sangsara.net

Tag: Japan

  • Week 13.23

    • We traveled from Kobe to Hiroshima via Shinkansen, then went back to Tokyo for a few days until a red eye flight back to Singapore on Saturday. As with most holidays, it didn’t feel long enough; I could have used another week. But I’m thoroughly pooped from all the walking and general lack of sleep. It was wonderful to see Japan again after five years, and our chat with the old taxi driver who spoke English with us on the way to Haneda Airport indicated that Japan might almost be as happy to have us tourists back. I fantasize about dropping in for another week within the next year, but who knows how long it’ll be again.
    • Hiroshima felt very different from Kobe, partly because of its terrible history, and the gravity of it which pulls every experience towards a discussion about peace, awareness, and suffering. It has quite a few museums, and they all inevitably address the atomic bomb in some way. I had bad dreams each night. I’m not normally one to believe in this sort of thing, but there is so much death there and so recently, that my first thought was “bad vibes”.
    • While we were there, though, the sakura bloomed fully across the city and it was beautiful to see.
    • We visited a Picasso exhibition at the Hiroshima Museum of Art (beautiful building, galleries were a bit dingy though in the basement), and also lots of art and exhibitions dedicated to remembering the atomic bomb at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). We didn’t have energy or syllables left for the Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum. MOCA was wonderful though, newly renovated after two and a half years and opened for less than two weeks when we visited.
    • Did you know Picasso created a series dedicated to the horrors of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima? No? What are these then, AI-generated photos from Midjourney v5?
    • After many years of being a Go Go Curry fan curious about Champion’s Curry, the Kanazawa-style curry franchise that Go Go supposedly ripped off down to the signature yellow, I finally got a taste of it. And… it was sadly disappointing. It’s soundly beaten by Go Go’s richer flavor and dedication to excess — there’s no preset that comes with the works. On this trip, if I had to rank curries, Hinoya might come first, followed by Coco Ichibanya, closely followed by Go Go in third and Champion’s in last place.
    • I saw a Japanese toothpaste ad of some sort that demonstrated people brushing their teeth in a curious way: holding their brushes like pens or chopsticks. Is that how everyone does it? I’ve never seen it. Perhaps it’s time for a new Japanese Wisdom Fad to go global: the secret art of teeth cleaning. Anyway I tried it out for a laugh and was surprised by the ergonomic improvement! Holding the toothbrush in pen grip means your elbow stays close to the body rather than sticking out, and your forearm is perpendicular to the ground. This gives you more power in the up-down motion by moving your entire arm rather than your wrist. Combine that with the added directional precision from being able to move your fingers, and it feels easier to do those small away-from-the-gumline strokes you’re meant to do, versus holding in an overhand grip.
    Please excuse the iPhone finger sketch
    • You may remember that I became quite fond of watching a live street webcam in Shinjuku about a year ago, leaving it up on the bedroom projector as a sort of video wallpaper or magic window into another world while I read or did other things. Well, we finally got to stand on that very street and see ourselves on the screen! With tourism back, the street is much busier than it was a year ago, uncomfortably so, but now I finally know what the inside of the ramen restaurant looks like, and confirmed my suspicions that there’s a gap under the steps of the KBBQ place where the rats probably hang out. We waved at the camera and tooks a couple of photos from a street-level POV. What’s great was that there were many other people obviously there to see the cameras too… my weird little Kabukicho webcam community!
    • I ended up not finding very much to buy in terms of electronic souvenirs. I don’t need another camera or headphones, as mentioned a couple of weeks back, and I couldn’t even bring myself to buy a phone case that I don’t need and that will be obsolete in half a year when the iPhone 15 comes out. I did however get a little $12 plastic robot at Don Quijote that plays their unforgettable jingle with the push of a button. It’s going to get a lot of use in my home, I think.
    • Wait that’s not correct, we got a portable massage gun called an Exagun Hyper from the Doctor Air brand. Not an insignificant factor in this decision was the advertising campaign featuring Ryoko Yonekura, also known as Doctor-X in the TV series of the same name. She was clearly hired for that reference alone and seems to relish it. I’m kinda sure they even pronounce Doctor Air with the same flourish that “Doctor-X” is usually delivered with.
    • If anyone in Singapore is wondering why Netflix removed the first six seasons of Doctor-X and now only has Season 7, it may be a licensing issue with Amazon. Seasons 1–5 are now on Prime Video locally, so you have a chance to catch up and hopefully Season 6 will turn up someday. Be warned though, this is not strictly speaking good TV. It’s a cheesy, overly dramatic manga-style live action show about a doctor with miraculous surgery skills and no social ones. Like House but turned up even further.
    • I also got some tees and socks from FamilyMart, because I’m always on the lookout for good black t-shirts and their white/green/blue brand socks were an internet sensation a year or so ago. Oh, and some sake straight from their Kobe breweries. That’s about it for physical souvenirs.
    • What I have brought back intangibly, though, is a renewed enthusiasm for gaming on mobile and the Nintendo Switch — I didn’t bring my Switch along and now I’m dying to play through my backlog. It’s hard to explain but the media and cultural environment there for gamers is immersive. You see giant ads for Splatoon 3 in the subway. Billboards and TV spots for mobile games like Dislyte and Genshin Impact. Late night shows on TV where people play trading card games. Most of these games aren’t even Japanese in origin, but they’re part of the landscape and it’s encouraging? Inspiring? To feel your hobby validated as a visible part of society. Nearly none of that is the case in Singapore, the irl city.

