Nippon Club June 26, 2010 Keynote speech by playwright and JET alum Randall David Cook

TranslationParty.com is a simple and amusing procrastination tool that demonstrates the hilarious quirkiness of machine translation. Enter an English phrase and TranslationParty will automatically translate it into Japanese, then back into English, then back into Japanese, etc. Until a Zen-like equilibrium is reached… From Twitter via @myGengo.

Today, I went to see The Cove, a documentary centering around the annual dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Japan.  As some reviewers have already said, the movie marries spy-thriller suspense with compelling investigative storytelling.  Because of the Japanese government and whaling interests not wanting the story to get out, the filmmakers had to secretly (and perhaps [...]

Shree Kurlekar of JETAANY.org (Japan Exchange and Teaching Program Alumni Association of New York) interviewed me for the latest issue of JQ Magazine.  Download the PDF version of the magazine or read the article below after the jump.

When I lived in Japan, I played keyboards in a girl-rock cover band called “Nobuko and the Stone Buddhas” (or “The Stone Buddhas” for short).  We were active in Oita Prefecture around 2004-2005.  The band was named after the famous Stone Buddhas of Usuki (Photo above by Tanaka Juuyoh) Here are some MP3s of recordings [...]