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imomusMost of the countries I visit have one or two monthly magazines dedicated to Apple Macintosh computers. Being a Mac user, I usually buy a copy of at least one of them. But soon my Mac fan hat is replaced by my cultural anthropologist's hat (a sturdy pith helmet). Because the differences between one country's Mac magazine and another's speak volumes about cultural values.
Last time I checked, Britain had two Mac magazines, MacFormat, a downmarket consumer guide filled with chatty advice on what model of Mac to buy, and MacUser, a cooler, more refined publication targeted to designers and other communication professionals, with a tenuous link to the radical British underground press of the 1970s in the form of a regular column by one-time Oz / NME writer Charles Shaar Murray. (Oh, it seems he quit in 2003.)
Japan, meanwhile, has MacPower. It costs 780 yen a month and is subtitled "Mac creative lifestyle". It's the artiest, least dweeby computer magazine I've ever seen. And although my limited Japanese ability means I don't understand its texts without Hisae's help, this magazine understands me. It's as if someone's sent them a profile of all the things I, personally, like, and they've just stuck them in the magazine. There's a 15-page feature on art bookshops in Tokyo, lushly illustrated with photos of Cow Books, Bonjour Records, Nadiff, On Sundays, and even a couple I've never been to, like Hacnet in Nakameguro (apparently you need an appointment to shop there). Then there are features on the Japanese art scene (nothing to do with computers), animation, music making, video making, reviews of new soft and hardware, an article about chair design, an interview with socially engaged graphic designer Milton Glaser, an interview with Okino Shuya of the Kyoto Jazz Massive, a history of Apple product design, a feature on some tastefully-designed accessories... and a regular column by Konishi of Pizzicato 5 entitled "The Girl Has A Name". A column about girls!
This month's episode is named "A Girl from the North Country" (after the Dylan song) and talks about how attractively artist biographies (including Dylan's autobiography, which Konishi is reading) portray girls. Konishi is also from the north country (Hokkaido), and his column tells us the story of a girl he sees in a sake bar in Sapporo, a girl wearing a red jumper and a short black skirt. She has beautiful legs, and wears simple black high heels, her skin is pale and translucent. She fancies Konishi's friend, but never talks to Konishi. Then one day (his friend can't make it) Konishi speaks to her at the sake bar. They chat until 3am. When they leave, Sapporo is still bright with neon and light powdery snow is falling. The girl puts her hand into Konishi's duffle coat pocket, repeating the phrase "I know everything about you". Then they go to her room and "stay there until morning comes". Right after that there's a 15 page portfolio of photographs called "iPod x Groovisions", culminating in the photo above, a girl sitting on a toilet listening to an iPod with her panties around her ankles.
I mentioned yesterday a new UK Channel 4 series called The IT Crowd, written by Graham Linehan of "Father Ted" fame. You can watch the first episode online. It's not particularly great comedy, but what's interesting is the basic joke: we're in a corporate computer department manned by eunuch-geeks who have no idea what a woman is, run by a woman who has no idea what a computer is. The two worlds just cannot overlap, and the result is farce. Well, here in MacPower they overlap. Is it down to the difference between Britain and Japan, or the difference between Mac users and PC users, or something to do with that magic catch-all phrase "creative lifestyles", a phrase that secretly spells s-e-x to women and men alike?
Last time I checked, Britain had two Mac magazines, MacFormat, a downmarket consumer guide filled with chatty advice on what model of Mac to buy, and MacUser, a cooler, more refined publication targeted to designers and other communication professionals, with a tenuous link to the radical British underground press of the 1970s in the form of a regular column by one-time Oz / NME writer Charles Shaar Murray. (Oh, it seems he quit in 2003.)
Japan, meanwhile, has MacPower. It costs 780 yen a month and is subtitled "Mac creative lifestyle". It's the artiest, least dweeby computer magazine I've ever seen. And although my limited Japanese ability means I don't understand its texts without Hisae's help, this magazine understands me. It's as if someone's sent them a profile of all the things I, personally, like, and they've just stuck them in the magazine. There's a 15-page feature on art bookshops in Tokyo, lushly illustrated with photos of Cow Books, Bonjour Records, Nadiff, On Sundays, and even a couple I've never been to, like Hacnet in Nakameguro (apparently you need an appointment to shop there). Then there are features on the Japanese art scene (nothing to do with computers), animation, music making, video making, reviews of new soft and hardware, an article about chair design, an interview with socially engaged graphic designer Milton Glaser, an interview with Okino Shuya of the Kyoto Jazz Massive, a history of Apple product design, a feature on some tastefully-designed accessories... and a regular column by Konishi of Pizzicato 5 entitled "The Girl Has A Name". A column about girls!
