Apple Store, SOHO, Manhattan: Wednesday, October 8th, 6:30 - 8:00pm

(Facebook Event Page)

Just a quick note to let you know I'll be speaking at the Apple Store in SOHO this coming Wednesday evening.

I'll be talking about books, design, the creative process, finding time to work on passion projects and other topics, all within the context of living in Tokyo.

In particular I'll be speaking at length on the books Art Space Tokyo and Goodbye Madame Butterfly. I'll go into the stories behind how the books were made and the reasons why we make the books the way we do.

It's a free event and should be quite interesting - pop by if you're in the 'hood!

Finally found a few moments to collect my thoughts and photos from the Art Space Tokyo New York launch event last week. Thanks to all who attended! We all had a blast — the panelists were great, the attendance was great, the discussion was ... great. For me, an old hand at putting on Tokyo book launch parties, this was an exciting jump into hosting events in New York.

Check out the AST blog for all the details: NY Launch Wrap-up.

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!

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).

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!

The Tokyo bikers, professors, designers, typographers, voracious readers, writers, printers and translators were (to name but a few) out in full swing last Tuesday for our Goodbye Madame Butterfly Tokyo release event. It was by all means a successful and fun night, made possible by the generous and warm support of all our Tokyo compadres.

I want to say thank you to everyone who showed up and bought books from us, and drinks and food from The Pink Cow. We sold nearly 100 tomes — this was one of our most successful book evenings and we can't tell you how much it helps us to see this kind of support.

As usual, we didn't take any photos (note to self: pay someone to take photos next time) because, well, we never seem to remember to do that. We've managed to collect a small series of blurry images over the years which, when placed in succession, seem to indicate we have been putting on any number of poorly lit, sparsely populated gatherings which may or may not have had anything to do with books and seem more probably connected with bootlegging or snuff film making. So I make this appeal to those of you photographically inclined attendees of the ceremonies last week: if anyone has any photos from the GMB party, please send them to speak AT chinmusicpress.com. Thank You!

We have a couple of wild projects scheduled for 2008 and will hopefully be hosting more of these events. For now, mark January 29th on your calendars. Throw out all plans three days before and after because you're going to need both preparatory time and recovery time for the Hitotoki Tokyo HITOBAN Premiere Literary Reading Extraordinary Bonanza Super. That's right kids, Hitotoki is breaking free of the screen and getting all up in your Tokyo faces.

More on that later! For now, I hope everyone (who isn't employed by a Japanese company at least ... for those of you who are ... I hope your cigarette breaks are long and warm) is well into enjoying their holiday rests. Light up the Bunsen burners, crack open the egg nog, and snuggle up next to your space heater with a well-worn copy of Freakonomics on the Amazon Kindle.

Happy Holidays, and thanks again for everything.

On the chilly eve of December 18th, you (and all your friends!) are invited into the warming embrace of The Pink Cow, a tavern of delicious brews and sloppy wraps, to celebrate -- Yes! Celebrate! -- the publication of the fourth Chin Music Press Literary Objet: Goodbye Madame Butterfly: Sex, Marriage and the Modern Japanese Woman. Author (and Madame) Sumie Kawakami will be there! Friendly faces from Chin Music Press will be there! All those literate, well sighted and hungry for the written word will be there!

Come join us for a night of literary tom-foolery, perhaps a reading or two and endless fireside chats about housewives, affairs and finding love in this now wintry city of Tokyo.

When: Tuesday, December 18th. From 7:00 pm
Where: The Pink Cow, (behind Kodomo no Shiro in Omotesando / 10 minutes walk from Shibuya station)
Why: To celebrate publication of the book Goodbye Madame Butterfly by Sumie Kawakami
How much: Free!
What: Great food, drinks, music and literary hob-nobbing

Here's something from the New York Times on virtual book tours. This piece lays out very straightforwardly the constraints small publishers are under. Book tours are next to impossible for us to finance and coordinate unless the author is willing to foot part of the bill and do a lot of the legwork. When you're running a one- or two-person shop, that's just the cold reality. But then, this virtual tour idea gives you hope that we're going to be able to find alternative avenues for marketing our books. Maybe we should create a Sumie Kawakami avatar, put her on Second Life and have her give advice to distraught couples.

