I have noticed that other than for Manga/Anime, South Africans are generally oblivious to the differences between all things Japanese and Chinese. In fact the only “Japanese” you’ll find around here is Sushi and if you lucky some Tempura. This is depressing as I am looking around for some unique furniture for my new nest, but all I see is Chinese-like artefacts. Now there is nothing wrong with that in itself, unless you are very particular about finding Japanese items and the dealers have no idea what you are talking about. The local interweb has nothing on it either or are just too well hidden from plebs like myself.

What things am I talking about? Well, first of all genuine tatami made of woven soft rush straw and packed with rice straw and NOT the mats used for sparing in dojo’s, Shoji screens and lanterns, Japanese fine art, noren and stepchests for starters. In fact, it is so difficult to find anything worthwhile that I am even considering to opening my own Nippon Mise (Japan shop.) Unless I am not looking hard enough. Any suggestions are welcome. If I do find something, I will try to post about them here.

See also:
Tatami
Shoji
Noren
Stepchest

Corical, a buddy of mine, pointed me towards this interesting music dance clock project called Uniqlock by Tomoyuki Tanaka who is a DJ/Producer active in Japan and abroad. After the clock is fully loaded you’ll notice a random video (mostly of dancing Japanese girls) every 5 seconds in time with the clock and adaptive music. Make sure to activate the sound on the animation to hear Tomoyuki’s interesting music style or click on the animation to go to the project homepage which includes a screensaver download.

I love media that messes a bit with your mind, and I think this cyclist awareness ad was done pretty well.

Source:
dothetest.co.uk

And what of that magical paint?
The canvas splashed with childish delight
Trippy colours and fairytales
All dulled down to a world of grey

What calmed the caressing wind?
Polarizing fertile minds to be aligned
A mother’s touch with incredible care
What remains is staleness to the air

And who snatched the desert of its stars?
Galaxies enveloped in dilated oculi
Eyes afire flooded with tears
Gushingly fed by a sea of fears

Related posts:
Room service
The way of the sushi-ya

See also:
Rahmens.net

Destroy any memorabilia
Burn or bury any photos, letters, jewellery or anything that might remind you of that person. Do a rain dance around the fire if it will help or give the stuff to a friend for safe keeping for release in the far future. The point is to get things that will remind you of that person or your time together out of sight with the aim of getting her or him out of mind.

Loose contact
Whether it is a number, address, e-mail or Skype handle. Get rid of it. No, you don’t need it just in case. She/he is not your responsibility and any contact will just make things worse or more difficult.

(Obviously if you have a kid together, you are out of luck here but you might consider keeping the contact channels to a minimum.)

Tell common friends to enjoy a hot cup of STFU
Rather harsh I know, but if you share common friends or acquaintances make it clear to them when they give you a status report about the person that you don’t want to know and they should never bring it up again. Sure sometimes you want to talk about it, but it should be on your terms- you don’t want to know who she was snogging at some bingo evening.

Do something meaningful yet out of character
Join a band, get a tattoo, try out sky diving or go on a road-trip to check out Gatsonderrandfontein. Do something (responsible) that you will look back on one day and say “Man, that was crazy, but I’m glad I did it.” You are the director, experience something that you would tell your kids or grandkids in the future.

Set a goal
Take up knitting, learn a new language or study for another degree. You have to stay busy to distract yourself. What better way to do so than with a grand yet achievable goal. In moments of weakness, where you really miss that person, it could actually motivate you even more to achieve it.

Change your style
Become the phoenix and rise from the ashes better and fresher than ever. Hit the gym, treat your self to stylin’ clothing, whiten your teeth, get a neat haircut or whatever. The point is to be able to look yourself in the mirror and realize how hot and suave you are. This is for you and only you.

Hang out with real friends
I know you don’t want to see anyone right now, you just want be alone and feel sorry for yourself. Don’t. Force yourself to go out with a bunch of buddies to a farm in the Free State or go clubbing in another city. Whatever you do, keep your real friends close and participate in their social activities.

Move
Phoenixes don’t hang around their own graves, so move on. If you work together, quit. If you live in the same neighbourhood, move. If you like the same drink, switch. If you drive the same route, use another. The only constant in life is change, embrace it.

Flirt!
Flirt with every woman (or man) you see, it’s not easy, but your aim should be to make them feel good about themselves and have fun doing it. Nothing more. Do it everyday at every chance you can get (save for funerals). Do it with the cleaning staff, rave bunnies and corporate stiffs. You are not looking for new relationships- you just want to meet interesting people.

