Friday, July 29, 2005
altruistic abuse?
so many things, actually
first, about that chalk-white corean beverage we were introduced to yesterday by mister duckworth - it's called "maccori" and not "moccori" and robert had indeed good reasons to be afraid of the confusion between the two, as he wasn't so sure about which one was which, between the beverage and having "your pants are too tight over your "mashroom"
before that, i remember:
a great walk from asakusa to ueno under a hammering sun, a nice crash by the lotus-field/lake in ueno with some crazy insects doing some crazy sounds in the background, an actual thong-with-a-hood and an amazing songwriter playing toy-piano and singing like a genuinely demented joana by the metro in shinjuku, some girl i talked to on some drunken guy's cellphone who wanted to show me how well she could speak english and who asked me if i was drunk as well (i wasn't, really)
and, most of all, a real issue (which was first raised and wildly discussed yesterday evening in shinjuku by me, robert, davide, stephane and mehdi):
as we were seeking for some nice buildings with nice roofs that we could get on to play some music, yesterday morning in asakusa, some guy saw me from the street and asked me to come down. i don't know if it was about privacy, or about something else. i don't even know if he was an inhabitant of the building, or just some old cranky asshole who couldn't stand the view of four gaijin guys with beards and stupid smiles on their faces in a japanese household. i could only babble a few words about visiting a friend (and used the word "todomachi" instead of "tomodachi") and feel like a very guilty kid who just performed some meaningless minor transgression.
but one fact remains: he had every right to ask us to get the hell out of that private place, and the fact that a meaningful part of our project is about playing music and sound in public and private spaces, where we are not invited to play music and sound, is quite a problematic issue precisely because we are doing it in japan.
why?
because we actually CAN do it.
why are we going up on private households' roofs to try and perform experimental music with the environmental sonic activities? because we CAN, in this here country.
this is not only about playing with the local law regulations about noise disturbance, which are really more permissive than anywhere else in the world. this is not really about criticizing, or underlining the singularities of the japanese urban sonic environment. this is not about testing the limits of japanese courtoisie and gentleness either. this is about playing music and, maybe, making art in unexpected contexts, and try to do that in an immersive way. but the mere fact of playing music in the street, the way we're going to do it, BECAUSE we CAN, still makes me uncomfortable. it is not, it never was, it will never be our intention to abuse japanese culture. but the fact is that, in many ways, we are.
davide raised a very interesting question in the end. in japan, intentional noise assaults in urban environment are 99% of the time driven by economical reasons (the remaing 1% being political, i think), as they are the results of aggresive advertisement. and what makes us really transgressive, for the most part, is not our possible abuse of japanese culture and tolerance: it is the totally altruistic and fortuitous nature of our interventions. anyway, we haven't even tried to play in real outdoors conditions yet. i'll keep you updated about this issue as it feeds on actual experience, in context. we still may get beaten up by pissed-off yakusa pachinko owners, or by some old cranky nannies. robert told me that i'll probably feel more guilty and miserable if no one never complains about our doings, than if someone does.
oh, and we'll be posting pics later today.
first, about that chalk-white corean beverage we were introduced to yesterday by mister duckworth - it's called "maccori" and not "moccori" and robert had indeed good reasons to be afraid of the confusion between the two, as he wasn't so sure about which one was which, between the beverage and having "your pants are too tight over your "mashroom"
before that, i remember:
a great walk from asakusa to ueno under a hammering sun, a nice crash by the lotus-field/lake in ueno with some crazy insects doing some crazy sounds in the background, an actual thong-with-a-hood and an amazing songwriter playing toy-piano and singing like a genuinely demented joana by the metro in shinjuku, some girl i talked to on some drunken guy's cellphone who wanted to show me how well she could speak english and who asked me if i was drunk as well (i wasn't, really)
and, most of all, a real issue (which was first raised and wildly discussed yesterday evening in shinjuku by me, robert, davide, stephane and mehdi):
as we were seeking for some nice buildings with nice roofs that we could get on to play some music, yesterday morning in asakusa, some guy saw me from the street and asked me to come down. i don't know if it was about privacy, or about something else. i don't even know if he was an inhabitant of the building, or just some old cranky asshole who couldn't stand the view of four gaijin guys with beards and stupid smiles on their faces in a japanese household. i could only babble a few words about visiting a friend (and used the word "todomachi" instead of "tomodachi") and feel like a very guilty kid who just performed some meaningless minor transgression.
but one fact remains: he had every right to ask us to get the hell out of that private place, and the fact that a meaningful part of our project is about playing music and sound in public and private spaces, where we are not invited to play music and sound, is quite a problematic issue precisely because we are doing it in japan.
why?
because we actually CAN do it.
why are we going up on private households' roofs to try and perform experimental music with the environmental sonic activities? because we CAN, in this here country.