The San Francisco Chronicle recently ran a piece on a growing trend toward book readings at Fortune 500 companies. This is old news in Seattle, where Microsoft, Starbucks and Amazon have been rushing in celebrity authors and musicians for years, but the piece hints that the trend is spreading. As a publisher, I'm ambivalent about this. If Microsoft wants to book Sumie Kawakami for a lunchtime talk on Japanese women and sex, or Jason Berry on writing fiction in post-Katrina New Orleans, I am very, very happy to oblige. No question. And I think that offshoots of the corporate reading culture like authors@google could develop into fabulous resources on the Net. But I worry about indy bookstores losing more business and book-readings becoming even more elitist than they already are. If anything, we need to find a more grass-roots, less corporate way to connect with readers, because, after all, good books are still a bargain, and you don't have to be a yuppie to afford one.

Tracey Slater's occasional literary salon in Osaka was featured in The Japan Times the other day. Friend and Kuhaku contributor Roland Kelts is pictured as well. Sounds like the kind of forum every city should have.

I wanted to share this with you before it gets stale. One of the more interesting items I ran across during Book Expo America in New York at the beginning of the month was not a book, but a movie. Specifically, it was a movie made by Powell's Books of Portland, OR, about Ian McEwan's new novel, On Chesil Beach. I imagine some of you are scratching your head right now and thinking, 'Why is a bookstore making a film about a book?' That's what I was thinking as I dropped round a showing of the film and a brief talk by David Weich of Powell's and Ian McEwan. Weich had me with his opening comments, when he talked about how insular literature has become. "Sometimes it seems that we in the book industry are a bunch of lit majors sitting around talking about what we know really well and intimidating everybody else."

Weich, a Powell's employee, watched how books broke out on the national scene. They did it through appearances on Oprah, through word of mouth. But rarely were those books novels. Novelists could hope to appear on Charlie Rose's show or Fresh Air with Terri Gross, but that was about it. "An author photo on the back of the flap is about as close as most readers get to a writer," Weich said. He wanted to try and make "compelling entertainment that energizes the conversations" about books, and thus he turned to film.

Weich must be a helluva salesman to persuade the owners of Powell's to plunk down the change to make a 28-minute movie (he wouldn't divulge the budget). But what I really like about this development, besides the high quality of the movie (check it out — it's entertaining and even very funny toward the end), is the collective sense Powell's brings to it. The movie is being made available, along with posters and other promotional material, to any bookstore that asks. Thus, if a bookstore in Santa Fe or Ann Arbor wants to screen the movie and promote McEwan's novel, they can. Several bookstore owners in the audience seemed very grateful for this service, since McEwan wasn't planning a book tour.

But will Powell's films kill author readings?

Seattle-based Japanophiles have been having a very active couple of weeks. We had Roland Kelts in town and on the radio last week, promoting his new book, Japanamerica. Then translator extraordinaire Jay Rubin yesterday at Elliott Bay. And there's more to come:

Tomorrow, Sakura Con opens. This is the Pacific Northwest's biggest conference for anime and manga fans, and coordinator Elmira Utz says a record crowd of 10,000 or so is expected over the weekend. They're coming from all over, and many ("Thousands," says Elmira) will be dressed as their favorite anime characters. (Roland noted last week that fans in Japan are discouraged from showing up at comic conventions in costume, so this is really an American phenomenon).

Then, author Natsuo Kirino will be reading at two events. On Sunday at 6 pm, she'll be at the Panama Cafe in the International District. The following evening she'll be at Elliott Bay Book Co. at 7:30 pm. She'll be reading from her latest novel, Grotesque.

Japanese lit fans in Seattle, a great translator, Jay Rubin, will be speaking tomorrow at Elliott Bay Book Co. at 7:30 pm.

Rubin is now living in the Seattle area, so we may be able to see more of him. For those of you who like Japanese literature but may not always notice the translator's name, here's some of what Professor Rubin has brought us: Norwegian Wood and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami (not to mention the next Murakami book, After Dark, due out in a month or so), the writings of Natsume Soseki, and most recently, Rashomon and 17 Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa (with an introduction from Murakami.

