Weird News From Japan

Shigeki

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Shigeki Kamata is a 31-year-old high school math teacher. Thin and immeasurably kind, Kamata is a passionate devotee of classical music and devout violin player.

Though he lives in Tokyo, Kamata is from the Sendai, a city on the northeastern coast of Japan’s largest, and centrally located island, Honshu. The city was devastated by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that occurred on March 11, 2011.

When the earthquake struck, Kamata was in Tokyo, using his Twitter account. In his words, it was “the strongest quake I have ever had in my life.”

“Everything was swinging back and forth in very slow pace for about one minute. It was hard to stand still,” he continued. “It felt just like I was trying to stand on a deck of a ship in storm. And this is the story in Tokyo, which is about 200 miles away from the most damaged region.”

In the immediate aftermath of the quake and tsunami, Kamata’s first thought was simple. He had to get in touch with his mother, who lives in Sendai, and his sister, who lives with her husband and children in Shiroshi, jut outside of Sendai.

“The first contact was rather easy. I could talk to my mother by cell phone on the 10th try. So it was about 30 minutes after the quake.”

During that first conversation, Kamata and his mother spoke of the devastation on the ground in Sendai.

“According to my mother, the quake was OK. It did not destroy the house. The tsunami was not,” he said. “It was stronger than anyone had expected.”

Neighborhoods with one and half miles of his mother’s home were completely destroyed, the homes dismantled or swept out to sea by the tremendous power of the tsunami. One local resident, 60 year old Hiromitsu Shinkawa, was found on the roof his floating house nearly ten miles from the coast.

Back in Tokyo, Kamata spoke with his mother one more time in the aftermath of the quake, not long after their first conversation. Then, he endured two days with nary a word from either his mother or sister.

“The second call was right after the first one. The third one was two days later,” he said. “I heard the phone lines were jammed like a traffic jam. Everyone was trying to find out if their family or friends are OK. The phone lines were not capable enough to deal with this many calls at once.”

After two days of no contact, Kamata made a decision. He would drive from Tokyo to Sendai to find his mother and sister. He left Tokyo at 3:00pm on March 13 with a trunk full of food and water.

“I heard that all the lifelines -- electricity, water and gas -- was shut. That meant most of the stores would be closed. So I thought there would be shortage of food after a few days,” he explained.

Just before he left the Japanese capital, Kamata received a text message from his brother-in-law’s phone. The battery on his sister’s cell phone had died, and there was nowhere to charge it in the wake of the devastation.

“I received the text message from my sister that said they all moved to my sister's house in Shiroishi city, south from Sendai. So I drove there,” Kamata explained.

“About an hour after the quake, it became almost impossible to call anybody in Tohoku region. So until I got to Shiroishi all the communication between my sister and me was done by text messages.”

To reach his family, Kamata traveled on National Route 4, the longest ordinary highway in the country. The road spans a 462-mile swath of Honshu. The government reserved Tōhoku Expressway, a high-speed thoroughfare that runs parallel to National Route 4, to all traffic save emergency vehicles and the personal cars of members of the Japanese National Safety Forces.

At intervals throughout his northward journey, Kamata spotted sections of National Route 4 that had clearly been ravaged by the earthquake, scars in the road that spoke of the portentous event. Yet, in keeping with classic Japanese efficiently, the road had already been repaired.

Bypassing the center of Sendai, Shigeki drove straight to Shiroishi to find his family. He spent a handful of days at his sister’s house, reconnecting with his family and finally dealing with the disaster in his own terms.

“I still can not believe that is actually true,” he said. Yet along with his disbelief is a measure of anger. Kamata broke his perennially genteel manner when talk of the radiation fears from the nuclear plants in Fukushima arose.

Kamata is “pissed about the situation of the nuclear power plant."

"We cannot move to the ‘getting better’ phase because of that,” he said.

“The interviews done by the spokesmen of the government and TEPCO, the electric company in charge of the power plant, on TV did not provide us a list of options of what we should do such as whether we should evacuate further,” Kamata explained.

“They only talk about what is going on now, and do not tell us what are the possible outcome of the current situation and what is the worst case scenario. They’re being ridiculously optimistic…and near sighted.”

Though he believes that the Japanese government and TEPCO are not handling the situation well, Kamata has been able to find solace in an unlikely source.

“The internet has been very useful. Right after the quake, the timeline in my Twitter account moved very quickly and told me the magnitude, the center of the earthquake, possibility of tsunami, etc. I would have been very scared if I had not the Internet access.”

Will Japan be able to move on from this disaster?

“I think the current atmosphere in Japan is similar to the one after the World War Two,” he said.

Kamata expressed a belief that, once the Japanese government deals realistically with the problems in Fukushima and addresses the fears of its citizens, the country would move on and begin the process of healing. When the nuclear fears are settled, Kamata feels, there will hope for the future.

Vincent

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 15:50:00 +0000

Vincent Cassell holds two masters degrees, speaks three languages and works for a major international corporation. Like the movie star shares a name with, Cassell is French. He lives the expat life in Tokyo, where he works for his company’s Japanese headquarters by day and is lead singer and rhythm guitarist in an underground rock band by night.

Cassell is intelligent, precise, kind, funny and, like many of his countrymen, is not one to mince words.

When the earthquake hit on the afternoon of March 11, 2011, Cassell was at work in the Roppongi district of Tokyo, a center of the city’s nightlife filled with dance clubs, sleek hotels, cramped and ubiquitous apartment buildings, and two of the Japanese capital’s most recognizable land marks, the Tokyo Tower and Roppongi Hills, a 40+ story shopping mall and office building.

“During the quake, we felt it was much stronger than anything most of us had experienced in the past, so we ducked and hold under our desk while everything was shaking,” Cassell said.

Following the first large aftershock, company security gathered employees in the core corridor of the building.

“We held still there for about 2 hours, if not more, while the giant building was being checked out for any damage,” said Cassell.

“In the Japanese scale meter, it was said to be a ‘strong 5.’ To compare, the level felt in Sendai was 7. Not only was it very strong even in Tokyo, but it was also extremely long, the two main quakes lasting for minutes,” he explained.

Though Cassell maintained a cool head in the immediate aftermath of the quake, fears of radiation affected his perception of the situation.

“Quakes are punctual and there is not much that can be done about them. Radiation, on the other hand, is controlled by a company that has been lying through their teeth for years,” he said, in no uncertain terms. “It seems the Japanese community is not half as concerned as they should be, while the foreigners are borderline paranoid.”

Not long after media outlets reported the fear of a nuclear meltdown, Cassell and his Japanese fiancée left Japan for the Philippines.

“I actually had vacations planned already, and just decided to go Philippines one day earlier, after the French embassy highly recommend their nationals to go,” he explained.

However, the decision caused problems with Cassell’s work situation, which as an expat is already a minor Gordian knot of competing national identities and multinational corporate policy.

“My company, unfortunately, did not feel like the situation was dangerous, and didn't do anything to help their workers feel safe. Although we have robust systems allowing us to work remotely, no one was authorized, at least in my division, to work from abroad,” he told us.

Cassell’s response to this conundrum is frank.

“People have to take vacations, there is no other alternative. Personally, I feel it was inhuman to have people work under such circumstances.”

From the Philippines, Cassell was afforded the opportunity to assess the situation in Japan from a new vantage point, one informed by both the Japanese and foreign media. When asked whether he thought the Japanese government was lying to its citizens, he answered in measured cadence.

“In a nutshell, I wouldn't be surprised if it were the case - this is a pretty opaque government after all, and they probably want to avoid having 30 million people flee from Tokyo at the same time.”

Cassell’s perspective on the earthquake, tsunami, radiation troubles and the aftermath of all of these exigencies is divided: there is the micro version, the human toll, and there is the macro version, the assessment of Japanese society and the Japanese people at large.

When Cassell first saw the images of the devastation in Sendai and the surrounding area, he felt “deep sorrow for those who lost families and friends, and genuine concern for the survivors whose fate seems to be still undecided.”

Regarding the manner in which the Japanese people will respond to the disaster, the expat had as many questions as he did answers.

“Will they be willing to sacrifice themselves like their parents and grandparents did after WW2? Or will social inequalities rise exponentially? Or maybe it will be finally time for Japan to reconsider their social model altogether...”

On March 22, Cassell returned to Tokyo. Though he is decidedly pragmatic in his assessment of the situation, the Frenchman was able to find positives in the situation, in particular the fear of nuclear meltdown.

“One main question that will need to be answered by Japan is one regarding their energy plan,” he said. He explained his position with an anecdote.

