This week I’ve been in the office at the town culture center since its summer break and I don’t have any classes. I’ve mostly been doing stuff on the computer and surfing the web (”prepare for next semester?” - uh, this year my lesson planning has been effectively reduced to zero, so not much to do there).

This afternoon had a little change of pace, there was a shamisen and flute concert at the culture center. The shamisen is a traditional Japanese instrument, a bit like a banjo. Check out the Wikipedia link for some audio and video files. I’ve seen it played occasionally, it seems to be having a bit of a revival. Sometimes I see young guys playing it along Hondori in Hiroshima at night instead of the guitar.

Anyways, it was pretty good. The two guys played for about an hour and a half, with a bit of chatter mixed in. The audience was mostly seniors, but a class of the oldest kindergarten students attended the first half. So they mixed in some children’s songs along with the more traditional ones. They even did the opening theme to My Neighbor Totoro, to which the kids sang along. Really cute! (^o^)

Wow, just discovered in iTunes that I can chose what music to buy based on local music charts/playlists, for example “Radio Charts->Tucson,AZ->104.1 KZPT The Point”. Looks pretty handy for finding the song you heard on the radio but didn’t know what it was. Or in my case being able to track what I’d be listening to if I was still in Tucson (and thus music I’d probably like).

My tentative plans for Saturday were to go to the Setstock 2004 concert In Bihoku National Hillside Park. That’s a little outside the small college city of Shobara, about an hour up the Geibi train line from Mukaihara. Main draws for me on the bill were Puffy (who does the Teen Titans themes), The Pillows (who did the music for the anime FLCL), My Little Lover (who along with Every Little Thing were one of my first JPOP favorites) and Bump of Chicken (a huge group at the moment and the headliner I think).

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[edited to fix a few of the worst errors — heh, I is gonna be a english teechur]

Sundance 2004 was the goal for Sunday, if I could manage to get myself moving in time to get there before the last ferry to the event on Nomi Island left Hiroshima Port at 12:30p. That would seem fairly late, but factoring in a 1.5 hour train ride into the city and then another 45 minute streetcar trip to the port, my lazy and tired butt just managed to get there before the next-to-last one left. However that water taxi was full, so I ended up catching the last one anyways (I probably could have caught the earlier ferry, but I wasn’t 100% sure of how that was working and it required a bus ride on the island). The organizers of the event had things worked out pretty well and other than the wait things went OK. Judging from the people in line, the attendees were a good mix of Japanese and gaijin (foreigners) like myself (although perhaps not quite like myself, most of the accents weren’t USian).

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Today is the iTunes Music Store’s one year anniversary. For me its been the perfect way to fill in the gaps in my music collection and find stuff I’d long forgotten (particularly one-hit-wonders from the 80’s). Plus I like how smoothly it works; it integrates with my iPod and the rest of my music collection very well.

Anyways, I was curious what the year’s musical indulgence comes to: 390 songs, 28:27:56 total time, 1.7 GB. Sounds like a lot, but that comes out to about 32 tracks a month, the equivalent of two CD’s. Not so bad, really, though a lot more than I had been in recent years. I haven’t been buying as much lately, partly because I’ve been more inclined to buy anime CD’s now that a lot of stuff I like it coming out here (and iTunes hasn’t gotten on the anime bandwagon). I still need to fill in my 90’s favorites collection now that my 80’s one it mostly complete (and then consider the 70’s and before).

What was my first purchase? t.A.T.u.’s “All the Things She Said” track (so I like Russian, pseudo-lesbian, pop fluff, big deal ). The latest ones were Disney’s Mulan soundtrack and the celtic group Capercaillie’s Choice Language album.

Curious what my musical tastes are like? Check the list and be bemused… [Note that this doesn’t include the stuff I have on CD, so its hardly a comprehensive list.]