music

vermillion pleasure night is a japanese tv show directed by yoshimasa ishibashi, avant-garde director from kyoto, japan. vermilion pleasure night is an omnibus show, which was aired on tv tokyo on sunday midnight starting 2000. once again, yoshimoto kogyo, the king of comedy agency produced it. the show became a huge hit throughout japan. it’s kitschy and full of dark humour. i love it. now the shows are available on dvd. now i can watch them in north america! banza~i.

this “utau 6-nin no onna” is one of his short films. the title means “six women, who sing”. it sounds better in japanese. i like the use of kanji for “utau (sing)”. there are five ways of writing “utau” in kanji - 歌う　謡う　詠う　謳う 唄う. the first “歌う” is to sing from your throat rhythmically. the second “謡う” is to sing by developing your voice with melody. the third “詠う” is to sing / read a poem. the fourth is to sing in a suppressed voice with intonation as you bend your body. the last one, “唄う” is a transliteration from Sanskrit. it’s used when anything non-human creates a pleasant sound or beautiful voice. for example, “a bird sings” or ” a stream sings”. when it’s used in a noun form, it means folk song. for the title of this piece, the choice is the last one, “唄う”. it gives a nostalgic tone to this piece, yet this whole thing is absolutely modern. i love the ambivalence. it’s post-post modern.

i’m a slave for this sort of languid ambiance. i just think he’s brilliant.

(music)
ah~
i persistantly continue to wash
stain, i can’t get rid of
my fingers, cracked and swollen
my fingers, stung by cold water

(music)
on a windy day like this, my clothes might be blown away
but a warm day will come
a bright day will come

(music)

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on a gloomy day like today, i go on a psycho-trip back to japan.
turn my apartment into a lounge. a lounge at home.

i love my apartment life.

(pizzicato five)

thanks to the magical site ‘youtube‘, i can access many music videos from japan. when i was in japan, i didn’t pay much attention to japanese singers. i was always interested in music scenes from overseas. i didn’t have many japanese singers that i liked. but kahimi karie was different. she’s one of my favorite japanese singers. kahimi karie began her career as a music photographer. her musical talent was discovered by her then-boyfriend, oyamada keigo (cornelius) when he asked her to sing with a band on his friend’s label. her first EP came out in 1992. she instantly became a ye-ye girl in shibuya. she is one of the “shibuya kei” musicians. she also collaborates with other musicians including the scottish artist, momus. currently she resides in paris. her sensual + innocent voice melts my heart. my autumn level goes up rapidly in my body. i’m deeply in nostalgia…

why me? it’s only mid-may and i’ve already got a mosquito bite, on my palm, right in the centre. it’s itchy. and it makes me shiver to think that this is just the first bite, with thousands more yet to come. you see, i’m doomed — mosquitoes simply adore me.

no matter where i go, the mosquitoes find me. i’ve been bitten literally 50 times in a single evening, even though i had the full protection of a long-sleeve shirt and an entire bottle of mosquito repellant. they bit through my shirt and socks. one time, i got bitten on my eyelid while i was awake, with my eyes open. how they got in there is a mystery. mosquitoes love me so much that they ignore anyone else in the area. paul says he never has to wear mosquito repellant when i’m around, since they’re all going to be biting me anyway.

when i was little, my parents would leave the windows open at night during the summer. we preferred to sleep with a fresh breeze, not an air conditioner. the problem was, of course, mosquitoes. they had easy access to my bedroom. they hung around my ears a lot, buzzing. i did my best to hit them hard, but in vain. i’d light some mosquito repellant incense, but it never helped. i couldn’t sleep. i’d stay up until dawn looking at the dark mountains and the empty streets, the smell of the incense mixing with the cool night air. this could have been romantic, but the mosquitoes would. not. stop. bothering. me. i hate them all.

