David on the 37 signal blog has a nice little post about the effects of sleep deprivation on productivity, morale and creativity. I completely agree with his sentiments.

In the crunch period of Art Space Tokyo production, Ashley had actually moved into my room and we were working 15 hour days. Since I knew the crunch period was going to last several weeks, I made sure, like some sort of goofy father figure, that we would sleep at least 8 hours a night. This meant our sleep schedule was 4am 'till noon, but it worked, and we were able to maintain close to peek productivity the entire time.

Had we forgone a few hours of sleep each night would we have gotten the book done quicker? I don't think so. As it was, we were close to our threshold for extended periods of focus and if anything, I think cutting out a couple hours a night would have hurt the end result, not pushed it along more quickly.

Sometimes you have to pull an all nighter though. I've found that nothing helps one recover from sleep deprivation like having a healthy, strong, balanced body. The past year or so I've increased the amount of regular exercise I do, significantly decreased alcohol intake and try to eat reasonably healthy. I find that I can pull a 36 hour work period without feeling too worn down. Whereas, 3 or 4 years ago, that would have killed me.

Some people swear by napping — I used to nap all the time. But give me eight hours of sleep a night and I can keep going all day.

That is all.

The Gotham doppelgänger of Tokyo Art Beat — New York Art Beat — is live! Congrats to everyone involved! I'll definitely be using this next month while I'm in New York.

Hill Rats and other Seattle denizens, come to Kornerhaus this Friday for a discussion about how to keep the arts alive in fast-gentrifying Capitol Hill (and all of north Seattle for that matter). I'll be on the panel. Should be fun. For more info, directions, et cetera, check out the Design Kompany website.

Just a friendly reminder: tonight is the Tokyo launch party for Art Space Tokyo. Doors open at 7pm at The Pink Cow, located between Omotesando and Shibuya. You can download a flyer with a map.

Ashley, Takahashi and I will be holding a presentation on the production, editorial and design of the book starting at 8:30pm. The party itself will go on until at least 11pm.

Also, the Tokyo retail price of the book is ¥3400 but we'll have them available tonight for ¥3000. In summary: excellent food, free entry, cheap books, engaging presentation, sexy literary people and LOTS OF BOOKS. See you there!

It's been over two months since my last Things Literary post, so I thought I'd throw a new one up on this windy Sunday afternoon:

BBC's Stephen Fry has a wonderful one hour documentary on the Gutenberg press. People tend to forget the press is the coming together of (at least) three or four new and critical inventions. When you really consider the ingenuity and implications of these pieces of the puzzle, the whole is really quite breathtaking. Also, watching these guys set lead type by hand made me think typesetting Art Space Tokyo maybe wasn't that hard after all.

An edgy jab at "free beer" geeks by Steven (note to self: the world doesn't need any more babies named Steve) Poole on giving away your work (in his case, his writing) for free:

If the breathless advocates of “the free distribution of ideas” are serious, they need either a) to come up with a realistic proposal as to how I am to keep feeding myself while giving the fruits of my labours away for free; or b) come out and say honestly that they don’t think any such thing as a “professional writer” ought to exist, and that I should just get a job like anyone else.3 In a way, I’d respect people who came out and said the second thing. What I don’t respect is people who can’t see that those are the choices.

Want to get a sneak peek of our latest title, Art Space Tokyo? It's not officially in bookstores until September, but it's already creating a buzz in Tokyo, and rumor has it that Roland Kelts, who will be speaking at the Brooklyn Museum's Envisioning Japan event this Saturday, just may have a brand new copy of the book with him.

Roland's essay on Takashi Murakami is not to be missed. Also, this is the fifth book Craig Mod has designed for Chin Music Press, and I believe his goal of creating a literary object may have finally been realized to his satisfaction (he's a tough guy to please). The book is a gem, with extraordinary insight into Tokyo's contemporary art scene, so go have a look at the Brooklyn Museum this Saturday.

Of course, the book is available over our website, and pre-orders are going out this week and early next week (if you're in Tokyo, don't miss the party), but if you like to leaf through a book before buying, you'll have to wait until it appears in bookstores in Tokyo this May and in the US this late summer or go find Roland at the Brooklyn Museum this Saturday.

