Letter from Tokyo

I received this update from a Japanese friend in Tokyo. He took the above picture was of Shibuya Crossing, which is one of the most lit-up places in a city with a LOT of really lit-up places. Those of you who have seen Lost in Translation might recognize it from the scene where Scarlett Johansson goes exploring and passes that giant dinosaur on the screen. Anyway, here's the latest:

People around Tokyo scare about radioactive and equally scared electric shortage. Night in Tokyo, no much lights in street. Attached picture is taken at scramble crossing in Shibuya. If we keep short the electricity till summer.... I don't want even think about that...

People in Japan are more or less obsessed with this disaster and living with sad feeling. We shouldn't forget victims but we need to release our mind apart from this sometime. Otherwise we are stifled with the sadness...

Camera Phone Horror

My sister and I recently went with our mom to Asheville, NC to celebrate her 71st birthday (my mom's, not my sister's), and we had a blast. Asheville is a beautiful city, picturesque and poetic, and it simply demands to be photographed. So obviously you're all dying to see pictures of the inside of a few shops, no? Allow me to take you on a tour of a few hilarious/terrifying shops (actually, one shop and one shoppe) we visited so mom could browse through figurines and stuff, which she's currently in the market for more of (she's always in the market for more figurines).

'Tis the season for bunnies dressed in their best spring threads, which in this case were stitched from your Aunt Sadie's bedspread.

Mom always loved your Aunt Sadie's bedspread.

A terrifying Easter Bunny ornament for your Easter Tree.

A Christmas ornament based on that scary Christmas ornament you used to dream about.

This is the expression Santa has when he doesn't like the cookies you leave him.

Watership Down meets Holly Hobbie.

Well, I guess I know what I'll be dreaming about later.

This is another shop we found, one with a reverence for the olden days when the world had a surplus of the letter e.

(Shudder)

I think this is the point in the browsing when I got a headache and had to sit down.

Wait, is that Gandalf in the back?

There is a great deal of pathos in this photo.

So much tinsel.

Mom needed a bear.

Because f*ck traveling in a sleigh.

Mom got a bear.

A Lot to Say a Little: New Fancy Feast Commercial

Um, what? I'm a fan of any commercial that features a cat being passed around, even if it's one of those irritating fluffy white cats that always feel so entitled. But this commercial is du-humb. It tells a tedious story of a gay dude asking his girlfriend to marry him in a cloyingly roundabout and precious way.

"Girl, don't do it, you know he's gay!" Jimmy said, because the commercial is long enough to have a plot for you to react to.

My point is that fluffy white cats sometimes get turds stuck in their butt fur.

Been and Gone: Elizabeth Taylor

Some would argue that the performance she'll always be remembered for is the one she gave in her Diamonds commercial ("These have always brought me luck"), but that is wrong. Her best-ever appearance on film and the one that has earned her her own private steam room in heaven was her role as the scenery-chewing harpy in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. This is the movie that made me want to be a sloppy alcoholic when I grew up.

RIP, Liz.

New Fun Thing: Bangable Dudes in History

Has your Internet been sizzling lately? Well, that's because there's a new blog out there that is piping hot and is coming to teach your children history. It's called Bangable Dudes in History and is a really fun way to while away the hours while also answering important historical questions like "How badly do I want Lincoln would-be assassin Lewis Powell to sit on my face?"

The historically accurate answer to that is "very" but I would also accept "terribly," "incredibly," and "feverishly."