Japan Day 4: Kyoto & The Nightingale Floor

Kyoto is a great place to get lost. It's a pleasurable experience to simply walk aimlessly around the city, because you're always stumbling across something unexpectedly beautiful. A children's playground at night, inhabited by a gang of friendly cats. Or a shrine with a hundred lit paper lanterns. Or a narrow flagstone-paved street that leads to a love shrine.

The character of the city shifts quickly as you move, from urban to wooded to feudal.

We started the day at Nijo castle, which is famous for it's nightingale floor. The floorboards are constructed in such a manner that they chirp like birds.
the purpose of the floor is to repel attacks by ninja assassins. As the crowds of tourists wander through the palace, the effect is intensified, and one hears an entire flock of demented, drunken birds, chirping dissonantly. It's some of the most distinctive music I've ever heard.



Afterwards, we took the bus (a mistake, as the pace of Kyoto's public transit is turgid) to the Golden Pavilion and Ryoanji Temple. The first, while awfully pretty, was overrun by busloads of Japanese schoolchildren. Jonathan attempted to throw several coins into a bowl in the temple's garden, but failed. Ryaonji has so many picture-perfect areas: a pond filled with lilypads and lotus flowers, an old stone staircase under a canopy of tree cover, a moss covered garden, and most famously, a Zen rock garden. At the rock garden, the tourists sat contentedly on a series of bleachers, as if watching a baseball game. A baseball game with no players and no rules that did not exist to begin with.

We wandered through Gion, which is famous for being home to the geisha. We negotiated tiny streets, visiting an enormous concrete Buddha, and meandering up the path to the Kiyomizu love shrine. At the shrine are two stones placed a distance apart, and it is said that if one wanders from one to the other with one's eyes closed, true love is assured.



Then we ate in one of Kyoto's many European-inspired cafes, which more evokes a Miyazaki vision of the Old World than a Paris bistro. The decor is reminiscent of the living room of a French grandmother who owns twenty cats. The menu is a selection of European foods as imagined by a Japanese person who must rely on movies and books for his knowledge of Europe. Lots of frilly and sugary deserts involving fruit, spaghetti, and inexplicably, curry.

We then wandered the shopping district, where Wallace partook of some grilled mochil, and I had some pudding. Jonathan found an arcade with a complement of competent Street Fighter players, and proceeded to have his ass beat handily. But he persisted, insisting that humiliating defeat was the only way for him to learn.

Japan Day 4: The Story of Some Awesome Pudding

There is a pudding place near the intersection of Kawamarachi-dori and Shoji-dori in Kyoto, named Pastel. Brian and I had walked past it, and mentally filed it away for future reference. When the time came for dessert, Pastel was a few blocks away, and Brian said that there were any number of European-style cafes in Kyoto that served pudding. But I insisted - there was something DIFFERENT about this place. Later he would come to agree.

Pastel is a tiny, glass-enclosed room, in which two smiling female employees stand behind a counter filled with small cups of pudding. I've encountered a number of polite and kindly service people in Japan, but nobody has ever approached the sheer intensity of etiquette found at Pastel.

The employees smile at you non-stop, treating this instance of pudding consumption as if it were the most important thing in this world; as if so very much depended upon your eating a pudding right now.

Every moment in the negotiation of your transaction is an occasion for bowing. The Pastel employees bow as you enter, continue bowing as you order, and bow as they present your order with both hands.

I ordered a vanilla pudding, and was congratulated upon the infinite wisdom of this choice. Then came a serious moment in which the employee displayed a handwritten note, which read: "How long will it take you to get home?" I was unprepared for the seemingly irrelevant but serious nature of this question, but I answered honestly: ten minutes. She beamed (and bowed again), and proceeded to package my order.

She placed the pudding cup within a Tiffany-blue carton with a handle, wrapped the carton within a blue plastic bag, sealed the bag with tape, and then handed it to her associate. The associate then emerged from behind the counter and bowed, handing the package to me with both hands.

I took the package outside, seated myself, and opened it. Inside the carton was my pudding and a small package of refrigerant, which explained the nature of the earlier query about my journey home. Presumably the longer my journey, the more refrigerant is included.