“I was talking to a taxi driver yesterday, and he was saying the media thought there will be energy shortage for the next couple of years. I guess it could actually be a good time for Japan to reconsider their use of electricity, the most obvious being the air-conditioning in subways, malls and offices: extremely hot in winter, freezing cold in summer.”

What will Japan’s response to the disaster be?

“Japan has proven, after WW2, they were able to survive the unimaginable, so they probably can overcome this as well. One interesting point will be to see how the youth reacts to this - more and more young people grew a profound hatred to the social system that has seen their fathers lose all sense of private life to the benefits of their companies.”

And how will Cassell react?

“To be honest, this is probably to early to answer such a question. Am I traumatized? Certainly,” he asserted. “But did this change my love for this wonderful country and inhabitants? Certainly not.”

Author's Note: Vincent spoke on condition of anonymity. If you know who he is, please don't say anything.

Midori

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 01:07:00 +0000

Around 2:45pm on March 11, 2011, Tokyo native Midori Hayama was at work at a clothing store in the northeastern part of the city. This is when the earthquake struck.

Though the 9.0 quake directly impacted Sendai, the capital of the Miyagi prefecture, some two and half hours north of Tokyo by train, the effects were felt in the capital. Said Hayama of the quake, “First, I thought ‘Its just another small earthquake,’ but it got bigger and bigger, and I couldn't walk straight.”

“It was the biggest in a long time,” she explained. “All the lights on the ceiling were shaking so much. Water bottles we sell fell… some girls were screaming.”

In the immediate aftermath of the quake, Midori was faced with dealing with the store’s customers; such is the service-oriented nature of modern Tokyo.

“I had to take care of customers. I took them outside, to an open space, for their safety,” she said.

Not long after the earthquake a massive tsunami devastated northeastern Honshu, Japan’s largest island. Images of the devastation found their way to every media outlet available, from television and newspapers to cell phones and the Internet.

“It looks almost like watching a movie. I still can’t believe what’s happening there. Just horrible,” said Hayama.

The aftermath of the earthquake has presented a number of fears and a vast amount of confusion and fear. Tokyo has experienced many aftershocks, some as powerful as a 6.0 earthquake. And there is the fear of radiation from the nuclear power plants experiencing reactor trouble.

“A few weeks ago, we didn’t need to worry about the future of our country. Now, we don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Hayama. She continued, “It’s scary…the radiation is something you can’t see. People are worried and trying to figure out how to deal with it. I think we have to be careful not to get in a panic.”

The wealth of largely contradictory information presented by the Japanese and foreign medias hasn’t helped clarify anything for Midori or countless other millions of Japanese people. As Hayama put it, there is simply “too much information.”

“Media tends to tell things more dramatically. Sometimes I almost think they are just trying to scare us,” she said. “Now, from the stores, water is gone. You can’t find water anywhere. Because the government and media announced the amount of radiation in water here is more than the OK level for babies under 1 year old.”

When asked whether she felt the Japanese government was, as the United States government insisted, lying about the radiation levels, Midori replied, “I don’t think the government is lying but they should tell us more details. And explain better.”

She continued, “I want to ask those experts talking on the American media to come here to help, instead of debating on TV.”

“If foreign media and Japanese media are saying something different, it makes people here confused and worried,” she concluded.

When asked whether she had considered leaving Japan in the aftermath of the quake and tsunami, Midori answered frankly.

“Yes, a little,” Hayama replied. “I heard many people from other countries left here but…they have somewhere else to go back. This is my home.”

Despite the confusion and fear that pervades in the aftermath of the disaster, Hayama stresses that, at least in Tokyo, the situation on the ground is not as bad as it may seem.

“Things are getting back to normal here,” she reported. “I’m trying to get over the shock from the earthquake, though we are still having aftershocks, and they bring back memories. I know a lot of people here who have had a trouble sleeping since the earthquake. Including me.”

But she points out that “Japan is a country who has recovered from a lot of disasters.”

“I believe that after this disaster, people will be more united and will help each other to get over.”

As it has for more than a millennium, life in Japan goes on. Though there will be trials and tribulations, and the path to recovery a difficult one, the extent of which is unknown at the present, the Japanese people have no choice but to continue living.

“Things are tough but a lot of people are trying to be positive and calm,” Hayama asserts. “I think a lot of people are worried, but still there are more hopes here.”

Japan Interview Series

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 00:58:00 +0000

An article posted on the New York Times website today (6/17/11) attests to a well known fact: just because the media stops paying attention doesn't mean something isn't still happening.

The radiation fears brought on the meltdowns in the wake of the catastrophic earthquake and resultant tsunami in March 2011 have yet to abate in Japan. Here in the states, we don't hear much about it these days.

In the wake of the quake and tsunami, I interviewed three friends of mine who were living in Tokyo when it all went down. I created a short series of articles based on these interviews, though local media outlets in Omaha deigned such news unimportant and passed on the pieces.

Out of respect for the people who were kind enough to respond to all my questions and help me craft articles based on their experiences, I'd like to make these pieces public. I'll be posting one a day, starting today and concluding on Sunday, June 19th.

Thanks for reading.

Publication of Statistics Creates Domino Effect

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 23:49:00 +0000

16/35/11 – Cyberspace

Political group Duh!Mocracy created a domino effect last week when it published a set of statistics highlighting racial, social and economic inequity in the United States.

The statistics were posted in chart form on the organization’s website alongside an article admonishing the extension of the Bush tax cuts. The words “astonished,” “indefensible,” “liberty,” “democracy,” “American people” and “demonstrable” appeared multiple times throughout the article.

In the hours after the publication of the statistics hundreds of thousands of social media users posted the chart on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

Exclamatory comments such as “is this democracy?” and “the truth, kids…” often accompanied the chart, as did the occasional Dadaist quip, i.e. “Why does Stephen Hawking talk like a speak and spell?”

Nelson Scott, head researcher at Duh!Mocracy, was intrigued by the proliferation of the chart on Facebook, particularly the related commentary.

“I was honestly, like, really sort of amazed by how many peopled shared the chart, you know? Especially with all of these comments like ‘Oh my god! The government is evil!’ So I decided to do some follow-up research,” said Scott via telephone interview.

The researcher sent out a questionnaire to those who posted the chart along with said commentary. The responses to these questionnaires lead to another set of statistics showing that 88 percent of posters identified as white, 97 percent as upper middle class, 81 percent as over educated and 3 percent as dumb as a box of rocks.

Three days after the publication of the initial statistics, Duh!Mocracy posted these new statistics on its webpage. Again, a rash of social media users posted the chart and again Scott was surprised.

“Well this time it was like, ‘Who the hell is posting this?’ So I sent out another survey. Especially with all the accompanying, like, totally sardonic comments like 'Apparently Yale doesn't teach reality' and 'ha!', you know?”

The second survey showed that 65 percent of those posting the second chart identified as African American, Latin American, American Indian, Alaskan Native, Samoan, Siberian Husky or Other and 97 percent as working class or lower.

Responses to the question “Why did you post this chart?” ranged from “Can’t stand me some ignant-ass crackas” (interestingly written by an individual self-identified as “White”) and “Welcome to the jungle.”

Taking all of this information into account, Scott decided to take a third approach to the presentation of information.

“It occurred to me that the information presented by the first set of statistics, which showed racial, social, gender-based and economic iniquity, was only shocking because it was taken out of historical context.”

To rectify the situation, Scott created a line graph charting the treatment and social progress of the socially, racially, ethnically, sexually and otherwise oppressed peoples. The graph is more or less a straight line, despite minor fluctuations.

“Well, I looked at all societies, all periods in history, all types of oppression and exclusion, and that’s basically what it looked like,” said Scott.

The new chart, entitled “Blacks, Women, Jews, Gays, the Poor and More: Fucked in the Ass Since of the Advent of Human Society,” is available for download from Duh!Mocracy.

Vegan Pasta A La Chloe – Cooking with Dinosaur Jr.

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 22:45:00 +0000

The dish's namesake looks on...

This is tasty, simple, relatively healthy and inexpensive pasta dish I recently started making with ingredients almost exclusively from Trader Joe’s. I’ve named it “Pasta a la Chloe” in honor of my dog, who sits patiently by while I make it then darts into the kitchen and starts eating it from the stove the second I leave the room. Well, that’s life.

