A cup of coffee is a marvelous thing with its luxurious taste, equalising aura, and built-in performance boosts. Whether you’re sipping a cafe au lait, making your way through a flat white, savouring a cappucino, or waiting for a double shot half-caff mocha latte with soy milk, the thousands of different coffee permutations make it the stuff of legends that offer instant inspiration. Without such coffee innovation we wouldn’t get the espresso, or the mint mocha chip ice cream variety, or the tiramisu. It seems to me quite fitting then that such an incredible substance warrants its own, separate location for consumption.

Given the seemingly universal appeal of coffee, it comes as no surprise that coffee shops are also magical places. Every time I find myself amongst old friends, we always meet up at one of the numerous local coffee shops for half price cake night and a bottomless cup of the house blend. I’ve met up with business partners and employers at several corner coffee spots and often failed to keep my poor tongue unburnt in my attempts to keep up. I cannot tell you how many of my first dates have been for a multi-hour cup of coffee and perhaps slice of pie or how many times I’ve gone there to get some work done by my lonesome. Nowadays coffee shops are becoming synonymous with internet access, clean bathrooms, cheap refills, free outlets, and indie hipster lounge music. Yet the spirit of the coffee shop remains untarnished.

There a few universal givens in a coffee shop anywhere, anytime. The longer it takes to prepare, the better it usually tastes. There will be comfy chairs for you to sprawl all over, and though you may have to fight for it, enough casual courtesy to imply you can safely use the toilet without worrying about someone usurping your seat. Maybe the beverage menu is large, maybe it’s small. Maybe there’re fancy drinks on it or discerning descriptions about where each blend is from and what its defining Charactersitics are. Perhaps it’s just a four-item list handwritten and slightly smeared on a chalkboard reading “Coffee, Decaf, Espresso, Hot Chocolate, 2.50/e.” Maybe your coffee house has some quirks, say a series of beat-up bookshelves filled with take-one-leave-one used classics, or a stack of old-school board games you haven’t played since Timmy Borden’s 11th birthday party. But it will always have a strong cup of coffee waiting for you, and if you’re lucky a spot in the shade and a barista that knows your name and favourite orders by heart.

Regardless of your agenda when you walk into the coffee shop, the characters are the same everywhere. There’s always some guy on his mobile or laptop talking loudly enough to annoy everyone who hasn’t already tripped over his power cable. The homeless guy in the corner who refuses to give up his table is inevitable, as is the seemingly endless and grating laugh of the girl on an awkward date. Somehow, the place still manages to feel serene. Maybe it’s the anonymity granted by holding a book or newspaper, or the obliging space you receive the moment you put on your headphones and open your notebook You could call it social etiquette, or you could call it self-involvement, but I think coffee houses have their own entirely separate set of rules of engagement.

It’s quite remarkable when you think about it, how thirty or so people gather at one place at one time, yet rarely acknowledge one another in this space. Coffee houses thrive on the assumption that everyone has something else to do and somewhere else to be. Whether you’re that guy on his bluetooth headset yammering away in line or if you’re that girl smoking and talking about why Hemmingway was a fascist and you’ll show the world just as soon as you finish your novel, if you’re that mum who’s just stopped in for a morning beverage before going about her day, or if you’re that intern that just popped down the street to take a brake from all the interoffice politics forced on him. We’re all in transition.

So the coffee house, the protector of the bohemian and the facilitator of the businessman alike, is nothing more than a halfway house, a layover for fuel in a world of thesis deadlines, skype calls, reading lists, and chatty mates. It’s an empty space for us to fill with our beverage orders yes, but with our plans for the future as well. With our word, our aspirations, our next ten-minute action plan. It’s a break from space and time where we focus on old-world values: genuine relationships with other people, creative development, intellectual debate and curiosity, hard work that results in progress instead of procrastination. So it’s a halfway house for cultural values too, a meeting point of the old and the new, of the traditional practices and the new models. After all, coffee shops have been around for what seems like eons, and when we’re told that democracy was forged in a coffee shop, that masterpieces were penned among a smattering of empty cups, that revolutions were born on the kinds of fourtops and twotops I use every week, I have no problem picturing it. Coffee shops are blank canvases, which is where they get their power, but they’re also meeting points and by nature turnpikes that can either turn you around or spit you right back out the way you came. They’re trickier than we give them credit for.

