sketchbook final 2

sketchbook final

illustrator's block

just a sketch i did when i was in a fit of the illustrator's equivalent to writer's block. enjoy

aka

in japan, it seems like the criteria for making things sacred is hanging other things from those things. trees and temples have shimenawa ropes, cell phones have one piece charms, and Jizo and other similar creatures have red bibs. the bib is hung by a grieving parent to represent their agony over the loss of a child. to read more on this little guy and why i think he's so damned cool (literally), check this post out:

http://benjicarpey.blogspot.com/2010/12/jizo-patron-saint-of-being-totally-boss.html

i drew this after i saw a cartoon cat wearing a jizo bib in kabukicho with Nats and Nick. i was walking quite fast at the time.

P.S. the word "aka" means red

visual journalism in shinjuku

I recently spent the afternoon in a commercial district called Shinjuku. i did these smug drawings. they are not meant to look finished, or even aesthetically pleasing for the most part. rather, they're just exercises, and expressions of being related to where at the moment i was.

sometimes i just like to observe. i don't really take a lot of pictures, because i figure that while most people fill memory cards up with every step they take, i like to just kinda explore. i have nothing against it, and i'm really glad my friends all do this, if for no other reason than that it gives me the luxury of not having to worry about doing it myself. i know it may be less personal in this sense, but when i go to an extravagant temple or a drum & bass club at 3:30 AM in shibuya, i don't want to be experiencing it through the lens of a camera. i feel like if i'm too worried about recording this moment and saving it for later, then that very compulsion stunts my excitement for what's happening in the present. instead, my thought process is a bit more detached: "so this is what i'm doing in the spring semester of my junior year in college.. i'm in shinjuku right now.. cool... who knows where i'll be in a year? i bet i'll be having fun.. it's a nice day out... yeah... word..."

kind of like, there needs to be no proof i chilled in shinjuku that day. i know i was there. and as for remembering my travels years down the road, thats why i write and draw. much like the photographer, my actions are the result of a compulsion. i couldn't tell you where it comes from, i just know it's something i gotta do sometimes. it's my way of becoming intimate with the space i'm interacting with, while simultaneously preventing myself from getting too caught up in making sure everybody (most importantly myself) knows i was there. after all, as you'll read in some of the passages below, it takes a lot more motivation even just to scribble something down than it does to push a button. and i am a lazy boy

the ikegami affect

Funny thing, when you're flooded with memories of things that haven't even happened yet. I know I won't be ready to go back by the time the sakuras start blooming. Truth of the matter is that I feel more at home here than anywhere else in the world. Sure, there are pros and cons to any society, but from as far back as I can remember, i've always felt a strange disconnect from the place I grew up, like it never wanted me there, and I didn't want to be there either. Like it was a dead end. I take things for granted there. And yet, none of that seems to happen here. But in the mean time, sometimes I feel like I'm going insane.

Ever hear someone talk about the acceleration of time? I never used to believe in it until I came here. The days are going by faster than I can even think, and trust me, I'm thinking pretty damned fast. It's like I can feel the minutes and hours rushing by me in a stream of metaphysical energy I always thought you either had to be a physicist or a hippy to understand.

I know this completely contradicts the last post I put up, but I currently feel quite sad. Or perhaps it's not so much sadness I'm experiencing, but rather a reluctance to submit. I know it's completely fucking self indulgent to acknowledge this, but I think that's kind of okay right now. In Eastern philosophy, this emotion is called resistance. Resistance is what happens when one's mind tires to displace the discomfort of being overcome by an unpleasant sensation, be it sadness, fatigue, laziness, regret, and just about any other negative emotion known to man.

I am well-versed in the volumes of resistance. In my short time on this earth, i've experienced just about every kind of resistance there is. Pangs of jealousy; stagnant laziness; burning lust; these are a few of my favorite things. But right now, none of that is what's bothering me. Rather, I feel the time that I spend here slipping through the cracks of my fingers like sand. It seems that with every second I spend in toyko, time gains momentum, my mind seemingly doing so with it. All I want to do is swallow this city whole, but it appears to be swallowing me instead.

Thing is, if you do enough stupid things in life (which I have), you learn to negotiate with this little devil. Monks deal with it by meditating until it literally hurts, and starving themselves of any desire whatsoever. Personally, I've always thought desire is way too much fun to just toss in the cosmic wastebasket, but seeing as how desire and resistance are close friends I am ever aware that if I choose to indulge one, I walk a paper-thin line of being consumed by the other. But hell, I like it that way. It keeps me out of my comfort zone. Like if I'm not on the verge of totally losing it at any moment, I must not be doing something right.

