I saw The Roundup: Punishment (2024) this weekend in what I assume is the largest and most luxurious theater where it will play in the United States. It was my first visit to the new AMC next to TD Garden. They took over a closed Arclight, leaving all of the theater’s insides intact. That means really nice chairs. Great seats to watch a front runner for best action movie of the year. If you haven’t seen Don Lee’s tremendous performance in The Roundup series, I recommend you start. The first film, differently named from its sequels in the U.S., is The Outlaws from 2017. Lee slaps, slams, and boxes his way through all kinds of special operations mercenaries and depraved criminals.
If Punishment is showing in your area, catch it before it disappears. Even if you haven’t seen the other ones, you won’t be missing much.
Shirts, hats, and zines still available on the webstore. Don’t forget.
Last week, I wrote an entire section about Eiyuden Chronicle (2024), a new game from the late Yoshitaka Murayama. It was a pretty straightforward overview of the game, the development history, and its mechanics. I decided to hold it back. In the subsequent weeks, I saw an endless deluge of similar reviews and discussions about the game. As it turns out, it has been very polarizing. Most of the reviews I’ve read are middling or negative. As you’ll go on to read, I disagree. I think the game is great. But it is worth considering why the game has inspired so much discussion.
It all starts with a Kickstarter and a man: Yoshitaka Murayama. He passed away in February, before the release of Eiyuden. Before this game, he was best known for the Suikoden series. He directed Suikoden (1995), Suikoden II (1998), and Suikoden III (2002). Despite being a producer, writer, and director for Suikoden III, he is uncredited anywhere in the game because of his departure from Konami — the game development company behind Suikoden and, crucially, the owner of the intellectual property. There were two numbered Suikoden games after Murayama’s tenure, with Suikoden V (2006) being extremely well reviewed. Reviews don’t always correlate with sales, though, and Suikoden V would go down as a financial disappointment that would end the series.
By contrast, Murayama has been quite busy. He founded Rabbit and Bear Studios along with Junko Kawano and other members of the original Suikoden team, launching a Kickstarter to fund the development of spiritual successor, Eiyuden Chronicle, in July 2020. I was the 495th backer of the project, out of 46,307. I believe I was among those who got in before the game hit its funding goal — about three hours after the project went live.
I love Suikoden and Suikoden II is my favorite game of all time. Now, the legacy of Suikoden continues with the release of Eiyuden Chronicle last week. Considering this game’s pedigree, the Suikoden franchise’s long hibernation, and the Kickstarter, it’s no surprise people are having a strong reaction to the game. People have been waiting. So what did we get?
The game has been an emotional rollercoaster, but it got its hooks in. Now I’m almost done with it. And I would put it above every game I’ve played this year. Yes, I like Eiyuden Chronicle more than Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (2024) and Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth (2024). The obvious differentiating factors of the games aside, it has something intangible those other two games don’t.
The game is dutifully loyal to the blueprint of Suikoden I and II, for better or for worse. The main combat system includes only minor deviations from the earlier games. It would be fair to call Eiyuden’s combat simplistic. But a wide range of characters means a wide range of ways to approach combat. There are also some odd choices when it comes to balance. Enemies hit hard but also take a lot of damage. Healing items are plentiful, but single target healing spells only recover a fixed amount of HP. Because the spells don’t scale, those you have access to in the early game become worthless very quickly. Because of this, you end up spending a lot of time in the menu healing your team with 4-6 uses of the same spell. This design doesn’t feel as intentional as other aspects of the game.
Speaking of intention, just about every quality of life component you would expect from a modern JRPG is absent in Eiyuden. At first, I found this a little annoying, but, unlike the issues with combat balancing, these omissions feel intentional. They contribute to the retro feeling of the game, restricting the gameplay experience to something straight out of the 90s. There are no sidequest markers or tracking, no global speed ups (like the turbo system in the Kiseki games), slow overworld movement that can only be sped up at the expense of your party’s support slot, and minimal tutorials. For some of the game’s more esoteric systems, there are no tutorials at all.
But it just feels right. It is, after all, the same as Suikoden I & II. And when I say Eiyuden brings everything from those games, I mean everything. If you are up for another list, there’s turn-based tactical army combat, one-on-one cinematic duels, cooking battles, fishing, 120 (fully voiced!) characters to recruit, books to collect, and a castle to build. There are some new additions, too, that feel so perfect. The trading card mini-game, ever a JRPG trademark, is actually fun in Eiyuden. There’s also a Beyblade mini-game with a lengthy quest line (that ultimately overstays its welcome by a lot), a theater for staging some amusing interactions among the cast, and an endless dungeon for grinding and testing team comps. The endless dungeon is especially great in Eiyuden. Each floor requires you to swap out one party member for another from a small randomly selected group. This ensures you play with characters you might not have otherwise. And it’s scored. There’s a lot of replayability there.
The theater attraction is just absurdly detailed. It has a range of plays with several different roles that you watch unfold after making your casting selection. Each of every 120 characters can play every role in every play. Their lines are all fully voiced, as is nearly every bit of dialogue in the game, and fairly different among characters in the same role. There is very little in-game incentive to explore this part of the game, but it is fun enough to put your favorite characters in these plays to see how they tackle the material. There is no voice acting in Suikoden I or II, so the sheer amount of recorded dialogue is incredibly impressive. It adds to the sense of life Eiyuden has. Every part of the game feels alive.
Highlighting individual performances, Brent Mukai is unbelievable as strategic advisor Melridge. I mistook him at first for John Burgmeier, the voice actor for Shigure Sohma in Fruits Basket (2001) and Kurama in Yu Yu Hakusho (1992). Burgmeier is one of the greatest English language voice actors of all time, so this is a high compliment to Mukai.
Eiyuden is clearly the work of an auteur, with the modern omissions feeling as pointed as what’s included. That also extends to the art, which is gorgeous. Character portraits run the gamut of style and quality, but it’s the gorgeous pixel sprites that are truly impressive. The sprites don’t have mouths, which is a little weird. But otherwise, I have no complaints. They are expressive and each have different mannerisms. I never thought I would play a game that felt like early Suikoden, but that’s exactly what Eiyuden delivers. This is the equivalent of gamer democore1.
One of the questions people have posited about the sum total of Eiyuden is whether or not it is a well designed game. I think the question of whether or not it is well designed is less interesting than if the design makes sense. From my perspective, it does. The unapologetically old school dimension of the game is the result of careful choices by Murayama and the team. There’s no question that some of the missing modern conveniences in Eiyuden make the game less pleasant than it might otherwise be. Some of the main offenders — like unskippable dialogue and animations when upgrading a weapon — I can’t remember being issues in the early Suikoden games. But other decisions, like requiring the use of save points, are evocative. I even remember very vividly what Suikoden II save points look like, I became so well acquainted with them.
I will go to the mat for a game with vision that bucks conventional game design wisdom. I will gladly play a game that is clunkier or makes me jump through hoops to do something simple if those elements make me feel something. Eiyuden is a complete success in that regard.
Another area where Eiyuden has sustained criticism is the story. It is true, most of the story beats are taken from either Suikoden I or II. And the plot feels less nuanced, the stakes a little lower. Murayama, up until now, has been intent on putting the screws to his audience. He forces weak characters into your party and then kills them off to make you feel guilty, kills off beloved supporting cast member, and forces you to fight characters you could previously play as. Eiyuden doesn’t subject its audience to these trials. In it, characters are more likely to escape danger and show up in the eleventh hour.
Though Murayama clearly didn’t flinch when it came to his vision for gameplay, story seems to have taken a back seat to achieving the perfect mixture of systems. Eiyuden falls a bit short of its predecessors, but I don’t think a better game than Suikoden II will ever be made. Despite Murayama’s death, I hope the team at Rabbit and Bear will have the opportunity to carry on his development philosophy and turn Eiyuden into a series.
’s years of podcasting excellence, in all manner of conditions and under all manner of constraints, I wonder if he’s ever given any thought to changing his name to “PJ GOAT”? In the most recent Search Engine, he tackles the contentious topic of trigger warnings, exploring both their history and psychological impact.
Though you should certainly listen to the episode, many of the scientific studies Vogt glosses by way of Dr. Victoria Bridgland suggest that trigger warnings do not serve their stated purpose. They neither diminish the unpleasant feelings that come from engaging with macabre or disturbing images and ideas nor discourage those vulnerable to being “triggered” — in the view of conventional wisdom — from engaging with such material. Findings like these make me wonder about how the “in this house, we believe science is real” crowd would react.
