Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon

Last week at a music festival in Denmark, Ray Davies revived one of the many great unknown Kinks’ songs, “The Way Love Used To Be,” with full orchestra. The original Kinks’ version (listen here) appeared on the obscure soundtrack to the 1971 film Percy.

I am stunned to learn of the death of anime director Kon Satoshi. He was only 46; the cause of death was pancreatic cancer.

Kon was for my money easily the best director in Japanese anime. Each of his remarkable films expanded the boundaries of what the medium was capable of. The first one I saw was Millennium Actress (2001), his second feature, and it knocked me out: it’s a stunning homage to the history of Japanese cinema. I immediately tracked down Perfect Blue, his debut film, and from that time on made a point of seeing everything he released. His art reached a peak with Paprika (2006), a truly mind-blowing film. Here is what I wrote about Paprika when I first saw it:

I’m convinced that Kon is the most important director of anime in the world, and I’ve been wanting to see this one since the day it was released. I wasn’t disappointed: it may well be his best film yet, and that is saying something. This is after all the man who has already given us Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, and Tokyo Godfathers. Stunning visually: the first five minutes had my jaw dropping. The plot is tangled, but that is appropriate since the film is about the logic of dreams: an experimental device that allows psychotherapists to enter the dreams of their patients falls into the wrong hands, becoming a deadly tool for manipulation. Dreams are the stuff that we are made of, and Kon’s story unfolds an allegory about life under conditions of mass media, consumerism, and technology. It all ends with one of the main characters buying a ticket to see a film directed by Kon Satoshi. I can’t wait for the director’s next film!

Kon was apparently close to finishing that next film when he passed away. I still can’t wait to see it, but will have a hard time accepting that it will be this master’s final work.

He pontificates:

In retrospect, the vaunted “liberal consensus” that dominated postwar American culture began breaking down in the 1970s. Richard Nixon in many ways represented both its culmination and its collapse: the former right-wing anti-Communist ended up presiding over the last wave of Great Society projects, but Nixon also helped engineer the liberal consensus’s downfall. He was, after all, the author of the Southern Strategy, designed to exploit racial tensions to split white voters away from their century-long adherence to the Democratic Party. Reagan, of course, solidified the new conservative consensus, and it reached its pinnacle ironically with the end of the Cold War (which was the final fruit of the liberal consensus) but I think Nixon was its real author.

After all, it was in the Nixon years that Milton Friedman and others published papers that challenged the liberal orthodoxy of Keynesian economics, providing what seemed at the time a more persuasive account for the mystery of simultaneous high rates of inflation and unemployment. Market forces, deregulation, and tax cuts became the new mantra.

It seems pretty clear that we’ve come to another turning point in American culture. The conservative consensus that has dominated public and media opinion (albeit not in the realms of cultural or intellectual life) for nearly forty years is in full-blown collapse: now it is Friedman’s economic theory that suddenly seems useless to explain the current economic crisis. The Southern Strategy increasingly looks like an anchor around the neck of the Republican Party, as it alienates every group in the country except for aging white conservatives. The death throes of the Conservative Consensus are ugly, as its proponents cling to its fading guarantees and lash out in hysterical anger at those who point out its failings. And just as was the case with the liberal consensus after its loss of hegemony, the aftereffects of the conservative version will no doubt linger in public discourse for the next decade or longer.

The fast approaching end of the Conservative Consensus seems pretty clear. What isn’t so clear is the nature of the new consensus that would emerge to take its place: what we see right now is an absence of any consensus. Things could go in any direction, I think. On bad days, I am struck by the resemblance between contemporary America and 1930s Germany and Japan: widepsread economic distress, palpable loss of faith in democracy and a concomitant blind worship of the military’s supposed competence, the rise of populist demagogues fanning hatred against impoverished minority groups (Father Coughlin, meet Rush Limbaugh), their more radical supporters arming themselves and forming quasi-militia that lack only brown shirts. It’s also striking how the rhetoric of the Cold War (Communist! Socialist!) is being revived today, a recycling of the slogans that helped the liberal consensus gain traction forty years ago recycled now in a desperate attempt to plug the leaks in the sinking ship of the conservative consensus.

The election of Obama seemed to promise the rise of a new progressive, or perhaps technocratic, consensus, but he has mostly weasled away from that (yes, that statement apparently makes me a member of the “professional left”). As a result, there seems no clear candidate on hand from the left or the center for replacing the failing conservative consensus. The U.S. currently faces enormous problems–rampant poverty and an increasingly immoral economic system that steers wealth into the hands of a tiny elite; environmental and infrastructural meltdown; simultaneous decay of our primary, secondary, and tertiary educational systems; the rise of a plutocracy in which corporations and wealthy individuals blatantly buy up elections and branches of government, to name just a few–and effective solutions will require a new consensus. The great American experiment with democracy has muddled through crises in the past; does it have the ability to pull off one more revival?