As for the pudding itself: it's wonderful. The vanilla flavor is subtle, and the texture is the most delicate I've encountered in a pudding. And as you reach the bottom of the cup, there is a thin layer of flan caramel which seeps into the pudding, which only heightens the experience.

I'll be back to try new flavors.

Japan Day 3: Harajuku, Sumo, Shinkansen

I'm typing this from the shinkansen - the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto. This society is so polite that the female food cart vendor bows to the car as she exits it.

Jon and I slept in and skipped out on the trip to Sensoji Temple. Instead, we took our time getting up and packing our bags.

Then it was off to Akihabara, the electronic shop district, where we visited AsoBitCity, a six story shrine to nerdom. An entire floor devoted to video games; another devoted to toy robots; and yet another devoted to anime costumes. You can even purchase panties for your anime character dolls.

Afterwards, Wallace, Jon, and I headed off to Harajuku, our purpose twofold. One, we wanted to observe the niche fashions popular among the teenagers who populate Yoyogi Park on Sunday afternoons, and two, we wanted to visit the Meiji Shrine.

The shrine came first. We walked along an incredibly majestic path, lined by ancient trees, which cast the entire path in shadow. Leaves fell gently from the trees, while an elderly man swept them away with a straw broom. As we entered the shrine, we came across a tree around which prayers, written by visitors. Most of the prayers revolved around prosperity, love, and happiness. Presumably, the priests then offer the prayers up to the appropriate deities.



We entered the shrine, found that several Japanese people were tossing coins into the shrine and making prayers, so we found ourselves doing the same, after careful study of the Japanese prayer technique, which involves multiple bows and claps. Wallace criticized my clapping as too soft.

Multiple weddings were in progress at Meiji Shrine, and we were fortunate to observe two couples in different stages of the process. One couple was preparing for wedding photography, the bride and groom posing formally, preened by attendants. The second couple was leading a procession into the shrine itself, inching slowly and stately up the steps.



We then followed the path out of the shrine and into Yoyogi Park, where we were greeted by a group of men with elaborate pompadours, dancing wildly for the crowd. Then came the young teenagers posing wtih "Free Hugs" signs, of which Jonathan gladly partook. And the middle-aged man dancing and singing histrionically to the Police's "Every Breath You Take". And the rainbow-haired young man who decided to screech and squeal along with a heavy metal song, before a seated crowd of prepubescent girls who swooned at his every movement. Several bands were playing in the park, often separated by a mere ten feet.

Wallace, Jon and I quickly wolfed down a quick meal at a noodle shop, and then headed to , where the sumo arena was situated. The sumo arena is a formal, staid building, perfectly square, with orderly rows of red, velvety seats. Deciphering and decoding the rituals and pageantry of sumo is almost as fun as watching it. Because matches are often resolved in seconds, the wrestlers revel in the false start: the will step into the center of the ring, and then unexpectedly retreat to their corners, in order to drink water, wipe their faces, and throw salt on the ground (salt is a ritual purifier). There is also a procession of banners displaying the sponsors of the match; the number of banners indicates the amount of money at stake. One thing that surprised me about sumo is the ferocity of some wrestlers, who unabashedly slap the faces of their opponents.

Japan Day 2: Studio Ghibli & The Lockup

This is going to be fairly terse because it's 1:30, I'm still a little jetlagged, and my feet are killing me.

Woke up early. Grabbed some rice balls from the convenience store. Got into a brief debate about the propriety of eating them while standing outside the store.

Studio Ghibli museum, out in the suburb of Mitaka. We walked through the town to reach the museum. The landscaping in Mitaka is reminiscent of the greenery in Miyazaki's films: suffused with calm and mystery. The architecture of the museuum is designed to confound adults: doorways force you to stoop, many pathways and staircases are redundant, leading one back to previously visited areas. The building forces you to get lost, and in the process, be adventurous - each new passageway is a opportunity to discover something new, simply for the sake of discovery. The museum screens an sequel of sorts to My Neighbor Totoro, and it was joy to see those characters reunited.