Roland, many of you will remember, is author of Japanamerica, a fascinating look at the transpacific mobius strip formed around Japanese pop culture, and contributor to the book that started us on this crazy venture, Kuhaku & Other Accounts from Japan.

Strange things can happen when things and people cross the Pacific. Fast food seems to grow in size and calories, as Taichi Kitamura relates in his latest column for Japan Infusion. Who knew that McDonald's burgers in Japan are bigger and more caloric than their counterparts in the US? Is this the equivalent of Phillip Morris pushing cigarettes on foreign countries, or are the Japanese just less uptight about fast food?

Also, koto master Elizabeth Falconer talks about how her career as a koto player flourished once she returned from Japan to the US and fell upon an innovative way to incorporate the instrument in children's stories. Check out the interview with Elizabeth here, and if you are in the Seattle area, check her and her husband John, a shakuhachi player, at the Japanese garden in the University of Washington arboretum every Sunday afternoon while the weather is good.

And the nominee is ... flexibilising. As in:

R&D spin offs with the appropriate investment strategy can make an important contribution in flexibilising the company's internal R&D and therefore increasing productivity.

As my daughter would say, OMG! Ugly, unnecessary and oh so corporate. Brought to you by a German firm called Festel Capital that obviously has to tweak its translation software.

The Hugo House is putting on a panel about small presses in the Pacific Northwest tonight, and I'll be part of it. Hope you can come on by.

Here's the dope:

The Hugo House InPrint Series presents:

Why Publish With an Independent or Small Press?
An Evening with Northwest Independent Press Publishers

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008, 7:00 - 9:00
Richard Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave. Seattle
Admission $3 members/$5 non-members

Why Publish With an Independent or Small Press?

The Northwest features a handful of excellent independent press publishers who are producing interesting work and attracting positive critical attention and awards.

Tonight editors and publishers from several publishers will be on hand to explain the advantages of publishing with an independent small press and how to go about it. Our speakers will cover the editing and business side of small press, from queries and pitches to editorial preferences and distribution.

Small press publishers can serve audiences that aren't normally served by larger publishers who can only publish very commercial work, allowing them to get away from publishing only work that appeals to the largest common denominator of readers. Once books have been published and received positive reviews, they often attract the attention of larger publishers for broader distribution. All of your questions will be answered and you'll come away with valuable information and contacts for publishing.

OUR PANEL:

Black Heron Press: Jerry Gold, publisher and editor-in-chief

Chin Music Press: Bruce Rutledge, journalist and author

Fantagraphics: Eric Reynolds, editor

Aqueduct Press: L. Timmel Duchamp, author, publisher and editor

Payseur and Schmidt: Jacob McMurray, publisher

Wood Works Press: Paul Hunter, publisher and editor

The InPrint Series is a quarterly forum designed to connect writers with agents, publishers and publishing industry experts. The mission of Richard Hugo House is to build a vital learning community that develops and sustains practicing writers doing essential work. (206) 322-7030

Art Space Tokyo — Tokyo Release Party
Tuesday, April 22nd from 7pm to 11pm
The Pink Cow
(6 minute walk from Omotesando station exit B2)

Come join us as we celebrate the Tokyo release of Art Space Tokyo! There'll be DJs and special guests and short but vibrant and mind-blowing presentations about Art, Life, Books, Love, Water, Sexuality and Galleries.

As always, this literary event is graciously hosted by The Pink Cow. An establishment which, without a doubt, serves up some of the most gut pleasin' Mexicana style burritos and curries in Tokyo.

The event is only two weeks away so mark your calendars! And hope to see all you (Tokyo dwellers) there!

Mikio Yamazaki, once an avid canned-coffee collector, wishes he could dream of nubile coeds when he drifts off to sleep. However, it's cans of coffee that speak to him when he's in a subconscious state — or more specifically, cans of coffee, 8mm projectors and urban ruins. Why, you may ask. To find out, read the latest installment from our beloved Canned Coffee site, the urban response to cowboy poetry.