I'm off to Powell's in Portland today with Roland Kelts, who'll be talking there this evening about Japanamerica. I'm hoping to ask the Powell folks about their plan to make movies about authors and their books. Perhaps they'd be interested in our own efforts in this field.

Roland Kelts will be in town next week for two events promoting his new book, Japanamerica. He'll be talking at Powell's in Portland on March 27 at 7:30 pm, and on Thursday the 29th, he'll be addressing the Japan America Society of Washington at City University in Bellevue.

I'll be at both events, and Chin Music will be the bookseller at the Bellevue event, so come out, say hi and hear Roland talk about how Japanese pop culture has seeped into the American mainstream. It's a great read that reveals, among other things, how Pac Man was inspired by a Shakey's pizza.

I enjoyed this piece on Roland Kelts' new book, Japanamerica. I think it gets to the heart of what the book is about without veering into otaku-speak by letting Kelts speak. Nicely reported.

Seattle folks, Roland will be in town to speak about the book on March 29. More on that later.

Seattlite, this looks like fun: Ellis Avery is reading from her first novel, The Teahouse Fire, at 7:30 next Monday at Elliott Bay. Ellis tells us she will also be performing "a basic Japanese tea ceremony, modified for a western room." Should be interesting.

Ellis wrote an excellent review of Kuhaku in The Kyoto Journal last year. Now it's her turn to hit the road, promoting what sounds like a real page-turner. We wish her luck.

So the Saints lost and the city of New Orleans' football joyride is over.

Next up: Mardi Gras. Fat Tuesday is on Feb. 20 this year, and the Mardi Gras season is in full swing, with a couple of parades already finished and the colorful Krewe du Vieux scheduled to ramble through the French Quarter a week from Saturday.

Last year during Mardi Gras season, we launched our second title, Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?, at the Saturn Bar in what was personally one of the most memorable moments of my career.

This Wednesday night, four of the contributors to the anthology will be reading from their work at the Jefferson Parish library at 7pm. It's free and open to the public. Writers will be running the gamut of the New Orleans experience, from Dave Rutledge's "Corners of the Quarter" to Sarah Inman's "A Lesson from Below" to CW Cannon's "New Orleans Manifesto," which was handed out by costumed revelers at Mardi Gras 2003 and is even more relevant today, and finally, to Ray Shea's hilarious "I Was a Teenage Float Grunt."

This is something I won't be mentioning on our Voices of New Orleans blog, but since you folks are ostensibly reading this blog because you're interested in the travails of a small publisher, we are getting excitingly close to deciding whether to produce a second edition of Do You Know. We printed a little fewer than 6,000 copies of DYK and have just several hundred left in our warehouse in Seattle. If we don't get hit with massive returns in the next month or so and if sales stay on pace, look for a thicker version of DYK as early as later this year (which means, of course, the first editions will become more valuable — so if you don't have one yet, get your butt to the Jefferson Parish library or order one here!)

Check out the latest review of Poppas in the Press-Register of Mobile, Alabama.

Here's a taste:

Rather than attempt to summarize a complicated story line that features Gulf Coast mobsters, strippers, toxic-waste injection wells, double-dealing, murder and so on, suffice it to say that the book is funny and engaging. To use a well-worn regional analogy, if it were a bowl of gumbo it would be one-quarter John Kennedy Toole and three-quarters Elmore Leonard, seasoned by Berry's journalistic-style reportage and insights.

Jason Berry is the Mobile Writers Guild guest tomorrow at 7 pm at the Mobile Public Library. The reading is free and open to the public, so drop by and hear Jason bring the characters of Last of the Red Hot Poppas to life.

Most people don't know that Chicago's nickname comes from the bluster of its politicians and not the velocity of the wind. Many of the characters in Jason Berry's novel, Last of the Red Hot Poppas, should feel quite at home here as Jason kicks off the Midwest leg of his book tour.

Jason will be reading at 6:30 tonight at Kate the Great's Book Emporium (5550 N. Broadway, 773-561-1932). Come join Chicagoans and New Orleans evacuees in the area as Jason reads from his novel and talks about the fictive Governor Rex LaSalle.

