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This Is Not Progress

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Adam Greenfield of v-2.org offers his observations on the state of Japanese design and aesthetic:

The Japan That Should Say No
Where Japanese culture used to be expert at finding the one element in a situation that bore psychological meaning, at manipulating the tension between what is made explicit and what is left unsaid, it now contents itself with wallowing in the banal.
This is as true of technology (and associated domains like information design) as it is of, say, J-pop. As recently as the 1960s, Japan produced as a matter of course train schedules, tourist maps, and newspaper weather reports so carefully devised that master information designer Edward Tufte chose them as particularly exquisite examples of the use of line and color to carry data.
Similarly, up until the 1980s, Japanese technology led the world in simplification, miniaturization – refinement. More recently, manufacturers seem engaged in a race to bombard the user with the most extraneous features. It’s trumpeted as innovative when the new model keitai comes with interchangeable faceplates.
Like I say: banal.

During my brief time in Japan, I haven’t seen a lot to dispute his observations. Take my mobile phone, for example…

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Short Films

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Hollywood movies generally show up in Japan three to six months after they are released in the States. And then they are shown at expensive theaters where your ticket doesn’t even guarantee you a seat. If you happen to live, as I do, in a slightly sleepy city in the mountains, that expensive ticket doesn’t even get you a decent venue. All this helps explain why I’ve only seen one film in a theater in the six months I’ve been here.
If I can’t see the movies, though, I’m not going to miss the trailers. Every once in a while, I’ll spend a good chunk of time on Apple’s “Trailers” site, perusing the movies I won’t be seeing at a theatre near me soon.
I watched a batch of trailers last night, and…
I hate it that I’ll be missing Almodovar’s new movie, Talk to Her. Even if it’s released here in Japan during my stay, the subtitles will be in Japanese rather than in English.
There’s an art to making a good trailer, though the talentless advertising hacks in charge usually screw it up. Case in point: The Hours. Watch this trailer and tell me that, towards the end, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be one of those bad Michael Douglas suspense movies. Please, please, please let the movie be better than this trailer makes it out to be.
Ben Affleck as Daredevil? They’ll have to change the tag line from “The man without fear” to “The man without charisma.” Click below to see a real superhero.

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Full-Body Scans

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A Kyoto company offered full-body scans at the Tokyo Game Show recently. This site collects the results.
I want one. Looks well worth the approximately US $18.
Scroll all the way through; there are some great scans at the end, including one of a woman who doesn’t need a push-up bra.

Ebisuko Fireworks

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There was a huge fireworks display last night in Nagano. It lasted for two hours. Two hours!
This is something of an anomaly in Japan, where most fireworks displays are held in the summer or autumn. This annual, late-November display has developed into something of a showcase for fireworks artisans, allowing them to preview next season’s displays and new techniques.
Crowds of people huddled in the cold near the large river that runs through Nagano, watching the fireworks and enjoying food and warm sake provided by the scores of vendors.

Comic Book Geek

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When I posted the entry earlier this week on news articles touting the respectability of comic books, I must have been brain dead to forget my personal involvement in just such an endeavor.
In 1987, at the tender age of 18, I had my first-ever published article. It was a piece on comic book censorship, and it ran in the local daily in Kenai, Alaska, along with an article called “The Evolution of Comic Books.” I was the featured “expert” in the “Evolution” article, which was accompanied by a picture that to this day I’m embarrassed to see.
Re-reading my article, I’m pleasantly surprised at the quality (and by this I mean it doesn’t suck). Was I really only 18? Then I re-read the article in which I’m interviewed and come across this:

“Superman has been pretty much redone. He not as powerful, no romance with Lois… He’s more of a yuppie than he used to be,” Gerhard said.

Groan… And this proved comics were becoming more respectable? Well, it was the 80s and I was just a boy.
For the amusement of all, I’m posting both articles here.

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Don’t Make Us Make More Crappy Movies

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As if his recent movies weren’t proof enough, George Lucas offers the following, showing he needs emergency remedial education in both metaphors and logic:

Star Wars Creator Calls for Attack on Piracy
“I am begging for co-operation. There are unintended consequences of piracy. If piracy is not stopped, the rainforest of the entertainment business ecosystem will collapse. I am pleading for the creative people in this industry,” he said.
Mr. Lucas warned that piracy threatened to reduce the movie industry’s revenues, forcing film corporations to concentrate on blockbusters, rather than also investing in smaller art movies.

Rainforest? Ecosystem? Give me a break.
And correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the film industry already concentrating on blockbusters? And isn’t that due more to the success of blockbusters created by Lucas and Steven Spielberg (who lends his voice to Lucas’ plea) rather than to piracy? This is the film industry holding a gun to the head of movies they already don’t like to make and telling viewers, “Don’t make me shoot her.”

Stop Trying So Hard

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I can’t count the number of times over the years I’ve read news articles along the lines of, “Guess what! Comic books are serious art!” Here’s another one.
Inevitably, these articles always present a laundry list of serious issues ripped from the headlines of the day that are dealt with in current comic books. Inevitably, reading this list always makes me think, god that sounds boring.
In my mind, comics—like so many other forms of art—are at their worst when they consciously try to be serious and earnest. The magic of comics has always been found in unexpected places and in surprising forms. Alcoholism, sexual-identity crises, drug addiction, abusive childhood, terrorism? Including these issues within stories is not a bad thing, per say. But it shouldn’t be the main focus.
There are exceptions, of course. The astonishing Maus always tops that list. But when you try to mix, say, Green Lantern and the serious issues of the day, the effect comes off as kind of sad and comical, or a lot like a lecture from Tipper Gore.
I wish the comic book world would stop craving mainstream legitimacy and go right on creating worlds of wonder for those who know where to look.

Cokie Contemptus

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I can’t stand Cokie Roberts. For me, she personifies the world of snobby, know-it-all Washington punditry. Raised a D.C. political brat, she is now a pampered Washington insider who can’t see issues except through myopic Beltway lenses.
The tone of her commentaries oozes with contempt for her audience as she regurgitates the conventional thinking of Washington’s elites. She offers nothing new, only a bored, haughty recitation of the court whisper.
A low point in journalism—and the period when I became somewhat embarrassed to tell people I’d studied the craft in college&#8212came back when ABC News paired Roberts with Sam Donaldson for its Sunday morning show, This Week.
For an example of Roberts’ thinking, read this column, written with her husband back in 1997, wherein they argue that the internet could become a threat to representative democracy—by giving more power to the people. Horrors!

“If you’re on-line, you’re inside the Beltway,” in the opinion of Graeme Browning, author of the book Electronic Democracy, which argues that the Internet is making individuals more politically powerful. Sounds good, but is it?

Cokie doesn’t want to hear from you. She just wants to keep pontificating from her comfortable perch. Someone get her off of NPR.

My Bank Is Sooooooo Cute

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This, dear friends, is my bank card. Let me emphatically state that I did not specifically request this design. Believe it or not, this is a general issue card design. And it’s from the largest bank in Nagano Prefecture. Only in Japan. I feel self-conscious every time I take it out to get cash from an ATM.
That said, my favorite character is the cross-eyed owl in the background (not so clearly seen in this photo). Obviously, he’s been shunned by the group and is no longer allowed to join in their silly reindeer games and shameless mugging. He’ll just have to learn to get along with the happy homosexual fish back in his neck of the woods.