This month's episode is named "A Girl from the North Country" (after the Dylan song) and talks about how attractively artist biographies (including Dylan's autobiography, which Konishi is reading) portray girls. Konishi is also from the north country (Hokkaido), and his column tells us the story of a girl he sees in a sake bar in Sapporo, a girl wearing a red jumper and a short black skirt. She has beautiful legs, and wears simple black high heels, her skin is pale and translucent. She fancies Konishi's friend, but never talks to Konishi. Then one day (his friend can't make it) Konishi speaks to her at the sake bar. They chat until 3am. When they leave, Sapporo is still bright with neon and light powdery snow is falling. The girl puts her hand into Konishi's duffle coat pocket, repeating the phrase "I know everything about you". Then they go to her room and "stay there until morning comes". Right after that there's a 15 page portfolio of photographs called "iPod x Groovisions", culminating in the photo above, a girl sitting on a toilet listening to an iPod with her panties around her ankles.
I mentioned yesterday a new UK Channel 4 series called The IT Crowd, written by Graham Linehan of "Father Ted" fame. You can watch the first episode online. It's not particularly great comedy, but what's interesting is the basic joke: we're in a corporate computer department manned by eunuch-geeks who have no idea what a woman is, run by a woman who has no idea what a computer is. The two worlds just cannot overlap, and the result is farce. Well, here in MacPower they overlap. Is it down to the difference between Britain and Japan, or the difference between Mac users and PC users, or something to do with that magic catch-all phrase "creative lifestyles", a phrase that secretly spells s-e-x to women and men alike?
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 01:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 01:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 02:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 02:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 02:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 03:06 am (UTC);-)
I'm too late...
Date: 2006-01-30 03:15 am (UTC)That is a funny picture.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 04:15 am (UTC)The "creative lifestyles" path is a smart choice. I get most of the technical info I need from the web. By the time my copy of MacAddict (http://www.macaddict.com/) arrives it's already old news. Only good for one session on the John.
I would not be able to listen to my iPod while squeezing one out. Do you think I have a problem?
(the original comment is mine)
Date: 2006-01-30 04:24 am (UTC)Maybe she is so into her jamz that she forgot to clear her clothing out of the way. Indeed, the resulting fecal stain will be a badge of honor among the creative elite.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 04:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 04:46 am (UTC)I'm joking, but I'm also not joking at all, because I heard Hiroshi Ito of Groovisions, the man who art directed these images, say at a panel discussion (http://imomus.livejournal.com/166693.html) the other week: "No Macintosh, no Groovisions".
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 05:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 09:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 10:01 am (UTC)Now I have a much prettier girlfriend, and a mac.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 10:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 10:21 am (UTC)Its a bit reminicent of the Startrek Film where we get to discover that the "borg" are really run by a Queen...sort of that thing going on, as in real life, its all quite ironic, and yet superficially symbolic.
..........
The picture above is insane, maybe we all look at the mistakes and find it more intersting for that reason alone, after all its like a mistake, a game, "what's wrong with this picture?" sort of game, it meets up with the logical centres of the brain and makes us want to point and say, WRONG.. you can't use the toilet on your skirt, if you are so careful to have your panties off... eeks!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 10:54 am (UTC)Her panties are around her ankles, and instead of imagining her naked sex you are debating technicalities? Tsk, the young, really, no sense of what's important in life! No wonder birthrates are declining!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 12:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 01:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 01:49 pm (UTC)Owen.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 02:08 pm (UTC)I'm a proud owner of an iMac, but mostly because I like the appearance of it and find the experience of navigating the OS a bit more graceful.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 02:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 02:52 pm (UTC)Uncanny!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 03:26 pm (UTC)Good point. But we live in rather repressed times, especially in North America, where surfacing your sexual likes and talking about them freely is not accepted. You, yourself, talk about Puritanism in our culture. Many of us are quite Victorian about sexuality. When people say "Oh, no, she'll get that skirt wet." what they are really saying is "I want to get under that skirt." and it's not likely that many of us will admit it.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 03:51 pm (UTC)No kidding - a quirky, sexy photo and the debate turns to shite? Oi.