That utterance, “science is real,” is a very wide-ranging endorsement of the ideology of science in response to two narrow, but important, issues: climate denial and the anti-vaccination movement. “Science is real” as an assertion doesn’t seem like a proportional or targeted reaction to either problem. Science needs to be questioned, with 20th century continental philosophers (and psychoanalysts) being my favorite thinkers to do so. Lacan writes in “A Theoretical Introduction to the Functions of Psychoanalysis in Criminology” (1950):
[T]he human sciences, because they form themselves through the very behaviours that constitute their object, cannot evade the question of their meaning or pretend that the answer doesn’t impose itself in terms of truth.
In other words, the way science circulates in modern culture is at the level of truth. “Science is real.” But science, ostensibly, makes no such claim to the unassailability of the knowledge it produces, though scientists in the United States seem content to embrace their authority as truth tellers.
My point isn’t to call into question any of the findings discussed in the podcast episode. Quite the opposite, in fact. It seems to me that the “science is real” yard sign owners might dispute the authority of Bridgland’s findings, if I had to guess. Their questioning of science, however, would be in service of a political goal. Science’s claim to truth may be weaker than ever, insofar as many dispute some of the least controversial of its findings (climate change and vaccinations) and others extol its status as “reality” only as an instrument to perpetuate a worldview. In the discourse of the yard sign, “science is real” only because science happens to endorse what the liberal voting population believes to be real. They are correct in this case, but they are not actually deferring to science’s expertise. Instead, they appropriate its authority.
Vogt’s contextualizing of Bridgland’s research, however, avoids the myriad partisan traps. He examines the limit of the laboratory setting to produce certain kinds of findings and focuses with precision on what exactly one might conclude based on a study’s results. A study is only as good as its interpretation, after all. What scientific research suggests about trigger warnings may be a little uncomfortable, considering how pervasive they have become in contemporary discourse. But, what can I say? Science is real.
Paradox Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive exclusive posts, read the archive, and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
“Democore,” in this usage, is a small movement within the hardcore punk scene made up of bands playing in a very similar style to minor 1980s NYHC bands with minimal musical output. “Democore” can also refer to the 1980s NYHC bands themselves — and their excellent demos.
Share this post
Issue #325: Student Encampments and U.S. Spectacle
Playoff basketball continues to be among the top three most important elements of my life right now. Despite two other high profile sport-ish events, Evo Japan (a fighting game tournament) and PT Thunder Junction (a Magic: the Gathering tournament), nothing can distract me from the beautiful spectacle of playoff ball. The first round is an embarrassment of riches. I don’t even know who won any of the Evo tournaments or the PT, so maybe I’ll go back and watch them.
The first round of the playoffs is just electric. So many teams, so many meaningful games. I’ve been watching just about every series, but my two favorites have been Timberwolves vs. Suns and Knicks vs. 76ers.
Then, of course, there is Anthony Edwards. No comment on the “DX celebration,” but you can look it up. There is no more electric player to watch right now. This dunk from last night is just outrageous:
Then, there’s the stats. Last night, Edwards scored 9 points in the first half barely keeping the Timberwolves in the game. In the second half, he scored 31 points. This is the definition of that guy. Edwards showed up when his team needed him to. In his post-game interview with Inside the NBA, he remarked on the ability of his team to hold things together until he was finally able to get into a groove and start scoring.
In a few days, the Timberwolves will likely be playing the Denver Nuggets. That’s going to be a series to watch. As for the 76ers vs. the Knicks, both teams have been tremendous, but Jalen Brunson has willed the Knicks into championship contention. I would be surprised to not see them in the Eastern conference finals. And if they are opposite the Celtics, I’m not looking forward to it.
Charles Barkley on Inside the NBA has come up with a new vacation for the less deserving NBA teams, however. Cancun is too scenic for the lackadaisical effort of the New Orleans Pelicans, for instance. Instead, Barkley will be lobbying for them to vacation in Galveston, Texas. Apparently, there is a beach there.
There is even a “Pelican Island,” so BI and McCollum should feel right at home.
That brings me to the Celtics. If you were surprised to not see the Celtics vs. Miami series represented among my favorites, I understand. But this series is not fun to watch at all. I would be having fun if the Celtics were 3-0. But they are (at time of writing) 2-1. From being 1-1. Come on.
Losing to the Heat without Jimmy Butler or Terry Rozier is just embarrassing. The conditions under which we lost were even worse. The Miami Heat set a franchise playoff-record for three point shots, with 23. Their performance on Wednesday, in fact, was the fourth largest number of made threes in a playoff game ever.
Instead of treating this like an inescapable statistical anomaly, the Celtics subject to force majeure, one must consider to what extent did the Celtics defense allow this to happen. Considering, the extent is a lot. NBA tracking data indicated the Heat scored twenty one three pointers that were either “open” (4-6 feet in front of the shooter) or “wide open” (more than 6 feet in front of the shooter). This is nearly as much of a concession by the Celtics as emptying your bench in garbage time. Block the perimeter.
Worse, still, is Celtics Head Coach Joe Mazzulla’s unwillingness to take responsibility. In his game 2 post-game interview, he called most of Miami’s three point shots “moderately to heavily contested.” If more than 4 feet in front of the shooter is “moderately contested,” sure. While we won game 3, Mazzulla says there were no defensive adjustments, just greater effort. This is not Moneyball (2011), Joe. Despite the statistical unlikelihood of a made three from some players on the Heat, contest shots from the perimeter if they are getting hot. By the time you read this, game 4 may be a wrap. If we are 3-1, the Celtics will be back in my good graces, although I can only imagine how good it would feel to have closed it out tonight. If we are 2-2, I’m going dark. And buying an Anthony Edwards jersey.
This week, a lengthy discussion of pro-Palestinian student encampments.
Unprecedented Human Rights Violations are Ongoing
I have already discussed in the past how I find writing about Palestine alongside basketball and anime and shit somewhat difficult. Maybe you can sympathize, but I think this is more of a me problem. The people who are upset when I address this topic would be upset no matter the context. Those that want me to, hopefully, can accept the topical incongruity.
A Terrible Reading of John Cage
There has been no shortage of commentary on the student encampments popping up across the U.S. and across the globe. One such comment comes from Columbia lecturer John McWhorter, who lamented the loss of serene Columbia campus soundscapes.
I will restrain my utter disdain for this commentary only to point out that (as I commented elsewhere) McWhorter’s exceptionally facile reading of “4’33’” makes it equivalent to “City Park Sounds for Relaxation.”
One need not defer to the fantasmatic authority of the artist to dismiss McWhorter’s concerns. If the peaceful sounds of campus are really all that’s at stake here, the student encampments should probably escalate their efforts. But “4’33”” makes no such demands on its listener regarding the where and when of its playing. Unlike Depeche Mode’s injunction to “Enjoy the Silence,” “4’33”” assumes precisely that there will be no such silence to enjoy. If the sounds one spends their four minutes and thirty three seconds listening to are those of protest chants, so be it.
Lampooning McWhorter is fun because his spurious concern makes the stakes of the student encampments very low. For better and worse, the opposite is true. Students have put themselves in profound danger for an urgent cause and displayed immense courage. The disruption they present to ongoing campus life is as clear as administrations’ effort to quash the demonstrations. The way these encampments have seized the national and global imagination is a testament to, if not their effectiveness, at least their meaning.
Students and Suppression Raids
Across Massachusetts, students have been brutalized, criminalized, and repressed. At Emerson College, 118 protestors were arrested in an overnight raid on April 25th1. Remarkably, following the raid, Emerson cancelled classes for the day. As a former Emerson employee, I’ve known the institution to go to frankly absurd lengths to ensure class convenes. Of course, when a viral video of cleaning crews power washing blood from pavement that may have belonged to students emerged, a cancellation is in order.
Because we are committed to our students’ right to protest, Emerson made every possible effort to avoid confrontation between the police and the protesters at the encampment. Prior to the law enforcement action, the College advocated with the City and Boston Police Department for several days to delay the removal of the encampment. When it became clear the City intended to clear the tents from the alley, we actively encouraged the protestors to remove them to prevent arrest. We also strongly and directly advocated for the police to peacefully remove tents without making arrests.
