Life of a genious

When I hold my iPhone, iPod, or iPad in my hands it occurs to me that it wouldn't feel so odd if I found the letters "SONY" on their back instead of the partially eaten apple logo. The "minimalism", "simplicity", "intuition over reasoning", etc., all sound familiar to me and probably to many others who grew up seeing and owning Sony's Walkman, CD players, headphones, speakers, and so on which, as I remember them, all seemed to prize those traits.

Many people have asked why couldn't Sony make those i-devices? The answers may be divisionism, bureaucratic organization, the company being run by great salesmen but not men of the product; but most would agree it's because of the genius and charisma of Steve Jobs himself.

Steve Jobs attributes "his ability to focus and his love of simplicity" to his training in Zen in his youth. His interest in spirituality and enlightenment may have partially been the product of the times: the Vietnam War coming to an end, winding-down of political activism at colleges, and increased desire for personal fulfillment --- the "enlightenment-seeking campus sub-culture of the era". But I guess he was born temperamental, focused, and with the gift of his now famous "Reality Distortion Field"; Zen training merely brought those traits into sharper focus and greater intensity.

The author of this well-balanced, highly readable biography laments his Zen training did not make a calm and serene person out of him. But I wonder, is that what Zen does to you? It seems to me that Zen, or its systems of mind-concentration training, is in a sense like the Dolby Noise Reduction system: it reduces noise while preserving the original sound; it makes you more like you truly are. In Steve's case, this may have resulted in his "nasty edge to his personality" which often wounded people around him.

In this 600 page-long volume exploring the life of a rare individual, Walter Isaacson gives us a sense of what it was like to be around Steve Jobs: His pain of having been abandoned at birth; his love of music; his legendary product launch events; his rivalry with Bill Gates; his compulsion for control; his eating habits ("Eating dinner at Steve's is a great experience, as long as ..."); and his passion for great design and obsession for perfection.

As I went through the major events of his life, from LSD to computer to animation to phones to music, from his childhood to marriage to being Apple CEO, and finally, to his illness, I was struck by his brutally honest nature; not only we see him abusing people around him, but we also see him crying and weeping quite often over professional matters as well as private ones.

The final pages where Steve talks about death was particularly moving. Does something survive after one dies? We all know that something do survive, that his passion, honesty, and genius manifest themselves around us daily and his legacy will live on in many of us.

A riveting book.

("Steve Jobs", Walter Isaacson; the review originally posted on Amazon Review in July 29, 2012)

Lose some weight, Yngwie!

As in everywhere, when he made his debut in Japan in the early 80's, Yngwie was a phenomenon. He was admired, revered and copied by many, and he was also derided by many for lack of feel, labeled as an emotionless technique-monger, and hated by press for his arrogance; I guess that must also have been the same everywhere. And I agree with most of the other reviewers' opinions, like this is him at his best, an epoch-making album in the history of rock guitar, a gem, what he used to be, and so on.

What I want to say here is, Look at this album jacket! A guitar held up by an arm with the background of furiously rising flames!? I've never seen anything like it; its simplicity, unabashed demonstration of what he is and who he is, it just makes me admire him. The image unmistakably shows his pride as a guitarist who left his own country, Sweden, the land of Vikings, to the U.S., the land of freedom and dreams, with nothing but his guitar, in pursuit of his dreams and ambitions...this is Yngwie. I love him, and hate him.

His music on this album is just exquisite. The sound of his Strat, that dry and yet somehow rich, lustrous and even erotic tone, combined with his trademark flowing phrasing, is terrific. The dramatic songs, particularly Icarus' Dream, are simply amazing. You have to remember he made this 20 years ago, when he was 20 or so.

I just wish he would have the fortune of meeting someone who destroys his too-big an ego once and for all, so that he would come out as a born-again true hero for those of us who love him but cannot help hating him for his nowadays routine, uncontrolled, self-indulgent and sometimes even ugly solos.

(CD "Rising Force" by Yngwie Malmsteen, the review originally posted on Amazon Review in 2003)

This is OK, but video is better

This is surely a great album and a must-have item if you're a Yngwie fan. I just can't believe the video (either VHS or DVD or LD or DVD-R) version is not available or even listed on Amazon.com. Or am I simply missing it? I'm referring to the Alcatrazz live in Japan in '84, entitled "Metallic Live '84". Was I privilaged to have seen the video, which I still own, in the same year in Japan?