To put this all in perspective, think of resistance as like a rubik's cube that is constantly shifting its own algorithms, or a maze with multiple levels that's in a constant state of flux. You think you've conquered it, but then you gotta find another way out. But if you know the way it works, then you can figure out how to deal. In my experience, there is a common thread that ties all forms of it together: when you feel resistance, you feel completely overwhelmed.

When they say this place is overstimulating, they aren't kidding. Every time I step off of the train I am simultaneously coerced and enticed to participate in the sea of insidiously seductive consumerism which this metropolis seems to thrive on. My five senses fall victim to a hostile takeover, and I just let it happen. Sometimes I try to fight it, and thus the resistance is born, and more times than not, the higher power known to only some as TOKYU wins.

But to quote a friend, if you look at it this way, then there's just “no fucking horizon”. See, coming here was never about being a tourist. I've done that before, and yeah, it was totally dope. But this time I entered the country with one goal in mind: to see if I could live here and not only function, but prosper in a place that has such an incredible amount to offer; so much, in fact, that at times it can apparently be too much to handle. With this said, I have recently realized that if I'm going to pursue this goal, then it is essential to abide by a golden principle I had taken solace in the first time I was given this much freedom when I started college. It's pretty simple: consumerism is a hollow endeavor.

No matter how many different rice cakes you taste, how many mild sevens you smoke, how many naruto phone charms you purchase, and how much Kirin Lager you drink, you will never be full. We think of ourselves as humans, but we are really just hungry ghosts. We wander this plane of existence in search of something, never really knowing what that something is. And so we buy and spend and consume to try and fill the hole we have created by buying and spending and consuming, never stopping to consider, literally, where in the hell we are.

And I am no different. In fact, I am way worse in that my prerogative in life is to keep my romanticizing right lobe running on full blast all the time, making it virtually impossible for my mind to gain footing on any kind of solid mental ground. Think of tokyo as the gasoline to my fire.

But lucky for me, I'm a stubborn bastard. The fact of the matter is that as much as I'm predisposed to fall into the consumerist paradigm, I am even more prone to rebel against it. Call me a masochist, but I take a kind of sick pleasure in watching myself squirm as I refuse my commercial suiters with every fiber of my being. This is called right action; to force oneself to take action against a negative situation, even if one knows there may not be any immediate payoff.

However, because this goes against my natural tendencies, it confuses me, and reduces my capacity to think clearly to that of a monkey's. Soon I am no longer even a hungry ghost, but rather just a beast, too disoriented to even think about the fact that I only have a month and a half left here, which is the very thought that started this cosmic temper tantrum in the first place.

But I've done this before. It's the same story with a different title, published in Asia this time instead of the States. I know what happens at the end, and instead of becoming entrapped in my own existential “writer's block”, I think i'll just take right action and see what happens during the climax of this familiarly unpleasant arc. After all, I think that I can have enough faith that the resolution will lead to a decent epilogue. It always does.

Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!

today is february third, which means one thing in Japan: tomorrow is officially the first day of spring. they celebrate a holiday today called "Setsubun" to mark this seasonal paradigm shift. i don't quite fully understand it, but they throw roasted soybeans at invisible demons and shout the words "oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" which roughly translates to "demons out! luck in!". Thing is, I don't know what's stranger: the custom itself, or the time which they choose to celebrate it? I mean, growing up in the northeastern corridor of the United States, i am only accustomed to February being one of the coldest snowiest, rainiest, slushiest, most depressingly grey months of the damn year! i fucking abhor february, save for the fact that my boy Stu was born on the 17th day of it.

Really though, who in their right mind would even consider celebrating the coming of spring this early? but the fact of the matter is that the Japanese aren't very good at bluffing in the first place, and Setsubun is definitely no lie. much to my seasonally self-indulgent delight, spring really does come early here. as much as january wasn't exactly humid, it still never got very cold. the sky was blue every day and most mornings i was more than warm enough in a relatively thin leather jacket. but being from both the place and the culture that i am, i spent the whole month on subconscious pins and needles, anxious as to when the other shoe was going to drop. after all, I'm usually not much of a fatalist, but when it comes to shitty winter climates, i have pretty much resigned myself to the inevitable dismal shit i have to acclimate to every year around this time, and although i know i shouldn't let the air in my lungs out just yet, things are lookin up and feelin warm. every day i walk out of class and my skin is confused as to why it feels like april so soon. but hey, never look a gift horse in the mouth, right?

this is all pretty positive, but to be honest, it floods me with all sorts of strangely familiar emotions i experience in some way for a short time every year. see, I have a strange relationship with seasons. i am hyper-aware of when they change, because of how they affect my morale and life while they, on the other hand, don't seem to notice me at all. they come and go as they please, never stopping to consider how they affect those around them. this doesn't bode well for me during the winter months in general, but something else occurred to me as i walked to tamachi station after class let out today: certain seasons remind me of certain people. at first i didn't pay close attention to this little detail, but it has been slowly creeping to the forefront of my mind ever since i figured out that the sun isn't going away any time soon. it isn't for any reason in particular, or at least not one that i know consciously, but i just get these feelings when i feel winter turning to spring, which makes me think about spring turning to summer, which makes me think of summer turning to autumn. when i first started to reminisce, only transparent memories flashed through my mind. However, when i began to meditate on these inclinations, i managed to match specific faces to each spell.