Shinjuku. Okonomiyaki for lunch, split four ways. Found a wonderful desert shop that specialized in traditional sweets. Wallace bought Taiyaki for everyone, warm breads stuffed with red bean paste, shaped like fish. Eating them is supposed to be a good omen.



Walked around Shinjuku, arcades and used cd shops. Stumbled upon the what might be the greatest shill for a 100 yen store in the history of the world. (More on this later.) Jonathan takes on all comers at Street Fighter III, but only scrubs showed up today.



Back to the hostel to meet up with another former coworker who happened to be visiting Japan at the same time. Back out to Shibuya - the noisy, neon Tokyo everyone knows and loves. Ate at a ramen place that uses a vending machine to place orders. The ramen is quite good, with an extremely flavorful broth.

Then to the Lockup. The less said about this iyazaki (Japanese tapas) place, buried in a Shibuya basement, the better, since it would only spoil your visit. But here are a few tempting details: 1) The entryway is filled with false doors, forcing visitors to discover the secret passageway into the restaurant. 2) The Lockup is the only time I will ever see my friend Brian handcuffed by a Japanese lady in a latex miniskirt. 3) While you wait to be seated, you can hear the shrieks and screams of female customers as they discover the truth about this theme restaurant: it takes its theme very, very seriously. You have been warned.

Japan Day 1: Tokyo

It took us two hours to get from Narita airport to our hostel, namely because the Tokyo subway/rail system is a labyrinthine monstrosity. Negotiating even the most quotidian moments, like buying subway tickets, breaking a 10000 Yen note, or withdrawing cash from an ATM, became a harrowing ordeal.

Upon arriving, I managed to make contact with an extremely helpful and friendly sorority sister of my cousin's (now a teacher at an international school), who led on a walking tour of the area. Our hostel is situated near Sensoji Temple, an area that is known for tourists and elderly people. We ate some pretty tasty tempura, and wandered through the streets of the area. The streets are well laid out, well lit, and surprisingly quiet, and it was pleasant to stroll through breezy avenues lit by neon signs and fluorescent lights.

Jon wanted to hit the arcades in search of challengers at Street Fighter III, but we failed to find a machine. Instead, our guide introduced us to the pleasures of Japanese photo booths. There are very few things in the world that can challenge the Japanese photo booth for pure femininity - some places don't even allow males into the photo booths unless accompanied by a female. The machines are festooned with garishly pink banners of girls in various poses and outfits.

The six of us crammed inside one booth, performing the silliest poses we could conjure, while the machine babbled in Japanese at us, pumped J-pop into our ears, and unfurled colored backdrops behind us, and sometimes on top of us, causing a great deal of commotion inside the booth. Then, as soon as the booth had snapped nine photos, we rushed to the other side of the machine to edit the snaps. Jon and I struggled to paint hearts and flowers and rainbows over the photos under the time limit, and then selected our best work. The machine printed out a sheet of stickers, which we dutifully took to the cutting table to cut into stamps, presumably a teen Japanese schoolgirl rite of passage.

My Most Anticipated Part of The Trip

Easy - visiting the homes of my characters from upcoming writing projects. These are places that have, until now, only been visible through the lens of my imagination.

This is easily as exciting to me as the prospect of visiting Tatooine or Hoth would be for a Star Wars fan.

I can tell you now that the goosebumps will emerge in full force the instant I step into Nijo castle, and walk across the nightingale floor, a trap designed to repel the most skillful of ninjas. And to see the landscape of rural China for the first time - is to know how other character felt at the beginning of their grand adventure.

I can't wait.

The Mystery of Pico Iyer - Part 2

The short story is that I heard a voice in my head that told me to read a book, despite never having heard of the book of its author. (Catch up here.) The book was The Lady and the Monk, by Pico Iyer, an account of the author's year-long stay in Kyoto.

I've finished it, and the recurring refrain in Iyer's book is this: you cannot find what you are looking for, if you are looking for it. But if you do not look for it, you will surely find it.

