Now it's my turn. After limping along for a few months, I finally saw a sports medicine doctor last week, and it turns out I probably have a torn meniscus in my left knee. MRIs and other tests need to confirm this yet, but there may well be arthroscopic surgery in my future. In the meanwhile, the doctor says, I should take ibuprofen in what strikes me as massive quantities.

I stopped by a Walgreen's in St. Paul last week to stock up. For the first time in my life, I actually considered by one of those 500 tablet mega-bottles. But that just seemed too, well, senior-citizeny. I compromised on the 225 pill version pictured above, which is still ten times larger than the thimble-sized bottles I have always bought until now. But there's no fooling anyone: the ibuprofen years have arrived.

   Before the snow, we attended the Chicago Symphony's matinee concert yesterday afternoon.  Bernard Haitink conducted, with Murray Perahia as the guest soloist.  Perahia turned in a fine reading of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in the second half, stressing the changes in tempo as the piano dueled with the orchestra as a whole.  The program opened with a perfectly nice version of Haydn' Symphony #44.

    But the real highlight for me was Lutoslawski's Symphony #4.  The modernist work is built around a repeated gesture in which a certain musical phrase is begun by one instrument, but finished by another, with the transition between the two players almost seamless.  I like the recording I have of the piece by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but seeing it played live with great precision and passion, and seeing those hand-offs from instrument to instrument unfold across the space of the stage, magnified the impact.   

   Recently, the Chicago Symphony was named the best orchestra in North America.   I wouldn't argue.  It's a wonderful local resource for those of us in the Windy City:  it will help us, for example, to get through the long winter, which seems finally to have begun.  Now I have to locate my boots and head off to campus.... 

   My sister and I were both baptised there, a few years after my parents were married there.  My grandparents renewed their vows in a 50th wedding anniversary ceremony there--and the church would later host both of their funerals.  Many of my cousins have been married or baptised under its roof. 

   When I visit St. Paul's nowadays, it's either a very happy or very sad occasion.  Yesterday was the latter:  a memorial service for my Aunt Loreda, my mother's oldest sister, who passed away a few weeks after my mother.  The service was lovely:  at one point, her many grandchildren and great-grandchildren stood and sang "Jesus Loves Me."  Loreda herself picked out the scripture passages to be used in the service.  She was a lively, open-hearted person who raised seven children, and the ceremony reflected that. 

   We have a big extended family in Minnesota--I have nearly sixty first cousins on my mother's side.  It's always lovely to see the clan gathered, but to see them gather for yet another farewell, just weeks after the service for my mother, seemed too sad.  It's high time Death moved on and stopped troubling my family.  This mortality business really sucks.   

His 11-piece band (sometimes augmented by a string section) is frighteningly tight. The only comparable combos I've seen live were James Brown's in 1980 and Frank Zappa's in 1981. Last night, they played those well-known songs with amazing precision, paying due respect to all the details of the harmonies and orchestration. To be honest, though, the opening set had a bit of a perfunctory feel. Plus it was a Sunday night and the less-than-full crowd was somewhat, uhm, listless.

After the intermission, things took off. Brian played his fine new album, That Lazy Old Sun, complete and without pause. It's another one of his grand symphonic pieces, this one a reflection back on his life as a Southern Californian. I like the album, but I loved it as a live performance piece. The band again showed off its mastery, and the stage arrangements often worked even better than the studio versions (e.g., the pumped-up percussion on "Mexican Girl"). Above all, it worked so well because Brian was clearly making an emotion connection to the material. As a result, he acquired a low-key but undeniable charisma: hence the glow of light that drowns him out in my cellphone photo above.

With an emotional bond finally established between audience and performer, the two encores were cathertic bursts of joy: "Johnny B. Goode," "Help Me, Rhonda," "Barbara Ann," "Surfing USA," and "Fun, Fun, Fun," with the young band members jumping around the stage like middle-school kids on a sugar high. Finally, we got a subdued, achingly beautiful version of the transcendent "Love and Mercy." As Brian sings, love and mercy is what you need tonight--and it's what we got last night.

   Watching the NHK feed this morning, I realized how much I enjoy the casual audience shots they include.  It's all done quite discreetly:  the camera zeroes in on a group of four sitting in a box.  Unaware that they are on nationwide television, they continue chatting among themselves or dipping their chopsticks into their bento lunchboxes.  You feel as if you have dropped into their ordinary lives for a few seconds, a casual visit that is over almost as quickly as it begins.

   How different this is from American sports broadcasts!  Because the cameras here are so obtrusive, and because the feeds are often relayed to gigantic screens in the arena, these almost always provoke a huge reaction in the subjects:  they turn to the camera and wave wildly, grinning and shouting out greetings to the distant television audience.  They celebrate their fifteen minutes (fifteen seconds, really) of fame.   

   In the U.S., the point seems to be that during the brief interval of airtime, the spectator has been elevated to the rank of celebrity,  just like the idols down on the playing field.  The performance for the cameras is equivalent to the endzone dance or the homerun trot. 

  Come to think of it, perhaps it is the same in Japan.  Sumo wrestlers, after all, are strongly discouraged from ostentatious displays on the ring, win or lose.  The circumspect audience members who show up on my television screen may simply be taking their cues from the athletes down below.

