"What’s most striking about 'Project Japan' is the text itself, a frenetic landscape of drawings, photographs and textual tidbits both fluid and choppy. The book is also a portrait of a moment; once futuristic, now historical, yet still as influential as ever." (Taschen America)

By Sharona Moskowitz (Fukuoka-ken, 2000-01) for JQ magazine. Sharona is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction.

What does it mean to be a Japanese architect, and is this distinction even worth making? According to Rem Koolhaas, the legendary architect and co-author of the book Project Japan: Metabolism Talks, the answer is unequivocally yes. As he puts it, “The Japanese are a group of modernists that never entirely cut connections with the past. That is probably still something one intuitively senses when they look at Japanese architecture.”

Project Japan (co-written with Hans Ulrich Obrist) offers a documentary-style look at the avant-garde Metabolism movement that flourished in Japan after World War II. While the country was recovering from the war and reinventing its image, the Metabolists strived to make architecture “a public rather than a private affair,” designing for a widescale shift from the rural to the urban.

What’s most striking about Project Japan is the text itself, a frenetic landscape of drawings, photographs and textual tidbits both fluid and choppy. It’s essentially a reference book, reading like a series of presentations whose format begs audience interaction. The book offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of the men responsible for propelling the movement forward and the processes involved. The book is also a portrait of a moment; once futuristic, now historical, yet still as influential as ever.

When I arrived in Tokyo in 2006 for my second stint of living in Japan, I decided on a whim to visit starchitect Kisho Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower for a quick look. I was a casual spectator with only a basic Wikipedia-like understanding of his buildings, though I knew the tower was the capstone of his work. Looking at the unusual edifice with its washing machine-like stacked compartments and bug-eyed windows, I didn’t realize at the time that it was the seminal landmark of an entire movement. I also had no idea that I was caught in something of a time warp, observing a once futuristic building that was now a relic and could soon be a ghost. (Now in disrepair, the fate of the tower is still up in the air.)

Like other Metabolist works, the Nakagin Capsule Tower was built to adapt, with a modular design that could be reworked and adjusted to the needs of its inhabitants. Many of the Metabolist buildings and public spaces are a clear reminder that architecture does and should have an applied use; it should pay attention to how people behave both individually and en masse and it should be able to adapt to the times, keeping a sharp eye toward the future. Metabolist architecture is meant to be flexible, “metabolizing” within the living organism of the city.

The dynamic spirit of the Metabolist movement charges through the dense pages of Project Japan with a jolt. It’s easy to see how the Metabolists paved the path for future Japanese architects who would come to be appreciated the world over as arbiters of the weird, cool and futuristic.

For more on Project Japan, click here.

Lars Martinson (Fukuoka-ken 2003-2006), author of the graphic novels Tonoharu: Part Two andTonoharu:  Part 1, has  just announced the “Kameoka Diaries“, Lars’ e-comic about his return to teaching English, this time in Kameoka, Kyoto, is now available on iTunes.

More info here and below:  http://larsmartinson.com/my-first-two-e-comics-now-available/

The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One [ Direct iBookstore Link ]
The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One is a humorous (?) account of my experiences living and working in Central Japan, told over eight chapters. It includes an exclusive chapter not available anywhere else!

JETwit Note:  I just downloaded a copy onto my iPhone. 250 pages for only $0.99, and I always love Lars’ work.  Plus, it’s my first time using iBook which it turns out is pretty nifty. :-)

JET alum and 'Monkey Business' editor Roland Kelts will appear at Japan Night @ Joe's Pub in New York May 6. (Kaz)

By JQ magazine editor Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) for Examiner.com. Visit his Japanese culture page here for related stories.

Regular visitors to NoHo’s St. Mark’s Place are known to enjoy many of the Japanese pubs and eateries that dot the street down to Avenue A. This Sunday (May 6), neighbor Joe’s Pub will host live music and the latest English release of a notable Nippon-centric literary anthology.

Japan Night @ Joe’s Pub, held at the eponymous nightclub a stone’s throw below Astor Place, promises an unforgettable night of transcultural readings, music and live performances. On tap for Sunday: revered Japanese writers Masatsugu Ono, Tomoko Shibasaki, and award-winning author and translator Motoyuki Shibata will arrive from Tokyo to share the stage with American authors Stuart Dybek, Kelly Link, and Canadian translator, scholar and editor Ted Goossen.

The scriveners’ summit will celebrate the second Issue of Monkey Business International, the latest English-language edition of the acclaimed Japanese literary magazine that Pulitzer-winning author Junot Díaz calls “one of the year’s best publications” and Luna Park Review dubbed “one of the seven best literary magazines of 2011.”

Emceeing is JET alum (Osaka-shi, 1998-99), Japanamerica author and Monkey Business contributing editor Roland Kelts (click here for an exclusive interview conducted with Kelts last year), who describes the literary project as “all about dear friends calling upon me to be a bridge between the worlds I inhabit, write about and know best—giving me an enormous opportunity to feel a momentary spurt of self-worth.”

For the complete story, click here.

"The author's final thoughts about his stay in Japan struck a chord with me. Though many people seek adventures in foreign lands, if they stay in one place long enough, they often find it's the people they befriended that end up meaning the most to them upon their departure." (Baka Books)

By Tim Martin (Fukui-ken, 2006-08) for JQ magazine. Tim works as a research assistant in a neuroscience lab, and is an avid swing and blues dancer in New York City. He runs a humanist/atheist blog, The Floating Lantern, and is looking for ways to make a difference in people’s lives.

Fukui is a rural, out-of-the-way prefecture, relatively unfamiliar even to the Japanese. It boasts the largest number of nuclear reactors in the country, but only a single Starbucks. It’s home to a Buddha statue larger than the one in Nara, which, curiously, very few tourists come to visit. Fukui also has an amusing reputation for getting terrible reviews from authors who’ve passed through—in his book Hitching Rides with Buddha (aka Hokkaido Highway Blues), fellow JET alumni author Will Ferguson (Nagasaki-ken, 1991-94) describes it, only half-jokingly, as “a hole.”

So it’s an interesting place.

It’s also where Sam Baldwin (Fukui-ken, 2004-06) ended up when he applied to teach English in Japan as a member of the JET Program. In For Fukui’s Sake, Baldwin recounts tales from his two-year stay in this quirky rural backwater, weaving together the varied strands of his experience to form a continuous narrative of adventure and personal growth.

While working a monotonous job as a “research lab technician” in the UK, Baldwin decided he needed to broaden his horizons. Looking to discover what else life could offer, he set his sights on Japan, which, according to a friend who had visited, was a place where Baldwin could indulge in his love of snow and mountains. This may be a casual way to make the decision to start a new job in a strange country, but the required spontaneity and openness to new experiences may be what ultimately allowed the author to glean so much from his time in Japan.

The assignment to live and work in a lesser-known part of rural Japan doesn’t immediately suggest much opportunity for adventure or excitement, yet Baldwin manages to find both by taking advantage of his unique location and the people he meets in Fukui. Following his obsession with snow, Baldwin tracks down a local bar owner who happens to be a serious mountain climber, thus beginning a friendship that eventually takes him to the snow-capped peaks of some of Japan’s most sacred mountains. He also tells of a trip to the home of a Japanese sword sharpener—one of a rare breed of artisans from a bygone era. There Baldwin learns about the craft firsthand, and is afforded the opportunity to see a 600-year-old katana, one that has almost definitely been used in the taking of life.

