Rock On, by anonymous from Tokyo

I love getting posts that remind me that I made a good choice when I decided not to enforce too many rules about what should be posted on this site. Sometimes, it doesn't take a whole day to get a glimpse of someone's life. Sometimes it only takes a single moment. -Cbella

So, my running buddy got us tickets to the sold out, limited-to-3 hundred-tickets, Third Eye Blind concert at this basement club in Shinjuku.

And guess what?

I'm pretty sure that the super rock star, lead singer dude, Stephan Jenkins, that I got to shake hands and have a brief conversation with, was checking me out and flirting with me.

Here's how it was.

After I left my sensible husband in the non-sweaty, elbow-room-available back, I let myself get swept away with the rock thumpin', head bangin', fist pumping beat and went for the front.

Those who know me are not surprised at this point in the story.

6 songs into trying, I reached the mosh pit and he made eye contact a couple of times when the crowd parted enough for my blondish, bobbing self to be seen. Then, 2 more songs later, when I'd side-ways-elbowed myself through the bone-crushing front echelon of the hard core fans (Wouter-syle), he swaggered over to arm's reach.

THEN,

(here's the cool part,)

he reached over a cute little Japanese girl and a sweaty (and remarkably tall) Japanese guy to reach out for my hand.

I, along with 50 fans around me, reached up for his.

We locked fingers.

I said, "Thanks for coming to Tokyo."

He said, "What's that?"

ok...yeah...that maybe wasn't so romantic, but he said it with a twinkle in his eye and his head cocked in a kind -of amused (and attractive) way to the side, alright?

I said, (louder) "Thanks for coming to Tokyo."

He said, "Oh, yeah. It's great. Do you love it here?"

Notice how he kept the conversation going.

I said, "Definitely!"

He smiled and sang the next refrain without moving back.

Right about that time, that damn remarkably tall guy edged back into his spot (that I'd confiscated) and Mr. Super Star faded back into only glimpses when I jumped extra high.

So, that was last night.

Today, after running around at work in my concert t-shirt

(of COURSE I wore it today),

telling people about it, I've reached tonight.

And I'm thinking...

I know that super rock stars check out all the rocker chicks in the front rows, looking for ones they can bang that night.

And I know that they mostly have huge, egocentric egos, substance abuse problems and STD's.

I got that I'm a fair-skinned blond, and stood out like (insert great simile here) next to the black-haired sea of Japanese heads in the crowd.

And that my white tank top was probably reflecting the stage lights in neon-like crazy bright

Let alone that it, along with my jeans I bought last summer when I was thinner,

labeled me Skankville compared to the dressed-in-long-sleeves-

(even though, YOU GUYS, it's 12 million degrees in a mosh pit don't ya' know,? Dress for it!)

Japanese girls that I was smooshed between.

But,

throw me a bone.

I'm 40... ish

So, it was still pretty cool.

and let-it-all-go FUN.

I read that he was valedictorian of his class at Berkeley, with a degree in English Literature.

Those sensory-stabbing, etched forever in your memory, what you reach for when you describe total lust-lyrics....hmmmm...dude has a way with words

And wow, I really do love his voice...

rock on

A Sunday in Sapporo, by Greg Wheeler

Greg has recently published his second novel, The Land Beyond. It is the sequel to The Bridge Across the Pacific. Both books recount the adventures of the misanthropic Marvin, an English teacher working in Japan.

A Sunday in Sapporo

greg wheeler

5:55—As the alarm jolts me awake far too early on a Sunday morning, I wonder (as I do each and every Sunday morning at this time) why I actually go for these early morning runs. As always, I have to remind myself that it’s good for me, I feel better after a good run, and blah, blah, blah. These reminders are usually enough to get me out of bed, but it’s certainly not easy.

Greetings from Sapporo, Japan, the city I’ve called home for close to fifteen years. Located in the northern island of Hokkaido, it is, in my humble opinion, the most liveable (livable?) city in the country. I can’t, in fact, picture living anywhere else in Japan. Certainly not Tokyo, the ultimate “It’s a great place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there” city. (On the other hand, it would appear that close to 20 million people disagree with me.)

