10 March 2007, morning I'm listening to 10,000 Maniacs now. It feels like ages since I was obsessed with this band. In highschool and my first year of college I pretty much only listened to bands with female singers: Cocteau Twins, The Sundays, The Sugar Cubes, etc. Luckily there was a whole industry at the time, catering to sensitive boys like me. I've purchased all these 10,000 Maniacs songs before (several times over), so I don't feel any remorse having just downloaded the collection that's playing now. In fact it serves the record companies right for foisting off cheap, made-to-decay plastic cassettes for so many years. Anyway, I'm revisiting some of my highschool favorites.
Last night I met up with Mark and Grant for a few Belgian ales in Umeda. Mark has just witnessed the birth of his first son, Haru, so we went out to celebrate, while Haru and his mom slept. I've taken to suggesting this expensive Belgian place rather than the much cheaper place just steps away. I must be rich. It's always fun to get together with those guys and talk about the old school, soccer, movies, and folks who've long since passed out of Japan. Grant's a big movie buff (and trained analyst), so I naturally start thinking about movies when I see him. On the way to Umeda I got an idea of a birth-year to birth-year battle of movies. Grant entered the world in '72, so he has The Godfather on his side. I haven't actually checked what came out in 1973. Mark hails from '77, so naturally Star Wars comes to mind. I guess a proper battle should include participants from each genre as well. I have to check 1973 right now...hmmm, not such a strong group I must say. I've got Serpico, The Exorcist, The Sting, Enter the Dragon, Mean Streets. I also have Amarcord. That's an interesting contender. By the way, here's a link to a year-by-year index to check out who's on your team.
My Friends: Part II Jana and Christopher lived one or two streets over on Leaside Drive. They were the brother and sister counterparts to Anna and me. As I mentioned before, Jana could eat a raw white onion like it was an apple. I believe that Jana was Anna's age, and Christopher was a year younger than me. Their parents would come over to our house some evenings, and on those nights we would play the dark game. This game might have been less dangerous if it had had an object, but as far as I remember the whole point was just to run around the room screaming in darkness, which means that the lights would not come on until one of us was crying. Looking back, I think we should have bounced a rubber ball against the wall, then switched off the light before it settled and competed to find the ball. That would probably have cut down on bashing our heads against furniture by at least 5 percent. Jana and Anna basically ruled Christopher and me. We were both younger brothers, and as such, worshipped the ground they walked on. Since Christopher has already commented on it, I will reveal that we were dressed up in women's clothes on at least two occassions. It's not that we really wanted to put on women's clothing, it's just that we really wanted to do whatever our sisters wanted us to do, provided it was in the same room as them. Eventually though, there came a stage where I only wanted to do the opposite of what Anna did. I don't know when that was or how it manifested itself with Jana and Christopher. We thought they were weird though, because the two of them were so affectionate toward eachother. Anna and I had a very tense relationship, with peaceful moments always on the edge of degenerating into kicking and biting. We just couldn't fathom the fact that Jana and Christopher would hug eachother of their own accord. But they could be bad too, so we liked them. In fact, they tought us some of the dirtiest words we knew: plaki (the girl's part) and bisinooli (the butt). Greeks I've known later, when questioned about these words (which I inevitably do upon learning of someone's Greek heritage), have told me they are pure nonsense and have no meaning whatsoever. So either Jana made these up, or her grandmother or cousins did, or my later Greeks didn't know the ways of the old country, or I've forgotten the original words and made up my own. One more thing.. an apology to Christopher and his mother. One day when his mother was watching us, she bought us a two pack of little matchbox racing cars, one red, one yellow, at the grocery store. Christopher and I both wanted the red one, and I threw a fit until I got it. I should have been the more mature one (a year older) and as a beggar of someone else's mom, I shouldn't have been a chooser. I probably never said thank you either. So I beg your pardon. Next time: Lake Highlands Elementary School Kindergarten Class with Michael Dewers.
bookseller in Tenma, Osaka
photo with Balda Baldixette I on Kodak T-Max 40024 February 2007, night My Friends: Part I Lisetta and Corina: They lived down the street (Livenshire Drive) from us. Lisetta was my age, still is I hope, and I once got in trouble for biting her. That was one of my tactics in fights with my sister. Biting my sister was such a regular occurance that it hardly made a splash at all, but biting Lisetta was another story. Lisetta was much smaller than my sister, and much less likely to be embroiled in a hair-pulling, kicking, twisted-up fight on the sofa. But it happened once all the same. I'm sure we were both in trouble, but I felt some shame, where I doubt Lisetta did. Otherwise we got on fine. Corina was Lisetta's younger sister, who my sister and I will always picture with snot coming out of her nose. As I said before, Lisetta and Corina's mom watched us sometimes, probably in the summer when our mom was working, but I can't remember those grown-up details. Lisetta and Corina's house was notable for four things in our eyes...1. It had a particular smell (not offensive, just an other people's house kind of smell), 2. Jolet's (the yorkshire terrier) newspaper-lined pee and poo patch in the living room, 3. the mysterious pop-up camper and Ford Galaxy 500 in the backyard, and 4. Lisetta's four-poster canopy bed. My sister was envious of the canopy bed, but I was envious of the fuzzy squirrel coin banks that both of the sisters had. I still like the thought of those coin banks. Wish I had one. The pop-up camper was a mystery because it was always locked, and the one time we found it unlocked we got yelled at for going inside. I'm sure it was dangerous. Probably had a gas stove inside. They had lots of cool toys. Lisetta had a stereo "jam box", where as I had a one-speaker model. That also had an Etch-a-Sketch, which we really liked. We used to play a game of running circuits around the house and stopping to power-up with orange-flavored vitamin C pills. This write-up makes the house sound kind of trashy, but in fact, it was pretty classy in the parts where kids and dogs didn't run amok. We had a lot of good times with them. Lisetta and Corina were both part of a group called Indian Princesses. Their dad took them to meetings where they made cool-looking bows and arrows and stuff. That was a mystery too. Last I heard, Lisetta was married. Corina is probably married too. I wonder how her husband deals with all the snot. Next time: Further Elementary School Days Adventures with Jana and Christopher.
school days in Kita Senri
photo with Smena 1 on Kodak T-Max 400MARCH 04 APRIL 04 MAY 04 JUNE 04 JULY 04 AUGUST 04 SEPTEMBER 04 OCTOBER 04 NOVEMBER 04 DECEMBER 04 JANUARY 05 FEBRUARY 05 MARCH 05 APRIL 05 MAY 05 JUNE 05 JULY 05 AUGUST 05 SEPTEMBER 05 OCTOBER 05 NOVEMBER 05 DECEMBER 05 JANUARY 06 FEBRUARY 06 MARCH 06 APRIL 06 MAY 06 JUNE 06 JULY 06 AUGUST 06 SEPTEMBER 06 OCTOBER 06 NOVEMBER 06 DECEMBER 06 JANUARY 07 FEB/MAR 07
