An hour in Osaka

[imomus]

Someone called Richard Henderson sent me $7 for the radio piece I made in Kurama last week. 'Just getting round to listening to this,' said the Paypal note, 'fantastic, more of this kind of thing, please. It'd be even better with video! You've already got iMovie, right? Drop a few hundred bucks for a used cam on eBay, and you could release a new documentary/lifeblog snippet with a self-composed soundtrack every couple of days!' Well, daily movies might be a bit of a stretch, but Richard encouraged me to make a new radio piece. This time it's an hour-long ramble around Osaka. You'll hear (and see in your mind's eye) an Australian rabbit giving a guided tour of an art centre called Graf, a bunch of funny Jinglish mottos on girls' T shirts, some tips on killing cockroaches, the lowdown on an up-and-coming district, some thoughts on homelessness, and a serenade by a sad restauranteur. All in glorious low-res mono. Come ramble with me!

An hour in Osaka (One hour, mono mp3, 27.74MB)

Comments

Postcard recordings...

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for all of the radio disorienteering postcards.Wish I was there.The low-fi quality adds to the experience. It's better without pictures as it might then become "reality tv" if there could ever be a Momus equivalent. What you have created here is a kind of un-reality radio, which certainly evokes strange images and happenings? There is certain amount of decipherment needed which means replaying certain sections again which adds to the unreliable narrator schtick.

On another subject have you caught any Japanese TV shows ? Your probably too busy. Foreign TV is always enjoyable for the very fact that it estranges in an entertaining way. I am not a big TV watcher but from channel surfing I have discovered the Local Los Angeles Asian channels ( one of the interesting things about being in multi-cultural LA ) . There are two shows that I am enjoying at the moment. Thankfully these are subtitled. They are inventive and give one a good insight into the memes of J-TV culture. One is called DOTCHI NO RYORI SHOW (COOKING SHOWDOWN)

"Changing all the cooking rules ~ They are not kidding we say you'll never look at another cooking show the same way again. It changes all the rules. Welcome to a survivalist cooking game show where only the winners get to eat. Supplemented by on-site preparation with professional chefs, 2 hosts pitch rival menus to a panel of celebrity guests. The side that wins over the most panelists eats !"

This is a celebration of the minutiae of Japanese cooking, and I love the over zealous close-ups of dishes and the obssessive gathering of ingredients . A show to make you salivate..

TRICK

"A highly entertaining drama about a renowned physicist and her magician sidekick who investigate people claiming to have super powers". Its very surreal and stylish..I have only seen one episode so far but very intrigued by it, as it really shows the lack of creativity in US mainstream TV.

http://www.jdorama.com/drama.521.htm

Richard G

Re: Postcard recordings...

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Though I'm sure it's 'creative' on a certain level, TV is one of my least favourite things about Japan and I go months at a time without seeing any of it. When I do watch some, I feel a huge sense of emptiness, just as I imagine I would after a night of watching silver balls falling in the deafening emptiness of a pachinko parlour.

But I do like the way the show concepts go just that little way further into daftness than anything we'd dare to do in the west. It's the same with Japanese porn. Consider One Week With Only Semen (http://www.jmate.com/reviews/article_95.html), the concept of which is 'Can a girl live for a week on semen and the eggs a single hen lays? Poor Nanami Nanase must go a week without eating anything but the eggs from one chicken and the sperm of a roomfull of guys.'

Re: Postcard recordings...

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, 'creativity' is too strong a word for television and its repetitive formulas. TV and Movies seem to be doing a lot of 'meme-splicing' more out of desperation than any other motive. Outside of PBS, I can't bear US broadcast TV, so anything a little unusual and other in this one track culture can be interesting for what you can glean. Having never seen real J-TV I am sure the tumbling balls analogy of the TV void is true ( sounds like Bingo ! ).

For a while I would boast that I didn't watch TV, as the web became my TV replacement. However for someone whose living revolves around motion graphics design I do need to see where it's at; although most of the 'creativity' is ironically being driven by the web. ( Designing around processing power means that one can't get too fancy. I think this is a good thing, but as with Moore's law web graphics will soon resemble TV eye candy ). I know I am sounding very defensive but I have found that one can't be too dismissive even if all of these things are ultimately empty. Rather like a diet of semen...

For a popstar it's probably like refusing to listen to the top 40 or watch TOTP. Actually once one hits 40 these things are not so important, but ivory towers however refined can cut one off from popular culture in a way that shuts off exposure to current memes good or bad. Maybe this idea fits in with your current musings. So perhaps in pursuing the new and the avant-garde, one needs to maintain a pop or un-pop sensibility. I think you are of course, and your questioning and debating of these thoughts is fascinating. Keep it 'un-real'...

Richard G