it's wednesday and

what do we want? booh-shee-dough
when do we want it, now.
what do we want? booh-shee-dough
when do we want it, now.

marxy , you would have made a great stazi guy with your eye for spotting all these activities. see, i only notice that all magazines rave on and people que up to see the movie made by a russian guy that sheds new light on their own history. which incidentally also stirs a vave of interest into stuff like Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan etc

you would have made a great stazi guy

You are too kind.

Staatszicherheit rules OK.

The Japanese right wing is getting dangerously close to setting your intellectual agenda here, David!

oh people please:
stasi
staatssicherheit
it's not our fault you dont know how pronounce a soft s. Like in the unsexy German version of "zex"...ever heard someone say that? U ll never forget...
having a party with the friends from the KGB tonight then, marxy?

I am both a right-wing Bush-loving American and a KGB agent. If you can come up with new types of bad guys, please feel free to associate me with them.

Oh, exciting. What to choose, what to choose? How about Hezbollah militia or Mossad? You take your pick, my friend.

He doesn't answer that one.

The Japanese right wing is getting dangerously close to setting your intellectual agenda here, David!

just two days ago, the complaint was that Momus, alin & dzima (madz) are setting the agenda.

if that doesn't prove that Momus is actually a Japanese right winger then I don't know what ever will. He's probably blogging all day from within a black hummer cruising the streets of Akasaka.

face it marxy, your haters disapprove of your humor even more than lack of it.

does momus make jokes anywhere but here and at your expense?

haters is too hard a word

What are Marxy's views on the current warcrimes taking place in Lebanon?

`the Communists have been out of business just as long as Pan Am has.`

are you sure they are out of business? with an ex-kgb as a president?

They have reorganized management under a different name.

face it marxy, your haters disapprove of your humor even more than lack of it.

Actually, I do think Marxy is hilarious.

I'm only a member of the Marxy-Bashing team because he physically looks way too much like me.

I just bash his bad side, to give the good side space to grow. It's agrarian, LOHAS, and a bit Shinto.

usually this time of year is the super active season for the sound trucks, what with the bombings and surrender and all.

momus: put down that LOHAS, its getting a bit ripe and stinking up the room.

and here i thought it was a good thing to be able to intellegently question how and why things work and don't work. and make fun of how and why things work and don't work. what do i know?

You speak as if this "questioning" is value- and ideology-free and might lead us anywhere. As if one day Marxy might publish an empirically-supported piece saying that the Japanese rail companies should be re-nationalized.

That conclusion will never come. What we see here day in, day out, is ideology. Marxy starts from a position and tells us the facts that support it. You could write an excellent guide book about Japan just using the stuff he leaves out because it doesn't fit his worldview.

What we see here day in, day out, is ideology. Marxy starts from a position and tells us the facts that support it. You could write an excellent guide book about Japan just using the stuff he leaves out because it doesn't fit his worldview.

Then what is the point of having this discussion? If every bit of communication is embedded with idealogy, then what is the point? And how can you even come to this conclusion logically? (especially if logic isn't value-free by your assessment). Post-modern chatter denies its own legs to stand on.

The point of having this discussion is to change minds by revealing the inbuilt assumptions in everything. Of course, perhaps we just harden positions. That's a risk we run.

There's nothing futile about saying "let us compare mythologies" (it's a phrase of Leonard Cohen's). That's politics.

There's nothing inconsistent in coming ideologically to the idea that everything is ideological.

Why are you so shocked by the notion that Marxy has an agenda that shapes his posts? Do you really not think that's the case?

momus has an agenda too. That no one should make jokes from within a cultural milieu to which he, momus, doesn't belong.

Also marxy should blog about noodles except when he should blog about Lebanon.

I suspect that if Marxy blogged about Lebanon, he'd be on one side and me, Jean Snow, Martin Webb and Robert Duckworth would all be on the other. But Marxy would say he was on that side because he was being more realistic than we were. And he'd make a concession to us, saying he'd "love to think" what we think. He'd also be keen to point out that there was no relationship between that position and his positions on Japan.

