600 Thank you 2015, Hi to 2016

To wrap up, 2015 was a memorable year. There're lots of challenges and happenings that urged me to learn something from them. I might not be able to tackle with these tasks very well but have always been trying to jump over the hurdle and find the ground to land. Somehow I feel I would like to thank myself and appreciate me being strong and sincere. I would like to celebrate the end of 2015 and the opening of 2016, a hopeful new year. 

599 The New Year's Eve in 2015

A few hours ago I was wandering around the center of the city near to my working place. The night sight is very different from ordinary days --- the office buildings are darker than ever, because, obviously, almost no one is working in these buildings today (but you may notice a few windows are still lighten inside). The street is quiet and wrapped in the shades of night. And I found that the light is even so bright and clear. It was breathtaking.  

598 Movies in 2015

Watching Star Wars in a big theater is a wonderful thing. Watching a quiet human drama in a theater is also great. And watching from a big-badget Hollywood action movies to a small comedy at home with a tiny screen is as happy as the former ones. I wrote lots of cinema review this year (not every movie is released in 2015.) Here's some of the most unforgettable masterpieces.

Chef : The untouchable. The warmth, cheerfulness, humor, good foods and good musics are perfectly living together in the movie.

Captain America  The Winter Soldier : Sharp and amazing action sequences. It doesn't feel like Marvel's super hero story.

Cars : To be honest, I have been underestimating the movie before I see but it turns to be top-tier favorites among Pixar works. 

Dior and I : After the sad news that Raf Simmons left Dior later this year, the story of his  struggle and victory mean a lot. Together with the film about Anna Wintour ("September Issue"),  the two works remind me of the excitement to know the one and only creativity in the world of fashion.

Mission Impossible The Rogue Nation : Exciting action and fascinating story. It must be really hard to achieve this in a modern spy action film, no matter how simple it seems. What I feel about this incredible film is that it has a good faith, authenticity and honesty which otherwise we might see in Hollywood classics. 

Moneyball : The catharsis of the story is I think not for baseball fans but for business person. The great thing about this masterpiece is it has both intelligence and emotion and yet shows them in a very minimum way, which makes the film unusually cool.

Pitch Perfect : The power of music. What I like about this film is that it's full of the beauty of the power of music and at the same time it's just a silly college comedy.

Star Wars VII The Force Awakens : No need to explain more. Wholeheartedly I welcome the new saga.

597 Bests in 2015

At the end of the year, now I feel like relaxed and taking a look at with many thanks my great influencers in 2015. They have been bringing me great fun, delight, inspiration, courage, humor, energy and power to keep going on.

Taylor Swift : Her amazing album "1989" has been literally staying with me all the time. I've never listened to her music until I met her new pop songs but they seem to cast a wonderful magic to me and definitely it is my album of the year.

Jimmy Fallon : I cannot remember how many times I kept his show on Youtube playing again and again for hours. I like his style of hosting a talk show in a very, seemingly effortless and friendly manner, and his joke, humor, silly but funny games (an egg-russian roulette!), songs and dance (especially the lip-sync battles!), and above all, the purely happy laughter surrounding the whole studio every time. And of course, his amazing house band, The Roots.
  
Tai-Chi : This is certainly not a human or a thing and I only started to learn the basics of it for about three months now, but I am totally attracted by the beauty, calmness, the methodology and the philosophy of the famous martial arts. The method is always on a circular move and both the defense and attack are unified to a series of flows. I remember when I first met hip-hop dance and how I liked it right away, and this time is very similar. I've been keeping dancing for over 12 years and became a part of my life. For Tai-chi, I'm sure this fits me so well.

And, my old friends : 2015 was a year of reunion. I don't repeat each stories here but one of the amazing things is that they really understand me even if we didn't meet for a long time. In fact the older the friendship is, the better and deeper the friend can understand my sense and feelings. It was a great pleasure. I wish I could be someone to whom they can feel free to talk and trust with at ease, just as I did to them.

