Gapnotes

Notes from the gap

Study diary

Week 43: 21-27 October 2019

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Reading a Japanese essay on shota
I’m not reading; I’m solving a puzzle.

The breakthrough this week is that I’m reading an academic text in Japanese. I “decode” only one spread per day, but it’s immensely satisfying. Basically I’m covering the early history of yaoi and shota in a unique essay from 1998 by Watanabe Yumiko.

Tonight I had a little anime festival with key titles from the 1980s (I’m amazed at how easy it is to get them – thanks Nyan!), which appeared in the text:

The 1981 anime Rokushin Gattai GodMars was part of the male + male boom and inspired further doujinshi creation.

The same year Shounen Jump started serialising Captain Tsubasa, which led to an explosion of yaoi – but it was also the breakthrough for shota.

The second half of the 1980s saw shota-style mainstream animes like Ganbare! Kickers (1986) and Mister Ajikko (1987).

However, shota as we know the genre today was triggered by the 1988 original children’s gag anime Mashin Eiyuuden Wataru (1988).

Captain Tsubasa episode 1
Captain Tsubasa, episode 1 (1983).

I recently watched a video on editing by “This Guy Edits”-Sven and Karen Pearlman. I mean what I said in my comment:

This video is fantastic. After wading through so many guys and dudes saying basically the same thing, this one took it to another level. I will rewatch to let all the points really sink in. I mean, it sort of completely altered what I think film “is”. And what a smooth and listenable conversation. Will check out the book with Karen’s chapter.

I read the “Afterword” to Walter Murch’s amazing book In the Blink of an Eye. Can’t be compared with the book itself (although it is just as long), but nevertheless interesting to learn about the technical history of movie editing.

I read the chapter “Histories” in Reni Eddo-Lodge’s Why I’m Not Talking to White People About Race and was very moved by it. It inspired me to (re)watch Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing with S. Such a great film in so many ways.

I thought of taking a digital subscription for Tagesspiegel, since I know they have good coverage of bike related issues in the city, and since I don’t have The Economist anymore. But Tagesspiegel’s standard deal for digital only is 35 euro a month. I think that’s a mistake. They set the price as if the only thing you need is their newspaper, when we consumers want a mix of media, and we can’t pay 35 euro for each of them.

On Friday I biked Critical Mass with S, and yesterday we went to the opening of Contemporary Connections, where my friends R and K exhibited. A surreal experience.

Anime

  • 1981: Rokushin Gattai GodMars. E1. I usually don’t like mecha and this was no exception.
  • 1983: Captain Tsubasa. E1–3. Pretty entertaining, reminded me of Ginga e kickoffu, which I watched some years ago.
  • 1986: Ganbare! Kickers. E1. Watched raw. A total rip-off of Captain Tsubasa, don’t see any reason to continue.
  • 1987: Mister Ajikko. E1. An amazing food anime! Loved it!
  • 1988: Mashin Eiyuuden Wataru. E1. Watched raw, so didn’t get it all but slightly fun, a bit like Ranma ½.

Articles

Book chapters

  • Eddo-Lodge, Reni. 2017. Why I’m Not Talking to White People About Race. “Histories”, pp. 12–43.
  • Murch, Walter. 2001. In the Blink of an Eye. Second edition. Originally published in 1992. “Afterword”, pp. 73–146.

Film

  • Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee 1989, 120 min)

Art

Video

With a backlog of some weeks:

Podcasts

Week 42: 14-20 October 2019

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Last week of in-house classes ended with a very inspiring workshop on Queering the Gaze. I worked intensively on my assignment but in the end decided not to screen it in class. I had Monday off (because it was supervisor day and my group met ours the week before) and skipped another one and a half day; I’m more picky with the content now. We had a nice gettogether after class on Friday. A personal crisis came and went.

I’m thinking of maybe stopping these updates and start using a proper reading manager like Zotero instead.

Article

Book

  • Murch, Walter. 2001. In the Blink of an Eye. Second edition. Originally published in 1992. Pp. ix–xiv, 1–72. (All except the Afterword. Amazing! 🌟 Recommended by both S and my supervisor.)

Film

  • Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley 2018, 112 min)

Video

Radio

  • Sveriges Radio: Godmorgon, världen!

Week 41: 7-13 October 2019

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A week of in-house classes: Sonic Strategies for Field Research and Filmmaking For Fieldwork. I skipped Tuesday since I was exhausted from going straight from Japan to FU.

I met my supervisor and we discussed my final project, which I also presented to class on Friday. We continued discussing it along with my supervisee peers T and M on the u-bahn, s-bahn, and finally over Flammkuchen and beer at Freischwimmer, before joining the others at the graduation exhibition of Generation 10, where S also was.

My classmate A gave me some very valuable personal advice for my film.