Jason will be at Notre Dame tomorrow. He'll be at Columbia College in Chicago on Friday at noon, then at the Quadrangle Club on the University of Chicago campus that evening. He'll wind up this leg of the trip with an appearance at the Call to Action conference, a Catholic network to foster peace and justice, in Milwaukee on Saturday. Hope some of you in the Chicago area can catch him at one of these events.

Tomorrow is a very big day for books in southern Louisiana. First, there's the Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge. I'll be hosting a panel on Do You Know at 10 am with Sarah Inman and Jason Berry. Brother Dave will be there too. We'll also be signing the book after the event.

Jason will also be on two separate panels to talk about 1) the environment and 2) his new novel, Last of the Red Hot Poppas. And Sarah will be reading from her novel, Finishing Skills. The event is free, so come on down.

In New Orleans, the 5th annual New Orleans Book Fair will take place. Our peeps at Nolafugees will be hawking Chin Music books along with their own latest creation, Chris Rose is Dead 2 Me. We're hoping to be able to get there after our Baton Rouge appearance, so see you all at one or the other of these book fests.

If you're in the Baton Rouge area, drop by LSU's Manship School of Communication this evening at 7 pm for a good read and a great cause. Jason Berry will be talking about and reading from Last of the Red Hot Poppas, and the Louisiana Environmental Action Network will be selling his book. We've teamed up with LEAN to help them raise money and to highlight the fact that Poppas, at its core, is a novel about environmental degradation that precedes and directly connects to the broken levees.

LEAN is on the front lines of the fight for the environment in Louisiana — and it is hard to imagine a state with more glaring environmental problems. Here's how LEAN describes itself:

LEAN was founded to help Louisiana citizens change the balance of power and challenge the insanity of continued economic and ecological suicide as practiced Lousiana-style.

That's LEAN's style. Up front and in your face. From what I can tell from my little corner of the Pacific Northwest, LEAN is doing some amazing work. Talking to LEAN's MaryLee Orr on the phone, you get a sense of how dedicated and hardworking these folks are. They are on a mission, and so are we. I called to see if they'd want to join us at the LSU event, and it took MaryLee a millisecond to say yes.

I'm hoping we can do more with LEAN and use Poppas to raise awareness about how deep-seated the state's environmental problems are. Today is just the beginning.

Brian Turner has put his poetry reading on YouTube, an innovative twist that comes from From the Fishouse.

We get the finished Poppas video next Monday. I'm thinking YouTube ...

Jessa Crispin of Bookslut fame writes about the death of the traditional bookstore tour in this article from The Book Standard.

As a publisher that has launched two books in bars and one in a museum, we know what she's talking about. Bookstores that just go through the motions are missing out on a resurging interest in literature that is not readily reflected in their bottom lines. Lit blogs are flourishing; people are writing and talking more about books than I can ever remember in my 43 years on Earth. And literary types are doing more interesting things to promote their books. David Eggers and his posse but on a whole show to raise funds for 826 Valencia. Jonathan Lethem publishes a limited collection of short stories and demands that the book not be sold in stores or distributed to trade journals, magazines or newspapers. These are exciting times for publishers, and that's partly why we joined the fray.

To date, our most successful reading in terms of sales was in a bar in the Upper Ninth Ward of New Orleans about five and a half months after the levees broke. It was — not coincidentally — also the most fun.

But a word should be said for the inspired booksellers out there (and Jessa mentions this in her piece): There is no reason bookstores can't hold exciting, interesting literary events, and many do. Follow the lead of Tom Lowenburg at Octavia Books in New Orleans (p.s.: Jason Berry is reading from Poppas there this Saturday at 6 pm) and put out a little wine and cheese to give the event the feel of a party; Janis Frame at Book Buffs in Denver provided a sushi spread for our Kuhaku reading, and the hour or so we spent there felt so much more like a conversation than a monologue. This ain't brain surgery folks — just make it fun and pay attention, because the people are reading, writing and talking about literature a lot these days.

Today I asked a well-known bookstore to host a reading for our next book, a novel called Last of the Red Hot Poppas, which will be out in September. The store's quick, polite rejection tells a lot about what we're up against. Here's an excerpt:

I am sorry, but there is no way that we can schedule a reading by an unknown novelist at the store in the fall ... It is very, very difficult to do fiction here unless the person is a name brand. Even for fairly well known fiction writers, we get, if we are lucky, twenty people not related to the author.

