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At Tokyo Hackerspace, they're making these cool little solar lanterns out of regular jam jars and distributing them all over the Tohoku and Kanto regions in case there's a blackout. The DIY kit is available for free here.
A silly new instrumental toy from Takara Tomy lets you play music on your friends' faces.
(Thanks, Stuart!)
My friend Peter Arcuni, aka Sonny Pete, has a new album out called Where the Shadows Pass that is inspired by Japanese death poems. Very cool! He says:
Where the Shadows Pass, first inspired by a collection of Japanese death poems, is conceived as a series of vignettes and meditations on the nature of death and passage. You see, in the Buddhist tradition monks would each write a single haiku on their deathbed to reflect on the shadowy journey ahead. Despite the grim circumstance of their creation, these death poems were also a celebration of life both in this world and on to the next. This duality is the crux of the odes comprising Where the Shadows Pass.
We just missed his performance at Cafe du Nord (one of my favorite venues in SF) last week but keep an eye on his web site for more show dates... also, I just downloaded the album (available on iTunes) and it's great!
Polish photographer Pawel Jaszczuk has been living in Tokyo for seven years. Duirng that time, he has been documenting drunk salarymen passed out on sidewalks.
One of my very first posts on TokyoMango (in 2006!!) was a series of photographs of a drunk salaryman being escorted off of the Yamanote line by a stationmaster.
Ryoji Ikeda has a really amazing exhibit at The Armory on Park Avenue in NYC that closes in a week. It's called The Transfinite, and it's a giant screen that splays out onto the floor in front of it that shows crazy black and white lines and beeps a lot. If you check out the back side, you can understand what it's all about--it's him playing with different combinations of data. Geeky-trippy fun that you can experience in all kinds of ways. Go check it out!
Above, me standing in the middle of the exhibit floor.
More info here.
In 2008, Chronicle published my book: Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan.
I am also the founder of The Tofu Project, a boutique program that helps Japanese entrepreneurs and creators think deeper, tell better stories, and go out into the world in a much bigger way. We work with companies like Mixi, Japan Airlines, and Salesforce.com.
Sometimes I try to explain Japanese culture on CNN, BBC, CBC, WSJ, ABC (so many acronyms!) or in person at places like the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, ETech, and Ignite!
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Send tips to mango [at] tokyomango [dot] com