Well, our upcoming fall concert-going season is pretty well set, and I’m looking forward to some exciting live music. Here are the events we’re planning to attend. How about you?

September 4-5: Chicago Jazz Festival (one of the nation’s premiere jazz events, and it’s all free!)

September 19: Aimee Mann (Old Town School of Folk Music)

September 25: Hyde Park Jazz Festival (Almost as good as the Chicago Jazz Festival, and it’s all free, too)

September 30: Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Symphony Center; Riccardo Muti conducts Mozart and Haydn)

October 1: Eels (Metro)

October 26: Sakamoto Ryuichi (Vic Theatre)

November 13: Stew and The Negro Problem, featuring Heidi Rodewald (Museum of Contemporary Art)

December 2: Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Symphony Center; Pierre Boulez conducts Schoenberg and Janá??ek)

Yesterday, we braved the heat and humidity here in Tokyo to attend World Happiness 2010, the annual musical festival organized by the members of Yellow Magic Orchestra. Luckily, the sun stayed behind the clouds all day, making it almost bearable to be outside the whole afternoon and evening.

We arrived around 2:00, just as punksters Mongol800 were finishing up their set. This meant that we missed Love Psychedelico, who I’d really hoped to catch. Maybe next year. Arriving late meant we also had to set up our “leisure sheets” on the grass far, far back from the stage, so that we mostly watched the performers via the giant video screen.

At any rate, the first band we saw were Ohashi Trio (?????), who played a tidy set of country-rock, including a mandolin and an upright bass. They remind one a bit of Happy End back in the day. Worth exploring more in the future, I thought. They were followed by Okinawan singer Cocco, whose stage patter is a tad overly precious. But she delivered some solid J-Pop with a rock edge: imagine Bruce Springsteen as a girl raised in the Ryukyu islands. (Granted, this requires a particularly vivid imagination).

Kahimi Karie (???????) followed, doing her Brigitte Bardot imitation — in fact, the first tune she sang came complete with French lyrics. She did a set of slow-tempo chanson numbers, and was the only lead performer to sit down while singing. I like Kahimi’s breathy style and soft, melancholic songs, but on the whole, she would work better in a jazz club than in a mass outdoor setting like this.

The energy level leaped back up with the next act, Rhymester. They got the crowd going, with jokes about being the only authentic hiphop act on the bill and having to follow Kahimi Karie. They performed “Choudo Ii” and several other numbers with energy and verve. They were followed by ??? (I still don’t know how to pronounce the name of the band), another group grounded in hiphop, albeit with live instruments. Leader Ito Seiko had a terrific stage presence as they performed “Everyday is a Symphony” and other tunes.

Next up were pupa, one of the bands I really wanted to see. Formed by Takahashi Yukihiro from YMO and featuring Harada Tomoyo on vocals, pupa have released two terrific albums. Yesterday they did a fine job of reproducing their sound live: their mid-tempo melodies weave together electronic and acoustic musical instruments, male and female vocals, to produce a lush, beautiful sound. Takahashi looks more and more like the older Groucho Marx every time I see him….

Ando Yuko (??????) followed with a set of her original numbers that, I confess, I mostly sat out. A fellow has to make difficult choices, after all. But I’ve just picked up one of her CDs to make up for it.

Next came one of the acts I was most looking forward to: Moonriders (????????). Formed by Suzuki Keiichi and other former members of the band Hachimitsu Pie in the mid 1970s, they’ve been an innovative collective who’ve changed styles repeatedly. What would they look like in 2010? Unfortunately, they turned in a confused, confusing set–and perhaps were having technical problems with the sound equipment. They opened with a long drone-style jam, even before they were introduced. After about ten minutes, this morphed into the song “Kurenai futo,” complete with a vuvuzela. This was followed by “Tabula Rasa” and “I Hate You and I Love You,” among others. Kojima Mayumi joined them to performed the ending theme for the forthcoming film version of “Gegege no nyobo,” a psycho-rockabilly-ska number that is kind of a mess. Kojima stayed on to perform an updated cover version of “Never on a Sunday,” and they closed with the classic “Muscat Coconut Banana Melon.” The band seemed a bit out of it throughout their set and never really connected with the audience: disappointing.