Things You’ll Need (This fed two people and there were enough leftovers for lunch):

½ and onion
2 or 3 cloves of garlic
1 thing of soy chorizo
1 bag of spinach
1 box/bag of wheat rotini (or any other pasta that you prefer)
Salt
Olive oil
Thyme

There's a red scare in my kitchen (A) Ingredients (B) Thyme (C) Chorizo (D) Wood spoon baby!

So this is an extremely easy dish to make. I’m gonna go through it step-by-step, ‘cause when I first became a vegan I really didn’t known how to cook at all, other than noodles, rice, things that going into microwaves and eggs (which proved totally useless, as you can imagine).

First throw some water on to boil. You’ll use that to make the noodles. I’m not going to go through the process of cooking noodles – you’re on your own for that one. You’ll want to start the noodles around the same time that you start heating the olive oil.

I cook with a cast iron pan, which consumes oil like a muscle car. Start with enough to coat the bottom of the pan and turn the boiler to medium/medium high heat. When the oil is hot enough to spit back at you when you drop water onto it, add the onions.

If you’re cooking on cast iron, be very carefully – food burns very quickly and oil disappears like a thief in the night. Add oil continually as needed and adjust the heat similarly.

Cook the onions for 3 to 5 minutes, or until brown. You can chop them however you’d like. I cut them into very small pieces as I don’t like the overwhelming taste of large pieces of onion. But really, it’s your call. While the onions are cooking, chop the garlic then crush it. To crush it, put the knife flat on top of the garlic and hit it with the heel of your hand.

Add the garlic once the onions brown. Cook the garlic and onions for 2 or 3 minutes before adding the broccoli and soy chorizo. Trader Joe’s soy chorizo cost about $3 and is very tasty, but also VERY messy. You don’t want to have nice clothes on when you cook with it and you’ll want to roll up your sleeves.

The soy chorizo is double packed, first in standard plastic wrap, secondly in a tube. I use about 33 percent of the tube when I make this dish, so I get three uses out of each tube. If you’re cooking for yourself, that’s almost ten meals! Not bad…

Squeeze the chorizo onto the pan. It’ll come out in one big chunk. Use your wooden spoon (I only roll wooden spoon) to mince it – it breaks down quickly and easily.

Cook the onions, garlic, broccoli and chorizo for 3 or 4 minutes on medium heat. Add some salt and stir regularly.

(A) Chloe would like some... (B) $3.99-for-a-six pils (C) The finished product

Now we add the noodles. Just dump them all on in there once they’ve been given a chance to drain. Rotini is good to use because the little chunks of soy chorizo work their way into the spiral of the noodle. Penne serves this purpose as well, though doesn’t have quite the same effect.

Cook it all until the noodles have heated to the temperature of the rest of ingredients and are coated in the juice of the chorizo.

Finally, add the spinach and thyme. I use half a large bag of spinach and a pinch or two of thyme. The spinach will cook down quickly. Once its wilted and dark green, you’re good to go.

Turn off the burner and serve.

Enjoy!

Chloe and I listened to Dinosaur Jr. while cook this, so we give you one of our favorite songs of theirs (and on a serious note, onion is incredibly toxic to dogs. Chloe only got one tiny bite of this dish before I got her off the stove. If your dog has ingested large amounts of onion or other toxic foods like grapes, chocolate, or coffee, contact the ASPCA Poison Control.):

Important Event Happens

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 21:20:00 +0000

2/31/11 – Important Foreign Locale

Today, an important even happened in an important place. Important people have gathered to comment on the gravity of this event, and stress its importance. Experts report that the event is the result of direct action of the plebeian class.

After weeks of rising tensions between the ruling class and a number of dispossessed and impoverished agricultural and industrial workers, the important even occurred. The event has been alternately described as “erupting,” “exploding,” “boiling over,” “detonating,” and, in two isolated instances, “vomiting” and “spewing.”

Myriad think tanks, nonprofits, NGOs, academics, purported experts and self-anointed social media demagogues are busy analyzing the importance of the event from every conceivable angle.

Important First Name Important Surname Professor of Important Discipline at Renowned University believes that this event may well trigger a domino effect of like events in similarly crucial locations.

According to Important Event Watch, an influential NGO, this occurrence may well affect gender and racial relations in microcosmic communities within the affected nation, assuming that anticipated political result C will arise from the collision of Party A and Important Event B.

Dylan Hughes, a Brooklyn resident and central Ohio native, wrote the following on his Facebook before lauding the sound quality of the latest in a long string of 180-gram vinyl Obscure Band re-releases: “The Revolution Will Be Televised! Rise up, people of Important Place.”

Corey Budowski, a sort-of friend to Hughes and renowned Facebook cynic, commented on the post thus: “Easy for you to say. More than half of the participants in the Important Event have been jailed and tortured and no on cares.”

Privileged American liberals and conservatives alike are believed to be preparing rhetorical quips and witticism re: the Important Event and storing them on note cards. Experts posit that these quips will be awkwardly inserted into conversation at Important Social Event or used in similarly rhetorical conversations amongst like-minded privileged Americans and token foreign people at expensive and vaguely ethnic restaurants.

Despite all major global media outlets running heroic photographs of the common people of Important Place holding court against the typical powers that suppress them, it is believed that the event will in no way positively impact the lives of the poor who orchestrated it, in the long term.

When asked about the importance of the event, an uncouth local participant with little education and suspect dental hygiene responded, “I will be back at my horrible job tomorrow, working a solid ten hours of back breaking labor.”

When asked what he did for a living, he spat in the sand and replied, “I make shit for assholes.”

Did he mean objects literally for assholes, like butt plugs or enemas?

“Shove it up your ass,” he spat. The man then inexplicably mentioned carrion and vultures before defecating in a nearby bush.

Tennessee Employment Law Oddity

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 15:40:00 +0000

So I was researching Tennessee employment law this morning and I came upon the following, very strange piece of legislation.

Apparently, minors in Tennessee are forbidden from working in "Occupations involving...sexual intercourse, sodomy, sexual bestiality, masturbation, sadomasochistic abuse, excretion, or the exhibition of the male or female genitals"

Who would've thought?

Vegan Food Ideas--Seitan Provencal

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:12:00 +0000

I've decided after more or less no deliberation but much procrastination to begin posting vegan food ideas on this blog. I've been a vegan for over four years at this point, excluding a brief period of living in Mexico, during which I reverted to vegetarianism to avoid starvation.

What this means for the unfamiliar is I do not eat--or, try my best to avoid eating--things that come animals. This includes milk, eggs, cheese and weird byproducts that litter our food, such as whey and casein. There are many, many reasons for this, none of which I will go into now.

Rather, it occurred to me that it would be fun to post some of the vegan survival tricks I've learned and recipes I've adapted on this blog. A lot of this will coincide with recommendations as to what to buy where, in particular at Trader Joe's and Whole, or Whore, Foods.

For my inaugural posting, I'll be sharing a scallop recipe that I adapted to be vegan. So, without further ado, where goes nothing...

Seitan Provencal
I was watching Barefoot Contessa recently with my sister-in-law and young nephew (don’t ask) when I came across a recipe that seemed perfectly suited to veganification. Ina Garten, host of the show and former White House nuclear energy budget and policy analyst, designed the recipe for use with scallops. For vegan purposes, we will be substituting seitan.

The recipe is easy, quick and delicious. In fact, it’s so easy and quick that Ina and her darling husband, former Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade for President Clinton, Jeffery Garten, had the opportunity to make love on the veranda between eating the meal and turning in for the night.

First, seitan. This is a wheat gluten product that vegans will be familiar with. If you’re not a vegan or vegetarian, seitan is a meat substitute that tastes nothing like tofu and looks a good deal like little chunks of meat.

Seitan availability is very much contingent upon location. When I lived in Western Massachusetts, I could get seitan at Whole Foods, Stop N Shop and the little natural foods market in town. In Omaha, where I now live, it’s Whole Foods or bust. The seitan in the blue box at Whole Foods is best for this recipe. I have no idea what it’s called, only that it’s blue.

So, the recipe itself (this will easily feed two people):

1 pound of seitan
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
All-purpose flour, for dredging
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) earth balance
1/2 cup chopped shallots (2 large) [I’ve found that scallions will also do if you can’t find shallots]
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
1/3 cup dry white wine
1 lemon, cut in ½ [I’ve made this recipe without lemon and with lime substituted, was great both ways]

Directions
All you have to do with seitan is take it out of the package and let it drain a little. Always make sure you open seitan over the sink—it will leak. Any single piece of seitan that is bigger than a large scallop should be broken in half. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, toss with flour, and shake off the excess.