I spent my first afternoon wandering aimlessly around Adams Morgan this past weekend, and after browsing the menus of the scores of coffee shops the neighbourhood has to offer, it occurred to me that the loss of adequate coffee shop culture — the dearth of oversized armchairs, the wrong kind of music, and no idiosyncrasies in sight — was a larger factor in how lost I felt in Los Angeles than I’d given credit to. I was lucky enough to come of age in a land abundant with choice coffee spots: Artiste by the grassy Millenium Park where we played oh so many games of Ultimate Frisbee and perused the Menil Collection, Empire with its gourmet brunches and “customer of the week” competition to win free coffee, Brazil’s patio imbued with so much ambiance it was hard not to spend hours at a time there, Agora and her smoky second floor that was well worth braving for the free live jazz on Fridays and bluegrass on Tuesdays. I had no shortage of coffee houses, tea shoppes, and boba/juice bars just down the street from me, and until I was deprived of the space, I came to see how a vegetarian sandwich option or mismatching cups and saucers could repurpose my work with more zeal than hacking at it anywhere else ever could. When the conditions are right, I am unstoppable.

I don’t need much; I don’t need ultra-fancy furniture or uber-hip lighting. I need a good cup of hot coffee or tea and a decent place to sit. I was instantly comforted by the volume of such places as I walked just a few blocks into the district. The mere presence of such establishments tells me worlds about the surrounding residents, namely their values. Tryst cafe and coffee shop was packed at 15:00 on a Saturday, and now matter how long I had to search for a seat, I was pleased that having this halfway house, this meeting place, this space to let your social relationships and private aspirations blossom is not just important, it’s culturally vital. It’s not only having the space to reflect, discuss, and nourish our stomachs and souls alike, but it’s how many people used this space, in Tryst and elsewhere down the block. The magic of coffee shops is here, and it is indeed universal, making the coffee house culture just one more reason why I fit so well in the DC Metro area.

Who’s Camus Anyway? (alternate title: Kamyu nante shiranai)

2006, Japan

Directed by Mitsuo Yanagimachi

Spoiler level - low (speculation and allusions only)

While those little indie wheat germs dancing on the covers of DVDs at your local video rental or electronics store are pretty good at convincing passerby a quality product lies underneath, I am less often convinced. I’m a hard film nut to crack, perhaps because of my background in the subject, perhaps because of my legpull-intolerant personality and already ironclad conviction and opinions, or perhaps because I have been let down by so many such claims (The Squid and the Whale, Thumbsucker, and Rocket Science come to mind), and I find myself even more skeptical when an independent film is used in conjunction with the following terms: buzz, sleeper hit, contemplative, postmodern, or critically acclaimed. It’s not a strike against, it’s just not a guarantee.

So, I wasn’t impressed by the cover, and I wasn’t sold by the description, but I couldn’t help feeling some fondness towards this strange and quirky film about liberal arts college kinds trying to make their way in the world. It’s a dry comedy, with some saddening moments thrown in as characters throw their souls on the line for a student project, a fact made even more quietly desperate given how forthright their intentions seemed at the onset. And then it turns soap opera. And then it has a nearly sublime and fully intentional Hitchcock moment. And then it ends. Confused yet?

Where It Excels
The setting is spot on. The whole film was both set and shot at an actual university in Tokyo, and while I thought having random art students practicing whatever craft they’re studying in the background was just a well-placed device, it turns out those cellists, break dancers, and ceramicists were actual students pursuing real clubs, adding another layer of reality that Vittorio De Sica would approve of. There are a few near-perfect moments (top shelf mis-en-scene and excellent direction) that really nail it, such as when our protagonists are having a serious meeting in the foreground and the cast and crew are having an all-out riot in the background. The structure is also amazingly easy to follow, given something as complex as a film, and even though we start five days before the first film date, never once was I lost, no easy feat for a foreign-language film. Moreover, I was impressed by the accuracy of the ordeal, including the amounts of money, the types of equipment, the arguments held, the positions made, and how each character was treated — exactly as they would have in a university-level course of literature students that are competent yet under-experienced at filmmaking. I struck a good balance between having no idea what they were doing and knowing exactly what they were doing without pulling knee jerk nags or getting on your last nerve.

In addition to the ambiance of practicing and disparate violinists adding to the diegetic score, Who’s Camus Anyway? made good use of some well-known devices. The opening shot was a beautiful introduction to the schoolyard reminiscent of The Player and Boogie Nights, and every time one of the producers constantly recollects scenes from French New Wave films and then lists back their numbers of cuts, the number of cuts in the sequence is drastically reduced. Clever, and not unnoticed. But perhaps where Who’s Camus Anyway? really excelled was the ending. In fact, the rest of the film is pretty boring, and quite dry, but the ending is a complete triumph. The film-within-a-film’s lead gives an incredible performance, punctuated by the only use of voice over narration in the film, which does an amazing job of disorienting you until you no longer know if the actor is playing his insane character or if the actor has gone crazy himself. Best of all, you could see it coming, but only once you looked back after it happened. I was unbelievably impressed that such an unsuspecting actor could pull off the a stunt, and completely surprised that such a mediocre until that point movie managed to make me actually hold my breath and second guess what was going on.