this is not only about playing with the local law regulations about noise disturbance, which are really more permissive than anywhere else in the world. this is not really about criticizing, or underlining the singularities of the japanese urban sonic environment. this is not about testing the limits of japanese courtoisie and gentleness either. this is about playing music and, maybe, making art in unexpected contexts, and try to do that in an immersive way. but the mere fact of playing music in the street, the way we're going to do it, BECAUSE we CAN, still makes me uncomfortable. it is not, it never was, it will never be our intention to abuse japanese culture. but the fact is that, in many ways, we are.
davide raised a very interesting question in the end. in japan, intentional noise assaults in urban environment are 99% of the time driven by economical reasons (the remaing 1% being political, i think), as they are the results of aggresive advertisement. and what makes us really transgressive, for the most part, is not our possible abuse of japanese culture and tolerance: it is the totally altruistic and fortuitous nature of our interventions. anyway, we haven't even tried to play in real outdoors conditions yet. i'll keep you updated about this issue as it feeds on actual experience, in context. we still may get beaten up by pissed-off yakusa pachinko owners, or by some old cranky nannies. robert told me that i'll probably feel more guilty and miserable if no one never complains about our doings, than if someone does.
oh, and we'll be posting pics later today.
# posted by Olivier Lamm @ 10:35 AM 
Comments:
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in case anyone is interested:
here are the results of a google search for 'makkori' (the tasty korean mikly-white booze, served chilled)
http://images.google.co.jp/images?svnum=10&hl=ja&inlang=ja&lr=&ie=Shift_JIS&q=%83%7D%83b%83R%83%8A
and here are the google search results for 'mokkori' (having a boner sticking out)
http://images.google.co.jp/images?q=%83%82%83b%83R%83%8A&svnum=10&hl=ja&inlang=ja&lr=&ie=Shift_JIS
best,
r.
http://glitchslaptko.blogspot.com/
here are the results of a google search for 'makkori' (the tasty korean mikly-white booze, served chilled)
http://images.google.co.jp/images?svnum=10&hl=ja&inlang=ja&lr=&ie=Shift_JIS&q=%83%7D%83b%83R%83%8A
and here are the google search results for 'mokkori' (having a boner sticking out)
http://images.google.co.jp/images?q=%83%82%83b%83R%83%8A&svnum=10&hl=ja&inlang=ja&lr=&ie=Shift_JIS
best,
r.
http://glitchslaptko.blogspot.com/
# posted by 
: 12:03 PM
: 12:03 PM
oh, you forgot...
masagoro's (the hottest new avant-pop singer in tokyo) webpage:
http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/masagoro/
and you forgot the best part of the evening, the ZIMA HUMMER!!!
http://www.hummer.co.jp/news/050703_ZIMA/050703.html
THIS is what you guys should be doing the tour in. fuck the bus and asahi beer. the ZIMA hummer is where it's at.
this is slightly related.
http://glitchslaptko.blogspot.com/2005/06/like-nothing-else.html
higher of fives,
r.
masagoro's (the hottest new avant-pop singer in tokyo) webpage:
http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/masagoro/
and you forgot the best part of the evening, the ZIMA HUMMER!!!
http://www.hummer.co.jp/news/050703_ZIMA/050703.html
THIS is what you guys should be doing the tour in. fuck the bus and asahi beer. the ZIMA hummer is where it's at.
this is slightly related.
http://glitchslaptko.blogspot.com/2005/06/like-nothing-else.html
higher of fives,
r.
# posted by : 12:15 PM
: 12:15 PM
It's funny, Robert was ridiculing me recently for confusing "pakuri" (plagiarism) and "pakura" (a kind of fish). But it seems to me a lot more disastrous to confuse "maccori" (white fluid) with "moccori" (erection).
This man walks into a bar and says "I want to drink erection, you know, the white fluid..."
Mo-ma-su
This man walks into a bar and says "I want to drink erection, you know, the white fluid..."
Mo-ma-su
# posted by : 2:31 PM
: 2:31 PM
(Actually, the fish was "hakura", the closest word to "pakura", which doesn't mean anything.)
# posted by : 2:34 PM
: 2:34 PM
Here's a picture of a woman buying a glass of moccori:
http://inandout.cocolog-nifty.com/trend/usagi-mesen.jpg
Mo-ma-su
http://inandout.cocolog-nifty.com/trend/usagi-mesen.jpg
Mo-ma-su
# posted by : 2:39 PM
: 2:39 PM
Gee, still sore about me calling you out on that little slip on your blog, Nick?
Anyway, before you get too full gloating, know this: I actually DIDN'T make a mistake ordering last night. In fact, before ordering, I told the boys the perils of what would happen IF I DID make a mistake, and then I told them a story from a few years back when I was in LA when my Korean friends let me know that I had made a mistake when ordering in Korean one night at a K-Town pub when my K-skills weren't up to par...but that was THEN.
But the thing is, and I'm sure you'll appreciate this with your special-ed position on Japanese language learning...even if I had made a slip of the tongue, it would have resulted in a special kind of 'faux ami' BETWEEN two different languages (Korean and Japanese), which in and of itself is a lot more interesting, even as a POTENTIAL slip, than your ACTUAL but rather mundane intra-lingual snafu.