Fair enough. I understand their position. To be honest, I don't even care, because somewhere deep inside of me I know that going about this whole publishing business in the same way that the big New York firms do — spend loads on marketing, sign brand-name writers, do six-week book tours, etc. — is both demeaning and suicidal. The reason we got into this industry in the first place was to exploit the blind spots of an industry grown obese with bad books and sloppy distribution policies, not to imitate the biggest players.

Join Bruce and David Rutledge at Book Buffs in Denver this Thursday at 7pm for a reading and talk about the making of Do You Know ... Book Buffs isa great store in south Denver, filled with beautiful first editions and original prints from local artists. Rumor has it the Rutledge brothers may be packing Colorado Rockies Mardi Gras beads as well.

After our reading in Austin Saturday, I began talking to BookWoman owner Susan Post while we and others from the event relaxed over a beer at The Tavern, a bar next door that, according to Susan, had its soul ripped out when the new owners tried to clean up its dive-bar image. It was the least interesting bar I saw in a weekend of book reading and bar hopping (favorite Austin bar by far: Deep Eddy's — please tip bartender Yuri heavily). But Susan's conversation and an epic baseball game on the tube made up for the Tavern's neutered atmosphere.

Susan has run BookWoman for 34 years. Her little store on the corner of 12th and Lamar has survived and evolved while many other feminist stores have faded away. I wasn't sure how we'd be received at the store, but I knew we were in a good place when the audience and staff erupted with laughter as Ray Shea read a passage about Doc Severinsen eyeing the pretty girls in the crowd and saying, "Oh look at that! Give me some of those long beads, quick!"

In fact, the reading was great. It was short — the whole thing was about 30 minutes — and it left the crowd of nearly 20 wanting more. That's the way a reading should be, since your ultimate goal is to get people interested in your book. Dave, Juliette and Ray did a nice job of showing the breadth of our book, too, with the sad procession of brake lights that closes "Corners of the Quarter," the humorous tales of summer movie theaters from Juliette, and Ray's "I Was a Teenage Float Grunt," which has become our reliable closer, like Lynyrd Skynyrd saving "Free Bird" for the encore.

A month or so ago, we got a call from a woman in Austin who had seen Do You Know in a catalogue and wanted us to come give a reading. This almost never happens — the far more common routine is for us to call and email stores, often getting no response, in search of bookstore owners who are willing to give a small publisher the spotlight for an evening. In fact, delete the "almost" in that last sentence — this has never happened until Marla of Bookwoman called.

So that's why I'm heading to Austin this weekend. I will be joined by brother Dave and Austin denizens Ray Shea and Juliette Kernion. The Chin Music crew may be joined by other New Orleanian artists. I discussed this with Marla — how it would be cool if we could expand our readings outside of New Orleans to include artists caught in the diaspora. So if you fit that description and will be in Austin this Saturday, come join us. The reading starts at 8 pm at Bookwoman (12th & Lamar).

Pictured here from the left are Ray Shea, Jason Berry, Toni Causey and Sarah Inman.

Last weekend in Louisiana was successful and fun — with the exception of having brother Dave's rear bumper fall off his car on the highway between Baton Rouge and New Orleans (but then again, Louisiana's drinking-and-driving laws allowed for me and Sarah to share a large can of Heineken while Dave carefully drove the bumperless Saturn along the crowded highway). The Tennessee Williams Festival panel on our book drew some 50 or 60 people — well more than we expected — and a certain erudite book reviewer mentioned to Toni Causey afterwards that she should join the mayoral race.

Baton Rouge also brought a warm crowd of about 25 or 30 — many McGees and Causeys, a few Kernions and Sheas — to our afternoon reading at Barnes & Noble. The readers showed the breadth of the book, from Katrina essays to Mardi Gras hilarity. And the big stack of books on sale shrunk as just about everybody there picked up a copy.

Baton Rouge was the equivalent of dipping our toe into the ocean to see how cold the water is. It was our first foray outside of New Orleans, and as we print another round of books, our success or failure will be dictated by how far we can take the book before we run into that most cruel of phrases: Katrina fatigue.

