Monday, June 13, 2005

 

Went to see the "Little Boy" exhibit at the Japan Society on Saturday. Thoroughly disorienting interplay of the Japanese kawaii "cute" culture and the anime/manga culture, with all the bizarreness that entails. Crazy fighting robots, prepubescent schoolgirls whose panties are visible but otherwise don't seem particularly vixenish, elephants wearing flowered underpants, the atomic muchroom cloud outlined in hippy daisies, way too much Hello Kitty, cutesy-cutesy childrens' show mascots, vaguely menacing sculptures, etc. Very impressed by the crazy giant eye paintings of Kawashima Hideaki, the computer-generated scrollwork of Chiho Aoshima, and a group of realist paintings of Japanese WWII battleships, which echo the many realist oil paintings of American WWII battleships I saw gracing the halls of Navy offices and wardrooms during my childhood.

Then it was off to the BBQ festival, where I waited in line for a very long time, but got some very good pulled pork and coleslaw. No need for barbecue sauce; if you cook your pig right, all the flavor will seep down into the meat and it will stay juicy, all without having to worry about getting a soggy bun from sauce.

Finished reading Tom Jones; I now am having trouble not thinking and speaking in 18th-century mode. Weird dreams last night involving John Ashbery stalking about in the snow, with eyes like luminous blue bug-zappers. Ta-da.

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