Things picked up with Sakanaction (???????), who immediately grabbed the crowd by opening with some tribal drumming, followed by a playful allusion to YMO’s “Rydeen,” before launching into a set of their own terrific material. This was in fact their second show of the day: they’d played several hours earlier just a few train stops away at the “Summer Sonic” festival. It’s great to see a young band perform just as they are cresting, overflowing with energy and creative ideas, and they had the crowd up again. Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra then followed with one of their typical joyful, high octane sets (albeit with some technical difficulties at the start). Terrific.

Next up were one of the rarities: the veteran punk group Plastics. Their set started off a bit rough, with their minimalistic new wave sound (think B-52s or Devo) not quite connecting. But then they hit a powerful No Wave groove that carried me back to CBGB’s circa 1977, grooving to the likes of James Chance and the Contortions. A really powerful noise that had me dancing — but most of the young ‘uns didn’t seem to get it, I’m afraid.

Finally, it was the headliners, Yellow Magic Orchestra, backed by Oyamada Keigo (Cornelius) on lead guitar, with a full horn section (augmented for a few numbers by the guys from Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra). They opened with one of my favorite YMO numbers: their deconstructive take on the Beatles’ “Daytripper.” For me, the highlight of the whole day was finally getting to see Hosono Haruomi live: there is basically a whole chapter about him in my forthcoming book on Japanese popular music. He sang the opener and played bass, keyboards, and even some nifty xylophone as the evening wore on. All in all, YMO gave a fine performance, although their Sly Stone cover (“Thank You For Talkin’ To Me Africa”) with guest vocalist Crystal Kaye was surprisingly unfunky. The encore was another Beatles’ tune: the very appropriate “Hello Goodbye.”

The full set list:
Lotus Love (Hosono on vocals)
Daytripper
ONGAKU
TAISO (Sakamoto Ryuichi sang through a loudspeaker, issuing orders to two male dancers who joined the band onstage for this number)
Thousand Knives
Behind The Mask
Tibetan Dance
Thank You For Talkin’ To Me Africa (with Crystal Kaye on vocals)
Rydeen
Fire Cracker
Encore: Hello Goodbye (Takahashi Yukihiro on vocals)

I’ll leave you with some fan videos of YMO’s performance from yesterday:

Greetings again from Tokyo, where we continue to melt in the heat and humidity.

At the party following our workshop on early postwar Japanese literary criticism at Waseda University last week, one of the graduate student participants asked the professors attending an interesting question: at what point in your career did you start feeling like you were an actual scholar (she used the Japanese phrase ????????????) as opposed to a mere student?

I enjoyed listening to everyone’s responses. For me, I flashed back to 1994, when I was doing my dissertation research in Japan. I was interested in the connection between novelist Shimazaki Toson and the French philosopher Henri Bergson. Toson owned a couple of books by or about Bergson, and when I visited the Toson Kinenkan museum in Magome, they were kind enough to let me examine his copies. When I opened one (the 1936 Japanese translation of Bergson’s The Two Sources of Morality and Religion), I was shocked when a handwritten letter dropped out from between its pages. I wasn’t the only one to be surprised: the museum curator who was helping me nearly jumped out of her shoes.

It turned out to be nothing of major importance. A simple one-page note, it was from the book’s publisher and addressed to Toson, a cover letter sent along with the complimentary review copy of the volume. But until I came across it on my scholarly quest, no one even knew of the letter’s existence. In fact, probably the last hand to touch that letter before mine was that of Toson himself, who had tucked it away into the pages of the book (which I bet he never actually read) more than half a century before.

In sum, it was about as minor an archival discovery as there could be. Yet it was undeniably an archival discovery, one that I had made and one that seemed to verify my credentials as an actual scholar of literature–at least in my own mind.

I doubt I’ll turn up anything quite as interesting on this pass through Japan, but I’ll keep my eyes open.

Greetings from Shinjuku, Tokyo. I arrived in Japan two days ago for a workshop at Waseda University. After that ends, I’ll hang around for another week or so, doing a bit of research, a bit of visiting family, and a bit of music spectating (more on that later).

In the meanwhile, I’m reminded of how Shimazaki Komako (1892-1979) had a way of surprising people by turning up when least expected. She was the model for the heroine in Shimazaki Toson’s scandalous 1919 novel Shinsei (New Life), in which the middle-aged novelist confessed to a shocking affair with his own niece. She gave birth to his child, after which her family shipped her off to colonial Taiwan to avoid the scandal.

