japanamerica

Tekkon Kinkreet , the first Japanese feature film to be directed by an American, let alone the first anime to do so, has its US premiere tonight at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The film will be screened at MoMA for five days straight . I first heard about Tekkon during my initial research for Japanamerica , when my dear friend, New York filmmaker Stephen Earnhart, urged me to contact Tekkon director Michael Arias. The resulting interviews and studio tours with Michael and veteran producer and studio founder Eiko Tanaka gave me the blueprint for the rest of the book, and I remain deeply grateful to them and to Stephen for the gift. The film currently in production (and at a maddening pace) was Tekkon. Michael showed me some "dailies"--scenes that were more or less polished, but still disjointed--and I was sufficiently impressed. But as in any narrative medium, a few good scenes in anime do not a good story make. When I first sat down to watch Tekkon in a Tokyo...

Am back in Tokyo, where books have trumped blog. Got three on the boil. Still, the new book, Japanamerica, picked up some nice new reviews--both of which reference Mr. Peter Carey, one of which r's Peter Townshend: Australia UK More soon from springtime in Japan.

I Love LA

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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...