didn't come out for like 30 minutes. When he finally did come out, he was sweaty and pale and dizzy. We think it was food-poisoning -- his pasta had a raw egg on top. We cabbed back to the hotel. I encouraged him to try to throw up, but he didn't. I gave him some liquids and now he's resting. Hopefully he'll feel better in a few hours and we can go out to visit my brother and his family.

No work and all play

2008-07-19T03:00:00.002-04:00

The last 24 hours have been about family.
After I saw Binzee yesterday, I met up with my brother in Shinjuku for a shabu shabu dinner, which of course I neglected to photograph. I always THINK about it, and manage to take photos BEFORE the meal... I'm sorry I'm such a bad food blogger, but in my own defense, my camera is crappy for close-up shots, AND I am really such an avid food eater that it is very hard for me to control my appetite long enough to document the meal...
I spent the night at my brother's house, because my niece Lynn had been asking for me all week long, with a special request for me to spend the night and also come see her kindergarten. We hung out all evening, and then in the morning. Yuu was also warming up to me. The little guy is such a funny character. He loves his big sister. It's so amazing to watch them interact together.
Lynn had been up very late, but she got up super early, I think because I was there. I woke up at... 5AM. :P
I did take Lynn to her kindergarten by bike -- it was a very cute school. I forgot to take my camera, but it had a large playground, and about 50 kids for 3 grades of kindergarten. SO cute.

Later in the morning I met with Masako Yamamoto, one of the managers of Pappa Tarahumara for whom I had done a bunch of translation work. Got paid! yeah!

Today is really really hot. Like walk a block and be drench in sweat kind of heat. Irwin is arriving in about an hour!!! And we're going out to sushi dinner with Kayoko's college friend Yoko Kumano (with whom I've avidly chatted but never met). Very excited!!! Here's a photo of a corner of Shinjuku station at 7pm on a Friday night.

Time is Round

2008-07-18T03:54:00.005-04:00

My friend Steve Kang and I, in college, used to sit around and talk about how time was not linear but parabolic. I can't remember what kind of proof we came up with in our Jack Daniels stupor, but it's an idea I've always thought about. When I was working on pictures of the drowned, the actors were talking about what they feared the most about the idea of death. I remember what Dario said, his fear was that death was a state of being perpetually stuck in whatever the final moment of your life was. So in other words, no matter how happy and wonderful a life you had, if the very moment of your death is of utter terror, that you would carry that state into the next place. This just made me think more about the linearity of time as a false perception... I'm just going to leave this thought at that because I don't know if I can really go any farther with it and be understood...

This morning I had a final meeting with Okada, his Company Manager Akane Nakamura, and their frequent Stage Manager So Ozaki. Under discussion were the subtitles for their upcoming U.S. tours, which I am preparing. They had toured to Singapore with my first draft translation, but found that the colloquialisms native to the U.S. were not comprehensible to audiences in Singapore, and hence the discussion about neutralizing the English -- or really, whether that would be a possible task, considering the super-colloquial tone of Okada's original language. Also, because in the Japanese the subject of a sentence is assumed and because Okada uses that to perpetuate an ambiguity (and ambivalence) in his mono/dialogues, how to handle this in translation into languages which cannot function without a specified subject? All fascinating linguistic issues -- to me anyway. Here is So -- he's from Kyoto.

And Akane with Okada. So cute.

After the meeting, So was actually just upstairs in the Opera City building working on an installation for an exhibition opening tomorrow. It was pretty awesome, actually, a dozen or so artists of different nationalities. There was an American artist with a video installation. Check out this photo.

That's me.
A few moments later...

The guy in the red is not a reaｌ person. Basically you walk into this room that have four little window monitors that are showing a live camera feed taken from the opposite side of the room. So if you are looking into one of these windows, you will be looking at yourself from behind, e.g. your butt. But then these other people show up in the frame, making noise and all, but if you turn to look back at them, in the room, you see that they are not there at all. It's like seeing a ghost. Eerie.

