Author Archives: DELively

Racks of Temptation But Little Fun

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I only reached for my credit card twice but I ended up not buying anything.

Well, maybe it was three times.

Today was the 6th World Fountain Pen Fair at Maruzen Books in downtown Tokyo. After work, I rushed down to Tokyo, cameras in hand, hoping to get some useful material for this site. When I arrived at Maruzen, I was surprised to see the fair was taking place in the basement.

When I got to the basement, the first thing I did was look for the Nakaya table. (Note, For those who don’t love fountain pens and therefore have no soul: Nakaya pens are one of the Holy Grails of fountain pens.) (Second Note: in this case “Holy Grail” is Japanese for “Really F@#king Expensive Pen”). They are sought after because they are handmade by experienced artisans and manage to be both simple and beautiful.

Unfortunately, Nakaya didn’t seem to be anywhere in the basement. Instead I looked around at famous production pens like Pelikan and, oddly, Platinum, which is the company Nakaya split from. The entire fair could have been mistaken for simply another department in the store as there was nothing special about it. While I was there, I tried out a Pelikan Souveran 800 and started reaching for my credit card. I do not claim this was a sane act but I did it. Luckily, I remembered I was looking for Nakaya pens so put my credit card back.

I then went to the 3rd floor to check out a rare and antique books section and found a new must-have item for work: a fake dictionary that houses a bottle of whiskey and a shot glass.

On the way back downstairs, I suddenly stumbled across the Nakaya table, which was set up practically in the foyer next to umbrellas. It was a terrible location where casual shoppers met pen addicts in a small traffic jam.

Today was especially interesting for Nakaya fans because Mr. Shinichi Yoshida, the nibmeister for Nakaya, was at the table adjusting nibs for newly purchased pens. The cheapest pen I saw that I liked was just over 59,000 yen or 491 US dollars. Oddly, this is a decent price for a Nakaya with a nib modified by Mr. Yoshida so I started to reach for my credit card. I then realized that I was like the 10th person in line hoping to even get in line so I put my credit card back.

Mr. Yoshida works on the youngest man at the show's new purchase.

The Nakaya table. Mr. Yoshida (right) works on the youngest man at the show’s new purchase.

Right next to the Nakaya table was the Ohashi-do table. Ohashi-do is a Sendai based fountain pen maker who also makes everything by hand. Or, maybe, by foot.

I neglected to write down the name of the artisan, but he was busy working a foot-powered lathe to make a pen and I didn’t want to interrupt him. The line for the table was short and I started to reach for my credit card, but I was more interested in watching the man with no name work.

The man with no name works using his feet.

The man with no name works using his feet. He has really cool socks.

The man with no name adjusts the lathe with a small mallet.

The man with no name adjusts the lathe with a small mallet. You can see how long the orange acrylic rod is.

All in all, I find that Japanese pen shows are lacking in energy. The Nakaya and Ohashi-do tables were fun, but the rest was boring clerks in suits. I’ll go to the 16th Mitsukoshi Fountain Pen Festival next week. I hope it’s more fun.

I probably better leave my credit cards at home before I go. I don’t know if I can survive temptation twice.

Eighty Pages but Nary a Pen That Works

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I like the idea of the Eighty Pages notebooks, but as soon as I got my hands on one I knew there would be issues.

Sometime in December or early January, I was roaming through my various pen addiction enabling websites and a number of them mentioned a Kickstarter project by Eighty Pages, a “small batch” notebook company based in New York City.

I liked the look of the notebooks and because the price was right I joined the Kickstarter and just a few days ago got my notebooks and being an addict, the first thing I did was take pictures of them and the Eighty Pages swag that accompanied them:

Well-made and gorgeous.

Well-made and gorgeous.

On the surface they look great. They are 3.5″ by 5.5″ or about the size of a Field Notes notebook, but I like that they come with more pages. They have thick card stock covers that are hand-stitched to the paper and are embossed with “made by” information on the back cover. Each comes with a serial number. The first number tells you the volume; the second tells you where in the production yours was made. It looks great, but I really don’t care about that information. The stickers are a nice touch but the golf pencil is already at the state where I used to throw out my old pencils back when I still used wood pencils.