In a very large saute pan, heat 2 tablespoons of the earth balance over high heat until sizzling and add the seitan in 1 layer. Lower the heat to medium and allow the seitan to brown lightly on one side without moving them, then turn and brown lightly on the other side. This should take 3 to 4 minutes, total. Melt the rest of the earth balance in the pan with the seitan, then add the shallots, garlic, and parsley and saute for 2 more minutes, tossing the seasonings with the seitan. Add the wine, cook for 1 minute, and taste for seasoning. Serve hot with a squeeze of lemon juice.

Though seitan is brown, it will turn a darker shade of brown in more or less the same time frame as the scallops. I’ve found that it takes maybe a minute or two longer for the seitan to cook that is indicated in the recipe.

Now, Ina recommends serving this dish with a side of herb basmati rice. I’ve also served it with herb sushi or jasmine rice, which are both fine substitutes, though the basmati really is the best.

To make the herb rice, add 1¾ cups of water for each cup of rice. I know that most packages recommend a 2-1 ration, but I find this works much better, and I lived in Japan and Mexico, so I have made rice a shit load of times.

Once the rice has finished cooking (you’ll know it’s done when it’s no longer soggy at the bottom of the pot), add about 1/8 a cup of fresh, minced parsley and 1/8 a cup of fresh, minced cilantro. Just toss it up a bit and you’re good to go. You can use less or more as per your preference. You can also trying adding basically any other herb that you desire, including marijuana.

Here’s the thing about the rice. If you’re going to Whole Foods for seitan, it’s easy to grab a bag of it there. However, as a rice nazi, I have to warn against this. Whole Foods rice is overpriced and of so-so quality. Trader Joe’s frankly has much better basmati bang for the buck, though you’d be best served by going to an Asian foods market, which will have the real shit.

And that, my friends, is that. All told, from getting everything out to eating the dish, it takes maybe 20 minutes (this includes cooking the rice—basmati is a fast cooker). It’s delicious, vegan and fun.

Below you’ll find a video of Emmy The Great. She’s a young London-based singer songwriter. I’ve been listening to her debut album, First Love, at least twice a day for the last week. It’s great cooking music.

Enjoy.

Battlelore: The Third Immortal

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 21:47:00 +0000

The third immortal is obviously way more bad ass than the first or second if this video is any indication...

Nas Talking Cassettes

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Great video of Nas talking cassettes. Brings back a lot of memories of trying to record my favorite songs from the radio.

Activity

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 19:18:00 +0000

Hello and thank you for reading. I realize I haven't updated this space since the end of last year, but I have a pretty large caché of articles I plan on uploading over the next few months, most of them on Mexico.

In the meantime, I've been regularly updating my Suite 101 and Bleacher Report sites with articles on English Premier League soccer, if anyone is interested in checking that out. It's a revenue share site, so the more people that read it and click on the ads, the more I get paid. The more I get paid by them, the less I work for the less interesting sites I write for, the more time I can spend with this blog.

Anyway, thank you for reading, hope everyone had a nice New Year and that good things are lurking in 2011.

If anyone's looking for music recommendations, I've been listening to a lot of early Floridian and Swedish Death Metal, and would say Death's Human, Entombed's Clandestine and Grave's Into the Grave are phenomenal and skull crushing records.

More soon...

Bernie's Filabuster

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 18:54:00 +0000

For those of you who don't know, a quick summary: President Obama, presumably because he is afraid of not winning re-election, has partnered with Republican leaders on a new tax bill. This tax bill continues the Bush era tax cuts and would take a major dent out of estate taxes for the super wealthy, effectively increasing American debt by trillions of dollars.

Yesterday, Bernie Sanders, an independent Senator from Vermont, spoke for over nine hours about this bill, enumerating all of the reasons it is morally reprehensible and pragmatically infeasible. I went to high school in Vermont, and was a constituent of Mr. Sanders' for a handful of years, including the first election in which I was able to vote. For this, I am one of Bernie's people. Because I support what he is saying, and believe that giving tax breaks to middle class and rich people is a complete folly, I am one of Bernie's people. Because I believe that the working people (and I mean lower and working class, not the comfortable middle and upper middle class) of this country are what make America America, are the truly vital members of our society, the immigrants and children of immigrants who believe that America is what it purports itself to be, I am one of Bernie's people.

So, here's the first 12 minutes of Mr. Sanders' speech, for interested parties.

Thoughts on Things - Art

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 00:24:00 +0000

Alfonso Reyes at the Museo Nacional de Arte
Mexican intellectual Alfonso Reyes Ochoa tremendously impacted Latin American culture of the 20th century. His short story “La Cena” is credited as forefather of the surrealism and magical realism that, through Borges, García Marquez, Cortázar, and points beyond, came to dominate 20th C. Latin American literature.

Philosopher, diplomat, and intellectual, Reyes believed strongly that the new Latin American culture ought be centered in the arts. As a member of the group Ateneo de la Juventud (Anthem of Youth), he sought to forge a coherent Mexican identity by reconciling the colonial mezcla of divergent cultural traditions, from the European philosophers of the Enlightenment to indigenous religious and historical heritages.

Currently showing at the Museo Nacional de Arte, Alfonso Reyes y Los Territorios del Arte (Alfonso Reyes and the Territories of Art), takes an interesting approach to visual art. The show combines Reyes’ writings on art with the works he spoke of.

Both older, European paintings Reyes discoursed on (Rembrandt, El Greco, Goya, Picasso, etc), and younger, Mexican-revolutionary artists who were influenced by the conceptual tenets of Reyes’ thinking (Diego Rivera, Daniel Vázquez Díaz, Antonio Rodríguez Luna etc.) are on display. By drawing direct connections between the written word and visual arts, the show emphasizes the importance of cultural dialogue between artists and thinkers of all stripes.

Conceptual curator Arturo Lopez has implemented a philosophy of his own: bring the connection between writer & artist, audience & art full circle. Through interactive displays, visitors are invited to offer input and ideas. Thus the art that influenced the writer who influenced the artists influences new writers still, emphasizing the continuity and interconnectedness of ideas, influence, and creation.

Alfonso Reyes y Los Territorios del Arte shows at the Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexico City through 14th February, 2010.

Editorial Note: This piece was written to be published while the show was still going, though never appeared online on account the publication going out of business.

Thoughts on Things - Art

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 19:32:00 +0000

Gerardo Cantú and The Last Supper
There’s some sort of intro waiting to be written here about how we define great art. What it means to be great v. what it means to good, and how we separate the two. This intro would contain very certain, borderline rhetorical statements about things that come down to chance, circumstance, dedication, popular taste, opportunity, and vision. Define it how you may; by our vague intuition, Gerardo Cantú’s interpretation of the The Last Supper, currently (editor’s note: as of February 2010) on display in the Biblioteca de Mexico: Jose Vasconcelos, in Baladeras, is great art.

A good deal of the piece’s brilliance lies in its ability to confound. Anyone who’s seen their fare share of Last Supper renderings is pretty much set on what to expect: Jesus, Judas, Mary, a smattering of apostles, some sort of divine sunlight spilling luxuriously through a window. Maybe a dove, maybe some Latin script at the top, maybe a coin purse on Judas’ person somewhere.

Cantú’s Last Supper is a beast of a very different nature. Garish and flat, the piece is stylistically evocative of both El Greco and Julian Schnabel in its emotive contortions and heightened Expressionist colors. There are also shades of Edward Gorey’s macabre creations.

The table at which the collected biblical figures sit looks more like a folding screen or piece of drywall, situated top-to-bottom, rather than the traditional side-to-side set up. Jesus, generally the welcoming, serene center of attention, is an outcast. He hangs from the top of the table, dejected, head in his hands, a picture of absolute isolation. Around him, the apostles guzzle wine and shove food in their mouths, oblivious of their lord’s psychic pain.

That Christ is doubtful and surrounded by his closest allies, all of whom are ignoring him, is a genius reimagining. While there are those who would call the work something akin to heresy (and there are always those crawling out of the woodwork to do just that. I imagine the primary occupation of these people being sitting around scouring the earth for things they might deem heretical), it is a sublime twist that greatly humanizes Christ.

Much like Caravaggio’s earthly renderings of the biblical, Cantú has stripped Jesus of his superhuman serenity and shown him much as he probably was: a man who, in a world of the self-serving, gave himself over to belief in the innate goodness of his fellow men and women.

Knowing that he was doomed to crucifixion, Christ took a long hard look in the metaphorical mirror, in this case other people, and wondered whether or not it was all worth it. Thus the apostles in Cantú’s work represent the vices and apathy of mankind.

