Author: Matthew

Categories
Music

Za Pirosu

So, a couple of four weeks ago a friend of mine, Brian Wyrostek, told me that the pillows were coming to Chicago. I about shit a brick. (pardon my French, but it’s for emphasis) They are from Japan and not very popular in Japan at that. So I was completely thrown off guard when I heard they were coming to play an hour from me. Immediately after hearing such wondrous news went and purchased tickets, duh. I started listening to the pillows after watching FLCL (just like everyone else), an anime series in which the soundtrack is basically all pillows (I also highly recommend watching FLCL if you get a chance, grade A stuff). That was about 5 years ago. When I first started listening to them I by downloaded a few songs from the series, but got deeper into the music and started hunting for anything pillows I could find. When I went to Japan in ’05 I bought about 5 CDs; I would have bought more, but that’s all I could find. I currently have every LP they have ever released plus some rare acoustic stuff they did. So, after that back history you could tell why I would be excited. The concert was on the 20th, so last Tuesday. Let me tell you I wasn’t disappointed in the least. You know sometimes when you really like a band then go see them live they turn out to be not so good or just suck live and then you’re like for them kind of diminishes or at least is lessened. Well let me tell you this was not in the pillows’s case. They were really into the show. They were enigmatic and looked like they were happy to be there. I also have never been to a show where a band had played so many songs. They must have played between 15-20 songs, and this is with no breaks mind you. They were machines. If you ever have a chance to see them please do not hesitate, it will be one of the greatest musical experiences of your life.

Let me speak just for a tiny bit about some of the people who were at this concert. Now it wasn’t very many people because face it, not to many people know about the pillows and those who do probably found out about them the same way I did which is through FLCL, but some of these people should seriously get out from under their rock and look at society. I am the first person to tell you to be different from the crowd and stand out, but not like dis, not like dis (Matrix reference. anyone? anyone?) There were like 2983981293920183918293892.2 Naruto headbands at this concert and they were all sliding off the heads of these greasy headed nerds. (you know its bad when I start pointing the finger and start saying nerd.) I mean there was a girl there with cat ears who was crawling around on all fours acting like a cat. Double U- Tee-Eff? Not only was this girl on all fours and purring, but her boyfriend took the cake. He was wearing a beret, a pony tail, long huge hot topic-ish pants with about 42 chains, a messenger bag with a million anime pins, and a Naruto headband around his wrist. This guy was hawt. I already know writing this it will not even scratch the surface of what was there, but if I can just shed a little light onto what I saw that will be enough.

In short, despite the company I was with the concert rocked ridiculously hard. pillows=excellent. I will post pictures when I get home. I am at work right now so all my pics and stuff is at home. I also recorded some of the concert and edited it and threw it on a DVD. If you want a copy just leave me a comment and I will send you one. Speaking of comments, leave me some! I love them so much.

Categories
Japan Media

F#@king Redshirt

I just finished Botchan a novel by Natsume Soseki.
It kind of looked dumb from the cover and I actually stole it from my Japanese class. It claims to be the most widely read novel in Japan. So I thought I would give it a shot. It turned out to be a really engaing book. It does not have much of a deep meaning. The only meaning I could pull from it was do not take people for face value. It is not really deep as it is written right on the paper. Although not a deep novel it is fun. I found myself having trouble putting down the book. It is short, but I highly recommend it. The story is that of a man named Botchan (clever title, heh) who is from Tokyo. He is labeled as the family screw up and because of this lives up to his roll. He latter assumes some responsibilty and goes to school and after completing this gets an offer to teach in a small, nothing country town. The story is about his mis-adventures in this small town as a school math teacher. I would recommend this read, it’s witty, funny and and enjoyable read. You do not have to be a Japanophile to enjoy this book. It can be purchased through Amazon or through any major retailer.

Categories
Personal

Heritage, yo.

I’m here at work, not really doing much of anything as normal when I found myself searching for the hardest languages to learn. I discovered that Hungarian is considered on of the most difficult languages to learn. If you don’t know (which I’m sure you don’t) I am about 1/2 Hungarian and 1/2 Slovakian and am only about the 3rd or 4th generation to be born in America. I did a little research on the language and have discovered this:

It’s called Magyar. (I think pronounced mah-duar)

It’s spoken by approximately 14.5 million people.

It’s unique in it is not part of Indo-Euopean languages such as German, English, and Portuguese, but part of the Ugrian group of the Finno-Ugrian.

It has similar grammar structure to Finnish, but that is about where the relationship ends.

We don’t have ancestors in Europe, but more are the Kazahs. I don’t know from where they hail, but I have also found that we inhabited the Carpathian Basin for a while and have several words borrowed from Turkish surprisingly. I think we were inhabited by Turkey for about 150 years which would explain the common words from both languages. During Austro-Hungarian Monarchy lots of German words were borrowed and melted into the language, but are now considered undesirable to use.

Magyar used to have a different character set before 1000 AD , but was destroyed by the first christian king, saint Stephen for use of the current one. Below is a picture of the old script.

I has a unique alphabet which I have shown here.

It has different pronunciation than English so it looks different than said.

It’s hard to grasp how many words there are in Magyar because there is always new ones being invented by compounding words.

No genders in Magyar.

There are many ways to say a sentence, it is not fixed like English. It all depends on importance of words.

Here are some simple words:

yes = igen

no/not = nem

Hi (for one person) = Szia (si-ah)

Hi (for more than one person) = Sziasztok (si-ahstahk)

Thank you! = Köszönöm! (ker-ser-nerm)

So, that’s some basics of the crazy language of my ancestors. I would like to learn it someday actually, but after I have mastered the complexities of Japanese. Yeah sorry this entry was kind of way out of left field and I don’t know if you guys/gals found it interesting but it was to me, and it’s my blog. I will write something about my life again eventually.