I slipped the seal off the red one to fondle the paper because, well, yeah, that’s what you do.

I was immediately worried. The paper is thick, which is nice, but it’s rough. In fact, it reminded me of watercolor paper or the paper that comes in sketch books. It’s designed for pencils, not pens.

I confirmed that by breaking out my fountain pens and doing a little test. Every pen, including those with the widest nibs, scratched and skipped across the paper. The best thing I can say about that experience is there was no show-through or bleed-through at all. A Pilot G2 ballpoint with a .5 mm tip also had trouble. Yeah, that’s right, even a ballpoint pen was scratchy on the paper.

Only the Tacticle Turn Shaker I won in a drawing last year wrote smoothly, mostly because it has a wide Schmidt refill.

Today, I broke out an old drawing pencil I still have from decades ago–see kids, this is why you should never throw things out–and did a quick sketch of something apocalyptic on a back page. The sketch was crap but it confirmed that this is paper for pencils not fountain pens.

This was just a couple passes with 6B. It looks great, for a sketch book.

This was just a couple passes with a 6B pencil. You can see how rough the paper is.

In the end, I like the idea behind Eighty Pages more than I like the notebooks. I’m glad I bought them, although they may get passed to the girls. If you’re looking for a small sketchbook, they might be worth trying out. If you like pens, though, they aren’t worth it.

I hope, in the future, the makers experiment with different types of paper that are more pen friendly. If they do, I’ll probably be first in line to try them.

 

Crumbs and Licked Fingers

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Today we celebrated our girls by eating way too much.

Today is Hinamatsuri, also known as Girl’s Day. Traditionally, families with daughters set out dolls that represent the Emperor, Empress and the Imperial court from 1,200 years ago. The dolls are handmade by artisans and it is tradition to start with a small set and then add to it every year. We are cheap and lazy which means we stuck to the original set and never added to it. However, we also carefully avoid any Hina doll artisans shops when we are with the girls.

Akira Kurosawa had a gorgeous scene in his occasionally interesting, often boring film Dreams where Hina dolls came to life and started dancing. (The scene is here, but some moron has added Philip Glass music to it rather than the traditional Japanese music. It still looks great, though.)

It is also tradition to eat Chirashizushi, which we did, but we also added a side dish of fried chicken, honoring our daughters with the ultimate version of surf and turf. The surf and turf dishes were followed by the cake, which She Who Must Be Obeyed spent the better part of the day preparing an shaping like a Hina doll set:

This looks great now but a few minutes later it was nothing but crumbs and licked fingers.

This looks great now but a few minutes later it was nothing but crumbs and licked fingers.

Unfortunately, our bookshelves are full of books, including the small one we used to use to display the dolls. Because of this we didn’t have room to ward off the bad spirits which means we’ll still have to deal with our oldest being a teenager.

Ghosts and Phantoms and Fuzzy Apparitions

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Three different times in my career I’ve had students I never met.

I do not understand how this happens but at the school where I work (and throughout Japan for that matter) there are students who, for whatever reason, no longer come to class but have not dropped out of school. We’ve dubbed them “phantoms” or “ghosts” (Well, actually I did which gives you great insight into my ability for sympathy.)

There is a subtle difference between the two: Phantoms were seen once in class and then disappeared making you wonder if you actually ever saw them; ghosts have been photographed in the class picture but have never been seen in class. I would recognize a phantom if I saw him again; I wouldn’t recognize a ghost.

Most of the students who do this have mental issues (for the record: most of them had the issues BEFORE they took my class) and every student in their class seems to understand this (with varying degrees of sensitivity). In fact, the only person who doesn’t understand is usually me or my fellow foreign staff colleagues.

However, in an odd twist, most of these students actually sit for the exams, albeit in other rooms. Last term, we had to rush around carrying spare listening test CDs to different rooms because we had three ghosts but none wanted to be in the same room as the others. This year, the powers-what-are piped the listening into a spare room and then had someone run the CD to a different room.