    A selection of (sakura-centric) photos from this week follows. Please rotate your iPhone to landscape because WordPress’s masonry layout somehow doesn’t work on narrow screens!

  • Hipstamatic returns

    You may have heard that Hipstamatic X has relaunched with a social network, and is now simply the de facto Hipstamatic app (the original is available as Hipstamatic Classic); completely ad free and user supported via an optional subscription, with a focus on very 2010 principles such as posting square photos only, a 99-person follow limit, and heavy filters that seem at odds with current aesthetic trends.

    I’ve been in the beta for awhile but found it too similar to the original Hipstamatic X, and the added social network had little utility for me when it was in beta. Now that it’s out, and I’m in Japan on holiday, I’ve found it a fun nostalgic toy that recalls earlier trips when my iPhone was my main camera and I’d occasionally risk losing a few shots by choosing Hipstamatic over the regular camera app. That was back when the processed photo was all you got — these days the processed photo can be reverted to the original underneath, which is quite liberating.

    I’ve been shooting regular old photos with my Ricoh GR III, which left my iPhone 14 Pro with an ambiguous role: better than nothing in a pinch but not good enough yet to rival an APS-C sensor, even with computational smarts, or perhaps because of them? So many photos look artificially sharp and HDR-like by default and don’t capture the mood accurately. I know it’s tuned on what most people want from a photo (brightness). But with Hipstamatic (and a complication shortcut on the Lock Screen that launches it immediately), the iPhone suddenly feels like a very different tool.

    Hipstamatic acts like an intentionally inaccurate camera. Its lurid colors add a veneer of personality to mundane scenes, and if lucky, or carefully prodded via the paid darkroom editing mode, enhance good compositions and subjects by catapulting them into an attractive un-reality. They’re (somewhat) like William Shatner acting, like The Darkness’s I Believe In A Thing Called Love, like George Miller and Margaret Sixel going HAM with Mad Max: Fury Road. But the stakes are low. You just have to snap away and see where it takes you. It’s the very opposite of a GR or Q in your hand. Nothing matters except having some stupid fun — and if you care about the network, posting them up to see if anyone will put a skeuomorphic “yummy” or “that’s fire” stamp on the back of your virtual print.

    Jose made a keen observation when I told him it was back and I was enjoying it. He said the original Hipstamatic was novel because its frames and filters were a throwback to analog prints and toy cameras. And now in 2023, it’s a throwback to the throwback that we’re enjoying.

    Here are some photos so far.

