False Positives

ToykoMango: Superflat Panda Swallows Cell Phone, Then Girl, a great little animated short mostly made up of Takashi Murakami’s graphic work for Louis Vuitton. It’s like the crazy, postmodern, luxury, Japanese version of Alice in Wonderland.

Jean Snow: How to Wrap with a Furoshiki, a Japanese traditional wrapping cloth which is used repeatedly in a stylish way. links to a graphic from the (Japanese) Ministry of the Environment that shows how to wrap something with a traditional furoshiki cloth. The “Mottainai Furoshiki” as a symbol of Japanese culture to reduce waste.

ToykoMango: “Earthquake Sets Japan Back to 2147″ links to piece from the Onion :

“Teleportation of food and water remains at a standstill as technicians in Kobe continue to fix the extensive damage to the eight-million-yottabyte mainframe computer, a four-by-three-inch quantum femtoprocessor responsible for accessing and fulfilling the thoughts and desires of all Japanese.”

Jean Snow: My Private Tokyo: Pocket Parks of Higashi-Ikebukuro. Canadian Jean Snow and his “genki” demeanor.

Boing Boing: Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno: illustrated history of Tokyo’s lightspeed subculture: a riotously illustrated history of schoolgirl fashion in Japan, starting with the thousand-strong, razor-wielding biker gangs, all the way up to the cuddly, explosion -in- a- crafter- factory world of decora girls, who cover their fuzzy one-piece character pyjamas with stuffed animals and cute crafted whatsises.

Jean Snow: Kanye West Is Akira, This video for Kanye West’s new single, “Stronger” — the one that samples Daft Punk quite liberally — takes inspiration from Katsuhiro Otomo’s classic AKIRA film.

Kiiiiiii a 2 girl band from Tokyo formed Kiiiiiii in 2002 by Utako and Reiko. They’ve yet to tour Japan but they sure have made the rounds in the States.

Boing Boing: Yo Yo Girl Cop, Dasepo Naughty girls, NY Asian Film Fest, the june NY Asian Film Fest had links to trailers for most of their films.

Wired: Tokyo, Living Lab of Possible Futures : coming to Tokyo, to work, to live and to catch glimpses of the future

Update ToykoMango: Kanye West’s new album, Graduation, cover features a Takashi Murakami flying teddy bear spewing out of a giant mouth. People are psyched because the teddy bear is wearing those patented Nike’s worn by Marty McFly in Back to the Future II.

pop culture has become so multidirectional that you can now combine American hip hop with Japanese retro cute art with kicks from an 80s movie.

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• A prototype-checklist : doing common things the prototype way (or taking advantage of those extra 100 KB in your page) - A great set of code examples of doing things the Prototype way. - Javascript
• TOKYOMANGO: Superflat Panda Swallows Cell Phone, Then Girl - Great little animated short mostly made up of Takashi Murakami’s graphic work for Louis Vuitton. It’s like the crazy, postmodern, luxury, Japanese version of Alice in Wonderland. Very Kawaii
• via boingboing - the noted Serbian feminist writer and activist Jasmina Tesanovic (and married to Bruce Sterling), has just released her latest novella, “Nefertiti,” as a free, Creative Commons -licensed download.

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Amazon :

• Introduction to AWS (Amazon Web Services ) for Ruby Developers
• New Alexa Web Search API and Pricing Plan Annoucement : Bunch-o new functionality and at least some new code samples

Railing :

• Ruby on Rails For Linux - LinRails : a binary package that includes Ruby-1.8.6, Rubygems-0.9.4, Rails 1.2.3, Mongrel 1.0.1, MySQL-5.0.41, ncurses-5.6, OpenSSL-0.9.8e, and zlib-1.2.3. making it easy to get a Ruby on Rails development environment running in no time.

• really DRY (don’t repeat yourself) : generating models, migrations and tests off of one meta-model.

Web Stuff

• Kijiji (local and free classified) eBays answer to Craigslist (eBay also owns 20% of Craigslist). Huh?
• All the News That’s Fit to Wiki : The New York Times on the Wikipedia, a neutral point of view article about the Wikipedia, how a page evolves and the people behind it.
• How to spot the dreaded non-coding architect - Not IT strategists but does apply to project leads and third party consultants. Scarier then Cthulhi.
• Ajax Rain, a collection of Javascript, DHTML, Ajax Inspiration - about 200 scripts! Use the tag cloud to search/filter for particular libraries.

Culture

• Hormiga Canyon - a SciFi short story by Rudy Rucker & Bruce Sterling
• Maelstrom II: an independent film of an Arthur C. Clarke SciFi short story - “Cliff Leyland, a down-on-his-luck worker who hitches a ride on a freight capsule from the moon to earth in order to save money. As the protagonist is catapulted homeward, power to the electromagnetic launcher fails — sending him into an unstable orbit around the moon. Thus begins a race against time to save him before he crashes into the lunar surface.” from “The Wind from the Sun” collection published in 1972.
• Kanye West Is Akira - The video for Kanye West’s new single takes major inspiration from Katsuhiro Otomo’s classic AKIRA film.
• Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s is doing Virtual Tokyo in Second Life - I thought Tokyo WAS a virtual world inside Second Life!
• The Misadventures of Hello Cthulhu - Cthulhu meets Hello Kitty : a HP Kawaii Horror?

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Tales of the BunnyFish is a new exhibition for Kozyndan at West Queen West’s Magic Pony from June 28 till July 29 2007.

So What’s a BunnyFish?

The bunnyfish is a unique being from a highly sentient race that has lived in the seas for many thousands of years unbeknownst to man. We have been following the exploits of one particular bunnyfish who was fished from the sea not long ago and who decided to stay topside and learn, explore, and LOVE!

