Penguin Mura

I swear I didn’t buy anything too extravagant yesterday down in the Yamanote, unless you count a commemorative Ashita no Joe keychain and some gold and silver shoelaces from Bunkaya Zakkaten. But these sure were tempting:

A set of Sukeban "Girl Boss" shirts licensed by Toei and sold at Rockin’ Jelly Bean’s Erosty Pop shop in Harajuku. From their new "Sasori Syndicate 701" label, that's some solid Pinky Violence / Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno shit right there. At 60 bucks a shot, the price is on the discouraging side. But I passed mainly because the quickest way to look like a total gaijin asshole in Tokyo is to sport a shirt with any sort of kana or kanji on it…unless it's a big old "Ichiban" shirt. In which case, you are fucking rad.

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[Carl Horn]

That trick to look like a total gaijin asshole also works in the United States, I've found.

I was looking through the scanty travel diary of my first trip to Japan, which opens on June 21, 1987 with Paul Rodriguez's remark that the purpose of seat belts on planes is to make it "easier to identify the torso." For some reason, I wrote out the lyrics to "The Windmills of Your Mind" in their entirety on a pink sheet of paper and tucked it into the warm leatherette; it was likely Noel Harrison's rendition rather than Dusty Springfield.