It's an odd book - Iyer is frustratingly self-effacing, nearly redacting himself from the love story in which he participates. The majority of the travelogue is devoted to his unconventional (and often unintentional courtship) of a married Japanese woman with two children. But Iyer leaves much unsaid - the dramatic moments of the story are buried in chaste recusals, shy metaphors. You never quite know exactly what is happening between the two, nor how they feel about it. Which was most likely the view from within Iyer's heart.

Is there resonance between this book and the current circumstances of my life? I would say there are multiple echoes, but I'm still struggling to decipher the meaning of them.

This has been a portentous moment in my life, filled with omens and auguries. I've been having particularly pointed dreams lately, and every little thing seems charged with meaning. I am sitting with all of these signs, attempting to discern their intent, and not entirely succeeding.

I have a strong intuition that something is waiting for me in Asia. I don't know what it is, but it appears, as Iyer suggests, that knowing what to look for would preclude its discovery.

I'm perfectly comfortable enjoying this trip without stumbling across something significant to my life - but the tone of this trip is different than that of my 2003 ten-week jaunt to Europe. That was a lark. This feels a bit like a pilgrimage, despite the fact that I have two close friends and a brother in tow.

We'll see.

Flight to Japan - OH NO HE ISN'T

OH YES HE IS.

Greetings from United 891, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. Time is moving ever so slowly on this 747. I glance at my watch, let an eternity pass, glance again - and find that only twenty minutes have passed. Already, my quotidian life is dissolving away in the wash of this plane's engines.

(I was struggling with the idea of not bringing this laptop, but then I remembered that my last laptop went to Europe and South America, and this poor thing, which has served me faithfully for three years, hasn't been ANYWHERE.)

I haven't been to Japan in thirteen years, although I have pretty distinct memories of the place, especially Kyoto. I especially remember how clean and quiet the streets were, and the sense of utter peacefulness that suffused the streets. I remember a night saxophonist busking under the light of a full moon on a quiet downtown boulevard.

I also remember being glared at with intense disapproval for eating and walking at the same time. I won't be making that mistake again.

I only know two things about the Japanese languge, excluding all ninja-related nomenclature from the anime series Naruto. One, the word for raccoon is tanuki. Two, the character for trouble is the character for woman repeated twice.

I have a feeling that I'm in for many surprises here.

I Had A Good Feeling!

LEG ONE: JAPAN


Tokyo: May 18 - May 20
Accommodations: K's House Tokyo
20-10, Kuramae 3-chome, Taito-ku, Tokyo, Japan 111-0051
TEL +(81)-3-5833-0555 FAX +(81)-3-5833-0444
email : tokyo@kshouse.jp

Kyoto & Nara: May 20 - May 23
Accommodations: K's House
418 Nayacho, Shichijo-agaru, Dotemachi-dori, Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto city, Japan 600-8142
TEL +(81)-75-342-2444 FAX +(81)-75-342-2440
email ：kyoto@kshouse.jp

Tokyo: May 24
Accommodations: K's House


LEG TWO: SOUTHERN CHINA
Shanghai: May 24 - May 26

Guilin: May 27 - May 28
Accommodations: Ronghu Lake
No.17 North Ronghu Road, Guilin, China, 541001
Phone: 86-773-2893811

Yangshuo: May 28 - June 3
Accommodations: Yangshuo Regency
West Street, Yangshuo, Guilin, Guangxi 541900
Phone: 86-773-8817198

LEG THREE: SHANGHAI


Shanghai: June 4 - June 18th

June 6: Wallace, Brian, and Jonathan depart.
June 8: Special Guest Star arrives.

Graduation Day

Because of my lunch with the hollywood starlet, I missed my daily yoga class, and decided to take, for the first time, a level 2-3 class.

This is the highest difficulty level my yoga studio offers, and I was hesitant about taking it, but I was curious about what, exactly, all of my yoga practice was building towards.

