DOCSLIB.ORG

The Management of Japanese Cultural “Odor” in Pokémon

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Management of Japanese Cultural “Odor” in Pokémon Illinois State University ISU ReD: Research and eData Theses and Dissertations 10-25-2018 A Pokébalancing Act: The Management Of Japanese Cultural “odor” In Pokémon Nicholas Raes Illinois State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/etd Part of the Communication Commons Recommended Citation Raes, Nicholas, "A Pokébalancing Act: The Management Of Japanese Cultural “odor” In Pokémon" (2018). Theses and Dissertations. 1022. https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/etd/1022 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ISU ReD: Research and eData. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ISU ReD: Research and eData. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A POKÉBALANCING ACT: THE MANAGEMENT OF JAPANESE CULTURAL “ODOR” IN POKÉMON NICHOLAS RAES 216 Pages In this project, I analyzed two seasons of the Pokémon anime to discover patterns of cultural “odor” management employed by the show’s producers and editors. In the first season of Pokémon , the producers of the anime included many symbolic representations of Japanese cultural artifacts within the visual features of the show. However, between the Japanese and US versions of the season, most instances of Japanese linguistic text were either “scrubbed” from scenes entirely or replaced with English text. These techniques struck a careful balance between including and excluding Japanese specificity within the first season, subtly expressing to non- Japanese audiences the Japanese origin of the show. However, in the twentieth season, producers removed symbolic representations of Japanese culture almost entirely – replacing these instead with symbols indicative of Hawaiian culture. This study traced the patterns of techniques used within these two seasons to manage this cultural “odor” to implicate the ways in which aspects of culture in television shows can prompt audiences toward developing interests in other cultures. KEYWORDS: anime; cultural odor; Japan; Japanese culture; Pokémon A POKÉBALANCING ACT: THE MANAGEMENT OF JAPANESE CULTURAL “ODOR” IN POKÉMON NICHOLAS RAES A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE School of Communication ILLINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY 2018 © 2018 Nicholas Raes A POKÉBALANCING ACT: THE MANAGEMENT OF JAPANESE CULTURAL “ODOR” IN POKÉMON NICHOLAS RAES COMMITTEE MEMBERS Phil Chidester, Chair John Baldwin Lauren Bratslavsky ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to thank my parents, Charlie and Mary Raes and Marjorie Mayer, without them none of this would be possible. I would also like to thank my committee members: Dr. Chidester, Dr. Baldwin, and Dr. Bratslavsky, for all of the hard work they have done in helping me get this project finished. Also – Nichole, Haley, and Alyssa thank you for your support as well as your understanding toward my multitude of stresses and thank you Jorgi for being a great mentor. I’d also like to thank Gerard and Jeremy for keeping me focused and sane during the rough patches. To Justin, Travis, and Griffin thank you for keeping me in good spirits for most of this process. To my undergraduate advisors, Trudi Peterson and Kate Zittlow- Rogness, thank you very much for believing in my ability and motivating me to take the plunge into grad school. Furthermore, thank you to Satoshi Tajiri, whose dream project influenced me to explore cultures outside of my comfort zone. Without any of you, I doubt I would be in the spot I am today. Thank you very much. N.R. i CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS i CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1 A Survey of Existing Research 8 Globalization and Localization 9 Orientalism 13 Anime 15 Cultural Odor 17 Pokémon 21 Methodology 25 Thesis Outline 27 CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE 28 Globalization and Localization 28 Glocalization 35 Orientalism 39 Cultural Odorless-ness 49 Anime 62 History of Anime 63 Defining of Anime 66 Anime's Cultural Influence and its Japanese Specificity 68 Anime in the Local and the Global 70 Pokémon 73 ii History of Pokémon 74 Pokémon as Transmedia 77 Pokémon as a Social Phenomenon 78 Pokémon as Japanese 83 Conclusion 89 CHAPTER III: METHODS 91 Background of Anime's Broadcast in the United States 91 Background of Pokemon's Broadcast 92 What are Pokémon? 94 Description of the First Season's Setting 96 First Season Character Summary 97 Description of the Twentieth Season's Setting 99 Twentieth Season Character Summary 100 Episode Analysis 100 Japanese Content 101 Selection of Episodes 102 Conclusion 103 CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS 104 Background of Season One 104 Management of Cultural "Odor" 105 Analysis of Episodes 107 Landscape 109 Japanese-ness in Clothing, Architecture, and Food 112 iii Japanese Cultural Knowledge 126 Diegetic Text 137 Names and Puns 146 Background of Season Twenty 152 Analysis of Episodes 154 Landscape 154 Japanese-ness of Food, Clothing, and Architecture 155 Japanese Cultural Knowledge 158 Polynesian-ness 163 Conclusion 164 CHAPTER V: DISCUSSION 167 Implications 180 Future Research 182 Conclusion 184 REFERENCES 187 APPENDIX: LIST OF EPISODES EXAMINED 215 iv CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION As a fan of the Pokémon franchise, I have continued to be interested in the globalized aspects of the production and marketing of this pop cultural phenomenon. I wanted to discover whether, if over time, the anime Pokémon was deliberately edited or otherwise altered to reflect “international taste” in conforming with extra-cultural notions concerning children’s television shows. As this program has been