I'm not sure how we'll be perceived in other cities. I hope and half-expect to be well-received, but the cynic in me wonders a bit about just how much Americans do care. Of course, the cynic will be stuffed in a small box, bound and gagged and shipped to some undisclosed Central Asian country as we promote this book. No time for doubts now. Our path leads from New Orleans to cities beyond, and our long-term success will be dictated by how we are received there.

It was pouring rain last Thursday — teeming down in sheets — as we stuck our three kids into Andy and Harue's van. Kenzo was crying so hard he had a bloody nose; that's what we get for trying to mix family and business.

But it all turned out well. Our friends took their three kids and our three kids to a pizza joint near Union Square — these are parents who know no fear — while Yuko and I zipped off to Get Lost Travel Books to meet Bob Juppe and do our Kuhaku reading.

The crowd was small — about seven people, not including us and the store's staff — but the event was very fun. For me, the highlight was listening to bookstore owner Lee praise our book up and down. He talked about how most books leave him cold these days, but Kuhaku grabbed him because of its beauty and its wide range of stories. He said, "This is one book that can be judged by its cover." It is humbling when someone gets what you're trying to do. In the words of Stephen Colbert, Lee "gets it."

After offering the crowd some plum wine, Pocky sticks and crackers, I talked about Chin Music briefly then let Yuko and Bob, the night's main readers, take over the show. They made a great combination for showing off the book's breadth — from cheating housewives to bilingual dogs in just two readings. I finished off by reading a few glossary entries. I had planned to start off with butoh but after sizing up the crowd went with a lineup of gaijin, hanabi, rajio taiso and yukata instead.

Get Lost Travel Books is a gem. It's pristine, well lit and has a dirigible hanging from the ceiling. The mix of travel gear and literature works well, and the second-floor space creates an intimate stage for readings. I talked to Lee about doing an event for DYK, and it sounds like all we have to do is set the date.

Folks in the Bay Area, come on out to Get Lost Travel Books at 1825 Market Street tomorrow at 7pm for our reading of Kuhaku & Other Accounts from Japan. Yuko Enomoto will be reading from "Floating Feeling I," Robert Juppe will read from "Life with a Bilingual Dog" and talk about life in Japan (he's flying to the US today for the reading), and I'll read from the glossary. Plus, of course, we'll have snacks. Hope to see you.

And for people in the New Orleans area, check out Voices of New Orleans about an event in the Garden District tomorrow.

The Chin Music road show will experience a first two weeks from today: two events on two different sides of the US for two different books. OK, so it's not like winning a Pulitzer, but it's still a significant step for a company as small as ours.

On March 16 at 6 pm, we'll be in Octavia Books (pictured here) in the Garden District of New Orleans for a reading of Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans? There will be five contributors reading: Jason Berry, Toni McGee Causey, Sarah Inman, David Rutledge and Dar Wolnik. Depending on how the evening goes, brother Dave may act more as an emcee. Octavia is a handsome, bright store in a corner building shared with a yoga studio, a martial arts studio and a coffee shop — made me feel like I was back in Seattle. Owner Tom Lowenburg told us books about New Orleans have been selling like mad recently as locals have a newfound devotion to their much-impugned city. We're hopeful for a good turnout.

On the same day at 7pm, all the way across the country on Market Street in San Francisco, me, Yuko and Bob Juppe will be appearing at Get Lost Travel Books to read from and talk about Kuhaku & Other Accounts from Japan. I've never been to this store — it's at 1825 Market, which the locals call mid-Market, I believe — but it sounds like a cool space dedicated to both books and travel gear in an up-and-coming part of San Francisco. The store's owner, Lee Azus, is a big Kuhaku fan (and obviously a man of good taste) who invited us down. We're also hoping to hold a reading for Do You Know there someday soon.

So watch out Nan Talese. On March 16, Chin Music's going nationwide.

