Brief: 2006 documentary revolving around the Rakkyo Cafe, and it’s young owner, Issei. The Rakkyo is a host club in downtown Osaka, where women pay for the company of men.
Why: I really like how this documentary unfolds. It’s hard not to fall for the men and women whose lives revolve around the Rakkyo. It makes the reality of the seedy Tokyo underworld that much more heart-wrenching to consider. Also: these hosts have some of the most amazing hair I’ve ever seen. Very worth watching.
Afterthoughts: I feel like host clubs fall under the heading of “an ingenious solution to a problem that should have never existed in the first place.” Prostitutes spending all their money in host clubs to be “healed” emotionally by prostitutes of another sort. It’s like buying a cat to chase mice, then realizing you need a dog to chase the cat, and so forth. The players involved in this exchange are destroying their bodies and souls for what they assert is a chance at a happy future. But somehow, you get the sense that none of them will ever leave the lifestyle behind. I keep thinking about Marge Gunderson’s epilogue in Fargo - “And for what? For a little bit of money.”
In 1983, BMW’s F1 team used 100,000km old engine blocks from production models, left them out in the rain, urinated on them, then added turbocharging and rocket fuel to make 1,350hp from 1.5 liters, the most powerful engines to date in F1.
This is some of the best parent cheering I’ve ever heard. I love that there are parents willing to fully support their 8-year olds’ commitment to krumping.
Thierry Sabine, founder of the Dakar rally, 1985. Sabine founded the race after getting lost in the deserts of Libya. Profoundly affected by the landscape, he founded the Dakar rally to share this experience, under the motto, “A challenge for those who go. A dream for those who stay behind.”
From the first, Nasmyth’s steam hammer could vary the force of the blow within a very wide range. He was fond of showing how he could break an egg placed in a wineglass without breaking the glass, which was followed by a blow that shook the building.
Irish writer James Joyce heard [Ko Niu Tireni] performed at the Invincibles’ match at Paris in January 1925. He modified some of the words and used them in his word-play novel Finnegans Wake.
Let us propel us for the frey of the fray! Us, us, beraddy! Ko Niutirenis hauru leish! A lala! Ko Niutirenis haururu laleish! Ala lala! The Wullingthund sturm is breaking. The sound of maormaoring The Wellingthund sturm waxes fuercilier.
- Finnegans Wake, 2nd ed. 1950, Book II chap ii, page 335.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too tough for him, I say, stay in there, I’m not going to let anybody see you. there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I pour whiskey on him and inhale cigarette smoke and the whores and the bartenders and the grocery clerks never know that he’s in there.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too tough for him, I say, stay down, do you want to mess me up? you want to screw up the works? you want to blow my book sales in Europe? there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too clever, I only let him out at night sometimes when everybody’s asleep. I say, I know that you’re there, so don’t be sad. then I put him back, but he’s singing a little in there, I haven’t quite let him die and we sleep together like that with our secret pact and it’s nice enough to make a man weep, but I don’t weep, do you?
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