Curses! Foiled again! Better luck next time.
Hi-five,
R.
Anyway, before you get too full gloating, know this: I actually DIDN'T make a mistake ordering last night. In fact, before ordering, I told the boys the perils of what would happen IF I DID make a mistake, and then I told them a story from a few years back when I was in LA when my Korean friends let me know that I had made a mistake when ordering in Korean one night at a K-Town pub when my K-skills weren't up to par...but that was THEN.
But the thing is, and I'm sure you'll appreciate this with your special-ed position on Japanese language learning...even if I had made a slip of the tongue, it would have resulted in a special kind of 'faux ami' BETWEEN two different languages (Korean and Japanese), which in and of itself is a lot more interesting, even as a POTENTIAL slip, than your ACTUAL but rather mundane intra-lingual snafu.
Curses! Foiled again! Better luck next time.
Hi-five,
R.
the tender perv says: This man walks into a bar and says "I want to drink erection, you know, the white fluid..."
and i say: and by the way, if you are in the right place and in the right mood, i don't see anything wrong with ordering this item...as long as it is on the menu!
and i say: and by the way, if you are in the right place and in the right mood, i don't see anything wrong with ordering this item...as long as it is on the menu!
Well, we've learned something today: Robert is never wrong! Highest of all kites, as Virile Paul once put it.
Mo-ma-su
Mo-ma-su
# posted by : 5:35 PM
: 5:35 PM
tender perv sez: Well, we've learned something today. Robert is never wrong!
robert sez: you know how i hate to contradict my elders...but i:d like to say that the thing we actually learned today is that i:m only wrong when i:m wrong, and this time, i:m not wrong. nothing more, nothing less.
tender perv also sez: Highest of all kites, as Virile Paul once put it.
and r. say: get you own tag line, buddy! that a yellow card for flagrant "pakura"...
robert sez: you know how i hate to contradict my elders...but i:d like to say that the thing we actually learned today is that i:m only wrong when i:m wrong, and this time, i:m not wrong. nothing more, nothing less.
tender perv also sez: Highest of all kites, as Virile Paul once put it.
and r. say: get you own tag line, buddy! that a yellow card for flagrant "pakura"...
This is getting out of hand. I'm not the one who posted that inane quote! There is an imposter in the house. Incidentally, Robert is again really embarassing himself with this moronic cynicism. What's wrong with that boy?
Mok-kori-su
Mok-kori-su
# posted by : 5:59 PM
: 5:59 PM
My bad: "has not yet ever been shown to be wrong about anything".
Nice pony tail, by the way. Very "Unix programmer". And good to see you've got an expensive bike now to keep you trim.
Mo-ma-su
Nice pony tail, by the way. Very "Unix programmer". And good to see you've got an expensive bike now to keep you trim.
Mo-ma-su
# posted by : 6:00 PM
: 6:00 PM
mo-ma-su make r. say: if you want a list of my wrongdoings, ask my mother, she has (almost) all the dirt on me. that's why we had to ship her off to shanghai.
hey, glad you like my ponytail! and i DO get the UNIX programmer thing sometimes! (guess that:s cuz i program in UNIX sometimes.)
the bike IS nice (if not a little 'bobo' of me.) but i got it to ride, and fold, and take on trains and stuff...not for show, and riding it is a joy! i:m on it about 2/3 hours a day...more on the weekends. i only hope that nobody makes of with it.
i was going to get a yellow one, but recalling what happened last time, i decided to go for a less conspicuous color. which reminds me, next time you are in japan, i owe you a bike, no? i found one just like the one you entrusted me with. should i pick it up for you?
you know, now that you mention it, keeping trim IS so important, since after all, i:m finishing up a bona fide avant-pop album, and we both know there is only room for one pudgy avant-pop star (Jim O’Rourke)! so i:ll have to keep up the onigiri and bike regimen. (hanging out with thin french boys that eat like birds is a start!)in the meantime, thanks for your support!!! go team [kicks]!
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hey, glad you like my ponytail! and i DO get the UNIX programmer thing sometimes! (guess that:s cuz i program in UNIX sometimes.)
the bike IS nice (if not a little 'bobo' of me.) but i got it to ride, and fold, and take on trains and stuff...not for show, and riding it is a joy! i:m on it about 2/3 hours a day...more on the weekends. i only hope that nobody makes of with it.
i was going to get a yellow one, but recalling what happened last time, i decided to go for a less conspicuous color. which reminds me, next time you are in japan, i owe you a bike, no? i found one just like the one you entrusted me with. should i pick it up for you?
you know, now that you mention it, keeping trim IS so important, since after all, i:m finishing up a bona fide avant-pop album, and we both know there is only room for one pudgy avant-pop star (Jim O’Rourke)! so i:ll have to keep up the onigiri and bike regimen. (hanging out with thin french boys that eat like birds is a start!)in the meantime, thanks for your support!!! go team [kicks]!
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