Starting from yesterday, April 3rd, Chin Music Press is selling some of our books at the 101Tokyo international art fair near Akihabara. I stopped by for the opening preview on Wednesday night and I have to say I was very impressed. The design of the exhibition space, by POINT Architects in Tokyo (with whom we share office space at co-lab) is excellent. They've managed to convert a low ceiling area (200 square meters or so?) in an unused middle school into a very formidable exhibition space. The fluorescent lighting of doom is still there, but they've accented it with track lighting built into all the booths. The end result is a bright, warm space with a lot of energy. There are some excellent pieces on display and it runs until Sunday the 6th, so hop on over.

Believe it or not, this is currently Tokyo's only international art fair. This is really surprising (or maybe just sad?) considering how mature the Tokyo art world is. It's also worth noting that China's market, while much younger than the Japanese, is having many high-profile international art fairs. I attended the Shanghai biennale last September and I have to say it was impressive -- both in scope of work, range of galleries and the space in which it was held.

From the warmth of reception and success in execution, it looks like 101Tokyo is a first but formidable step in kicking the Japanese art market back in the ass, getting foreign eyes (and wallets) interested in the Tokyo scene again and helping to break up some of the stiffness art fairs in Tokyo seem to carry with them.

We have interviews with the 101Tokyo founders, as well as Tokyo Art Fair coordinator, Misa Shin in our Art Space Tokyo book. AST also covers some thoughts on the Chinese market and how Japan should react / integrate / respond to this surge in interest towards Asian art.

Sumie Kawakami's quickie North American book tour (two stops: Get Lost Travel in San Francisco and Elliott Bay Books in Seattle) went extremely well. These were her first readings in North America, and of course, they were done in English, her second language. Sumie actually didn't read from the book; she gave a spirited talk about how the project came together and then fielded a slew of questions (in both cities) from people in the audience. In Seattle, Yuko Enomoto, who translated most of Butterfly, opened the evening with a dramatic reading of the climactic scene in "Red Circles."

The tour marked a first for Sumie, and also a first for Chin Music, because it was our premiere event at Elliott Bay Books, one of America's great indie bookstores. What follows are a few snaps of Sumie and Yuko in action (From the top: Yuko & Sumie in front of Elliott Bay Books; Sumie talks at Elliott Bay; Yuko reads from "Red Circles"; Sumie talks at Get Lost Travel).

While traveling through Tibet last August, I found Spinn Cafe — a small eatery down a back alley run by two Thai and Hong Kong bike fanatics. When the violence and riots erupted a few weeks ago, I of course sent mails to all my Lhasa contacts asking how things were and if they were OK. It turns out Kong from Spinn Cafe is running a Twitter stream giving a day-by-day frontline report of the status of the city.

The reports are brief. Constrained mainly by the 140 word limit on Twitter posts, they provide small but intimate insights into what's happening on the ground in a way I've yet to see or feel from any other new source. I suggest checking out their Twitter stream. I've been a huge opponent of Twitter ("Yes, just what I need — another online 'presence' to update!") since it came out but recently I'm beginning to see how much power this simple tool packs.

Andrew Golub, aka Durandy — the world's foremost archivist of Duran Duran paraphernalia — has a special request to readers in Japan:

Hello,

I am a Duran Duran poster archivist in the United States. I am looking for any posters promoting Duran's April 14 concert at the Zepp Tokyo venue, and I am happy to offer a reward for any posters found. I am dedicated to preserving these paper treasures, which mark milestones in the band's great career. If you can help, I would appreciate hearing from you very much.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Andrew Golub
Durandy Productions

We know Andy (on the far right in the photo, showing off one of his rare posters to the band) to be a standup bloke, so if you do get your hands on one of these concert posters, drop him a line via his website and help him expand his impressive collection of all things Duran Duran.

Here's a great quote from Mai Ghoussoub on why we need books:

Literature is inseparable today from the books that carry their stories. If we want to save literature we have to save the rectangular objects that carry and spread their words. We have to respect the book for what it is: an art object that we should defend, defend against censors, narrow-minded educators and, most of all, the dangers of war. Fiction has described wars better than any history book because a novelist, a true novelist, is not a warrior. Literature and war carry opposite genes.