Warning - wild generalizations to follow:
Real shite for a Mac user is living in Seattle, the bowels of Mordor, ground zero for the PC/MS world. I'm a female surrounded by highly-paid PC eunuchs who have undisguised contempt for creativity, right-brain thinking, female thinking, and all normal people who don't understand complex technology and programming. I used to think geeky engineers simply didn't know how to design hardware and software with intelligent UI, but working in the high tech sector has changed my mind. They know what they're doing; it's called 'job security'. The masses become increasingly dependent on something they barely comprehend, requiring left-brain 'experts' to keep it all running. Quasi-autistic IT guys are the priests to Gates' Pope and we're all forced to pray every time the server goes down.
3 important things happened in the 20th century that sent us down dehumanizing paths: the west allowed the military-industrial complex to flourish, business embraced the Microsoft OS, and LSD was made illegal. I'm fully aware that it's a marketing angle, but Macs really are a form of resistance... heh.
Carey
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 04:16 pm (UTC)I know you can do this stuff on a PC but it's more fun on a mac IMHO.
Try this one at home - I'm going to switch Rachel over to the kitchen speakers while I make some coffee.
My friend asked me the other day if Steve Jobs is my favorite capitalist pig. I said I'd have to think about it - depends on how much he gives away. Good God maybe it's Bill Gates. I could accept that.
Just wanted to leave a comment that didn't involve poop. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 06:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 07:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 08:05 pm (UTC)There's definitely that childish curiosity, if not fantasy, of watching your lover when nature calls; but the main thing here is that this picture is actually censuring it's own message, and so carrying the fantasy over into the viewers imagination. Often, especially in some Japanese media, censorship is the message.
As an aside: This is where the skirt creates a problem for some of us maybe, because we're interested in seeing her pee, but not in seeing her soil her clothes. Though, some of us might actually appreciate that mishap.
Or, maybe the message is that, you'll enjoy your iPod so much that you'll mindlessly wet your pants.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 08:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 09:14 pm (UTC)Beware, I like cute, petite women with black hair, black rimmed glasses, and protruding front teeth, licking and sucking my.... (I'm sure you can finish the rest for yourself. And make sure you don't only use four letter words.)
This is also why I like japan: 1) obviously the hair, and 2) crooked teeth are considered sexually attractive, and many girls there actually have crooked teeth. They only correct things when the the teeth are way too crooked.
Unfortunately I have straight teeth...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 10:53 pm (UTC)I feel so alone sometimes. Hold me.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-31 03:09 am (UTC)i'm also in seattle, but my take on it is a little different. although my work environment is all pc, nearly everyone i know on a social level uses a mac. (then again, most of my friends are involved in either electronic music or web/graphic design or both, so i'm sure that plays a role in it.)
i know what you mean about engineering things to be difficult to ensure job security.... but i think it's a function of the corporate world which happens in a larger context vs. a leftbrain/rightbrain or even techy context. 'cause i see it happen around me regularly at the office with people who are definitely not techy... they're so afraid of doing anything which would interfere with their own income that they deliberately do things in ways which they KNOW are not optimal but which make things safer for THEM. i hate it.
i recently bought my first mac, so now i'm a fencesitter with my OS's. the reason i never owned one before was mostly because my parents didn't have much money and at the time macs were more expensive.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-31 06:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-31 08:46 am (UTC)Maybe I'm just feeling she is actually "too covered" in certain places, a situation of "easy access" tantilizes and yet..its not there.. her skirt is in the way ;)- how's that for perverse?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-31 08:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-01 05:16 pm (UTC)Needless to say I own a pc again and love it in comparison. I think each have their advantages but for me it was pointless having a mac when it couldn't run half the software I need.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 12:01 am (UTC)Proof that PC users tell great big fat porky pies too!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 01:00 am (UTC)I am being 100% honest!
The first 3 times it happened they fixed it. Originally I had a G3 600 they replaced it for free with a G3 800 on the 4th time. That one fried 5 times so they replaced it again with another G3 800. this one worked for a few months then out of nowhere died again they replaced the logic board again for the 10th and 11th time. The 12th time they sent me a new G4 machine right when they came out, I was quite happy about that. Then about 4 months into that machine it fried again they replaced the board 3 times on that machine. The last time it fried I gave up now its been sitting on my shelf with a dead logic board for about a year because the warranty finally ran out on it.
I would love to love my mac it was quite a fun machine when it was working but it was also very frustrating.
I do tend to have shit luck with electronics though. My M-Audio Duo has fried twice in 2 years, my watch batteries last about 2 months max, 3 cell phones have died in the past year, I've gone through about 5 printers in the past 2 years, 5 mp3 have died on me my ipod has lasted the longest and just this week the battery has finally conked out on it.
I have no explanation for all these electronics breaking on me. I must have some kind of magnetic force attached to me that destroys all of my toys.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 02:36 pm (UTC)And I all for scat play too.