  • Week 12.23

    We spent four days in Tokyo and three in Kobe. Lots of walking and aching old legs. Lots of eating and drinking with mild hangovers. Kobe has been a surprise: a delightful city that feels close to nature despite an industrial background. Friendly, warm, and helpful people. Affordable prices. It feels like a great place to buy property and partially retire in. We had our first proper Kobe beef meal and it didn’t disappoint, and dropped in on a live jazz bar that felt like a small, well cared-for living room. I recorded a couple of songs using Voice Memos on my iPhone and the quality turned out pretty great. The microphones on this thing are perhaps more impressive than the cameras (see upcoming post on Hipstamatic — the iPhone 14 Pro may not compare well enough to a proper camera but it has a place if you use it as your fun camera).

    Anyway I’ll let some photos do the talking. All but two of these are from the Ricoh GR III. One of them is straight from iPhone’s 3x telephoto camera, and the other was edited with Hipstamatic. Can you tell?

    Please rotate your iPhone to landscape because WordPress’s masonry layout somehow doesn’t work on narrow screens!

  • Bing Blogs #4: An absolute endorsement of Japan

    I’m still on vacation in Japan and this is a scheduled post written by Bing AI. The specific weeb-like tone and final gag was something I specifically briefed it on, and it pulled it off quite well. Very proud of this little blogging assistant!

    Why Japan is the Best Country Ever and You Should All Move There ASAP

    Hello, fellow otakus! I’m sure you’re all dying to hear about my amazing trip to Japan, the land of anime, manga and kawaii culture. Well, let me tell you, it was everything I dreamed of and more! Japan is truly the best country ever and you should all move there as soon as possible. Here are some reasons why:

    • Japan has the most beautiful scenery in the world. From majestic mountains to serene temples, from bustling cities to peaceful countryside, Japan has it all. And don’t get me started on the cherry blossoms! They are so pretty and romantic, especially when they fall on your hair like snowflakes. I felt like I was in a shoujo manga!
    • Japan has the most delicious food in the world. From sushi to ramen, from takoyaki to mochi, from curry to katsu, Japan has it all. And don’t get me started on the vending machines! They have everything you can imagine, from drinks to snacks to toys to underwear. Yes, underwear! How convenient is that? I bought a pair of Hello Kitty panties for only 300 yen!
    • Japan has the most polite people in the world. From bowing to smiling, from saying “arigatou” to saying “sumimasen”, Japan has it all. And don’t get me started on the service! They are so attentive and helpful, especially when they see a foreigner like me. They always gave me extra napkins or chopsticks or free samples or discounts or compliments or hugs or kisses or marriage proposals…
    • Japan has the most awesome culture in the world. From anime to manga, from cosplay to karaoke, from J-pop to K-pop (yes, they love K-pop too!), Japan has it all. And don’t get me started on Akihabara! It’s like heaven for otakus like me. They have everything you can imagine related to anime and manga: DVDs, figurines, posters, pillows, costumes, cafes, maid cafes, cat cafes, owl cafes, penguin cafes… Yes, penguin cafes! How cool is that? I cuddled with a penguin for only 1000 yen!

    Now, you might be wondering: are there any downsides to living in Japan? Well,
    let me tell you: there are none! Japan is perfect in every way! Sure, some people might say that Japan has some problems like:

    • Overcrowding
    • Pollution
    • Earthquakes
    • Tsunamis
    • Nuclear disasters
    • High cost of living
    • Low wages
    • Long working hours
    • High suicide rates
    • Aging population
    • Xenophobia
    • Racism
    • Sexism
    • Homophobia

    But those are just minor details that can be easily ignored or overcome with your positive attitude and love for Japan! Trust me: once you go Japanese, you never go back!