Cantú’s painting can be read in another, similarly intriguing light. Let’s look at it this way: Christ is Mexico. We know that Mexico is a predominantly Catholic country. We know that the arrival of Christendom on the shores of Mexico irrevocably altered the course of the nation’s history, is responsible for the mestizo peoples and cultures of the country. We know that Christian imagery figures greatly into the Mexican artist’s search for cultural identity and reconciliation.

If Christ is Mexico, he is lost. He is a man of a violent fate, surrounded by his disciples, but they pay him no mind, consumed instead by their own lusts. It’s no great stretch to assume his apostles are the Spanish, Díaz, the failed aspirations of the revolutionaries, and all of the self-serving, matricidal bureaucrats and politicos who have haunted the histories of Mexico since the Spanish invasion.

Alone and destitute, Mexico walks to its certain death, and though it will rise again (this taking not only Christ’s resurrection as the future fate of Jesus-as-Mexico, but also the basic spiritual belief that death is not an end, but a transformation), though as what and in which conditions, no one knows.

Regardless of the artist’s intended reading or the preferred interpretation of any given viewer, Cantú’s vision of the Last Supper is an evocative, intelligent, probing painting, one which poses more questions than it presumes to answer; as such, it is great art.

Check out Cantu’s Last Supper in the foyer of the Biblioteca Mexico: Jose Vasconcelos.

Images of Cantú's Last Supper have yet to appear online, though a good deal of the artist's work can be found in this booklet. The booklet includes a very good overview of the artist's work a career, though be forewarned that it's in Spanish.

Image Credit: Cantú with one of his paintings, Araceli García

A Quick Note

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 19:12:00 +0000

I've decided for no particular reason that this weekend will be Mexican art weekend on this blog. I will be posting three or four articles over the next two days about seminal or underground figures in 20the Century Mexican art, including Diego and Frida.

All of the articles I will be publishing are ones that I wrote while I was living in Mexico. A couple are based on paintings or exhibits I saw while I saw there, another on observations and/or conclusions I came to after visiting a handful of museums, reading Diego River's autobiography, and having a hard think out Mexican art, history, culture, and the points at which all three converge.

So watch this space if this appeals to you, and enjoy.

In the meantime, check out the new J. Cole mixtape. I've been listening to it nonstop the past few days. Shit is dope.

Download Mixtape | Free Mixtapes Provided by DatPiff.com

Senses Fail Interview Outtakes

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 17:37:00 +0000

Hello and long time no post. Many apologies for anyone out there who stops by regularly.

I recently interview Senses Fail for College Gentleman magazine. For those unfamiliar with the group, they're a punk/emo/hardcore hybrid from northern New Jersey who are, in my not particularly humble opinion, the most consistent, earnest, passionate, and legit band to come out of the early 2000's emo explosion. They came up with groups like Thursday, Finch, My Chemical Romance, and Poison the Well, and have put out four records, each of which is better than the last. So, check 'em out if you're unfamiliar.

Below, I've posted the outtakes from the interview, for fun and for fans of the band who might get a kick out of reading the moments during which our conversation derailed. Many thanks to the band, who were incredibly accommodating and forthcoming. It was their second interview of the day, it was very cold and windy, they had just come off along drive, and were in a pretty desolate section of a city (Omaha) they aren't really familiar with. They could've been curt, they could've been stand offish, but they were friendly, relaxed, and excited to talk about their new (and best) record, The Fire. You can see the entire interview here, check out The Fire here, and see my review of the album here.

Sense Fail Interview Outtakes

Dramatis Personae

Buddy: Lead Singer

Jason: Bassist extrordinaire

Dude with Mustache: Guitarist Zack Roach.

Zablocki: Lead guitar.

(from left: Drummer Dan Trapp, Buddy, Zablocki, Jason)

Conversating about hardcore and Jersey.

Buddy: …I listen to a lot of H20.

CG: Is their new record good? I loved them in high school.

Buddy: It’s great.

Jason: The new record is fuckin’ awesome. Nothing to Prove…it’s real good.

CG: So now I have a couple of New Jersey questions. On your blog you wrote: “See, in New Jersey, we're very limited and short with our communication amongst each other. We basically speak in a sophisticated form of clicks and whistles, but instead we use insults and original explicative phrases to show love and disapproval.” I find that that gets me in trouble, living in Omaha. I went for coffee this morning, and the woman told me it sounded like I was grunting, and not speaking…

Buddy: [laughs] I get it, I get it. “Stop asking me about all this goddamn shit, just get me the coffee.”

CG: When you’re on tour, do you have problems with that?

Buddy: Yes, absolutely. I have problems in general just answering questions. Like in an interview, I’m in the mentality that I’m going from point A to point B, and if you’re in my fucking way…get out of my way. I’m gonna use my horn.

CG: People don’t beep here when they drive.

Buddy: Nope.

CG: I’m like, he-llo!

Buddy: Right? It’s there, and that’s my car voice.

Jason: That’s all I’ve got right now.

Buddy: So…I don’t know. I find that people think if you’re very straight forward…they don’t necessarily understand it. Like, if people just you if you’re havin’ a bad day, and you’re like, yeah, I’m havin’ a fuckin’ bad day, people around here would like, whoa…

Discussing South Jersey and Philadelphia…

Buddy: But if you’ve ever been to Pennsylvania, it’s got nothing to do with the rest of Pennsylvania…

CG: It’s all Amish people.

Jason: And Pittsburgh, which is just a bunch of Steeler’s fans.

Buddy: Yep, Steeler’s fans and Penguins fans, and that’s it. They don’t…

Jason: They eat rocks.

On the state of the music industry/extended finale…

Buddy: We gotta, fuckin’, just…find a new way to do things that’s efficient for us. And every band, too. It’s not getting any better, the music industry…

Jason: Like, one day people will get up and decide ‘Yeah, I’ll buy a record.’

Buddy: It’s only gonna get worse. You gotta find the best way to operate.

CG: I actually went to Best Buy yesterday to get the record and it was sold out.

Jason: We’ve actually been hearing that a lot. But it’s because…

CG: Because they had like three copies to begin with.

Jason: [laughs] Yep.

Buddy: I think it’s that nobody would buy enough copies for them to distribute…that’s the problem.

Jason: Yeah, the problem is starting at the stores. They don’t order records anymore, so it just stays that way.

Buddy: But Best Buy got a little too fuckin’ “buy shit” happy…

Jason: And Hot Topic.

Buddy: …and their DVD and CD sections were like massive, and it’s like…

Jason: You can’t maintain that.

Guy with Mustache: DVDs still do well.

Jason: Do they?

CG: Netflix buys a shitload of DVDs. Somebody’s making money off of that.

Jason: Oh yeah. Uh huh.

Dude with Mustache: They’ve got Blu-ray burners now that are super fast and real cheap, no shit.

Buddy: Dude, I’ve been downloading movies on torrent sites. Fuck it. I’m not paying anyone for any artistic shit cause no one’s paying me. I’m stealing records. But I’ll go to the show. For free.

Jason: [laughs]

Buddy: But I’ll buy a shirt. That’s my contribution. Buying merch.

CG: That goes right to the band, yeah?

Jason: Sometimes. Unless they sign a 360 deal. Ha ha ha! Wahn-wahn. And then they have to steal money from themselves.

Buddy: Then you gotta hide your money.

Jason: Hide your wife, hide your kids.

CG: I guess this doesn’t really apply to the guy in the Atlanta hat, but was it a bummer to be on tour and have the Yankees go out of the play offs?

Buddy: It’s kinda really hard to follow the play offs when you’re on tour. I knew they weren’t gonna win it. I said that six months ago. They didn’t have it, so. I mean, it’s a bummer, but they’ve won so many times, but I can handle them not winning with grace.

Zablocki: Did you see Girardi signed a three year extension today?

Buddy: Yeah.

The Thing About Voting

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:48:00 +0000

Is that it's a good thing, so go out there and vote, Americans!

Thoughts on Things - Music

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 22:11:00 +0000

A Guide to Some Upcoming Records That May Suck
With the summer pop blockbusters out of the way, record companies are beginning to churn out the albums they hope America will buy in enormous quantities to stuff stockings, exchange during Hanukkah ceremonies, and grace with the tag “Thnx 4 the Dinosaur Dick, XO Ms. Clause”. October offers music fans a number of classic reissues, some very promising hip hop releases, cult favorites, and metal madness. Get down with it.