On Facebook, I got an e-mail from a friend of mine from high school, someone I hadn`t seen essentially since we graduated, over 15 years ago. And he lives in Tokyo. We decided to met up today -- it was lovely to catch up with Binzee.

He also was diagnosed 6 months ago with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He was in between chemo sessions. I actually went to school with Binzee for seven years or something -- he was a class above me so we weren't super close. I just remember him as one of the most wholesome students -- student body president, tennis and soccer player, smart, handsome, liked by everyone. He has maintained an incredible optimism and strength through the last several months, I think. A beautiful & inspiring thing. His son Tyga is just over one year old.

The New National & Dan's last day

2008-07-17T07:22:00.005-04:00

Thanks to last night's red wine (and the thicker curtain on my window which I hadn't used til now) I was able to sleep in this morning -- until 7.30AM!

I met up with Dan at 10.30AM because we had an appointment with Mamoru Ota, Producing Director, Drama Division of the New National Theatre, Tokyo. We made this appointment so that we could take a look at the actual theater that Enjoy was presented. And although Okada has been rehearsing in the studio at the New National all week, for some reason it took all this coordination and bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo for us to just look at the Pit, the smallest theater in the complex. In fact, we almost backed out on the idea of trying to see the theater because, in reality it bears the least amount of actual inspiration or helpfulness for our purposes -- and besides, we'd seen the space on the DVD, how different can it be?

We waited under the watchful and doubtful gaze of the guards until Ota came to pick us up. The Pit is a humble modular blackbox, seating up to 300. OK I am being utterly facetious when I say humble. Really, it's like way better than St. Ann's Warehouse. I mean, it's huge, lots of height, a gajillion lighting instruments, totally flexible... I guess I'm not used to seeing legit like regional theater spaces or whatever, but I was very impressed. From the DVD the space looked kind of like a lecture hall and much smaller.

So today was Dan's last day in Japan. His brother Jason (aka the Magical Prince) had taken off to Hokkaido (from where he sent Dan a photo of a RIDICULOUS uni bowl -- most heinous food porn EVER) and Hinako had gone hiking somewhere, so we went on our own excursion: to Chofu. A suburb of Tokyo, there is a temple called Jindaiji there with an area famous for its soba noodles. Below, a sign in the restaurant detailing the cross section of a buckwheat grain, and how the noodles in this restaurant does not use the outer layer of the grain, which produces a lot of scum. Soba noodles, as commonly known, are purplish in color, but the soba here was white, and shaped like fettuccine.

Here is Dan looking mighty doubtful about his slimy nameko mshrooms.

After hitting the Yukari hot springs (which I will blog about another time) and the soba, we wandered through the Jindaiji Temple grounds,

then back towards the Parco Department store in front of the station. Danger!! I didn't realize Dan would be such a shopper. I think it must have been because of the "last day" syndrome that he had very little self-control in spending. He bought a bunch of stuff at Muji, a super-cute green messenger bag, ten pairs of socks at the Paul Frank store. He almost bought a pair of glasses at a store called "FAMOUSCRAP." The use of English here never ceases to amuse.

For our last dinner together we went back to the yakitori place he liked so much. We had the same waitress, who recognized us and was so sweet.
Some highlights:
Pork belly!
From left to right, two skewers of standard negima (chicken and green onion) and quail eggs;
Enoki wrapped in pork belly (which Dan claims he is going to be the first to introduce to Philly);Mozzarella Cheese wrapped in shiso seaweed -- hmmmm I understand what you're going for, but really, not so much -- plus that's not mozzarella cheese!?We had ice cream from a convenience store, and it was time to turn in. This was goodbye! Wow it's hard to imagine -- spending a week in Tokyo with someone you don't know very well, working and playing together, could have easily been a terrible disaster, but spending this time with Dan was truly a pleasure from beginning to end. Safe trip home!

