So my Japanese roommate and her friend (also Japanese) were browsing through my bookshelf one day, looking at my English language literature, when they stumbled upon an old paperback of Matsuo Basho’s Oku no Hosomichi (Narrow Road). They picked it off the shelf wondering how haiku, something so intimately Japanese, could be translated to English.
After just a few minutes browsing through the pages, my two fluent-in-English friends burst out into laughter. I overheard the uproar in an adjacent room and went over to ask what the fuss was about.. Apparently, the original message was so unbelievably lost in the translation from Japanese to English, they thought it was downright hilarious. They said it was way too modern and conjured up images of Basho wandering the forest with an iPod Nano, mobile phone (with bluetooth headset), and Macbook (which he of course used to write his haiku).
I have decided to take this idea and run with it for haloween. I’m tentatively calling it DJ Basho, and it’s gonna be rad.
Taro Aso, a direct descendant of the great 19th century political revolutionary Toshimichi Okubo, is the brashest and most charismatic prime minister since Jun’ichiro Koizumi (left). But if Koizumi is Elvis (indeed, the only foreign head of state to visit Graceland), then Aso (right) is Edward G. Robinson (middle).
Cyndi Lauper is in Japan right now doing a series of concerts. I saw her on the TV the other day as she did Time After Time, much like the following performance she did on TV in 2005.
Great news for all you lovers of wacky Japanese products out there with the announcement that Thanko has added an English portal to their Rare Mono Shop.
Remember the popular horse riding simulation machine named Joba (here and here)?
Well, it seems that some fan clippers could not help imagining what it would be like to watch their favorite female video game characters riding an equestrian contraption. Some of the kind of NSFW results after the jump.
Thanks for posting this, lifted my day.
