I’ve got 30 GB to burn through in two days, so please download my latest mix CD. I’m very, very pleased with this one – I think my mixes always turn out cohesively, but I think that this one is just damn fun to listen to, too. The theme is “musical syncopation and thematic quirkiness.”

Offbeat

1. The Killers – All These Things That I’ve Done
2. Cake – Shadow Stabbing
3. David Bowie – Rebel Rebel (acoustic)
4. James – Sometimes (Lester Piggot)
5. My Favorite – Burning Hearts
6. Cocco – 白い狂気 (White Madness)
7. RJD2 – Through the Walls
8. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Maps
9. TV on the Radio – New Health Rock
10. Camper Van Beethoven – Sweethearts
11. The Arcade Fire – Rebellion (Lies)
12. 天野月子 – クレマチス (Amano Tsukiko – Clematis)

Plus, two bonus tracks which are not considered part of the main mix CD “flow,” so when you don’t like them you’re not allowed to hold them against the rest of the CD:

1. Pharrell Williams featuring Jay-Z vs. U2 – Frontin’ Without You
2. The Musical Magicians – Convertibles and Headbands (I am fighting as hard as I can to get this song into Outrun 3.)

The link will go down on December 1st, so hurry and grab it now! Feedback, as always, is welcome and appreciated.

Sorry for the lack of updates – I’ve had a ludicrously exciting past few days, some of which you can read about in three largeish stories for 1UP.com:

• Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater Premium Preview party report
• Dragon Quest VIII launch day report
• Dragon Quest VIII hands-on impressions

Enjoy, etc.

I went to the Post Office today at 4:30 to send off the form for the 2-track Cocco single which came with her book. The Post Office is open ’til 5:00, but when I got there, they told me they couldn’t help me – the Savings and Wire Transfer section closes at 4:00. So I should come back on Monday. Frustrating, but still better than banks, which close every day at 3:00.

When I asked teachers at Kiritaka how they ever got anything done, the response was universally, “oh, my wife takes care of that.” I’m not so fortunate.

Metal Gear Solid 3 just arrived. Please don’t expect many updates this week.

There’s a huge poster in Shibuya advertising The Incredibles (here, “Mr. Incredible”) featuring the kanji for miracle/marvel: 奇跡.

The kanji make that one of my favorite Japanese words. The first kanji means “strange, mysterious, unusual” and the second means “impression, mark, remnant.” The second kanji appears in the words for “footstep”: 足跡, or “foot impression,” as well as “ruin” (as in Roman): 遺跡, or “left-behind impression.”

When I read the Japanese word for “miracle,” I feel as if miracles really used to exist but faded long ago, and all we have left now is a memory of the way things used to be. Like a footprint left in our collective unconsciousness, we feel that miracles must have once occurred, even if none do now. Or perhaps as if the world is full of the ruins of a more miraculous age, evidence all around us that wonderful things happened long ago. Absent, but not forgotten.

That’s what kanji are. They’re not just a way of writing Japanese; they’re not even roots, like Latin prefixes, that have been jammed together to form complex words and thoughts. Like Gene Wolfe’s fictional Ascian language, the written Japanese language is dense with meaning beyond what the words themselves might say. They’re a web of graphical hyperlinks connecting the language together. In a sense, when you write a word using kanji you are also writing every other word using that kanji.

I walked past Gas Panic in Shibuya this evening, and standing outside was a pack of drunken, washed-up Australians hitting with utter confidence on Japanese girls ten years their younger, and unbidden I thought of

the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.

A line from The Waste Land which had never struck me before, but seemed suddenly to have been written specifically about the self-righteous class of foreign expatriate who treats Japan and its people as something long due to him, but only now received…

When you’re hungry at 4:40 A.M., the difference between “open late” and “open late” is readily apparent. As you bike through the abandoned city center, you quickly discover that restaurants you thought you could depend on are closed, and ones you’ve never seen before, open. It’s like a terrible trial that reveals who your true friends are. Sad news: my Wendy’s is no longer 24 hours … that temporary timetable has ended. I had to get ramen. It was good ramen, but even good ramen tastes very little like a double with cheese.

It would appear that the half hour spent wrangling with Vodafone got them to change my billing name from “VESTAL AJOHN ANDREW” to “VESTAL JOHNANDREW.” Good job, guys.

I posted photos of my Halloween costume shortly before the server got nuked. Here are some pictures of the rest of the evening in Roppongi. We went to T.G.I.Friday’s for dinner, then onto a small hip-hop club, then on to karaoke, and then into the very depths of hell itself. Roppongi is an evil place that destroys men’s souls, and that’s enough said about that. So: pictures.