596 Cooking

One of the best practices I got in 2015 was to enjoy cooking more than ever. My style of cooking is very simple: pick up whatever I want to eat and cook it really simple (grill, bake, or boil) with good seasonings and lots of herbs. My favorites are salmon, tofu and ground chicken. Egg, beans, pork shoulder and avocado follow them. I frequently use such simple seasoning as salt&pepper, miso, dashi kombu, olive oil, sesame, apple vinegar, soy sauce, ginger, garlic and bonito flakes. Herbs are indispensable in my dish. Basil, parsley, rosemary, rocket, leek, radish sprouts, and sometimes accompanied by grated radish. When I'm too busy to cook, I don't hesitate to rely on canned foods like boiled mackerel in miso, boiled herring or grilled saury pike. 

What I learnt is that cuisine is a great and interesting creative work which can be well done by such an amateur like me with combining these rather limited ingredients.

595 See The Light Of Day

What do you feel when you turns to your late 30s with 10+ years working experience? I have not really cared for what I should achieve or establish something in work. This is partly because I have been working in financial industry where personal contribution is not easy to be estimated. But looking at the other fields I cannot help being inspired by the great works of contemporary creators. 

Steven Soderbergh made Ocean's 11 at age 38, Jim Jarmusch made Night on Earth at age of 38, and J.J. Abrams made MI:III at age 39. What I mean is of course not to compare myself with these genius but to think twice on achieving something to be widely known and remembered in work. That is an honor, fame and will become a track record, and also it might open the way to reach to and be recognized by the people you never be familiar with. If your work is fine enough to be memorized it might create another opportunity and change your life. 

594 STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (Spoiler Alert!)

SPOILER ALERT!
Here's only for those who have already seen the movie and also to look back my personal memo before watching it.


So this is finally all about missing Luke Skywalker. His mysterious existence has been shedding light to the hope or sometimes shadowing the untold history all through the story and the cinematic impact when he finally shows himself and face with Rey, for only a minute without any words, blew my mind. Rey's awakening of strong force, Han's tragic death caused by his own son, the fight against Star Killer, the reunion of R2-D2, C-3PO and Leia, with introduction of new attractive characters like Finn, Poe and BB-8, make us excited and satisfied, but above all, this time the magnetics of Luke Skywalker rules the movie. The reason of his missing is not specifically told but suggested that it has something to do with the fact that Kylo Ren, his nephew, turned to dark side. But the last sequence casts us further questions and curiosities to be continued to Episode VIII (in this way, the style of story telling is felt a bit like a television drama series). 

Why Luke had to disappear, what is he doing in an isolated planet, why he quit fighting as a last Jedi knight and as a leader of resistance army and left everything behind, does he know Kylo Ren killed Solo, his best friend and brother-in-law, is Rey really a child of Luke, and if so why she had to be abandoned alone in a desert planet, is she thinking about finding and asking help for a Jedi knight, or rather finding her own father, and what is the story behind Luke's lightsaber (originally, Anakin's lightsaber) returned to the owner for the first time in over 30 years?

Another mysterious leading character, Rey, is just marvelous. Her inner and outer strength, emotional depth, strong will, intelligence, tact and freshness are fully and perfectly shining. The movie no doubt succeeds to create an attractive heroine who was born to carry her own destiny and mission but also try to challenge them. She seems to be not so naive as young Luke in Episode IV, and sometimes she has mixed feelings. In one of the unforgettable scenes when Rey overwhelms Kylo Ren in their lightsaber combat, she looks truly fierce with anger for a moment as if she is on the verge of turing to the dark side. 

Finally, my personal question on AT-AT was satisfied with a very surprising way: Rey is living in a wreck of AT-AT! The idea reminds me of the scene that Luke was kept warm and alive in a Tauntaun in Episode V. Talking about the linkage with the past generation, Rey's hairstyling is very similar to Padme in disguise, and her outfit design seems to have mixed origins from Shmi Skywalker, Luke Skywalker and again Padme in combat uniform. Anyway she is already a seasoned fighter and we'll see her being trained as a Jedi not just with strength but with wisdom and balance of mind. 

593 STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

What makes Star Wars not just a series of exciting films but a modern myth to share, an icon of our age, or an influencer to our personal life story? I know not all of us feel like that but I am one of these huge fans who have been waiting for the new saga to start with Episode VII. 