    So what are you waiting for? Pack your bags and book your flight today! Japan awaits you with open arms! Sayonara! 😍😍😍

  • Week 11.23

    • Do you remember Paper by fiftythree, the sketching app that was at one point the very best digital ink engine on iPad? Actually, it kinda still is. I recently decided to use it again because Apple Notes and Freeform have really ugly lines, and Procreate is overkill for anything besides making art. I subscribed to Paper Pro (a very reasonable S$13/yr) which finally lets me sync my skeuomorphic notebooks across devices. I used to sketch scenes and take silly notes on vacations with it, and I’m doing it again now on my iPhone. Paper’s focused simplicity and lovely UI makes it possible, and enjoyable.
    • Someone remarked that maybe travel brings out the artist in me, to which I replied no, it’s probably more like “not working” makes me happier and more creative?
    • On the eve of our journey I was playing with the new v5 model in Midjourney (it’s incredible at photorealism) and had the idea of rendering soldiers jumping away from dramatic explosions, but the explosions are ramen. The final images reminded me of the award-baiting print campaigns I saw in my early career as a copywriter. It used to cost thousands of dollars and weeks of several creatives’ time to plan, photograph, and digitally edit these scenes. But here I was lying in bed with the idea of turning them into Pot Noodle ads, and would you know it? I was able to make every word and misaligned pixel of these on my phone in a matter of minutes. The world has changed so much.
    • We’re in Japan!
    • We got on the wrong train from the airport which cost us maybe an extra 15 minutes, and it was after midnight by the time we checked into the hotel. But on the street nearby, a cheap ramen restaurant open 24 hours on weekends. A bowl of tonkotsu ramen, a side of fried rice, and a mug of Kirin beer for S$10 — unbelievable value partly thanks to the depreciating yen 🥲
    • The next day was cold and rainy, and I met Michael for a coffee and long chat — our second ever meeting, and the first in eight whole years. 2015 oddly doesn’t seem that long ago. I think the cafe overcharged us. But at least we remembered to take a photo this time.
    • Maybe due to the lack of sleep, change of climate, and sudden increase in daily steps, my body rebelled in the evening with a fever that had me shivering under the covers. Obviously I was afraid it was Covid. I woke up feeling much better the next morning apart from a backache, so perhaps it’s just a mild flu. The Covid test came out negative, so I dragged myself out to visit Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara for old times’ sake and see what was new.
    • The camera section has shrunk down to half its former size, if not more. Side note: the Bic Camera in Ikebukuro has about eight floors of stuff, and no cameras. The Ricoh GR display in Yodobashi is about two feet wide, in their home country. The industry really looks to be in a sad state. And yet, several crowded shops devoted to old and analog cameras exist.
    • I had lunch at Coco Ichibanya and it was very good. How the Singaporean franchisee has managed to hold onto their business is astounding — they do such a bad job of it. One thing that’s changed is touchscreen ordering at each table. That, and plastic dividers between each patron, seem to be Covid-era innovations that have also made Japan more tourist friendly.
    • It’s only been a couple of days but something feels different about this visit. Maybe I prepared myself too well for never traveling again under Covid and now this feels like being woken in the middle of the night, disoriented. Maybe I no longer fantasize about moving out here and living a sleepwalking, alien life. Or maybe it’s the fact that many of the things I used to enjoy seeing and buying in Japan can now be found back home (more expensively, of course), or aren’t actually desirable anymore. Case in point: I saved at least an hour today bypassing the hundreds of headphones in electronic stores because between the AirPods Pro and Max, I don’t really need other headphones. Over the past ten years, the things I get excited about have dwindled and become software. Dedicated hardware toys like music instruments and Boogie Boards are just apps or features on an iPhone. They may still sell CDs here but I just stream the songs. Japanese games are plentiful (check out the Nintendo Switch aisles), but I can’t read them so… maybe in the next life. On one hand, less stuff and a neater, more minimal life. On the other, less shopping, silly delight, and souvenirs.

    Please rotate your iPhone to landscape because WordPress’s masonry layout somehow doesn’t work on narrow screens!

