"Let the weight of the world drift away instead."

London from space, taken by European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers. 

It's hard to believe I only have a fortnight left in this incredible, lovely, lonely, hectic, most beautiful of ugly cities.*

Then it's home for Christmas, and on to West Africa for three months. 

If there was such a thing as a list of "songs to run away to", or "songs for moving on to the next step in your life", this beautifully mournful Beck track would be pretty high up on mine.

*Qualifying statement: I actually think Tokyo is the most beautiful of ugly cities. But it's hard to contest just how beautiful London is. In any case, I just love that phrase, which is from Florent Chavouet's wonderful graphic novel Tokyo Sanpo; Il paraît que Tokyo est la plus belle des villes moches du monde.

Sunday Soundtrack - Dreamscapes.

Dreamscapes. from raloup on 8tracks.

As the "album art" suggests, I'm still stuck on Michael Rougier's 1960s photos from Tokyo. 

This has been the most popular mix I've put up so far, by a long stretch.  

Slow and quite calming, including Yann Tiersen, Eels, Tim Buckley and Iron & Wine.

Good music for the day before a big presentation...?  

Now I need to get back to work.

Happy, sleepy Sunday to all. Let's hope the sunshine sticks around today. 

Dance Dance Dance; Rougier's Japanese Youth in Revolt, 1964.

Michael Rougier's amazing images transport you to Tokyo in 1964; looking at them is not unlike stepping into the pages of a Murakami novel. There's something so powerful about these photographs - I struggled to resist posting the whole portfolio.

The issue of LIFE which first featured part of the selection stated:  

All through that past, a sense of connection with the old traditions and authority has kept Japanese children obedient and very close to the family. This sense still controls most of Japan’s youth who besiege offices and factories for jobs and the universities for education and gives the whole country an electric vitality and urgency. But as its members run away from the family and authority, this generation in rebellion grows. 


See and read more here.

Tasting Infinity; Yayoi Kusama - 草間 弥生 - at Tate Modern.

Here.

Here.

Here.

I impulsively spent the weekend in London with a dear friend, and was fortunate enough to visit the incredible Yayoi Kusama retrospective at Tate Modern. It only opened at the beginning of the month and so was rather busy, but enthralling nonetheless.

Much of Kusama's most famous work is made up of hypnotic repetitive patterns and colours, and there was plenty of that on display, as well as paintings from early on in her career, and her distinctly disturbing "accumulation" sculptures made up of a myriad of phalli arranged on everyday objects. Since the early 70s, Kusama has been a voluntary inpatient at a mental institution in Tokyo, suffering from the hallucinations so apparent in her artwork. While walking round the exhibition, I was extremely conscious of the way we so often dismiss creative people as crazy, and how the mentally ill are stigmatized by society.

The exhibition ended with her Infinity Mirror Room - Filled With The Brilliance Of Life; a room lined with mirrors and filled with winking coloured lights. It was at once dizzying, claustrophobic, awe-inspiring, and magical; it filled me with a paradoxical feeling of being trapped but floating, of feeling very small, but also liberatingly insignificant - it was like being inside a nebula. I'll hopefully post about some of the other works soon, too.

In the mean time, I would highly recommend visiting this retrospective of a really remarkable artist - it's almost uncomfortable at points, but its surpassing beauty will stay with you long after you've left the gallery. The exhibition will be at the Tate until early June.

I left my heart in Tokyo; Natsumi Hayashi.

This particular self-portrait was also a tribute to her cat, Guru, who had died that afternoon.

I have been infatuated with Tokyo-based photographer Natsumi Hayashi's images for quite a while now.

Using an SLR with an extremely slow shutter speed, she jumps multiple times to achieve her perfect "levitating" shots. They make me miss my time in Tokyo immensely, and through their surreal quality also remind me of how foreign it felt there at first.

All of the above are taken from her website, and you can also keep up to date with this fantastic floating girl on facebook.

Sunday Soundtrack - 1Q84.

Leoš Janáček - Sinfonietta

Ella Fitzgerald - It's Only A Paper Moon

I have spent this very frosty morning immersed in Book III of Haruki Murakami's 1Q84. In the UK, they have tried to imitate the experience of his original Japanese readers by publishing Books I & II together, and Book III in a separate volume (as it was originally released as a surprise, a year after the first two). I was reading Books I & II while I was in South Africa, and during a trip to a rather amazing bookshop, I noticed they hadn't done that there... I think they've published it all as one volume in the US, too. Something a little strange I've noticed is that Books I & II were translated from the Japanese by Jay Rubin, and Book III by Philip Gabriel. It seems like an odd decision, but while it's noticeable it isn't necessarily jarring. Either way, my essays contributed to my further breaking up the reading experience - what with working on those, and reading another book, I was excited to start Murakami's Book III.

Regardless, I look forward to reviewing it in its entirety soon; and as anyone who has read it will know, the two pieces of music above feature prominently in the narrative. I am utterly engrossed, and can highly recommend this surreal, slightly sinister and carefully crafted story.

Turning Japanese, I Think I'm Turning Japanese, I Really Think So.

In many ways, this is just ridiculous - but it makes me so very nostalgic for last summer, dancing through the streets of Tokyo and just being so full of joy.

Dissertation has been handed in, and is out of my hands. Essays are almost there, too. I'm so very close to finishing my degree...! It's both amazing, and terrifying.