Sometimes I am asked to provide study material for the phantoms and ghosts. Sometimes I am not. In several cases, the phantoms and ghosts did better than the students who actually came to class. I used to take this as an indictment on my teaching–the secret to passing Lively’s class: take a pass on Lively’s class–until I realized that the phantoms and ghosts who did well were always part of low level classes which, even those that are reasonably well behaved, are always noisy and hard to teach. By escaping the classroom, the ghosts and phantoms may have found a quiet way to study.

In junior high, missing class is problematic because education is both a basic right and a compulsory duty–students are supposed to go to class where the teachers have to take them, no matter how bad they are–but no one in junior high actually fails. The worse that happens at the school where I work is students are not invited to attend the high school.

In high school, though, students can fail for poor attendance. However, if they fail they are given a shot at a make up exam. If they pass the exam, they pass the course. They may not get invited to the university, but they will get at least a high school diploma from a big name school.

Secretly, part of me wishes I’d figured out how to do this when I was in junior high.

Oddly Confusing and Finished Before Done

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If things happened the way the were supposed to happen, this wouldn’t be an odd time of year. Unfortunately, that’s not the way things work.

What is supposed to happen is this: classes end; exams start; I mark exams; I give exams back; I drink bourbon (not necessarily in that order).

Unfortunately, for reasons I don’t fully understand, during the winter term at the school where I work, all the grades seem to end at different times and their exams start at different times. High school 3rd year (12th grade) ended in January but don’t graduate until March 14. High school 1st and 2nd Grade (10th and 11th grade) finished last Monday. Junior high 3rd year (9th grade which, luckily, I don’t teach) ended last Wednesday (I think). Junior high 1st and 2nd grade (7th and 8th grade) don’t finish until Tuesday.

What this means is that we are waiting for exams, marking exams, avoiding marking exams, wasting time, figuring out final marks, giving back exams and teaching all at the same time. This means we can’t pull all-nighters (well, technically we CAN, we just SHOULDN’T) and it’s hard to get into a marking rhythm.

To make matters worse, we also have to be on top of our schedules because it’s easy to lose track of what day it is an what we are supposed to be doing. On more than one occasion someone has stayed home to mark only to get a call or text calmly inquiring “Where the hell are you?” Others have finished marking their exams in the classroom while the students waited. I’ve personally written the wrong time down, arrived at school thinking I had some time to get ready, and been met by students who wondered why I was late to class.

Answer: Sit down and shut up and get ready to get your exams back. (Yeah, everyone loves having me as their teacher.)

Tomorrow I have final classes with my junior high second graders. At least I think I do.

Step By Step with Frozen Brass and Ice Cold Hands

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For reasons I still don’t understand, my band director when I was in high school in Kansas decided we needed to march. Not in straight lines during parades, mind you, but in patterns on the field during games. My response was “how about if I just shoot myself in the knee instead?”

Although I liked playing trumpet, I never liked putting on bulky leather vests–complete with dangly bits on the shoulders–and funny hats–complete with fuzzy things sticking off the top–and marching around trying to hold the trumpet out, stay in step, stay in tune, stay on the downbeat whilst trying to avoid collisions with random objects and/or people.

It was bad enough in parades but in Kansas the torture of “pattern” was added to it. Go here, turn there, pause, swing your horn (which is totally not dirty) and end in a neat little geometric pattern whilst playing your heart out. Mind you, we were no Sonic Boom of the South, but then they have talent and dedication and actually volunteered for the job.

With us, we were dragged to school early and forced to march around the parking lot in the cold. This wasn’t that hard except that, in the case of the trumpet players, we were holding large twisted bits of frozen brass and couldn’t wear gloves. (Well, we could, but then we couldn’t actually operate the large twisted bit of frozen brass.)

To make matters worse, as trumpet players we had to buzz our lips against another frozen bit of metal and try to make everything stay in tune. Basically, we ended up with numb hands and lips.