Where It Fails
While Who’s Camus Anyway? has good intentions, it drags a little, especially at the beginning. Large parts of it take turns for the dramatic that pull you out of the film’s plausibility, but then again that’s all thematic. The movie itself is about what happens when artists get too wrapped up in their work blindly, and all characters lose sense of reality and morality at one point or another until finally someone (their professor) steps in to provide some guidance and set the world in order. Of course when the professor has a breakdown himself, unrelated to the rest of the film, it seems completely disconnected to the central theme of the movie, which is that we cannot live without art, but it nearly kills us when we embrace it. This is revealed perhaps too early on in the film, and while the ending is excellent, as I mentioned before, it leaves a gap between the message and the character’s discovery of the message that is significantly underdeveloped.

That ending is completely abrupt too, that leaves you wondering what exactly was going on during that last thirty minute section, and even though you know by the time the credits roll, you’re still a little miffed that there was no breathing room, that the climax was seconds from the denouement. It’s also a pretty obviously self-indulgent film. As someone who’s been through film school and art school and prep school, I can understand the desire to express a little of the unresolved experience, you know, recapture a little of the zaniness, but inevitably all art school films are just a hair too specific to be appealing to me as a viewer. Who’s Camus Anyway? is guilty of this, and while all the name-dropping and film-referencing is both accurate to the kinds of conversations that would have (and still do) occur and easy enough for the decidedly non-film buff to follow, at times the effort felt forced and the statement an attempt to be all-important rather than tongue-in-cheek. At times it’s even hard to follow (between The Stranger, The Player, and Short Cuts, I lost sight of what was a creative attempt and what was recitation). Perhaps if the characters had experienced a few more failures, their eagerness to learn and immersion in the film world would have been more tolerable, perhaps necessary even.

All in All
It’s easy to see why Who’s Camus Anyway? attracted a few glances here and there, because it’s perhaps one of the most successful glimpses into film school I’ve ever seen. The subtle notes and wordless arguments that happen nearly minutely are what really reminded me of good acting. I was in turn pleasantly surprised at the performances onscreen, and while I had some qualms with the plot, overall the story was engaging, even if it did take half of the movie to get that way.

Sometimes, when you’re without a front row seat to the trials and toils of another’s success, it can be difficult to assess someone’s achievements accurately.  And as an active writer, photographer, filmmaker, and well, person, I am guilty of giving off the impression all these things come to me effortlessly.  However, I wasn’t always an active writer with a blog and a newsletter and a series of short-form pieces, just as I didn’t always have initiative to cultivate my own photographic aims.  I’ll be the first to tell you making a personal change takes a lot of legwork.  So how did I go from someone who kept my many failures private, was afraid to pump gas because I didn’t know how to, and sold myself short because of proocol misgivings to someone who has lived in multiple countries, accomplished a dozen life goals in as many months, and no longer fears international flight lengths, new dentists, or pumping gas?

Like everything else, one baby step at a time.

I’ve mentioned before my fondness for the Kaizen method of progress, a Japanese business model of constant improvement by breaking down a goal into smaller and smaller pieces, thus removing expectations, emotional bullshit, egos, and other such “barriers” to change.  Essentially you disarm the big scary lizard brain (your survival instinct that tells you everything except food, sleep, and sex is a waste of time) that keeps you from pursuing what needs pursuing.  An example of Kaizen method implementation: you want to start a regular exercise routine, but you can’t seem to find the motivation to go regularly.  So instead of forcing yourself to go to the gym every day after work, you make yourself put on your running shoes.  That’s it, until you build the habit.  It’s pretty nonthreatening, right?  Well, then, after you’re regularly in your trainers and no longer dreading what comes next, you drive to the gym.  Don’t go in, just drive there.  In your running shoes.  Three weeks or so and you’re at the gym in your running shoes every day, but you’ve gotten rid of whatever fearful or apathetic barrier that prevented you from establishing the routine you really wanted by dissolving the unrealistic expectations.  The Kaizen method suggests you go about every seemingly insurmountable goal in such a manner, by breaking down that one to-do item like “get in shape” into lots of smaller steps like “wear trainers” and “stand on treadmill” long before you worry about your cardio vs. lifting routine and how fast your mile is.

