Doing it for businessmen on the piano

Related to my previous post, the only Japanese-related jobs in London that I’ve found that I’m qualified for are for hostesses.  The ads all have such draws as “Classy bar in Soho”, “Korean language abilities also a plus”, “benefits: free hair-styling!”

At least this ad is around to keep me company.  Everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves for ruining an innocent child’s life the way they will have done once he starts school.

In other news, I was filling out a form requesting information on free training from my borough about how to cycle without dying in London, when I noticed the wide variety of choices of title available to one:
- Mr
- Mrs
- Miss
- Ms
- Dr
- Earl
- Father
- Lord
- Lady
- Professor
- Reverend
- Sir
- Viscount
- Other
What an open-minded, egalitarian country: willing to give due to anyone willing to claim it.

An American in Japanese London

August.  The city is inundated with tourists of all nationalities, but of just one type: slow.  A kind of fever dream yesterday in Mitsukoshi, almost like a scene from Last Year at Marienbad.  I entered with the aim of applying for a job, as I attempted last year, but I was once again overwhelmed by the preciseness of the place.  It seemed for a moment all the clerks and customers were frozen in black and white, as I moved through the thoroughly Japanese capitalistic tableau.  Only the sound of my tennis shoes softly scraping across the floor.  Outside another tour bus full of Japanese people pulled up, ready to purchase over-priced tea. They regarded me as if I was an apparition.  I hung around in the book section in the basement until I had regained some sense of my own reality.

I toyed with the idea of buying a TAKAO Keiko book but found the idea of being perceived as an English person buying a book titled The English are Weird to be too uncomfortable.

Marriage Covenant

Also:  which one of you was this?  It appeared at my house in the mail yesterday, no return address, no note inside.  Postcode indicates Nowheresville, Middlesex.

As yet unreclaimed parts of Islington

“There is a surviving loyalty among these lower ranks to the as yet unreclaimed parts of Islington, Stoke Newington, Southwark, Lambeth and Fulham.  They leave their mark on these areas by violence, the currency of petty crime.  Consider that the Islington Gazette does not refer to grievous bodily harm, it simply deals in GBH.  With a half-dozen such cases on its front page, it saves space.”

– The London Spy, pg. 124-5, ed. Robert Allen and Quentin Guirdham, 1971.

Islington, the part of the fair(-ish) city of London that I have lately settled into, the part where Douglas Adams lived, still has its “unreclaimed” areas– it’s ranked as the eighth most deprived local authority in the entirety of England.  But it’s not all abject poverty.  Instead it’s an area of great inequality, where turning a corner means you go from blocks of flats where few could ever dream of affording to live to rundown council estates.  But me, I live in a really nice part.  There’s a store that sells only organic food just down the street, for Christ’s sake.  It’s only luck and rich(er) friends that allow us to live here, and I’m never unaware of that.

I arrived in the country on Thursday morning, had a day of settling in and buying socks, and then got up on Friday to go to an indiepop/train festival in the middle of Derbyshire.  It was great to see the organizer/my friend Stuart again, to meet his lovely girlfriend, and to see some amazing bands perform.  But it was a bit surreal, having just landed and then being whisked away into the admittedly surreal-to-begin-with world of Indietracks.  Even now, back in the flat in Islington, everything’s a bit not totally real.

I feel at home here, to be honest; having been working via the internet for a London-based company and keeping up with my London-based sweetheart, my clock and my mind have been set to GMT for a while now.  Only the direction of traffic really confuses me, and maps can help with the difficulty I have with orientation.  And perhaps that’s the most surreal part: that I have ostensibly moved to a foreign country, but it’s not that foreign at all.

Amazon Reviews of Feminist Books: Jessica Valenti Edition

Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters, by Jessica Valenti.

6 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

American feminism comes to a screeching halt at the Rio Grande River, March 30, 2008

By	NeoPatriarch (Bevy Land) – See all my reviews

Full Frontal Foreign Women: A Young Man’s Guide to Why American White Middle Class Feminism is Irrelevant

I am a young American man who made his mint in NYC and then moved to Central America 3 years ago. In the world outside of her failing feminist experiment, here are some facts for Valenti to brood over:

American women have a bad publicity problem, and rightly so.

Feminism does not matter, modern or otherwise. No need to define, redefine, remake, figure out, wonder about, or consider at all.

Whatever momentum your “movement” has, it comes to a screeching halt at the Rio Grande.