Revelations and Reversals

2008-07-16T10:33:00.006-04:00

I was determined today, to try to correct my sleep cycle. So although I did wake up at 5AM, I did not go back to sleep after breakfast, as is my body's inclination. Instead I lid a wet towel down on the nasty carpet, did a yoga practice, and worked until our 11AM meeting with Okada.

Okada wanted to take us to the restaurant where a young couple at the end of the play go to on their date, to eat stuffed cabbage, but the restaurant was closed for no specified reason, so instead we walked 10 minutes to an eel place. It was very good.
(Sorry I had already taken a few bites before I remembered to take a photo... Is that gross?)
Over lunch we started to review the script and some question points we had. Since sentences in Japanese do not need to specify a subject (most of the time the subject must be assumed from the context) it can lead to many misunderstandings. Okada also depends on the ingrained ambiguity of his mother language to communicate a sense of elusiveness (indecisiveness, for example) in his characters. We only had 90 minutes together before Okada has to go to rehearsal, which was not enough time to get really into the details.

After lunch, or in fact the whole morning I'd been feeling kind of shitty. Like woozy in the stomach, and just... kind of sick of being here (here in Tokyo, here in the hotel) dealing with this environment that asks something quite different of a person than New York or California. Kind of feeling squashed. And also hearing during the day about a bus-jacking that occurred in Aichi prefecture -- some 14 year old boy tried to jack a bus with two knives. WTF? I worked for a few hours alone on the script and then met up with Dan. He was particularly chipper today, or maybe it just seemed that way because he was wearing a lime green polo shirt. Over tea and juice and a fresh enormous delicious peach we went over many of our questions in the script and also laid out a casting schema for the play, and then walked over to the New National. Here is the Koushukaido highway you have to walk along to get there.
Huge, concrete.
I really wanted to walk through the water thing at the New National. I thought I might get arrested of something, but Dan encouraged me to do it.

At rehearsal, I was surprised to find that Okada had the actors working at the table. He must have realized it would be practically impossible to get these actors (unfamiliar with his work and methods) to speak and move in the way he wanted them to, so he was just focusing on their speaking. The direction remained the same -- to deliver the text with a singular intention that embodies what drive the whole sentence/phrase, without changing that intention through the course of saying it, without being swept into the dynamics of the words. Which in essence is to tell actors NOT TO ACT. He would make them repeat sentences three times until the meaning of the words were no longer being "performed" so that the words had to carry meaning by themselves, without the lilting of the voice or the support of emotional fluidity. Or sometime he would make them break up a sentence into three breaths.

Dan thought the actors looked extremely unhappy. It's hard for me to read Japanese people, honestly, but I thought they had no idea what Okada was talking about. Later Dan asked Okada if he liked any of these actors (the actors were selected by the theater -- Okada had never met them before) and Okada, after umming for a few moments, said no, not really. lol.

We went out for Chinese food for our first dinner -- this was the final meeting Okada and Dan would have together, because Okada is not available on Thursday. We went through our textual questions and schema. I think I forgot to mention this, but pretty early on this week, Okada had told Dan that, because Dan is a creator himself (as opposed to just a director), he felt that Dan should feel free to diverge from the specifics of the play text -- in order to realize the script more fully. I think this statement from Okada, is not only generous and trusting, but also indicates that he truly has his eye on the art, and NOT that he is attached to this or that detail, this turning of the phrase, that particular transition. It's a great great thing to have this liberty and to be able to give this liberty -- in my opinion a gift that makes this project a collaboration.

I was enormously tired after translating this conversation, but Dan's friend Hinako had invited Dan and me, and Dan's younger brother Jason, a photographer who arranged to be in Japan for some interviews, to the only Argentinian restaurant in Tokyo, EL CAMINITO run by Hinako's "second father".
It was a lovely evening and awesome food (I am sorry it was just too dark in the restaurant to take photos) and I learned so many things about Dan that surprised me.