October 5th
Despite one of them being deceased, both members of Houston hip hop crew UGK drop solo records in 2010. Bun B, the superior of the two, put out Trill OG, and Pimp C releases his first posthumous record The Naked Soul of Sweet Jones, October 5th. Two cult favorites, multifaceted composer Tricky, and college rock mainstays Guster, both release new efforts on October 5th. Finally, in honor of John Lennon’s would-be 70th birthday, six of his remastered records will be released, alongside the Gimme Some Truth box set.

October 12th
Nutso tongue-in-cheek South African hip hop crew Die Antwoord--it means The Answer in Afrikaans--will release a re-recorded, stripped down version of their self-released debut album, $0$, via CherryTree/Interscope Records. Japanese post-hardcore titans Envy, who combine the expansive soundscapes of Mogwai with the epic hardcore of Converge, will release their fifth full-length record, Recitation. Lil Wayne releases the physical version of I Am Not a Human Being, which was released digitally last week. Intronaut, a band of jazz musicians who traffic in a very technical and riff heavy brand of metal, release In the Valley of Smoke, which features a guest spot from Tool’s bassist.

October 19th
October 19th is a big day for fans of one of the 20th century’s best songwriters. Bob Dylan is set to release The Whitmark Demos, a series of more than 50 recordings put to tape between 1962 and 1964, and mono remasters of his first eight records; everything from Bob Dylan to Jon Wesley Harding. This is the first time any of these records will have been available in mono since the original vinyl pressings.

Any fan of contemporary blues-rock groups like The White Stripes needs to get down with Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. JSBX’s indie-rock-meets-Led-Zeppelin madness comes back to glorious life with remastered rereleases of Orange and Acme. Lastly, one of the very few genuine big rock bands alive and kicking, Kings of Leon, will release Come Around Sundown, follow up to their breakthrough record Only By the Night.

October 26th
Consistently bright, catchy, and quality emo quartet Senses Fail unleashes its latest effort, The Fire, on the world this October 26th. In the world of epic riffs and bong hits, both Monster Magnet and Kylesea are due to drop records the last Tuesday in October. Down, more epic, riffy, and bong-oriented than those two bands together, and comprised of members of southern metal greats Pantera, Crowbar, and Corrosion of Conformity, release a live CD and DVD packaged, entitled Diary of a Mad Band. Bluesman Buddy Guy will release Living Proof, and Georgia’s favorite sons who aren’t named 3K and Big Boi, R.E.M., will release the Live From Austin DVD.

Thoughts on Things - Music

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 16:00:00 +0000

The Thing About Flats

Flats are a young English hardcore punk band with a logo that looks a good deal like Crass’ crossed-out cross and a sound somewhere between Black Flag and The Exploited. The band’s songs are rarely more than two minutes long and stick to one or two basic chord progressions for their short, furious stays on Earth. The band has recently been profiled on the NME website, has garnered itself opening slots for UK indie heavyweights The Klaxons, and was added to the fall NME Radar Tour. Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis, Spritualized’s J Spaceman, and Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine were all spotted at Flats show. Ok, fair enough.

But listening to Flats, you can’t help but think, what’s the big deal? So: Are they good at what they do? Yes. Are they exemplary? No, not really. Flats’ music is appropriately chaotic and furious, but it’s not any different than what hundreds of hardcore bands across the United States do on a daily basis. A shortlist of bands doing what this group does, and doing it much better, would include Outbreak, Ceremony, Blacklisted, and even Agnostic Front, who were doing what Flats does in the early 80’s, long before the members of flats were born. And let’s not forget to mention Gallows, Flats’ London peers, and one of the most exciting and original hardcore bands to appear in a long while.

And yet maybe that’s the point. Maybe the reason people are flocking to Flats, why a luminary like J Mascis would take it upon himself to fly to England to see this band is nostalgia. It’s all well and good for Flats frontman Dan Devine to say “Bloc Party and Franz was five years ago and people still think it’s acceptable to trot out an angular guitar riff and a disco beat. It makes me fucking sick,” but, well, apparently English teenagers still think it’s ok to trot out three-chord riffs and strangled shouts, and that’s been going on for near 30 years at this point. Maybe the reason Mascis and Spaceman and Shields got together to see flats is that a trio of middle aged guys thought it would be a gas to relive teenage years spent in sweaty basements rocking out to the first wave of hardcore.

Flats: Doing what they do live.

So that’s one reason people might be going gaga for this band. Another reason might be that the UK has no healthy hardcore or punk scene to speak of. This may be why Gallows were touted as being the next big thing a few years ago. Yet unlike Flats, Gallows actually are the real thing. Full of real rage, with a progressive sound that marries tradition punk with more contemporary influences will maintaining the DIY attitude and rage evident in first-wave hardcore. Gallows have a live energy and intensity few bands can match. Flats, meanwhile, sound like they should be playing town halls to twenty angry kids. But if don’t have a hardcore scene, any band that pops up will draw the attention of the national media.

Let’s look at it like this: Flats played their first show in March of 2010. As of August 2010, the band has released one 7” and has plans to put out an EP, though according the Flats’ Myspace, the band is currently unsigned. Now this could mean that the band is going to self-release it’s EP, but you don’t get an opening slot for The Klaxons without some kind of managerial staff working mighty transactions behind closed doors. But in a scene bereft of proliferation, it only takes one band to make a splash.

Whatever is really going on here—nostalgia, lack of competition, or even the time honored hype machine of the British music press—a band that is very much less interesting than its many contemporaries on this side of the pond has somehow managed to drum up a furor in the UK. Meanwhile, workhorses like the American hardcore bands mentioned above tour incessantly while working menial jobs to pay the rent. Well, life’s not fair. But it’s certainly interesting watching things like this pan out.

Check out the video of Gallows live below for a comparison point:

The Thing About Real Estate in Bangladesh

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 16:41:00 +0000

If You Build It, They Will Come: The Bangladeshi Real Estate Explosion

My discovery of the surreal world of Bangladeshi real estate was accidental. Fall of 2008 I was working a temp job at the Hilton on the corner of 53rd and Avenue of the Americas, New York City. It was some sort of IT conference, a horseshoe bank of conference rooms full of people talking data optimization.

Parallel the bottom of the IT “U” ran a string of rooms separated by accordion-walls, all of which had been slid apart to create one long, massive corridor. The perfect antidote to the stodgy white shirts and black ties, the hushed tones and sharply divided think tank sessions of the information mongers, this corridor was a whirl of activity. Women in explosively colorful saris and men with mustaches that could only be described as walrusian were coming and going in a flurry of flying pamphlets, excited shrieks, handshakes, and hugs.

This was the 2008 stateside fair/expo for the Real Estate and Housing Authority of Bangladesh, for which the somewhat dubious and commonly applied acronym is – you guessed it – REHAB. REHAB is the only trade organization for real estate developers in Bangladesh; current organizational membership stands at 260 firms. What this means, among many other things that we’ll come to in a bit here, is that at least 260 companies are developing multi-million, and even billion, dollar real estate projects in a country that is more or less the size of Iowa.

What do we know about Bangladesh? Officially known as the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, it was at one point East Pakistan, though the thousand miles separating the country from Pakistan proper facilitated a rift between the partners that ended in the establishment of the independent country of Bangladeshi n 1971.

The creation of the independent state of Bangladesh coincided, in the mid-to-late 1970’s, with a tremendous population boom in the capital city of Dhaka that has continued into the 2000s. If history teaches us anything, it’s that where there are people there are profiteers. In an effort to keep up with the population eruption, developers emerged from the proverbial woodwork in droves.

Like water leaking from a cracked vase, slow but inevitable, the urban sprawl of the city spread through the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s, drowning formerly leafy suburbs like Uttara, which until the late 1990’s was a quiet suburban enclave for the upper middle class. Lalbagh, another of Dhaka’s many sub districts, or thanas, reportedly has a municipal area of 9.14 km² and a total of 71,475 housing units, meaning that there are 7820 housing units per square kilometer, or more than 20,000 per square mile. The population of metro Dhaka is thirteen million people. At current growth rates, this number will be 40 million in 2050.

As it stands as of the 2009 census, the population of the People’s Republic of Bangladeshi is 162,221,000. That means that there are more than 150 million people in a country that is, to reiterate, slightly smaller than Iowa (we might as well tell you at this point that the population of Iowa is around three million). Bangladesh’s official landmass is listed at 55,598 square miles, though about 10 percent of this area is water, which means that the livable space within the country is closer to 50,000 square miles. For comparison’s sake, the population of Russia, a country that is more than 100 times larger the Bangladesh in terms of landmass, is 141,927,297.