On Saturday we screened anthropological films at Hosek Contemporary, a gallery and a boat. It was a completely student-run initiative, outside the programme. S was with me. I screened my Space and Place film Tiling, and people seemed to enjoy it – there was lots of laughter which I had not anticipated.

I hardly read at all. We’re watching part 2 of Disenchantment and sort of enjoy it despite we both think it could be better.

Book chapter

  • Reni Eddo-Lodge: Why I’m Not Talking to White People About Race. Preface (pp. 6-10).

Articles

Radio

  • Sveriges Radio: Godmorgon, världen!

Week 40: 30 September – 6 October 2019

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My last week in Tokyo was social.

On Monday my Swedish Berlin friend A arrived to Tokyo, and we spent some time together in the evenings this week – starting (and ending) with conveyor belt sushi for lunch. I had izakaya dinner with my Japanese Berlin friend and tandem partner D. I also picked up my bag from Shibuya-D, and he gave me a Japanese book which is relevant for my research.

On Tuesday night I had dinner with T&T, who in a way are informants but we met as friends, so I stayed off research mode. In the morning I did another batch of laundry.

I was going to have dinner with Shibuya-D on Wednesday, but since I wanted to get some shots from the top of Mori tower, and my days were running out, I sort of cancelled. Instead, a late hotel room beer with A.

On Thursday an elaborate sushi dinner with T (who invited me) and Minato-D, with inspiring discussions. Another hotel visit to A, who had lost his wallet.

On Friday I had tempura lunch with my Japanese friend M in Okachimachi and conveyor belt sushi dinner with A in Ueno.

I filmed something basically every day, using the gorillapod instead of the gimbal, it makes for another kind of shots which I also want.

And so came Saturday and the doujinshi event that was the main reason for this trip. It was sort of both a failure and a success, but mostly a failure I’m afraid. It felt like there was so much at stake that I froze. I didn’t distribute the flyers to more than those that I bought from. Maybe I’ll elaborate on why later, but the end result was that I threw away the remaining ca 200 flyers, which didn’t feel so good. But one of the mangakas I had given the flyer to came up to me and we said we would meet afterwards, but that didn’t happen. Anyway, I think we’ll be in touch about it. She would be my first serious female informant, so I’d be very interested in her perspective.

And today I flew home to Berlin! I paid the whopping 85 euro for extra legroom – last time it was 65, but I guess it’s about supply and demand and they’ll see how high they can go. I mean, how many seats have this much space – it feels like first class:

Seat with extra legroom

Ok, that’s it, I’m done with Japan for this time around. I might summarise this “preparatory field trip” in a separate post.

It’s so good to be home! S met me at the airport and had ordered a taxi for us.

We got a few readings for courses starting next week.

Readings

Sonic Strategies for Field Research

  • Feld, Steven. 2017. “On Post-Ethnomusicology Alternatives: Acoustemology.” In Francesco Giannattasio and Giovanni Giuriati, eds., Perspectives on a 21st Century Musicology: Ethnomusicology or Transcultural Musicology? Udine: Nota, 82–98.

Filmmaking For Fieldwork

  • Henley, Paul. 2004. “Putting film to work: observational cinema as practical ethnography.” In Sarah Pink, László Kürti, and Ana Isabel Afonso, eds., Working Images: visual research and representation in ethnography. London: Routledge, 109–30.

Other

Film

  • Inflight: Keeping Up with the Joneses (2016, 105 min)

TV

  • Disenchantment (P2 E1)

Week 39: 23-29 September 2019

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On Monday I visited the doujinshi event that my first informant had recommended me, and which was already on my list.

On Tuesday I took the Shinkansen to Nagoya and the local train to Gifu, where I met my fourth informant. It was an interesting meeting. During our two hours at an izakaya I didn’t think I managed to create any rapport or get any good information (at least not good enough to justify the trip). But afterwards the meeting grew on me, and I now consider the things that he shared with me very valuable – he stands out as another clear type, a representative if you will, in regard to the way you might think about your life and how you negotiate the slots for 2D and 3D in it.

After spending the night in Nagoya, I improvised a trip down to Kagoshima, where I shot the volcano Sakurajima and some lowkey street scenes.

From Kagoshima I went to Kyoto, where I spent two nights in a capsule. On the day in between I rented a bike – the only one they had in my size – and biked around the city. First I went to the Golden Pavilion to shoot it properly. I loved Mishima Yukio’s novel about it, so who knows if I might want to use some quotes from it. So much people though. Then I biked to Kyoto university and walked around on their campus until I found a mensa, where I managed to eat lunch:

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Then I went to Sapporo, which took all day. I checked in to a capsule hotel in the entertainment district, bought a Sapporo beer at a conbini, and enjoyed the Saturday night atmosphere in the central park, under the TV tower. I slept surprisingly well. I woke up early and went to the station to get a reservation to Tokyo.