Folks around here never did see feminism as a threat or as powerful but merely as an annoyance while living in the U.S. and now, well, its just a source of humor. Plus you never have to concern yourselves with mens’ rights activists in this brave new world; they simply don’t exist…imagine that.

Yep, your speeches, books, articles only apply to a few middle class elitists; a mere plop in the bucket relative to the women on the entire planet. Here in the good ol’ third world I and my fellow Americans (there are many here now, some with PFSD) are immersed in bevies of femininity and we do not respect or acknowledge or abide by the following:

Work life balance
Repro rights
Diversity
IMBRA
Marriage Broker Regulation Act
Inclusion
Stay at home moms
Body image
Political correctness
Title IX
Take your daughters to work
Affirmative action
Tahirih Justice Center
Maternity leave
Cultural Marxism
Ms Foundation
Third party childcare
Paternity leave
Linda Hirshman
Male bashing
Opt out myth
Having it all
Bonnie Erbe
Pay equity
Gloria Steinem
Fish riding bicycles
National Organization for Women
Takes a village
Mommy track
Biological clock
Gender
Wage gap
Gender role
Career vs family
Cultural Marxism (repeated)
Political correctness (repeated)
…and blah blah, ecchh

Because WE DON’T HAVE TO!!

———————

He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut, and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know, by Jessica Valenti.

3 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

What’s wrong with keeping virginity?, September 6, 2008

By	holy smack-down. “Husband of 1, dad of 2 teac… (Norfolk, VA) – See all my reviews

I just read the first few pages and my question is this: what’s wrong with keeping and valuing our virginity? This practice was done for centuries and now all of a sudden, it’s taboo, or unacceptable for a young woman to NOT sleep with anyone.

I have 2 children, a daughter-4, and a son-2. I will be taking my children to purity balls (as mentioned) and integrity balls. The author mentioned the double standard of having young girls pure an men go learn integrity. This is like feeding a cat dog food- you give what is proper and understandable for the child. If my son gets the “integrity” concept over “purity” why wouldn’t I teach him that?

The reading does have a certain “snappiness” and it is mildly captivating, I just find it very one-sided and full of the author’s opinion, and this was in the first few pages. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone trying to have or teach morals. This book isn’t about the double standard of being called a slut, it’s about freedom to do what you want with no repercussion, and that’s not real.

—————-

(Note: if the above commenter was upset by He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut, he’s really going to love Jessica’s newest book: The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women.  Just sayin’.)

Tanikawa Shuntaro: Dusk

Dusk

For the night that the dead return
All that’s left from today is the dusk
In the faint darkness
The nape of one who turns back for just a moment

For tomorrow, for the poor
All that’s left from today is the dusk
Holding hands
The song of children following the path home

Showa Tuesdays: NISHIDA Sachiko

Sorry, it’s been a while since I posted a choice Showa track.  I got sick and then got lazy, but no more excuses.

Here’s a lovely version of the song “When the Acacia Rain Stops” (アカシアの雨がやむとき) from Showa 44 by NISHIDA Sachiko (西田佐知子):

TANIKAWA Shuntarō: Sort of a Creep

I had to translate a whole bunch of Tanikawa for a class and, despite not really being on the same groove as Tanikawa, I felt mildly pleased with my efforts.  So I thought I’d post this here so you can suffer/enjoy too.

————-

moon cycles / menstruation

1

Inside of her someone prepares food for the festival
Inside of her someone sketches an unseen son
Inside of her someone destroys

2

The hand of god
hurt gracelessly in the creation
even now, it’s impossible to forget

3

(It’s that regular
Inside of me there is a vivid funeral
Those who mourn clothed in the colors of celebration
Those who are returned to nothingness, unable to suffer or die
Those sons and daughters of mine, too young…

The full moon has dropped
with no one to catch it
I wait
crouching alone in a cold place I wait
for someone to sow seeds on the moon
for someone to halt the high tide
unsure whose memories these are anymore, unable to heal the wounds inside me)

4

…welcoming to the shore those who choose to live
Inside her the tide rises
Inside her there is a sea
the call of the moon
in its phases
Inside of her there is a schedule without an end…

Amazon Reviews of Feminist Books: Betty Dodson Edition

Sex for One: The Joy of Selfloving, by Betty Dodson.