The full essay is here. Thanks to Shelf Awareness for bringing the quote to our attention.

While Sumie Kawakami is about to kick off her "quickie West Coast book tour" this Thursday in San Francisco, the rest of the world has already caught on. Following features and reviews in Denmark, Australia and Japan, the good people of Madagascar have chimed in with their own discussion of the book.

It's a big week for Chin Music Press. On a week when the absurd and dismal Iraq War turns five and spring officially arrives, we're siding with spring by offering a whole lot of good stuff for your soul. We've got two readings in San Francisco, a reading in Seattle and our fifth title, Art Space Tokyo, goes to the printer. We're going for it!

Tomorrow, Dave Rutledge, currently stuck in the Houston airport and sending me text messages likening it to hell, will be in a little slice of heaven along San Francisco's Market Street called Get Lost Travel Books. The travel gear/bookstore is a beacon in the neighborhood with a big glass window emitting warm light on the street, and up in the loft is a cozy little reading area where Dave will update us on all things New Orleans and read a bit of Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans? This will be the last event for the first edition of Do You Know because the book is all but out of print. But Get Lost has copies, so come get 'em. The reading starts at 7.

The following night, 3/20, at the same cozy loft in Get Lost Travel Books at the same time (7 pm), Sumie Kawakami makes her North American debut as she does a reading and talk about Goodbye Madame Butterfly. I will have a flask of bourbon on hand should she get a little nervous (and who wouldn't, giving a reading in one's second language?), and I'll make sure to bring something for her to drink too.

Then on 3/22, Sumie takes on the Seattle crowd at Elliott Bay Book Co. in Pioneer Square. She'll be on from 7:30. Translator Yuko Enomoto will be in the crowd too.

Join us at one of these events if you can. They should be fun.

And just to top it off, we're sending our fifth title to the printers this week. Art Space Tokyo is shaping up to be a true literary object. If you want your book hot (or at least warm, depending on where you live) off the presses, we still have a ridiculously good offer of $22 for the book and worldwide shipping through March 31. After that, the book will retail for $30. Get it now!

For all you Japanese speakers reading this blog, finally a review of Goodbye Madame Butterfly for you. It comes from Jungle City, an excellent Internet site on all things Seattle.

And for those of you in the Seattle and San Francisco areas, please come check out Sumie Kawakami on her Quickie West Coast book tour next week. We'll be in San Francisco (Get Lost Travel) on Thursday evening at 7 and in Seattle (Elliott Bay Books) on Saturday evening at 7:30 That's March 20 and 22. Hope you can make it.

I love my hometown but am ambivalent about the new trend of its largest retailers — Starbucks, Amazon and Costco — being the arbiters of literary taste. In case you missed it, The New York Times just ran a long piece on this trend.

Amazon is amazing. Its return rate is minuscule compared to the chains and it is very good at selling niche books. But the trend toward selling books at Starbucks and Costco helps the middle while hurting the fringes — the indie bookstores, the ... gulp ... Chin Music Presses. So we get more middling stuff. Not to say that the books Starbucks or Costco sells are bad — far from it — but they always feel like they've gone through one too many corporate tests to get on the shelves.

Take this quote from the NYT piece, for instance:

“We wanted to find extraordinary books that would encourage people to discuss compelling issues” like war, hope, faith and family, said Ken Lombard, president of Starbucks Entertainment.

There's nothing inherently wrong with that, I suppose, but I'm betting there is going to be a sameness to the way those issues are discussed. It's all so NPR-ish. So friggin' safe. What I like about a good bookstore is the democracy of it. You can pick up the latest by Michael Savage or Howard Zinn. Your choice. It's all there. When Starbucks presents one "compelling" title for three months, I'm reminded why I avoid the chain whenever I can. Read a Starbucks novel, listen to All Things Considered and drive a hybrid... Oh Seattle!

But then again, Seattle is home to this and this. I wonder if it's all connected.