japanamerica

On Seattle NPR earlier today . Lovely interview with Seattle Post-Intelligencer over lunch. Japanamerica talk this eve at Japanamerica Society. Sleepless and stellar night in Seattle. LA shortly.

Fantastic audiences on the West Coast. Roland Kelts will catch up and recount more--Tokyo, NYC, Boston, DC, Berkeley, SF--very soon. But for now: Last night, Powell's Books in Portland, one of the best bookstores in the US, and as far as we know, and as far as we have seen, the world--and one of our best crowds so far. Packed house, excellent questions, kind compliments, genuine interest in the book and the future of the cultural interchange detailed therein. Not to mention an age range that ran from the teens to the 60s or beyond, plus RK's dear friend from Tokyo, Jun Kim, Haruki Murakami's brilliant and illustrious office manager. We're writing to you from a condominium in Seattle at the behest of another dear friend, RK's sometimes editor and always heroic publisher, Bruce Rutledge. On deck tomorrow: a radio interview with Seattle NPR, a newspaper interview, and a presentation for the Japan America Society of Washington State . For now: Here's Roland Kelts...

Two guns, 100 rounds of ammunication, a fake beard. Hence the helicopters hovering downtown last night, the city in a sense of seige. Four dead: NYTimes: Seige? A former Marine. America trains them well. Stanley Kubrick, anyone? I am still alive, though, so the obscenity of going on, going on, with the bottoms of my trousers rolled, goes on. The temperature has slid, the icy rains precede predictions of 6 to 10 inches of snow. Just 24 hours ago I was celebrating T-shirts and sweaty socks. Back on course: After preaching to the knowledgeable and converted at the brilliant and membership-only Nichibei Society in Manhattan and dining among the dogs at Fred's, Leo sadly had to fly back to Tokyo before the launch party at The Cutting Room . Over 300 celebrated, including my lovely bicultural parents, and VIPs of varying stripes. Worth thanking here are Lee Guzofski, who planned the evening, Ajay and Amit Tandon, who paid for it, Steve Walter, manager of the venue, who cut us a dea...

Greets, It seems auspicious that I am commencing this blog on a March night in New York when the temperature is so high (70s Fahrenheit; 20-ish Centigrade) that I have been walking around town this evening in a T-shirt. I've also been wearing trousers, underwear, socks and my Cole Haans, of course, so I won't get arrested and/or stoned by passersby. But it's absurdly warm here, and everyone downtown (excepting me, likely) looks absolutely beautiful. I'd intended to start this slog months ago. Like many things in my life, including me, it will be backdated. Sorry. Gomennasai. I am now smack in the middle of what turned out to be a 9-city book tour in support of Japanamerica . There are helicopters sweeping the city tonight, flashing broad spotlights onto the cavernous streets. I don't know if this is because another cleric has claimed responsibility for the carnage of 9.11, or because we are truly under siege. My windows are wide open. It's chaos out the...