The reason I am so drawn to this method is that it isn’t just some crazy series of protocols and names for things that require software packages and a specific vocabulary.  Any change you try to implement in your life is a lot bigger deal than you think it is.  You aren’t just adding salt, substituting butter, or omitting pecans.  You’re cooking something you’ve never even eaten before.  The Kaizen method doesn’t expect you to know how it’s supposed to taste the first time, but instead gets you comfortable with the phases of change first before you try to implement anything at all.  For example, when you first train to become a long distance runner, you’re supposed to spend the first two months running less than a mile three days a week.  That’s it.  That is the olympic-recommended first three steps of the training regimen.  Less than you think, because it’s damn hard to begin with.

This is especially helpful for a habit you’ve tried to adopt or break multiple times.  Essentially you’re trying to change your response to something that’s been hardwired into you for however many years.  Instead of trying to change the outcome and then getting angry when it’s hard, the Kaizen method proposes you change the conditioned response before you even think about getting results.  It’s more positive than retributive.  You come at an issue sideways, and by creating new habits that are so micro they appear completely separate from your conditioned response, you slowly break apart your body and your brain’s insistence on the “old way.”  Most of all, the Kaizen method doesn’t try to separate the practice of developing efficiency or healthy habits from the emotional parts that make change hard.  I’m a huge fan of GTD principles, though one of my numerous complaints with the system is that it completely disregards those items in your folder or bucket or calendar that you aren’t doing because you aren’t ready to yet.  We spend a lot of time distracting ourselves from doing what we really want to do because we’re scared.  Maybe adopting an exercise routine doesn’t seem particularly difficult or scary to you, but trying to eliminate your subconscious fears is an exponentially bigger task, and that’s essentially what you’re doing.

As Martha Beck says in her book, Finding Your Own North Star, there are skills and there are metaskills.  In our previous Kaizen example, getting in shape is a skill, but the deeper skill we’re practicing is the ability to change.  Getting good at implementing change in your life is a metaskill that will serve you in other arenas as well. But no one helps you develop the metaskill, it’s something you always have to learn the hard way.  There are hundreds of sites, tips, ideologies, and systems out there to help you optimise your life into the most efficient model (the skill), but few actually cover what change is, or why it takes so long, or how difficult it can be (the metaskill).  After all the recent changes both conscious and chance encountered in my life (via Kaizen and via other methods alike), I’d like to think I have some pretty developed change muscles.  So I thought I’d share a little bit about how to help yourself with the meta part of whatever you’re currently trying to change in your own life, a little bit about the mental side of change that I’ve experienced and how to make the process easier, more effective, and a whole lot more rewarding.

PHASES OF CHANGE
Like any good story, change has a beginning, middle, and end, each with its own set of challenges and triumphs.  Unlike most programmes, the phases of change aren’t always chronological; we often go back and forth between the phases, or stay stuck in one for years at a time.  There’s no three-step solution, no tick marks you can check off, no tried and true how-to, just a couple stabs in the dark sea of unknown and a few mental tricks to help keep your head in the game.

1. Assure yourself
You have to be dead sure you want to do this.  You also have to fully believe that you will try it, good or bad, fail or succeed.  The biggest challenge when you begin a change process is keeping the experience positive.  Negative thoughts, harsh criticism, and fears and feelings of failure can thwart change faster than a grandma at a high school house party.  You really have to fight against whatever it is that is resisting this change with everything you’ve got in order to keep the change you want to make and the emotions about making that change separate.  Remind yourself you don’t have to be an expert.  Some people cook an egg perfectly on their first try and some people don’t have to train for the MS150, but most of us make at least twenty terrible omelettes before we get it right and have to train for months to not collapse at mile 7 of a marathon.  Even more of us don’t respond well to the ironman, buckle down appraoch, so spend a long time babying your emotions and cutting yourself copious slack.  Constantly repeat the mantra, “doing anything is better than doing nothing.” Setting your alarm earlier is better than not even trying to get up earlier, even if you do snooze sixteen times.  Fiddling around on a guitar you don’t know how to play is monumentally more impressive than still just dreaming about learning the instrument.  Even thinking about putting on your running shoes is a HUGE step in the right direction, so give yourself just desserts when your brain is in the right mode.

2. Create winnable conditions
It’s essential to prepare the space for change.  At least to start, you need a high success rate, virtually no consequences of failure, and an inordinately humongous payoff to make you feel like you will ever be able to do it.  This eliminates situations that are doomed to incite judgement, reckless headfirst dives into the deep end, purely intrinsic rewards (”the accomplishment of having done it”), and other such party poopers until all you’re left dealing with is the step itself instead of who will laugh or complicated research about where to start first or fiscal investments in any venture.  You might have to change your expectations, what you consider a clear victory, or enlist in some professional help.  If you want to learn how to dance, maybe you enroll in an ultra-beginner’s class, and every time you go to class (your measurable, achievable marker of success) your reward is that you have a boatload of fun and buy yourself an ice cream or a new CD after or go window shopping for a dance outfit.  If you want to stop grinding your teeth at night, don’t wait until your jaw and dental problems subside for you to feel success.  Celebrate each time you remember to wear your mouth guard, or every time you catch yourself starting to grind.  Remember, mindbogglingly low hurdles, staggering chance of success, and insanely disproportionate payoff will keep you motivated when you’re at your nerviest.  Make it so you can win.