But it's hypothetical; he's never going to say anything about Lebanon. So stop asking, people!

My Big Book of Internet Fu, P. 36 paragraph 2: "When one is in danger of loosing control of the discussion, place your opponent in an imaginined position regarding a world news contraversy of the day. The Middle East is often a good starting point for this technique since it easily allows you to place yourself on the moral high ground no matter which side you choose"

Does every post need to be a referendum on me?

And does Momus not have a very specific agenda in his own writing about Japan? And can't you use that agenda to at least give us a positive spin on Anti-Russia Day?

What are Marxy's views on the current warcrimes taking place in Lebanon?

momus, and what if marxy had a different opinion from us? What if (kissui no) Yuki did?

youre beginning to sound like an inquisitor on this issue.

marxy, i find it quite admirable how you manage to not take momus' poisoned bait.

but out of curiosity, momus-san, could you please spell out what exactly you hypothesize marxy's position to be, and what exactly this ideology and especially this "own culture" is that you insinuate would force one to have a certain position?

(let's stop there, and not go into why you seem to be able to identify a definite position on an issue that leaves most people in despair. that's what ideology does for you.)

(and these pathetic attempts to divide and conquer all the time! from someone who's almost 50!!)

I'm fine with the facts Marxy presents here, I think they indeed add to the whole picture. The regrettable thing about Neomarxisme is the tone of the essays written here. If Marxy wasn't so golden-ageist, "sarcastic" and pro-Amerikanski, I'd join his team.

Plus, as he has revealed it himself, whenever he writes a positive review about artists close to him, those reviews are basically "licensed editorial spaces". Just like in Relax (or would that be Can-Cam?).

I think I was joking in that post.

I got to know Kiiiiiii, nhhmbase, plus-tech squeeze box, macdonald duck eclair because I liked their music. I knew Shugo Tokumaru before I heard his stuff, but I think the rest of the world can back me up on his excellence.

I think I was joking in that post.

It comes as no surprise since we both don't get each other's sense of humour...

For the record, I have never taken any of Kiiiiiii's publishing royalties. I think they paid me 5000 yen for a DJ appearance once and I tried to give it back to them.

Hey guys.

Yesterday's trucks were especially loud, but I didn't know what it was all about, thanks.

Marxy, you are a robot-dracula.

don't be so quick to lump me in with such company, nick.
"blogging" is probably the most useless thing on earth anyone can do about the situation in lebanon.
self immolation would probably be much more effective.

>I suspect that if Marxy blogged about Lebanon, he'd be on one >side and me, Jean Snow, Martin Webb and Robert Duckworth

I am sure Martin Webb and Jean Snow's greatest gift to the world would be a full-out discussion about the excesses of Zionism.

hummm...if you'd written "the accessories" of Zionism (PS2, u-society, etc.) i think their blogging contribution would be more plausible.

Israel and Japan might have strong parallels in their almost obsessive interest in maintaining their own difference, but we all know that Nihonjinronism produces much better accessories, electronics and fashion than Zionism!

Is that a dig against Ralph Lauren?

at least zionism gave us the martini. thank god for the occidental hotel!

I'm not sure if Nihonjinron or Shintoism or whatever has anything to do with Gothic Lolita. Personally, I'd totally hit a gothloli-ko if not for the fact that the vast majority of them are visual-kei fangirls, which really, really makes me cringe.

Apparently Gothic Lolita has been making inroad into the goth scene(s) in North America (and I believe in Europe too), but for some reason Caucasian girls in gothloli outfits just won't do it for me. :/

Seriously though, I think the Jews have more common with the Chinese than with the Japanese, but I've been accused of forming a "latent 中華論" so I better not elaborate. Not that it has any relevance on this blog, anyway...

r: by more effective, did you mean equally pointless?

filosofem: having seen what north american goth has become, I must say that not only have they become uglier, but also far more innefectual. "Back in my day" goths used to actually manage to OD or off themselves propperly. Now it seems these kids cant even manage that much. Oh and I hope I never see one of those tubs of paste in a suasage skin trying to pass herself off as "gothloli".