A panoramic view of downtown Dhaka, Bangladesh

All of this said and done, it makes a good deal of sense, given all of these people and spatial constrictions, that a real estate explosion would be a necessity. More than 150 million Bangladeshi’s have to live somewhere. Enter REHAB, which formed amidst the population boom in an effort to agglomerate responsible building firms and garner the favor of what has been, on and off for the past forty years, a corrupt government bureaucracy.

Now, of course, this is all history according to REHAB, and if we’ve learned anything about history according to big money professional associations in league with the government, it’s that what you really have in REHAB is something of a monopoly designed to elbow out the competition while lining the coffers of government officials who deem it prudent to look the other way. While REHAB claims to exist in order to prohibit fly-by-night developers from throwing up slap-dash housing projects that won’t meet code, if REHAB’s building are being inspected by the government, with whom REHAB is in league, then we’ll never really know if these buildings actually meet code. There are no checks, there are no balances.

And then there’s the fact that REHAB is hemorrhaging money. The association recently petitioned the Bangladeshi government for a 1,000 crore Taka (roughly $150 million) loan, to help stabilize and encourage development. But why, really, do they need that much money? Yes, the population of Dhaka is 13 million, and yes all of these people need somewhere to live, but the average Bangladeshi lives on roughly $4 per day; not nearly enough for a luxury flat in the city.

Let’s break this down a little bit and look at some socio-economic data for the country, and in particular for Dhaka. First, population: Dhaka is an enormous city. But the population of the country as a whole is 162,221,000. As of 2008, 66 percent of Bangladeshi’s are agrarian, living and working from the land. Yet REHAB’s activity is focused exclusively in urban centers and metro areas, providing luxury apartments within commuting distance of cultural centers. Because of this disparity in population demographics, a good number of buildings in Dhaka are barely half inhabited; some of them are completely empty. But the building continues.

Trying to pin down how much a REHAB-associated apartment actually costs is difficult, thanks in large part to the plethora of websites claiming to be the official REHAB site. Dubiously, the most genuine contender for the actual REHAB site came offline during the course of this article’s writing.

And yet really we don’t need to know how much apartments in Dhaka run to know that the average Bangladeshi living on the country’s $1500 per capital income annually can’t afford them. To take it further than that, an estimated 36 percent of the country lives below the poverty line, as opposed to 25 percent in India, a country renown for its squalor (and no offense, India. We still love you). The gall of REHAB, trying to wrangle $150 million from the government amongst this level of poverty, is frankly astounding.

Indeed, Dhaka is known as the Rickshaw Capital of the World, and for good reason: the city is home to 400,000 rickshaw drivers. Dhaka’s lowest class, the bootleg hawkers, shoe shiners, rickshaw drivers, prostitutes, petty criminals, and homeless, is by far its largest. In a city with no affordable housing—in a city filled with empty luxury condos, that is—this economic disparity gives rise to, you guessed it, slums.

Tanwir Nawaz of The New Nation, an independent news source serving Bangladesh, calls the growth of Dhaka’s slums between 1996 and 2006 “nothing less than immense and spectacular.” The slum population went grew from 1.5 to 3.4 million people in that ten year period, or from 25 to 37 percent of the city’s population. The 37 percent of the city living in the slums is almost exactly equivalent to the 36 percent of Bangladeshi’s living in poverty. At these growth rates, the slum population is expected to exceed 8 million by 2020, meaning that Dhaka’s slum population will equal that of New York City as of the 2008 census.

We’re all intimately familiar with the slums of the subcontinent now thanks to Oscar-winner Slumdog Millionaire, but the psychology of the slum dweller is something we seem to get very, very wrong. While most bleeding heart Americans go on (and on. and on. and on.) about how awful it is that all those poor Indians live in those awful slums, author Suketu Mehta tells a very different story.

Mehta’s phenomenal Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist, attempts to put a face on the sprawling majesty and depravity of Bombay (or, Mumbai). The author was born in India, grew up mostly in Queens, and returned to Mumbai with the purpose of writing a book about what the city meant to him and to India, and, ultimately, what Mumbai and India mean to the world.

In writing the book, Mehta spent a good deal of time in Mumbai’s slums. We will admit here and now that we do in fact know that India is not Bangladesh. However, the country of Bangladesh is actually within India, and as such, as a subcontitental peoples with similar ethnic and cultural heritages, we will be talking a little bit here about India and then we’ll bring it back around to Bangladesh. So please, for the love of god, roll with it.

What did Mehta find in the slums? He found that people actually wanted to be there. He found that families enjoyed living together. He found that the life in the slums, the tightly knit communities and groups of children and close proximity to the outdoors and to the other families in the area, was actually very similar to life in traditional Indian villages, that those who came to the city to seek work were able to recreate agrarian communities in the slums of the city. He even found that a good deal of people living in the slums, such as one gregarious computer programmer, had plenty of money to get out, but the poorly constructed buildings and isolation inherent in “luxury” flat living in the subcontinent were completely unappealing to these people.

Of course there is poverty, and of course it is unhygienic to use the very same waters the gleaming and golden feces of rich is deposited in on a daily basis to wash clothes, take bathes, and cook with. There is disease, starvation, and crime. But the simple fact of it all is that life goes on, and many of Mumbai’s slum dwellers are simply content with that.

So now let’s bring this back around to Bangladesh: Unaffordable luxury flats, and a city filled with people making, to reiterate, $4 a day. All sources say that Dhaka has a slowly growing, very stable middle class. It’s quite possible that some of these middle class citizens live in the slums of the city.

If nothing else, slums offer a measure of security, because everyone knows everyone’s business and looks out for one another. Protection in numbers. And protection from crime seems to be important in Dhaka: A headline on a prominent Bangladeshi Real Estate Boom website reads “If we fall asleep, the gangs steal our children”. What you really have in Dhaka then is a city exploding with the poor, filled with thousands of near-empty housing developments that most people in the city don’t even want to live in. Indeed, the majority of REHAB’s customers seem to be wealthy Bangladeshi’s living overseas on the market for a place to stay when visiting home. But isn’t that what hotels are for?

Top from left (A) Bagladesh, inside of India (B) Slums of Dhaka (C) A typical residential real estate projection (D) Floods in downtown Dhaka

Then there are the natural disasters. Pretty much the entire country is a floodplain. Every year, Bangladesh is battered by cyclones, monsoons, and flash floods. The 1970 Bhola cyclone destroyed large chunks of Dhaka. The cyclone was one of the worst natural disasters of modern times, killing over 500,000 people. Bhola left half of Dhaka underwater, and displaced more than a million residents.

While Bhola is an extreme example, the country floods on an annual basis. Bangladesh is hammered repeatedly by natural disasters, while REHAB goes about building billions of dollars of structurally suspect residential estates that tower dozens of floors above the city floor. Rather than focusing on building affordable housing that will be quickly filled by Dhaka’s many lower class residents, housing that will protect these people from the elements, REHAB is busy building thousands of tower blocks that will like crumble to dust if another Bhola-like disaster. According to REHAB’s own statistics, 500,000 buildings need be demolished in the near future, as construction standards are neither being overseen by governmental agencies nor adhered to by builders.

So but really what does all of this have to do with you? Even in a straight shot from Miami—the two cities are only two latitudinal degrees apart—Bangladesh is almost 9000 miles from the United States. 160 some odd million people is a lot, but Bangladesh is literally engulfed by India, a country with more than a billion people, millions of whose descendents and relatives live in the United States. So what’s the big deal with an ill-planned real estate boom in Bangladesh?

The Bangladeshi Real Estate boom is important to Americans, and especially young, college-aged Americans, not because of what it is, but because of what it represents. Bangladesh has, like a number of developing nations, taken to Western capitalism like a piglet to a teat. The grand monuments and explosive proliferation of infrastructure mimics the luster of cities like New York, London, and Berlin. Yet unlike those cities, Dhaka’s enormous physical presence has neither a sound social nor economic foundation. Bangladesh has adhered to the very dangerous Field of Dreams school of capitalism: If you build it, they will come.

What exactly is this idea? It’s the notion that by creating the proper visible component to capitalism—i.e. the correct image—a sound capitalist economy will suddenly appear, a middle class will emerge, social mobility will become the norm, and the country will move forward. And where did this idea come from? From the west, and in particular America and its fight against the Evil Empire of Communism.