The tales Baldwin recounts of his time in Fukui, I must admit, hold a special significance for me. I taught English in Fukui for two years myself, beginning right after the author left Japan. He and I have never met, but I do know many of the places and people he describes in the book personally, and so there is a much greater connection between text and experience. Or in some cases, a disconnect—in reading Baldwin’s book, I learned more about my erstwhile neighbor, a fisherman in Obama City, than I ever did from living next door to him.

It’s incidents such as this that make me wonder how I could have taken greater advantage of my own time in Japan, and learned more from, or more about, the people around me. I should also make one more admission about the book, in a less serious vein: the word “Fukui” is so commonplace to me that it took me three days to realize that the book’s title was meant to be a pun. Prior to that, I simply thought that the author had done something nice for Fukui. So not in all cases does familiarity breed understanding.

Throughout the book, Baldwin describes many of the common surprises and challenges that foreign residents are confronted with in Japan, no matter where they happen to live. There’s the fascination with Japanese technology—so perfect when it comes to the Washlet toilet, and so lacking when it comes to the uncovered drainage ditches on the sides of the roads. There’s the joy of being a celebrity…followed by the frustration of being a celebrity. Baldwin also describes the particular pleasures and troubles of being a JET participant—for example, giving an introductory speech to your school in a language you don’t know, or wondering why your teachers opened up to you at your school’s enkai, only to treat you distantly at school the next day. Those who are familiar with the life of a foreign teacher in Japan will find few stories here that they haven’t heard—or lived—before. Fortunately, Baldwin recounts them with such charm and humor that readers won’t mind treading these well-worn paths again.

One of the enjoyable aspects of For Fukui’s Sake is witnessing the way the author discovers truths about the Japanese people through his experiences. It is during his trip to the massive Fuji Rock Festival that Baldwin remarks on the Japanese penchant for cleanliness when he notices that there is no litter strewn about the concert grounds. He also has several occasions to bring up the incredible kindness of the Japanese toward strangers, such as when two young men in Tokyo guide him and his friends to a bar they were looking for, have a few drinks with them, and then insist on picking up the tab. These observations don’t make for in-depth cultural analysis, nor do they have to.  The author shows us, simply, what a person of another culture might learn about the Japanese by being in Japan.

The author’s final thoughts about his stay in Japan struck a chord with me. During my time in Japan, I was always looking for that sense of fitting in, or being “just one of the guys,” even though, as a foreigner, I couldn’t be. I did have one group of close Japanese friends with whom I found it. Baldwin was looking for that, too, and he found it—among the cast of characters who frequented the bar owned by his mountain climbing friend. Though many people seek adventures in foreign lands, if they stay in one place long enough, they often find it’s the people they befriended that end up meaning the most to them upon their departure. For Sam Baldwin, this is certainly true.

For more information, visit www.forfukuissake.com.

****************

Thanks to Lindsay Tsuji for this write-up and thanks to Nadine Bukhman for the photos.

A chilly Toronto’s eve didn’t stop friends and fans of one artistically inclined JET alum from dropping by the Goodfellas Gallery in Toronto to celebrate the launch of his new book Life After the B.O.E. JETAA Toronto’s David Namisato (Aomori-ken CIR, 2002-04) was the cause of some serious hurrah on February 8.

Most JETs are no stranger to David’s comics. Started back in 2005, they chronicle the ins and outs of what life is like as a foreigner on the JET Programme. The enkais, the onsens, the team teaching…it’s all in there.

David Namisato is interviewed by Wai Wai Wide (OMNI).

What started as a small part of the JETAA Toronto Newsletter later became the more recent editions that continue to appear on JET websites as well as ESL teaching websites around the world.

Namisato kicked off the evening by offering a copy of his book to the Japan Foundation director Takashi Ishida and head librarian Mariko Liliefeldt. Life After the B.O.E. is due to be catalogued for the Japan Foundation library. James Heron from the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre has offered to carry copies of the book at the JCCC’s cultural gift shop.

A big thanks goes out to Hitoshi Murakami and the folks at the Goodfellas Gallery for helping out with the event.

Didn’t make it to the event? You can still buy a copy of the book! Click here for amazon or here for createspace.

To learn more about David Namisato, you can read this JETAA Toronto interview with him as well as this JQ Magazine book review of Life After the B.O.E. by JET alum Sharona Mosokowitz.

"Reading 'Tomo' is a reminder that even in the most desperate straits, friendship and personal relationships have the power to nourish and sustain us." (Stone Bridge Press)

By Sharona Moskowitz (Fukuoka-ken, 2000-01) for JQ magazine. Sharona is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction.

If you could know your future cause of death, would you choose to know? This is the question posed by “Yamada-san’s Toaster,” one of the short stories in the new fiction anthology Tomo: Friendship through Fiction: An Anthology of Japan Teen Stories. As the title suggests, the collection is geared toward adolescents and dedicated to the youth of Tohoku, though it undoubtedly has— in the parlance of publishing— tremendous crossover appeal. There is plenty for adults to enjoy here, too. Edited and with a foreword by Holly Thompson, this collection features 36 stories—including 10 in translation—contributed by several JET alums from around the world, all of whom share a connection to Japan. Proceeds from its sale will go directly to the continued relief efforts.

In Kelly Luce’s story, Yamada-san’s toaster burns into each slice of bread a Chinese character supposedly predicting one’s cause of death. The tale’s young narrator observes the effects of the toaster on the townspeople as news spreads and they become stirred into a ridiculous pandemonium. There’s a great element of humor to the story though it also reveals a universal human folly: the vulnerability towards superstition. People try desperately to find order and make sense of a chaotic and random world, even if it means looking for burnt kanji of the toast on a breakfast plate.

The stories are grouped thematically, represented by “Shocks and Tremors,” Friends and Enemies,” “Ghosts and Spirits,” Powers and Feats,” Talents and Curses,” Insiders and Outsiders” and “Families and Connections.” (The final story, the poignant “Peace on Earth,” is penned by Suzanne Kamata (Tokushima-ken, 1988-90), whose own book of short stories, The Beautiful One Has Come, was released last year.

For many of the characters in Tomo, the earthquake and tsunami are catalysts for inward reflection and personal evaluation. Thoughts and emotions gush out like the waves themselves.  The surreality of the disaster and its aftermath force the teens to become conscious of mortality and reexamine their own ideas about the impermanence of the material world, all the while grappling with some of the thornier trademarks of adolescence such as self-esteem, alienation, tests of friendship and a frustrating desire to understand that which simply can’t be explained. Yet despite these weighty issues, the tone of the book never feels gloomy, nor its characters overwrought. Tomo treats young adults with the intelligent dignity they deserve.

“With time, we’ll all find our harmony again,” concludes the narrator of the short story “Half Life” by Deni Y. Béchard. And one year after the earthquake, this seems to be the case. Reading Tomo is a reminder that even in the most desperate straits, friendship and personal relationships have the power to nourish and sustain us. While the future is uncertain and death is indeed imminent, the sturdy bond of friendship may in fact be the more important great equalizer.

A special book launch event with Holly Thompson and Tak Toyoshima will be held at the Boston Children’s Museum on Friday, March 23 at 6:30 p.m. Admission is one dollar, online RSVP requested. For more information, visit www.japansocietyboston.org/tomo. For more on Tomo, visit http://tomoanthology.blogspot.com.

"This whimsical compilation of cartoons that appeared previously in JETAA publications worldwide is likely to hit the funny bone of both former and current program participants alike."

By Sharona Moskowitz (Fukuoka-ken, 2000-01) for JQ magazine. Sharona works at a literary agency in New York City. She is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction.

Flexibility and a sense of humor have long been predictors of a successful JET participant. And with good reason. After all, let’s face it: life in Japan for a gaijin can range from the frustrating to the absurd to the downright hilarious, often within the same day.