Now, as if that wasn’t bad enough, it was decreed that on the night of Homecoming, all the seniors performing in their last Homecoming would be given the “honor” of solo performances section by section. I was like, “Aww, shucks, you don’t have to do anything like that. No, really, you don’t”, but the person who made the decree was like “get out there and practice. You will be honored whether you like it or not.” (Something like that.)

This meant my friend Randy and I had to march out to the middle of the pack and perform a duet. If we had done this at the beginning, I would have been fine, but by the end of the performance I could barely feel my fingers and could barely play more than a sharp honk. Luckily, Randy was a better trumpet player and carried the performance.

I was honored when it was all over. Or maybe I mean relieved.

Cleaning Out The Old Or Students’ Revenge

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One of the things I don’t do often enough is clean my stuff. Instead, I use my stuff until it breaks and then try to use it some more.

Lately, though, I’ve been cleaning stuff, and taking pictures of it, in order to sell it.

I started with some of my oldest pens, a Pilot Vanishing Point and a Namiki Vanishing Point I got back in the mid-90’s. I used both pens enough that I actually cracked the barrels on both. I managed, though, to get a replacement barrel on one. (I apparently got the last barrel in Japan.)

One of the pens was my workhorse for many years. I used it every day and ran various colors of ink through it (well, if black and blue-black count as “various”) and even hand wrote my first “novel” with it. It cleaned out fairly quickly.

The other pen, though, was my marking pen. I filled it with Pilot Red ink and used it to ruin the days of hundreds of students (at least during exam times). In fact, in some cases, I put more marks on exams than the students did. I used that pen until it cracked and then kept using it until the converter broke when I was filling it, covering my hands in red ink. Washing my hands only changed the ink to pink.

In the past, I’ve tried soaking them in water, but after each try, I could still see the red stains on the feed of the marking pen.

Finally, I bought some pen cleaning solution and soaked the pen for a day. Lots of red ink came out. When I decided the red ink had suffered enough, I removed the nib assembly and dried it off.

Of course, the paper towel immediately got red ink spots on it. I let it dry off and, just in case, decided to try again. The result was this:

Red ink started leaking out right away, even after one cleaning.

Red ink started leaking out right away, even after one cleaning.

I’ll let it sit over night because, even as I write, I can see wisps of ink leaking out, despite it having sat there in the solution for four hours.

The only thing I can say is, all those students are getting the last laugh.

Once Bitten Twice Freaked Out Subconsciously

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Today was the one year anniversary of a disaster that wasn’t actually my fault but I apologized for it. The funny part is, I didn’t even realize it was the one year anniversary, but I still felt nervous about it.

Today was the start of our high school exams which means 1) I’m about to get really busy for the next few days and 2) I’m already in denial. This isn’t that unusual.

However, both yesterday and today I had a surprising amount of stress about the exam. There’s always a little bit of stress if it’s a test you’ve written, but today’s was a higher level of stress than usual.

This morning I checked the test schedule three times and even as I was walking to school I checked my phone to make sure I wasn’t getting any “where the hell are you” calls and messages. It wasn’t until I saw, off in the distance, a colleague heading to work that I felt confident that I wasn’t missing the test.

Then, because I’m in charge of the year and the exam, I went down to get the listening test CD and carry it to the broadcast room. When the technician performed his initial tests everything seemed okay, but he had to turn the volume up pretty high. This made me worry the sound quality wasn’t good enough. I spent the 10 minutes before the exam pacing and had the script ready in case I had to perform it live.

During the broadcast everything seemed to go fine but I was waiting for the “we couldn’t hear the damned thing” calls. They never came. After the listening–which was unusually short this time; a subconscious reaction to last year, I guess–I went back to the office and waited for the calls indicating the students had questions and/or had found horrible mistakes. (Past example: instructions say write ONE word but answer requires TWO,)

No calls came. But I paced, sat down, paced, sat down and paced until the last 10 minutes when it was unusual to get questions.

Now I’m in the denial phase and it wasn’t until I did some checks to make sure I wasn’t repeating myself in one of these posts that I discovered where all that stress had come from.

