April 2, 2005

A little out of touch

I saw Spiderman 2 and Fahrenheit 9/11 in the theatres this summer, though long after they were playing in the rest of the world. Did you know that apart from these movies, I haven’t watched a new movie in over a year? And then our video store closed, so I didn’t even get them as DVD releases. I am an avid magazine reader so I know new movies exist, but I couldn’t tell you much about them. What is a Napoleon dynamite? And that Spotless Mind movie with Kate Winslet where she has pink hair and sleeps on a bed on a beach? Not to mention, Sideways, which sounds sort of sexual to me. And what’s with Jude Law’s ubiquity? I am also sort of glad I didn’t see The Aviator. Anyway, the same goes for television- what’s this The OC business all the kids are talking about, and the blathering going on about Desperate Housewives? I can’t say I miss the television so much, though this is probably because I follow the Eastenders online synopses religiously. But I miss movies, and can’t wait to spend a week or three just watching at least one a day. The list of movies I’ve got to see is absolutely massive.

However out of touch I am however, there is a List of Things I Now Know about Japan.
1) People breakdance every night in the covered arcades wearing crash helmets while they spin on their heads
2) The badasses drive either souped up mini-vans or 1970s Cadillacs
3) Loose kneesocks are the ultimate in rebel schoolgirl wear
4) Tokyo Disneyland has a park called “Disney Sea” beside it but no one can tell me what one does there
5) The number one children’s clothing company is called Miki House, the name donning socks, shoes, sweaters, pants and underpants (as I learn daily when young girls in dresses do somersaults in my class)
6) If something is “service”, it’s free. If you live in a “mansion”, it’s an apartment. And when you invite someone to your “room”, you’re really just inviting them to your “mansion”. A sundae is a “parfait”. Allergies are “allurgee”- and everybody is currently suffering.
7) Relating to the latter, blowing your nose is rude, but snorting it back is ok. (I fear social problems when I return to the real world).
8) Crews of volunteers clean up local public areas every Saturday morning wearing identical jump suits. In fact, any group of people doing anything wear identical jump suits.
9) Black vans with big red suns drive around regularly with loud speakers blaring, “Foreigners, get out…
10) The people who are employed to unnecessarily guide cars out of parking lots carry light sabres.