“Monja”

The stuff doesn’t look good.

It looks the opposite of good. It looks like something you never want to put in your mouth. But for some reason it’s damn popular in Japan.

It’s a mixture of flour, water, green onions and assorted seafood that just never seem to mix. It’s thrown onto a hot skillet where it bubbles and percolates under the drunken eye of the table’s resident chef. 

At some point, (not sure how anyone can tell) its done. Eventually, diners around the table start ripping apart little piles of this watery, bubbling goo and shoving it into their mouths. They separate and smash little bite sized bits with tiny metal spatulas. Before long, the mess is gone and the chef brings out the next dish. Usually the closely related but visually more appealing ‘okonomiyaki.’

The monja has thankfully been devoured, but it’s never more than a sharp holler at the wait staff from coming back.

I’ll pass.

Tsutaya Daikanyama is the Future

The popular Tokyo bookseller has just unleashed a Death Star of creativity onto the Tokyo scene. Located in the designer chic district of Daikanyama, this modern bookstore seamlessly fuses printed matter with ubiquitous digital presentation to create an outstanding mecca of creativity.

Occupying six large retail pods on two levels on the main street, the bottom three sections are dedicated to a quality selection of art, design, architecture and photography books. One second level pod is dedicated to Film and another to Music. The largest central space is a lounge/library that offers drinks, lights meals and a plethora of design, art and advertising annuals filling the walls on all sides. The space has a museum feel, with artifacts like a Picasso print and a modern Japanese mural scrawled along an expanse on the back wall.

Every table in the lounge contains a wi-fi enabled iPad that is free for customers to browse as well as search the store.

A designer stationary and fountain pen shop sits nestled in one corner of the street level. The selection of notebooks and pens offer plenty of unique choices for the design minded.

The entire facility mixes a modern and open floor plan with exquisite interior design and art objects, with touch screens and iPads of all sizes to help you further navigate the space. It’s the kind of space that could easily double as a creative agency if it weren’t designated a bookstore.

You keep getting pulled back to the idea that this is a retail space, but the notion just doesn’t seem to do the building justice. This is an example of Tokyo excelling where it does best. In creating and maintaining uniquely designed retail experiences. The sense of spacial design is sophisticated and practical.

It feels like a giant Apple store, that also believes in selling printed inspiration. The whole building feels like you are navigating a digital space. Some modernized second life in which you are merely an avatar exploring the space. Yet it is real. Perhaps only in a place like Tokyo.

Silicon and Mortar.

This is the future of retail. This is the kind of institution that makes books relevant again. That shakes the dust of antiquated tomes and gives them modern relevance. This is the kind of place that moves us beyond the debate of print OR digital, for the profound notion of print AND digital.

As I walked through the conjoined series of pods, I realized I was catching a glimpse of where everything will be in ten years. Convenient, accessible and potentially, insanely inspiring. This is the best of what creative culture has to offer.

It is a store, but it’s not. Calling it a bookstore somehow sounds vulgar and crude. I normally loathe the term experience, but it feels an accurate way to describe what walking through these Daikanyama Tsutaya buildings is.

A chance to experience the future

Slurp Voraciously.

It is essential that you slurp your noodles in Japan.

It’s rude if you don’t.

You have to make more noise than the salary man sitting to your left and the high school hip hop kid to your right. The chef will be watching you and he’ll be horribly offended if he can’t hear you enjoying his noodles at fighter jet level decibels. His staff will be on call to sloppily pour water in your glass and spill ice cubes and water in your lap if you dare enjoy those noodles quietly. That’s selfish here.

Eating noodles is a social auditory experience. It’s a finely tuned symphony of lips, tongues and wanton gluttony.

The louder you go, the more politely you are received. And when you come to something that’s not a noodle, like a scrap of pork or a hard boiled egg, you better smack your lips something fierce. Your every move is being carefully monitored. You are being tested. You will be judged as either ‘ignorant foreigner swine’ or ‘foreigner who is trying their damnedest to be complimentary.’ Your future dining experience at this establishment depends on this vital first impression.

Japan is a very nuanced and sophisticated culture that makes it hard for non-islanders to assimilate. But when it comes to noodles and ramen, the math is simple:

The more noise you make, the more beloved you will become.

Slurp voraciously.

Home on the Range

I’ve been able to take a few days off in a row. Something that doesn’t happen very often in my gig at Wieden+Kennedy. It’s a 24/7 business, that is growing increasingly complex with the amount of digital tools at our disposal. It makes for a very exciting, ‘Always On’ work life, but it’s always great to step away from that world for a bit to get some perspective.

Perspective for me these past few days has been looking out at yard markers on a driving range in rural Japan.

I’ve had no concern in the world other than making sure my head stays perfectly still through my swing and making sure I get proper extension in my back swing.

It’s back to my meat and potatoes. Putting all of my concentration on getting better at a sport.

I always need to get better at something. My job is challenging and provides me with many areas to constantly push and improve upon. But there is nothing more satisfying than feeling the immediate improvements that you can feel when you self correct yourself on a field of play and experience the instant turnaround that leads to immediate improvement.

Slice the ball on one drive and realize that you didn’t rotate your hips properly through the impact zone. Think about only that as you take your next swing and watch your next drive head 250 yards, dead center.

A little moment of perfection. Sports are filled with these.

Moments of perfection in life are harder to pinpoint. Sports are definitive in their feedback to you. Did the ball go in the hole or not? Did the other team score more points than you or not.

Wins and losses are black and white. That is a beautiful thing about competing in sports. It can be against someone, or purely challenging your own limits. That’s what I’ve been doing the past few days at the driving range.

I walk away from the range each day with my internal success meter reading a few notches higher than when I woke up. My time was productive and worthwhile because I got better and I was aware of that.

As we drove away from the range I reflected on the things I would do next time to improve even more. As we made a series of right angle turns through the checkered rice-field farm lands I thought about improving my club speed through the ball. I thought about more distance. I measured the whole world in terms of yards. That barn was 350 yards away. It would be a par 4. That ramen shop next to us at the stopped light would be a 15 yard approach shot that I would take a quarter swing with my pitching wedge. I’d try to get good loft so the ball would rise high and drop down on the green with minimal roll.

Sports make you see the world differently. And they make you see yourself differently too.

Now, I have to go get ready to play some basketball.

These are some great days off.