As it was put online while I was in HK, I didn’t get a chance to mention that a new episode of Radio OK Fred is now online and ready to be downloaded. This new episode marks the beginning of a new series of invited mixes that we plan on uploading every month or so. We’ll still be doing our regular shows, so this is just a bonus. The first mix is by French electronic artist O.Lamm — enjoy!
As always, you can email us for a complete playlist, as well as subscribe to the podcast feed so as not to miss any episodes.
The Q&A that METROPOLIS did with me appears in the issue that will be out tomorrow (587). You can already read it online here (scroll down).
Found this on Boing Boing:
Apparently this new Japanese girl subculture is called “Decorer” (one who decorates, or is decorated). A little candy-raver, a little kinderslut, a little goth lolita, and a little Cindy Lauper. Pretty amazing.
LinkThe page he’s referring to is currently not loading (probably too much traffic). Never heard of this. Anyone?
Robb, my editor at Tokyo Q, points out that Google Maps now covers Tokyo! It’s fun trying to zoom in on certain locations, like Meiji Jingu, or Tokyo Tower.
Update: Get a load of Muji’s Yurakucho store’s red roof!
Spend a Sunday afternoon with Patrick Macias and Junko Mizuno in Kichijoji.
I got back from HK yesterday, and had an absolute blast. I’ll be putting up some pics on my Flickr account over the week, so if you subscribe to my picture feed, you should see them pop up there (I won’t be posting them here).
Pictured here is me with my good friend Torahito, enjoying some 1L mugs of beer at a German restaurant (only know do I realize that I was wearing a Graniph tee with German text — how fitting) in the Stanley area of Hong Kong. He was the perfect host to a great, great weekend.
Before I head out, I leave you with this pic of me and Yoshi enjoying a bento on the roof of the OK Fred HQ yesterday. Can’t remember what was so funny though.
I’m off to HK for the weekend! I know, a weekend is not a lot of time, but I actually really like just popping into cities like that for a couple of days. No pressure to see everything that you usually “need” to see. And tomorrow I get to see (nerd alert) EPISODE III! Of course, for me, it’s all about the food, so delicious yamcha (dim sum) awaits… See you on Monday!
This Saturday at the Nakaochiai Gallery:
HYPERPEOPLE
Saturday 18 June
Entrance: FREE
Doors open: 7pm (wine will be served)
Screening: 7:30pm – 8:10pm
MAP / CONTACT:
http://nakaochiaigallery.com/en/access.html
HYPERPEOPLE is a 40 minute presentation in English by digital guru MARK PESCE. It addresses how the trends of technology and digital media are shaping our relationship with friends and the world at large. PESCE’S narration is synchronized with captivating visuals by AESCHATECH, a San Francisco collective that produces work commenting on aesthetics, the eschaton, and technology.
For more info:
Mark Pesce
http://www.playfulworld.com/
Aeschatech
http://www.aeschatech.com/
If you read my Tokyo Q anime column regularly, then you know I’ve been promising to review KARAS, one of the new shows (but not on TV, it’s an OVA) set to premiere this Spring, for a while now. I finally got a chance to see it this past weekend, and it led me to do something I pretty much never do: I watched it again. Opening with what has to be the most exciting title sequence I’ve ever seen — two characters fighting in the sky gets intercut with the credits, which appear to be the result of sparks flying from sword thrusts — it slows down and presents us with a promising storyline that has me anxiously awaiting the next episode — and no word on when that will happen.
Funny thing. The next day, I meet up with Patrick Macias, who I invited over to Ikebukuro for some ramen (of course) and drinks. Turns out that his new roommate (he just moved to Tokyo last week) is KARAS’ screenwriter. Oh, and he’s a huge Muji nut. Can’t wait to meet him.
Even though I’ve lived in Tokyo for years now, I was in Takadanobaba (two stations away from where I live) for the very first time tonight. Met up with Craig, who brought me to a great little Okinawa restaurant (loved the taco rice), and then we sort of wandered around, ending up sitting under Waseda University’s famous clock tower, avoiding the light rain, combini beer in hand. Nice.
The first issue of SHOJO BEAT (previously mentioned here) is out in the US and Canada. It leads off with 100 pages of NANA. Here’s a review of the first issue.
When I was at Junkudo the other day, I noticed they had quite a few volumes of NANA in French, and so grabbed the first book and read about half. I actually got into it, and really dig Ai Yazawa’s art on it. Very clean lines, with a certain realism that I didn’t previously associate with the genre. I’ll probably go back and read some more.
ICON magazine has put a few articles from last month’s issue (24) online, including this profile on Tokyo’s Klein Dytham.
More on the ICC “Open Nature” show:
This exhibition takes place at ICC, under the curation of Shikata Yukiko. But what seems like a rather straight project at first turned out to be slightly different, kind of softish in a way. That’s not only because the theme is nature. Robert Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty” (1970) for example, a series of pictures showing spiral-shaped objects placed in natural surroundings, is displayed next to Takamine Tadasu’s 2004 work “To the Sea”, for which he photographed the face of his wife right before giving birth. In works like these the “media” are pushed to the background in order to make way for the sense of excitement each subject conveys to reach the viewer direct and unbiased. Consider this event, in which also the likes of Carsten Nicolai participate, a statement of how far the sensibility of showing/viewing video art and media art has evolved. (
REALTOKYO)
More info here. The show, which started at the end of April, ends July 3.
Jean Snow is a contributor to 
He will be contributing to the upcoming fifth editions of 