when i moved to canada, i spent a year in winnipeg. i’d already been informed that winnipeg is a mosquito town. perfect. as expected, i got bitten all over with no mercy. my reaction to the bites was worse than it was in japan. the canadian mosquitoes are fierce.

so why do mosquitoes love me so much? one theory is that i am very tasty. some japanese scientists claim that mosquitoes choose their meals based on blood type, preferring O > B > AB > A. i’m a B-blood-type person. so are my mom and my brother, but they don’t attract mosquitoes like i do. so my tastiness must be more individual. it’s my bad luck to be delicious.
summer is coming. i don’t want to be an ‘all-you-can-eat asian buffet’ for canadian mosquitoes again this year. i need to find better protection!

sing-along! (lyrics from here):

Bzzzzzzzz !
Ne tuez plus les moustiques avec des claques sur vos joues (AYE),
des claques sur vos cuisses (OUILLE OUILLE OUILLE),
des claques sur vos bras (AYE).

SUPER TIMOR EST LA!

Super timor est encore plus fort avec sa nouvelle formule “Super Timor”
Le temps de sentir l’odeur Super Timor, les insectes son déjà mort “Super Timor”.
Super Timor avec sa nouvelle formule, Vraiment vraiment plus fort.

Super timor, le Numero un

en anglais (translated by paul):

don’t kill mosquitoes with slaps on your cheeks, slaps on your thigh, slaps on your arms
Super Timor is here!
Super Timor is even stronger, with its new formula (Super Timor)
When they smell the odor of Super Timor, the insects are already dead (Super Timor)
Super Timor, with its new formula. Really, really stronger!
Super Timor, Super Timor!
Number one!

download the video (windows media).

probably my favorite movie ever is “in the mood for love”, directed by wong kar-wai. it’s subtly overwhelming. the tension, the distance … just so sexy. it’s all about mood: colour, music, clothes, food … ambiance. you can look, you can almost feel it, but you can’t touch…

2046 was publicized as the sequel for in the mood for love. as soon as i heard wong kar-wai was filming, i wanted to see it…

2046 finally came to saskatoon last fall, at the broadway theater. i wanted to go the day it opened. but we waited until cheap night (tuesday). i then discovered there is no cheap night at broadway theater (of course not, it’s broadway…).

the movie was showing at 9pm, and i was planning to get there early, to make sure we got good seats. but we were late, so we showed up right at 9. i was so worried. we bought tickets (hmm, no lineup) and ran inside.

no need to worry. no one there except us! we were at a loss. too many choices — we could sit anywhere. talk about home theater, this was it. just for fun, i sat in the front row left and paul sat in the back row right and we talked diagonally for awhile. then two guys who had been hanging out in the lobby came in. they had popcorn — how can you eat popcorn watching this sort of movie? i love popcorn, but not with a sentimental wong kar-wai movie.

paul and i met in the third row, centre and the movie began.

about this movie, i don’t really remember the story, and it doesn’t make much sense anyway. that’s okay, it’s all about the smoke and the colours and the glorious music.

the story starts after the end of “in the mood for love”. tony leung becomes a sci-fi writer in hong kong and gets involved with many women. none of his affairs last long. there’s also a futuristic story about kimura takuya (kimu-taku!) riding a train with some beautiful robots. everyone’s in love, but nobody can do anything about it.

i don’t care for the time travelling train part, but i love the parts in old hong kong. tony leung is just as sincere as in “in the mood for love”, but now he’s a bit of a gigolo (what a mustache!). all the ladies love him.

many of the shots reflect similar images from “in the mood for love” (lovers in the back seat of a taxi, passing each other on the stairs). all the women have qualities of maggie cheung’s character (image and character), but no one can be maggie cheung. tony’s still in love with her, and he’s trying to find maggie in every woman. he’s always being reminded of some aspect of her, but he can’t find all of her in someone else. so even when he’s sleeping around, his heart is still purely in love with her.

mp3: connie francis - “siboney”
buy: the dvd and the soundtrack