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We were in Fugetsu, eating okonomiyaki,and I got up to go to the loo and I was all like "Where is the toilet anyway?" And James was all like "Use your Spidey-sense", which is... I mean it's not strictly accurate, it's Spider-sense for the most part, and it warns him of danger or untoward goings on, it doesn't guide him to the bathroom. But I'm happy to let it slide coz it's a good pop-culture reference: 
But Yuki tells me they have a similar reference in Japanese pop-culture, although it's more about your hairstyle than senseing danger. Kitaro from GeGeGe no Kitaro has a hair that stands up whenever monsters or spirits are around, and people say "Youki tatteru yo" when a bit of your hair is sticking up, like "Oh your monster-sense is standing up"
I guess it's not used in quite the same way, but it's a pleasing piece of symmetry nonetheless.
It comes as no surprise, huh?
So I'm kinda down at the moment because the weather here is so damn... mild. Seriously, I'm a man that loves snow and the Snow Festival is only a week away, and after a few spates of mild weather and even rain there's barely any snow in the streets. I'm keeping everything crossable crossed and I guess we'll see how it looks next week.
So - I turned to David Bowie. About 30% of the pleasure I derive from listening to Bowie is from pissing off my band who all hate him, but recently I've found myself liking him more and more. And even the later stuff, the post-Scary Monsters stuff that I've always thought sucked before, is growing on me a lot. Blue Jean has some great hooks in it! And this:
I used to hate that song and now, terrible video and all, I love it. Seriously, why was Stan Lee selling that couple jewellery? That threw me completely.
I went to cherry pick the best tracks from the three Best of... albums that are organised around different periods of his career and just couldn't be bothered. Instead I cued it all up and found that I liked his later 70's and 80's stuff more now than his 60's and early 70's stuff. I wanted to skip Jean Genie and all that but whenever Bowie does that weird faux-soul yelp or you get that tinny, spiralling, freak-out guitar it kicks ass.
So, to top this off I did some research and dug up some little known facts about David Bowie, I hope they add to your concept of this great artist:
1) David Bowie invented and owns the internet.
2) David Bowie has secret a menagerie hidden in the mountains of Chilean Patagonia. This menagerie contains amongst other things:
Dodos (3)
Unicorns (7)
Trolls (Mountain) (5)
Trolls (River) (3)
Dragons (1)
3) There are actually many David Bowies, although these are not played by actors, but are alternate Bowies from parallel earths. This explains Bowie's many stylistic changes - each version of Bowie comes from a different dimension, although in their own dimension each one is considered somewhat conservative and something of a dullard.
4) David Bowie killed and ate Lou Reed in the early 80s. Luckily the Bowie of Earth 542 was a Lou Reed impersonator and the world was none the wiser.
5) Despite a period in the 80s in which he was heavily influenced by soul music, Bowie does not in fact possess a soul.
A few weeks ago I mentioned going hog wild on Amazon. I ordered a bunch of books I couldn't find over here and they completed their journey over the Atlantic from the jolly old USA to Japan to my doorstep today. Of course on the journey the box apparently got accidentally torn open (in a surprisingly... linear fashion) and Japanese customs had to reseal it and stick a sticker on it. So when I opened it I took a look at the Amazon invoice to check everything was present and correct. Except...
I blurred out all of the details of course, but lets just say someone in Princeton ordered $236.32 of beef jerky in eight, sixteen-ounce bags and a variety of flavours. And I assume that this guy in Princeton now knows that someone in Japan ordered David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, Chuck Palahniuk's latest and a bunch of comic books. I mean in some sort of "Medium Sized Dry Goods" metaphorical sense I probably ordered $236.32 of beef jerky - but I'm pretty sure that Amazon don't label their invoices symbolically.
This weekend the Yokozuna Asashoryu won the Prime Minister's Cup - one of the big sumo competitions. This leads beautifully into a number of themes - Asashoryu's recent injuries and controversies; the fact that he's Mongolian and most sumo wrestlers now come from outside of Japan (the first caucasian champion of a competition was crowned last year) and all sorts of assorted sumo trivia. However what I'd like to talk about is the huge, fuck-off cup he got for winning:
I mean seriously. When it comes to trophies I'm pretty sure that one takes the cake - which incedentally is what most sumo wrestlers will do if you invite them to dinner. Zing! I'm here all week folks!
Actually I'm here every day... which is depressing in a way...
Anyway, the photo above is Asashoryu receiving the cup from Japan's current Prime Minister Taro Aso. I saw the presentation on TV and was all like "Blimey! That's a hell of a cup!" then went looking for a photo on the web. It took me bloody ages to find that one, but it was a lot easier to find the previous iterations of the same event.
That's Shinzo Abe, and he was... two Prime Ministers ago. Last year's Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda gave the prize to Hakuho who beat Asashoryu. He won it prior to that though, when Koizumi was in power:
Man, look at the size of that thing. I mean, he's got to have been tempted to walk into a bar, or possibly a ramen shop, and say "fill her up". Or use it to bathe his dog. Or his kids.
And in closing, I guess that - in sumo-trophy-photos - is my presentation on how Japan has had a lot of Prime Ministers in recent years. Thank you.
Three trees at Kiroro Ski Resort:
Not much in the way of brainwork for these last two days because I went snowboarding all day, both days. I wasn't sure I could hack it but... I'm not dead or anything yet. As it was incredibly cold and snowed all day, the snow out in Kiroro was unbelievable by the end of the day. Light and fluffy and like cotton wool or clouds maybe. That's why I started snowboarding.
I've been reading comics again:
Superman Beyond was ostensibly a two issue Superman tie in to the big DC comics event Final Crisis, written by my favourite author Grant Morrison, and drawn by Doug Mahnke - who's name and art I've always been a fan of. I'm sure it ties in well enough, but it doesn't need to. On its own this was one of the best, and one of the most bat-shit insane Superman stories I've ever read. It was dizzying, bewildering and partially in 3D. God, it was good.