• Brian as a drunken salaryman.
• Christy as a ganguro girl.
• Christy’s costume was hellaciously authentic.
• Yuuko was a reindeer, supposedly, but she dropped the antlers early in favor of another costume’s wig/glasses.
• Mi-chan was Freddy Krueger.
• Saki was a sheep nurse. Bonus Yuuko content!
• Mi-chan puts on his best undead face.
• Naruko and Ozawa. Naruko was a kunoichi (female ninja). Ozawa was his usual sexy self.
• Brent was a cut-rate Golden Age Sandman; if he was an English teacher instead of a detective, I guess. Me and Brian flank.
• Some breakdancing skull at the hip-hop cluhb. I don’t think he was part of our party.
• Hamago shaved his legs for his schoolgirl outfit. That’s …dedication? Fun fact: Ozawa works in trading futures on the fish market, and his nickname is “Pescatore.” Yeah, I know it sounds like a B-rate anime.
• This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a pop song.

On Saturday, Brian and Christy came down from Kiryu and we met up at the Design Festa 2004. Going in, I wasn’t sure what to expect – I was under the impression that the Design Festa was a lot of art installations together under one roof. Which was more or less correct. I wasn’t aware, however, that “a lot” meant “about 500,” and that the majority of the artists would have prints or postcards of their work available for a nominal fee. In many ways it felt more like a bazaar than an art show.

The Design Festa housed an incredible variety of art; some people were working in traditional media, like pencils or paints, while others were showcasing digital art or animation. Some folks were jst making art-for-art’s-sake, while others were focused on aspects of commercial design. A few were making art-for-commerce’s sake, apparently gunning to create the next-big-character-good: their world, cast, and 24 friends pre-designed and ready to appear on a pencil box near you. Many people were selling clothes, jewelry, and knitted knickknacks (Christy spent far more time here than I). Some people seemed to have rented a booth just to set up and display their work, while others were clearly there to SELL SELL SELL. There were a few people who seemed to believe their anime doodles/Ragnarok Online fanart were worth money, now that they had used unlined/photo paper, but by-and-large the quality was high. Wandering around a room filled with so many people’s personal visions was invigorating, even if only 10% of those visions “clicked.”

I took a lot of photos, bought a lot of stuff, and got a lot of artists’ websites. Time to infodump.

Photos I Took:

• Here I am rocking out on a guitar made out of a giant chocolate bar.
• A group who had rented a space were accosting random showgoers, asking them “aren’t you a king?” They then shoved them onto a throne, switched on a giant wind machine beneath the seat, and started worshipping them. After the ceremony, you got a pamphlet about your past life as a king which you had forgotten. They were also dressed like giant mushrooms. Don’t worry, they weren’t taking it seriously.
• There was a guy playing a theremin, which was awesome. I got to try it out … it’s quite difficult and extremely sensitive. The distance of your hand from the tall antenna determines the pitch; the height of your hand from the base antenna, the volume. Repeat after me: the theremin is awesome.
• A city made out of paper. Sure, it looks impressive, but you know what you can’t see in that photo? The moving bits and pieces.
• A couple there built handmade watches out of brass and leather. I want one desperately, but the prices were more than I had on hand. Their store is in Sendai, so I can’t go and browse later, but I got their contact information and can have one custom made at a later date. Yes! Yes, please.
• These three girls were their art.
• A portrait I liked.
• A Lego Famicom. Odd, that someone so hardcore would build the new model…
• A robot girl.

Things I Bought:

• A pair of orange camo shoelaces. No photo available. But they sure look snazzy in my tan “bowling” shoes.
• One girl’s work had a nostalgic Hergé-tinged manga feel. Sort of like Bumpy Trot! I bought a four-tone sepia print she had made just for the show. It’s about the size of an oversized postcard. I might commission a painting from her at a later date. I just like her style; it’s exactly the right cuteness level for me. (Arisawa’s Website)
• Another artist did hyper-realistic photomontages that crammed together Japanese popular culture and Soviet communist overtones. I bought two of his prints. Parano-Nadeshiko is just awesomely creepy. The second print is Secret for now as I bought it as a Gift for Someone.
• This little nikumaan fellow seems unlikely to become the next great character good. He could, however, be the next great message board avatar.
• I bought this postcard that looks like a sleeping Tomak. The artist’s schtick is that all of his art has boogers. This is not a very good schtick.
• The best thing I purchased was an oversized deck of the 22 Major Arcana. Despite not believing in it one bit, I’m a bit of a secret Tarot whore. I figure, if you’re going to choose an occult belief system, it should be one that inspires creative art (dozens of illustrated decks, T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland,” The Fool’s Errand, Magical Drop 3 + Wonderful), not one that inspires eye-rolling (ex. Kabbalah: Madonna, effeminate Final Fantasy villains, Alan Moore’s post-Watchmen output). I don’t want to gank her entire deck, so here’s three cards I particularly liked: The Tower, The Moon, The Fool. (ugyau’s website)