He hates Woody Allen and the Coen Brother. (Um, WHAT?!)
But at least the original Star Wars (esp SW & Empire) were formative influences
He went to Collegiate (a fact that somehow he really did not want me to blog about -- but which was interesting to me because I came to be friends with many people who went there)

Jason was another kind of element entirely, from Dan, and it was so funny to see them together. The dynamic of family...
The restaurant was in Azabu, near the Tokyo Tower. I honestly don't think I'd seen the Tower since I was like 4 years old. It was really beautiful at night. I felt much better after the day.

5AM thoughts

2008-07-15T16:23:00.005-04:00

I'm awake again at 5AM. I should probably do some yoga or something but the carpet in here is kind of nasty.

Some random thoughts upon waking:

I forgot to talk about a very interesting conversation Dan and I had yesterday. Dan, Okada and I are all 34 years old (!!!). So Okada's plays are really about our generation. Okada of course has two kids (an infant and a 4 year-old) but Dan and I, although we are in serious relationships, are SINGLE and have been living that artist's single life. It was surprising to me how common our experiences are in terms of this "generation" thing. Dan talked about how at the 5 year college reunion, when some people showed up with kids, the general attitude towards them was like "oooooh, what happened there?" but at the 10 year reunion, when some people showed up without kids, the general attitude towards the childless was "Ooooh, what went wrong there?" Dan said he thought that now the trend is moving backwards now, that younger people (in their 20s) are actually having kids in their 20s (and I would guess this is true, since Connie's younger brother is having a kid now) and while that idea sounds preposterous to us (and I'm sure to many of my friends my age) these younger people are like, "OK, I see you and your generation and how you've basically wasted your 20s on internships or whatever, and now, in your 30s you have nothing to show for it -- and yes it's hard to have kids, but I might as well do it NOW while I have the energy to do it," like they are way more focused and clear-headed (?). I mean... it's tricky, right? I feel like proud of the way I spent my 20s, being independent and not focusing on "building financial stability" or anything, but it's true, now I'm kind of like, wait a sec. I AM old, or getting older, and if I do want a family, I've got to buckle down and "get serious" or something (?)? Waaaaaa!

Which is exactly what Enjoy is about -- the rift between our generation and the younger generation -- and it is a symptom of a larger socio-economic problem that plays itself out on a personal level. I mean, it may not be exactly the same in Japan as it is elsewhere, but I definitely see the parallels.

wiped out

2008-07-15T07:54:00.005-04:00

I can't kick the jetlag, in fact I almost feel like it's getting worse. Waking up totally lucid at 5am, eating breakfast at 7am, crashing out again til 11am, getting unbelievably sleepy around 9pm... Feel like I've been away from NY for weeks!

Breakfast this morning at the Chinese restaurant. Shiumai, crystal shrimp dumpling, congee, scrambled eggs and ham (?), shredded chicken salad... Not bad at all, but not my favorite breakfast of the last few days.
I took Dan to a Russian restaurant in the basement of the Subaru building -- I've been reading up on good lunches in Shinjuku on a few Japanese blogs. Not bad. The plan for today was for me & Dan to camp out at the manga cafe and work on stuff, read through the play, watch the DVD of the original production. This was a good plan, but the thing about the manga cafe is that it is poorly ventilated AND people are smoking like chimneys. Pretty disgusting.

I have to tell you, or try to tell you, how fucking difficult it is to translate Okada's work. I mean, putting aside his directorial methods for the moment -- just as a writer, he has the actors slide in and out of character, in and out of addressing the audience directly, talking about an event then slipping into the event, and jumping through a million loopholes in circuitous logic. Most of the text is monologue, and an actor can be talking for 3 pages, without a period(.). It's like if everything you said AND your inner monologue are both hurtling out of your mouth and contradicting each other and never ending. (I think I felt an earthquake just now...)