And:
The College will not bring any campus disciplinary charges against the protestors and will encourage the district attorney not to pursue charges related to encampment violations.
This statement came Sunday (April 28) morning, after an Emerson Student Government Association meeting calling for Bernhardt’s resignation on the 25th. It seems to me that the content of Bernhardt’s statement comes after the immense pressure exerted by the Emerson student body and the bumbling response of Northeastern University to its own student arrests in April 27th — which I’ll get to. Before I talk about Northeastern, I have to change my tone from solemn to irreverent. For now, the saga for the Emerson student activists is far from over. I’m following The Berkeley Beacon’s coverage of Emerson here.
The Billion Dollar Notes App Screenshots
Let me turn my attention, then, to Northeastern whose handling of their encampment has been as bad and dystopian as one could possibly imagine. Northeastern also deployed the Boston Police Department on students, taking responsibility for their shameful endangering of student wellbeing in a post that looks like it was made with the “create” function of Instagram stories. I’m not kidding, look at this shit:
Why is this not a professional press release delivered as written text with a signature from the University President? Clearly, Emerson took notes from this PR nightmare. Northeastern shared a series of these text-images to get their point across:
Embarrassing, disgraceful, and dishonest barely begin to scratch the surface of the combination of what Northeastern is asserting here and how they asserted it. Does an amateur instagram influencer run Northeastern University PR? Who involved in releasing this nonsense had media training? It is fucking astonishing to me that the visual language of the notes screenshot has been adopted by an educational institution with a $1.54 billion endowment. Even more astonishing that this was the method they chose to tell the world about how many students they had the BPD manhandle and handcuff. In 2023, The Face attributed the origin of the notes app apology to Ariana Grande, but this moment calls for a deeper study of the how-and-why the text-image screenshot, notes, instagram, whatever the fuck, has become such a widely used method for “taking accountability.”
Universities should not deploy a municipal police force on their students en masse. They should not have people carrying guns, riot shields, or other SWAT paraphernalia breaking up peaceful protest.
What Northeastern did, however, is even worse than how they told us. This is a little less complicated. Universities should not deploy a municipal police force on their students en masse. They should not have people carrying guns, riot shields, or other SWAT paraphernalia breaking up peaceful protest. They also shouldn’t be subjecting students to college disciplinary charges. It is totally obscene. Their justification for taking these actions, “the use of virulent antisemitic slurs,” refers to the actions of Zionists counterprotestors with no evidence any such language was used by those in the encampment. At least Emerson has the decency to claim they tried to stop the BPD from raiding the encampment and promise not to pursue campus disciplinary action against the students. It really is the least they can do.
I don’t envy my colleagues teaching at these or other institutions where encampments have emerged. If McWhorter is the type of instructor who can’t teach while protests are ongoing, I’m the type who can’t teach while protests are being suppressed. For others who are still working as adjuncts, I can only imagine the immense pressures being exerted by student expectation, administrative instruction, and financial precarity. If you happen to be an adjunct and would like to discuss your experience on campus during these demonstrations, anonymously or otherwise, I would be happy to hear from you.
The Role of the “Outside Agitator”
Along with Northeastern and Emerson, there are encampments on Tufts, MIT, and Harvard campus. The demonstrations have spread from Columbia to as far as Tokyo and Paris. A common justification for the quashing of these protests has been the “outside agitator” narrative, the idea that the encampments are primarily made up of and controlled by non-students with malicious intentions.
Charisse Burden-Stelly examines the history of this cultural figure in Black Scare / Red Scare (2023), suggesting the “Outside Agitator … was a genre of Radical Blackness that illuminated a deep contradiction in US Capitalist Racist Society” (66). Namely, the idea that education — valued by the aforementioned social order — should in theory inundate Black Americans from foreign political influence but, in practice, “the more educated Blacks became, the more amenable—as opposed to susceptible—they ostensibly were to ‘foreign’ propaganda” (66). While the culturally specific context to which Burden-Stelly refers considers Black Americans as avatars of supposedly “foreign” political interests, as opposed to emergent community interests related to self-determination, the essence of this idea endures in the discussions of the encampments today. Those “outside agitators” implicitly are opposed to elements of the students’ organizational platform and will, according to university administrators, subvert the goal of the protest rather than support it. They either do so clandestinely, or even accidentally, harming the optics of the protest through their indecorous conduct, or explicitly, taking over the protest and altering its aims. The irony is, in the case of Northeastern, actual outside agitators in the form of explicitly Zionist counter-demonstrators are the reason the encampment was suppressed. However, it was Northeastern’s own inability to discern the obvious distinction between the demonstrations — or their need for an excuse — that resulted in their decision to sic the BPD on students.
What the educational dynamic Burden-Stelly discusses and the statements about “outside agitators” from campus authority figures and politicians reveal is that student encampments are part of a global struggle. The international solidarity should be self-evident. These are, after all, demonstrations for Gaza happening in the U.S., France, Japan, and elsewhere. But such a struggle necessarily extends beyond the borders of the campus and involves people everywhere. Many encampments have, through various channels, issued demands to their home campuses for divestment and disengagement from Israel and the military industrial complex. These demands may be directed to the university, but they are not about the university. Day to day life on the campus changes little whether or not the demands are met. This is internationalism, par excellence.
Anarchist publication Ill Will has also done its share of commenting, theorizing, and idea sharing in the course of these demonstrations. On April 24th, they shared a “communique” with “principles of unity.”
Though the author(s) is (are) ambiguous, intentionally, the “we” pronoun suggests the voice of “the masses,” including and especially those participating in the encampment protests. The principles respond to common critiques. To the narrative that would reduce these protests to a youthful indiscretion, the principles posit, “We will use the encampments and building occupations to continuously develop our collective intelligence and expand our capacity for action.” In response to the “outside agitator” narrative, “The distinction between student and non-student only enforces the gates between university and its surrounding communities.” The principles also seem to address the leadership structure of Columbia’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and the “negotiations” between the group and Columbia administration, “We speak with our actions. No one person or organization can represent any encampment or negotiate on its behalf.” From the perspective of this set of principles, any action taken by a university to divest or disassociate from Israel would fall short of sufficient for the encampment to disband, “We will stop at nothing less than an end to genocide in Gaza.”
I admire the Ill Will publication. The principles here follow clearly from the capacious, optimistic anarchist perspective from which they operate. I defer, however, to the information that comes directly from encampment organizers and participants — with attribution. But Ill Will’s contributions to global struggle cannot be understated. In the course of this disruption to normal life, they have highlighted a number of thinkers through social media posts and published essays.
Likewise, the “public safety” threat of non-student protestors certainly can’t be greater than the threat of municipal police. To this point, only one of those groups have left students’ blood on the pavement.
The communal alliances that would bring non-students to the “student demonstrations” seem to me the most important thing to demystify. Understanding the historical “outside agitator” boogieman is one element. Another is reflecting on the university’s perceived impermeability by outsiders. The impact a university has on its surrounding community should be to enrich it and share resources rather than isolate and oppose itself to non-students. Likewise, the “public safety” threat of non-student protestors certainly can’t be greater than the threat of municipal police. To this point, only one of those groups have left students’ blood on the pavement.
Global Struggle, Historical Struggle
Student activism and the struggle for Palestinian self-determination have a long, rich history. Ill Will published an anonymously authored piece, “First We Take Columbia: Lessons from the April 1968 Occupations Movement” that connects Palestine Solidarity Encampments with an April 1968 occupation where protestors “demanded that Columbia stop a construction project that would contribute to the gentrification of Harlem, an end to a secret research project funded by the CIA, and amnesty for student protesters.”
Crimethinc also took the opportunity to draw out connections between 2008-2010 university occupations, also beginning in New York, and the encampments today. The broad genealogy of student activism is tremendously important to understanding — and strategizing — today. However, I also want to emphasize the truly global and enduring character of the Palestinian struggle. In the July 17th, 1970 issue of Palante, the Young Lords Party demands freedom for the beleaguered nation, identifying connections between the conditions of Palestine and Puerto Rico and contextualizing Palestinian struggle within a global anti-capitalist and anti-racist program.
How can such a widespread struggle, in any of its permutations, narrowly restrict its participants?
