imomus

The polar opposite of Togawa. Unless she too has been known to accuse couples of "adultery and fornication."

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Designed some of this fellow's albums:

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OMG Whimsy. I used to love King Sunny Ade. :-)

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Took forever to get changes from Nigeria. They'd be faxed over with excruciating slowness.

I'd love to do some album art for Konono No. 1 (http://www.crammed.be/konono/) some day.

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Book of Jokes arrived today. Surprised to find pages blank! Remembered cub scout training, and with judicious application of lemon juice and water, as if by magic, the text miraculously appeared. Will let dry, and read tonight.

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Surprised to find pages blank.

You are joking, aren't you?

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Oh yes of course momus. Sorry. But it did come today and I look forward to reading it tonight. Love the cover, looks even better in hand than it did on the screen :)

(reminds me of Luzatti (http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/?p=947))

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I never thought of it until I watched the video near the bottom, but why is it that Japanese women never sing in lower sultry voices? I have never heard a Japanese alto.

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like this?

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Wow, that doesn't even sound like Japanese to me! How strange. Thank you!

Do you know if there is something to most women speaking in a very high voice, or is that just popular in what gets marketed in Western culture?

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I would have to defer to experts like momus or kuma, but I would venture a guess that it is because we tend to masculinize women in the west, maybe as an unintended byproduct of feminism -- 'woman and man should be treated equally' has become 'woman and man are identical' -- and that femininity in and of itself is seen as something to be celebrated in the east? I'm probably treading dangerous ground here though, so I better shut up :)

Edited Date: 2009-09-12 12:01 am (UTC)

From: (Anonymous)

>> Wow, that doesn't even sound like Japanese to me! How strange.

That's because she's singing in German.

Tom K
www.transatlantis.net

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I knew it sounded a lot like German, but I afraid of making the jump and dismissing the example of a Japanese alto (as if Japanese might just sound surprisingly Western in its lower pitches?). Thank you!

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qscrisp.livejournal.com

Watch any Hollywood film dubbed into Japanese and you'll notice a huge cultural difference just in the sounds of men and women talking. The women will be dubbed as squeaks and the men as husky grunts. You don't necessarily notice this until you see how weird it is to hear, say, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan talking that way.

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Is that just the Americans interpreting the voices that way, or it really a sustained cultural vocal change? Do natural Japanese altos just speak in falsettos?

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qscrisp.livejournal.com

It's the Japanese interpretation of the actors' roles. I've watched these films on aeroplanes to and from Japan and on other occasions. I would recommend it. It is a little bit odd.

I also think that, at the very least, in terms of the female role in Japanese society, and the vocal tones used by females, it's a cultural construct. Someone once told me to listen to Japanese women when they answer the phone. Their voices go a pitch higher. In my observation, it's completely true.

As to why, I have no idea, really, but it's interesting.

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I've been to the Centraal Museum recently; I think it's one of the best museums in Holland. The monster sounds in the attic are awesome. There is also a very smelly salvaged wooden ship and overall nice art (beautiful middle age/renaissance paintings).
I'm looking forward toward your show. Break a leg.

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a) I must admit I approached this book with some slight trepidation in that I suffer from a rare form of synaesthesia wherein every word I read or hear creates a corresponding image in my mind. I was afraid that reading this book would be like sitting beside the creepy kid in 7th grade who wouldn't stop telling "dead baby" jokes (or "what's grosser than gross" jokes - remember those?) with me of course seeing horrible images of dead babies parading through my mind and wanting it to stop, like Alex undergoing the Ludovico treatment. Escaping crude or horrifying images in film is easy, one can simply cover one's eyes, or get up and leave, but how does one escape or block out the cinema projected in one's own mind? (rather Buddhist idea this - escaping the projections of your own mind)

b) Something to do with the clarity and genius of your prose laid rest to these fears almost at once. I think the clever juxtaposition between your gorgeously rendered scenes -- petal paths, cherry orchards, heine costumes, byzantine venice (ha, Tomb Raider, graphics engine), glass houses... struck a pleasant note against the horror show/debasement of the action. Very clever and pleasing.

c) armchair psychologist -- The divorce was rough on young momus, no? Entire book could be read as one long genius passive/aggressive attack on absent father - "i'll show him, leaving me and mom and sis like that. Rotten bastard."

d) Tanka scene - loved it. Personally love raised walkways as well,

e) slightly drunk tonight, hope this is making sense

f) Molester - for some reason I identified most with this character. You can reverse armchair psycholgist that if you want.

g) It is like overhearing the conversation between 3 madmen and it all making perfect sense.