For starters, fuck winter. I know it's a little contradictory to my “appreciate every moment” sentiments, but I prefer to aprreciate the moment in a pair of sandals. there are a few people who tend to remind me of winter. i won't give out names, but judging by my rant about february above, you probably get the idea of which kind of characters might populate my mind when i think of this bleak season. But hey, just like bad gas, at least it always passes.

I never really thought about it, but Mima reminds me of fall. i think it has something to do with the red hair suggesting the changing leaves, as well as the fact that i spent a great deal of time at Hagy's Mill as a kid when school started up every year, watching the trees shed shades of orange, red, and yellow all over the grassy pennsylvania forest floor.

I associate spring, on the other hand, with Dulce. i know it seems strange to those in the know, as she should remind me of long days on 16^th avenue, at the beach, coming home with ocean water lodged deep in my ears and sand wedged between every crevice in my body, as well as late night barbecues, good surf, and kind herb every evening before bed. but she doesn't. rather, i always think of this one fragment of a memory in which we are sitting at a cafe on a beautiful day in late april, somewhere around the king of prussia mall. in this memory i am young, and have just discover boxer shorts, and the fact that sonic the hedgehog has his own comic book. we eat bistro sandwiches with my mom and sisters and i am as happy as i have ever been, basking in the newly warm 3:00 light coming through the large windows behind our booth. But the best part about this memory is that I remember anticipating summer, which was right around the corner.

There's really only one person i think of when it comes to summer. this may seem odd, because out of all of the seasons of the year (even including the indecisive little transitional ones which could almost be "micro-seasons" in their own right), summer is the season that is by far the most important to me as it has given birth year after year to some of the most profound experiences, habits, practices, and relationships, all of which have greatly contributed to the person I am today. With this in mind, logic would dictate that summer should lend itself to a plethora of different names and faces i have come across during my annual travels during these wonderful months. and yet, it is far more simple than that. The person i always think of is perhaps the only person i have ever met who appreciates summer more than me; the only person who can fully empathize with me when it is not here. Isn't that right, LM?

But to say that these people are just sort of there in my mind when I think of all this would be doing my emotions an injustice. Where to most, the changing weather patterns only really equate to changing wardrobe patterns, they speak to me in a very different way. I see them as an ephemeral progression of time, and it makes me feel a bit uneasy. It is as if the weather shifts to remind us that our lives are like that of the sakura flowers which have not yet bloomed on the tokyo cherry trees: beautiful and all-too short.

As I made this realization today, I came to another sad thought: my time in Nippon is almost like a mini version of my life as a whole. I arrived in this new world as an impressionable young being, blurry-eyed and overwhelmed. As time progresses, I mature in ways that help me better calibrate to the society around me. I go day by day, sometimes even forgetting how short my time is here, until today when I walked outside and was hit with the nostalgic sensation of warm sunlight on my face, and I realized that as elating as this is, it also means something far more sinister is taking place before my eyes: my precious time here is running out. And so I feel yet another jolt to my heart, and my mind turns to scrambled eggs. It seems like just yesterday I got here, and although I don't have to go just yet, I know that time looms over my head and it will come all too soon.

I know it sounds morbid, and i'll admit, the thought doesn't always fill me with white light, but just like anything else, it's all about the headspace with which you choose to approach it. I know that I am very tempted to feel sad about the fact that my life, as well as all of the various short lives within that life, is burning its temporal engine fuel with every breath I take, and sooner than I know it, there will be no more. But if I let this get to me, I would never get anything done. And so I figure, if my time in this place, and my life here will end in what seems to be a pretty short time in the grand scheme of things, then perhaps that is all the more reason to make the most of it. To be jovial, and content, and to offer value to those around me. To (fuck, try to) approach ever day like it's the last fun I'll ever have.

I know I say things like this a lot in this blog, but I truly feel that we are all, myself included, so busy running through our lives like there will always be a tomorrow, seldom ever stopping to appreciate today. The more time I spend in this city that never stops running, flashing, beeping, and working, the more I appreciate being able to just fucking STOP!..

...And chill. And smell the warm (go figure) February air. And when I think of this, it all becomes clear why I associate certain people with certain months of the year.

So to all those I have shared memory-worthy moments with as a traveler through my own young life and all of its various seasons, know this:

I missed you today. All of you. You guys make life worth living and home worth returning to.

Happy spring!