   What is surprising is the director:  SABU.  I have a soft spot in my heart for the man's work:  he specializes in dream-like comedies, episodic stories like MONDAY (2000) and  Drive (2002) in which an ordinary man gets inextricably tangled up  in the machinery of enormous plots involving gangsters, glamorous women, etc.    The website Tokyograph further reports about the new project:

SABU said that his take on the story would focus less on social critique, opting instead for a more entertaining, pop sensibility, filled with black humor. He further mentioned that the film is not set in any specific era, though it will have a modern pop influence in its costumes and design, including capsule hotel-like beds aboard the ship.

Hmmmm.  This is either a brilliant idea or an awful one.  Domestic release is planned for late 2009, and they are hoping for international distribution, too.

   The Golden Cups were a third-wave Group Sounds band.  They hailed from rough-and-tumble Yokohama and featured a heavier, more psychedelic sound than such earlier bands as the Spiders or the Tigers.  They released ten albums between 1968 and 1971, playing their final gig in January 1972 in Okinawa.  In recent years, though, the Cups have enjoyed a revival, including reunion concerts and a new documentary film. 

   The band's official website, which is also announcing the sad passing, is located here, and Julian Cope's JapRockSampler entry is here.  Here's some terrific 1968 video of the band performing "I'm So Glad," and here's footage from around the same time of "Ai suru kimi ni," their 1968 single.  Finally,  here is the revived version of the band playing live in 2003. 

   Rest in peace, Mr. Hirao. 

   There are a couple of other big stories here, as well.  They've changed the zabuton floor cushions, making them heavier and chaining them together in blocks of four.  You can see a picture of the new models here.    The idea is to make it impossible to toss them up in celebration of upset victories:  it was a nice old tradition but had gotten out of hand in recent years.  People were throwing too many zabuton too often, and the Japan Sumo Association was afraid someone would get hurt.  A little more prudence, a little less fun....

   The other big story is the absence of yokozuna Asashoryu. He is nursing (or, some would say, milking) an elbow injury.  It doesn't help that this is the third tournament in a row that he is skipping, nor that he didn't return from "treatment" in Mongolia and start training until just a few days ago.  The already sour relations between him and the sumo establishment are now fully curdled. 

    Seeing video of Asashoryu's withdrawal statement to the media, I couldn't help thinking of head Beach Boy Brian Wilson.  Like Brian, Asashoryu seems utterly choked by his own success.  It's been acknowledged publicly that he suffers from psychiatric issues, though those remain rather vaguely defined.  The fire is completely missing from his eyes nowadays, and he seems unable to draw any joy from his efforts.  It's all reminiscent of Brian locking himself away in his room for years at what should have been the peak of his career.

   Luckily, Brian's managed in recent years to put his life back together.   I'll be seeing him in concert here in Chicago one week from tonight.   Better medicine, a better lifestyle and better friends have him back recording and touring with good success.  He even smiles sometimes these days--although his eyes remain alarmingly withdrawn from the world.   

    Brian got a nice second-act to his life.  Unfortunately for Asashoryu, his career in sumo will end in the next few years, and there is no chance for a comeback in his fifties and sixties.  He was astonishingly good a couple of years back, a skilled and fiery competitor eager to take on all comers.  It's sad to watch the broken down hulk that remains today.  I'm hoping he can make one last surge next year, maybe win a title or two.  It would sure help sell tickets:  there were lots of empty seats in the arena for that first day today.  Most of all, I'm hoping he finds a way to enjoy what he's accomplished, even as others loudly declaim his all-too-human failings. 

(Image source)

The first is Dandan (Thanks), the current NHK asadora (morning drama)--its breakfast serial, if you like. The story follows two spunky twin girls separated at birth but now reunited as 18-year-olds. One is an aspiring singer who attends college to become a social worker serving the elderly; the other is a maiko (apprentice geisha) raised in Kyoto. The morning dramas always feature lively young women who succeed against all odds. NHK likes to alternate between stories set in the contemporary world and those set in traditional lifestyles of the past. This time, they've managed to combine both into a single narrative, as the publicity shot above demonstrates.

The second is Saito-san, a comedy-drama series originally broadcast earlier this year on the NTV network. It's the umpteenth recent series to focus on PTA politicking. The title character is a nearly single mother (her husband is always away because of work) who maintains an uncompromising sense of right and wrong. Will she carry the day, or will it instead by carried by the gaggle of spineless mothers who are willing to ignore the rules when it's easier, never mind the impact on their young children--or, implicitly, the future of the nation? The answer is hardly in doubt; the question is whether the journey to get us there will be sufficiently entertaining.

TV Japan will soon start disrupting this junkie's sleep habits, too. I'll be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to watch Game 6 of the Japan Series (the Yomiuri Giants currently lead the Seibu Lions three games to two), and then up way past my bedtime to watch the opening day matches from the Fukuoka Sumo Tournament.

   The Senate race in Minnesota is remarkably close:  Coleman leads Franken by less than 800 out of a total of 2.8 million votes.  A recount is certain.  It makes me wish all the more that my mother could have voted before she passed away last month.  There's little doubt how she would have cast her ballot:  she donated money to both Obama and Franken before her illness struck.  Unfortunately, her absentee ballot arrived in the mail just hours after she died:  her application for it was the last piece of paper she signed in her life.  We joked about following Chicago tradition, whereby a little death never stopped anyone from exercising their rights as a citizen, but ended up sending the absentee ballot together with her when she was cremated.    Now I picture her in heaven, clutching that ballot in her hands, trying to figure out how to get her vote included in the recount....