CALL ME THE GOAT show by Daisuke Muramoto

I went to the CALL ME THE GOAT show by Daisuke Muramoto (20th December 2024), at Tokyo's Nissho hall, a prestigious venue which has been used for recordings of NHK programs in the past. I have been following his act over the last decade, as he made efforts to change the comedy culture in Japan, which rarely provides critical views on politics and social issues. I am a friend of his, and have expressed sympathy with his struggles to establish the standup comedy culture here in this country.

At the beginning of the show, Daisuke explained that GOAT, which is an acronym for Greatest OF All Time, meant that somebody was really good at something, arguably the no.1 in the genre (he actually did not explain the acronym explicitly). It was with this bold self-assertion, entirely justified in my view, that he set the stage for his highly anticipated comeback to the Japanese stage. Daisuke now lives in New York, appearing in Comedy Clubs throughout the city.

The topics covered were wide-ranging. The aftermath of earthquakes, peer pressure, street culture in New York, learning English, the not-so-smooth relationships between Japan, Korea, and China, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Donald Trump, Dragon Ball, communication and miscommunication, tattoos, nuclear power plants, love life, and, needless to say, Japanese politics. The climax of the act was when Daisuke described, with awe and joy but not forgetting his comedy, a chance encounter with his comic hero, Chris Rock, in a New York ramen restaurant. 

Through the act, Daisuke clearly showed that he is indeed GOAT, at least in Japan, and as far as standup comedy is concerned. It now remains for him to show that he is GOAT in the United States of America as well. That would surely be an uphill climb, but it would be exciting to watch the process, even if he ends up being a Don Quixote.

Through coverages such as the documentary film I AM A COMEDIAN following his life, Daisuke's journey as an evangelist of standup comedy came to be widely known in Japan. Now that Daisuke has moved to New York, with the aim of making it in the United States, his dream of becoming a Shohei Ohtani of comedy has found resonance in the hearts of many people dissatisfied by the status quo of Japanese laughter. Mainstream Japanese media do not broadcast critical comedy. Japanese laughter tends to be focused on physical acts, simplistic slapsticks, or observation of personal relationships under the assumption of peer pressure, and the tv producers, including those from the public broadcaster NHK, are notoriously shy of putting something equivalent to The Daily Show or Saturday Night Live on air.

But perhaps the times are changing. The stagnation of Japanese economy for three decades has raised the awareness of a need for a change in its culture, including that of comedy. Japanese people are now exposed to American and British comic acts through the internet in general and streaming platforms such as Netflix. The disappearance (which may be temporary) of Hitoshi Matsumoto from Japanese tv has put a huge question mark on the mainstream comedy culture here.

I hugely enjoyed Daisuke's CALL ME THE GOAT show, and I wish him well. I sincerely hope that he will be successful in New York and elsewhere. I am looking forward to his appearance in SNL! 

At the least, on this December evening, Daisuke Muramoto's earnest efforts to make people laugh in the Nissho Hall, while facing the realities of Japanese society, have moved the hearts of people, including my own.

The White Book by Han Kang

This was a work of revelation and inspiration in many senses. In parts, it read like Yoko Ono's wonderful Grapefruit. Images far reaching and penetrating were woven in terms of crystal clear words and poignant and sometimes even murky expressions. 

This was my second reading of Han Kang, after The Vegetarian, and surely would not be my last. I admire the writer very much. In a sense, reading The White Book helped me understand the merits of Han Kang's writings. I think the famed Korean author is capable of exercising gymnastics in the universe of concepts, weaving contemporary arts using linguistic materials. This aesthetics, combined with a keen intellect embracing the universal and generic human values, makes Han Kang the one and only in the world literature today. 

Civil War produced by A24.

 Civil War produced by A24.

To my surprise and delight, the film was totally different from the cleverly crafted trailer I have seen earlier, the effect of which I suspect was intentional. While the teaser appeared like another rollercoaster thriller of previously trodden paths, the work I saw before me in a movie theatre in Tokyo was a fresh, thought-provoking take at a theme people might have long started to think is run-of-the-mill.

The cinematography was stunningly beautiful and inspiring. My favorite scenes are the car trip through the burning forest at night and the terrifying scene in the field with the uncredited appearance of Jesse Plemons, who stole the show all the same.

From the beginning to the controversial ending, the film's statement seemed to be that nothing is sacred. While the more lucky among us breathe in the comfort zones of civilization, the reality of the world is that many people are suffering in chaos, right now, as I write this. There is no moat of presumed privileged society for people, even those in such a superb nation as the United States of America.

I am a great fan of A24, ever since I saw Lady Bird in 2017. It is reassuring that my trusted brand in the film industry took this creative approach to what is often treated as a mundane subject resting on the assumption of bipartisanship in the traditional media. Here's to the spirit of film-making and journalism.

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

The Vegetarian by Han Kang is a work of precision and structure. Although the novel deals with emotionally charged difficulties of contemporary human existence, the storyline follows a tightly-knit sequence which almost has the impression of the inevitable.

Han Kang is a great story-teller, and The Vegetarian is a page-turner, in the literarily heavy-weight sense. The co-existence of literature of the highest caliber and the ability to attract a wide range of readers with the basic urge to read on reminds one of Dostoevsky.

The Vegetarian is a great work dealing with generic human truths, and commonly-found difficulties of the present day. The fact that the novel deals with problems of gender, abuse, social norms, and existential risks could have well turned out to be yet another example of politically correct treatise, but the result is far from so. The novel is full of pleasant surprises out of the norm.