In the past Magic Pony has hosted exhibits for Fligh Club and Japanese kimono designer Mamechiyo

update : see kozyndan flickr set and Magic Pony’s flickr set

From the Torontosit : Rabbit Of The Sea

my own BunnyFish Cookies picture (to eat or to cuddle?) :

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Restaurants and Cafes devoted to “costume play,” or cosplay as the Japanese call it, first appeared in Akihabara, Tokyo’s discount electronics store district, in the late 90’s.

Well during the summer, iMaid Cafe opened in Toronto’s east end at 1883 McNicoll Ave. (at Kennedy Rd close to Pacific Mall.), to provide the french maid variation of CosPlay Cafe. (There is at least one famous “Butler Cafe” in Tokyo called Swallowtail, where the staff are very well-dressed males in a waiter’s uniform or an elegant butler suit severing the female clients.)

The Star did a food review : French maids, Asian food and the Globe and Mail noticed : In a Scarborough café, it’s maid to order.

This trend has spread to South Korea, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, but is the first in Canada (amusing comment on MegaToyo site :Maid Cafe In The Great White North? Yes!). (are there any in the US?) Once again proving we are a suburb of Hong Kong.

If you can’t visit anytime soon, checkout this YouTube CosPlay Cafe video, to get an idea. (Welcome Boing Boing & Sea Slug readers!)

Update : The National Post now has also a story: Scarborough cafe takes customers ‘inside the cartoon’, as of Tuesday December 05.

Cory’s away and this story got re-posted to Cosplay restaurant in Toronto on BoingBoing, leading to SlashFood which looks to have been sparked a Reuters story : via New Zealand, and China .

See also a video visit to Singapore’s Maid Cafe on Zer0’s blog

Update Feb 1st 2007 : CBC’s TV The Hour did a piece on Imaid Cafe on January 15th, and has a video clip up :

It’s not your ordinary cafe, it’s kinda like Hooters. Except instead of tank tops and shorts, the staff dress up in French maid outfits.It’s a weird phenomenon in Japan, now, they’ve set up shop in Toronto.

The Hour takes a look at this new genre of cafe.

and today, Metro Morning (CBC Radio) just covered it in it’s food column Beyond Burgers, where Catherine Jheon (CJ) gave the thumbs up for the food, even if Andy couldn’t quite get over the imagery. CJ’s comments are on her FoodTV.ca blog as well as the Beyond Burgers site (with a Mp3 of segment).

Update : Scott Frye’s AnimeLife blog has moved and his iMaid posting is now at Toronto Maid Cafe

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Magic Pony is pleased to announce Flight Club : Solo Show with Moira Hahn. A stylized menagerie of classic Japanese deities and demons blended with contemporary anime culture. The exhibit will run from Oct 5 - Nov 5, 2006. The opening reception will be held Thursday Oct 5th, 2006 from 6-10pm.

Last Feburary, Magic Pony had a very successful showing of Japanese Kimono designer Mamechiyo.

As as extra credit note : surfers in Edo era Japan wore Namitatsu brand tees.

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Celebrated throughout Japan for her textile design and kimono styling, Mamechiyo has only recently gained recognition in North America. ‘Mamechiyo : the Art of Kimono’ will be Mamechiyo’s first solo exhibit in North America and her first appearance in Canada.

Magic Pony is hosting the solo show of Modern Kimono, from Mar 9 - April 3, 2006, and on Thursday, March 9th from 6-10pm, the pop kimono artist Ms. Mamechiyo will be in attendance.

Very Kamikaze Girls and very kawaii.

For more background checkout: In Japan times (from september ) Kimono Revival - if you can BugMeNot though the free registration try this pdf - (also The kimono boom), Kimonos are Hot, and the Offical Mamechiyo web site (in Japanese).

Update March 11th : The Globe and Mail had a brief story in the Saturday edtion about Miss Mamechiyo’s appearance at Magic pony entiled : The alt-kimono.

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July 22, 1972 - January 30, 2006

Artist Seth Fisher passed away Monday, January 30th, accidentally from a fall.

His death was sudden, swift, and a great loss to us all. His funeral and cremation occurred on February 2nd in Nagoya. Condolences can be sent to his wife Hisako and son Toufuu via the contact information on his site The Flowering Nose.

For a glance at his art checkout the gallery, and you’ll quick see why several of his titles are going on my buy list.

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Cthulhu Antenna Ball
It’s cute. It’s an Antenna Ball. It’s an earthly representation of the ultimate evil from beyond the stars.

It’s the Cthulhu Antenna Ball™.

via SF Signal! see also Dear Cthulhu. Time to start a cthulhu category?

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I just discovered that They (Ami & Yumi) are showing in Canada on YTV, Saturday mornings at 10:30, and were showing the last Episode of season 1 (# 16: Hungry Yumi; The Oddyguard; Song Sung Bad). Hopefully they will repeat.

I discovered them last year November, 2004.

This is NOT a Japanese import,and nor is it anime. The cartoon is based on Ami Onuki and Yumi Yoshimura, the lead singers of the popular J-pop band, Puffy AmiYumi, with many of their catchy J-pop hits are featured on the show. They also appear in each episode, doing live-action skits in a mixture of Japanese and accented English, with songs in the original Japanese (without subtitles).

They started on the US Cartoon Network, and are a big hit there.

They only thing I seen that comes close to this it the 2004 Japanese file Kamikaze Girls, which has it’s own cartoon segments, involves a meeting of 2 girls from different worlds one: one a “Lolita,” the other a “Yankee”. The characters come off as a kind of female otaku. Kamikaze Girls began as a best-selling novel, by cult writer Novala Takemoto, was adapted into a comic and then this film (reviewed here on Midnight Eye).

I suspect it influenced Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi.

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