Scot is now in Japan.

less than a week away, I guess I should finally spill my guts about LOST IN TRANSLATION. My stock answer up until now is that it was an enjoyable film, somewhat muddled and atmospheric, and that it perhaps captured well the confusion of the first-time visitor to Tokyo. If pressed, I might have also mentioned that it was definitely not for Japanese audiences or non-Japanese who had spent a lot of time in Japan.

But there was more, and I waited, and it has been written about elsewhere, but I will revisit the subject just to get it off my chest and put my mark on it...

I have seen several representations of Japan in Hollywood films over the last year, from the dances-with-wolves-yay-for-liberal-white-peopleness of THE LAST SAMURAI (TLS), to the Japan-as-nothing-but-kitsch-over-the-topness of KILL BILL (KB). But LOST IN TRANSLATION (LIT) is the one of these three that I just can't write off as harmless.

Why does it bother me so much? Well, I guess I should start with a few obvious things first. For example, how many significant supporting characters in LIT can you remember? None? Good. Because there weren't any. KB had Sonny Chiba, and TLS had Ken Watanabe, but LIT was completely devoid of meaningful presence by a Japanese actor or character. This just smacks of that weird old 'Orientalism' that Edward Said wrote about in the book of the same name, when he described that "Orient" that does not speak for itself, but is defined by westerners observations as compared with their ideal of the culture. I don't want to carry this comparison too far, because I can't honestly claim that Chiba and Watanabe's parts in KB and TLS were necessarily reflective of some "sufficient" level of input and cultural accuracy coming from Japan.

But I was really bothered by the way that the main character in LIT came to Japan with some pocketful of knowledge about Japanese art or whatever, and transformed it into a full-blown set of ideals with which she tried to correlate the real Japan. Those ideals (I've seen them at work, I've had them myself) are often based on some past period of political glory or cultural flourishing. I wrote here earlier about how some of the foreign students I have met complained about Tokyo not being "real Japan," in the way that temples and such in Kyoto and Nara are. What racist tripe! Temples and such in Kyoto are only "the real Japan" for people who are not from Japan. For everyone else, the "real Japan" is an irreducible and infinite set of feelings and experiences. As life anywhere is.

But art is by needs reductionist, and so we end up with this whole "good Japan, bad Japan," polarization, which has been around forever. To be honest, I often know more about Japanese history and traditional culture than many of the Japanese people I meet. And this should be no great surprise. I have spent more than ten years studying every textual and real aspect of the country that I could wrap my brain around. And how much do I know about U.S. history and geography? Shockingly little. So I don't browbeat Japanese people into submission and claim that they have lost these beautiful old ways while muddling in new Western ways that they will never be completely comfortable or accepted in. That's the statement that bothers me in this film, I suppose. That Japanese people are degenerate because they have rejected their own traditional culture (which is quiet and beautiful, as we see from the scenes of LIT shot in temples) for the destructive city life and status of misfit latecomer to international markets and culture (even the entirely unnecessary "lip my stockings" gag just drives in the fact that we don't think they can speak English and fit in...). In LIT, no one is allowed to be simply who they are--the film monopolizes the viewer's focus (as all films do) with images of the gaudy, the hectic, the misinterpreted.

From that viewpoint, of course Japan is skewed and ridiculous.

I have tried to get this all out without using phrases like "unintentional imperialism of the young American elite abroad," and I think I've done it, for the most part. But I can already anticipate the responses:

"But my Japanese friend saw it, and she thought it was funny."

"I've lived in Japan, and I thought it was fine."

I don't care who you are. No one has the ability to define racism, especially not me. There is no verdict on this film that could condemn it outright. But I just don't want to hear people laud it as an accurate depiction of anything other than the very limited observations of two completely self-absorbed and culturally unreceptive white people in Japan for such a short time that they don't even get over their jet lag before returning to their sad existences while clutching a few new anecdotes for cocktail parties. Whew.

But I like Sofia Coppola's directing work, especially in The Virgin Suicides. I just want her to stay out of Japan. Actually, I don't think I have ever seen a Hollywood film about Japan that didn't somehow piss me off.

Ignore me, I'm obviously biased and bitter.

May the award for best director go to Peter Jackson, and may the award for best picture be withheld this year, out of respect for the intelligence of the North American film-loving community at large. Please. I beg you.