And finally…

Let go
It is very very rare that they do come back for good. Let them go. Allow yourself to be free and accept that it just didn’t work. If they are not willing to work on it, why should you? You could spend all your life on trying to make someone love you and in the process miss the opportunity to meet that person that you’ll share true love with. Respect yourself- one chance is all they get.

I realize that most of the things I have suggested are really hard or close to impossible to execute, but it is like exercise, you have to get up and just do it. There is no other way. If you really meant it when you said you loved someone, you will never truly shake it. In a sense that’s good, because it gives your personal value in the word real meaning. But by keeping busy and moving, time will make it easier to live with.

Like the Johnny Walker slogan encourages, just keep walking.

When was the last time you were really heartbroken and what did you do to get over it?

Disclaimer: I am not Dr. Phil, Dr. Ruth or Dr. Pepper. While I realize I am in some way responsible for my own words, you chose to read it. Ultimately the universe holds you accountable for your own consequent actions. This post serves as a future memo to myself for the next time I might need some inspiration. You should take everything you read on the net with a bit of salt anyway (with or without the tequila).

Thanks to Lance Mason for confirmation and some inspiration.

I have already decided what I want my next ring tone to be, and that is Offspring’s – Intermission. Quite fitting for when you are interrupted with a call mid conversation. But here’s the thing, not that it might necessarily prevent me from doing it but, I wonder if it is legal. If I own the original album, ripped the tune and placed it on my phone as a ring tone, am I violating local copyright law?

You see, when I look on the cover of my CD’s or the labels on the disc it states that “All rights of the record producer and the owner of the work reproduced reserved. Copying, public performance, broadcasting and hiring out directly or indirectly of this recording is prohibited.”

To me that seems rather strict so I went down the rabbit hole a bit further and found this in the Copyright Amendment Act:

9. Nature of copyright in sound recordings
Copyright in a sound recording vests the exclusive right to do or to authorize the doing of any of the following acts in the Republic:

1. Making, directly or indirectly, a record embodying the sound recording;
2. letting, or offering or exposing for hire by way of trade, directly or indirectly, a reproduction of the sound recording;
3. broadcasting the sound recording;
4. causing the sound recording to be transmitted in a diffusion service, unless that service transmits a lawful broadcast, including the sound recording, and is operated by the original broadcaster;
5. communicating the sound recording to the public.

Eish, that’s what curiosity gets you. If I understand this correctly it means that if I did change my ring tone to the aforementioned track I would be breaking two laws: firstly, by copying it to my phone (apparently no fair use principle exists in South Africa) and secondly, by publicly performing the tune every time someone decides to give me a tinkle. Not only that, but if the above is true the use of iPods or any MP3 device to privately listen to or backup my CD collection can then be considered illegal. How many music loving South Africans are violating copyright law right now despite being the proud owners of the originals? This all seems rather absurd. If I don’t spread it over the internet or sell copies of it on the streets, I should be free to use it privately in any form as I see fit because I paid for the content not just the medium.

What do you think? Should we all start feeling like criminals and relook our digital lifestyles or am I overlooking something important?

On a different note, I would like to point out that this blog turned 2 years old on the 18th of April. You’ve come a long way baby.

UPDATE:
I wasn’t really comfortable with the conclusions this post came to, so I continued the search for more knowledge. It seems that South Africa has a principle called “fair dealings,” which allows some exceptions in using copyrighted literary and musical work:

12. (1) Copyright shall not be infringed by any fair dealing with a literary or musical work—
(a) for the purposes of research or private study by, or the personal or private use of, the person using the
work;

As South Africa is a signatory of the Berne Convention, our national copyright legislation is bound to its framework that sets out certain general exceptions which is included in section 12 of the original copyright act.

While I believe this covers copying your personal music collection to portable audio devices for personal use, what constitutes as fair dealing does not seem to be very clear and it was the original motive for writing this. Is it considered fair dealing to publicly and consistently perform the same musical work, by way of a ring tone or beach party, without asking permission or paying royalties to the original author? It seems like a rather trivial matter, but an interesting thought exercise in differentiating when an artist is exploited or not. With the advent of the digital age and file sharing, much debate is going on about the philosophy of copyright and its net benefit to society.

See also:
Fair Dealing - Darlo
Philosophy of copyright
South African Copyright Act