So I waited in the lobby as my regular classmates exited the studio; one of the friendlier ones approached me and said, "You missed class! What happened?" I explained, and then my instructor emerged and the following conversation ensued:

Fav Instructor: Oh my god! Robert! What are you doing?
Me: I missed your class because I had lunch with one my relatives, so I figured --
Fav Instructor: (mock gasp) Wait! Are you taking the 2-3 class?
Me: Yes.
Fav Instructor: (mock squeal of delight) Oh, that's great. I wish I could be there.
Me: What, so you can see me in pain?
Fav Instructor: You're so strong. You'll be fine.
Me: I'm... excited about it.
Fav Instructor: Good.
Me: I'll see you tomorrow.
Fav Instructor: Bye!

What struck me about this conversation, besides the sheer number of exclamation points I have to use in order to convey some sense of my instructor's sheer exuberance, is how genuinely excited and happy she was that I was growing in my yoga competency. There was absolutely no sense on her part of feeling slighted by my brief defection to another instructor's class, even though we both know that I've hardly mastered my current class.

I haven't had a teacher be this proud of me since grade school.

Then the level 2-3 class begins.

There is not necessarily anything new about this class. But there are a handful of very difficult poses that are rarities in my regular class: Handstand. Camel. Virasana. Upward Facing Bow. Each of these poses is something we might attempt every once in a while in my regular class, as a topper to the day's practice.

In this class, WE DO THEM ALL. And no one in the class even bats an eye at the mention of their names. There's no warm-up, no extended instruction - we just go.

I manage to execute all of them, and capably at that - no stumbling or faltering. I acquit myself beautifully.

That's how good my favorite instructor is.

The Hollywood Starlet

I show up for lunch. The first thing she says to me is, "You've lost a lot of weight."

I have to admit, I am a bit taken aback by how quintessentially Hollywood this greeting is.

"Good weight or bad weight?" I ask. She laughs.

I encourage to try the porkwich. She is hesitant, but relents. Then it arrives, and she pronounces it "really good!"

We talk careers, because that's obligatory in Hollywood. The news for both of us is good. She's planning to move to New York for the summer, "just to get away". She mentions some television stars she knows personally, proclaming them "fabulous".

Just to prove the point, our conversation is interrupted by a text message from a well-known actor and celebrity, inviting her out to celebrate the cancellation of their television show.

She invites me to a charity fundraiser she's organizing.

We also talk love lives, because that's obligatory too. Again, good news all around.

Then we talk tarot readers for a bit, as she is the only other person I know who regularly consults one of her own. She asks for Judy's number, and I give it to her.

(Including her, I will have two relatives and a mom who have sat with Judy. I am working my way through my entire family.)

Then the check comes, and she tells me she has an audition. We hug, and I ask her to tell me what Judy says, if it's not too personal.

She says she totally will.

The DIY Tarot Reading

Here's a fun post.

It seemed a bit stingy to post about Judy's return and not provide any insight at all into what she said. So I'll describe something that happened at the very end of the session.

After a rapid hour of intense discussion regarding the course of my life, Judy did something she's never done before: she asked me to draw three cards. There was no question or context for the draw; the intention of this exercise was to yield the floor to any unaddressed points or final thoughts the universe wanted to make to me.

Those of you reading at home can play along and attempt to interpret this simple three-card spread. The beauty of this exercise is that there is no context or question for the spread, which means you are working with the same amount of information that Judy had. I have listed the cards in the order I drew them.

Here's a helpful guide to the deck to get you started. If you get stumped, check the comments for a bit of Judy's reaction to the draw.

1) The Lovers


OMG! This is exactly like Live and Let Die, where Bond seduces Jane Seymour by asking her to draw a tarot card, and she picks The Lovers. Except it turns out that Bond carries a special tarot deck in which every single card is The Lovers, and that's why the playa gets with the medicine woman and you don't.


2) Temperance


Some sort of intense angel-looking type, making magic cocktails. Cheers!


3) Three of Wands


A badass Greek dude looking real serious, about to grab some poles and throw down. IN THE SHADE, if need be.

Ninja Recycling

There's been a disturbing trend in the common vernacular, a propensity accelerated by the Internet, of diluting the meaning of the term "ninja". Ninja is frequently used to merely mean skillful or one who possesses skill ("Dude's a ninja at the copy machine."), which seems a rather disgraceful affront to ninjutsu and its true adherents.

