A Rainy Tokyo Saturday
A rainy Saturday in Tokyo. I slept in till one or two in the afternoon today, refusing to roll out of bed until the effects of last night’s revelry subsided. A friend and I had gone straight from work to a wine tasting at the Australian Embassy where wine importer Village Cellars was putting on one of their regular events. I ignored the whites and tried each of the reds in turn, reminded once again that most Australian table wines are probably best enjoyed with grilled meat or just about anything charred and bleeding. “Bold,” the Aussies like to say when savoring a bottle of Coonawara Shiraz or somesuch. Actually there was a wonderful Cabernet-Merlot from Mt. Helen among the five reds offered, and also a Pemberton that stood out nicely, but the others were just too… outback for my tastes.
So the evening began there, on a mostly empty stomach and feeling quite strongly the need to get loose after what had been a real bitch of a week. That very day I had given a presentation on e-business at the Australian Business Center (anyone detect a theme here?) which I had very little time to prepare for but seemed to go well enough, and now it was Friday evening and I wanted to get loopy. Which I did, in short order, on what seems now like about a dozen glasses of Aussie wine.
I hooked up with a couple of people I met there and we headed off for Nishi-Azabu for cocktails and more fun. Switching to Manhattans at this point was probably a bad move, and a couple of hours and thirty-nine cigarettes later I decided it was time to crawl into a taxi and get home. Which is about the last thing I remember.
After the pounding in my cranium settled into a more tolerable dull throb I decided to take a look at the clock (1:37) and extricate myself from the tangle of bedding and pillows that comprised my bed. I conducted a quick inventory of stuff that I remembered having carried with me the previous night: wallet (check), briefcase (check), cell phone (initially nowhere to be found, then frantic searching until finally discovering it in my left shoe, check), and suit (check). All items accounted for, I promptly crawled back into bed and fell asleep.
What better to do, I ask you, on a rainy and gray Tokyo Saturday?
So it’s been two months since I updated the site, which is really just way too long. It’s not that I have nothing new to say, but rather lack the time or inclination to sit down and peck it all out. Lamentable, really. But I did find time this weekend to report on the Hanami festivities here in Japan last weekend, and you’ll find that in a brand new Communique.
In other news, congratulations to Gen and Nori on their wedding. Carmel sounds like a fabulous place to get married, and I can’t wait to see the pictures. Also, big thanks to CA for sending the pics from Seattle. Damn I miss you guys. But what’s the deal with everyone’s eyes?
Also, some friends here have recently produced web-based offerings you’ll likely enjoy. Monty DiPietro has revamped Assembly Language, a site that focuses on “Tokyo avant-garde culture and Japanese contemporary art,” and Neil G. has put together a web site for his ‘zine The Alien called JapanZine. Check ‘em out!