on the air for over 20 years, I investigated whether there have been perceivable differences in the amount and type of editing between the Japanese and the English versions of the program between its first season and its most recent season (Season 20). In the late 1990s through the early 2000s, the popular cable network Cartoon Network ran a programming block consisting primarily of Japanese anime. This block known as Toonami was presented during the after-school hours between four and seven o’clock on weekdays and consisted of a rotating schedule of translated shows from Japan such as Mobile Suit Gundam Wing and Dragon Ball Z alongside American shows like Batman: The Animated Series and Thundercats . As an avid television watcher during the height of the block’s popularity, I could tell the difference between the Japanese anime and the Western animated television shows, but I could not articulate how I knew the difference or why I preferred the anime over the other shows. Furthermore, as animated programming did not, and does not, have to concern itself with matching dubbed voice acting over the lip movements of its actors, it is one of the most ubiquitous genres that have been localized around the world. As Western conventions of animation “state” that cartoons are for children, this localization and dubbing mostly affected children who watched these shows. When watching shows such as Pokémon on other channels, I could also tell that this anime contained alterations from its original Japanese language to the Westernized translation. 1 For instance, in one episode of Pokémon a character mentioned his affinity for jelly doughnuts but held up an armful of rice balls as emphasis. The localization of lingual references for a Western audience indicates an identifiable difference between the two cultures. Per Katsuno and Maret (2002), localization is “the process of adapting a global product for a specific market” in which translation is a key component (p. 82). The Westernized translation indicates a lack of confidence with American audience’s ability to conceive of cultural differences in an animated medium. However, other cultural signifiers such as text on signs, specifically Japanese flags, and other food products gave the impression of difference to me. While watching these entertainment programs, this perceived difference between cartoons from my own culture and animation from abroad made me feel like I was discovering something about another land far from my own experiences. This feeling of discovery was consistently extended every time I watched or re-watched an episode of an anime. It was more salient when I watched series with subtitles but was nonetheless present in anime that was “dubbed” in the English language as well. In consuming a program that was not produced through the American cultural context, my experience with translated media from Japan inspired me to uncover the ways in which these transmediated programs were adapted for Western audiences. Although these programs were initially produced for the consumption of Japanese audiences, they nevertheless found their way around the world, translated for other cultural audiences. However, during the processes of translation, linguistic subtleties and iconographs are inevitably altered for the purpose of Western consumption. What remains to be found, however, is the level, frequency, and intentionality with which these changes occur amongst the industries and individuals that translate these programs. 2 As an avid watcher of anime, I still prefer to watch these programs in their original language alongside subtitles rather than dubbed with English voices because I believe that subtleties in linguistic and cultural references are lost in the translation process and therefore “lose” some of the artistic intent behind the programs’ production. Furthermore, because I watch these programs in their original language without edits made by an intermediating
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Mariko Mori and the Globalization of Japanese “Cute”Culture
    《藝術學研究》 2015 年 6 月，第十六期，頁 131-168 Mariko Mori and the Globalization of Japanese “Cute” Culture: Art and Pop Culture in the 1990s SooJin Lee Abstract This essay offers a cultural-historical exploration of the significance of the Japanese artist Mariko Mori (b. 1967) and her emergence as an international art star in the 1990s. After her New York gallery debut show in 1995, in which she exhibited what would later become known as her Made in Japan series— billboard-sized color photographs of herself striking poses in various “cute,” video-game avatar-like futuristic costumes—Mori quickly rose to stardom and became the poster child for a globalizing Japan at the end of the twentieth century. I argue that her Made in Japan series was created (in Japan) and received (in the Western-dominated art world) at a very specific moment in history, when contemporary Japanese art and popular culture had just begun to rise to international attention as emblematic and constitutive of Japan’s soft power. While most of the major writings on the series were published in the late 1990s, problematically the Western part of this criticism reveals a nascent and quite uneven understanding of the contemporary Japanese cultural references that Mori was making and using. I will examine this reception, and offer a counter-interpretation, analyzing the relationship between Mori’s Made in Japan photographs and Japanese pop culture, particularly by discussing the Japanese mass cultural aesthetic of kawaii (“cute”) in Mori’s art and persona. In so doing, I proffer an analogy between Mori and popular Japanimation characters, SooJin Lee received her PhD in Art History from the University of Illinois-Chicago and was a lecturer at the School of Art Institute of Chicago.