Let me explain the context for this pronouncement. I've always been apathetic about recycling. Part of the problem is that my apartment building pays for private garbage collection, which precludes its residents from participating in the municipal recycling pickup every week. For a while I looked into visiting recycling centers, but none of them accept paper, which is my primary waste product.

But then I realized that all I had to do was ascertain the day of the week upon which the blue bin pickup occurs, and then dump my recyclables in a neighbor's bin on the night before pickup. Most of my neighbors don't even come close to filling their recyclable bins every week, leaving plenty of room for me to deposit my own bottles, papers, and cans. The solution to my recycling dilemma was solved, as I often tend to solve problems, by gaming the system.

So now I gather my recyclables in the dead of night, sneak outside my building, and covertly dump them in a neighbor's bin. This is a mission that literally requires the skills of ninjutsu: stealth, agility, subterfuge. There is no honor conferred nor koku dispensed for completing the task; only the satisfaction of a mission accomplished.

Now that's ninja.

Countdown to Asia

Well, it's been a bit of a lull since we shipped off our little Pillow Crisis off to movie studio summer camp. I only have a week until I fly off to Japan and China, so there's not much in the way of actual work I can accomplish. Here's my to-do list for the week:

• Lunch with my cousin the Hollywood starlet (this is not an ironic term of endearment, but rather a factual description of her profession).


• Practice nighttime photography on Larchmont as a means of familiarizing myself with new camera.


• Reacquaint myself with Lobsters vs. Butterflies. Yay! Here comes my new favorite screenplay!


• Read The Lady and the Monk (discussed previously). Also read Hagakure ("In the Shadow of Leaves"), the treatise of Samurai wisdom adored by white otaku, but considered in its nation of origin to be a document akin to Mein Kampf.


• Wait for Pillow Crisis feedback from the studio. (Twenty bucks says I don't hear from them before I step on the plane.)


• Back up my laptop hard drive in anticipation of the trip.


• Yoga.


• Pick up my brother from the airport.

The Mystery of Pico Iyer - Part I

Yesterday, as I was walking home from yoga class, I passed a neighbor's rose garden, and a thought popped into my head. It consisted of two words:

Pico Iyer.

This was a strange throught to pop into my head, as I had no idea who he was. I thought to myself, "Dude is named after a font - cool." And then - "Is that the graphic designer who named his daughter after Bodoni?" (No, that would be Tibor Kalman.) And finally - "I think he's an academic of some sort - maybe from a foreign country."

I dismissed the thought and went home. An issue of National Geographic Traveler had arrived at my apartment, and I opened it, only to find myself staring at the contributors page, and on it, the name:

Pico Iyer.

Weird. What were the odds? So I immediately turned to the article he penned, and read it. It was about a last minute trip he took to Bhutan. "What does this mean?" I asked myself. "Am I supposed to visit Bhutan? Please God, don't make me visit Bhutan." (Bhutan is one of the most remote nations in the world; only a handful of companies are authorized to bring tourists in, and it's very, very expensive.)

So I looked Mr. Iyer up on Wikipedia, hoping to see something that seemed relevant to my life. It turns out that Iyer is a renowned travel writer, and his books, while intriguing, don't compel me to read them.

The only thing I could find was a book called The Lady and the Monk. It's an account of a year Iyer spent in a Buddhist monastery in Kyoto, which is a city I will visit in two weeks. It's also the story of how he met his wife, and I enjoy a good love story as much as anybody else.

I'll read it, visit Kyoto, and report on any synchronicities.

Taking It Apart To Build It Again

Writing a big budget Hollywood movie can safely be compared to NASCAR racing.

You are building an extremely complicated machine to exacting tolerances, hoping that it has enough speed to win the race. And when the results fail to yield the desired velocity, you take the car apart, make small and subtle alterations, and put the car back together again. You shave weight, you reduce drag. You do this until you know every piece of the machine by heart, until you can map the gears of every system in your mind. And even then, the car may not be fast enough. So then you get really creative. You drill holes in wheel wells to improve air flow, you install extra fuel piping to increase capacity, you raise the spoiler to increase downforce. In short, you cheat.

