The East Indian Webster

There are some things happening in my life and in the world right now that get me down. This is something that gets me up.

So, desu ne...

I've finally completed the traditional post-holiday task of uploading my photos to the internet, and now I humbly offer them up to the world. This time, however, I offer a choice of two different sites:


BUZZNET -- my time-honored and well established memory repository, with the ability to see the highest image resolution right next to the thumbnails


FLICKR -- the new and exciting challenger, with slideshow capability and a faster load time

The same photos are on both websites and they each have their pros and cons. I've been using Buzznet for years now and have almost 1,000 photos of trips around the world archived there. It has a vibrant but sometimes slow interface and a great user community. Flickr is clean and easier to navigate, but the interface seems a bit sterile to me. The advantage is that the thumbnails are much bigger than on Buzznet, and they include a small view of the title and description (on Buzznet the accompanying text is viewable only when looking at the image itself). The disadvantage is that to see the high resolution image that I uploaded, you have to click on the photo from the gallery, and then click AGAIN on "sizes". Seems counterintuitive to me, and on Buzznet the high resolution image is the only one available. Regardless, I hope you enjoy the snapshots on either site and if you feel so inclined, let me know which interface you prefer in this highstakes bout of photo-sharing communities.

Banksy comes to downtown L.A.

I just returned from the Banksy show in a warehouse south of downtown, and I was wondering how one could succinctly explicate Banksy's artwork to one who is unfamiliar with his antics. Do you know Shepherd Fairy's "Obey Giant" phenomenology experiment? Robbie Conal's political portraits or Space Invader's urban mosaics? No disrespect to any of those guys, but they are the surface dwellers of the underground art movement; Banksy is a Morlock in comparison. He is so far underground that he can't even come to his shows or let his identity be known lest he be arrested.

Recently, he installed what looked like a hooded Guantanamo prisoner at the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride in Disneyland. He also reverse-shoplifted 500 Paris Hilton CDs in something like 42 record stores all over the U.K., replacing them with his own discs (mixed by Danger Mouse) and artwork which carried the message that the heiress is vapid and talentless. Pretty obvious, but apparently there are people out there who don't know that yet. There is a video installation at the show (across from the live elephant spray-painted with a faux flocked wallpaper pattern) that explains how he accomplished these and some other guerilla art installations.

As I've previously posted, my camera was lost in translation, so I snapped these shots with my SLVR:





Much of his art works on several levels: there is one painting of a guy selling 'Destroy Capitalism' T-shirts for $30 in a booth, with people lined up to purchase them. That's a fine comment on our consumerist society in itself, but he also plays with the notion that many people are sheep and need to be told what to buy, where to shop, and who to follow -- the first few buyers in line could be anarchists or punks, but towards the end of the queue there's a suburban mom with a baby stroller.

It's a really interesting, subversive and thought-provoking show -- and naturally it's free. I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys questioning the status quo. Or anyone who enjoys seeing pink and gold Indian elephants.

A message from Banksy, via fliers at the show:

There's an elephant in the room.
There's a problem that we never talk about.

The fact is that life isn't getting any fairer.

- 1.7 Billion people have no access
to clean drinking water.
- 20 Billion people live below the poverty line.
- Every day hundreds of people are made to feel
physically sick by morons at art shows telling them
how bad the world is but never actually
doing something about it.

Anybody want a free glass of wine?

Banksy, Los Angeles 2006

KCAL 9's story on the Pacific Electric body

His dog was dead, too. :(

"...Cops Are Actors, but Body Is Real"

For the past few days I've been trying to get over my lingering Japanese jetlag and catch back up with good friends. I've mostly succeeded in the latter, but as for the former -- it's currently 4:21am and I'm up typing this twaddle. Most of you who know me are aware that I live on the 4th floor of the Pacific Electric Building in downtown L.A.



Nice place, most of the time. Today I came home in the mid-afternoon, got my mail, and walked into one of the lobby elevators with Gary Sinise, sporting a badge. A lot of filming goes on in our building, and for the last couple days it's been a big crew from CSI: NY, shooting on our 7th floor and up by the rooftop pool. Yesterday I was also in the lobby around midday, and came across a bunch of what I initially thought were extras for the shoot: "cops" standing around chatting. I realized they were authentic, however, when I saw that one of their badges read "L.A.P.D.", not "N.Y.P.D.", like Sinise's. As it turns out, they were here for a very macabre reason: a quite dead body was discovered one floor above me. (Isn't that cute how the LA Times article lists the story under Entertainment News?) You'd think that after one or two months of not paying rent the management would try entering the apartment, but you'd be wrong. I haven't seen it yet, but according to my building's online blog, the coroner's sticker is on loft #538.

More buffoonery & shenanigans

I've been awake for over 24 hours; I've lost my camera and all the photos stored on its memory card in a Tokyo taxi; and I'm back in Los Angeles with a broken a/c and a dead succulent. Needless to say, I'm feeling quite glum. So I watch this to cheer me up:

Maid in Japan

Tonight, Mai kindly took me to a Maid Cafe in Akihabara, something you'll never find in the States. The joint was called Cos-Cha. They have an all-Nihongo website at www.cos-cha.com, but there are few pictures (just impossibly-proportioned anime maids). Here is another website with photos and English descriptions of some other maid cafes in and around Tokyo's Electric Town. Notice that some of the maids are wearing big furry rabbit or cat ears on their heads? Don't ask, just accept it. I would have thought that this kind of establishment would be rare and underground, but I was wrong. Representatives from different cafes are posted right outside of Akihabara Station, handing out flyers to any passing nerd who looks ready to be parted from his money. The first time I walked by I got no love, but as soon as I strolled back without Mai, a maid in a frilly pink dress neatly pressed a flyer into my open hand and smiled as if by reflex.



*The above image is actually one of only two photos buried deep in the lacy folds of Cos-Cha's website, but I don't know if the featured maid really works there.

Filled with otaku (Nihonjin nerds), the draw of this particular place Mai brought me to seemed to be purchasing some extra contact with the waitresses in the form of a game of janken -- the Japanese version of 'rock paper scissors'. The maid brings out a drink with about eight small bowls, each with a different ingredient. The divertissement then begins: each time the otaku wins a round the maid puts something pleasant into the drink, like strawberry jam or sugar. If the maid wins, she adds a raw egg or natto, or some other nasty shit. You may think the finale is when the fool has to drink the concoction, but you'd only be half right: if he can't down the whole potion (including chewing and swallowing all the fermented soy beans) everybody gets to watch and applaud while the maid hauls off and slaps him across the face. That's right, these guys PAY for this stuff. Sadly, it's verboten to take pictures inside the cafe, so all I have to show for it is what I can find on the internet. For some live-action maid service -- sans slapping -- check out this CNN report, courtesy of YouTube:



THIS is what I came to Japan for! Mad foolish shenanigans and buffoonery that you just can't experience anywhere else in the world. Again, thank you Mai for enlightening me. Kon ban, benkyo ni narimashita.