The almost beautifully savage intellect of Han Kang has made this work the true fruit of labour of love, which hangs from a tree of life in a wild orchard where other masterpieces coming from this Korean novelists thrive half-cultivated and half-native, with yet more surprises to be uncovered.

How to use my instagram account.

 I have been having a rather uncertain time figuring out how to make use of my instagram account.

https://www.instagram.com/qualiaken/

Posting photos from my daily life doesn't seem interesting. My ideas and feelings are better expressed here on X. This morning I have made two clumsy drawings on the hotel memo and posted them on instragram. Possibly, posting drawings from time to time would be the best use of instagram in my case.

Cosmic consciousness and star child.

 As Bergson noted things we are accustomed to tend to be processed unconsciously. A newborn would have maximum consciousness as everything is new, but they lack the fully developed cognitive system of adults to appreciate it all. Astronauts who have cosmic consciousness in outer space are like newborns with fully developed appreciative cognitive systems. The final scene of 2001: A space odyssey is an accurate description of this state with the star child as the protagonist.

Mr. Biden is a true hero.

In my humble opinion, President Joe Biden has already done a great job, not only through serving his country as a politician, especially during his presidency, but also by raising awareness of the detrimental effects that aging could have on one's cognitive functions. On a very high-profile platform on the presidential debate, Mr. Biden has inadvertently made the public become aware of what could happen to one when one grows older, a very important public health issue today.

As a human being, everyone would wish Mr. Biden the best of health, in the mind and the body. As a president and a president-to-be, Mr. Biden and people around might have to make decisions in the coming days, as suggested by the New York Times editorial. However, even in that case, through the process of tying to cope with one's conditions due to aging, Mr. Biden would show the world the true value of the human spirit, to do one's best no matter what. In that sense, Mr. Biden is a true hero.

American Presidential debate.

Listening to the Presidential debate, I have the feeling that the format is quite logically constructed, almost like a matrix of relevant issues. Presumably the journalists have done their jobs in preparing the platform. 

The candidates, however, tend to deviate, especially Mr. Trump. Mr. Biden has the tendency to stick to the boxed agenda, clear and crisp. I am not sure which candidate would give a more favorable impression on the American public. Perhaps it is the human factors that permeate through  the matrix that would help people form their opinion. 

Whoever becomes the President, I hope he will do his best to bring back reason and good-will to the international politics. The world is suffering enough from idiosyncratic expressions of interests, personal and national. Perhaps we need more of a matrix of rationality approach, based on universal human values, like this Presidential debate. 

Looking back, I have the impression that Mr. Biden probably did his preparations too rigorously, sticking to the pre-learned lines. A little more spontaneity would have been great.  Mr. Trump, on the other hand, was impulsive and repetitive as ever, but that was something already to be expected so that it would not have been a huge minus. 

The Musk conjecture.

 As humans go out into space and attain cosmic consciousness, novel and interesting questions could be found. Finding questions could be potentially more important than answering them, in the sense of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Let us name this the Musk conjecture, after Elon Musk who repeatedly mentioned this idea. Exploring the Musk conjecture would have serious implications from here, as more people would explore the outer space, onto Mars and beyond.

Evidence that the whole universe is a gigantic simulation.

 Recently, I have discovered a truly remarkable evidence to suggest that the whole universe, including my thoughts and consciousness, are results of a gigantic simulation set up by an advanced artificial intelligence. 

I would like to report the details, but the simulation would not allow it. Whenever I try to type related facts, the movements of my fingers, which are simulated, deviate from my intended trajectories. In addition, I forget all details of the evidence, a few moments after I remember what they are. 

Damn this sad deficiency in my free will. 

I hope somebody else would be able to find a bug in the simulation so that they can discover and report the evidence independently, somehow circumventing the cosmic veto.

1st April, 2024

The silence of the lords. A review of the 3 Body Problem on Netflix.

I have finished watching episodes 1-8 of the 3 Body Problem on Netflix, based on the novel by Cixin Liu. The most interesting idea of the story, for me, was the association of the anti-scientific sentiments of the Cultural Revolution and the need for the aliens to contain the advancement's of earth's science until the arrival of their fleet. This viewpoint has some critical depth, as would be obvious even for a casual thinker.

It was intriguing to see a Chinese character (a female scientist) play a pivotal role in the course of humanity, by inviting the visit and interference into the matters of humanity by aliens. The historical background and context for this act is poignant, and perhaps resonates with the surge of pride of the Chinese people in recent decades in indirect and implicit ways.

Once kickstarted, the confrontations between the alien civilization and humans are mainly carried out by people in the Western civilization, by the UK, US, and UN specifically. Otherwise the drama would have perhaps lacked the crucial geopolitical balance.

The three body problem simulation game is a very original idea of the novel, and has been adapted well into the Netflix series. It also serves as a backdrop for the entire story, providing the rationale for the unpredictability of the plot.

The supposed omnipotence of the surveillance and execution on earth by the remote alien civilization is needless to say scientifically dubious, but may be deemed necessary for the sake of drama. However, the ubiquitous eye of the alien civilization poses a  unique challenge for story development, for obvious reasons. Maybe there is something inherently self-contradictory in the very idea of omnipotence, an issue not sufficiently pursued by this particular drama, making the silence of the "lords" in 3 Body Problem less profound compared to the "Silence" of God in Shusaku Endo's eponymous novel. On the flip side, this would be a testimony to the fact that the novel and the Netflix series have tackled a challenging task in entertainment making with great success, and the quest would go on in the second series, hopefully.