The malleable young JET is expected to smile and wear a variety of hats placed upon his or her head in the name of “international exchange.” For most JETs, it’s what happens in between the lines of the job description that makes the experience so meaningful.

Who better to capture the flexible thinking and sheer comedy of the JET experience than a former participant himself? JET alum and professional illustrator David Namisato (Aomori-ken CIR, 2002-04) showcases some of the more memorable aspects in his new book Life After the B.O.E. This whimsical compilation of cartoons that appeared previously in JETAA publications worldwide is likely to hit the funny bone of both former and current program participants alike.

Each cartoon presents a different familiar scenario. There is the moment of sudden awareness when it becomes all too clear to the ALT that he or she is more of an exotic show-and-tell object than a real teacher, a realization that can be disappointing, underwhelming, or just a huge relief, depending on who you ask.There is also an amusing rendering of an imagined meeting of serious Japanese bureaucrats deciding on the interpretation of Western holidays, wherein one decides that Halloween shall be officially sanctioned “a day to celebrate cute furry animals.”

With his bold colors and witty captions, Naimsato covers many of the universal experiences that stand out for most of us and he manages to remind us of some that we may have forgotten about—or conveniently repressed—for that matter.

Life After the B.O.E. the Book is available now at Amazon.com and CreateSpace. Read an exclusive JQ interview with David about the book here, and visit his homepage at http://namisato.org.

"The JET Programme mantra is “Every Situation is Different,” but so much of the frustrations and the joys that we encounter are very similar. I wanted a vehicle for us to laugh together." (Illustration courtesy of David Namisato)

By Rick Ambrosio (Ibaraki-ken, 2006-08) for JQ magazine. Rick manages the JET Alumni Association of New York (JETAANY)’s Twitter page and is the creator of the JETwit column Tadaima!

It’s probably happened to you over the last few years; you’re sitting at work, or maybe at home and an old buddy of yours from JET forwards you a link. You open it, and it’s a hilarious comic about life as a JET skillfully drawn with a mix of humor and nostalgia that pretty much makes your day. Life After the B.O.E. by David Namisato (Aomori-ken CIR, 2002-04) has given many a JET Alum a good laugh. If you’re anything like me, you’ve thought, “If this was a book, it would be a perfect Christmas present for those guys I still keep in contact with.” Well, David is happy to oblige.

David has now published a book of those comics, and we were lucky enough to catch up with him and pick his brain about it. With his comics popping up on other sites, it seems even a wider audience is getting into David’s work. In this exclusive interview, we ask him about his time on JET, his inspirations, and what he’s looking to do in the future.

What made you decide to publish this book?

I wasn’t planning to do a book initially, but a conversation with Lynn Miyauchi, JET Program Coordinator at the Consulate-General of Japan in Seattle, about the benefits of having a printed book (having something to read in your hands, something you can give as a gift) changed my mind.

So how did you get into art?  Were you inspired at all by Japanese art/manga/etc.?

I drew a lot throughout childhood and dreamt of being a comic book artist. I grew up on a healthy diet of manga.

What brought you to Japan?

I was in the process of dropping out of animation school, and didn’t want to do anything art-related. I thought of some of the other skills I had, and I thought that the JET Programme would be an excellent way to transition myself in to a completely different career path.

A lot of your stories deal with the ALT experience, even though you were a CIR.  How did you find yourself with those insights?

I was a CIR who was hired to teach English and spent much of my time teaching at elementary schools, so I got a lot of in-class experience. Also, my ALT friends and I would chat about the crazy things that happened to us in class and at the office.

What got you started with these comics?

The JETAA Toronto newsletter was looking for something to spice up the last page of the monthly newsletter and I figured I could draw a few comics to fill in the space.

"Life After the B.O.E. the Book"

How did they evolve into the web comic that we know today?

It took quite a while for Life After the B.O.E. to take its current form. If I recall correctly, it was around the halfway mark of the comic’s run that I realized that the JETAA Toronto newsletter had a readership that was significantly larger than my blog or my portfolio site, and that I needed to approach the artwork for Life After the B.O.E. more seriously. That’s when the comics became more polished and the website began to take form so that I could reach even more readers.

Did you use the comic as a form of catharsis, or was it to just get laughs out of your JET friends?

The JET Programme mantra is “Every Situation is Different,” but so much of the frustrations and the joys that we encounter are very similar. Even though we all worked in different schools, offices and prefectures, there’s so much that we share experience-wise, I wanted a vehicle for us to laugh together. So yeah, that’s my fancy way of saying I wanted to get a laugh out of my friends.

Did you know as recently as Sept. 28th your comics were being displayed on other sites like Reddit.com?

I knew that there were AJET and JETAA publications showing my work, but it was only in September that I found out that some of my comics were being posted on non-JET related, non-ESL sites.

So what told you that it was time to pack it in with Life After the B.O.E.?

There were a number of factors, but with things changing for me career-wise, I thought it would be good to end Life After the B.O.E. and I figured, “JET is for five years at most, so maybe the comic should be the same, too.”

Do you see yourself ever picking up the topic of the Japan experience in comic form again?

I’d like to. It’s been seven years since I was last in Japan, so I think I need to visit for a bit before I can convincingly embark on a new comic series about the Japan experience.

Tell us about some of your favorite strips.

I quite like “Autograph,” about an ALT whose students are crying because he signed their notebooks and drew a picture of Snoopy for them. The story was taken directly from my JET friend Matthew Chimko’s Facebook status update.

Another comic I like is the last one I did for the website. It’s not funny at all, but the two images show the transformation that many of us go through during our time in Japan; from seeing Japan as a distant place with a cool culture, history, technology, and things, to seeing Japan as a second home where we are blessed with great relationships.

Were there any controversial moments in producing the series?

There were, but the comments coming in have been overwhelmingly positive, so I try not to dwell on the controversies or negatives.

What kind of feedback have you received from JETs, expats and the Japanese community over the years?

I’ve received a number of e-mails from JETs past, present, and future about how much they enjoy the comics. It’s always great to get e-mail from people at AJET, JETAA, and other JET-related groups, asking to use Life After the B.O.E. for their newsletters.

Tell us about some of your other work as a professional/commercial artist.

For two years, I illustrated a Canadian history comic called “Gabe and Allie in Race Through Time” for Kayak, the kids edition of Canada’s History magazine. I’ve also worked on a number of Zombie vs. Cheerleaders comics for 5finity Productions/Moonstone Books. My work also appears occasionally on the comic book parody site Gutters.

What can we expect next from you?

I have a monthly Japanese language comic called 「マークと皆」 (Mark to Minna/Mark and the Gang) about a Japanese-Canadian boy living in Toronto and his family in a magazine called Torja. Also for Torja, I’m illustrating a serialized romantic comedy by writer Takya Watari called 「もしかの」 (Moshikano) about a Japanese student and his imaginary girlfriend, which you can read for free on their website.

Life After the B.O.E. the Book is now on sale at Amazon.com and CreateSpace. For David’s online illustration portfolio, visit his homepage at http://namisato.org.

"I assumed a response to the earthquake would be grim. I was, however, relieved to see that there is a nice dose of playfulness alongside the serious, an homage to resilience and the inimitable Japanese sense of humor." (Cover illustration by Skye Ogden)

By Sharona Moskowitz (Fukuoka-ken, 2000-01) for JQ magazine. Sharona works at a literary agency in New York City. She is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction.