Things I Saw:

• There were a ton of things-with-faces vying for the role of the next big character good. Smiling nikumaan! Smiling flan! Smiling ice cream sodas! It would appear if you can eat it, you can anthropomorhize it. Poerre was my favorite of the bunch. They just got a deal to install gashapons in Gusto Family Restaurants around Japan. Maybe they’re the next big thing!
• For those who like your character goods a bit creepier, there’s Mad Panda.
• I met the creator of Panda-Z, which was pretty cool. But our conversation was stilted: “I like Panda-Z a lot!” “Really? Thanks!” “…” Character goods have no world, no story, no personality, nothing. They exist as characters and nothing else. I respect that purity in many ways, but it sure does put a damper on conversation with the creator difficult. After you’ve said you like the character, there’s nothing left to be said. I guess I could have said, “I will buy many products with your character on them!” but that didn’t seem right.
• yumiking makes obscenely detailed insects out of paper. All of her models are actual size … or smaller.
• echo and SHI-KON have a realistic, airbrushed, and iconic fantasy style. (some nudity)
• blue x blue has a colorful, fun, and rounded manga style.
• mamimania combines a clean, digital line with a punk sensibility.
• Sayo has a messy, detailed line and a great eye for figures.
• Coppers was a duo that made fantastic metal sculptures I could never afford in a million billion years.
• DASH-NOW draws cute, detailed SD figures in a variety of cool settings.
• Japanest’s art has an clean, aggressive look.
• John and I met the Italian guy who runs tokidoki.it, a pervy-yet-impressive website. He had just formed a partnership to open clothing boutiques in LA and NY. Good for him. (no nudity but lots of underpants)
• Plenty of bad techno albums feature naked red demon chicks on the cover — but very few of them are as cute as those drawn by 0910. (absolutely awash in nudity)
• It’s not just what you draw, it’s how you draw it. wow!Chanto’s work is awesomely dynamic. I want her to design the next Jet Set Radio. Or something.

Writing this up sure took a while! I hope you find it as interesting as I did.

I accidentally ended up with a copy of Stella Deus last week. Christian asked me, how do you “accidentally” end up with a copy of a game? So I thought I’d explain.

When I signed up for TEPCO Hikari Fiber Internet last month, I received a $100 Sofmap gift certificate that I had to use by this weekend or it would expire. I went to Sofmap on Friday to use it, and they told me that I HAD to use it all at once – they couldn’t give a single yen in change or delayed credit. Also, the gift certificate was “limited” to the PC hardware branch/building of the store. I had just bought a brand new PC two months ago, and I’m waiting on AGP versions of X800 and 6600 to upgrade my videocard, so there’s absolutely nothing I need PC-wise right now.

I managed to convince them to let me use the certificate at the console game branch, but there was a catch – they’d have to ring the games up at the regsiter of the PC branch. So they had to send one of the TEPCO street girls with me to the console branch to carry back my purchases for me. I had about $50 worth of games in mind already, but absolutely no clue what to do with the other $50.

So … I got to the console game branch, and there’s this adorable TEPCO street girl with me who has no interest in games whatsover. I couldn’t bring myself to make her stand in the corner being bored while I lollygag around the store searching for used games with 10% better margins than other used game stores — the way I usually shop.

She told me to “take my time shopping,” but it was an obvious white lie; also, every moment she spent babysitting me was a moment she couldn’t tout sales, so I’m sure I was ruining her numbers for the day. I started getting worried if I took any longer she’d start to cry and then her mascara would run, so I looked around quickly at games in the $50 range and was like “Kingdom Hearts? No way mang, that’s $30 in the U.S. Uh … uh … Stella Deus! It might be fun, and if I don’t like it I can always eBay it!”

And that’s how I accidentally ended up with a copy of Stella Deus.

I love Mr. Driller!

Much more on the Touch! DS event and Design Festa … tomorrow.