    [Show full text]
  • Washoku Guidebook(PDF : 3629KB)
    和 食 Traditional Dietary Cultures of the Japanese Itadaki-masu WASHOKU - cultures that should be preserved What exactly is WASHOKU? Maybe even Japanese people haven’t thought seriously about it very much. Typical washoku at home is usually comprised of cooked rice, miso soup, some main and side dishes and pickles. A set menu of grilled fish at a downtown diner is also a type of washoku. Recipes using cooked rice as the main ingredient such as curry and rice or sushi should also be considered as a type of washoku. Of course, washoku includes some noodle and mochi dishes. The world of traditional washoku is extensive. In the first place, the term WASHOKU does not refer solely to a dish or a cuisine. For instance, let’s take a look at osechi- ryori, a set of traditional dishes for New Year. The dishes are prepared to celebrate the coming of the new year, and with a wish to be able to spend the coming year soundly and happily. In other words, the religion and the mindset of Japanese people are expressed in osechi-ryori, otoso (rice wine for New Year) and ozohni (soup with mochi), as well as the ambience of the people sitting around the table with these dishes. Food culture has been developed with the background of the natural environment surrounding people and culture that is unique to the country or the region. The Japanese archipelago runs widely north and south, surrounded by sea. 75% of the national land is mountainous areas. Under the monsoonal climate, the four seasons show distinct differences.
    [Show full text]
  • Multicultural Japan? Discourse and the 'Myth' of Homogeneity [Indonesian Translation Available]
    Volume 5 | Issue 3 | Article ID 2389 | Mar 01, 2007 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Multicultural Japan? Discourse and the 'Myth' of Homogeneity [Indonesian Translation Available] Chris Burgess Multicultural Japan? Discourse and the one which dismisses the popular discourse of ‘Myth’ of Homogeneity [1] ‘homogeneous Japan’ as myth and which draws on ‘factual’ demographic and economic data to [Indonesian Translation Available Here] argue for the inevitability of further migration. This paper examines the discrepancy between Chris Burgess an increasingly negative global discourse on migration and an unwaveringly positive ‘multicultural Japan’ discourse. I argue that a It is not sufficient to fight against myths by destroying one myth and replacing it failure to acknowledge popular discourse as a with another, as in, for example,crucial element in the construction of Japanese criticising the myth of the homogenous social reality can lead to a distorted nation by replacing it with the myth of the understanding of migrants and migration in mixed nation (Oguma 2002: 349) Japan. 1. Nihonjinron and ‘Multicultural Japan’ Introduction In the field of Japanese Studies, one prominent discourse is that of a ‘multicultural Japan’. Recent years have seen a trend towards the Much of this can be traced back to a number of stabilisation of global migration flows (OECD critiques (e.g. Aoki 1990; Befu 1987; Dale 2005: 17/53). One factor behind this trend may 1986; Mouer and Sugimoto 1986; Yoshino be the growing atmosphere of global anxiety 1992) of Nihonjinron, a genre of writing and fear, fuelled by media reports of terrorist discussing Japanese cultural uniqueness.