~6:10—Have stretched, and am ready to go. Early as it may feel, dawn actually arrived well over two hours earlier. (At this time of year, it starts getting bright in Sapporo just after 3 a.m.) Looking around, I see that I’m not the first person up and out. I never am, no matter how early I begin these runs. Normally, I loathe any sentence that begins with “The Japanese” because it almost inevitably will end with some trite overgeneralization about the people of this country. In this case, however, I’m willing to make an exception, and will postulate that the Japanese-at least the older folk—are mostly early risers.

8:00—Run is finished, I feel good, and am wondering why I would ever consider not doing it every Sunday. Have finished breakfast, with only a few insults (“Daddy, you’re probably the slowest runner out there”) thrown my way by the kids: Arisa, 9, and Shimon, 6 (but 7 in a couple of weeks). My wife Kayo merely comments sardonically that she’s pleased I didn’t suffer from a heart attack this time. She of course is referring to a run from last month in which I felt tightness around the chest and all the good doctors on the internet informed me that I should be going to the hospital immediately, if it wasn’t already too late. Sadly, I took this advice, and ended up merely wasting the time of a real doctor for an hour (who probably had fun talking to his colleagues about this idiot patient who was scared he was about to keel over). At any rate, Kayo says she’s relieved I’m still around, because we have a pretty sizeable credit card bill that still needs to be paid. Quick note: Don’t ever believe it when people tell you the Japanese don’t understand/use sarcasm. That is quite simply not true.

~9:30—Outside with Shimon, racing around the block. He’s in his first year of elementary school (Arisa is in fourth grade), and will be running in the relay at the school’s sports festival at the end of the month. Racing me is his way of practicing for the big event. He’s blessed with almost lightning speed for his age, and I’m finding it increasingly hard to keep up with him during these dashes around the block. Arisa joins us for a while, but soon goes back inside to practice the piano and draw. While Shimon appears to have some athletic talent, which I’d love to take credit for (but really can’t), Arisa is more inclined toward the arts, and is really quite amazing. This is something she definitely didn’t get from my side of the family—when I was nine, it was an accomplishment for me to color within the lines.

~11:30—It’s the first sunny and warm Sunday of the year in Sapporo, so we decide to have a picnic at Sato Land, an enormous park not too far from where we live. This is one of the very nice things about Sapporo: There is an abundance of parks, trails, and other things to do outdoors. Today, however, because it’s the first truly nice Sunday of the year, seemingly half the population of the city shares our idea about picnicking in Sato Land. No matter. We have a good time anyway; the kids especially enjoy playing tag/hide-and-seek, just as long as daddy is always “it.” And, as is always the case when we go to Sato Land, we have some of the very good ice cream (“soft cream”) a farm located on the premises produces.

4:00—Arriving home, we decide it’s probably too windy to have a barbecue today, so we’ll just have something simple for dinner later. Shimon and Arisa play a bit of Wii (Shimon is demanding the new version of Super Mario Galaxy for his upcoming birthday), and then Arisa starts drawing again, and Shimon buries his head in one of his many books of mazes.

7:00—Bath time. The kids go first, which gives me the opportunity to read a few pages from Murakami’s 1Q84. Murakami is, if nothing else, given to providing lengthy descriptions to various things, which can be hair-pullingly (is that a word?) frustrating at times. Case in point: He can’t just tell us a room is empty. He needs to inform us that there were no chairs. Or tables. There were no sofas. Or plants. Many rooms often have artwork on the walls. But not this one. They were bare. There was nothing on them. Just like the rest of the room had nothing present. Just four walls, a ceiling, and a floor. The walls may have been white, but perhaps closer to off-white. Or maybe even a light shade of gray. It’s even possible they were a little bit darker shade than the ceiling, but that may simply have been one’s imagination playing tricks. Naturally, once all that is finished, the room is never mentioned again.

9:00—Hustle the kids off to bed, and realization dawns that the weekend is over, and it’s back to work tomorrow. (I teach at a medical university. Mostly English, but this year Japanese literature as well. Who will be the author we mostly focus on in this class? Murakami, of course. Sigh.)