I just checked out Amazon.com.jp, and the VHS video (no DVD is listed) is out of stock. Well, if you're a true Yngwie fan, you must see the video somehow: The CD is nothing compared to it. If you do, you'll see the young (20 or so), slim and very cool Yngwie on and off stage. There are several minutes of him practicing backstage and being interviewed. You'll see the (then) incredible fingering and picking; actually, it's far better than watching some of his instruction videos because camera work is great, heavily concentrated on Yngwie. You can see his face full of emotions, passionate, sometimes demonic, sometimes as if dreaming, and even smiling at some points. His play is sincere and terrific, partly due to the fact that, I guess, Japanese audience is relatively quiet in between songs and they don't go crazy and screaming even during songs.

Graham's vocal, much as I like and admire him, is not so good, unfortunately. Must have been tired. But you can listen to him singing Lost In Hollywood, which is not on the CD! But if you don't have access to the video, the CD is highly recommendable nonetheless.

(CD "Alcatrazz Live Sentence", the review originally posted on Amazon Review in 2003)

Don't miss this gem

This is a live performance of the Japanese techno-pop group Perfume. You'll be amazed by the energy the three young ladies bring forth as they dance, and will be thrilled by the intelligent visual effects. They've been performing for more than ten years now.

Their popularity in Japan and abroad has soared to new heights recently after the opening of the movie Cars 2, in which one of their songs was featured. I can't describe the passion and the thrill I get from their performance well enough, particularly the almost sign-language like choreography and the visuals.

Check out their videos on Youtube for Game, Electro World, Secret Secret, Love the World, One Room Disco and, last but not least, Polyrythm, the song in Cars 2.

(CD "Perfume Global Compilation LOVE THE WORLD", the review originally posted on Amazon Review in 2012)

Fascinating story of forgiveness

I usually don't like to read books or watch movies that are extremely highly praised because the hype raises the bar and I can't help approaching it with expectations. Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel for instance, as critically acclaimed as it was, was so long-drawn and flat to me I slogged through two-thirds of it and called it quits; the point of the book seemed so obvious -- that people and civilization flourish where the land is fertile and the weather is temperate -- the rest was details and the details were boring.

So I started this book by Laura Hillenbrand, author of Seabiscuit, with much trepidation. I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, this is about war and people in it and not as academic as the Guns, so maybe the two cannot be compared and perhaps I should not be surprised. But the difference was refreshing, and now I am one of the thousands of Amazon reviewers giving it five stars.

It's a story of Louie Zamperini, who ran in the Berlin Olympics in 1936, and who as a boy "wanted nothing to do with airplanes" found himself becoming the bombardier aboard a B-24, which crashes into the Pacific Ocean. He and two of his crewmen drifts on a raft, fighting death: thirst, starvation, burning sun, sharks, a strafing Japanese bomber, a typhoon, etc.

The book was written in short, crisp and powerful sentences and easy to read, even for a non-native English speaker like me. The story seems to be backed up by a great deal of research, interviews, and records. Virtually every detail seems to be referenced at the end of the book, page by page and line by line.

At some points, though, I couldn't help but stop and question some of the passages, like those referring to the Rape of Nanjing, or the circumstances surrounding the comfort women. I'm not a historian and I can't point out any errors in the book; I would just say that these issues are controversial.

The cruelty of the guards at the POW camps depicted here is staggering. The level of abuse, humiliation, and violence to which Zamperini and other captives were subjected is horrendous. They are beaten and clubbed daily, denied full Red Cross rations and clean water.

I could only feel sorry for them. But I feel like defending my own country and my own anscestors by saying these guards were and are not typical or representative of the Japanese, then or now: they were "the dregs of the Japanese military" and "quite a few were deranged," as Hillenbrand so impartially writes. And you must remember that in the wartime Japan, hitting and clubbing were an everyday occurrence in the military. Especially new military recruits were routinely beaten for minimal transgressions or mistakes.

Even to this day newspapers sometimes carry letters from WWII veterans and survivors, telling stories about the abuses inflicted on them by their own countrymen. It was a time of war, and corporal punishment was the norm. I just hope that the readers of this book, restrained as it is, will not jump to conclusions about the nature of Japanese as a people. By the same token, I tell myself not to hasten to generalize other nations' character by the acts of only a few of their folks.

After the book, I watched a CBS interview of The Bird, Zamperini's once arch-enemy prison guard, on Youtube.  He came across as an unhappy man not at peace with himself. His words and demeanor appeared to show a sad man who couldn't or wouldn't get it all over with. But then again, how would I have treated Zamperini and other POWs had I been one of the guards at any of the POW camps? I'm not so sure.

A fascinating and gripping story of forgiveness, and I loved this book.

("Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption", Laura Hillenbrand; the review originally posted on Amazon Review in Nov. 2, 2012)

Title says it all

My interest in Japan's doomsday cult Aum led me to this book. I didn't know anything about religious cults abroad; the only name of a cult I'd heard of was the "Branch Davidians" of the U.S., its leader "David Koresh," and its demise in "Waco, Texas" in the 90's. The image of the group's compound burning was broadcast widely here in Japan too, and it's got stuck in my mind since.

As I started reading the book, which is about another messianic cult called "the Peoples Temple," I immediately began to notice similarities between Aum and this group: their teachings and the psychology of the disciples are very similar and sometimes even almost identical. Of course, that's why they are both called "doomsday cults". But what strikes me is that, even though there is the popular term "cult" and we are all supposed to know what it means, how we never seem to learn; how easily we humans continue to be deceived, made to give up our power of independent thinking, and turned into puppets or robots.

It's easy to say that what happened in the subway trains in the heart of Tokyo during the morning rush hour in 1995, and in the "paradise" in the Guyanese jungle of South America in 1978, were both caused by some crazy people. You might say, "Don't put your trust in anybody; think for yourself," or "If you didn't like it there, why didn't you just leave?" But I guess that's where things get tricky, as this book clearly illustrates.

Most of us do not, or do not want to, consider ourselves to be evil, unjust, or inhumane. And when we see evil, injustice, or inhumane realities, we want to change that, and when we see someone trying to do good, help the poor, or "change the world," we tend to want to help him or her, and that seems to have been the case with Deborah Layton, the author of the book.

It was 1970 when she met Jim Jones, the "remarkable pastor" of the People's Temple, a humanitarian self-help church to which her brother belonged. Jim Jones was fighting against prejudice, racial discrimination, and poverty. He was an important man doing important things; he even had a thank-you note signed by Ronald Reagan, then governor of California. So it's no wonder that a 17-year-old young woman, feeling insecure about her own racial origin and having troubles at school, who "wanted to become one with people who showed their anger, the poor, the working class, those who had experienced grief and misfortune," to be mesmerized by the handsome preacher, whom her brother described as living the Jesus' teachings.

She wanted to help, contribute, and find meaning in her life. She may have been a bit rebellious: in a British boarding school where she was "exiled," she throws a desk at a teacher in defense of her best friend accused of cheating. At another time she punches her fist through a window in frustration over being criticized for her American accent and chewing gum in classroom. But she was certainly not crazy. She joins the group after thinking a lot. She keeps asking questions, even after joining the Temple, about what she saw and felt. The independent thinking, however, was against the Temple's socialist doctrines and considered to be the sign of "capitalistic traits," punishable by being put on the "Learning Crew".

And once you join the cult, it's often difficult to get out because of the constant threat of retribution, or the physical location of the church or the temple. The members are obligated to report on one another, so they become suspicious of each other. There is also the "work": downing trees, clearing patches of land, burning debris, constructing log houses, etc., under the scorching sun and surrounded by bugs and mosquitos and what not.

The hard labor, lack of sleep, and meager diet are combined with the constant threat of attack from the CIA, which was often staged by the members themselves, and the followers are soon rendered incapable of thinking for themselves. The gloomy atmosphere is taken advantage of by the leader, whose initial, purported goal of righting the social ills or salvaging humanity, is now turned into maintaining his authority by any means, in the typical "end justifies the means" fashion.

The book was fast-paced and sometimes read like a suspense novel, especially towards the end where Ms. Layton attempts an escape from the jungle. The account is told with such vivid detail, particularly conversations. All in all, the book left me with the impression that this could happen to any of us, anytime, anywhere. People who are deceived, whether by the "it's me!" phone scams, pyramid schemes, or the religious organizations touting enlightenment or social justice, do not imagine they are being deceived until it's too late.

More than nine hundred people, including many elderly and children and babies, perished in the end. I think this is a highly recommendable book for anyone interested in knowing how a cult works, how its leader manipulates the minds of his followers, and how the followers themselves learn to deny their own thinking to conform to the group and please the leader.

("Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor's Story of Life and Death in the People's Temple" by Deborah Layton; the review originally posted on Amazon Review in 2013)

Asahara wasn't blind; he drove a car

I thought I knew enough about Aum, the doomsday cult led by Shoko Asahara, that bloated, sweaty looking fellow with full-length beard and mustache and long hair, a far cry from the image of a holy man, who was said to be blind (or half-blind):

The sarin gas attack of 1995 on Tokyo's subway system, which killed more than a dozen and injured thousands;

 

The Matsumoto incident, where Aum sprayed sarin to kill the judges handling cases against Aum, but instead killing many innocent residents and, through police incompetence, making a prime suspect out of a hapless man in the neighborhood, even though his wife was put in a coma by the gas and was dying;

The forced entry into the apartment of the Sakamotos, the lawyer couple fighting against the cult, killing them and their baby at sleep; and

Aum's bid to enter politics through their bizarre campaigns -- cult members, many surprisingly young and attractive women, singing and dancing, wearing identical Asahara masks. The devotees wearing headgear studded with electrodes -- the device for the "Perfect Salvation Initiation" that sends electric shocks to the wearer's head in tune with the guru's brain waves (which were once said to have indicated that Asahara was brain-dead) -- was a familiar sight on TV and in magazines.

But the recent capture of the remaining fugitives, one at the end of 2011 and the other two in June 2012, again put media spotlight on Aum, and I started reading books about them.

This book was full of details I didn't know about Asahara and what the cult was doing to the society and to themselves: Asahara's childhood marked with poverty and defeats; his opening of an acupuncture clinic and arrest in 1982 for medical fraud; his fascination with the spiritual and mysterious; signing up to Agon-shu, another new Buddhist sect, apparently to learn how to run a religious organization; starting of a small yoga school named "the Aum Association of the Mountain Wizards" in 1984, and its later transformation, via Asahara's meeting with the Dalai Lama in India, into "Aum Supreme Truth".

The group with the new name (Aum Shinri-kyo), which, according to another book, was suggested by a business consultant and that Asahara chose because it sounded like another very successful religious group in Japan, "Tenri-kyo", begins to attract an increasing number of followers -- some through coercion but mostly by devotion -- including many graduates of the nation's most prestigious universities. Branches were opened abroad. Aum USA was incorporated in the state of New York. The Russian branch attracted many recruits under the nose of the Kremlin.

The popularity fuels Asahara's megalomania, but the defeat in the election of 1990, in which none of the 25 candidates were elected -- not surprisingly -- is said to have made Asahara change course: from preventing Armageddon by encouraging people to attain enlightenment through the practice of yoga and other "initiations", which were nothing but money-making, LSD-induced hoax, to causing Armageddon to prove that they've been right all along, leading to the subway attack.

The depiction of the attack was vivid; how they prepared the bags of sarin for the morning attack; how the cult members were allocated to several subway lines; how the plan was designed and timed to wreak the deadliest havoc at the Kasumigaseki-station, where many government and police employees get off; and how the bags were held, dropped, and punctured with the ground-tip of an umbrella.

As a patent translator, I was intrigued to learn from this book that Asahara had an invention to his credit. I checked, and what came up was entitled "Fluidized bed type incinerator" (JPH05322145A), which "enable salts within material to be burned to improve durability of a fluidized bed type incinerator". It reads like a legitimate device but when you think about how Asahara's disciples disposed of the bodies of defectors or those who were defiant enough to think for themselves, I would say this is spooky.

Asahara was sentenced to death in 2004. Many of his top lieutenants have also been sentenced to die by hanging. Murai, chief scientist and one of the most trusted by Asahara among the leaders, has been stabbed to death in broad daylight. Asahara's mind is said to have since "completely degenerated": according to an account of a prison worker in another book, he wears diapers.

The crimes committed by Asahara and his cohorts cannot be forgiven, but I cannot help but feel a sense of sadness for the followers because, after all, they all appear to have been serious young men and women searching for meaning in life. Their biographies and autobiographies tell stories of intelligent and philosophical youth, dissatisfied with the material world around them, trying to find something more spiritual and peaceful. In this respect, what's the difference between them and Siddhartha Gautama before he became Buddha, or Christ?

One difference, obviously, is that neither Buddha nor Christ preached the gospel of Armageddon. Buddha preached the "Middle Way," avoiding both self-indulgence and self-mortification, and taught his disciples to respect the "Dharma" and not him personally.

The devotees of Asahara may have made the mistake of choosing the wrong teacher. Zen stresses the crucial importance of selecting the right master. There must have been, and there will be, many Asaharas, maybe not so destructive: religious practitioners turned con men with overblown sense of their worth. I wonder if it might not be helpful if we had more objective education on religion and cults based on history, particularly in view of the survival of Aum in the form of "Aleph" to this day.

("The Cult at the End of the World: The Terrifying Story of the Aum Doomsday Cult, from the Subways of Tokyo to the Nuclear Arsenals of Russia" by David E. Kaplan and Andrew Marshall; the review originally posted on Amazon Review in Aug. 31, 2012)