Shinjuku Kinkos, again — I:ve just returned from an event that has left an impression on me stronger than anything in recent memory — an hour and a half presention called “Cinema Electronica” that marked the finale of the 1999 Tokyo version of Resfest. The festival and the magazine revolve around the astounding impact that rapidly advancing digital technology is going to have on the art of the moving image. The presentation in question was centered around the collaboration of electronic-music artists with digital filmmakers. 
Maybe you:ve heard of Chris Cunningham. He:s been written about extensively in the past six months in the cooler press outlets. Not having proper Internet access, or cable television, I’d only previously seen the incredibly fucked up video for Aphex Twin’s “Windowlicker,” in which Aphex Twin’s face is superimposed onto the bodies of bikini-clad women, shaking their booty as if they’re in Sir-Mix-A-Lot vid. Featured on a suitably big screen at Resfest were Cunningham:s first ever video for Autechre (“Second Bad Vibel”) and, what may possibly be Cunningham:s last video for a very long time, Leftfield:s latest “Africa Shox.” Somewhere in the middle, Cunningham directed Bjork:s “All Is Full Of Love” video. About the latter I don:t know what to say, I:m breathless. I:m searching for words, and I can:t find them. Rarely have I seen anything so beautiful, so warming — something so full of humanity, even as it stars a robot. Phillip Dick would appreciate it. I was told that Cunningham’s now working on the cinematic adaptation of William Gibson’s Neuromancer — hopefully, the producers won’t die on Cunningham part way through production, as was the case with the ill-fated collaboration between Cunningham and the late Stanley Kubrick.
Amongst the other videos played: 
- highly affecting, “Rabbit In The Headlights” directed by Jonathan Glazer for UNKLE, the project of the biggest beat merchant of them all, James Lavelle — a man, who:s lost his marbles, passes through a tunnel, walking in the middle of the street. He:s got something like Turrets Syndrome, and he gets repeatedly sent flying by cars in both directions. Gasps came repeatedly from the audience, and I haven’t cringed so much since watching a snowboarding video where a rider bounced on his head through a field of boulders. 
- most inspiring was the video for Coldcut’s remix of Steve Reich’s “Music For 18 Musicians” directed by Jeremy Hollister. Impossibly stylish. Reich’s minimalism gets the perfect treatment. This was the stuff dreams are made of. A vast expanse of smooth concrete in the foreground catching the Meditteranean sun perfectly, and a metallic, sleek work of supremely modern architecture in the background, while a beautiful Asian woman perfectly fitting a modish white dress flashes from coordinate to coordinate in the vast space. Scenes flicker to the beautiful blue ocean vistas with the aloof woman standing on the beach. Shot on 35 mm, this should be a movie not just a video.
- the Walter Stern directed video for Massive Attack’s opus, “Teardrop,” which takes place literally in amniotic fluid. Liz Frazer’s lush vocals are mouthed by a baby in the murky womb, who’s hesitating to come out into the world.
Also featured in the presentation was another Tomato (co)produced vid for Underworld. More on them later.
As an aspiring filmmaker myself, I needed this shot of inspiration. I’m still paying off my digital-8 video camera. Not having editing facilities, I’ve got quite lazy in recent months behind the camera. But now that I’ve seen the universe that can be created out of this raw footage, I’m a fiend again. 
It’s time for a change in medium. It’s too easy to do a CD these days. Most new music is too easily made. There seems to be no reason to buy a CD that costs upwards of 2 hours labour anymore, when you can just dub it from a friend, or get it from the Internet — and that’s how it should be. Music should be free. 
Since no television network, music or non-music, has stepped up to the plate to actually broadcast these works and others like them, it’s time that a market is created for DVD. This material should be widely available for personal use. The magazine industry’s so waste generating. It needs to be dismantled. I’d like to see DVD magazines available in the future. I dream of ambient-image networks, where futuristic television sets become living room backdrops, moving paintings.



Having material to read is something you take for granted in North America. I have no magazines to read, not even my own. As soon as I get near a book, I finish it. I bought a CD with French liner notes a few weeks ago. Despite years of studying French, I’d never read anything French outside of French class in my life. BUt in comparison to Japanese, French seems to be identical in English — as different from English as one person’s handwriting is from another’s (then again, we never get to see each other’s handwriting anymore, do we?). I’ve decided to start reading books in French, to slow me down — I want to make whatever I have last. I’ve heard of a method to learn languages in which you pick one book and read it six times, copying it out in writing each time — at the end of this process, you’ll have mastered it. By this method, I plan to first learn French, then German, then Spanish. I will begin with Le Petit Prince by Saint-Exupery.
Jorge Luis Borges – Book of Sand; Labyrinth
Lautreaumont – Maldoror
Albert Camus – The Plague
Phillip Dick – The Man In The High Castle; Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

I write now from the British Council in Tokyo. One of 5 branches in Japan set up by the British government to encourage Japanese students to consider British universities.
Still not quite sure, why I’ve decided to start an online journal. Why am I so insistent on sharing my every thought with strangers, when I’m unable in this moment to tell the ones closest to me how I really feel about anything? It’s a strange kind of narcissism I suffer from. I used to want to be a writer — now I only hope that someone someday tries to publish my journals. Anything I write online is a mere shadow of what I write by hand. 
Welcome to web-based word processing. 
Some things I want to tell you about, in time — electronics shopping in Akihabara, bootleg shopping in West Shinjuku, 2000 years of Japanese culture in peril, the strange dreams a traveller has …
I like to think outloud as loudly as possible.
The only thing talking back to me in Tokyo is the advertisements. 
This century’s advancing …