Last week Huili and I actually submitted the final Pillow Crisis revision. I write "final" with some degree of hope, because our last two revisions were also the final revisions. But in this case, having utterly exhausted our capacity and desire to work on the story any longer, I'm inclined to believe that this is the ultimate revision.

One of the important things we've learned in this process is the value of rapid prototyping. Instead of pouring a lot of resources into a single perfect draft, never knowing if the final product would pass muster with the studios, we instead focused our efforts on outlines.

We began with a fifty point outline, encompassing every moment of the movie, and proceeded to justify the inclusion of each individual point. Did this moment belong in the movie? Did it need changes? Did it need to be placed at a different point in the outline?

On average, we spent about a day on each point, working our way through the outline like a Catholic praying the rosary. The most frustrating moments came during moments when we decided that we needed to throw out large sections of the chronology, which often meant going back to where we were three weeks ago. The movie mutated several times along the way, growing new appendages and shedding old ones. We spent days, weeks cultivating - and then destroying - alternate universe iterations of our movie. Imagine the cloning laboratory from the fourth Alien movie.

But that is the beauty of rapid prototyping - evolutionary errors were discovered early enough in the process so that we did not have to undertake an arduous page one rewrite of the screenplay; we merely needed to reconfigure some bullet points on our outline. We were essentially writing a new version of the movie every couple of weeks, as opposed to months.

The downside of this process is the loss of discovery - the sense of a story growing organically from the hidden recesses of your heart and subconscious. But big-budget Hollywood movies are not organic - they are machines which create the most exquisite illusion of soul. Back to the Future is ultimately a cold, mechanical movie which fools you into thinking it has a heart. See also: the entire oeuvre of Pixar. The illusion is so well-crafted that even awareness of the illusion is not enough to break it.

That is the magic of the machine you're building.

The Return of Judy

"Has it been a year already?" Judy asked.

"It's been more than a year," I said.

So I drove out to Thousand Oaks. As we stepped inside her reading room, she asked,

"What happened? Your body is completely different!"

When I asked what she meant, she said, "The energy in your chest and shoulders is much more open."

I explained that perhaps this woman (#2) might have something to say about that.

So then I spent the next hour talking to my favorite Jewish grandmother who happens to read tarot cards. And, as tarot readers are wont to do, she spoke about the current preoccupations of my life at great length.

I was supposed to bring back lots of MP3s for your enjoyment, but I've decided against posting any of the material from this year's reading. My impression is that posting it would only serve to spoil the telling of events to come. (And besides, if she's wrong (never!), it could be somewhat embarrassing. As always, though, I would be loathe to bet against this woman.)

We'll see.

How To Pack For A Long Trip

A few days or even weeks before your trip, tou take your empty suitcase, and put it somewhere conspicuous. Then, as you remember things you need, you throw them in the suitcase, one by one. By the time your departure date arrives, everything that you might possibly forget - is already in your suitcase.

A Small Recipe for Happiness

Took a month off from blogging, but I find my return necessitated by a number of exciting and forthcoming events.

In order to make up for my absence, here's a small recipe for happiness:

1) Buy a pound of strawberries.

2) Buy some Straus Organic European-Style Vanilla Whole Milk Yogurt. Do not substitute another brand of yogurt, as European yogurt is liquid, not solid.

3) Dip the strawberries in the yogurt and eat.

4) Drink the resulting strawberry-yogurt blend.

This is one of the best things I've learned all year.

Coming up next: Asia! And a brief visit with a very special guest star!

Checking In Briefly

It's been a while. Here's a rare photo of myself, posing with my friend Josh in front of one of my favorite locations in San Francisco: Dolores Park. I usually don't pose for "let's stand in front of the landmark with our beverages" photos, but Josh took someone's group photo, and she insisted on returning the favor.

I wish I had more to report. Huili and I are just about done with our final revision of Pillow Crisis for our friends at the studio. We'll see what happens, or we won't, depending on how quickly or slowly they respond. In the meantime, I am running over to the Chinese consulate to drop off visa applications for my friends and myself, attending regular planning meetings, helping my brother with internship applications in Los Angeles, and wondering where all the time goes.