What a great party! We had well over 100 people at The Saturn Bar in New Orleans' Ninth Ward last Thursday for the launch of our second book, Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans? We had kosher red beans and rice, seafood gumbo, Carl Causey's shrimp and corn soup, fresh fruit, smoked duck and even a King cake spread out across the pool table; an eclectic crowd sat around the bar and along the railing of the second floor to take in the readings — nicely dressed senior citizens rubbed shoulders with tattooed and dreadlocked students, professors, professional people and at least a few construction workers who were taking a break from rebuilding the city. The goodwill and energy in the room was palpable.

The readers rocked. We had a rookie lineup that made me more than a little proud of our scouting skills. My brother Dave (pictured outside the bar), Toni Causey and Ray Shea all read for the first time. All three of them kicked butt. Dave started out the readings with some excerpts from the preface to give the room a feel for what was inside the book. Toni silenced the room as she read from "Where Grace Lives." It's a heavy piece and a few people looked visibly moved by it. Then after Dar Wolnik gave an inspiring talk about the city's Farmers Markets and how they are coming back, Sarah Inman, Ray Shea and C.W. Cannon filled the room with laughs and applause during their readings. It was a great performance, mirroring the book's slow, sad Dirge and bouncy, humorous Return sections.

Check out the photos here.

We ended up selling 97 books. People were buying four or five at a time, then cornering the writers to sign each copy. It was, in short, a hoot.

The bar owner, Eric, even bought a copy. We promised to come back again soon and run up a bar bill that will more than pay him back. He says he hopes to officially open in a month or so.

Those of you who read Japanese may enjoy this write-up of our latest event on JungleCity.com (scroll down to the July 14 entry).

Thanks again to our two readers, Dipika Kohli and Yuko Enomoto. Dipika had the crowd clapping along to a spirited rendition of "Kuhaku," and Yuko commanded the crowd's attention in "Floating Feeling I." And of course, thanks to Brad Beshaw at Confounded.

We noticed that our little supply of umeshuu (plum wine) was quickly exhausted. Someone should start marketing this stuff in North America as a high-end low-alcohol drink — umeshuu on ice.

Here are a few pics from the event (Yuko, Yuko, Dipika, me):

The man with the book tattoo on his arm, Brad Beshaw of Confounded Books, is graciously hosting our second Voices from the Void event tomorrow at 7 pm. There will be music, junk food from Japan (well, actually from Uwajimaya, but don't tell ...), kozyndan posters and, of course, two scintillating readings from Dipika Kohli and Yuko Enomoto. And I'll talk a little about Chin Music Press, too. So join us at 7 tomorrow at:

Confounded Books
315 E. Pine St.
Seattle, WA
206-441-9880

If you like sushi, beer and books and have a loud voice, you're our kind of person. Especially if you'll be in Seattle on July 14. We're on the lookout for a couple of people to join our event and read from Kuhaku. If you're interested, drop us a line. This could be your chance for everlasting fame or at least a free sushi dinner.

Note to Coffee Monday addicts and Music Friday freaks: Travel (Bruce in Denver, Craig in Italy) disrupted our usual blog schedule. Both columns will be back in the next week.

We broke our North America record when about a dozen people (see how I no longer give you an exact number?) showed up at Book Buffs in South Denver to hear me talk about Kuhaku, buzztracker and the future of Chin Music Press.

The whole evening was a very pleasant surprise. Some of the crowd had been using buzztracker, others had read Kuhaku and still others had been reading our blog. Everyone was engaged, inquisitive and ready to talk about Japan, publishing and the Internet. At one point, when I showed a buzztracker slide, I saw the light of recognition go off in one man's eyes. He later told me, "I use the widget. I love the widget. I just didn't know it was you who put it out."

So good vibes all around, and good things will ripple out from my talk in Book Buffs in South Denver, I think. The proprietor, Janis, has a sharp business sense honed during a long, successful career at Citibank and a love of books that is immediately apparent upon entering the store. It's a special place and a good home for Kuhaku. Janis also has a sharp assistant named Angela who worked for one of the bigger chains before coming to Book Buffs. The two seem to have a lot of fun together; they even share a gluten allergy, which means they're in synch at mealtime too.