Composed in the wake of the catastrophic events of 3/11, Aftershock is something of a series of love letters to Japan written in the object of affection’s own familiar dialect: manga. Edited and compiled by American-born and Nagoya-based cartoonist Adam Pasion (Sundogs), the range of over 35 artists/admirers runs the gamut from the seasoned foreign resident to the casual Japanophile, each with an individual style and tone. The pieces are as eclectic as the artists’ experiences and personal ties to Japan, and all proceeds from Aftershock will be donated to relief efforts in northeast Japan.

When I first approached the anthology I wasn’t sure what to expect though I braced myself for gravity. Even in the form of manga, I assumed a response to the earthquake would be grim. I was, however, relieved to see that there is a nice dose of playfulness alongside the serious, an homage to resilience and the inimitable Japanese sense of humor.

For example, “I Was a Teenage Otaku” by JET alum and Tohonharu cartoonist Lars Martinson (Fukuoka-ken, 2003-06) traces the trajectory of the author’s interest in manga and anime, a hobby which “provided the spark that made [him] want to get out there and really explore” and eventually led to his move to Japan as an exchange student. Though his passion for the art form eventually waned, it gave way to a much broader appreciation of the Japanese arts in general.

I particularly enjoyed Alison Wilgus‘s “Japanese House,” which looks at the artist’s first exposure to a traditional Japanese-style house as a child and the effect it had on her. With her evocative, realistic drawings, Wilgus is able to transcend the confines of language and pull the reader into the “starkly subdued” space with her as she tries to pinpoint exactly what she found so moving.

The piece reminded me of my own time in Japan and my oddly sentimental attachment to my traditional Japanese-style flat with its tatami mats, paper sliding doors and deep soaking tub. When I recall my time there, it’s as though the ambiance of the space itself were corporeal: living, breathing, keeping me company, an active character with a distinct personality in my memories.

While many chapters of Aftershock deal with the authors’ reflections about Japan and their own experiences, some such as “Reaction to Disaster” by Sean Michael WIlson and Michiru Morikawa look directly at the disaster, in this case, from the vantage point of a foreign resident living in Kumamoto, Kyushu, far from the epicenter. The author realizes he is probably safe, though he is hit by an emotional wave of his own shock, concern and feelings of helplessness. He is also deluged with phone calls and e-mails from concerned family and friends who have no sense of Japan’s geography and worry that he might be in danger. Like so many who were in Japan during the earthquake but situated at a far remove, the author expresses a familiar sense of restless guilt. He wants to help, yet all he can do is sit in front of the TV like so many staring in disbelief. The author concludes the strip humbly with a frustrated admission, “right now I’m not sure what to think.”

Reading Aftershock is itself an experience. I read the book on my laptop in the calm of my New York living room and I found myself transported to a crowded metro car on the Yamanote line during rush hour with the book in hand, sandwiched between silent commuters passively taking in the conductor’s monotone keigo train announcements. When I finished, there I was back in my apartment again nowhere remotely near Tokyo, left with a longing for the Japan of both the artists’ minds and my own.

Aftershock is available in paperback and Kindle editions. For Adam Pasion’s Kickstarter video on the project, click here.

JET Alum Author Beat is a new feature by Ling Tran (Saga-ken, 2009-11) intended to keep readers informed of what various JET alum authors are up to.  Contact Ling at jetwit [at] jetwit.com if you’d like to see something included in upcoming posts. She is also interested in providing exposure for aspiring authors/writers among alumni and current JETs – excerpts and updates are all welcome. 

• Suzanne Kamata (Tokushima-ken, 1998-90), author of Losing Kei and fiction editor for Literary Mama, reflects on the recent loss of a dear friend through a post about her first sushi experience on Gaijin Mama (a personal blog). Check it out and give some JET support.

• Sam Baldwin Ono (Fukui-ken, 2004-06) hails from the UK and made a life altering decision when he decided to move to Fukui-ken through the JET Program. The quiet facade of inaka Japan gradually revealed its colorful nature, eventually leading Sam to share stories and insights in For Fukui’s Sake: Two years in rural Japan. Whether for reference (newbie JETs, holla!), nostaliga, or reflection – ESID aside – this book is available electronically. If you want to be notified of its hard copy release, click here. Visit the website For Fukui’s Sake  for details. (Fukui t-shirts are also available for purchase.)

• Author of The Order of Odd-Fish James Kennedy (Nara-ken, 2004-06) recently did a Q&A with JQ magazine as he will be curating the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival (Nov. 5 @New York Public Library | Nov. 16 @Harold Washington Library, Chicago). Read here.

• Robert Paul Weston’s (Nara-ken, 2002-04) Zorgamazoo will be honored at the Author Banquet of the California Library Association Conference for a California Young Reader Medal on Nov. 12. Details of the upcoming event are available on Weston’s blog. Congratulations!

• What is Japanamerica blogger Roland Kelts (Osaka-shi, 1998-99) reading these days?

• Cartoonist Lars Martinson (Fukuoka-ken, 2003-06) has been busily settling into his new home and  schedule in Kameoka, Kyoto. He managed to fit in a brief post after a short hiatus. Eager followers can see how he is doing here - more substantial updates to come!

"As for how being on JET has influenced my writing—definitely, a lot of the fantastical world in my book 'The Order of Odd-Fish' is inspired by what I saw and experienced in Japan." (Courtesy of James Kennedy)

By Renay Loper (Iwate-ken, 2006-07) for JQ magazine. Renay is a freelance writer and Associate Program Officer at the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership. Visit her blog at Atlas in Her Hand.

James Kennedy (Nara-ken, 2004-06), author of the acclaimed young adult novel The Order of Odd-Fish, will be curating the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival at the New York Public Library on Nov. 5 and with the Harold Washington Library in Chicago on Nov. 16.

Named after John Newbery (thought to be the founding father of children’s literature), the Newbery Award is considered the highest regarded honor given to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American children’s literature, and the American Library Association has awarded it every year since 1922. James took a moment to tell us a little about the festival, curating, and his path as an author.

What is the premise of the festival?

[It is a contest, or challenge of sorts] open to anyone, to make a video that compresses the story of a Newbery Medal (or Honor)-winning book into 90 seconds or less. No book trailers! It has to be the entire story. For it turns out that any book, no matter how worthy and somber, becomes pleasingly ludicrous when compressed into 90 seconds. The goal is comedy.

In a previous JETwit posting, you mentioned three award winners who wrote about Japan and the Japanese that no one has tackled yet. Why do you think that is?

Only because the books aren’t as famous—people are naturally inspired to make movies of books they’ve already read and loved. Everyone has heard of Newbery Medal winners like A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, or Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson.

The three Japan-related books that won Newbery Medals or Honors—Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata, Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus, and Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun by Rhoda Blumberg—are just not as well-known, and so it’s less likely someone would be moved to make a video. Their oversight is your opportunity! (To make it more interesting, you could even do it in Japanese and add subtitles!)

If you had to give one word of advice to entrants, what would it be?

Don’t merely recap the book. Transform the story! Either in style or substance. Some great examples of successful 90-Second Newbery entries are this full-scale musical version of The 21 Balloons, or this shadow puppet version of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.

As I mention in the contest rules, it’s fun to switch up the genre style, like doing Charlotte’s Web in the nightmarish style of David Lynch’s Eraserhead. Or even cross two Newbery books: how about the rodents of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh fight their counterparts in The Tale of Despereaux? Rat fights make for gripping cinema! Basically, make it funny. The deadline for entries is Oct. 17.

What is your role as curator, and how difficult is it?