Now I have to get back to work, or denial, both are okay.

Time and Time and Waste Time and Rejected Again

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Yes, I am a sick man and, yes, I probably have a problem.

I’m in the process of making my calendar for next year. I make my own because 1) I’m picky and 2) it’s more fun than doing real work but leaves me with the impression I’ve actually been working.

During university I had a bad habit of forgetting assignments and meetings and accidentally double booking events. To try to cure myself of this, for many years I tried to use calendars of various sorts. I remember Kansas State University used to publish a school year calendar that may (or may not) have been nicknamed “the Annual” which, I’ll grant you, is a bit like naming it the “school year calendar thingee”. It was a spiral-bound book with one week on two pages. Every year I tried using it but after a month or so abandoned it.

The “school year calendar thingee” had two fatal flaws: 1) spiral-bound and 2) the school itself hogged the days. Basically, the school pre-filled important events, including sports, and it was common for at least one day a week to be completely full before I’d had a chance to enter my information.

I then went through a series of calendars of various sizes but all of them had at least one fatal flaw and I never found them particularly useful.

Then, after I came to Japan, the JET Programmed gave us some small planners that had a full week on each page and included lots of useful information such as medical terms and basic legal advice–which could be summed up as “don’t be stupid” and “Even if you are stupid don’t do stupid stuff”.

I used that planner a lot and, to this day, still kind of miss it.

Eventually I realized I needed a monthly overview and a weekly schedule. This led to me making my own monthly calendars and, eventually, my own bible-sized inserts for a Filofax. (Yes, I actually made them from scratch. I wasted time to make time. Something like that.)

No birthdays here, just a couple holidays.

No birthdays here, just a couple holidays.

Making my own let me add birthdays and pictures of the family.

All my girls in one place.

All my girls in one place several years ago.

My unoriginal cover decoration as to put various versions of “Front” and “Back” on them.

This is the character I used to represent "front".

This is the character I used to represent “front”.

Eventually I even abandoned those. My new planner is a system that involves an electronic calendar on my computer (and which I hopefully will be able to sync to my phone) and a 12 days per page paper calendar that covers the entire year. The 12 days format lets me see what’s coming, but still leaves me room to write.

I’ll probably abandon that in a couple years, too. It’s already in its second incarnation.

 

The KISS and the Clover Zed

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It’s hard to believe, but after all these years, Japan might have finally jumped the shark on crazy.

Or someone in Japan is a genius. Or a crazy genius.

Whatever they are, someone decided it was a great idea to take one of the most popular girl groups in Japan, Momoiro Clover Z–For the record: The Z is pronounced “Zed” thus Momoiro Clover Zed but everyone just calls them “Momoclo”–and pair them up with aging 70s superstar rockers old enough to be their grandparents. The genius/madman then decided to all it “Momoiro Clover Z vs KISS.

That’s right, the dark princes of glam rock are pairing up with pop princess lolitas to, well, rock and roll all night? The images of them together are rather disturbing. Keep in mind Gene Simmons is about as tall as I am. It could be creepier though, but every Momoclo is at least age 18 so that makes it, well, no, it’s still creepy.

They’ve already produced a single and a promotion video which can be enjoyed here. (Note: the “live” action starts at about 1:40.) Momoclo will also perform at the final concert in KISS 40th anniversary tour.

I’m not sure why someone thought this was a good idea. Back in 1977 KISS sold out the Nippon Budokan five times (which beat the Beatles record of four) but no one younger than I am had ever heard of them until last year.

As the members of KISS promote the concert and the single, you can see the young TV announcers staring at them like “Who sprayed graffiti on grandpa?”

That said, Gene Simmons is a marketing genius and I can’t imagine anyone younger than I am would attend one of their concerts unless there was a gimmick like this attached to it. This gives them a chance, albeit a weak one, to grow their audience among young Japanese.

I still think it would have been more logical if KISS had performed with Babymetal, but I guess they needed someone who couldn’t out rock them.