With the advent of television in the 1950’s, the United States began propagating an image of democracy and capitalism that was solely based on the cosmetic tendencies of American society. The image was, and still is, inherently false, not only because it shows a nation of smiling happy white people who all have TVs, homes, cars, and happy children who plays baseball, but also because it ignores the 175 years America needed to get to that point. It ignores the two World Wars, the one civil war, the revolutionary war, and all of our societal woes. It ignores slavery, racism, inequity, and the fact that skyscrapers didn’t appear overnight, only actually appeared after a certain measure of economic success and stability had been achieved, were in fact directly resultant of that financial success and stability.

Most of all, this image of capitalism, which has been taken to so lovingly by nations like Bangladesh, ignores the most cardinal rule of any socialized capitalist nation that we have come to learn over the course of more than 200 hard years: society must be built from the ground up. Capitalism is a pyramid, and the top of that pyramid will not stand unless its foundation is strongest, widest part of the structure. What creates a strong, robust, healthy foundation for society? A well employed, well fed, well paid, and healthy working class. A city with 400,000 rickshaw drivers living on $4 a day or less is no such place.

Now of course it’s possible that even this analysis of an image and its repercussions is cosmetic in-and-of itself. The Mughal Empire ruled in a wide swath from Afghanistan to Burma, engulfing what is now Bangladesh, from 1526–1858. Among its countless monuments to power are the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort of Delhi. Other regional empires, like the Maurya, left monuments that still stand on the subcontinent.

Elsewhere in the world, the Egyptians, Mayans, and Greeks all erected enormous monuments to their power. Ditto for the Romans, Aztecs, Babylonians, and Javanese. These structures, just like modern skyscrapers and urban infrastructure, created a bold and intimidating image of power that left their beholders stricken with awe. Perhaps then it is human nature to create an image of power, either in an effort to reiterate that power or through sheer will bring it to fruition.

Thousands of years of human misery have taught us that a new image is required if the world is to have a bright future. The exposed underbelly of New Orleans in a post-Katrina world attests to this. The global financial crisis attests to this. The BP disaster attests to this. If there is to be a future for mankind that we will actually want to populate with our progeny, it is up to the young people of the world to create a new vision of life, a new vision of socialized democracy that is realistic, workable, and user-friendly. An image based on attending to the needs of a society, not simply an elite class.

Dhaka is a city divided. A city of near-empty testaments to a non-existent socioeconomic stability, a city of rickshaw drivers and DVD bootleggers living in slums and shacks. The Bangladeshi Real Estate Explosion stands more than anything as a challenge to college students the world over, and especially in developed nations like the United States: the future is yours. Reconcile this divide. Do us proud.

Authors Note: This article was originally intended for publication in College Gentleman Magazine, hence the paragraphs at the end about what this has to do with "you." The magazine opted to go with another piece I wrote about the choices implicit in doing drugs, and that will be on newsstands at Barnes & Noble and Borders next month, if you're interested in reading it.

Don't Sleep on Bad Newsz Greatest

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 21:40:00 +0000

Long time no update. My bad. I have a pretty lenght piece I'll be throwing up this weekend, about the real estate boom in Bangladesh, and what that says about false images of capitalism and demcracy as propogated by western nations. It's about 3000 words, and should keep you busy for a bit.

But before that comes, I had to spread the word on this. My man Bad Newsz Greatest released the DRUGS mixtape earlier this year, and I'll say with no reservation that its far and away better than any commercially released record to hit in 2010, hip hop or no. Bad is part of the new hip hop vanguard, and represents the next step in the evolution of hip hop that began with Kanye's first three records.

I did a pretty extensive interview with Bad Newsz that will be appearing in print or online pretty soon, though where it's gonna go up I'm not 100% sure yet. I'm shopping it around right now to publications that are taking their sweet time getting back to me.

In the meantime, ya'll can download DRUGS for free over on Dat Piff. I'm attempting to embed the download, but I'm not a technical expert, so it may well become a debacle. In the even that I fail miserably at this task, you can head over to Dat Piff and grab the mixtape.

Download Mixtape | Free Mixtapes Provided by DatPiff.com

Thoughts on Things: Music

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 16:09:00 +0000

This is a short piece I wrote for a magazine that was deemed a little too obscure to grace the publication's website. If the references in the intro paragraph to other articles intrigue you, head over to College Gentleman's website to sate your curiosity. Otherwise, enjoy. It's sort of a "who's who of underground metal" for college students just discovering the genre.

Metal Bands You Need to Know
In tandem with our review of Howl and Coliseum in this week’s Listen Up, and Kenneth Lee’s riff-heavy Best Albums of 2010 So Far, we at College Gentleman give you spring chickens a list of some of history’s best, most important, and somewhat overlooked metal bands. Below find groups who revolutionized heavy music, influenced all of the bands you listen to, and made great records who are, well into their 30’s and 40’s, still kicking ass and taking names.

Melvins. After Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Metallica, Melvins are the most influential metal band of all time. Throughout their 25-year career, Melvins have created a pioneering body of work in stoner, sludge, doom, drone, and even grunge. By slowing down the epic riffs of Sabbath and Black Flag, the early work of Melvins spawned the careers of countless plodding sonic experimentalists. Drummer Dale Crover and guitarist/vocalist King Buzzo created the template for the pummeling drums and mountainous riffs of a slew of underground metal genres, the echoes of which are everywhere in 2010.

Where to Start: Houdini

See Also: Eyehategod, Boris, Electric Wizard, Sleep

Napalm Death. It’s hard to overestimate the importance of Napalm Death in extreme metal. As the first grindcore band, they introduced extreme metal staples such as blast beats, unintelligible beast-like growling, and incredibly short songs. If you like metal that doesn’t fuck around with solos, melody, complex structures, and clean vocals, you owe your life to Napalm Death. Their debut, 1987’s Scum, is frighteningly brutal, and its unbridled aggression and scathing sociopolitical lyrical content has rarely been equaled. Bow before the altar of a band that will gladly fuck your ear holes until they bleed.

Where to Start: Scum

See Also: Carcass, Dying Fetus, Pig Destroyer

Entombed. In five years, Entombed managed to create the blueprint for one genre and completely invent another. Recorded while the band members were still teenagers, their 1989 debut Left Hand Path laid the foundation for countless death metal acts to follow. Integrating the heaviness of death metal, aggression of grindcore, and musical precision of thrash, Entombed upended extreme metal by adding whiplash tempo changes and crushing grooves. With 1993’s Wolverine Blues, the band invented the Death n Roll genre by blending the heaviness of death metal with the structures, riffs, and (gasp!) melody of rock n roll. The result is one of the great metal albums of all time.

Where to Start: Wolverine Blues

See Also: At the Gates, Kataklysm, Disfear, Hatebreed

Coalesce. Coalesce created severe abrasiveness from silence. By loading their music with sudden changes, stop-start riffs whose jagged cadence owe as much to James Brown as to hardcore, and the dub-esque tendency to bring instruments in and out of the mix unexpectedly, the band created one of the most unique sounds in metalcore. Coalesce managed to so thoroughly blend hardcore, metal, and math rock, it’s hard to call them anything but scary. In their heyday, Coalesce were one of the most harsh and difficult bands in heavy music, whose sound laid the groundwork for a new aesthetic in underground metal.

Where to Start: Functioning on Impatience

See Also: Botch, Burnt by the Sun, Architect

Ozil Gum Trick

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 15:48:00 +0000

The English Premier League started up today, and I've had to witness a well-oiled Aston Villa beat the crud out of a creaky West Ham United. To make myself feel a little better, I've been watching the video of Ozil kicking his own gum into his mouth.

World Cup Trivia Part XVI

noreply@blogger.com (Will) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:26:00 +0000

Another Day, Another Despot
This is one of my all-time favorite, have-to-tell-everyone-I'm-talking-to-about-soccer/football World Cup trivia bits.

Mussolini famously exploited the 1934 World Cup Italy's propaganda value to maximum effect. Knowing that a winning Italy team would unite his country behind the Azzurri, Mussolini used the World Cup to show the power holders of the world the values of fascism and the "support" the leader had from his nation.

Of course, to insure that the Azzurri were to win the World Cup, Mussolini had to fingure out how they would beat sides like Uruguay, who had won the inaugural World Cup of 1930, and pretty much every Olympic and international tournament up to that point. To see to this, Il Duce had a closed-door meeting with the men who would be refeering these games.

Now, of course, anyone with half a brain knew what Mussolini was cooking up, but the tournament was such a farce--and here's the great tidbit I love so much and have been buiding up to--that a referee actually headed the ball the Azzurri in order to keeper their forward momentum going. When Azzurri scored off the header, the ref silenced the opposing team's protestations, stating calmy that he had know idea what they were talking about.