Toson probably thought she was out of his life for good at that point. But she suddenly reemerged in 1937 when she fell seriously ill and, lacking any financial resources, ended up hospitalized in a charity ward. The media had a field day, dredging up the old scandal and contrasting Komako’s current plight to her uncle’s wealth and fame. Novelist Hayashi Fumiko took an interest in her at the time and wrote about her, and Komako herself ended up publishing an account of her life in a popular woman’s magazine, taking her uncle to task for the hypocritical way he had portrayed her and their relationship in the novel.

I wrote about all of this at some length in my book, The Dawn That Never Comes. I was under the impression that, once I’d published my account, Komako was out of my life. But she wasn’t done with me, apparently.

On the plane ride to Japan, I started reading the recently deceased Inoue Hisashi’s 2002 play, Taiko tataite, fue fuite ????????????????????????????(Bang the drums, blow the pipes), a kind of Brechtian musical based on the life of Hayashi Fumiko, tracing her collaboration with Japanese militarism in the 1930s and her eventual self-critical awakening in the 1940s. Inoue has Komako appear as a key character: he re-imagines the nature of their relationship, having the two women meet in 1935, prior to Komako’s illness, when she was still an activist in leftist political movements. In Inoue’s script, Komako becomes a figure for the conscience of Japan as Hayashi slides into problematic complicity with fascism.

Inoue’s play was first staged just about the time time I finished writing my book. I’d thought I was the only person fascinated by Komako when I wrote about her. But according to the afterword in the Shincho Bunko edition of the play that I’m reading, Inoue had been thinking about her for years: in 1969, he submitted a scenario for NHK’s morning serial drama based on Komako’s life, only to have it rejected for being too dark in tone.

Where do you suppose she will turn up next?

Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin. Just about the perfect novel: funny, poignant, wise. Nabokov’s ability to make the English language dance at will is astonishing. The hero Pnin is a White Russian exile, an intellectual reared in the salt water of Europe now trying to survive in the mucky freshwater of 1950s American academia. It’s been years since I’ve fallen quite so deeply in love with a work of fiction.

Narita Ruichi and Iwasaski Minoru, Norma Field wa kataru: sengo bungaku kibo ???????????????????????????(2010). Part of the handy Iwanami Booklet series, in a compact 63 pages this provides an appealing portrait of the life and scholarship of my colleague, Norma Field. In a series of interviews with two of Japan’s leading intellectual historians, she talks about growing up the daughter of an American soldier and a Japanese woman in 1950s Japan, about her intellectual awakening in the 1960s and 70s, and about the ethics of scholarship in today’s tangled academy.

Alexander Saxton, The Great Midland (1948). A recently revived classic of late American proletarian literature, the story of Communist Party activists on the South Side of Chicago: railroad workers (both black and white), University of Chicago armchair radicals (both male and female), immigrants and their children. Reminiscent of early John Dos Passos, the narrative moves forward and backward through the history of the first half of the twentieth century as it depicts the friendships, jealousies, and confusions of a generation of American radicals.

Cornel West, The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism (1989). West’s classic account of American pragmatism is driven by great passion and intelligence, and he makes a persuasive case for the relevance of James, Dewey, Peirce and their intellectual descendants in today’s world. But I’m also struck by the remarkable undercurrent of American exceptionalism that runs throughout his argument.

After an extended period of healthy abstinence, we’re sliding back into our sinful ways. That is to say, we’ve been watching several Japanese television series this summer.

Jin: This scored high ratings when it was broadcast in Japan on TBS back at the beginning of this year. Our local neighborhood pusher (TV Japan) is only now getting around to airing it, but we’re enjoying the show despite the delay. An oddball melange of samurai drama, science fiction, and romantic comedy, it also contains a clever parody of the current NHK Taiga Drama, Ryomaden (see below). A doctor from contemporary Tokyo whose girlfriend is in a coma finds himself inexplicably transported back to the Japan of the 1860s, where his use of modern medical knowledge starts monkeying with the course of history. Can he save his girlfriend? Can he get return to the present? Will he become a historical bigamist, with a wife in each era? Stay tuned….

Ryomaden: Every January when NHK rolls out its new year-long Taiga historical drama series, I browse an episode or two but then fall by the wayside. I’ve stuck it out a bit longer this year, though, with this retelling of the life of the super-patriot Sakamoto Ryoma from the 1850s and 60s. Fukuyama Masaharu plays the lead role as something of a cross between Jimmy Stewart and Errol Flynn. The real joy here is Kagawa Toruyuki’s wonderfully overacted performance as Iwasaki Yataro, Ryoma’s hometown rival and the future founder of the Mitsubishi empire. We’ll see if I manage to persevere through December and Ryoma’s untimely demise.

