Weekender #32

• Birb watch: Still no sign of Handsome myna.

• I saw this interesting concept for a guitar on Instagram. It seems to forgo a standard wooden body and instead, uses some sort of powder coated sheet metal along with a wooden base and neck. I also liked the idea of movable pickups for a variety of sounds. I hope more guitar companies rethink what a guitar is and how it could be made.

• After being in a rut with learning anything new on the guitar, I decided to do something about it. I paid for a guitar music theory/learn the fretboard video course. Let’s see if I can get over my end of day fatigue and actually learn something new. So far, I haven’t gotten anywhere. This entire week was exhausting and this weekend isn’t letting up either.

• I re-borrowed the Japanese photography book ‘Ravens & Red Lipstick - Japanese Photography Since 1945’ by Lena Fritsch a few weeks ago. It’s a book that gave me some inspiration to try out street photography during my last trip to Japan. I enjoyed reading the interviews with many of the prolific Japanese photographers, and learning about what got them into photography. I didn’t know any of these photographers before picking up this book, but I do now. I came across an interview with Fritsch regarding the Inspiration Behind ‘Ravens & Red Lipstick’ and thought it was a nice bookend.

• This week’s jam was Ginji Ito’s Deadly Drive (40th Anniversary Edition). Ito was part of the group Niagra Triangle, which also included Eiichi Ohtaki and Tatsuro Yamashita, all of which are fantastic musicians and producers. If you like the City Pop genre, you’ll want to check this one out. Listen: Apple Music.