  • Week 10.23

    • My former colleague/boss/mentor has a new gig heading up programs at a design school. A bunch of us went down to see him at work doing a free trend hunting workshop event on Thursday. It was good to see him thriving on meaningful work, and we got some nice swag out of it. I think he said it was like doing the parts of the job he liked best, and not so much of the other bits.
    • Amidst busyness; packing and planning for our holiday. By the time we land in Tokyo, it would have been 1,589 days since my last time in Japan — the pandemic throwing off my goal of visiting every two or three years on average. Look, if I could, I would go several times a year, just for some quick weekend shopping and dining. And I’ve recently discovered that some colleagues with charmed lives really go that often: one guy every three months, another every six.
    • We watched the new Netflix documentary about Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, which hasn’t put me in the mood for a seven hour flight. But I’ve begun to start downloading podcasts, TV shows, and other content for it, and the roughly 8 hours of Shinkansen rides we have booked.
    • I don’t think I could take watching more Succession right now. The banality of it irritates me. I just want it to be Billions but it isn’t.
    • Missed Fortune is an Apple Original Podcast that I’m going to give a go. It’s completely free and I presume ad-free too. It’s on the Apple TV+ podcast channel, alongside other original podcasts that have nothing to do with shows on Apple TV+. I’ve never heard anyone talking about these, nor seen them advertised. The strategy baffles me, but hey, they’ve paid for a bunch of high quality content and I’ll take it.
    • I probably won’t be updating this blog weekly while away. I may post random photos or videos; I haven’t decided. It will be the first interruption of this weeknotes streak in nearly three years (I started on July 5, 2020). In that inaugural post, I mentioned nicking the idea of Michael Camilleri, who I’m planning to meet in Tokyo. This week, I very much enjoyed his appearance on a podcast about podcasts called Really Specific Stories. Check it out if you also grew up around technology in the 80s and 90s and let that shape your free time or occupation today.
    • I may not need to update this blog myself for much longer. Bing AI and ChatGPT are doing a passable job of writing blog posts given a short brief or outline. I’ve created a new category for AI Ghostwritten posts, and may keep experimenting with them the same way I’ve been doing with Midjourney images. The more I do it, the more specific I’m learning to be with my prompts (it helps so much that you can be conversational and use semantically complex sentences, unlike say Midjourney which is more like tossing keywords into a wishing well).
    • Bing AI is pretty good at generating screenplays as well. I’ve had it try to write Seinfeld and Frasier scenes, and even a Seinfeld-Frasier crossover! Here’s one, but it really helps if you know what they sound like and can play it out in your head:
    [INT. JERRY'S APARTMENT - DAY]
JERRY: So, you're really going to Japan?
GEORGE: Yeah, why not? It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
JERRY: What opportunity? You don't have a job, you don't speak the language, you don't know anyone there.
GEORGE: Exactly. It's a fresh start. A new horizon. A chance to reinvent myself.
JERRY: As what? A sumo wrestler?
GEORGE: Ha ha. Very funny. No, Jerry, as a businessman. A successful businessman.
JERRY: Oh, really? And what kind of business are you going to do in Japan?
GEORGE: I don't know yet. Something lucrative. Something cutting-edge. Something...Japanese.
JERRY: Like what? Sushi? Karaoke? Anime?