3. Make an offer you can’t refuse
Once you’re ready, and you’ve won the game a few times, get yourself into situations you can’t back out of.  This will desensitise you to the new.  It’s basic psychology; ring the bell, dog gets hungry, put your gym shoes on, you want to work out.  But how do you keep up the good work without the bell?  Now that you’ve assured your nagging ego into submission, you’ve made the forecast favourable, and you’re reveling in your successes, you still need a little push, a little danger and risk in a new situation to make the new change stick.  Of course that means you’re also putting your progress at risk, and opening the possibility of failure again.  That’s okay, because you’re going to employ another watchdog to ensure you do it, consequences be damned, and win anyway.   Be the mob boss to your timid newborn habit.  For some people, a sizable serving of guilt will keep them from falling back on old habits like smoking or not recycling.  For others a dose of competition sparks their motivation.  I know two workout buddies who used to compete for the “badass of the week” award.  A surprising number of mates of mine have lied to ladyfriends to impress them with outrageous claims like “I know how to breakdance!” or “I’m great at public speaking!” and have then had to learn.  You could make a promise to your family, or have a friend mail a sizable check you made out to charity should you fail to reach your goal.  I personally use a fair amount of performance anxiety to my advantage and put myself in the public eye as a way to force myself to move forward.  I’d certainly let myself down on a deal, but I wouldn’t dream of remaining stagnant, underdeveloped, or boring when others are watching.  You’re a wily fox who knows all your buttons, so, within reason, push a few of ‘em to help you take that step.  And before you know it, you just might take that first step into the gym, running trainers on and all.

I don’t trust film critics to know a good film if it bit them on the nose (case in point: why Roeper loved Dark City, I will never know), and I certainly don’t put all my eggs in Hollywood’s basket, nor would I concede any particular movement is the ultimate mode of the medium. Out of the millions of movies out there in the many industries worldwide, how is a girl with good taste and a knackering for entertainment supposed to sort the duds from the diamonds?

Film is so subjective anyway, and every critic, box office statistic, and imdb user and netflix subscriber combined cannot provide anything even remotely resembling a reliable review or an indicator of where all that good cinema is hiding. What I have found helpful are once-tiny single-user weblogs of self-reviewed films, those people whose taste you grow to understand as a constant, regardless of whether their preferences match your own. I hold a Missouri housewife’s opinion in higher regard than I do Leonard Maltin’s based on her reviews of the latest DVDs, and I find all my good exports from a Chinese student with a strong affinity for cheesy horror who can barely write in English. Unlikely though it may seem, it is these people, so dedicated in their adoration of the silver screen that they just have to write about it, who are among the first to understand that good filmmaking isn’t just about a dark and complex story, and it isn’t about ultra-stylised cinematography, it isn’t about doing something so uniquely groundbreaking, it’s about making something that’s satisfying. Sometimes we want to watch Brad Pitt kick the shit out of someone, and sometimes we want to weep over Cate Blanchette’s dead lover. Sometimes we want to leave the theatre feeling wrecked over a fictional marriage, and sometimes we want to walk home feeling uplifted by that biography picture. There’s no one perfect film.

Most “critics” are either self-affirming or embarrassingly discerning towards this idea of value-added “quality” film. If you eschew high concept filmmaking, ascribe wholeheartedly to the belief that pre-modern movies (black and white and early technicolour movies) are far superior to those made after the modernist movement, or swear by any auteur — I’m talking to you Hitchcockians, Burtonians, Godardians, and Andersonians — read no further. If you hail independent films where nothing happens and nothing is resolved as the new apex of moviemaking (i.e., Broken Flowers fans), or if you like to talk at length about how blockbusters are ruining cinema and beating the dead horse that is moviegoing, this isn’t for you. Before I get a flood of hate-comments instead of a healthy debate, quit your browser and go drool over The Bicycle Thief, clean your laserdisc of Eraserhead, and buy a poster of Breathless on eBay instead.