Here's a sample from the opening of the play:

ACTOR 1: We’ll start with Act One... This guy named Kato, was riding the subway the other day, riding the Keio line but, there was an encounter, then, when he sat next to... There were these two women who were talking, but... Kato had no intention of eavesdropping at all, of course but, while he was listening, honestly, he... in the end, from the middle of the conversation, it did turn completely into eavesdropping but... you know how for text messaging they have those screen stickers that you put on your phone to keep your screen invisible to the person standing next to you, well there aren’t such things for voices, so in a way, it’s a little that’s just the way it is, maybe, which is like totally an excuse for this but.... but with that conversation, it was a little like no matter how you look at it, their voices were, clearly above and beyond what is a standard volume, I mean come on, was the way it seemed and that was because... on top of that the content of the conversation itself was also like, grabbed my attention in this...

ACTOR 1: but, never mind, that story, I mean we’ll get into it later, so let’s just put it aside for now, so I have to tell the story about before he got on the train, when he went into the bathroom at the station, I mean it’s not like I have to but do you mind?

Waaaaaaa!
So my translation of the play is in very rough shape -- of 4 acts, the first is in decent shape but the other three I've only pounded out a very rough "for the sake of plot" translation, so I've been working on refining that. It's really crazy, I can get stuck on one line of text for 20 minutes, trying to figure out where the action verb is... It doesn't help that Japanese has a completely different (and I'd even venture to say incomparable) grammatical and syntactical structure than English.

But we had a good productive day.

Oh, some things that Dan and I have in common:

We love to eat.
We both refer to Bob Saietta (aka Bobby Silverman) as our nemesis.
We are bad tourists,
We watch Battle Star Galactica ("Frak")
We like video games.

I showed him a bit of my Super Mario Bros. playing...
After our afternoon work session we went out in search of a snack, and wandered into a video game arcade for a moment. It wasn't that huge, as far as those kind of places go, only 3 stories high. Here is Dan getting his ass kicked on some kind of Street Fighter type game.OK but the AWESOME game in the whole place was...

THE TYPING OF THE DEAD

It is basically your typical zombie game, but instead of a joystick or a gun, you are armed with... a KEYBOARD (qwerty, not dvorak, sorry). When the Zombies come to attack you, they have words stuck on them and you have to type out the word as quickly as you can (and accurately of course) in order to blow them up. How nerdy can you get?!?!?! I have to get Irwin to play this. Fucking hysterical.

Do you see the "Type or Die" prompt at the bottom of the photo above? Too funny.

We also found a Rilakkuma stuffed animal which makes an appearance in Enjoy. Cuteness overload.

Finally got out of the time-and-money-suck of the arcade and found a pretty awesome yakitori place (which Irwin would love also).

I should have taken photos of the chicken breast, chicken liver, shishito peppers, mountain potato, pork belly and bacon-wrapped enoki, but by the time i got my camera out of my bag, all that was left were skewers...
OK going to try to stay awake for a few more hours so I don't wake up at 5am.

Manga Cafe

2008-07-14T07:51:00.006-04:00

So if there wasn't enough explanation (and really that's the weird thing about blogs, like who is reading this anyway? i mean i can't completely shrug off responsibility and say this is my diary and i don't care about the reader -- or can i? i guess i am old school that way... hi irwin) I'm in Tokyo because The Play Company is producing the English language premiere American production of Toshiki Okada's Enjoy, which I am translating and Dan Rothenberg (of Pig Iron) is directing, and this trip is about Dan and I getting to know Okada and his world and his process better, as well as geting to understand the world of the play better etc.

A pretty intensive, productive day. Though I am all fucked up with the jetlag, waking up at 5AM starving, eating breakfast at 7AM and then napping from 9 - 11AM...
At 1PM Dan and I met up and went to one of my favorite restaurants from my childhood, Nakamuraya. Over lunch we read Act One out loud which was really fun.