Unsung Student Movements
These international encampments remind me of the history of activism at a place unlikely to be immortalized by well-respected and enduring anarchist publications: Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. FAMU is my alma mater, and had the highest volume of demonstrations I can recall in 2011. In February of that year, the FAMU debate team featuring my good friends and mentors Lucas Melton and the late Jamaal Rose staged a public debate with the FSU College Republicans over an “affirmative action bake sale” the College Republicans hosted earlier in January. I was also on the debate team and a researcher for this confrontation. A lot of this comes down to my imperfect recollection, but we sent challenges to the College Republicans repeatedly. Even after they accepted post-bake sale, they dodged us, hemming and hawing about the time and place.
The interest of the FAMU student body in this debate was so tremendous, FAMU administration tried to shut down the event, prohibiting it from occurring on FAMU campus and threatening debaters and attendees with disciplinary action for attending the debate — which was eventually scheduled on FSU campus. Widespread on-campus demonstration and interest from the County Commission finally forced FAMU to relent and allow students to participate in and attend the debate. It was a barn burner. I remember being in the lecture hall packed way past capacity feeling like I was in a well-attended DIY show in a shed somewhere. I think we got the better of FSU in the debate, but we certainly were the most well represented group. Even the area outside the lecture hall was crowded with FAMU students. Back then, I remember there being news cameras and some local coverage, but I can’t find the videos now.
Students are lucky. In the United States, higher education represents an opportunity and positions higher ed students as beneficiaries of a range of privileges, mostly economic in nature. It is an opportunity easier to access for some than others, but signifies the potential for greater possibility beyond. Students are lucky, then, if all they are subject to in the course of defending that privilege is a groan inducing reading of John Cage. Today’s encampments, however, expose students to a greater threat than annoyance — and not simply because they are working to protect aspects of their education or community. These are solidarity encampments, using the privilege of higher education to make oneself known in a place they have the unique opportunity to be. These institutions are looked upon as the home of the best and brightest of U.S. and global society. Their voice, then, attempts to instrumentalize the cachet of the elite university to the end of Palestinian self-determination. Like the “outside agitator” as Burden-Stelly describes it, though, the student encounters the contradiction of their institutional affiliation designating their intelligence and their youth diminishing the weight of their political assertions. They are supposedly young enough and smart enough to be deceived and controlled by “‘foreign’ propaganda.”
Indeed, the global consciousness of these student activists does not emerge without an encounter with accounts of global struggle and theories of historical struggle. Does knowledge diminish agency, as the ideology underlying the “outside agitator” and critiques of the students themselves would indicate? In Lacan’s Seminar XXI (1973), he discusses the formulation of “les non-dupes errent,” for which he names the seminar. Slavoj Žižek translates this phrase as “those who are not duped err most.” Lacan writes:
If the non-dupes are those that refuse to be captured by the space of the speaking being, if they are those who keep their hands free of it, as I might say, there is something that we must know how to imagine, which is the absolute necessity that results from it, not wandering but error. (13)
If this seems more complex than normal Lacanese due to the non-professional translation, let us read Lacan’s discourse closely. To be a “non-dupe,” is to “refuse to be captured by the space of the speaking being.” The possibility of such a refusal for the subject is an open question for Lacan. In earlier work, the constitution of the subject as we know it, the human being, requires the relinquishing of jouissance — not that one has any choice in the matter, and is in fact compelled to be the one that has no choice. In Seminar XXI, the additional burden on the one to be constituted in the first place is to be duped. The possibility to speak, to be a speaking being, means being duped.
In this case, it is those that condemn campus protests on the basis that the students are being misled, tricked, or controlled that constitute the “non-duped.”
Their position of intellectual superiority, however, is not secure. And is, indeed, guaranteed to lead to error. This brand of critic would be hard pressed to present compelling evidence to support their claim that the genocide to which Israel is subjecting Palestine has a justification. Their self-assuredness flies in the face of decades of analysis.
Just as Burden-Stelly sets up an opposition between being “susceptible” versus being “amenable,” the question of the non-dupes is whether one sees themself enmeshed in discourse or not. Many student protestors, and advocates for Palestine in general, see themselves as the latest permutation of an enduring global struggle. They are not alien to a discursive tradition, but a product of it, and certainly influenced by it. This does not compromise their agency. In fact, it makes their agency informed. By contrast, critics of the protest and of pro-Palestine sentiment position themselves as supported only by the most facile and misunderstood moral principles rather than being a part of an intellectual tradition. Their lack of reading renders them superior, because their positions spring from what they believe is their intuition, with no awareness of the extent to which they are also a part, and a culmination, of a tradition — a tradition of repression.
No End in Sight
Student demonstrations will not relent. People of conscience expressing solidarity with Palestine will find every possible avenue to exert pressure on U.S. institutions, including the federal government, to disengage with Israel, cease explicit or implicit support of the occupation of Palestine, and condemn the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Even as universities inevitably assent to student demands where they can, some universities are prevented by law from divesting. There is also a large gulf between university divestment and Israel ending a decades long occupation — though hopefully not as large as I think.
Sometimes a demonstration is not about a clear path to the stated goal. Sometimes it’s about sending a message. And the message of the students has been heard, loud and clear.
You can donate to campus bail funds supporting protestors here and on the ground fundraises for Gaza here. End the occupation.
https://iai.tv/articles/wittgenstein-and-how-to-debate-your-enemy-drew-douglas-johnson-auid-2829 — Drew Douglas Johnson writes about Wittgenstein’s On Certainty (1969). Take Johnson’s prescriptions regarding rational debate for what they’re worth, but Wittgenstein’s underlying point is more radical than the conclusion Johnson draws from it. Wittgenstein writes, ““The difficulty is to realize the groundlessness of our believing.” Such a claim, it seems to me prefigures Lacan’s les non-dupes errent.
Tofubeats did it again. No comment on the cover art for the new record, Nobody (2024).
Paradox Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive exclusive posts, read the archive, and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
There are also zines, the first among many I hope to be distributing through Paradox Newsletter. It has been fun selling them IRL, too.
I didn’t realize that Paolo wasn’t selling NWTHB online himself, so last week I was the only place you could buy it online. General Speech should have copies soon, but you can buy it from me now. Ignorant People Vol. 1 is sold out and other stuff is moving fast, so get your orders in.
The NBA Playoffs have begun. This is one of my favorite times of year, although it does result in overall diminished productivity. The Boston Celtics will certainly win it all, as is my belief every year. We played okay against the Heat. I’ll leave the Duncan Robinson mess to career pundits.
Right now, Joel Embiid is playing in Madison Square Garden. I am hardly a 6ers fan, but my heart dropped the other night after Embiid landed hard on his surgically repaired knee, from a meniscus injury. It is hard to imagine the pain, both physical and existential, when one who makes their living from their physical capabilities cannot get their body to do what they want it to do. For pro athletes, it feels like one of many minor deaths. I also think of recent experiences I have had with injuries and illness. Even the most physically unassuming suffer when parts of the body don’t work as they have been.
For the professional athlete, the status of the body is a point of cathexis for transference, as I wrote for Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society late last year. Whether a team wins or loses, or is supported or reviled, reveling in a player’s injury is beyond the pale of basketball fandom. This posture, it seems to me, is as earnest as any adopted to sustain a universal. Sports players getting injured is bad, no matter who it is. So, I hope everyone stays healthy. And I hope the Celtics win it all.
A Story from Nara
The grounds of Nara Park are really big and as populated with deer as social media posts would have you believe. The deer really do “bow” to you, I guess — I’m not sure if this is a common deer behavior or something regionally specific. But it’s a little bit depressing, too. The deer are pestered through incessant photographing, petting, and feeding. Many sit lethargically uninterested in the shika-senbei deer crackers that are the only thing you are supposed to feed them.
I preferred to give the deer a wide berth, so I ended up with a big pile of deer crackers. The further you go into the park, the easier it is to get a deer’s attention. The fewer people around, the better. But the real coup of deer interaction came at the public trash cans across from the Daibutsu-den.
Public trash cans are rare in Japan, but nobody is as fascinated by the available ones as I am. There were a few in the Dotonbori area of Osaka, the recycling and trash duo you would expect in any major U.S. city. More common are recycling receptacles next to vending machines. But I was lucky enough to find these cans in Nara Park that sat in front of a large, fenced ravine. Waiting in the ravine? Hungry deer.
