• Tonight (December 15), La Fabrique in Shibuya is hosting the next edition of “MedVacances,” “the first and only one event in Tokyo focusing on the music and the life-style of the 22 warm, lively and entertaining countries (Europe, North Africa and the Middle-East) of the Mediterranean area.” Things kick off at 23:30, 3000 yen at the door (2500 yen with flyer).
• Catch international art group Sun Rain Stars‘ performance of “Fight for Love” tomorrow (December 16) at the Harajuku Bridge, from 12:00 to 17:00.
• As mentioned in this post, the launch party for Chin Music Press’ GOODBYE MADAME BUTTERFLY happens this coming Tuesday (December 18, from 19:00) at the Pink Cow in Shibuya.

What is this? For a while now I’ve been thinking that it might be nice to start writing a (mostly) weekly column-type post in which I could just blab about whatever is on my mind, and that wouldn’t necessarily fit as a regular post on the site. I’ve been told in the past that some miss the personal posts that have mostly disappeared from the site, and I guess this is my way of bringing that back, without messing around with the site’s mission and regular coverage. Why TB.Pensar? Most long-time readers will know about my silly naming convention for projects — it’s a simple equation: TB + a word in Portuguese.

My latest obsession? Well, I have a few, actually. First is VBS.TV, the recently launched streaming video channel from VICE magazine. I am absolutely hooked, and look forward to new shows everyday. I love the mix of serious subjects and wackiness, all presented in a terrific interface. This is the future of video online, and I believe you’re going to see a lot of magazines — or new entities — hopping on this bandwagon (MONOCLE has the right idea too, and check out the new Kuntzel+Deygas videos in their “Culture” section). Oh, and no one rocks a suit like VBS correspondent Trace Crutchfield, I bow to him (and his great reports). I also love the SOFT FOCUS series, featuring interviews by Ian Svenonius (another suave suit sporting gentleman) and shot on location at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC.

And yes, I’ve truly become a MONOCLE fanboy. I’ve been anxious all week for the new issue, but have yet to find it. Release date was on the 15th (Thursday), and so on Friday I went to Tower Records and ABC in Shibuya with no luck (at ABC they said it was coming in on Satuday). Today I checked Junkudo and Libro here in Ikebukuro, and still no signs of issue 2. I need my MONOCLE fix, dammit!

Third obsession of late are PDF magazines. A month or so ago I discovered the PDF-Mags site, and since then I’ve been downloading every new title that appears in the update section. I’m just amazed at how nice a lot of these are, with production values (in terms of esthetics) that often rival commercial magazines. Very long-time readers may remember the old online zine I used to produce, GEISHA, which I did for 8 or 9 issues I think, and this is the first time in years that I’m feeling the desire to get back and producing them. But instead of going solo, as I mentioned in this post, I’d like to launch a PDF magazine project through PauseTalk with the group. We only discussed it briefly, but some suggested that we do each issue with a theme, which makes sense (that’s how I produced GEISHA).

And games! You know I play games, and I’m currently hating on FINAL FANTASY III for the DS. Why, especially with all the love I professed for it? Well, after close to 30 hours of gameplay, I got to the final boss and, one spell, boom, 9999 points of damage to each of my characters. The End. Fuck that shit. So a week ago I decided to try RAYMAN RAVING RABBIDS for the DS — the Rayman game that came out on the Dreamcast was one of my all-time favorite platformers — and was surprised to find a great game, and I ended up playing it so much that I finished it yesterday. Now it’s on to CASTLEVANIA: PORTRAITS OF RUIN — long live the whip! Oh, and my copy of GHOST RECON ADVANCED WARFIGHTER 2 came in yesterday. Guess what I’ll be playing at home for the next few weeks…

Enough for now — time to check for new shows at VBS.