h) small quibble; Chapter 39 - "Then anaesthetizing a patch on her skin with a cotton swab, my father injected the heroin into her arm." Cotton swab ( soaked with alcohol) would be to sterilize site pre-injection, not anaethsitize, yes?

i) Chapter 32 - roflmao

j) Chapter 24 - omg laughing so hard my sides hurt

k) Chapter 3 -

IF A CLOWN
by Stephen Dunn

If a clown came out of the woods,
a standard-looking clown with oversized
polka-dot clothes, floppy shoes,
a red, bulbous nose, and you saw him
on the edge of your property,
there’d be nothing funny about that,
would there? A bear might be preferable,
especially if black and berry-driven.
And if this clown began waving his hands
with those big white gloves
that clowns wear, and you realized
he wanted your attention, had something
apparently urgent to tell you,
would you pivot and run from him,
or stay put, as my friend did, who seemed
to understand here was a clown
who didn’t know where he was,
a clown without a context?
What could be sadder, my friend thought,
than a clown in need of a context?
If then the clown said to you
that he was on his way to a kid’s
birthday party, his car had broken down,
and he needed a ride, would you give
him one? Or would the connection
between the comic and the appalling,
as it pertained to clowns, be suddenly so clear
that you’d be paralyzed by it?
And if you were the clown, and my friend
hesitated, as he did, would you make
a sad face, and with an enormous finger
wipe away an imaginary tear? How far
would you trust your art? I can tell you
it worked. Most of the guests had gone
when my friend and the clown drove up,
and the family was angry. But the clown
twisted a balloon into the shape of a bird
and gave it to the kid, who smiled,
let it rise to the ceiling. If you were the kid,
the birthday boy, what from then on
would be your relationship with disappointment?
With joy? Whom would you blame or extoll?

l) this is really genius momus, better than I had ever hoped. So good it left me a little slack-jawed in amazement. I read it in one go. Couldn't put it down.

m) looking into the conscience (soul) of the boy next to me - woody allen

"...turned directly into the Threshers own face, which blows off up into the sky" - Daffy Duck.

o) whisky

From: (Anonymous)

The Jun backing track was made by Hosono though that's Yoichiro Yoshikawa miming for the video. There's a recording of Hosono singing it.

Oh and as for friends of YMO trivia, Miharu Koshi, who's was doing quite a bit of singing in German for a while, arranged half the backing tracks for Takamitsu's final album project, a collection of his pop songs for the singer Eri.

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(From Utrecht hotel): You know, I scanned a certain newspaper's literary pages today and began to despair of them ever publishing the review / feature they've had cued up for weeks / months. Then discovered your review and felt despair replaced by delight.

Thank you, these were great notes!

On the train from Berlin to Utrecht I had the idea for the next novel; I'll start writing it shortly. But I need to know that these things are not just thudding at the back of a cupboard when they're published. They must live in the spirit of their readers, and I must glimpse that life.

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Dunn taught at my alma mater. Used to see him ambling the halls with my painfully sincere lit friends.

Here's the proof:

Because in large cities the famous truths
already had been plumbed and debated,
the metaphysicians of South Jersey lowered
their gaze, just tried to be themselves.
They’d gather at coffee shops in Vineland
and deserted shacks deep in the Pine Barrens.
Nothing they came up with mattered
so they were free to be eclectic, and as odd
as getting to the heart of things demanded.
They walked undisguised on the boardwalk.
At the Hamilton Mall they blended
with the bargain-hunters and the feckless.
Almost everything amazed them,
the last hour of a county fair,
blueberry fields covered with mist.
They sought the approximate weight of sadness,
its measure and coloration. But they liked
a good ball game too, well pitched, lots of zeros
on the scoreboard. At night when they lay down,
exhausted and enthralled, their spouses knew
it was too soon to ask any hard questions.
Come breakfast, as always, the metaphysicians
would begin to list the many small things
they’d observed and thought, unable to stop talking
about this place and what a world it was.

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I turned up to Kikker 10 minutes late and was turned away - you'd already started. Was it such a whole performance or are they just too used to being a theatre?

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That's bizarre -- you'd have been very welcome! It really wasn't the sort of thing where I'd be thrown off by new arrivals... although I guess the first couple of songs were very quiet and intense. (I Had a Girl and The Next Time.)

From: (Anonymous)

Sorry to have missed it. Complete chance brings me to Utrecht in the first place. Perhaps you could point out some of the shops and spots Jip showed you?

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With members of Jip de Kort's family before the concert in his memory.

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Your knot is a triumph.

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