The three deer we found seemed much more eager for human contact and ready to eat a heap of shika-senbei. A toddler approached the deer, too, so I offloaded half of my crackers much to the kid’s glee. These deer were really friendly though, interested in hanging around even after we were out of crackers.
As saturated as Nara Park is with slightly overexcited tourists, there are still some tranquil opportunities to hang out with the deer. You might have to go behind public trashcans, though.
One Tribal Council in Australian Survivor
Over the past week and a half, I’ve been watching the 11th season of Australian Survivor, subtitled Titans Vs Rebels, from earlier this year. The season is over, but I’m not done watching it, so don’t spoil me! But, if you haven’t watched or been watching, there are spoilers for the 10th episode ahead. I want to discuss the Tribal Council from that episode, entitled Bad Hair Day, in detail. To that end, I recommend watching the linked video below from the 42:55 timestamp, where the Tribal Council begins.
I think this lengthy episode segment captures the essence of what makes Australian Survivor so good. The show, and this season in particular, has no shortage of hype. But the legibility of the gameplay here, even with the unexpected twist, is unmistakable. In fact, the way the twist compresses the vote and makes the decision points both more clear to the audience and more important to the resolution of the game improves the strategic gameplay rather than diminishes it.
Going into the vote, there are several important players. Feras and Aileen are aligned along with Raymond, with the rest of the tribe working against them. Kirby is the ringleader of the opposing alliance, but Winna and Valeria are important figures in a trio that were swapped into this tribe — the third of which is Charles. Though you might be tricked into thinking Charles is important to the game just watching this episode, it contains his only spoken lines of the entire season. I didn’t even know his name before this episode — a pretty obvious clue that he will be eliminated.
Where we pick up is after a twist that has given Feras, Aileen, and Kirby immunity as well as the only votes on the tribe. The three of them will decide who goes home. On that level, it seems uncomplicated. There’s Feras’s alliance of three and Kirby’s alliance of six. Before the twist, Feras’s alliance would have been reduced to two. After, with Feras’s alliance in the voting majority, it seems like Kirby’s will be reduced to five. There are a number of factors here, however, that complicate things. In the beginning conversation of the second portion of the Tribal, Kirby offers to vote with Feras and Aileen. Given the distribution of available votes, her willingness to vote or not vote along with the duo won’t change the outcome. The reason for this is the basic Survivor principle that it is better to be on the “right” side of a vote. Voting along with the majority, or in concert with the plan of the majority, is something Survivor contestants reference as an accomplishment in their speeches to become Sole Survivor.
Of course, there’s more than just Kirby’s negotiation of the unfavorable voting situation. She, reasonably, throws out the newly swapped tribe members as opposed to the players who she has been with since the beginning of the game. Likewise, Winna, Val, and Charles have had stern words for Feras in the course of the Tribal. But Winna, who has an idol, tries to provoke Feras and Aileen and nullify their votes with an idol, once again putting his alliance back in the driver’s seat by way of Kirby.
Feras is a highly intelligent player, one unlikely to fall for Winna’s provocation, and indeed he doesn’t. But the decisions here are exciting because of the small number of votes and the ambiguity of how the twist works. In a normal Tribal Council, a tie is resolved by a revote with options reduced to anyone who received a vote. So, on one level Feras and Aileen are competing with Winna in a shell game. They need to put their votes on the person Winna doesn’t play his idol for. Things get a little more favorable for the Feras alliance when one considers the possibility of a tie. More than likely, Feras and Aileen putting one vote each on any combination of Winna, Val, and Charles would make Winna’s idol play irrelevant. If one is immune, another gets one vote, tying with whoever Kirby votes for. Then, on the revote, whoever’s vote was nullified by the idol can change their vote. And, as you saw if you watched the clip, this is precisely what happens.
Aside from the strategic choices the players can make, the episode’s tension comes in part from the fact that the audience isn’t sure if a tie will resolve in the same way as usual — although we have no reason to think otherwise. Watching Winna prod Feras, though, I did wonder… does Feras see the line?
As is the case in this example, Titans Vs Rebels does a good job of making strategic possibilities clear to the audience without providing them with the outcomes of every decision. The players in Australian Survivor are also highly strategic, playing at a high level from the beginning of the game. The 10th episode here is no more or less exciting than the 2nd or 20th. The game’s twists also generally adhere to principles of popular game design. They eschew randomness and provide opportunities for disadvantaged players to catch up when behind.
If the strong suit of Australian Survivor, at least this season, is highlighting strategic play, its weakness is the human interest element that has been foregrounded in U.S. Survivor. Even at this late part of the season, I have a great understanding of most of the remaining players’ strategic thinking but little knowledge of their background or out of game personalities. Watching Australian Survivor, more than it’s U.S. counterpart, is watching people behave extraordinarily relative to what is called for in normal life. Looking at some of the late game players, I wonder how the hell they are ever going to adjust to relating to people normally after all the plotting, backstabbing, and blindsiding.
The edit can also be brutal. Like Charles, there are characters with so few spoken lines they may as well not have been there. They are the proverbial Star Trek “redshirts” of Survivor, with no opportunity to show their personality and no strategic importance whatsoever. I think this is a knock against Australian Survivor. While I would accept this as the status quo — some players getting basically no screen time — in exchange for seasons of this quality if I had to, I’ve seen seasons of U.S. Survivor that are about as good without such a punishing edit. Just as it erases certain people, other players are highlighted so obviously that just about anyone could tell you they’re going to go deep.
Moments like episode ten’s tribal council are the norm rather than the exception on Australian Survivor. And if you’re not a fan of twists, they are mercifully uncommon in Titans Vs Rebels. But if you are a lapsed Survivor fan, a new Survivor fan, or deeply entrenched in U.S. Survivor, Titans Vs Rebels has something for everyone.
Weekly Reading List
https://www.theguardian.com/games/2024/apr/21/the-game-boy-at-35-a-portal-to-other-magical-worlds — The Nintendo Game Boy is, perhaps, the most important and enduring consumer electronic product ever made. Competing with essentially only the Sony Walkman as far as I am concerned, the Game Boy’s legacy endured as a product line through 2005, with an obvious successor in the Nintendo DS and a slightly less obvious successor in the Nintendo Switch.
I’m not really a guy who watches “youtubers” or keeps up with the technology news cycle beyond what surfaces to the mainstream. So, I think me being a fan of Marques Brownlee might be unexpected. I appreciate as much the content of his reviews and videos as his demeanor in them. He is informative, enthusiastic when he needs to be, critical enough that it rarely feels like he’s just blowing smoke. Recently he reviewed the Humane AI Pin, something stupid enough that it shouldn’t take a youtube review to make it obvious it’s bound to be a Juicero-level flop. However, his coverage of the Pin was definitively negative enough to make Brownlee reflect on the art of reviewing. I enjoyed hearing his comments on the news cycle.
Paradox Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive exclusive posts, read the archive, and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Until next time.
Share this post
Issue #323: An Interview with Sugi (T-Shirts Inside)
There are some semi-major updates today. After six years of productivity in this venue, I have merchandise for sale. I am selling t-shirts and hats, which I produced in very limited quantities.
This is what they look like:
The shirts are screen printed and the hats are embroidered, both produced by Panther Printing.
The illustrations for the hat and shirt are by Akihiko Sugimoto, better known as Sugi. I am a huge fan of his work and have written about him in the past.
We talked quite a bit in the course of his work on the commission and he agreed to do an interview. I believe this is the only English language interview with him out there.
Along with the newsletter merch, I am also launching a zine distro through Paradox. The zines will be available at the newsletter webstore. I’ll also be selling them in person, mostly at shows. You also might be able to buy them off me if you see me in the street.
Right now in the shop we have Ignorant People and Never Was Turned Has Been. I have contributed to both issues of Ignorant People, so you can find my writing there. Never Was Turned Has Been is a long running zine, a favorite of mine, made by my friend Paolo. Coincidentally, he was also my first t-shirt customer.
If you have a zine that does not suck and you are too busy or lazy to sell online, let me know. We can work something out.
Why bother with a distro for hardcore punk fanzines? I want to get the culture in the hands of those who want and need it.
The shirts and hats aren’t cheap because I didn’t make many and spent more money than this newsletter has ever made by like 10x to make them. However, if you are a paid newsletter subscriber, I want to give you a $10 discount on a newsletter shop order, whatever you are buying. This means a cheaper shirt or hat or some zines for only what it would cost to ship them. The deal is also available to new paid subs.