This is for those people who spend hours hard-subbing Japanese anime the night after it comes out whether the series is still good or not simply because they want to spread the word. This is for the people who saw both the Hurtlocker and The Hangover, for people who didn’t participate in an Oscar pool or bracket even though they saw nearly all the Academy Award nominee films already. This is for the people who give Bollywood film a fighting chance even though they vehemently hate musicals, and who suffer through The Interview and all three Godfathers and feel completely comfortable despising Coppola’s work. Its for you, oh avid reader, who has probably already asked me what’s good in theatres right now and wants to hear the answer without a condescending diatribe. And I want to give it to you.

I’m hardly a country bumpkin who staunchly defends Pirates of the Caribbean (my go-to high concept example of Hollywood) because of the castlist or how cool pirates are. Though I may still defend the entire trilogy, I’m certainly coming from a different place altogether. In my line of work, once someone hears you’re in any way involved with filmmaking the only conversation they want to have is about your and their favourite movies and prodigal versus rubbish movies out today. I’m not saying I don’t care about the current state of affairs, quite the opposite actually, but I am firmly convinced tying yourself to one movement is a complete waste of time. Film is ever-evolving, and while not looking deeply enough into the craft is foolish, spending too much time contemplating the undertones of a piece under whatever microscope you prefer (e.g., feminism, queer theory, new wave, national cinema, etc.) is even more foolhardy. Over debate which imitates which (Art and Life) and you’ll quickly lose sight of the human experience and the entire purpose of either. Look, but enjoy too.

In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m pretty darn passionate about the subject. So passionate that I want to contribute to that shortlist of self-motivated bloggers who write personal reviews of the movies they like for you to read whenever you want. I want to be that friend who’s opinion to know if not trust. This is my promise to you: I am going to write honest, informed, and thoughtful reviews of the kinds of movies I’m watching, be they the newest Harry Potter, the oldest Doris Day classics, and everything in between. I am going to write about obscure B drive-in movies you probably have no interest in ever watching, and I am going to write about esoteric foreign language films you probably can’t even find, and I will probably write my fair share of independent and boutique films. And I am definitely going to throw in the historical tidbits and academic theorems I’ve formulated on the subject when appropriate, but I’m definitely not going to throw the weight of my film knowledge in your face, I’m not going to pretend my opinion is any better or worse than anyone else’s, and I’m not going to claim to be an expert on the topic. The fact that I avidly watch movies, make them for a living, and spend hours thinking about them has nothing to do with it. What’s important here is that I’m a kid that really likes movies, no matter how many papers I have to read and write about films I didn’t like, out-of-line producers I work with, or how many times I consider asking for a ticket refund. When you love something this much, that’s all that really counts.

RIYL: Half-Handed Cloud, The Polyphonic Spree, Tally Hall, The Avalanches, United State of Electronica

The Go! Team is one of the few bands with a sound so unique you can recognize it from a mile away. A hybrid of cheery electronica, cheerleading, and garage rock so loud it could be orchestral, Proof of Youth is a solid second album, even if it is a bit much at times. Best described as in-your-face bubblegum, The Go! Team is straight up high-energy syrup complex enough to warrant some serious attention.

The best news is that The Go! Team hasn’t lost their touch. If you liked Thunder! Lightning! Strike! you’re bound to fall for Proof of Youth just as easily. The same high-pitched female emcees make their appearance alone and in groups, and the songs are as fast-paced, sugared-up as ever. And the band hasn’t left behind their signature instruments: hand clapping and bells.

If you’re having trouble digesting the pink candy coating of The Go! Team sound, try the instrumental track “My World” which is less over the top but still definitively Go! In fact, “My World” is arguably the best track on the album, closely followed by “Universal Speech,” while “The Wrath of Marcie” takes third and sounds like the introductory theme to a game show. All in all, The Go! Team continues to set the bar higher in the world of übercheery pop/rock/electronic/kitsch. Is it over the top? Exhilarating to the very end? Yes. But will you sit through the whole album? Of course. Then again, perhaps the ability to stomach an entire Go! Team record in one sitting may just be proof of youth.

Recommended Tracks:

“My World,” “Universal Speech,” and “Flashlight Fight”

A monumentally awesome blend of form and function, Uniqlo ranks high among my favourite companies in the world — panic, kudal, kiva, apple, and virgin among them — for hitting the target dead on, for innovative tactics and marketing, and for blending art and consumerism (at reasonable prices!) more seamlessly than anyone else has been able to.