I was born in 1977 when the Episode IV was released and was just 6 years old when the classic saga finished,  so obviously I didn't have the viewing experience in real time in theater. The first encounter was when I was 12 years old, which I think was the most ideal age to fully understand the depth and excitement of Star Wars saga. Simply put, the movie changed my life. If this sounds too exaggerating, I would say the movie changed me in several different ways that I aspire the world of creativity, imagine things, create things, have strong interests in space and aircraft, and learn the universal truth about good and evil, light and darkness in the modern mythical style. This is a life-changing-experience for 12-years old kid.

This is how I met and made friends with Star Wars. By the way I personally think Episode I, II, and III are wonderful works of action, arts and imagination even if they couldn't fully influence me as much as the classics did to me in younger age. 

Then this Episode VII. It's truly awesome, beautifully done, lot of fun and delight. From the beginning to the ending, I was almost gawping at the screen. I felt like I was just an early teen kid. Surely there may be some points that the creators should have dug into, but that's minor. No doubt, the movie has a "force" to attract us and arise social phenomenon that cannot be ignored. At least, is there any other movies whose creators and the audience are all huge fans of the universe?

(Comments to be continued with Spoiler Alert...)

592 Happy Christmas!

AT-AT was there in the Force Awakens, and in a truly unexpected form!

(Comments to be continued…)

591 "We Are Home"

"Chewie, We are Home."

This is my first time to post a comment on a movie before I watch it. But this is special, this is a sensation. This post is just for myself to note my general impression on viewing The Force Awakens trailers. I assume my comments will be answered, or turn out to be nothing to do with the movie, but anyway, it's fun to write.

- Why Luke seems to hide himself, just as Obi-Wan did in Episode IV?
- Where is C-3PO?
- The word "Jedi" is not found in the trailer. Why?
- We cannot even get glimpse of traditional Jedi robes. 
- We cannot hear "Sith Lords."
- OK, then perhaps the new era is not the fight between Jedi and Sith?
- The new lightsabers don't look as elegant as classical age. Does it mean anything?
- A cross-shaped lightsaber? How inconvenient it may be.
- We've never seen X-wings flying over shining water. Brilliant!
- Millennium Falcon! Incredible!
- Han Solo and Chewie! They are finally back home --- so where have they been? 
- The mask of Darth Vader --- is it from the planet of Ewok?
- We see the revival of Stormtroopers and TIE Fighter, so can we also see AT-AT?

590 Bookstore

Arguably I enjoy SNS like everyone else in this time. And recently I've got to find SNS as a bookstore only dealing with latest books for only a moment. It goes like this; if you enter the bookstore and find some interesting, intriguing covers of books saying something you would be attracted to, you can open the book and read the contents. And it doesn't take much time. You can open several different books and read the words for, say, 30 minutes or 1 hour. It doesn't take much of your time and energy. But if you are interested in a title of a book, but you don't feel like reading it right away, you will leave the bookstore, thinking you can come back later. Later, you come back and search for the certain book, only to find it has disappeared or has been lying under new, and numerous similar books that might also attract your attention. Then you have to struggle to find the book and then you feel like you should keep your eyes on the other latest books in front of you. The bookstore always has a lot of very interesting and necessary books which induce you to open the some of the books and spend some time. But soon after the bookshelf is totally changed and replaced, with the a-little-bit-old books being stored in the warehouse. The warehouse can keep all the books with unlimited capacity but at the same time more and more new books are issued and displayed in the bookstore. 

I use and enjoy and feel thankful to SNS of course, but sometimes I wonder how important for us to keep up with the speed and volume of information. One of the very successful, respected and marvelous investors of our time said there are two types of risks in investment; a risk to lose money and a risk to lose an opportunity. I feel SNS world is asking us similar question. Do you find it a risk to be drown in the sea of information, or to fail to have an important information that might change your life?

589 Anna Wintour

How does it feel like to be the Editor-in-chief of American Vogue and also the Artistic director of Conde Nast Publications, being one of the most important and respected influencers in the global fashion industry? Simply put, this is huge. I guess, it is like to be the Chair of FRB in the global economy. Ms. Anna Wintour is said to be a model for the popular Devil Wears Prada, and certainly I cannot say if she is really devilish as I have never, and will never be able to know her personally. But a fine documentary film about  remarkable people can tell us a bit of their real personality and make us think what we can learn from them. 