    [Show full text]
  • Round 05 - Tossups Written and Edited by Luc Wetherbee and Daniel Xu with Contributions from Harris Bunker and the Cornell Quizbowl Team
    PACENSC 2018 - Round 05 - Tossups Written and edited by Luc Wetherbee and Daniel Xu With contributions from Harris Bunker and the Cornell Quizbowl Team 1. This Pokémon emerged as an anti-metagame pick due to its ability to execute a ​ strategy called the “Space Animal Slayer.” When this Pokémon is traded from a Generation I to a Generation II game, it holds a Polkadot Bow. Although this Pokémon is Normal-type, it shares a Pokémon category with Qwilfish. This Pokémon’s evolved form grants you access to locations such as Mt. Cleft and Peanut Swamp in (*) Red and ​ ​ Blue Rescue Team. In one game, this Pokémon is notable for being able to perform a strategy called ​ the “Wall of Pain.” This Pokémon can, unusually, cause massive amounts of damage in that game by using Rest. This Pokémon’s Japanese name translates literally to “Pudding.” For ten points, name this longtime playable character in Super Smash Bros., a Pokémon best-known for its ability to Sing. ​ ​ ANSWER: Jigglypuff <DX> ​ ​ 2. After you enter the Hall of Fame, an item with this name can be bought for 500 Poké ​ at the Market Stall in Two Island. It’s not Solaceon Town, but the aesthetic Seal Case can be obtained at a place with this name. Surprisingly, an item with this name is the only one available at Sinnoh’s Cafe Cabin. The TM for Snore or Natural Gift is obtained after healing a sick Pokémon with this name by (*) feeding it seven Oran Berries. That ​ Pokémon’s species is a rare encounter west of Ecruteak City.
    [Show full text]
  • The Internationalization of Higher Education: International Graduate Students'
    The Internationalization of Higher Education: International Graduate Students' Perspectives on How to Enhance University Stakeholders' Glocal Competence A dissertation presented to the faculty of The Gladys W. and David H. Patton College of Education of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Education Mary Kristin Diki August 2020 © 2020 Mary Kristin Diki. All Rights Reserved. 2 This dissertation titled The Internationalization of Higher Education: International Graduate Students' Perspectives on How to Enhance University Stakeholders' Glocal Competence by MARY KRISTIN DIKI has been approved for the Department of Educational Studies and The Gladys W. and David H. Patton College of Education by Emmanuel Jean-Francois Associate Professor of Educational Studies Renée A. Middleton Dean, The Gladys W. and David H. Patton College of Education 3 Abstract DIKI, MARY KRISTIN, Ed.D., August 2020, Educational Administration The Internationalization of Higher Education: International Graduate Students’ Perspectives on How to Enhance University Stakeholders’ Glocal Competence Director of Dissertation: Emmanuel Jean-Francois Institutions of higher learning in the United States have been admitting students from different countries since the 18th century. These universities have arguably had difficulty with the challenge of integrating such students into the life blood of the institutions due to their institutional overriding purpose of developing and sharing knowledge, oftentimes of a highly specialized nature. Given the constraints of time, resources and purpose, universities have struggled to capture the richness of their cultural diversity due to the highly peripheral nature of most cross-cultural engagements. The reality has been that what cross-cultural learning has occurred is largely unidirectional and such students have largely been made to feel that it is their responsibility to conform to local administrator, faculty, staff, and student expectations.
    [Show full text]
  • The Otaku Phenomenon : Pop Culture, Fandom, and Religiosity in Contemporary Japan
    University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 12-2017 The otaku phenomenon : pop culture, fandom, and religiosity in contemporary Japan. Kendra Nicole Sheehan University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd Part of the Comparative Methodologies and Theories Commons, Japanese Studies Commons, and the Other Religion Commons Recommended Citation Sheehan, Kendra Nicole, "The otaku phenomenon : pop culture, fandom, and religiosity in contemporary Japan." (2017). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 2850. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/2850 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE OTAKU PHENOMENON: POP CULTURE, FANDOM, AND RELIGIOSITY IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN By Kendra Nicole Sheehan B.A., University of Louisville, 2010 M.A., University of Louisville, 2012 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Louisville in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Humanities Department of Humanities University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky December 2017 Copyright 2017 by Kendra Nicole Sheehan All rights reserved THE OTAKU PHENOMENON: POP CULTURE, FANDOM, AND RELIGIOSITY IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN By Kendra Nicole Sheehan B.A., University of Louisville, 2010 M.A., University of Louisville, 2012 A Dissertation Approved on November 17, 2017 by the following Dissertation Committee: __________________________________ Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Pictures of an Island Kingdom Depictions of Ryūkyū in Early Modern Japan