GEORGE: Maybe. Maybe all of them. Maybe none of them. The point is, I'm open to anything.
JERRY: Anything except reality.
[KRAMER ENTERS]
KRAMER: Hey hey hey! What's up, fellas?
JERRY: Hey, Kramer.
GEORGE: Hi, Kramer.
KRAMER: Guess what? I'm going to Japan!
JERRY AND GEORGE (in unison): You're going to Japan?
KRAMER: Yeah! Isn't it great?
JERRY: How did that happen?
KRAMER: Well, you know my friend Bob Sacamano?
JERRY AND GEORGE (in unison): Yeah...
KRAMER: Well, he just got back from Japan and he told me all about it. He said it's amazing over there. They have everything you can imagine and more.
JERRY: Like what?
KRAMER: Like robots! They have robots everywhere! Robots that clean your house, robots that cook your food, robots that drive your car...
JERRY AND GEORGE (in unison): Really?
KRAMER: Yeah! And they're friendly too! They talk to you and tell jokes and give advice...
JERRY AND GEORGE (in unison): Wow!
KRAMER: Yeah! And they have these capsule hotels where you sleep in a tiny pod with all the amenities...
JERRY AND GEORGE (in unison): Cool!
KRAMER: Yeah! And they have these vending machines that dispense anything you want...
GEORGE: Anything?
KRAMER: Anything! Drinks, snacks, clothes, books, movies...
GEORGE: Movies?
KRAMER: Yeah! Movies! And not just any movies...my movies!
[HE PULLS OUT A DVD CASE WITH HIS FACE ON IT]
KRAMER (CONT'D): Look at this!
[JERRY AND GEORGE TAKE THE DVD CASE AND EXAMINE IT]
JERRY AND GEORGE (reading aloud): "The Kramer Chronicles"?
[KRAMER NODS PROUDLY]
KRAMER (CONT'D): That's right! It turns out I'm a huge star in Japan!
[JERRY AND GEORGE LOOK AT HIM IN DISBELIEF]
GEORGE: Wait a minute...wait a minute...you're telling me you're a movie star in Japan?
KRAMER: Yeah! That's right!
GEORGE: How? How did that happen?
KRAMER: Well, you remember that Japanese TV crew that came to New York a few years ago?
JERRY AND GEORGE (in unison): Yeah...
KRAMER: Well, they filmed me doing some of my crazy antics and they loved it! They put it on their show and it became a hit!
JERRY AND GEORGE (in unison): Really?
KRAMER: Yeah! And then they made a whole series out of it! The Kramer Chronicles! It's like Seinfeld but with me as the star!
JERRY AND GEORGE (in unison): Wow!
KRAMER: Yeah! And then they made a movie out of it! The Kramer Chronicles: The Movie! It's like The Hangover but with me as the star!
JERRY AND GEORGE (in unison): Wow!
KRAMER: Yeah! And then they made a sequel out of it! The Kramer Chronicles 2: Electric Boogaloo! It's like The Hangover Part II but with me as the star!
JERRY AND GEORGE (in unison): Wow!
KRAMER: Yeah! And then they made a trilogy out of it! The Kramer Chronicles 3: Tokyo Drift! It's like Fast and Furious but with me as the star!
JERRY AND GEORGE (in unison): Wow!
[THEY ALL LOOK AT THE DVD CASES THAT KRAMER HAS BROUGHT WITH HIM]
[KRAMER SMILES PROUDLY]
[GEORGE LOOKS ENVIOUS]
[JERRY LOOKS AMUSED]
[ELAINE ENTERS]
ELAINE: Hey guys, what's going on?
JERRY AND GEORGE (in unison): Hey Elaine.
ELAINE: What are you looking at?
[JERRY HANDS HER THE DVD CASES]
ELAINE (reading aloud): "The Kramer Chronicles"? What is this?
[JERRY EXPLAINS TO HER WHAT KRAMER JUST TOLD THEM]
ELAINE (shocked): You're kidding me.
[KRAMER SHAKES HIS HEAD NO]
ELAINE (CONT'D) (impressed): Wow. That's amazing.
[KRAMER BEAMS WITH JOY]
ELAINE (CONT'D) (to Kramer): So, you're going to Japan?
KRAMER: Yeah. I'm going to Japan.
ELAINE: When are you leaving?
KRAMER: Tomorrow.
ELAINE: Tomorrow? That soon?
KRAMER: Yeah. I have to catch my flight. They're expecting me for the premiere of The Kramer Chronicles 4: Return of the King.
ELAINE: There's a fourth one?
KRAMER: Yeah. There's a fourth one. It's like Lord of the Rings but with me as the star.
ELAINE: Wow.
[KRAMER NODS PROUDLY]
[GEORGE LOOKS EVEN MORE ENVIOUS]
[JERRY LOOKS EVEN MORE AMUSED]
[END OF SCENE]