A week since my last post? Disgraceful. Wish I had something fascinating to report, but I've just mainly been busy, preoccupied, and moping.

I have an interview with the Tokyo office of a U.S. firm on Friday. We'll see if that turns anything up.

But what really pulled me back to the blog was the desire to write about...horror movies. Again. I guess I really didn't get it all out of my system with that last post.

What kind of sparked it was this page, a feminist look at the ALIEN series of films, which are ostensibly about second-wave feminism and the "misuse" of sex. Lots to argue with, but lots to think about, too.

I had already been trying to remember a few movies to support another idea about horror movies, this time about Haunted Houses. Haunted Houses have been given such varied treatment in film that it can be hard to declare one theme universal among them all, but there is one theme that feels primal within the genre. As you may have already guessed, that theme is abuse. The normal human experience of what makes a house 'haunted' in a real sense is the presence of the actual monsters living there and the fear they can cause. I am particularly interested in the movies where one family member is occasionally and temporarily possessed by a presence in the house and caused to do unspeakable things. How clearly this echoes the best hopes of the abused, that the loved one hurting you is simply not him- or herself right now, that there is some external evil to blame. "The Shining," stands out as a canonical example of this.

I recently saw a movie called "Darkness" (Spain, 2002), that played upon these themes, but squandered a lot of the potential there. The temptation, it seems, is to rely too heavily on the occult side, which is colorful and sensational, while leaving the real abuse side of things out of the picture. It is too bad, I suppose. Real abuse is more frightening than any occult presence. Monsters aren't scary. Drunken and violent husbands are.

Another film that played on the idea and brought it one stop further was "The Entity," maybe my second favorite movie in the genre after The Shining. In this film, a woman living alone is beaten and raped by an invisible presence in her house. She tries to ask for help, but obviously, no one will believe her. This is a bit over-the-top for drawing attention to the outmoded legal rules of our recent past, like the impossibility of marital rape, or even the English "rule of thumb," but it is very effective as a film.

Finally, I have to admit that the moments I have found most effective in films of this sort are in scenes where a child, abused by a parent or some haunt, fixates upon a particular part of furniture or a pattern in the house. The visual fixation is a kind of psychological withdrawal, a shock response, to the terror around the child, but it also accomplishes the final task required of a real haunted house film: the house, or parts of it, must actually be terrifying. There is a real transference that occurs in the abused--when someone is beating you, you go limp and stare at the wall. If that wall has a distinctive wallpaper pattern, then the pattern itself is associated with the abuse and becomes terrifying. This, I think is the very heart of the concept.

Haven't blogged in a while, have I? Well, you'll notice the post below says I was going to be busy. I was. I still am.

But I had dinner with the peeps from the Japanese firm last night, and wonder of wonders, I got the job. Schedule and salary are yet to be negotiated, but the named partner said, "yes."

He was really tricky during the dinner, which in my mind was a third interview. He would be droll and amusing one second, then turn on me and ask a very pointed question, as if deliberately trying to throw me off guard. It seems that attorneys who do lots of litigation always do this to new people to size them up. I find the whole thing so ridiculous. I may never do litigation. Why test this one limited skill set, then? Thinking on your feet is good for any attorney, I'm sure, but doing long division while under cannon fire is the kind of thing that really only serves litigators.

Me, I'm more of a people person. I would rather be recognized for superior listening and cognitive skills than balls of steel any day.

Steel balls or not, I weathered his clumsy interview strategy and secured his okay for the hire. We'll see where this goes. At any rate, a little extra income wouldn't hurt.

Someone's on my ass about a certain editing project I may have let slip. Back to the keyboard! Yahh! Whipcrack!

I'll just punch it out this weekend.

Yeah, that's what I always say.

My procrastination is boundless. I check a few blog links I've grown to love, scroll through BoingBoing! for the tenth time in a day, and wander around news sites to see how the Democratic party is shooting itself in the foot on any given day.

The internet is a curse.

At least I finished THE CORRECTIONS, which was becoming too compelling to do much else besides read at the end there. Anyone read that book? He's so obviously pandering to the masses, but he does so with an admirable range.