It has not been the most glamorous of days, certainly, but I would be hard-pressed to trade it for anything else. In my view, there’s not much better than spending a day doing ordinary things with the family. Trite as it sounds, life is good. Certainly, I’m no different than anyone else in that I do more than my fair share of complaining and worrying—what are we going to do about junior high school, then high school, and finally university for the kids? Can we afford to send them anywhere? Should Kayo go back to work, and if so, when and where? How many days should we spend in the US? (Sadly, this will be Shimon’s first trip abroad.) Is the university ever going to raise my salary or give me a promotion? Why the hell won’t people buy my damn books? However, although I will continue to whine over this and that, at the same time I realize I have, overall, a really nice life—an absolutely wonderful family, a seemingly secure job, a decent place to live, and so forth.

I just need to remind myself of this next time I feel the urge to whine.

Cheers,
Greg

(If any interest at all, I have a “like” page devoted to little ole me. I pretend to be a writer at times, and have created a loathsome character named Marvin Matthews, an American teaching in Japan, and very much embodies the “Ugly American” image.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Greg-Wheeler/121482907870168?ref=ts)

Easter in Umbria, by Silvia from Spoleto.

Silvia grew up in the gorgeous town of Spoleto, Italy. Many who are familiar with this part of Umbria know it for its annual summer opera festival. Those who have eaten there remember long, leisurely lunches of truffles, pasta, and delicious local wines.

Silvia is a model for those of us who strive the find the glorious in our own familiar environments. Her blog is written in both English and Italian, and is worth following. Every visit to her writing and photographs will make you desperate for a trip to Italy.

 She is also our first contributor to Dawn to Dusk.

A Traditional Easter Lunch in Umbria

by Silvia Matricardi

An Italian old saying goes: ”Natale con i tuoi e Pasqua con chi vuoi” (“Christmas with your folks and Easter with whomever you want”).


As for us this year we decided to spent Easter with our folks, in our family’s house in Spoleto, Umbria.


Therefore we spent the day in the most traditional way: a long walk early in the morning, Mass, Easter lunch, afternoon and evening at home by the fireplace, given the incessant rain.


In a traditional Easter lunch in Umbria some elements cannot be lacking: cheese-pizza, salami or capocollo meat, lamb, the chocolate egg. Then, each village or small town has got its specific local tradition.


At our house, in Spoleto, this is what we ate.


We started with an antipasto made of Easter cheese-pizza, strictly home-made by us a few days earlier, local pork cold-cuts and lamb “coratella” (lamb’s interiors cut in small pieces and cooked with wine, oil and several herbs). This would already be a whole meal!

Following, meat broth (turkey, chicken and veal) with “stracciatella”. Stracciatella consists in pouring in boiling broth the grated pealing of lemon and then adding very slowly (“a filo”) some beaten eggs. The result is a proteinic dish with a delicate taste and a lemon scent: truly delicious!

Then, the ever-present lamb, baked in the oven with potatoes: soft, warm, scented with garlic and rosemary, lamb melts in your mouth, while potatoes that have been baked with it taste like uncountable family holidays, taste like genuine things: like home.

A shy and colorful “misticanza” (mixed) salad peeped in amongst the dishes: it was made by mixing several kinds of leafs and vegetables: red chicory, green leafs, carrots, wild herbs…
All of it was accompanied by a local, good red wine.


This year we did not dare adding traditional fry: artichokes in antipasto and lamb cutlets as a second course. We left them for the day of Pasquetta.

To finish, a good glass of Sagrantino Passito di Montefalco (sweet) wine, Easter Colomba (sweet bread wit almonds, candied fruit, sugar grains shaped like a dove), chocolate egg and strawberries with lemon and sugar.


Easter lunch at our home was a family event: everybody took part in the preparation, coordinated by my Mum, The Cook. The food has been delicious, the company cheerful… and we are sure you could breathe the same atmosphere in thousands of homes all around our Umbria!

You can find many stories like this and others about Umbria and its traditions in my blog:


http://umbriainandout.blogspot.com/


http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/umbria_in_and_out/
as well as in my Facebook fan page: Umbria In & Out

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