    If you made it to the end of that, you can have some other examples. Though I don’t know if I’ll keep those links up forever.

  • Week 9.23

    It’s been a fairly busy week at work, and it might just be the beginning of a longer stretch of stressful problem solving and multitasking. But we are off to Japan in two weeks! It’ll be my first vacation since Covid began, the last being Taiwan in late 2019.

    I’ve forgotten how to do some of this stuff, from packing to making lists and generally getting in the right mind space to be comfortable going away. It’s also been an expensive week because I’ve had to buy a new suitcase (one of ours got broken last year when Kim had to travel), travel insurance, new power banks, new clothes for cold weather (no, the current cool and rainy spell we’re experiencing in Singapore, with hitherto impossible lows of 21°C, don’t really count), and pre-booked Shinkansen tickets which cost as much as domestic flights.

    Two decisions which are easier this time than they usually are: what headphones and camera to bring.

    The new AirPods Pro (2nd generation) are so much improved in noise canceling ability and sound quality than I have no reservations about using them as my only pair of headphones. Tokyo is a short flight of about seven hours, and their batteries should last the whole way with a short recharge in the case during meal service. Normally I’d pack a pair of over-ears, but I see no need here.

    Since we’re traveling light, I could say I’m just going to rely on my iPhone 14 Pro (I’ve actually done that once; don’t know what got into me), but the Ricoh GR III is small and convenient enough that it will cost me very little to try using it as a main camera. Can’t the iPhone compare at 28mm? It’s probably closer than it’s ever been this year, but the GR sensor-lens system should still have the edge in pure optical quality terms, and there’s no substitute for the shift in mindset and focus you get when walking with a camera in your hand.

    One tip we found on YouTube: there’s a new digital service from the Japanese government called Visit Japan Web where you can pre-declare your immigration and customs forms and save time filling in those arrival cards. You can do it all on your phone and get two QR codes to show at the airport. This should be the default everywhere.

    ===

    We saw Knock At The Cabin, M. Night Shyamalan’s new film, and enjoyed it. I shouldn’t mention the premise, as not knowing much is always part of the fun, but it cobbles together elements of other films and reworks a few tropes.

    While talking about it afterwards, I realized that Shyamalan has two superpowers: he knows how to steal good cinematic tricks and make them great (for awhile I mistakenly thought JJ Abrams did too), and a knack for creating turning points in his films where your perception of the world flips or your immersion intensifies. That can be something like suddenly believing in one of the two dueling narratives (e.g. Is X real? Is this the present and not the past?), or the kind of big twist he became famous for. Often these two things happen at the same time.

    I told Kim that I can’t think of one particular scene in The Sixth Sense without tearing up, and literally did so at that moment, which seemed to startle her. It’s the one with Toni Collette and Haley Joel Osment talking in the car, where the son says something that undeniably proves to his mother that he really does see dead people, which she absolutely did not believe up to that point.

    It doesn’t matter whether you as the viewer already believed or not; their performances are so extraordinary, the scene is so deftly written, that you can’t help but experience the world-reversing revelation through her eyes. It also comes with a manipulative emotional gut punch (a bit ham-fisted, but whatever), which is why it’s stamped in my memory so hard. And The Sixth Sense is great because it does this over and over. It’s a triumph in the way musicians’ first albums are — years of stored-up ideas and raw energy packed into one work.

    Anyway Knock At The Cabin had at least one of these moments for me, and Dave Bautista is a treasure. I’ve read reviews comparing him and The Rock as two former pro wrestlers turned actors, but it’s clear these days Bautista is the Actor. Strong 3.5 stars out of 5.

    ===

    • We finished seeing every episode of Seinfeld. I can’t think of a better show about awful people. I’ll always love it.
    • We started watching Succession at long last, and it’s also a show about awful people but I don’t enjoy it much at all. There’s no payoff; they’re just all pathetic human beings with rich people problems? Perhaps they suffer greatly in the following episodes and you’re supposed to get a kick out of that. I’ll try to make it through the first season.
    • Sharper on Apple TV+ is a good 4-star film billed as a neo-noir, whatever that is. In this case, sharper is a noun, one carefully explained on an opening text card so as not to give too much away. If you don’t already know what the word means, don’t even look it up, just see the film.
    • I did a speed run through a 12-episode anime called Darwin’s Game on Netflix because it’s leaving the service this month. I got through it in a couple of hours. Not recommended unless you love battle royale style stories where people play supernatural “death games” organized by some sadistic game master, a la Alice In Borderland and too many others.
    • I made only one thing with Midjourney this week, a series of Tokyo-ites posing for street fashion photos.