Ambiguously international, Uniqlo is a Japanese clothing/culture company that makes outrageous basics in stock colours with occasional graphic tees thrown in. Think American Apparel meets Gap, but in more stylish cuts and with less suggestive advertising. With just a smattering of stores in Tokyo, Paris, New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London, Uniqulo garb can seem a little too bougie for the average hipster to finagle. Yet one step inside a Uniqlo retail spot will erase that assumption faster than scrubbing bubbles. Uniqlo is gloriously affordable, unabashedly trendy, and wonderfully unique. After all, the name is a slurring of unique + clothing. (Check out their introduction to see what I mean)

Surprisingly, it was not in Japan where I encountered the glory that is Uniqlo, but stateside several years ago that I came across the Uniqlock, an amazing mix of contemporary dance, good-old Fantastic Plastic Machine music, graphic and forward-thinking design, and advertising that absolutely worked. I spent the next several hours looking through the extensive catalogue and debating online purchases. It’s a clock, that changes music and colour to showcase their latest products, thusly changing every season or so…you’ll just have to see it for your self.

That was the moment I fell in love with Uniqlo, primarily for their design. It’s not just the Uniqlock, or the amazing music compilations, or the supreme scarf selection, but the Fashion Map, which is like a study in Japanese street culture, and the Jump project that illustrated just how awesome the staff is, and the types of artists the company attracts. It’s the clean style, the bold fonts, the sheer volume of outside-the-box projects pursued in the name of clothing that makes me go all gaga over something so seemingly out of character.

And we haven’t even started talking about the clothes. I’m a hard bill to fit; I like simple, fitted items that are modern, bold, and international. But fashion isn’t that important to me, so I’m rarely willing to pay all that much, even for something that fulfills the criteria, making it easy for me to fall in love with a product but hard for me to follow through. Uniqlo solved all my woes for the glorious few months I had access to the goods.

Strange, I know, that I’m so shamelessly plugging something like this in oh so many ways, but hey, you can’t help what you like, and Uniqlo is definitely something I like.

I am a vegetarian. i have been for a number of years actually, yet people, even those with whom my shared history must be counted on two hands, always seem surprised when they find out, as if it’s a new development in my life instead of a well-worn habit by now. Perhaps I’ve just never told them directly and they’re slightly hurt that after however many dinners together they never noticed. Perhaps they didn’t know me well enough to be privy to my personal preferences. Or perhaps they’re appalled at my convictions.

It’s a complicated issue for anyone; even those of us that have a clear-cut, one-word reason for abstaining from meat take exponentially more words to say something that is to me, at least, a simple decision to make with an easy answer. Yet I can never seem to come up with a response adequate enough to satisfy everyone at the table. By now the topic has been raised so many times I could repeat the ensuing conversation word for word I’ve had it so often. Invariably the phrase “I would just die if I couldn’t eat meat” is uttered somewhere along the way, unless you’re with another vegetarian or vegan, who will then ask you a trillion technical questions about your motives, what specific subcategory of the diet you subscribe to, and who has been “committed” the longest. Then, herbivore, omnivore, and “carnivore” alike, they ask why.

Ecology? Philosophy? Politics? Taste? Religion? Yes, and no. While I’m against unethical treatment of animals (who’s actually for it?), even studying the subject intensely in an ethics class hasn’t made me feel as though the meat market could be stopped or improved. Sure, cows are the largest contributors of greenhouse gasses and deforestation, moreso than worldwide transportation, but I stopped eating meat long before the green movement was at the forefront of G8 discussions. Any religion I would practice intensely enough to follow to the letter doesn’t forbid specific food practices, and while the five precepts play a large role in my spiritual direction, vegetarianism is just a common interpretation, and there are plenty of Buddhists out there who eat meat like there’s no tomorrow. I don’t particularly like the taste of red meat, or the way it makes me feel, but that hasn’t stopped me in certain situations (often without my knowledge) such as miscommunication in a foreign country, snuck into curries, toasts, and soups, and restrictive social situations where saying no is disastrous (i.e., my raw horse meat fiasco). Even though meat is more expensive everywhere from markets to eateries, financial considerations haven’t ever prevented me from splurging for foodstuffs. It can’t be for health reasons, since several doctors have expressed concern at my iron and protein intake, and I eat plenty of vegetarian chow that is unhealthy to the core (felafel kabob and french fries, anyone?). Yet when I’m asked, I always oversimplify, and pick the reason that’ll raise the fewest eyebrows of the company I’m in (in Korean restaurants I actually lie and imply that I am unable to physically digest meat).