I’m organizing the logistics of the whole shebang. The screenings of the film festival in New York on Nov. 5 and Chicago on Nov. 16 will not only be showing movies, but also live acts with a Newbery theme, kind of like a cabaret atmosphere. Getting performers on board and figuring out the program, as well as promoting the film festival so that people will actually come to it, is surprisingly time-consuming. However, I do have some experience with this kind of thing. Last year I organized a gallery show of fan art for my book The Order of Odd-Fish, which was also a costumed dance party, but in that case I had the help of local theater group Collaboraction. This year it’s just me and the library. Hard but fun!

Regarding the screenings, do you need volunteers? What are some of the things they would do?

I wouldn’t say no to volunteers! If anyone is interested, they can e-mail me at kennedyjames [at] gmail [dot] com. Basically, the most pressing thing is finding amusing in-between-film Newbery-themed acts for the New York show. I know lots of people for this in Chicago, but few in New York. I’m sure there is also a lot of logistical last-minute stuff that will have to be taken care of, too. Yeah, I’d be grateful for any help!

If you weren’t doing this, what would you be doing?

Writing books and putting on ludicrous events is all I want to do.

You mentioned your love for organizing large, fun events such as this. How did you get involved with Newbery and this project?

When I was a kid, I’d notice certain books had “winner of the Newbery Medal” emblazoned on them but I didn’t really know what that meant, or care. But when I became a children’s/young adult author, I began to care. Intensely.

My first book, The Order of Odd-Fish, was published in 2008, the same year as Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, which won the Newbery award for that year. As it happens, I was invited to speak at the American Library Association conference in Chicago the year Neil Gaiman was to receive the award. I was supposed to talk about fantasy novels; I ended up doing something different. I showed up in the conference room soaking wet, missing a tooth, barefoot, in a poofy pirate shirt and unspeakable blazer, and went on to castigate the hundred-or-so librarians there for giving the Newbery Medal to Neil Gaiman and not to me.

Midway through the speech, a friend dressed as Neil Gaiman stood up, holding the Newbery. I tackled him and wrestled the Newbery away. Another friend came in dressed as the head of the ALA, and she put “Neil Gaiman” and me through a series of mental and physical contests to see who really deserved it. I lost every contest, and was thus sacrificed on an altar with a knife “forged in the flames of the burning of the library of Alexandria.” But then “Neil Gaiman” wept over my corpse, announced that I deserved the Newbery after all, and led one hundred librarians in chanting “Give Kennedy the Newbery! Give Kennedy the Newbery!”

(Click here for the transcript of the speech, the lurid video, and shocking pictures of my combat with Neil Gaiman.)

So the great Newbery feud had begun. This feud was finally laid to rest in April 2011, when Neil Gaiman spoke at the Rockefeller Chapel for the Chicago Public Library’s One Book, One Chicago. A prankster librarian who knew of my Newbery history with Neil Gaiman invited me to open for him. I started with a series of furious accusations, but eventually ended with me serenading him with Katy Perry’s “Firework.” (Watch the video here.)

The great Newbery feud thus solved, I am now able to concentrate on more important things, like 90-second film festivals.

Any words of wisdom for anyone thinking of organizing an event of this magnitude?

You can’t do it on your own. You need friends to help. The only reason this got off the ground was because my friend, children’s literature superblogger (and children’s librarian at the New York Public Library) Betsy Bird agreed to help out. She has a much bigger platform than I do. Once the New York Public Library agreed to host the film festival in their space, I went to the Chicago Public Library and asked if we could do it there, too, and they eventually agreed. And whenever I do an author visit at a school or library, I make sure to mention it.

How has your time on JET inspired you to be involved in the endeavors you are now?

Nara was a very active chapter, with lots of festivals, parties, etc. I felt very lucky to have spent two years there. But I’ve always been the kind of person who likes to put on big events. Being a children’s author just gives me a bigger platform on which to do it. As for how being on JET has influenced my writing—definitely, a lot of the fantastical world in my book The Order of Odd-Fish is inspired by what I saw and experienced in Japan.

Besides writing and curating, what else are you are involved in?

What else am I involved in? Well, now that I have two daughters, everything other than writing and organizing the occasional event has fallen by the wayside. So: Goodbye, Japanese conversation partner! Goodbye, throwing elaborate costume parties! Goodbye, improv classes! Goodbye, being in a band! Goodbye, any leisure time at all! But it’s all worth it. I’ve never been happier.

Visit James online at http://jameskennedy.com.

September 23, 2011

By BRUCE FEILER

I RECENTLY attended a chaotic, kid-friendly gathering at the home of a friend. On my way to the bathroom to seek some solace, I decided to indulge in one of my favorite antisocial activities: scrutinizing someone else’s bookshelf. For a veteran sleuth, a bookshelf can offer a trove of insights worthy of any Freudian’s couch. Does a person alphabetize the books or clump them? Do they arrange their books by genre, order in which they were purchased, or color? Are these books unopened hardcovers or dog-eared paperbacks?

I was several minutes into my investigation (Bill Clinton’s memoir; “The DaVinci Code”), when I had a heart-sinking realization: My friend hadn’t bought an actual, dead-tree book in years. He’d switched entirely to e-readers. Desperate, I turned to his record collection. There the problem was even greater (Simon & Garfunkel, Hootie & the Blowfish). My friend hadn’t purchased a physical CD since college!

My heart sank. I suddenly felt trapped with an obsolete skill, like being a virtuoso manuscript illuminator in the era of Gutenberg. Even worse, I was facing an alarming predicament. How do I nose around friends’ houses when their bookshelves are freeze-dried in 2007. How do I snoop in the age of e-book?

Snooping is more than just an avocation, I quickly discovered; it’s a burgeoning academic field. Its Edison is Sam Gosling, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of “Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You.” Dr. Gosling explained that far from frivolous (or intrusive), a bit of gumshoe in someone’s cupboard or closet can reveal far more about them than an entire evening’s worth of chitchat.

“Places reflect long series of behavior,” he told me during a recent visit to my home. “If I have a conversation with you, I just get snippets of behavior. Your books, your chairs, your wall hangings represent an accumulation over many years. A space distills repeated acts. That’s why it’s hard to fake.”

Of the five major personality traits, three – openness, conscientiousness and extroversion – are clearly revealed in people’s spaces, he said. (The other two, agreeableness and neuroticism, are more internal.) By looking at just the bookshelf by my front door, for instance, he quickly formed a number of impressions about me and my wife. The fact that our books on this shelf are on a broad range of subjects suggested openness. The fact that they are all written by friends suggests extroversion. The fact that they are broadly alphabetized (but not precisely so) suggests we aspire to conscientiousness but often fall short of our own goals.

This perfect storm of clues is what makes bookshelf sleuthing so appealing – and so difficult to replicate elsewhere in a home. “The kitchen and pantry are pretty good,” said Anne Fadiman, an unabashed bookshelf snooper and the author of “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader.” “I learn things about that person, and they are things I’m interested in.” Is that person neat or messy? she mentioned. Is that person more interested in show – expensive, untouched cookware hung from the ceiling – or is every pot and pan nicely dented with a few things burned at the bottom? Are the spices arranged in alphabetical order? Do they have lots of frozen food?

“But they don’t interest me as much as a person’s bookshelf,” she continued, “because the kitchen and pantry are reflection of how the person eats, whereas the bookcase is reflection of how he thinks.”

Others have no problem looking beyond books. “I like art,” said Eric Abrahamson, a professor at the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University and the author of “A Perfect Mess,” a book about the benefits of disorder. “I gravitate very quickly to whatever artwork is hanging on the walls. Do they have stuff that turns your stomach, or a piece from a not-very-well-known artist that’s absolutely beautiful?”

