kinuta

Not in Tokyo Lon (thank goodness)

Big Heat is a great noir tour de force and a must have in any classic film collection.

Were you effected by the recent flooding ? I'm next door in Setagaya ku.

That's very true. I seldom if ever go to places like Roppongi and Azabu and know noone who lives there. The uptown islands of wealth and style are very different from where I live.

I don't know anyone in Tokyo, friend, work related, family who has a dishwasher or who knows anyone who has one. They have always seemed a bit decadent to me.

So Junior Mints really do exist. I thought they had been dreamed up by Jerry Seinfeld. What is ' pan seared ' ? I've heard this expression used many times but am not sure what it means. Seems to be a newish term. I can never recall hearing anyone say ' pan seared' until a few years ago.

I just heard the sad news that British comedy great Ronnie Barker has died. He was very funny.

Just give up man. I throw them in cardboard boxes and stash them under the bed. It's the only place left. At work I've got them piled under the desk, on the shelves in the toilet,in the shoe cupboard, everywhere.

Patrick McGilligan -Alfred Hitchcock A Life In Darkness And Light

The first two parts of John Ford's cavalry trilogy, ' Fort Apache' and ' She Wore A Yellow Ribbon'. 'Fort Apache' has been released here as a $4.50 version and I naturally snatched it off the shelf. the picture quality is not so good but far better than the VHS. 'She Wore A Yellow Ribbon' is a Korean version and surprisingly the picture quality is very good with clear colour separation and quite crisp detail. Seems this is the one to go for, rather than the US version which garnered very poor reviews. Along with 'Rio Grande', which I got a few weeks ago, this now completes the cavalry trilogy. My personal favourite is ' Rio Grande'. The photography and interplay between John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara is quite wonderful.

Among his many fine films one that I always liked was ' Somebody Up There Likes Me' with the young Paul Newman. The blueprint for all other rags to riches boxer makes good sagas including ,of course, ' Rocky'.

Great ! Walloonphobia -fear of The Walloons ( what ?). Cathisophobia-fear of sitting. Who makes these up, Seinfeld ?

http://www.kcrw.com/cgi-bin/db/kcrw.pl Click for an interview with Frank Miller. Enter ' Frank Miller' in the search box. Sin City was a great film, one of the best this year.

Almost all the department stores here have bright yellow lines painted around the edges of each step on the escalators, accompanied by a constantly repeated announcement warning us simpletons not to step out of the yellow lines ( regardless of the fact that it is impossible without inventing extra dimensional physics or wotnot ) as ' it is dangerous '. Every morning when I have a shave I turn up the water temperature to the highest setting and a voice announces( in Japanese) that ' extremely hot water will run'. Drives me mad but I don't know how to disable the thing

Great but all real fans of Ray will already have all this material.

Nefertititi is great. His solo cd ' Homage' ( East West) is also excellent and well worth searching for.

Trifling stuff. If you want to find real ignorance come to Tokyo. I asked a couple of 2nd year high school students to find The Philippines and Indonesia on a map and they had no idea. They also didn't know that Brazil was in south america, and naturally had never heard of Lenin, Marx, Roosevelt, Mao, Apollo moon landings or Einstein. God only knows what they are taught at ' school'. I wish I were joking but I'm not. I'm 59.

Off topic but I once lost a book, not cd , that I have been unable to replace. An odd story, Donald Spoto's 'The Dark Side Of Genius' was one of my toilet reading books. One day an earthquake shook the place quite badly and Hitch fell off the shelf and ended up down the dumper, literally.

That's sad, I loved Little Milton and had the great pleasure of seeing him a few years ago here in Tokyo in a small club. Man he really burned, in fact it was maybe the best single R&B set I've ever seen. Thanks for the wonderful music .

Given the fact that most of her big band cds are either unavailable or very expensive outside Japan ( lucky me ) I would definitely suggest 'Desert Lady' and 'Live At Carnegie Hall '. Both are on Sony and are probably easier to get than all the BMG big band stuff. For solo get ' Remembering Bud' (Evidence) and 'At Maybeck' ( Concord) , both of which should be obtainable in America.

Typhoon. The humidity is unreal. The drainage from the airconditioner filled a king size bucket in about eight hours.

Very simple meal of odds and ends from the fridge. Cha han- chinese fried rice , beef and green bean stir fried, fresh tomato salad, peaches.

Sad news. I saw him countless times with The Hoochie Coochie Men and their show was always great. Although he never reached the fame of band member Rod 'The Mod' Stewart, he was an important figure in the 60's British R&B scene.

Great to see Teddy Charles getting some well deserved attention. I'm a big fan and am always puzzled over why he is ignored.

33C and very humid.