_valerian

Everyone, I can not stop watching this commercial.
For some reason I am always expecting (hoping?) those cameras will clatter together when the two men bow at the end.

1. The first commercial shows a shadow of a photographer for just a second. This allows you to project.

2. Welcome to Hell !

3. Thanks to this I now know that the Beck song at the end of “Eternal Sunshine” was a cover. Also, getting an XA is not a bad idea and one can do more with it than just lay around real sexy-like sliding the cover back and forth.

4. Is that a pair of shorts or paint? And who let you have a gun? oh please do not look at me like that.

5. Who is this man? …is he some stranger? a boyfriend? her father?
If getting shoved into a pool is a normal result of his photographic endeavors then lucky for him he was not snapping away at the girl with the pistol in the previous commercial.

Ok one more:

Do you see a pattern yet? This post is like Advertising 101.

Actual plot of this cartoon: Who is the graffiti vandal culprit of Edo?
I’ll tell you! It was the white guy who was so giddy about learning Japanese!
Hey, even if the small circles that make “Fu” into “Pu” do remind you of the “o” in “Love” everyone knows you should not practice writing hiragana on the town bridge! Or if they didn’t, at least they (the children who watched this episode) know the truth:

Gaijin can’t handle studying the Japanese language without vandalizing your town.

And you should not write on stuff that isn’t yours.

Thank you for the life lesson, NHK.

You want to work at this Japanese store, but you can’t say “Irashaimase” (welcome) well because your American Accent is too strong and hilarious!
Hey! I know you are dim-witted and need to shout “WOW” a lot, so it is a good thing I have this manual with English words that sound Japanese for you to use!

Get it? Aerosmith sounds JUST LIKE Irasshaimase!

The final punch line was that the White Guy could indeed say “Irashaimase” after all, and above you can see his manager’s reaction to that fact. “Hey, you- (omae) you just said “Irashaimase”! ! The Gaijin replied with “REALRRRY??? WAOOOOOo!”

Turning on the TV twice today taught me that Gaijin are all blond and have crazy long (red-tipped) noses. They are wildly effeminate and prone to shouting “WOW!!!!” and “GUDDOO JOBBUUu!” with no hesitation and for no reason. Gaijin also squeal and shout “HEY” a lot, and end all their heavily American-accented Japanese sentences with “desu”, even (especially!) when using a plain form verb. They also say it like “desuuu” with a strong U sound. This runs contrary to the word on the street because last week I heard a 1st grader say that “it is ok because gaijin can’t speak Japanese” to her friend as I walked past them.
You know what, kid? TV says they can. Kind of.

But for all the wild freaking out Gaijin do, it is a good thing there are sensible (Japanese) people around to keep them in check when they go crazy, which is usually what happens after they try to do something really nuts like study the Japanese language or try to find employment.

Oh those wacky foreigners, they are so entertaining!

Don’t worry, I am not going to get all Debito on you. Personally, I am not offended by images easily, and I am not with these either. This kind of stuff is tacky, and (obviously) demonstrates the prejudices of the creators. But free speech allows for poor taste and it is not like American culture has done much better for the overall image of Japanese people in how they are represented. I once saw a tv show here that played clips from American movies featuring wacky Japanese characters. They all freaked out all the time, usually after trying to do American things, and often had a camera around their necks. I swear to god people the L and R thing is so not funny.

NOT SHOWN (a photo I accidently deleted the other night): A famous Japanese comedian in blackface makeup with a fake bone in his nose holding a spear in one hand with a comical sized chicken drumstick in the other.
I mean c’mon, who needs National Geographic when you have TV ?

After hitting a couple of galleries and camera shops in Shinjuku I headed to Yotsuya. Since all the galleries there were closed, I figured that walking North for a while might not be a bad idea, since I usually amble on straight East from Shinjuku. There is a huge communications tower in Ichigaya and north of it on a narrow street I came across an empty old apartment building, Which looked good enough to return to shoot in better light. (This is just a Phone Camera grab to give you an idea what it looks like)

But then a little further down the same street there was this amazing empty house.
You can see it here.
It has a beautiful Western-Style addition to it, painted yellow with a brown tile roof. You can see it on the map, half covered by trees. There are old curtains in the windows and bits of cracked glass around the wooden frames. (Again, a phone camera snap for reference/proof)

And one with film:

I’d guess it was built in the early 1930s. Everything about the place fits so well- the western building, the palm trees near the front door- the moss on the concrete wall surrounding it. It’s hard to explain it’s draw in words without getting too fruity loopy so I’ll leave it at that.

I asked an older woman going into her home across the road about it and she winced and said it was an eyesore. No one lives there anymore, the owner moved into an apartment they own down the street. Apparently the owner of the house is a landlord, and owns the other dilapidated apartment nearby. The woman told me that they go into the house from time to time- no word on what it would take to get in the gates with a tripod.

If there was ever a site you’d might expect to see Araki with a kimono-clad model. . .

Other than that, I came across 神楽坂 which I know the kanji to but do not know how to pronounce. Then Iidabashi station and a THREE STOREY Book Off. By then it was dark but wanted to keep going and I got lost for a while which was the point. However, Bunkyoku is well worth getting lost in.
And like most of my cross-Tokyo walks I ended up in Yanaka and then Nezu Station.

Here are two hints for Cross-Tokyo walks:

1. Start somewhere West and head East for the Good Light over your shoulder.
2. Start early- The sun sets to about f4 / f2.8 around 4:30pm on those narrow streets.
BONUS FACTOID: A long walk through Tokyo with a few cameras and a bag full of film is a fantastic way to spend the day.