February 2012
4 posts
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"Super Bowl Monday"
Watching the Super Bowl in Tokyo always feels a little off.
Super Bowl Monday in Tokyo is a work day. You have to cue up the live stream at the office while you pretend to be hard at work. You listen to the broadcast through headphones. You try to make yourself excited and interested like you would be back home, but adrenaline is hard to conjure when those tinny iPod earbuds are involved.
If you...
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’Fashion Sport’
If you set yourself up in Harajuku, you’ll see it. Competitive fashion sport. These kids live for a single purpose: to make it on a blog. The mouths of the alleys are lined with photographers assistants wearing backpacks filled with lenses. They keep their eyes unblinking on the crowded alleyways, looking for a gem amid the sea of non-ironic Japanese hipsters. They are looking for something...
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"Taxi Driver"
Never, ever touch the door of a taxi in Tokyo. If you think you are being helpful opening your own door, you are not.
If you think you are being kind opening the door for someone else in your party, wrong again.
You are offending the very fibre of a subculture by your ignorant efforts. Once you hail the cab, wait patiently. The taxi doors are automatic and the driver will open it for you at...
January 2012
21 posts
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"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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Basketball is a Universal Language
I speak a little bit of Japanese. Enough to get by. It flows slower than molasses, but it eventually gets the job done.
But last night I found that the language of hoops turbo charges my conversational speeds in Japanese.
I went to an open gym with my brother-in-law in rural Tochigi, Japan. None of the players in the gym spoke English beyond ‘Hello.’ So the greetings were slow. But...
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On the Ekiden and the existence of finish lines.
The runner collapsed on national TV.
He gave his all for all to see. Before he collapsed he gave his teammate a huge heave with all the power he had left. As soon as the power left the spring of his right arm, he collapsed to the asphalt. Spent.
The cameras tracked the next runner, full of spirit and collegiate pride. Well aware that this would be the high point of his life’s fame....
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December 2011
16 posts
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WatchNike: HALF GLASS. Copywriter: Andrew Miller. Art Director: Naoki Ga. Director: Kosai Sekine.
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WatchNike Japan: NEW BEGINNINGS. Copywriter: Andrew Miller. Art Director: Naoki Ga.
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Darvish Musing, December 19
I watch a lot of baseball in Japan.
I’ve been to several games live, and I frequently turn it on when the season is going on. It’s fun, but it feels to me like watching college or top level high school baseball. It doesn’t generally have the shock value or alarming depth of talent that a major league baseball game can have.
The game in Japan is taught and played very...
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A zine full of mediocre photographs of alleyways...
Miles Davis is Tokyo.
The Internet is Tokyo.
Flannel is Tokyo.
Ambition is Tokyo.
Uncertainty is Tokyo.
A million pixels is Tokyo.
Grey is Tokyo.
The rainbow is Tokyo.
Feeling like you’re staring at a blank canvas every morning is Tokyo.
Eating foods that you have no idea what they are called is Tokyo.
Taking pictures of art installations that involve lasers or...
November 2011
13 posts
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Tokyo Winter
The snow like rain,
or rain like snow,
the illuminations like snow.
like retina memory or a screen saver.
the life is a fantasy tonight.
the winter snapping,
steaming drinks against your cheeks.
the mist overtakes us
and binds us together.
folds memory and nowness into one.
guitars echo and reverb.
Drum hits in tiny ear pods.
A billion songs in our pockets.
A million songs about...
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Creativity is the Nutritious Part of Technology
Technology is not the revolution.
Technology has existed from the time man built the first primitive tool. Technology is an evolution. The revolution lies in how people will use the tools of our time. Will they be happy to use new sophisticated tools to merely kill their time by sending videos of cats to their friends. Or will they search their souls, find their message and purpose first, and...
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Running Yoyogi Park at Midnight
All is dark and the autumn winds are playing the branches of trees. Amplifying the gusts. This park is electric at night. The clouds speed past overhead. In the direction of Shibuya, there is a neon glow projecting onto the low hanging clouds.
In the park, at this hour, all is still, save an elite eccentric few characters.
There are the shadowy couples parked on distant benches. Statuesque in...
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