The catch, because the free bigcartel plan doesn’t let me make coupon codes, you need to email me if you want to redeem your discount. You can do that before or after placing an order, though it’ll be easier if you email me beforehand.
I made shirts and hats because I love Sugi’s work and am very gratified to see my idea come to life through his singular art style. I also love shirts and hats. This is not a moneymaking scheme. But, some day, I would like to, perhaps, spend my time differently with a greater focus on the things that I find rewarding instead of doing what I currently do to pay my bills. One thing I find rewarding is doing this writing and trying to make this project the best it can be. Supporting my newsletter through a paid subscription or a t-shirt purchase is a contribution to making it possible for me to continue enriching the newsletter, spending more time on it, and making it better. To those of you who have pledged your money to Paradox Newsletter in whatever fashion, my appreciation is immeasurable.
Finally, for current and future paid subscribers, I am going to start releasing some letters that are paid exclusive. I can’t promise too much, but my goal is to do somewhere between four and twelve paid only letters a year. A wide band, I know.
They won’t replace the normal weekly edition, but be released in addition to my regularly scheduled publication. They might be a little more experimental than what you normally get from me. I want those of you who are supporting me to feel that your sub nets you something of substance. And I hope the paywalled writing might motivate a few more people to become paid subs. The first of these should be coming in the next few weeks.
Thanks again for reading.
“Do what you want to do”: An Interview with Sugi
When I saw Systematic Death last year, I met a guy named Masato who was selling prints of Sugi’s artwork. Pointing down to the array of available drawings, his enthusiastic sales pitch was simply “Sugi! The Japanese Pushead.”
Sugi was gratified to hear this story when I told it to him, having done work for Masato’s clothing brand, GBT.
In the course of interviewing Sugi, it wasn’t terribly surprising to learn that Pushead is one of his biggest influences. As a cultural figure, Pushead’s impact is incomparable. But Sugi commands nearly equivalent stature among hardcore punk fanatics, or “maniacs,” how Sugi referred to me repeatedly.
I conducted this interview entirely over text messages with all my questions and Sugi’s responses in English. Sugi intermittently used online translators for some of my questions and some of his answers, though he didn’t specify which Qs and As were translation-assisted.
Sugi has a reputation of being a man of few words. In some cases, that was true. In others, he was more than happy to elaborate and talk extensively about his interests or his process. The entire idea for the interview came from information and history he volunteered as we talked during his work on the Paradox Newsletter artwork.
He also peppered our conversation, unprompted, with pictures. That added a lot of texture to some of his answers, though I didn’t include every picture he sent.
Most of what I learned about Sugi didn’t surprise me. His history in the Hiroshima scene and relationship with bands from the region is well-known, documented in the form of the prolific artistic output for the bands. After he sent me process pencil drawings of the art he did for me, and the final hand drawn product being delivered to me as a highly detailed scan of a physical piece of paper, I figured he was dedicated to particular ways of drawing.
I was a little bit surprised to learn how much his artwork owes to his deep fandom of anime and manga. He has studied masters from many mediums in his drawing practice.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Paradox Newsletter: When did you start drawing?
Sugi: I started drawing for bands in 1989~90.
PN: Did you draw before then as a hobby? What made you decide to start drawing for bands?
Sugi: Yes. I drew as a hobby. I did pencil drawing, oil painting, watercolor painting, pen drawing. I did portrait painting, landscape painting, reproduced Japanese manga/anime characters. Since I found out about Pushead and Tom. I thought their styles are very cool!
PN: What are some of the earliest bands you remember doing work for?
PN: What kind of thought process goes into starting a new drawing? How much of the idea usually comes from you and how much from the band?
Sugi: Various bands and various ways. When we share a common interest we have a good chemistry it’s easier to collaborate.
PN: You draw using pen and paper, right? Is that an artistic choice or just what you are comfortable with?
Sugi: Yes. Using g-pen and paper. G-pen is a Japanese comic/manga artist's classical style. I've been using g-pen since I was 10 years old. I love that style. I had a huge impact from Japanese comics and comic artists.
PN: You did some great Devilman art work for Blood Sucker Records’ 25th Anniversary. What are your favorite manga? And who are your favorite manga artists?
Sugi: Many favorites! Galaxy Express 999, Ashita no Joe, GeGeGe no Kitaro, Devilman, Kimetsu no Yaiba, Death Note. It's very hard to choose one. Recently I love Chainsaw Man. And many favorite artists. Shigeru Mizuki, Reiji Matsumoto, Tetsuya Chiba, Tatsuki Fujimoto, Go Nagai and many more!
PN: Man, I love all of those. Do you like Takehiko Inoue or Naoki Urasawa? I have been reading Vagabond and re-reading Monster recently.
Sugi: Yes. I love Vagabond! But I don't like his other works, like Slam Dunk, so much. I love Musashi Miyamoto! He is very cool!! I love Samurai stories. I also love Hiroaki Samura's samurai comic Mugen no Jyuunin. I don't like Naoki Urasawa's comics. I don't know what's fun… haha.
PN: I want to ask you a bit about your background going to hardcore shows. What were some of the venues where you went to see shows when you were younger?
Sugi: I lived in Hiroshima in my early twenties. My favorite hardcore band was Gudon! I went to the venues in Hiroshima to see them.
PN: The Hiroshima scene from that period seems very tight knit. Did you know the members of Gudon before they formed the band? Or did you get to know them after seeing them as a band?
Sugi: After they formed. They are my seniors. At that time Gudon bass player Guy was working at the record shop UK EDISON in Hiroshima. By coincidence, my girlfriend was working with him there. After she introduced me to him I started going to hardcore gigs and drawing gig flyers/cover artwork.
PN: Were the gigs at bars or live houses? Or were there other places for shows, DIY spaces, warehouses, basements etc?
Sugi: Bars and live houses!
PN: Do you still go to shows often? Any memorable ones you’ve been to lately?
Sugi: Yes. Warhead 33th anniversary one man gig I saw in Osaka last year was really great!! The best gig I saw ever is Gudon last 2 days gig in Hiroshima 1989! Gudon, Bastard, Lip Cream, Death Side, Rapes, every bands were really great!! Especially I love Acid (Tokyo)! Their gig was the best live act I saw ever. At that time all of the Lip Cream members stayed in my room in an apartment!
PN: You drew the flyer for the Gudon last 2 days gig right?
Sugi: Yes I drew it. That was the 1st or 2nd flyer artwork in my life. I remember very well I was nervous to draw so much at that time. Because so many great bands were playing.
PN: Have you been to any shows in the U.S.?
Sugi: Only one time ever. I went to Chaos in Tejas gig vol. 8, 2012. Forward (Tokyo) guys took me. I saw Antisect, The Mob, Foward, Zyanose, Reality Crisis, Skizophrenia, and many more gigs. They were really GREAT!!
PN: I was also at that Chaos in Tejas. Such a fun time. I remember seeing Reality Crisis and Skizophrenia a couple times that weekend.
Sugi: We saw the same gigs! Maybe we passed each other.
PN: You mentioned Acid and Gudon, do you have any other favorite hardcore bands?
Sugi: I love Lip Cream, Death Side, Systematic Death, Warhead, Clown, Bastard, Judgement, Rapes, City Indian, S.O.B, Nightmare, Crude, Mustang, Gastunk, Execute, Kuro, Confuse, AI, Gism, Framtid, Tetsu Array, Discharge, Chaos U. K, Disorder, Amebix, The Mob, GBH, Crucifix, Bad Religion, Dead Kennedys, Final Conflict, Conflict, Pisschrist and many more!
PN: What do you do for fun? What are your hobbies outside of drawing?
Sugi: I love watching Japanese anime/movie, building Gundam plastic models, and reading. Today I watched the anime movie DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDE DESTRUCTION in theaters. It was a great movie! I loved it!! I love building a Gundam plastic models since childhood! And I love reading. Mainly political/historical, non-fiction books.
PN: I didn’t realize you built Gunpla! I love the RX-78. I watch all the Gundam anime, but Yoshiyuki Tomino’s work is my favorite.
Sugi: I can’t wait for the RG 1/144 Gundam ver 2.0 that will be released this summer!!! I saw it on Youtube. Looks amazing!! My favorite is the first Gundam by Tomino. I saw the tv versions and also went to the theater to see the movie versions in my childhood.