Gegege no nyobo: It’s been ages since NHK has enjoyed a hit with its morning serial drama, but this spring I started hearing rumors that the current title, based on the life of the wife of Mizuki Shigeru (the manga artist who created the classic Gegege Kitaro series) was a notch above the usual. We picked up on it a few weeks ago–more than halfway through the run. I have the feeling we missed the best parts (the years of courtship and early struggles), but it’s a mostly painless show, and it’s entertaining to see NHK portray what our old Tokyo neighborhood around Chofu-shi looked like back in the 1960s.

We’ve also started taping episodes of Magerarenai Onna, the NTV comedy from earlier this year. I’ll leave you today with an amusing teaser from that one.

Driving up to Minnesota with my 18-year-old earlier this month provided an unexpected educational opportunity. For a change of pace, I ceded hegemony over the radio to him and as a result, I now can identify many of the songs that have topped the hit charts this summer. I know my Kate Perry and “California Gurls” (and I know that the break is by Snoop Dogg), and I sometimes now even find myself spontaneously singing in my mind that catchy line about melting popsicles. I know my Lady Gaga and “Alejandro,” I know my B.o.B. and “Airplanes.” In fact, we spent a good deal of time turning the knob in search of the latter.

So I encountered a good deal of new music on the road trip. I also met up with some old musical friends I hadn’t heard in decades. Back in 1981 or 82, I had the opportunity to interview Chris Osgood, one of the founding members of the seminal Minnesota punk band the Suicide Commandos. Osgood is creative, smart, funny, and the interview was by far the best I’d ever done–full of hysterical stories, wistful remembrances, pithy one-liners. And then I got home and realized that the tape recorder batteries had died and that only the first couple of minutes of the hour-long session were preserved….

Anyhow, at the time Osgood gave me a cassette tape that included a number of studio recordings he’d done recently with his then-current group, The L7-3 (in addition to Osgood, the band included Commandos’ drummer Dave Ahl and bassist Steve Fjelstad, late of another fine Minneapolis band, Fingerprints). I fell in love with the tunes on the tape and basically wore the thing out, playing it over and over. But The L7-3 broke up shortly thereafter and the recordings were never issued.

Fast forward to my summer 2010 trip to St. Paul: I’m flipping through the CDs in the “Local Music” section at Cheapos Records on Snelling Ave., and come across Men of Distinction, a CD by The L7-3, released late last year on the Garage d’Or label. From the cover photo, I know immediately that it’s them.

Of course I buy the thing and out in the parking lot immediately pop it into the car CD player (temporarily reclaiming hegemony over the roadtrip musical soundtrack). I break into a huge grin with the opening bars of the first song because I recognize it immediately: the CD consists of those same unreleased recordings I fell in love with thirty years ago.

The music sounds just as good now as it did then: punk rock with an M.F.A. and a sense of humor (the music contains allusions to, among others, The Monkees and The Bonzo Doo Dah Dog Band). Take the quirky fragmented sound and intellectual lyrics of the Talking Heads, combine it with the goofy garage-rock spirit of The Replacements, and you start approaching what makes this so appealing. These are two-minute punk rock workouts packed with symphonic intricacies: simple guitar chord progressions that collide with sound effects, complex musical bridges, rhythmical shifts, etc. Highlights include “The History of Philosophy,” “Metaphysics vs. Loud Music,” “Emergency Art Liquidation,” “Snafu,” “What Rock ‘N’ Roll Means to Me.” The song titles provide a hint to the band’s style, I think. Anyhow, I can’t tell you how happy I am to welcome these amazing songs back into my life.

In trying to figure out how this miracle happened, I poked around the Internet and learned that other previously lost material from late ’70s Minnesota punk was also now available. The remarkable 1978 debut EP by Fingerprints (think Iggy and the Stooges meet Television) is available at I-Tunes, as is the long out-of-print debut EP by The Suburbs.

By coincidence, The Flamin’ Oh’s, another terrific Minneapolis band from that era, has recently created a new Facebook page with lots of good stuff on it. They’ll be playing a live gig July 31 in Minneapolis in honor of their recently deceased drummer, Bob Meide. If I weren’t scheduled to be giving a talk in Tokyo that afternoon, you can bet I’d be there…. In the meanwhile, here’s a clip from a typical Oh’s gig from back in 1981 at Duffy’s (man, how much of my youth did I waste at that bar?). If you’re pressed for time, advance the clip to 2:59 for the second song in this sequence: “We Do What We Like,” a great rock anthem that should have conquered the world.