Later we went over to the New National Theater where Okada was workshopping a play (a German play, actually, which he will direct at the New National next year) -- which also happens to be the theater which commissioned and premiered Enjoy. It's kind of like Lincoln Center in size and stature... There's this amazing water thing in the whole front part of the complex.
It was interesting to see him struggle/work with the actors today -- who were not in his company and had never worked with him before -- and who seemed like actors with a capital A if you know what I mean. (again, I didn't feel comfortable whipping out the camera in the middle of rehearsal...

Also Dan's friend Hinako joined us for this part -- she worked with Pig Iron (Dan's theater company) on several projects, and she happened to be back in Tokyo visiting her mom.

After rehearsal, the four of us (Okada, Dan, Hinako & me) went to the comic book cafe where Okada went to a lot as research for his play. Enjoy takes place in a comic book (manga) cafe (did I already say that?) so there we were at the source of the artistic inspiration. I am being facetious. It was fascinating, though -- the only manga cafe I'd been to in the past was more like a comfy library, where there was a big open room with a bunch of tables, sofas etc, and shelve with books -- and you paid for your drinks (there was a minimum drink or something) and you sat and read amongst other people. The one we went to today, you pay for a private space (a single or couple cubicle) equipped with internet, tv/dvd player, drinks were free, you grab the comic you want to read and curl up in your cubicle. Ours (we got two couple-sized cubicles) had beanbags but you could get ones with reclining chairs or other types of comfy furniture type things. Weird, perhaps? but SUPERFUN. It's like renting out your own private space in the middle of Times Square!

After that we went to a (regular) cafe, and Dan and Okada has a great great great conversation about Enjoy and how to deal with this translation/transposition of this play specific to Tokyo in way that would make sense in a real way in NY. I feel like this connection could not have gone better -- They are both very open and receptive and smart, and really focused on the intention of the art (as opposed to attachment to this or that detail in the text or whatever).

I need to say that I think Dan is pretty awesome. He a deep capacity for understanding things, especially things that are as elusive as cultural differences. I guess I say that because I know so many people (Americans, Japanese, and otherwise) who are so fixed in their perspective and identity, to be able to let that go and to try to truly connect with something outside what they know is just too much (too much insecurity, anxiety, too much giving up of power, whatever). But Dan is really great -- able to take in without feeling or actually compromising himself or his perspective, and find points of connection or parallels.

I am really tired.

My hotel, and visiting rehearsal

2008-07-13T09:56:00.002-04:00

I am braindead. It's only 11pm.

Here are some pics from my hotel. The outside of the hotel actually looks pretty awesome. Gently rounded and egg-shaped, with perfectly symmetrical square windows, equidistant from one another. Reminiscent of a large cruise ship for aliens rather than a hotel. The inside not as cool as the outside.

Dan R and I visited a rehearsal led by Toshiki Okada. It was a sort of combination pick-up rehearsal for Five Days in March, but also a session for us to observe how he usually works with his actors. I spent most of the time with my head exploding from the weirdness... that I cannot articulate -- partially, like, why are these Japanese people so dead in their faces and sullen and silent, or why are they so self-involved, or why is he giving the same direction over and over without any observable outcome? It is hard to know what is normal when we are sitting there, Dan & I, "observing" outsiders -- totally not normal. Looking back on it now (and after 5 hours of sleep -- now it's 6am) I think it was just all the actors being polite and not being certain of who we were, and Okada really trying to get some work done. ANYWAYS...

Some ideas that came up (about Okada's work):

Root impetus is the IMAGE (this can be of an event, of a space, of a conversation) which results in two manifestations, one of which is the text, and the other, the movements of the body -- and neither are necessarily dependent or linked to one another. They are both born of (independently) the original image.

Something he said which I found interesting (and perhaps questionable): that Japanese people have a much less pronounced sense of "public" compared to westerners. His observation is that, for example, the train is a semi-private space. And that is why so many people are sleeping on the train. It's not that Japanese people are so tired. He thinks that if people had an awareness of how public riding the train is, they wouldn't fall asleep on the train no matter how tired they are.