I arrived back to Tokyo in the early evening today, and went to my first hotel – the one for 3,300 yen per night (which is cheaper than the Sapporo capsule hotel, which charged me 3,900 despite advertising 2,700 – something probably went wrong there but I didn’t want to complain; in comparison, 9hours in Kyoto only charged 2,500 per night) – to see if they had a room (I’m booked from tomorrow). They did. And they also had a delivery from Amazon for me. So now I’ve finally received Saitou Tamaki’s book, which I have scoured Book Off for and ordered three times (once to Germany – it never arrived, second time to the more luxurious hotel, which declined to accept it). So much hassle to not have to buy the Kindle version. I boycott Kindle for aesthetic reasons.

I feel like I’m done with this trip now. I’ve filmed a lot, I’ve had great meetings with informants, and I’ve travelled around. The last week will be about meeting some friends in Tokyo, do some shopping, and waiting for the main event, which takes place on Saturday and which is the main reason for this trip. On Sunday in one week I go home to Berlin. I miss S so much.

We have got some readings for the third semester, which starts with in-house classes tomorrow, although I will not be there.

Study

Experimental Methods in an Ecological Age

  • Tsing, Anna, Heather Swanson, Elaine Gan, and Nils Bubandt, eds. 2017. Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
    • “INTRODUCTION: HAUNTED LANDSCAPES OF THE ANTHROPOCENE” (pp. G1–15)
    • “INTRODUCTION: BODIES TUMBLED INTO BODIES” (pp. M1–13)
    • Rose, Deborah Bird. “SHIMMER: WHEN ALL YOU LOVE IS BEING TRASHED” (pp. G51–63)
  • Swanson, Heather Anne. 2017. “The Banality of the Anthropocene”
  • Latour, Bruno. 2019. “‘We don’t seem to live on the same planet…’ — a fictional planetarium.” Catalog Beyond the Horizon: Designs for Different Futures. Philadelphia Museum of Art.
  • Sautchuk, Carlos. 2012. “Cine-weapon: The poiesis of filming and fishing.” Vibrant: Virtual Brazilian Anthropology 9: 406–30.

Week 38: 16-22 September 2019

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I started the week by reaching out to some of the informants that I have emailed with. I met the first informant the same (Monday) afternoon and we had drinks and early dinner at an Akihabara izakaya (Watami), followed by doujinshi browsing and shopping at Animate, Mandarake and Toranoana. We got a great connection and he didn’t mind me filming him.

On Tuesday I filmed at the Shibuya intersection and was greeted by other videographers: A Dutch film team and a young Japanese creator.

On Wednesday I had dinner with my old friend T at D’s place, with L as well.

Thursday I visited another old friend, D, after first meeting a second informant at a café in Ooizumigakuenchou.

On Friday I had dinner with my longtime Japanese friend Y and afterwards met my first informant again, this time in Ueno and equipped with the shotgun mic. We went to a karaoke establishment and recorded a proper interview, since we thought a karaoke booth would be sound proof – but it wasn’t really.

I also changed hotels on Friday, since the one for 3,300 yen (28 euro) per night was full when I wanted to extend. So now I live slightly more luxurious for 4,600 yen (37 euro) per night, still in Minamisenju, or “the Bronx” as T called it when he heard where I lived.

Small hotel room in Japan
My new luxurious hotel room.

On Saturday I met a third informant, who declined to let me use his voice in my film, but who allowed me to record him for my own memory. At Edinburgh café in Shinjuku 3-choume. In the afternoon I attended a two hour guided tour of University of Tokyo. I liked the study places in the library.

Today I took a slow morning, doing laundry at the hotel.

I was not feeling great today. I think I was coming down from the high of shooting every day and meeting plenty of informants, as well as editing some short clips in the evening. Today when I arrived at Akihabara and set up the gimbal I got the feeling of repeating myself. I’ve got the cliché footage already – what’s the next step, cinematographically, and in terms of storytelling?

I started feeling better once my fourth informant confirmed that we will meet next week in Nagoya. Since a return ticket to Nagoya would cost 22,000 yen, I bought a Japan Rail Pass for only 33,000 yen which will let me travel as much as I want anywhere in Japan during one week. I’ve booked a room in Nagoya, but after that I don’t know – maybe I’ll just improvise a little vacation.

Started reading Paul Stoller’s book Sensuous Scholarship, which was recommended to us by our Theory and History lecturer.

Book

  • Stoller, Paul. 1997. Sensuous Scholarship. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press:
    • “Prologue: The Scholar’s Body”, ix–xviii
    • (Part I: Embodied Practices)
      • “Introduction: The Way of the Body”, 3
      • Chapter 1: “The Sorcerer’s Body”, 4–23

Articles

Video