For those interested, I’ve posted the complete playlists — after the jump — for the compilations that we are playing at the cafe during the “Nudie Cafe” event. Contributors are Hideki Kaji, Embee, Hird, Hej Musik, and Marc Xavier LeBlanc (Bones), and all music is 100% Swedish.
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Towards the end of the afternoon, we head out to Seibu to get some food from the depa-chika (the basement level of most big department stores hosts mostly pre-cooked food counters, like a giant market – Seibu in Ikebukuro has one of the best ones). As always, we start with cheese and a baguette, and then get some chicken rolls and potato gratin from a charcuterie. The place is packed, which is to be expected on New Year’s Eve. People are making their last-minute food purchases for the evening. Waiting in one line, we overhear a guy saying to his girlfriend that he doesn’t want to miss the PRIDE tournament on TV (three of the networks are airing martial battles during the evening, lead in the hype wars by the Bob Sapp-Akebono confrontation). Walking back home, we stop at the combini for some plates of soba (we should prepare it at home, but we want to be lazy). We get back home and start to eat early, as we’ll still have to eat the soba later on. It’s time for KOHAKU, the infamous year end special on NHK that is presenting its 54th edition. The next few hours are mostly flipping through the different specials on TV. Your pick of 3 channels of ultimate fighting, Takeshi Kitano debunking UFOs, a magician competition, and KOHAKU. The Sapp-Akebono match ends up being a bust, with Akebono’s blubber getting in the way of any show of force (well, I’ll give him the first minute, when the blubber is put to good use pushing Sapp around). It’s now 11:15, which marks the start of comedy duo 99’s annual New Year’s Eve special. Okamura will again do some crazy feat with big explosions. It’s all done for laughs. We eat our soba. After midnight (and the end of the Nainai special), we walk to Gokokuji to pray for a good year. I love matsuri food, so get some butter potatoes, while Yuko gets okonimiyaki. Walking back home, I get a can of Calpis soda. I used to drink a lot of the stuff a few years ago, as there was a vending machine selling the stuff just outside my door. Natsukashi. The next day will bring lots of good TV specials (lots of good comedy: DISCOVER 99, ONE NIGHT ROCK’N'ROLL, UCHIMURA PRODUCE, BLACK WIDE SHOW). One of the shows I like the most is an annual tradition where singers, comedians, actors, etc. all get together and perform certain feats, for which they train 1-2 months. They then get voted on the performance. Most of the participants end up in tears. You have to show respect for what these people go through. I always end up shedding a few tears for some of the performances (this year during the Neptune-T.I.M. crazy climbers acrobatics show). Who says Japanese TV is all bad?

It’s been a busy week for me and my friend Ola [pic 12]. Shorly after FutureDesignDays we took a flight [pic 1] to the royal capital of Sweden, the lovely city of Stockholm [pic 5], to celebrate the 25th birthday of a mutual friend, also named Ola [pic 6]. We were suppose to take a slow friday before the party on saturday but ended up going clubbing anyway. At Grodan nightclub one of my friends dropped his pants infront of Swedish R&B-singer Robyn [pic 11] and her ultimate fighting boyfriend which I thought was hilarious (note that nobody got hurt).

Another friend, Olle [pic 3 right] was kind enough to lend us his apartment which was situated close to the new Clarion Hotel [pic 2+4] at Sodermalm. A really nice hotel that has the ambition “to mix the relaxed, connecting and curious atmosphere of an international back packer hostel with the obvious service, quality and environment of a contemporary first class hotel.”

The birthday party was a huge succes with people from all over Sweden, from Ostersund in the north to Helsingborg in the south, representing different cultures and subcultures, from Issey Miyake catwalk models to snowboard freaks and the usual drunks – all charing boundbreaking joy through music and good food enhanced by the legal drug alcohole. As one of our presents we gave the birthday child an alco-helmet filled with 12 year old dark rum [pic 6] which made this white dreadlocked guy stand out even more in the follow-the-style-of-the-leader parts of stockcity.

I love the picture of me and the former fitness champion of Sweden; Eva-Linda Karlsson [pic 7] (at least we caught the best part of her on film). Another guy showed up in a Narcissistic Youth t-shirt [pic 8] designed by my friend Ola [pic 12] which was also fun since it was made in a limited edition and is quite hard to find.

After two late nights which both ended at Berns (thanks to Fredrika from Superlounge for helping me skip the cue and payment), I spent the late sunday having a coffee at Svart Kaffe (japanese info here) together with my friend Ken from Tokyo [pic 10]. We both missed Tokyo reading news articles about shopping in Tokyo, watching the Futura2000 posters on the wall and chatting about old party memories.

