Momus - welcome back

Ooh, thank you Queen G.

Japan is fine, today the sun is shining and it's warm.

I was a bit grumpy when I first arrived here and missed New York, where I have so many friends and there are so many stimulating things going on all the time. But now I'm getting into the Japanese mood. Man, these people have gone apeshit over the cherry blossom, they seem to have been sitting partying every night down by the river, carousing and swigging sake, for about three weeks now! But it's true, it is beautiful. As are the girls...

Sunday I took a two hour train trip to Mito where I saw the Art Tower, a big exhibition space. They had a good show about recycling: how you can make clear plastic bottles into furniture, bits of old houses into ukeleles, and so on.

One nice thing about Japan is how you can pick and choose what to pay attention to in the west. For instance, I didn't need to pay any attention whatsoever to the death of the Queen Mother. Instead I was watching old videos of Monty Python, enjoying Derek Jarman's early home movies ('Sloane Square: A Room of One's Own', with music by Simon Turner), and loving Meredith Monk's film 'Book Of Days', in which medieval people are interviewed by a modern film crew about their lives.

Germany boils down to Holger Hiller, and America to Super Madrigal Brothers and The Gongs, whose releases on my label I'm mastering just now.

I'm also on the verge of starting a very strange new record of my own, as you can read in my new essay.

My mother will be on Japanese telly. First of may, I think. Some travel program that EVERY Japanese (we asked anyway) watches religiously.

My freind will be in Japan next week to teach English for a year, the plan I had once courted. Fezah and Momus...next , Bilbo Baggo

I wish I was going to Japan.

Japan is one of the coolest countries on Earth. I want to go back someday.

how do you folks deal with the crowds and the nosie and the lack of personal space?

how do you folks deal with the crowds and the nosie and the lack of personal space?

We may mock the flat Japanese nosie, but they think our nosies are 'tall' and have hairy nostrils.

pedantic bloody international bloody harlem globe bloody trotting metnalist stars bloody bloody...

i meant noise.

spppppth.

what is this undersea boat?

I'll be in Tokyo for a few weeks in July, Momus. I'd love some tips on record stores and so on.

Highline Records in Shimokitazawa is good for Japanese indie stuff.

Bonjour Records in Daikanyama is good for chic electronica and eclectic indie label releases.

Even HMV in Shibuya is worth a look, they have a much more interesting selection than HMVs in the UK or US.

Be sure to also visit Violence Jack Off http://engrish.com/buildings.html

Hey there, Momus, welcome back!

You miss New York, eh? Tis still cold, lord knows what's still floating around in the air and the psychotics still call this place home.

Otherwise, nowt's changed;>

Nichole, how old are you? It's not cold.

Hang on - Nick was gone?

TH, as I huddle in front of my terminal, it's now 42deg.F. I'd call that cold....

Course, you may be more warm-blooded;>