Just when you think his suburban value-bashing has reached a head, he pulls you into the mix by mentioning bands you like. You go from being perfectly happy condemning his staid and comfortable characters, to learning that they like THE MINUTEMEN and THINKING FELLERS UNION LOCAL 242.

Who could condemn such a person?

Arrggh! Class conflict!

It's in my brain! Get it out!

feck-all done today, as is normal for Mondays. I spiraled into some weird music-listening funk that lasted a good four hours as I just span different discs in my room and stared at the ceiling.

That happens more often than I care to admit.

I was sitting here looking at my poor plant dying of thirst and neglect. I bought and cared for this plant fairly attentively when I first got to Japan, but it's been orphaned by my strange sleep schedule and inconsistent attentions lately. I think that was always its fate. The only other times I can remember buying plants have been in similar situations, when I arrived in strange new locales and needed company. Then, as now, the plant would wither as I began to feel more comfortable and less lonely in a new place, like some mad, botanical, Dorian Gray-esque equation.

The last time was my senior year at Tulane in New Orleans. That was a year just brimming with romantic upsets. But "leafy" kept on trucking. Despite erratic watering. Despite crazy roommates. Despite junky death-metal houseguests from Florida. Leafy kept on trucking.

I owe plants a special debt.

when I got back from the gym, Brazilians offered me rum. (Making friends in the dorm is paying off in dividends!)

They scoffed when I added coke, but we all got along anyway.

And I learned that the Hungarians are startlingly homophobic. And they don't like "gypsies" (their term) either. They claim that the sexual promiscuity of these Rom peoples has resulted in lots of unwanted teenage pregnancy among Hungarian girls in remote villages.

Go gypsies, I say! Spread your seed!

reporting for duty, Sir.

I have been neglecting the blog and someone called me out on it. So off to work we go. (Occasional readers will not notice because I sometimes post retroactively.)

I got back from the gym to find some 20 Slovenians in the TV lounge of my building. This is not an uncommon occurrence. Tomorrow it will be Vietnamese people. (How can I tell the future? Retroactive posting.)

One of the Slovenians had made goulash, a Hungarian dish, because his girlfriend is Hungarian. So he and two full-blooded Hungarians invited me to have goulash at midnight. Right bloody with paprika, it was. I loved it. I had two bowls.

Went to sleep on a full stomach and dreamed of Budapest.

Just had morning seminar. My professor spoke about two patent infringement cases decided last week that resulted in unusually large damage awards for Japan. Last Friday he was on about five different news shows to speak about it, and he had two articles in major newspapers this week. Aside from the size of the awards however, they are not particularly interesting cases from an academic perspective.

After seminar, we all went to lunch. Someone asked me about the U.S. judiciary, and we spun off into an interesting discussion about local politics, then on to rural affluence and a few other things. I don't get much face time with my professor outside of seminars, so this was a good chance to shoot the poop about something other than IP law for a little while.

But now I'm exhausted. I only slept about three hours before I got up for the seminar this morning. This insomnia is killing me. I just can't seem to readjust. I kick my legs under the covers. I get hot and start to sweat, throw the covers off, and change positions countless times. In those small hours, the speed of my thoughts is all out of proportion with the flow of time. I had popcorn before I went to sleep last night, and the smell of the burnt kernels at the bottom of the jiffy-pop-like container labeled "American Popcorn," kept me awake like a reminder of something regrettable I'd said during the day.

The mind is a terrible thing.

Today is definitely a "let yourself feel what you need to feel, stay at home and sleep and read and don't try to be strong," kind of day.

I got a rejection from the Seattle office where I had such a good interview. I'm feeling defeated. That was the single most promising response I'd ever had from a firm. But today they said they didn't feel like there would be enough work for me on the tech side...

Cheez-its H. Christ, people, don't worry about it! I'll redline construction contracts if that's all you've got! Just give me...something.

Today I am seriously regretting having gone to law school. I had just started a new job that I was really happy with when I decided to give law school a chance. It feels like I made the wrong decision right now.

And that really bothers me.

On the brighter side, I had a very good phone call with Alli today. I think I will be visiting Seattle in March.

I finally emerge from my amazing disintegrating relationship funk to get a few things done, and the Sumo mail list decides to spam me with viruses all day!

Why, God, why?

Janeane Garofalo and Tina Fey should run on a joint ticket in 2008.