The opening exercise he did with his actors is something he uses to audition people. It is an investigation into finding non-performative (non-demonstrative/non-indicative) movement. He has someone simply describe the layout of their living space. (for example: My house is part of our family-run shop, so there are the storefront shutters that make a lot of noise, and that's where we all go in and come out. Right when you get inside, there's the common area living space and then there's like this narrow hallway where...etc.) While he is describing the space, he will inevitably be using physical gestures to indicate some details of the space, but also using some gesture unconsciously. In other words, whether the gesture itself is abstracted or literal, the actors may be using it literally, or unconsciously -- and this unconscious use of gesture is what he is after. Once that actors is finished with his description, the next actor must describe to the best of his ability the last person's living space. This is not so much about imitating the last guy, or trying to mimic his gestural or vocal patterns, but it is about being able to strongly visualize and imagine a space you don't actually know first-hand and describing it as descriptively as possible. Then the actor describes his own living space and the chain goes on. So there is a gap, he claims, in how precise and detailed the description of your own house is, compared to the description of a house you've never been to. The aim is to heighten one's imagination and attention to detail to strengthen the image in one's mind, so that something you are only imagining is as detailed and strong of an image as something you actually know. Okada uses this exercise to seek out people who have a really strong sense of connection to that image (both in terms of text and physically -- but not in s performative way) and also to find people whose habitual physical movements he finds interesting.

OK I could say a lot in reaction to what I observed, but I will save it for another time to process. I wish I'd taken more pictures, but somehow the vibe wasn't right... Here people are getting ready to leave the rehearsal room during a break.

The space where he rehearses used to be a huge wedding banquet hall, back when people had these out of control humongoid weddings. That trend has since passed, and the city of Yokohama came into the disused space, which they turned into rehearsal space. How awesome is that? The particular room we were in had a shinto shrine embedded into the wall -- where couples used to get married. (you can see part of it in the above pic w Dan)

After rehearsal we went out to an izakaya. After 3 glasses of beer and very little to eat I was jetlagged and drunk -- and so too, apparently, was Dan. The actors warmed up to us a bit more in this informal setting. The food there was not enough so when Dan and I got back to the hotel we went out again to a donburi (rice bowl) place -- it was a 24 hour joint where you buy food coupons at the door. Not bad.

Schedule for today is: eat breakfast, work on script, meet up with Dan and do script work, go to the New National Theater to observe rehearsals, go out to a comic book cafe with Toshiki afterwards. Keep waking at 5am, which means zonked by 10pm...

First Day in Japan

2008-07-12T18:47:00.000-04:00

Twelve hours to Tokyo. I was sitting next to these young Japanese women. I was wholly unproductive during the entire trip. I slept some, watched some terrible movies without sound, played othello and solitude on the cheesy airplane game console, and stared at the icebergs.

Continuous day flying over the northern part of the globe to get to Asia.

Nearing Narita:

When you get out of customs, you can look for this sign,

But most likely you won't even really have to look, because the Bus Ticket counter is literally right in front of your nose.
Tell them Shinjuju Washington, buy the ticket, and go outside to the correct gate # to board. I know the word "limousine" is confusing, because in fact, the Airport Limousine, is just a big old air-conditioned bus.

Stick your luggage down there.

My first thought upon getting into town was -- WOW there are so many Japanese people here in Japan! I guess you perspective gets off when you live in NY and are used to seeing all kind of people from every walk of life. I still get stared at here for having my nose pierced.

I went over to my brother's house in Soshigaya Okura. I was totally delirious by the time I got there. My nephew Yuu is a crybaby. He would cry just looking at me. He was also very tired. But I got to hang out with my brother, his wife and their daughter Lynn. She is super cute. We played cards!!! Yeah, my kind of girl. She is five years old, the best age.

Now going to get some breakfast....