The view from my living room

18Oct09

This is what I was watching while drinking coffee last week. While the use of pesticides outside my window does concern me a bit, it’s also pretty nice to see real farm work from the comfort of my living room. I thought about the farmer’s life. Even though we occupy a similar geographic space, we live in very different worlds:

My house is perched on the edge of a modern-on-a-budget housing complex, a few dozen boxy houses with big cars parked in front. The front doors are usually decorated in some reference to the nearest holiday: plastic pumpkins in October, red hearts in February. Rowdy kids play in the street and their mothers stand together not far away, gossiping about the latest neighborhood problems.

But this insulated community is an island, a suburban outpost in a sea of rural life. From my dining room window, I can see farmers from another generation working in the fields. Their back are bent from years of bearing the slow stead weight of carrots and potatoes. An elderly farmer and his wife work a few feet below the window. We rarely make eye contact.

-jer.

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Siphon coffee on the weekends

02Oct09

Siphon coffee: what a luxury. When I have enough time, I love making it at home. Usually, as the title of this blog suggests, it happens on the weekends because it’s such a messy, labour-intensive way to make coffee. But it’s also the nicest-looking way that I’ve ever seen coffee made, and it yields such a sweet, delicate drink that it’s totally worth the hassle. It reminds me of Clover coffee, but with a lighter body and more interesting high notes. I love it.

It’s starting to catch on in North America, but I would  be surprised if it ever goes beyond the grass-roots stage. Siphon coffee is too messy and time-consuming for most of the larger coffee shops, although there are some curious exceptions. Here in Japan, it used to be the preferred method and is still quite popular. There’s even a siphon competition at the Japanese Barista Championships.

-jer.

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Tags: :), clover coffee, coffee, Japan, siphon

Brasstronaut+ Aaron Read= Awesome.

26Sep09

Brasstronaut was supposed to have a new album out this month, but it’s been delayed until early 2010. Instead, there is a new video for Old World Lies.

Aaron Read, who you might recognize from the Sunday Service, is the  guy in the boat. Apparently the open ocean is his biggest fear, and he almost drowned making the movie.

-jer.

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Tags: Aaron Read, Brasstronaut, great music, Sunday Service

The Greatest: Werner Herzog

26Sep09

I waived my right to have a personal assistant, I waived my right to have a shopper, and I waived my right to have a chair with my name on it, which saved the production 65 bucks! But I hate those chairs anyway. I loathe them. I’ve never had a chair like that.

I came across a Werner Herzog interview in Vice a couple of weeks ago and have been wanting to say something about him for a while. The first time I heard about Herzog was during an episode of Ebert & Roeper at the Movies maybe four or five years ago. They were reviewing Grizzly Man, Herzog’s documentary film about a man obsessed with protecting grizzly bears by living in amongst them, only to be eventually devoured by one, survived only by his documented footage which Herzog reclaimed. I remembered this a few years later during a documentary film class I took during my last year at SFU, where we were given the opportunity to do a research paper on one filmmaker and the issues surrounding doc films. Herzog was an easy choice for me because I wanted to watch more of his work and knew he had a reputation for being slightly mad, and working people who were a lot like him.

My paper discussed Herzog’s use of reenactment as a reflexive tool in Little Dieter Needs to Fly. I can’t believe this whole film is available on youtube.

This is an incredible story. What’s amazing is how Herzog and Dengler blend into one person through voice over. I love this type of subtle self-indulgence when done well in film.

xx

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An old barber shop sign

19Sep09

I love those classic barber shop signs. When I was very young, I would just stare at it, they look so cool! Now, when I see those blue and red twirling signs, I can’t help but feel small again.

-jer.

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Tags: barber, hair dresser

What’s wrong with this poster?

14Sep09

What “revolution” is this phrase referring to? While advertising generally uses punctuation in the most liberal way possible, this is still too much. I think the point of those quotations is to draw attention to that one word. And that’s wrong.

Michael Cera does appear on this blog a lot, and yes, he does have a mustache in his newest movie. I have no explanation for either of those occurrences, but for some reason I’m happy about them.

-j.

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Tags: advertising, grammar, Michael Cera with mustache

Tofu can be cool

13Sep09

Tofu. The word conjures up images of bland, mushy food, vegan hippies or those yoga and nature are all you need for good living types… none of them are particularly appetizing. Tofu needs a good marketing campaign.

Enter: Manly Tofu!

Simply the best marketing ever. They could be selling anything and I would want it. Check out the website for an overwhelmingly good time.

-jer.

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Tags: Japan, marketing, tofu

Details & Best Blog Ever #1: Strangers

03Sep09

My favourite blogs are purely observational. I like knowing the little details of things, stories, and people that few people care to think about.  If  I’m meeting someone for the first time, details are what compell me to remember facts and places and keep me interested in what they have to say. Tell me a story and I will interrupt you because I want to know the colour of the person’s shoelace and what song was playing in your head when you said you didn’t like what you were eating! I have a penchant for these orphaned details! When I was a kid learning English I used to read this series of books about a detective girl with a photographic memory.I think if I were a superhero, I would want to have that as my superpower so I can remember images throughout the day and describe them with such finesse and detail to another person so they too could feel like they were there seeing that image with me. This of course could easily backfire as there are some really ugly/heartbreaking things in the world–like seeing an emaciated dog shaking on a Tokyo street corner, or watching an old lady running for the bus and tripping.

I came across this blog recently called STRANGERS through the writer of Vancouverslop.com, a pretty awesome Vancouver food blog. The detail and hilarity of this writers wit is so awesome, even touching at times. It’s a shame the last update was in July, I love these type of musings and observations of Vancouverites. Reading her words paints such a vivid image for me that I feel like when I’m at a busy street corner, or on a B Line, I’m searching for these people as well. Good read, check it out!

xx

Filed under: black and white, this should make you cry   |  1 Comment

Wish upon a…

31Aug09

Many people in Japan go to temples with the same attitude that North Americans go to church only on Christmas and Easter. They go when it suits them, and for reasons more selfish than spiritual. That’s not to say everyone’s like that—there are still devout followers—but the majority are there at convenient times for themselves.

One of the biggest reasons to go to a temple is to make a wish (or: prayer.) Sound familiar? This picture is of a wall of wishes that people hang up, a lot of them were for good exam scores. They colour in one eye when they make the wish, and the other eye when the wish is fulfilled.

I noticed that nearly every wish had only one eye filled in. Either people are wishing for hugely improbable things, or they don’t come back to fill in the other eye when the wish is fulfilled. I think it looks better with only one eye filled in. Sort of a cool asymmetrical look that works better in a photo..

-Jer.

p.s., Full disclosure: I am very much a Christian, so seeing this temple was  interesting. And all the photos of shrines were accidentally deleted from my camera as I walked out of the temple… weird.

Filed under: Japan, prayer, spiritual stuff, temple, wish   |  1 Comment

Low-fi is the new high res.

28Aug09

Ever see those people holding their cell phone out at arm’s length, trying to take that perfect picture. With a cell phone. What are they thinking? Get a real camera! A decent camera can make anything look good, right?

Maybe not.

This blog is strictly low-fi pictures, and they all look amazing. The compressed format and terrible lens gives these pictures a surreal quality, like an impressionist painting.. or like a musician (Bon Iver or Iron & Wine) recording a great album on low-fi equipment, preserving that crackling on the tape to give it extra atmosphere.

Either way, I think I’ll be taking out my cell phone a bit more often. And not just to photograph cute Japanese things.

-jer.

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