But that doesn’t do it justice; in fact, it’s an unfair question to ask from the start. Why does vegetarianism inevitably suggest you’re doing something profound? Maybe I’m a vegetarian because I really like vegetables. Okay then, I’m a vegetarian because I like vegetables. Why not? It’s as good a reason as any, and it’s PETA-apathetic, non-denominational, and allows for unavoidable lapses without funny looks or shunning consequences. Of course that can’t be the whole kit and caboodle. I do have some ideology surrounding the subject, but a decision with consequences as fiddly as cutting meat out of your diet certainly doesn’t have to kowtow to a fill-in-the-blank answer. Why do you like peaches? doesn’t have an answer all that easy to mince into a single sentence, or often to explain in words at all. I like peaches because they’re sweet, and because their taste is unique, and because they’re a summertime treat, and because they’re versatile, and because, well, I just do. Yet I never have to explain my love for peaches, but a higher purpose for my vegetarianism is regularly demanded. Maybe our omnivore nature is a social construction. I absolutely think Americans eat too much meat already, but I don’t go around ridiculing people for ordering that hamburger, or buying deli turkey, or eating bacon. I don’t ask people at every turn why they eat meat. To each his own. I’m a vegetarian for a whole boatload of reasons that maybe I can’t fit into the tiny space people expect. So get used to it, world, because I’m not planning on coming up with anything better.

There are naysayers, there are always naysayers, but through my entire stint as a vegetarian I have been taken aback by who exactly those skeptics were. Strangers nearly always seem supportive, or at the least dismissive, while several of my family members have shortened my life expectancy and declared me a sickly aberration, and a handful don’t even believe me. A few mates constantly try to get me to eat meat, or try to point out “slip ups” if I accept an invitation to sushi (ever since I had to survive a summer in Japan, technically I’m an uncultured-lactose intolerant lacto-ovo pescatarian, if you must know). My long-term college boyfriend of two years didn’t even tell his parents I didn’t eat the meat when I visited for the winter holidays. My aunt was shocked at our last family reunion to discover TWO of her nieces weren’t into the animal parts of the meal, and almost all of my hometown chums constantly declare that they simply couldn’t ever do it (I personally guarantee you absolutely could), and then make a show of eating large hunks of meat close distances from my face. These people, the people that I trust in other ways have been the most shocking to me. To be honest, I’ve been more than a little upset by it. I know I try to be as unobtrusive about my vegetarianism as possible and am just as often successful in that endeavour, but these same people don’t seem to bat an eye or make uncouth comments to the person sitting next to them who doesn’t like mushrooms, or mayonnaise, or brussels sprouts, yet the one who doesn’t like meat must be crazy.

Of course there are good sides and bad sides to vegetarianism, and the cons are difficult enough without having someone heckle you about them in the meantime. I love that I crave foods that make me feel fantastic rather than disgusting, I love that cooking meals takes less time, less effort, and fewer ingredients. I love the taste, the lowness of my grocery bill, the freshness of it all, the health benefits, all that jazz. But I don’t like the health concerns, I don’t like having to take a multivitamin and iron supplement, I don’t like having to ask six billion questions when I’m ordering at a restaurant because it’s never a given that vegetable soup isn’t made with beef, I don’t like that if I do have to or choose to eat meat down the line, it may or may not seriously mess up my digestive system for a bit, and I’m sure sick of hearing that my personal food choices are wrong.

A plea to all skeptics: please try to be a little understanding. Vegetarianism isn’t easy, especially far away from places like Southern California or India where the practice is widely accepted, and in fact anticipated. I didn’t initially intend for this to be a rant about vegetarianism and the woes of having a strange diet, but rather a glimpse into why many of us bristle every time the topic is brought to the table. I wanted to provide another viewpoint that might deepen the understanding of why the subject is often a touchy one for those not in the know. I’ve certainly been asked often, and now, in a much larger space than four sentences, feel like I’ve had a chance to adequately explain my situation. The bottom line is I like food, and even if I won’t eat the entrée, I’m going to keep on enjoying my food whatever way I please; if I’d rather have eggplant and marinara than sausage and bolognese, then so be it.

Finally got around to reading Cloud Atlas. It isn’t bad, but it didn’t look good at the onset; the first story “The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing” was so boring (despite being about vampires) I nearly put the book down then and there. But it got better. My favourite was the clone-wrought future of Somni~451 in ultra-consumer Korea. And the book’s six different tales are told in ascending, than descending order, which is a really nice touch.

My biggest qualm? It dragged in places, the writing was (purposefully) inconsistent, and “Sloosha’s Crossin’” was too difficult to read for me to stick with it. But the interweaving of certain elements — the comet birthmark, “Cloud Atlas Sextet,” and each narrative showing itself as literature in another — kept me pushing through to the end. And Luisa Rey and Timothy Cavendish are highly entertaining characters.

The constant flag of Buddhism and a few nagging hints make it clear the six stories are the tales of the same soul reincarnated in different eras. If you believe that, it becomes twice as intriguing. Otherwise it’s just six disparate stories that never interact.

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