Heading out!

In a few minutes I leave for my big trip home to Canada, which is nice since it’ll be my first time back in two years. Most of the time will be spent in my hometown, but this week I’ll spend some time in Montreal, and at the end of the trip we stay a few days in New York. Things will obviously slow down here, but I expect to still be writing on a fairly regular basis. See you on the other side!

The Hermes shop in Ginza.

I very rarely have bad experiences in Tokyo, but last night’s outing to the a-bridge cafe/bar in Sangenjaya left a bad taste in my mouth. I went there, a place I’ve been to a few times, to get a few pics for a piece I was going to write for a German magazine, and brought some friends along (Marxy and U.T.) for a drink. We went up, paid for our drinks (a bit pricey — a nama beer was 700 yen), and went out on the outdoor roof patio. Well, I maybe took 1 or 2 sips before I accidently dropped the glass. The bartender that served me came out, and made a big deal about cleaning the mess, and then just left. No replacement beer. Having just paid 700 yen for it (something I’m sure costs them 100 yen or less — it wasn’t a very big glass), I wasn’t very excited about paying double for what would end up being one drink, and so patiently waited for my companions to finish their drinks before we left and went someplace else.

Yes, it was my fault, but it seems to me that the right thing to do would have been to simply offer me another drink. With what happen, I just felt bad and annoyed, and not only do I no longer want to go there, I’m also dropping the piece (a recommendation) I was going to write. Screw them.

Why should you be following the Shobus Diary? Momus explains:

It’s now in my feeds list.

Update: Minifer tells us: “The Japanese host is not Daisuke Ishida but Lozi.”

Yuki went out last night and snapped a whole bunch of pics in Shibuya.

Last chance to catch Kiiiiiii live for a while! From Neomarxisme:

I spotted this nice-looking cafe the other day in Aoyama, but didn’t have time to go in for a drink. It’s on the road that leads to the Maisen restaurant.

“Radio OK Fred 07” is now up, and you should see it pop up in your feed if you’ve subscribed to it. The is the first show that I’m not a part of, and it’s all my fault — I had to back out of our scheduled recording session at the last minute, and asked them to go ahead and do the show without me. I myself don’t know what was played, but I look forward to listening and finding out. As always, can can email to get a copy of the playlist.

Remember that you can also download all the previous shows here.

The Nakaochiai Gallery is trying something a bit different on Friday — hosting a musical performance!

Macworld is reporting that invitations have been sent by Apple Japan to select journalists for a special music-related event to be held at 10am on August 4 at the Tokyo International Forum. Apple iTunes Music Store, anyone?

Spiral is on a roll these days with their exhibitions! The latest: “Enzo Mari Vs. 10 Billion Japanese Cedar Trees.”

It’s taking place at Spiral until July 31.

Last week to catch the “GA International 2005,” featuring a who’s who of world-renown architects.

It’s at the GA Gallery until July 31.

Japanese film review site Midnight Eye has just updated with an interview with Lee Sang-Il (SIXTY NINE), a feature on the new book IRON MAN: THE CINEMA OF SHINYA TSUKAMOTO (written by Midnight Eye’s Tom Mes), a few reviews, and a piece on Frankfurt’s “Nippon Connection” film festival.

Speaking of Tsukamoto, last week I watched his latest film, VITAL, which I quite enjoyed. It’s slow going, but there’s something about the pace and the characters that just had me the whole time, and it ended up almost feeling like I was watching a short (meaning it ended too quickly). Of course, it stars my main man Tadanobu Asano, so that also had something to do with it — I could probably watch him sit on a chair and do nothing for 2 hours and still be enthralled.

Oh man, I need to go to Stair, a new cafe/restaurant/bar in Aoyama designed by Wonderwall’s Masamichi Katayama. More pics on this page. Here’s the description from the Wonderwall site:

According to the map, it looks like it’s located on the same street as the Bape Exclusive shop.