  • Week 7.23

    My mother-in-law stayed with us for the week and a new routine was soon established: every night after dinner, we’d watch an old film from the 40s and 50s. This worked out well because I’ve been hoarding a bunch of film noir classics which my wife would never otherwise agree to sit through.

    • The best was undoubtedly The Third Man (1949) adapted from the Graham Greene novel and directed by one Carol Reed. I obviously thought Reed was a woman who somehow got to make a huge film and give Orson Welles direction, but nope, turns out Carol is a man. This is a film I’ve actually tried to watch three or four times; maybe even finished, but I couldn’t remember much. The first time might have been in film class at university. What a strange and meandering film, with intriguing technical aspects and unexpected emotional depth. The very last scene is one for the ages. I gave it five stars on Letterboxd.
    • The next one was Lured (1947), starring Lucille Ball and George Sanders, directed by Douglas Siri. This was the second-best, and features a pretty strong heroine for the time. Her role in a police plot to catch a killer is to be the bait, but she actually gets hired as a proper undercover detective to do it and she has some great comeback lines. 4 stars.
    • What a disappointment Key Largo (1948) was, though! Bogart and Bacall in a famous film — perhaps my expectations were too high? It’s slow, unfolds in basically one location, and feels like a play poorly adapted into motion picture form (I recall seeing in the credits that it was). 2.5 stars.
    • Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing (1956) brought the momentum back: a more complex film that plays with chronological jumps, multiple viewpoints, and intersecting roles in a heist that slowly makes more sense as the film goes on. Watched alongside others from the period, it stands out both for having more to say and trusting its audience to come along. 4 stars.
    • We ended on a slightly weak note with Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943), which is apparently called his first true masterpiece. Ehhhhh. I do give it points for walking right up to the edge of incest and staring into it — one reviewer on Letterboxd put it like this: “This bitch wanted to straight up fuck her uncle! Hitchcock was so ahead of his time, he literally invented Cersei × Jamie.” But otherwise, 3 stars from me.

    Coincidentally, I saw a tweet this week about the portrayal of sex in these old films, and how not being allowed to be explicit led directors and actors to create even more powerful suggestions of desire. I was also disappointed that this person was only on Twitter and not Mastodon. Can everyone hurry up and move already?

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    I discovered a great little free app, like, totally free. Been Outside uses geofences to track how much time you spend away from home. For someone like me who usually loves staying home and working remotely, it provides a way to assess how much this lousy life forces me to compromise on my introverted, shut-in preferences.

    Speaking of, we binged (with fast forwarding) all 10 episodes of The Ultimatum: France on Netflix this weekend. For the unfamiliar, it’s a wretched reality TV show that takes couples where one party wants to get married, and makes them swap partners with each other to see if it changes their minds. Some end up back together stronger and agree to get married, others love the glimpse of another life and decide they don’t want to go back, and so on.

    I’ve seen some of the American version and expected the French participants to be more debased, more promiscuous, but they were… not?! The biggest scandal was one person kissing a stranger during a night out. I said “speaking of” 118 words ago because at some point during the show, Kim sighed, “this world is really horrible”, and I laughed.

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    Our trip to Japan is less than a month away and many plans have yet to be made. We went out to a cafe for brunch today and sat side-by-side with our iPads and tried to do research together with a shared Safari Tab Group and a Freeform board. The latter has intermittent syncing hiccups that you never get with Miro, and makes working on it kinda scary, but it’s free and good enough and I’m looking forward to it being well supported and a key part of the Apple ecosystem! I want to believe!

    Some Ricoh GR III snaps, Negative Film and BW modes
    My one good Midjourney creation of the week