    PICTURES OF AN ISLAND KINGDOM DEPICTIONS OF RYŪKYŪ IN EARLY MODERN JAPAN A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN ART HISTORY MAY 2012 By Travis Seifman Thesis Committee: John Szostak, Chairperson Kate Lingley Paul Lavy Gregory Smits Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………… 1 Chapter I: Handscroll Paintings as Visual Record………………………………. 18 Chapter II: Illustrated Books and Popular Discourse…………………………. 33 Chapter III: Hokusai Ryūkyū Hakkei: A Case Study……………………………. 55 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………. 78 Appendix: Figures …………………………………………………………………………… 81 Works Cited ……………………………………………………………………………………. 106 ii Abstract This paper seeks to uncover early modern Japanese understandings of the Ryūkyū Kingdom through examination of popular publications, including illustrated books and woodblock prints, as well as handscroll paintings depicting Ryukyuan embassy processions within Japan. The objects examined include one such handscroll painting, several illustrated books from the Sakamaki-Hawley Collection, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Library, and Hokusai Ryūkyū Hakkei, an 1832 series of eight landscape prints depicting sites in Okinawa. Drawing upon previous scholarship on the role of popular publishing in forming conceptions of “Japan” or of “national identity” at this time, a media discourse approach is employed to argue that such publications can serve as reliable indicators of understandings
    [Show full text]
  • Issue 9 •Sports Lingo P
    TheStudent photos by DeCloud Studios Miegian Volume 57 Issue 9 •Sports Lingo p. 15• Senior Edition •Departing Teachers p. 2• Seniors missing from mural (due to unavailability): May 2014 •One Acts p. 4•Senior pullout• Daniel Becker, Ryan Estrada, McKinley Johnson, Lucy Kraus Miegian N E W S Small but Mighty Five Stags Are Leaving the Herd News Car Raffle Tickets The total sold by the students was $21,085 for 60% of the $35,000 goal. The seniors brought in 35% of their goal, juniors 50% of their goal, sophomores 61% of their goal and freshmen 80% of theirs. The top sellers were Rachel Lavery with $300 and Tyler Pennell with Mike Bohaty- 26 years Paula Munro- 20 years Amy Lukert- 7 years Emily McGinnis- 3 years Fred Turner- 2 years $275. The winner of the car was the What did you teach or what was your role? Also, with what type of fondest memories come from the more relaxed student interactions in rehearsals, activities were you involved? lessons, at basketball games, or on a bus for a field trip.” Kincaid family, who donated it back to • Mike Bohaty- “My first two years I was associate principal and was in charge of • Fred Turner- “Beating St. Thomas Aquinas like a drum for the championship of the the school before it was purchased by the St. Thomas Aquinas Tournament, The relationships developed between my players discipline, attendance and athletics. The third year a ‘Director for Attendance’ was Belfield family. hired. I was in charge of half the discipline and attendance and had activities.
    [Show full text]
  • Park Statue Politics World War II Comfort Women Memorials in the United States
    Park Statue Politics World War II Comfort Women Memorials in the United States THOMAS J. WARD & WILLIAM D. LAY i Park Statue Politics World War II Comfort Women Memorials in the United States THOMAS J. WARD AND WILLIAM D. LAY ii E-International Relations www.E-IR.info Bristol, England 2019 ISBN 978-1-910814-50-5 This book is published under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 license. You are free to: • Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format • Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material Under the following terms: • Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. • NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes. Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission. Please contact [email protected] for any such enquiries, including for licensing and translation requests. Other than the terms noted above, there are no restrictions placed on the use and dissemination of this book for student learning materials/scholarly use. Production: Michael Tang Cover Image: Ki Young via Shutterstock A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. iii E-IR Open Access Series Editor: Stephen McGlinchey Books Editor: Cameran Clayton Editorial Assistants: Xolisile Ntuli and Shelly Mahajan E-IR Open Access is a series of scholarly books presented in a format that preferences brevity and accessibility while retaining academic conventions.