People tend to form impressions instantaneously, Dr. Abrahamson said. “You walk in the door and see a towel on the dinner table, boom that person’s a mess,” he said. “You walk in and see toothpicks, boom that person is orderly.” We then seek out evidence that confirms our initial impressions. In other words, peering in the fridge might not be necessary; you already know what you’d think before you get there.

For his part, Dr. Gosling recommended seeking out three places in a home if the bookshelf was not revealing. First, any space where a person retreats to be alone. “That might be a potting shed, a home office or sewing corner,” he said. Second, bedrooms. He recommended paying particular attention to headboards, pillows and what people keep at their bedside. Finally, photographs. Dr. Gosling was struck, for instance, that my wife and I have no photos at all in our living room, suggesting we use the space for “down-regulating” or retreating from others. In my home office, meanwhile, I have numerous photos, all featuring people, from my children, to my family, to me with friends around the world. Alone in my office, he concluded, I seek contact with others in what he called “social snacking.”

For all the benefits of snooping, the activity does present certain ethical quandaries. Is it O.K. to look in someone’s closet? Their medicine cabinet? Their iPad?

Ms. Fadiman strongly rejects trespassing in private spaces. “I don’t have a lot of interest in snooping in places my host doesn’t want me to snoop,” she said. That includes smart phones, computers and e-reading devices, she said. And if, by chance, she was invited to use a friend’s bathroom and accidentally came across a wholesale supply of Prozac or Viagra? “That would be an unpleasant experience,” she said. “I would feel intensely guilty.”

But such unintended discoveries do occur, of course. Years ago, while bunking with a friend, I opened a drawer next to the bed where I was sleeping and found a pair of handcuffs. What was I supposed to do with this information? “Such findings trigger strong, discomfiting feelings,” said Dr. Abrahamson. “The person collects their toenails? They have a knife with blood on it?” And it’s impossible to forget, he added. “Every time you see this person and they say, ‘Hey, nice to see you. How are the kids?’ you’d be thinking, ‘They’re great, Mrs. Handcuffs.’ ”

Partly because of challenges like these, Dr. Gosling draws a strict line at any place thought to be private. When you breach certain boundaries, he said, it can actually harm the relationship. You think about the person more accurately, but in the process you lose trust. And the real purpose of looking around someone’s house, he said, is to bring you closer to the other person.

“When I first walked into your home,” he said, “I noticed that you had a Japanese kimono on the wall. Even though I didn’t know what it meant to you, it directed me to a conversation with you that was more informative. That’s when I learned you had lived in Japan.”

Snooping, in other words, instead of being an antisocial activity, is actually prosocial. Our spaces are telling others what we’re like even when we’re not. These days, we need such boosts to communication, because as the demise of the bookshelf shows, our true selves are increasingly retreating from public display and disappearing inside our devices. We are becoming, as Ms. Fadiman lamented, more invisible. “Our obsession with privacy is somehow reflected in the fact that our taste is now locked up invisibly inside all of these little boxes.”

But perhaps, she suggested, that’s not so bad after all. “Maybe the fact that my host didn’t have an active bookshelf would send me back to the actual people. I would have to walk back to the cocktail party and ask my friend, ‘Hey, what do you like to read?’ ”

Ishikawa AJET has just published a digital cookbook for charity.  The book is designed for the English-speaking expat in Japan.

CLICK HERE for details and to purchase the Ishikawa AJET Digital Cookbook.

When I moved to rural Ishikawa in 2009, I had to entirely revamp my philosophy on cooking: how to work with the ingredients I had available in my small town; how to cook without a full-size oven; how to deal with metric measurements; and how to cook for one. I started this project with the hope that any JET, regardless of cooking skill or Japanese language ability, could arrive in Japan and immediately have a guide to simple home-cooking and be able to make the food s/he wants to eat.

The recipes are written in English with the Japanese terms for the ingredients right on the page, along with helpful hints for navigating the grocery store. Measurements are in metrics, and the recipes are meant for Japanese kitchen equipment, so you never have to worry about recipes not fitting in the oven range or not cooking through. Furthermore, 30 JETs and friends and I did extensive testing on the recipes to make sure they all were easy to understand and actually worked correctly. The recipes are a mixture of Japanese, foreign, and fusion food, and include a large number vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free recipes.

Because this is a pdf, we were able to save on printing costs and keep things more environmentally friendly. The pdf is interactive: there are hotlinks to recipes from the indices, and the document is searchable. Our design team did a fantastic job, and it’s a very useful friendly layout.

The cookbook costs 1000 yen, and all proceeds go to Second Harvest Japan, a charity that brings food and supplies to food banks, orphanages, single mothers, immigrants, et al. This charity has been critical in the relief efforts after the Tohoku Earthquake.

The original post on the Ishikawa JET Blog is here: http://ishikawajet.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/master-cooking-in-japan-with-the-ishikawa-kitchen/

Payment options include using paypal for a downloadable pdf (see link) or contacting AJET directly at ishikawaajet@gmail.com to pay via furikomi and receive the document by email.

James Kennedy (Nara-ken, 2004-06), author of the acclaimed young adult novel The Order of Odd-Fish, will be curating the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival with the New York Public Library around November 5 and with the Harold Washington Library in Chicago around November 16.  And he has a special request for JET alumni who are into film making:

There are some Newberry award winners that are about Japan and the Japanese, and nobody has done a 90-Second Newbery film of them yet!

Off the top of my head, I can think of:

(1) Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus, which is about John Manjiro (2011 Honor Winner)

(2) Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata, which is about WWII Japanese-American experience (2005 Medal Winner).

(3) Commodore Perry In the Land of the Shogun by Rhoda Blumberg. (1986 Honor Winner)

So, as for JET alumni:

(1) I’d love to put the call out to the JET alumni community, which surely must include filmmakers, to make 90-second films based on those books for the film festival. (It would be even better if they were totally in Japanese, with subtitles!)

(2) The film festival at the NYPL on November 5 will be not only films, but also live acts between the films — a kind of cabaret atmosphere — live 90-second Newbery reenactments, or songs, etc.  So this is also a call out to any arts groups / comedy teams / bands / etc. who would be interested in doing something as a between-film live segment for the 90-Second Newbery film festival?

Here’s a little more info from James about the 90-Second Newbery Festival:

I’m doing this film festival in conjunction with the New York Public Library and the Chicago Public Library. Participants (of any age) are challenged to make a video that compresses the entire story of a Newbery award winning book into 90 seconds or less (no book trailers!) To check out the pretty funny inaugural entry — a 90-second Wrinkle in Time — and read the contest rules, click here:

• http://90secondnewbery.com/

• On November 5, with children’s author Jon Scieszka, I’m co-hosting the “90-Second Newbery Film Festival” at the New York Public Library main branch, screening the best entries.

• On November 16, I’m hosting the same film festival at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago.

This is a great opportunity to get kids reading, thinking and discussing Newbery award-winning books. Figuring out how to communicate important plot and character points in 90 seconds is a real challenge, as well as learning how to shoot, edit, do sound design, engineer special effects, and wrap up a video project. An eye-opening experience for budding young directors!

Even though the deadline is October 17, I’ve already received some smashing entries:

+ A 90-second version of Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by home-schooled kids in Michigan — made entirely with shadow puppets!

+ Or how about a full-scale musical of The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene Dubois?

+ Let’s not forget this silent-movie version of Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book!

James Kennedy (Nara-ken, 2004-06)

In the article, James apparently also had the chance to correct some bad Japanese in his book. (Who says the JET program doesn’t teach marketable skills?)

“Errors crop up. Speculating on the name of Mario’s evil twin, Wario, Mr. Ryan claims that “in Japanese, wariu means bad.” Actually, the Japanese is warui.”

