A Christmas Book

Hear, hear. My new collection of essays will be published as a Christmas book this year. It's called HONOLULU, BRASIL and gathers a little over 30 pieces written for different occasions between 1999 and 2006. I am trying to keep the price as low as possible so that my younger friends can buy them; in the range of 1,500 to 1,800 yen, hopefully. It's fun to read, easy to read, full of kicks, tricks and bites, yet very tender and sweet. Like Honolulu. Like Brasil do meu coração.

The Aimee issue

The literary monthly Subaru will feature in its next issue (out on the 6th Oct) Aimee Bender, our friend and a great writer by any standard. It will run for more than 50 pages; very unusual.

There will be four short stories by Aimee, her travelogue to Japan, a dialogue with psychiatrist Naoko Miyaji, and my own interview with Aimee. Those of you who read Japanese MUST get hold of a copy. It's worth the effort.

There's only one question I forgot to ask Aimee: Do you listen to Aimee Mann?

Banana Yoshimoto kindly wrote paragraphs to begin the feature part. Mahalo, mahalo, mahalo plenny!

Autumn already!

Geez, half a year has passed in a zip. Now I'm hoping to resume quoi que ce soit. Sans blague.

You know, in Japan as in any other parts of the world there are a lot of funny English, para-English, pseudo-English, sentences and phrases written on garments. I found a super one yesterday.

It's a jacket for young women and it goes like this:

You who fell in love are BAD
You are defeated

Lovely, eh?