PN: You have made a huge impact on the hardcore punk scene as an artist. Does it feel different drawing today because of what you have accomplished?
Sugi: Now I'm drawing Warhead gig flyer and AI album cover artwork. I'm drawing for the same bands (Koide/AI is ex.Bandit's member as a drummer) and for the same guys as 30 years ago! So I'll continue drawing the same style/same feeling from now on.
PN: Do you have any advice for aspiring artists?
Sugi: Advice? Just one word. Do what you want to do.
Paradox Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, receive exclusive posts, and read my archive, consider becoming paid subscriber.
The newsletter was more or less on time last week, so you are overdue for a late one. I just couldn’t write during that last leg of the trip, too determined to wring every bit of fun out of my remaining days in Japan. Plus, my setup for writing the newsletter to the level I wanted wasn’t ideal. At least you get a pretty short turnaround from this one to the next.
I should have more writing about my trip coming up. There is also some pretty big news for the letter coming next week. Watch this space.
Keep reading, consider a paid sub, and tell your friends to subscribe.
Japan Travel Diary & Guide: Osaka and Fukuoka (and a little Tokyo)
The trip is over! This final leg included Osaka, Fukuoka, and a little bit of Tokyo. Reflecting on the week I already covered, I realized there was something very important I forgot to mention. Japanese Doritos are awesome.
These tacos, with a lime prominently featured in the art, were awesome. They tasted miraculously similar to a Taco Bell hard shell taco but with a strong hit of lime. I also washed them down with the “Spring Edition” Red Bull, a Japan exclusive. It is grapefruit flavor, so good.
In Osaka, we stayed in Dotonbori, a busy area with a wide range of attractions and street food. We finally made our way to a Don Quijote on this leg of the trip. There are two in Dotonbori, but the riverside one has a ferris wheel that ran only the Wednesday we arrived. I didn’t see it in action any evening afterward.
Dotonbori is full of street performers and neon signs, including the iconic Glico man. It certainly has some elements of Time’s Square, which makes staying there a little funny. But there is so much to do and see, the aforementioned food, Shinsaibashi and Amerikamura are both nearby. While I am sure there would have been plenty to explore outside of walking distance, we had more than enough to fill our time in the immediate vicinity.
We ventured to Nara and Universal Studios Japan. Nara is definitely worth doing. Yes, there are deer everywhere. There’s also the Todai-ji Daibutsuden which is an attraction more than worth standing in line for. The huge Buddha statutes are truly impressive and the temple itself is beautiful.
My trip to Nara began what I think will be a long relationship with a Japanese packaged confectionary called Boost Bites.
They are a delicious caffeinated gummy that tastes more or less like a standard Red Bull. Really, really good.
Universal Japan, on the other hand, was a miss. The weather was terrible so that certainly had an impact. But the crowds were horrendous. The park was tough to navigate because of the number of people. Universal Japan also houses a Super Nintendo World section, the main appeal for our visit. The area, however, sucks. It is more densely crowded, maybe by 4x, than the rest of the park. I expected the opposite to be true because entry is timed, but I was naive. It is an absolute frenzy in there. The rides also suck. One is a just okay virtual reality Mario Kart ride that sounds cooler than it is. The other is a short train ride intended for children. I guess that’s really the headline of the entire area. It is a small, crowded playground very appealing to children but not really for the nostalgia addled adult. The look of the place is a little impressive, but the experience is standing in a Nintendo themed square with thousands of people with little purpose outside of gawking.
I would have been curious to go if I hadn’t, but I wouldn’t recommend it. You are probably better off doing just about anything else.
The poor weather did provide some decent photo opportunities in Dotonbori, though.
As busy as an area as it is, before 6am and after 11pm, it’s basically empty. The incessant instagram photographers and tiktok recorders are gone. It was great to get some tranquil seeming time in such a ridiculous physical space.
Even more surreal was our visit to Osaka Castle. By this point in the trip, the cherry blossoms were fully bloomed and the grounds of Osaka Castle are full of them. We went twice, once during the day and then again that night.
The evening visit to the castle was staggering. In the Nishinomaru Garden, the cherry blossoms are lit up for the season. There were tons of people having evening picnics and enjoying the singular view.
I would highly recommend seeking out illuminated cherry blossoms, wherever you are, if you are in Japan during the season. Osaka Castle in particular is so striking to me as part of a skyline of high rise buildings. There are people with offices that look out all day on the castle. I could probably stare at Osaka Castle, trying to reconcile it with its contemporary surroundings, for hours.
Eventually our indiscriminate tourism gave way to days structured by a music festival, the first volume of the NWN/Hospital Fest. The two labels curated individual days of black metal and noise musicians.
It was a good time. Though the venue was a little high brow for me, I saw some great sets and ran into friends both expected and unexpected. The shows strengthened my commitment to some forbidden musical pairings. The Bloody Vengeance song “Cidade de Morte” has a very similar guitar riff to Warzone’s “Wound Up.” Listen for yourself:
Specifically, listen at about 33 seconds in. That’s the riff that sounds unmistakably like the one from “Wound Up,” the notes reordered in spots:
I’ve been sitting on the Warzone/Bloody Vengeance theory for a while, but imagine my surprise when I heard what sounded like a sped up Absolution riff in the Sabbat song “Darkness and Evil”:
This one is immediate and to my ear sounds like a faster version of the riff from the beginning of “In The Meantime,” though maybe there’s a better NYHC corollary for “Darkness and Evil” out there:
Sabbat and Bloody Vengeance were two of my favorites from the weekend. And of course, Blasphemy was amazing. Caller of the Storms is a legitimate rockstar. Every time he would step to the edge of the stage for a solo, phones came out like he was Justin Timberlake.
The next day had some great sets too, the highlights from Linekraft and Masonna. Day 2, focused on noise acts, illustrated the multi-media leanings of these performers. Nearly everyone had song specific video accompaniments. Linekraft did something I’d never seen before, throwing out papers that appeared to be the song lyrics. First he tossed them out himself, then he had someone planted in the audience to start throwing a different bunch of pamphlets into the air a little bit later into the set.
Masonna was Masonna, a barrage of sound and movement just over 3 minutes. I would be doing a disservice to the set attempting to describe it.
I also got some pretty amusing reviews of a couple of bands from Day 2 from a friend of mine whose name I won’t include but was a newcomer to some of the bands. He hated Cult of Youth’s set and called them “a mix of Death in June and Against Me!” He was also critical of Genocide Organ, who I enjoyed watching but would have accepted an abbreviated set time, calling them “a TED talk with bad reception.” I might have to assemble all of his one-line reviews in a zine, they were pretty funny.
Traveling to Fukuoka from Osaka was a fun train ride. I like riding the Shinkansen. It’s exciting. At this time of year, you can take the worst pictures of cherry blossoms you’ve ever seen. But the impetus is the singular view of their distant color popping out of mountainside greenery.
I’m sure my description of Fukuoka won’t be fair or accurate, I was only there for one day, but it seems like a city of malls. There are three within the Hakata train station, Fukuoka’s main transit hub: AMU, Deitos, and Hankyu. A few minutes walk away, we went to another mall, Canal City, that was enormous with indoor and outdoor sections. This is a greater quality of Japan that I haven’t emphasized. Though Fukuoka’s Hakata Station was the most striking, Osaka’s Namba Station is also full of underground shopping and separate, distinctly owned malls. Tokyo Station also has its share of subsurface shopping with seemingly different corporate entities controlling various sections. Even smaller stations are full of stores. In Fukuoka, I would have much rather visited Tachibanayama Castle, but the malls were closer to the train station and hotel, not to mention the weather for our one day there was miserable.
We did get over to the first show on the Shitstorm/Suppression Asia tour, at a pretty badass spot called Public Space. It was tiny, with a small bar at the back and a enormously overpowered PA so the sound was great. Along with Shitstorm and Suppression playing amazing sets, I enjoyed Secret Temple and Hydrophobia. Hydrophobia, especially. The dudes all came out with Hydrophobia t-shirt and synchronized guitar moves.
After the show wrapped up, the drummer of Secret Temple started cooking food for everyone. Enomoto, a guy who plays guitar in the 90s hardcore band AI, was also there. I saw them play in Boston in 2017, which Enomoto insisted never happened. But I still have the flyer. Maybe he got scabbed for that trip. Either way, he was on cloud nine, seeming to thoroughly enjoy the sets and the third degree he got from me.