The book review was in Friday’s print WSJ, and here it is online: http://on.wsj.com/paNu5f

"The stories in The Beautiful One Has Come have a universal appeal but will strike a familiar note in particular with those who have spent considerable time outside their comfort zones." (Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing)

By Sharona Moskowitz (Fukuoka-ken, 2000-01) for JQ magazine. Sharona works at a literary agency in New York City. She is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction.

I began reading Suzanne Kamata (Tokushima-ken, 1988-1990)’s new collection of short stories with no idea what to expect and a sense of up-for-anything enthusiasm. Luckily, that feeling stayed with me throughout the collection and renewed itself automatically as I approached each new story.

There’s an enjoyably uncomfortable tension contained within the pages of The Beautiful One Has Come and it’s precisely that tension, paired with Kamata’s ability to glide between narrative points of view, that makes this collection so strong. The characters who inhabit the pages feel so true I could practically hear their pulses.

The physical settings of the stories vary from Cuba to Egypt to France to Japan among other countries, but the characters seem to inhabit spaces all their own: their minds are the true sites of conflict. The stories deal mostly with women in various states of transition; feeling like outsiders while negotiating their own identities, striving for something just out of reach, or trying to come to terms with loss. There is the foreign housewife who longs for the comforts of her native land, the elderly artist whose husband wrongfully gets the credit for the paintings she has created and the Japanese girl who is obsessed with studying abroad in Egypt.

Though these profiles might sound familiar, each story is buoyed by unique and unexpected details which keep the characters from sinking into stereotypes.

As with any collection of short stories, some will inevitably stand out more than others for different readers. For me, the last story “Between” lingered longest in my mind, probably because it reminded me of people I have known personally. Kai is a bicultural child being raised in Japan with an American mother and a Japanese father. In a culture that valorizes group acceptance above all else, his mother fears that he will never completely fit in with his peers. She worries about picking him up from school afraid that one sight of his gaijin mother would cause endless razzing by his classmates.

On a visit to America, Kai is playing with his cousin when his mother is shocked to learn that he doesn’t know who George Washington is. As though a barometer of Americanness, she begins to wonder whether she is properly educating him.

And yet meanwhile, Kai experiences little if any adversity. He is pleasantly unselfconscious about his bicultural status. To him, being “half” is still more or less a neutral experience. It’s the adults around him on the other hand who seem to be projecting their concerns and anxieties, afraid that he will always remain “between” in a sort of cultural limbo, on the cusp of both worlds without fully belonging to either. Ultimately his mother realizes that she must “watch him go, out into the world.”

Like the other stories in the collection, “Between” explores issues of self-sacrifice and alienation, though the more poignant question raised seems to be one of identity. Personal and cultural identity in Kamata’s stories is a slippery concept, rarely inert, always morphing and shape shifting.

The stories in The Beautiful One Has Come have a universal appeal but will strike a familiar note in particular with those who have spent considerable time outside their comfort zones. As many who have lived overseas can attest, it’s often the little things that stand out. The differences and contradictions of daily life that natives may not care about or even notice are usually most salient to expats. What’s fascinating about the book is how the stories bravely tackle the odd paradox of cultural displacement: feeling like you don’t fit in anywhere makes you realize you can actually fit in everywhere.

Visit Suzanne’s homepage at www.suzannekamata.com.

To read prior columns, please click here.

Bruce’s new book GENERATION FREEDOM:  The Middle East Uprisings and the Remaking of the Modern World has just been published.  You can see some of his recent media appearances by visiting www.brucefeiler.com.

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This Life

The Life (and Death) of the Party

By BRUCE FEILER

Published: July 8, 2011

I CALL it my insufferability test. It came about like this: A number of years ago, I was seated at a dinner party next to the celebrated C.E.O. of an American brewery. I was the lesser player here, so I began asking him questions about his beer.   Fifteen minutes passed, then 30. He didn’t ask me a single question.

As dessert approached, I began slumping in my chair from trying to come up with query after query about organic hops and fluctuating wheat futures.   Finally, I started dropping in teasers from the year I spent as a circus clown. “My friend the human cannonball …”; “That reminds me of the time I once got into a cage with nine tigers.” Surely these would pique his curiosity.   Needless to say, I never told a story about the circus that night.

To me that encounter was a warning shot. I was like a rookie pitcher being plastered in his opening outing in the big leagues. If I hoped to avoid similar dinner party fiascoes in the future, I had to raise my game. So what is the best formula for handling a loudmouth, know-it-all, bore or clam?

With summer entertaining season upon us, it seemed like a good time to brush up on my techniques, and perhaps pick up some new tricks. So with the help of some veterans of the tablecloth trenches, here are some tips for navigating dinner party pitfalls.

EAT AND GREET In ancient Rome, senators hired nomenclatorsto follow them around and introduce them to people. These days, each of us has to be his own nomenclator. A good host often performs this role. “A lot of dinners I throw often have a specific point to them,” said Sunny Bates, a former Silicon Alley headhunter turned networking guru. “I make everyone go around and say who they are, where they’re from and what they most need.” Other starter questions I’ve seen work: “If you could change one thing about the human body, what would it be?” and “What about you, physically, is perfect?”   Knowing something about all the other guests is more than good manners; it can also come in handy if you’re seated next to a dud and need to seek relief in someone a few seats away. If I’m at an event with no host at the table, I’ll go so far as to walk around and briefly introduce myself to the other guests. Think of a dinner party as being like a crime scene: plan your escape route.  

REMEMBER TO DO-SI-DO At some point, every dinner party faces a fork in the table: one giant conversation or lots of smaller ones. While each route poses its own risks, the fact that there’s always a bailout option can prove helpful.   Daniel Menaker, a former editor at The New Yorker and Random House and the author of “A Good Talk,” said he has long viewed a dinner party invitation as a prison sentence. “You’ll be there for at least three hours,” he said. “It will not be up to you where you sit. It is like being in a small, windowless cell.” His tips for surviving one-on-one exchanges: Compliments are nice, as are open-ended questions like “How do you spend your day?” or “What’s new in your world?” He particularly likes talking about what he calls third things, “not me, not them, but something else.” When all else fails, he said, try to engage the table at large. “A dinner party is a bit like a do-si-do,” he said. “Everybody joins hands and meets in the middle, then goes back to their own partners.”  

DON’T BE AFRAID OF CONFLICT I, for one, like pushing a dinner conversation to the edge. I’ve been known to ask dining companions to describe their relationship with fire, or confess what they’ve done in their lives to prevent them from being nominated to the Supreme Court. Politics and religion are welcome at my table. Ms. Bates also adheres to this high-risk approach. “I don’t think there should be any no-fly zones,” she said.   But others recoil at the thought. “A lot of people confuse dinner parties with seminars,” said Rocco DiSpirito, the host of “Rocco’s Dinner Party” on Bravo. He compares conversations that put people on the spot to watching gladiators fight in ancient Rome. “I fiercely protect my guests’ right to be happy.” He surely wouldn’t be happy with my friend who distributes what he calls “The List,” a tally of prepared questions on both domestic and foreign affairs, from TMZ to NPR. When I asked my friend for a question he might use this summer, he said, “How many of Michele Bachmann’s 23 foster children will vote for her for president?”

GO PERSONAL Mr. Menaker said the goal of any conversation should be to make a connection, which he said can be enhanced when one participant offers up an uncertainty or insecurity – “not deep, not embarrassing, just a move in the direction of intimacy.” Kathy Freston, the healthy living enthusiast, Hollywood hostess and author of “Veganist,” said she, too, favors questions that elicit personal revelations. “I can’t stand small talk,” she said, “so I’ll turn to a table and say: ‘Let’s talk about something that we can all learn about from one another. What do you think is the driving force in your life?’ ” Other questions that prompt revealing conversations, she said: “What do you think is the biggest obstacle you’ve not been able to overcome?” and “Is food a purely taste experience for you, or is it a health or ethical issue?”