This is why I like to watch the September Issue again and again. I'm not particularly interested in how she governs the magazine and her way of work (seemingly cold-hearted), or how great designers and photographers are under her influence. I like how she focuses on her work, how she avoids compromise and makes decisions in very plain words that cannot be misunderstood by anybody, and how she always has a clear vision. Above all, she is strict and decisive and maybe ruthless, but what I admire most is that she seems to 100% focus on, be involved in her work of pursuit for the finest quality. I like that highest level of simplicity in work. Talented people around her, and Ms. Wintour herself thinks the work is not easygoing. But I found the brightness and genuinity in her eyes fascinating when she finds something worthy of being shared to the world through clothing, and it makes us believe the tough work means a great deal so we should hang on. 

588 The Rewrite

「言葉」が持つ力については議論を俟たないでしょう。ヴィジュアルな情報発信や、視覚でも言葉でもない体感をセンサーリングして伝えるコミュニケーションテクノロジーの進展の中においても、新聞を読み、雑誌を読み、ニュースを聞き、メールを読み、SNSに記事を投稿し、議論し、説明し、共感し、そして頭の中で考えることに至るまで、毎日接する情報の殆どは言葉によるものです。映画"The Rewrite"の主人公は映画の脚本家であり、「言葉」を生み出し使いこなすプロフェッショナルの一人です。ハリウッドから干されかけて生活のために渋々郊外の大学で教職に就き、当初は無責任で気侭な日々を送ってみたものの、好奇心旺盛で個性的な生徒達のおかげで次第に教えることに開眼し…というプロットはストレートで、今時珍しいくらいシンプルです。ストーリーが穏やかな故、主人公はほぼすべてのシーン、すべての台詞で脚本家の本領を発揮するかのように捻りの効いた、ウィットと皮肉に満ちていながら、真実を突く言葉を何の気なしに投げかけます。まるでF1レーサーがレーシングカーを乗りこなすように、脚本家は言葉を使いこなすプロであると実感させられます。この映画はほとんどのシーンが脚本家と脚本家志望の生徒達との間、もしくは文学や言語学を担う同じく「言葉」のプロである教授達との間での会話によって成り立っています。「言葉」とそれが持つ力を熟知し存分に吟味し、シェフが食材を知り尽くし使いこなすように、写真家が最もすぐれたドラマの瞬間を待ち受けてその場面を切り取るように、「言葉」を使いこなすことの楽しみを疑似体験できるような映画です。

587 Time Zone

Office work starts at 9 am in the morning and closes at around 6 pm. We usually (if we are lucky enough) get bonus in December. Kids are back to school in September. Arguably, the sun rise and sets, we wake up in the morning and get rest in the night, the seasons change in the course of 12 months. So our society and social activity are organized in certain time in a very orderly manner. That's social requirement that we accept as a matter of fact. But sometimes we need to live according to our own time zone. You can take as much time as you want to breathe, for example. You can have meals or fall asleep anytime you want (as far as you can fully accomplish your job). You can change your life in January, May, October or anytime of a year if you really wish to, no matter when the calendar year or the fiscal year starts and ends. 

Right now at this moment, time has been lost forever and never be reversed. But the fact is time is yours. So it's worth trying to take your time, if you can. 

586 Dentist

For the first time in several years I started to go to a dental clinic for my dental maintenance. Probably few people likes to go to dentist but in fact I have been amazed and even amused by modernized dental care techniques.  If you have an experience of dental composite, it really is like a minimum sized construction business. It's a medical treatment but at the same time it just feels like almost industrial process --- in the best way. Surely it's not so easy to lie down on the stiff chair and keep your mouth wide open as directed and have nothing but to stare the ceiling, sometimes frowning with a bit of pain.  However if you can feel relaxed enough to have curiosity of what your doctor is going to do with what kind of gadgets and materials, you will find the process rather interesting and learn how today's dental method has been making remarkable progress. I was lucky to look at the dentist's table and listen to the directions from the doctor to the assistants in the middle of the construction, and after I googled lots of special words and materials which had just been applied to my teeth. Not everyone can have fun in taking dental treatment, but I think it's safe to say that it's totally different from the classic method in my childhood.