chang

i've cleaned my room thoroughly. i broke the cycle of imagined impediments and just went for it. yet i feel strangely unrewarded. but i digress. point: i shunned the chinese water torture of the music i've been wallowing in for months in favour of some sailor moon s episodes. i let them delight my peripheral vision as the japanese language softly penetrated my subconscious. after a few hours of pretty soldier ranting and shrieking, i had to face it: winamp won. but i wasn't about to play jethro tull again.

how about... vanessa carlton. i'd dubbed her unenticingly corny years ago, still i kept her be not nobody in my library, should the occasion [of me craving corny?] arise. and tonight i put it to good use. yes, drenched in gallons of undeniable corniness and plagued by annoying vocals, but streaked with a quaint sense of individuality and oozing melody. classical piano meets poppy swagger meets a natural inclination toward hooks that perpetuated the sailor moon vibe i didn't really want to lose, that something in the air i could probably locate within a musical spectrum if i knew my stuff. but that would kill it. refreshing. dreamy.

pop is indispensable to life on earth. corny is comfort. corny, corny, corny, corny, corny, corny, corny...

i'll tell it as i best know how, and that's the way it was told to me: two little boys, brothers, allegedly but doubtfully chinese. the cherished firstborn was called tiki-tiki-tembo-nosarembo-chari-bari-ruchi-pip-peri-pembo. the insignificant younger one was called chang. one day, chang fell into a well. tiki-tiki-[...] ran home and yelled: "chang fell into the well!". a swift and successful rescue ensued. the next day, tiki-tiki-[...] fell into the well. chang ran home and yelled: "tiki-tiki-tembo-nosarembo-chari-bari-ruchi-pip-peri-pembo... *gasp for air* fell into the well!". a not-so-swift and not-so-successful rescue ensued. hence, chinese names today are all short.

i spend half my time running from cliché, calling my affections a rabbit made of rags, my sexuality a dog ripping the meat from a bone, my thoughts fetuses in formalin jars, my fear a pharisaic crucifix, my sorrow the untreadable wake of a wretched blitzkrieg. i spend the other half hanging around the well just in case. in this day and age and place, we all mistake poetry for efficient self-expression. poetize this: cliché makes the world go round. for in this day and age and place, it is to cliché that we have reduced our very human nature, our instincts and pursuits.

heck. pretty baby, don't you leave me, i have been saving smiles for you; pretty baby, why can't you see, you're the one that i belong to... ^.^ pop-song no naka nara ieru... [see second line]

makizushi bliss

i've finally, finally, finally put together that sushi. literally. mom cooked the rice. i just rolled it. and ate it with my boyfriend. i'm a tsukino usagi of sorts - my food looks sloppy but tastes great. better than restaurant sushi. i realize that's a coarse remark. but you know, they made sushi an art and then invented the sushi robot. japan, land of contradictions. i love you.

leechu roll ingredients:

• rice [short-grain, also known as normal in romania]
• vinegar [apples and wine]
• white sugar
• table salt
• nori [they have it at kaufland]
  
• strips of parsnip overboiled in sugar water [and i mean overboiled]
  
• strips of raw cucumber [a classic]
• shredded tuna [drain as much oil out as possible, spread thinly on top of the rice]

tips:

• cooling the rice with a fan does pay off.
• the roll should be a closed circle, not a spyral. and don't worry - the nori will stick.
  
• japan does rule. they're just overrated for all the wrong reasons and therefore underrated.

japped-out

now this one might be offensive. anyway, i want to beat the iron while it's hot. do my minuscule part in ridding the world of ignorance and confusion - should the world care to read my blog. how are things japanese different from things chinese? i'll let music do the work: japaneseness is better left unsaid and speaks louder than words. [and yes, i'm embedding lots of videos because i can.]

j-pop cuteness: utada hikaru - keep tryin'. you see how it sounds like pop but with a twist? why do you think it's called j-pop? japanese pop, try as it might, will never sound like britney. yet i was shocked out of my skull to learn that this was a singular, big time effort on utada's part as opposed to what she does. you gotta hate her early stuff. but you gotta love her exodus record gone electro.

jazz & enka grooviness: tokyo jihen [shiina ringo] - kurumaya-san. this one is the closest to lee hom's endeavour in that it mixes occidental modern with japanese traditional, only in a more pretentious way. japs are pretentious like that. and a bit conceited. still, she's better like this than in her j-rock days. still, whatever genre she's tackling, the woman truly has the gift of melody.

experimental dreaminess: tujiko noriko & tyme - mata, rainen. now this is how i love my japanese music. in the flowery field of avant-garde, you cannot dare say they're copying someone else's culture. to some extent, they invented this [haco anyone?]. it upsets me that people liken tujiko noriko to bjork just 'cause she loops samples. icelandic weather is a tropical breeze to the stone cold perdition of 21st century japan.

fun fact: utada and shiina are actually their last names but they let us believe otherwise. tujiko noriko? no bloody idea.

sailor chibi-dork

i promise i tried to help it for obvious reasons.

• this blog is for pretending i have a life and looking cool.
• one day people will be reading this stuff. one day i will have fans.
  
• if i write too much at first it'll be depressing when the posting grows sparser.
  
• i'm mature enough to be comfortable with my love for sailor moon [not anime in general], but there are limits.
• deluded bag of nonsense, sprinkle with futility and serve hot.

so here. me in future japan gig outfit. i said gig outfit. exquisitely tailored too, not all poofy and grotesque. let this much be clear: i loathe anime cosplay. they have it all wrong. as a kid, i used to cry at night because i had no place in the fleshless, tantalizing, excruciatingly beautiful visual realm of sailor moon. dressing up as a sailor senshi doesn't make you one. nor does it make you 2d. i realized that early on. i realized the best i could do was hone my manga drawing skills ['cause bad fan art is blasphemy], learn japanese ['cause the way we all sang along to those intros in a made-up language cracks me up to this day], and grow up to be an anime creator myself. got the first two down cold. waiting to grow up.

disclaimer: haven't used paint since i was 12 and started feeling too old for it.

i tried not to be redundant with the hairstyle and colours, while staying true to the concept - as i've embraced it: the demure sparingness of the first series, not the baroque shit they contrived later on to sell more. tango shoes, slick. could've made a magic wand of that mic, though.

• my transformation: lovers' quarrel power, make up!
• my attack: self-indulgent princess music p.m.s. wail!
• upgrade i gain in my own special episode: boosting the attack with tobacco-induced hoarseness and bad breath