13 of 92 people found the following review helpful:

The Big “O” = Overrated, November 6, 2002

By	El Dopa (St. Louis, MO United States) – See all my reviews

From a male’s perspective, I found this book to be nothing more than the poor man’s version of “Prince Of Tides.” Sure I was able to climax with the help of this book, but heck, I can do that even with a strong wind from the south. My advice, buy a dildo, vaseline and Jack Daniels and call it a night.

————————

Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, by Inga Muscio and Betty Dodson.

1 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

The largest sex organ is the mind……, June 5, 2007

By	Bachelier “Husband, Father, Catholic, Finance… (Ile de France) – See all my reviews

An interesting etymology polluted by whacky hippie stew-brained lifestyle suggestions, which makes the archaeology of knowledge and thesis suspect. So this is no field manual for the Tactical Women’s Assault Team on their take-back-the-night-language-history-power-whatever rampage. Still, that this book exists at all is evidence of the triumph of Western civilization over the primitivism this author confuses with her projections of ideological and bucolic freedom.

Really fun to have on your college dorm bookshelf. Sure to attract arguments with hairy-legged man-hating hags and fundy know-nothings alike, so crack a beer and prepare yourself for a non-Aristotelian laugh riot of a Symposium. First person to mention Chomsky looses.

20 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

I preffered the sequel, June 4, 2000

By	Joshua Reuben (Israel) – See all my reviews

In this series on body orfices, I must say that this book was better than Earhole, but does not compare to Nostril.

16 of 154 people found the following review helpful:

Please…….., May 6, 2000

By A Customer

I read the book and you know what? The author forgets to realize that she wouldn’t even be living on this earth if it weren’t for a MAN. Women get hurt by a man early in life (father, lover) then they write books like this one. Open up the spill proof lid from your starbucks latte and smell the coffee because this book does not represent the real world.

Women will always need strong males to protect them for their own survival. A 4 foot 11″ woman could never pull a 70 pound fire hose up a 3 flight ladder and put out a fire. It just isn’t happening. This author will come to her senses someday when she is old and grey wishing she “bred” a child with a man to take care of her in her old age. A plastic toy from an adult store can never replace a strong and powerful man.

4 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

Work that bean!, August 28, 2001

By	Ballast Pants (Flyoverville, USA) – See all my reviews

Typical abstract agitprop from the womyn of the left-the-left-left-behind wing. These are your problems? Ever tried nursing a puky infant? “Yuck,” they say. “The very idea of perpetrating life upon this alread-crowded planet … what a moral outrage.” But books like this let those of us who give a da#n about you fringe-dwellers know what you’re thinking about.

This town is full of monsters

Sunny suburban Surbiton

My eyes flickered from the screen of my mobile phone to the train window.  I didn’t know the best tube route to take and I was already running late.  The London Eye loomed maliciously and expensively in the near-distance.  I snapped my phone shut and picked up a free paper from the floor, trying to distract myself.

I’d spent the whole day, as I did two or three times a week, handing out copies of my CV to no avail.  At first, I’d been a bit selective, going into cafes and music stores, but after two months of being jobless, I gave up all pretensions.  And what did it matter?  I wasn’t even suitable to wash dishes in a cafe.  I’d been told as much.

“This train is now approaching London Waterloo.”

The bitch in the automatic announcement sounded so prim until she said “London”.  I’d spent my last ten pounds on the travelcard.  I felt like I couldn’t keep mooching off of my boyfriend and his flatmate, but what more could I do?  Even temp agencies wouldn’t take me on.  The frustration boiled over, tears coming to my eyes.

I suddenly hated everyone on the 16:08 from Surbiton.  All of London, too.  I dreaded being on the tube, surrounded by Londoners and their absent stares, tangible desperation not to be bothered, and their right-wing newspapers.

I realized then that it had been weeks since I’d interacted with someone I wasn’t trying to get a job from.

The train came to a stop.  I stabbed at the button to open the doors and rushed down the platform, one hand searching through pockets for that damned travelcard.  A ticket guard stood at the exit into the station.  Head down, ticket held eye-level, I went past him.

A few steps into the station, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Are you alright there?”  It was the guard.

My eyes flashed up at him and it was clear to both of us that I was not.

“I’m fine,” I said thinly, trying to make my accent ambiguous.

He smiled tentatively, turning slowly back to where the ticket barriers should have been.  “Have a good day, miss.”

I sobbed my way on to the tube, silent apologies to the city in every tear I wiped away. I would just have to try harder.