    [Show full text]
  • Analysis of Global Regulatory Schemes on Chance-Based Microtransactions
    Analysis of Global Regulatory Schemes on Chance-Based Microtransactions ANTHONY WEN - T S U N W O N G I. MICROTRANSACTIONS – A VIDEO GAME MONETIZATION MODEL icrotransactions are financial transactions for a digital good or service. These transactions are often seen in video game monetization models M where consumers purchase a currency or credit to spend on in-game additions. Companies have found innovative ways of introducing microtransactions to monetize games through business models such as free-to- play “freemium” models or by reducing the initial cost of purchasing a game and shifting the cost onto additional features. Other companies introduced microtransactions as a method of obtaining virtual gameplay goods and services. Some products are chance-based where the obtained outcome is randomized according to a table of probabilities. These are often referred to as “gachapon” and “loot boxes.” This paper seeks to examine and compare this chance-based nature, its effectiveness in video game microtransactions and their financial and psychological influences on the consumer to those of traditional gambling games. Furthermore, an analysis of Canadian and foreign legislation will be done to identify downfalls in Canadian legislation, determine necessary reformations to Canadian gaming law, and identify effective methods that will strengthen the regulatory regime. II. CHANCE-BASED MICROTRANSACTIONS A “Gachapon” is a Japanese vending-machine-style capsule toy dispenser; its name being an onomatopoeia of the sound of the hand-crank (“gacha”) and the sound of the capsule landing in the receptacle (“pon”). A consumer would pay the fee, turn the hand-crank, and a capsule containing a prize from a predefined list would be dispensed.
    [Show full text]
  • An Interview with Amor Towles
    THE 1511 South 1500 East Salt Lake City, UT 84105 InkslingerSpring Issue 2 019 801-484-9100 The Arc of History: A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles An Interview with Amor Towles— A young Russian count is saved from He’ll be in SLC April 2! a Bolshevik bullet because of a pre- by Betsy Burton revolution pro-revolution poem. Given his aristocratic upbringing he can’t go I called Amor Towles to talk to him free. So what is a Communist Commit- about A Gentleman in Moscow, but be- tee of the Commissariat to do? Put this fore we started with questions he won- unsuspicious suspect under house arrest dered who I was and whether we hadn’t in the grand hotel in which he’s staying, of met before at some book dinner or course. A hotel that, like Count Alexan- other. Knowing how often he speaks in der Ilyich Rostov himself, is allowed to exist for secret reasons public, I was surprised he remembered. of state. Our Count is nothing if not creative, and it isn’t long We had met, I said. Had sat next to one before his courtly manners and charm create a constella- another at a breakfast—an American tion of comrades that will inhabit your heart: Nina, a child Booksellers event at which he was the who teaches him the fine art of spying; her daughter Sophia, keynote speaker a couple of years ago. I decades later; his old friend, the poet Mishka; the glamorous thought so, he said. After chatting for a actress, Anna Urbanova; the hotel staff… As witty, cosmopoli- few minutes, I asked my first question tan, and unflappable as the Scarlet Pimpernel on the outside, Amor Towles, who will be in SLC as kind and as thoughtful as Tolstoy’s Pierre Bezukhov on the which was, admittedly, longwinded.
    [Show full text]
  • Young Audiences of Massachusetts Educational Materials
    Young Audiences of Massachusetts Educational Materials Please forward to teachers 4/14/10 ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE Odaiko New England Grade levels: K-5 Odiako New England demonstrates the ancient art form of taiko (Japanese drumming) and its importance in Japanese culture. This energetic and engaging program highlights kumidaiko (ensemble drumming) and combines traditional taiko rhythms with dynamic movement and rhythms from other musical traditions. Students explore kata (a drumming technique) and the concept of kiai (vocalizing energy) and join the performers on stage to play the taiko drums. LEARNING GOALS: 1. To experience and learn techniques of Japanese taiko drumming. 2. To explore the history of Japanese taiko drumming and its historical and contemporary role in Japanese culture and traditions. PRE-ACTIVITY SUMMARY: Understanding Musical Rhythms Discuss the concept of rhythm. Ask students to identify everyday rhythms they can see, hear, and replicate through movement. Have students create different percussive sounds with their bodies (snapping fingers, clapping hands, stomping feet, etc.). Create a rhythm for the rest of the class to echo. Repeat the pattern until everyone can do it. Encourage each student to demonstrate his/her own rhythm for the rest of the class. © San Jose Taiko POST-ACTIVITY SUMMARY: Family Symbols Discuss the origin of the Japanese family crest (information enclosed). Discuss how symbols represent ideas and stories. Discuss students’ surnames and the possible origins of the names. Have students select a symbol to represent their family name. Ask students to cre- ate Japanese family crests. Have them present their family crest to the class and discuss their specific design choice.
    [Show full text]