The last Shinkansen ride, from Fukuoka all the way back to Tokyo, did lose its luster after the sunset. Once you can’t see out the window very well, that gets rid of a lot of the fun of the ride. I did see my favorite train seats on this trip, though. They were a little different from the other Nozomi trains we had ridden.
I loved the blue upholstery. They were no more or less comfortable than the other seats, but Shinkansen seats in general are pretty comfortable. I’ll be trying to cop some of these for my house.
The end of the trip comes with more general advice for traveling in Japan:
You can’t use the iPhone Suica card for arcades outside of Tokyo
Last letter, I sang the praises of the Suica card, especially the convenience of the phone version. In Osaka and Fukuoka, however, I had far less opportunity to use my Suica. Convenience stores still accept it, but they also accept credit cards. Just about every arcade in Tokyo and about 80% of the vending machines I saw there accepted Suica. In Osaka, no arcades I visited had IC card readers on any of their machines (I went to four) and in Fukuoka it was the same deal, but I only went to one arcade there. Vending machine prospects are a lot better, but still pretty far off from Tokyo
Look for posted prices on vintage clothing
If you buy something, you are going to want to see a price posted somewhere. Otherwise, you might get charged something insane. I had this experience at a really nice vintage store in Osaka called Fugs. None of their band Ts had any marked price. I love the spot and as friendly and engaging as the guy was, as eager as he was to rap with me about subcultural t-shirts and tell me he loves Slapshot and Bold, he tried to charge me 2x for a t-shirt I wanted. It seemed overpriced so I walked away. Before leaving Osaka, I checked their social media and found their webstore. Every unpriced shirt folded into a pile has a price listed online. Anyway, I came out ahead, secured the t-shirt for less than the webstore price. But I think what happened at Fugs could happen anywhere. A lot of small Japanese stores use thebase.in for ecommerce. If you go to Fugs and want to buy a t-shirt, be sure you have their webstore pulled up:
https://fugs.thebase.in/ Otherwise, I would be wary of buying anything without a price tag, especially if it seems expensive.
Go to Hands and expect to be there a while
Hands is an all encompassing department store in Japan, present in just about every city I’ve visited and worth going to at least once. The most enduring purchases I’ve ever made in Japan, between both visits, have been from Hands. It is a must hit.
Following the pattern, some of my favorite places I visited in Osaka:
Revenge Records
Run by Jacky from Framtid, a familiar face (and fluent English speaker), I don’t think anyone subculturally inclined would miss this stop. I bought a Ghoul shirt here that had been sitting for months.
Punk and Destroy Records
Another easy and widely known recommendation, the guy here admired my vintage Bold shirt. Easy way to make Always - A Friend for Life.
Cafe and Bar Zone
Speaking of… across from Punk and Destroy is this:
Enough said.
Kitashinchi Sand
The best thing I ate all trip, this to-go only tonkatsu sandwich shop is worth every penny they charge for some of their higher end sandwiches. I ate at the location in Kitashinchi first and then later at a different one on Shinsaibashi (named, descriptively, Shinsaibashi Sand). I think they have one more in Tokyo, too, in Ginza. You must go here.
Tsurumiryokuchi Expo Park
This park was used for a World’s Fair Expo type event in 1990. Now, it is a huge cherry blossom filled park of unmaintained, but still in good shape, national pavilions showcasing different kinds of architecture. It also has a windmill. The cherry blossoms are plentiful here, but the tourists are non-existent. Easily the least crowded area we visited.
Mondial Kaffee 328
I didn’t have a single iced pour over in Osaka, but I did have a really good espresso tonic from here.
A bonus for Fukuoka:
The Gundam Base Fukuoka in Canal City
The guy at the counter was working on a Gunpla between transactions. So cool.
And Tokyo again:
Yabaton
Yabaton is a tonkatsu restaurant chain that I think has an anime associated with it. Their tonkatsu sauce is miso based, unique I’m told, and very delicious. We tried pork loin and pork fillet both served on hot plates, fajita style. I couldn’t pick a favorite, but both were awesome. They have a location in Tokyo Station, in the Gransta Yaesu section
Good Coffee Farms
I didn’t mention this place last week when I was talking about iced pour over, so I need to correct that mistake. Good Coffee Farms is better than any other coffee you’d get anywhere, but slightly worse than what I had from Kielo Coffee and Samoyed Coffee Freaks… but we are talking a truly minuscule margin of quality difference that likely comes down to my preferences. I don’t know if I emphasized this last time, but the making of the iced pour over at all three spots was uniform, with the incredible quirk of them taking a sip of what they just made you out of a different cup to make sure the taste is right. I had great interactions with the baristas at all three places too. One coffee I ordered from Kielo Coffee got the barista so excited, he made sure to tell me the beans were “very special beans” and he called me a “floral coffee maniac.” At Samoyed Coffee Freaks, very similarly, the guy went over the “very complex” notes in the variety I ordered. Finally, the second time at Good Coffee Farms, we got served a small iced cup of their normal drip coffee to impress upon us that even their worst coffee was amazing. “Drip coffee is very low quality, right? But not at our shop,” he told me.
Without a doubt, this was my favorite vacation ever. Hopefully there will be more trips to Japan in my future and I’m sure I’ll have more to write about this particular trip in the coming weeks.
Easily my favorite Snake Q&A so far, and that’s saying a lot, there’s a host of gems here both from interviewer Sami Reiss and interviewee, Zack Wuerthner. Wuerthner is a hardcore dude and his collection is, accordingly, of vintage hardcore t-shirts. Sami writes about the connection between the main topic of his newsletter, furniture, and the subject of discussion with Zack:
In fact, I try to keep hardcore (music) out of furniture, and kept it fairly out of the first era, collected in the book, about vintage clothing. I don’t doubt it comes across I like this stuff, but I don’t want it as a filter. There is no, say, flowchart from music of a certain sound to furniture design, not to a working person anyways. I also don’t think the aesthetic connections are at all explicit. Separation is good… these are different worlds.
Sami’s sentiment here is easy to relate to. My own newsletter takes the same approach of modest separation for the same reasons he articulates. Most of what I write about has nothing to do with hardcore music and no intrinsic link to it, even though a lot of what I do in my personal life does have to do with it.
As for Zack, he expresses the single most important economic idea when it comes to the vintage hardcore t-shirt “market”:
Youth of Today 4-sided Wishingwell shirt for $600, in 2014, from a guy who was selling off his collection to buy a Porsche. I had been searching high and low for this shirt for years, and at that point $600 was the most I had ever paid for a shirt. I didn't care about the price because it's the greatest garment ever woven into existence, and I finally found one that would fit me the way I like. I think it sells now for at least double what I paid, which is cheap, considering it should really be worth over $1,000,000. By that metric, I got a great deal.
No matter what you pay for one of these things, its “value” to an enthusiast in the most abstract sense is beyond any financial measure. It’s as Christopher Cross (Edward G. Robinson) says in Scarlet Street (1945):
But that’s not the point. The point is, you should read the interview with Zack.
This is a good video.
This is a good song, and a single from a new tofubeats record that will be out in two weeks.
The release of a hardcore LP should always, in my opinion, be accompanied by some fanfare. It is a big deal. For many bands, it will be the highest fidelity and largest format of visual art created for display. In this case, this is significant because Tom Wiklund, scene stalwart and tattoo artist, drew the cover. It’s a killer, with the central portal one of his signature illustrations.
https://www.avclub.com/criterion-channel-is-becoming-more-like-a-television-ch-1851401140 — Probably the most exciting thing I came home to is the launch of the Criterion Channel 24/7 stream. Through the Criterion Channel app, front and center, they are running movies on this stream all day every day. What is the advantage of a global stream over selecting movies from the platform for yourself?
I think there are a few. For one, everybody who tunes in to the Criterion 24/7 stream is watching the same thing. Like broadcast TV, this facilitates discussions about programming and so on. Second, the frictionless elimination of choice from a highly curated service is a huge win. So far, I’ve watched three movies, two of which I hadn’t seen before and one I haven’t seen in four years. I’m not sure they would have been my first choices to run again, but I’m really glad I’ve now seen them.
The 24/7 stream is likely going to be straining the displays of my televisions for the weeks and months to come.
Paradox Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.