THE BIG SHIFT But what if none of these work and you’re still trapped next to a narcissist or a drunk? My panel proposed a number of suggestions, from strategically helping clear the table to offering to pour wine. Ms. Freston said she preferred to step away for a few minutes. “As an introvert, I take a little time to myself, go to the powder room, jot something down in my notebook or take a walk outside.”

Ms. Bates takes a more-direct approach. “You know, it’s been really nice talking to you, but there’s somebody I really want to talk to over there,” before going to squeeze in between others.

Is this really O.K.? “If you’ve told your circus story,” said Mr. DiSpirito, “you’re an hour in, and you’re not feeling the love, there’s nothing wrong with saying you want to catch up with someone.”

AN ALPHA SITUATION There’s one final scenario I had to confront. What if more than one guest has honed these techniques and tries to choreograph the conversation. Or as one friend put it, what if there’s more than one Bruce Feiler?

“Such people can actually rescue a situation and often do,” Mr. Menaker said.

Ms. Bates said: “If it looks like it’s going to be really great theater, you just go with it. If not, say ‘You two talk among yourselves.’ ” One tip I heard: If you know you’re inviting two alphas to a party, sit them in the middle, across from each other, so they draw the conversation toward the center of the table instead of diffusing it toward the poles.

Good conversation is as central to a successful dinner party as good food, wine and flowers. Yet it’s the area that gets the least planning and thought. Whatever style you prefer, a successful conversation requires multiple parties – a shifting alliance of talkers and listeners, performers and audience members, alphas and betas. If you’ve spent more than one course playing only one of these roles, odds are you’re upsetting the harmony. Get the balance right, you’ll dine free for life. Get it wrong, you’ll be confined to the last refuge of the insufferable: You’ll be dining alone.

Lars Martinson (Fukuoka-ken 2003-2006), author of the graphic novels Tonoharu: Part Two and Tonoharu:  Part 1, has put together a rather unique video that “explains” the Tonoharu series in a marvelously tongue-in-cheek way.  (BTW, does anyone know if there’s a Japanese term for “tongue-in-cheek”?)

Anyway, have a look at the video.  I think it’s fair to say that no one has captured the JET/living in Japan experience in as intricate a way as Lars has:

From the Harper Collins website:

At a time when the world is asking how the Arab Spring and the death of Osama bin Laden will reshape our times, Bruce Feiler, bestselling author of Walking the Bible and Abraham, offers a vivid behind-the-scenes portrait of history in the making. He marches with the daring young organizers in Liberation Square, confronts the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, and witnesses the dramatic rebuilding of a church at exactly the moment sectarian violence threatens the peaceful movement. Drawing on fifteen years of travels across the region, from Egypt to Israel, Iraq to Iran, Feiler brings his unprecedented experience to the most pressing questions: how the rise of freedom will affect terrorism; Middle East peace; and relations among Jews, Christians, and Muslims worldwide. Eloquent and thoughtful, Generation Freedom offers a hopeful vision of how this unrivaled upheaval will transform the world.

By Sharona Moskowitz (Fukuoka-ken, 2000-01) for JQ magazine. Sharona works at a literary agency in New York City. She is interested in fresh, new voices in fiction and creative nonfiction.

In a magazine article published earlier this year, crooked former banker Bernie Madoff told the public that despite his lies, despite the lives left ruined in the wake of his atrocious crimes, he is not a bad man.

Why do I bring this up here, in a book review of Japanese author Natsume Soseki’s seminal 1914 novel Kokoro? Because Madoff could have learned a thing or two from the book. As the saying goes, the classics aren’t about what happened, they’re about what happens. And Kokoro is no exception.

The novel peels back the layers of an unlikely friendship between a callow university student and a reclusive old man to reveal how experiences shape us and relationships define us, for better or worse. Admiration, greed, curiosity, jealousy; all these ingredients swirl together in the complex stew of the human psyche, the kokoro (“heart”). Only in the face of temptation are a person’s true colors revealed.

The new translation by Meredith McKinney offers readers a more modern version without compromising the impact of the work. The novel is both timeless and timely—it’s as relevant now as it ever was. Maybe cynicism weathers the ages better than unexamined optimism. Or, maybe human nature just doesn’t change that much.

When the student first meets Sensei, the old man’s body and spirit are frayed by the wear and tear of his years. The student, on the other hand, is a rookie in the game of life, full of impatient curiosity and an aching thirst for knowledge. He projects his hopes and desires onto the enigmatic old man. whom he clings to like a groupie. Freud might have called it a classic case of being in love—obsessive thinking, the overestimation of an object. To the young naif, Sensei is a novelty. Knower of many things, teller of few. He is the Yin to the student’s Yang.

I first read Kokoro when I, like the narrator, was still in my salad days, a university student eager to dive headfirst into the much vaunted real world. Still, idealistic as I may have been, a certain passage caught my eye then and has stayed with me through the years. As I recently read the new translation, I found that the passage still packs the same intensity. though the nuances have changed. In a conversation that takes place early in the novel, Sensei offers the student advice about human nature:

“You seem to be under the impression that there is a special breed of bad human. There is no such thing as a stereotype bad man in this world. Under normal conditions, everybody is more or less good, or at least ordinary. But tempt them and they may suddenly change. That is what is so frightening about men. One must always be on one’s guard.” (p. 61 Edwin McClellan translation)

And the new translation:

“But do you imagine there’s a certain type of person in the world who conforms to the idea of a ‘bad person’? You’ll never find someone who fits that mold neatly, you know. On the whole all people are good, or at least they’re normal. The frightening thing is that they can suddenly turn bad when it comes to the crunch. That’s why you have to be careful.” (p. 60 McKinney translation)

That the word “crunch” so strongly connotes money is no coincidence. When we hear his testament later on, we learn that much of Sensei’s suspicion about others relates to money. He grew up in a rich family and felt that his privilege was a magnet for the evil eye of his peers. When both of his parents die untimely deaths, he is cheated out of his inheritance by his own greedy uncle.

As an old man, Sensei knows the dangers of the crunch all too well. When he learns that the student’s father is in dire medical condition, he tells him that he must secure his own inheritance from his ailing father. The message is clear: where money is concerned, protect yourself. Trust no one, not even your own blood.

Yet Sensei has experienced betrayal as both the victim and the perpetrator. As a result he distrusts human beings as a category, one that includes himself. The event that has been the main wellspring of guilt in his life was the suicide of his friend K, a tragedy for which he feels directly responsible. K was secretly in love with a young woman who Sensei proposed to and eventually married. Though Sensei loved her too, he was driven just as much by rivalry and a desire to poach what K so desperately wanted; a form of greed which deals not in money but in the currency of love. Reflecting on his own dubious motives, he realizes, “I was no different from my uncle…others were already repulsive to me, and now I was repulsive even to myself.”

Given that Kokoro is part cautionary tale against greed and its concomitant perils, the new translation couldn’t have arrived at a better time. As the economy inches forward, people are still collectively on the mend from the financial disaster of 2008. It’s a curious irony that Soseki’s own mustachioed face no longer graces the 1,000 yen note. Maybe his image was best considered a reminder: watch your back and guard your integrity in the event of a crunch. Too bad Bernie Madoff failed to heed that warning.

Visit Penguin Classic’s Kokoro page here.