Should they be elected, I would hope they appoint Sarah Vowell as their Secretary of State.

Just a thought.

Where to start?

Item the first: If my recent days can be categorized into a) let yourself feel what you need to feel, stay at home and sleep and read and don't try to be strong, and b) get a hold of yourself man, you have things to do and you can't wallow in misery forever, then today falls into the latter category. I got to sleep earlier than usual last night, woke up earlier than expected (before the alarm! ...I actually set the alarm!), and got into the research center early enough to give people the impression that I am still a member in good standing here.

Item the second: That impression, unfortunately, was mostly wasted on the half-insane secretary, who always drags Kato-san or I to lunch. She told me today how she feels persecuted by other female administrative types in the department, and how one of them even punched her at an office party. It should be noted that in Japan, light, open-handed slaps to the top of the head and back are completely accepted among friends and acquaintances, especially drunk ones, as a means of expressing disapproval in a joking manner. So I decided she's got a whopping persecution complex. Still, that just makes me feel even more sorry for her. I think the only reason Kato-san and I were going to lunch with her so regularly is because she seemed to have no other friends, and now I know why.

Item the third: I was parched and walked down to the co-op for a drink. Unfortunately, I am easily swayed by the new drinks that line the shelves of convenience store-type places every time I walk in. The bottled beverage industry in Japan is very volatile. Except for a few long-suffering mainstays, the drink line-up changes from year to year, and sometimes week to week. I especially enjoy the weird products that will obviously enjoy only a very short life-span in the consumer eye and gullet. That's how I somehow got suckered into trying "Nodo-Jiman," or "Proud Throat." That term is often applied to the numerous karaoke competitions that sweep the country in warmer months. No wonder, then, that this drink claims to be especially good for dry throats. The package carries the joke a little further by also claiming that the drink can remedy dried-up hearts and desiccated lives... But anyway, this stuff is awful. My first impression was that it verged on medicinal, but then it stopped verging and just fell in. Seriously. It's like drinking citrus-scented Vicks vapor rub that someone has gone through the trouble of melting and then carbonating for you. Noxious. Sick-making.

That about sums it up for now.

the tally of unusual things I'd eaten in Japan was limited to strange body parts of almost-exotic animals.

But now I've veered off into weirdo/depressed bachelor territory. A non-exhaustive list would include:

1. Hard-boiled eggs with a little squirt of mayo on the egg before each bite (poor man's egg salad!)
2. Unwashed, unpeeled raw carrots. Sometimes 2 big 'uns in a row. Sometimes with little squirts of mayo.
3. A banana and mayo sandwich (notice a theme?)
4. Tuna salad made with light 1000 island dressing instead of mayo (I ran out)
5. Spaghetti and Carbonara pasta sauce that apparently required eggs and bacon, of which I had neither, so I just added tuna
6. Vegemite and mayo sandwich
7. Up to four satsuma oranges in one sitting (cheapest fruit in Japan by far!)

When your last meal of the day is at 2 AM, it's hard to be picky.

Went to go see the 5,6,7,8s with Chupa-Chups and Oi Skall Mates in Shibuya tonight with Tommy, Kelly, and Erin.

Tommy has some photos in a zip folder for download here.

Some of you may know the 5,6,7,8s as the barefoot all-girl rockabilly band featured in Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1. They, of course would be the barefoot ones twisting onstage at the Japanese club with the big brawl at the end. They were great, obviously.

The Chupa-Chups are a Japanese doo-wop band. You heard me right, they even broke out the shama-lama-ding-dongs. I danced up a storm to those guys. Unfortunately, their merchandise corner sported t-shirts with a logo including the face of a 'little black sambo' racist caricature. You still see those in Japan from time to time. I try not to think about it if I don't have to.

The Oi Skall Mates, then, would be a Japanese ska band, of course. I haven't been to a ska show since the semi-serious ska phase I went through back in New Orleans in the early 90s. No need to spend too much time on nostalgia though.

But seeing Japanese skinhead kids with boots and braces is such a laugh. People will go all-out faithful in the recreation of any look here. Let the political context be damned...

are very hard for me.

Why am I up so late?

Why do I ball up my unused blankets into the vague shape of another human body lying next to me?

Must get to sleep...