We were suppose to catch some movies at the Stockholm Filmfestival but since we slept in we didn’t get any tickets and ended up watching the new Clint Eastwood movie Mystic River [pic 9]. Despite great actors and loads of good reviews it turned out kinda silly, especially some scenes in the end that should have been cut out completely.

I went and saw KILL BILL last night, and absolutely loved it. One thing though is that I was a bit surprised by the huge amount of Japanese used in the film, which obviously was not subtitled here. I was expecting some, but not so many scenes done almost entirely in Japanese, and long speeches by the likes of Sonny Chiba. It didn’t affect my enjoying the film any, and I don’t think I missed anything very important. In fact, I could catch most of it, except the scenes with the yakuza bosses arguing and the long monologue by Chiba about his sword. The thing is, the Japanese that I have the hardest time understanding in movies is tough-guy talk (except the swear words, I know those). The other thing is that as much as I like Lucy Liu and all, I think her role should have been played by a real Japanese actress (or Japanese/American). I’m sure everyone outside of Japan didn’t notice anything, but her Japanese is definitely not native. It’s fine that she doesn’t look Japanese as this is explained in the film (her character is Japanese/Chinese/American), but having grown up in Okinawa (and by the way, the origin chapter told in anime was absolutely stunning, and I just kept thinking that I would love to see an entire film done in this style) she should have spoken Japanese natively. It especially clashed with the huge amount of Japanese actors in the film. As for Sophie Fatale, the actress that played her must really be half because her Japanese was pretty much flawless.

But that’s not a big deal, the film kicked ass and I enjoyed the ride from start to finish. For those wondering about the differences between the American and Japanese versions, I can tell you that the only black and white in the whole film is during the sequence at the very start of the film when we see The Bride’s face all bloodied in the church, just before the opening credits start to roll. The entire fight sequence in The House of Blue Leaves was in full color, and I almost felt some blood reaching the cinema aisles!

As for the follow-up, as much as I can’t wait to see it, I don’t know if it’ll get me as excited as the first one did, since it’s the whole Asian aspect of the film that really got me so anxious for Volume 1 (being the Asian movie freak that I am). But then again, these are all cool characters, so I’m sure that it’ll end up being interesting no matter what the locale.

Great, great news from the MonkeyPeaches site (covers Asian film news). Seems like Zhang Yimou has started work on his HERO follow-up, and it’s going to be another martial-arts film. Starring Zhang Ziyi, it brings togeter a few HK stars (and Takeshi Kaneshiro) in a film that promises to be another must-see (for those who haven’t yet had the chance to see HERO, blame Miramax, who have the North American distribution rights, but have been sitting on the film for close to a year now). Here’s the full article:

The top executives of Beijing New Picture have started talking to reporters in China. The working title of the second martial-art film by Zhang Yimou is Shi Mian Mai Fu (Ambush from Ten Directions). It is the title of a 16th Century music piece, usually performed with pipa, a traditional Chinese stringed instrument. The story is set in Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644). Zhang Ziyi will take the leading role, a blind entertainer. We have seen her fight in many movies, and this time we will see her dance on the big screen for the first time. Andy Lau and Jin Chengwu (Takeshi Kaneshiro) play two cops, both are in love with the blind girl. Anita Mui will play Zhang Ziyi’s big sister. Compared to Hero, the new one will look more like a pure martial-art film, and the story will be richer and more intricate. Action director Ching Siu-Tung, costume designer Emi Wada and composer Tan Tun will return to take their old jobs in Hero. Two third of the film will be shot in Ukraine even though its a story happens in China. Ukraine was chosen after Zhang Yimou scouted various locations in China, Australia, New Zealand and some other countries. Over sixty local farmers have been caring for flowers planted on a large field for three months. It will be at least as expensive as Hero (US$ 30 million). An overseas partner is needed to share the cost and it will not be MiramAxe. Shooting will start on in Ukraine September 11, the Mid Autumn Festival of China. Zhang Yimou and Zhang Ziyi have already arrived in Ukraine yesterday and the rest will soon follow.