Up the street from Book Buffs is the hip, very popular Sushi Den. It was packed last Thursday night. Rumor has it that they fly their fish in. It was as tasty as any sushi I've had on the coasts. One final Denver factoid: Colorado spends 1% of its budget on public art. It shows — there just seems to be a lot of sculptures around. The latest, pictured here at the new (and "hideous" as far as Janis is concerned) Convention Center is entitled "I See What You Mean."

I'm off to Denver late tonight for tomorrow's talk at Book Buffs. This time, I won't be reading from the book (relief ...), but I'll be talking about how and why we made Kuhaku, what drives Chin Music Press and what's in store in the future.

Denver wasn't even on our radar until Book Buffs owner Janis Frame sent us an email saying she really liked Kuhaku, had ordered five copies and sold them, and was now trying to remember who our distributor was. I wrote back and asked, interested in doing a Chin Music Press event? She said yes, and now I'm packing my bag. It's that easy. So who knows where we'll end up next.

Hope to see some of you at Book Buffs at 6:30 tomorrow. And if you have any recommendations on what to do in Denver, let me know.

This reading business is a hard slog. Don't get me wrong — I enjoy talking about and reading from Kuhaku, and the process of getting up in front of an audience and talking about something dear to me is a healthy one, especially since my natural inclination is to sit in the back row and make snide comments. This is a healthy process filled with good stress. But it's a tough business, and if I start thinking about how much work goes into selling a few books, it makes me want to fill a sippy cup with shochu and curl up in the fetal position for the rest of the day.

But enough of that. There were 10 of us last Friday night at Reading Frenzy in Portland. It was nice to see five people I didn't know, plus Robert Jefferson (page 164, Kuhaku fans!) and Tim Clark, whose new book with Carl Kay, Saying Yes to Japan, is a good read for wannabe entrepreneurs. I talked, read and Akira Morita helped with the projector so that we could show some of the work of kozyndan and Craig. The clothesline was a hit, as was the plum wine (Eliza,a volunteer at Reading Frenzy, stumbled out of the reading with her boyfriend saying she had finally found an alcoholic drink she liked). In all, it was a very good event.

But I bet we sold just two or three books. You can't go into these sorts of ventures at the grass-roots level — and with very little money — and expect to be making a living anytime soon. You have to have a long-term dream, like a rock band performing before a half dozen people but dreaming of world tours and black concert T-shirts. My dream is real simple: Build a company that steers between the marketing-obsessed publishing world and the near-poverty of the Pacific Northwest zine world. Make some money — doesn't have to be a lot — and publish some work you're proud of. That's it, really. And of course, give Dick Cheney a really painful wedgy and help get Bill Moyers elected president. But right now, I'm only focused on the publishing part.

Tomorrow at 7 pm, I'll be at Reading Frenzy, a cute little bookstore in downtown Portland, Oregon, that will feel crowded if I get five people to show up.(So show up, please!) Accompanying me is Akira Morita, our Music Fridays man. If you've ever wondered about anything related to J-Pops or any other strain of Japanese popular music, he's your man.

We'll also hang the Kuhaku clothesline — just think: there might be a sushi eraser or an expired Hello Kitty train pass in your future! — and, if all our gear works, we plan to show some of the artwork from the book and explain how we put it all together. Of course, we'll have plenty of Japanese junk food and maybe even some umeshuu to share. So come on down before Akira, Chloe and I polish off all the Japanese victuals.

(Note to all you people who just read that last word as "vick-chew-als": Did you know that victuals is pronounced "vittles"? No joke. Check your dictionary.)

PS: This illustration of Reading Frenzy was done by Nate Beaty.

When I walked into the basement of Mac's Backs in Cleveland, Ohio, for our first North American reading of Kuhaku, I was met by two good friends from high school and a stranger who promptly introduced himself in Japanese: "Doozo yoroshiku. Craig to mooshimasu."

My assistant, Kimi (who also doubles as my 7-year-old daughter) got the snacks ready (all sorts of sembei and Pocky sticks) while I hung up the Kuhaku clothesline ... Still just the three of them. Suzanne, one of the owners of Mac's Backs, asked politely, "Are you expecting more?" Ummm, not sure, but I think so, I replied without a heck of a lot of confidence.

Kevin Guilfoile, author of Cast of Shadows gives us an inside peek at his current book tour. It goes to show that book tours and readings aren't easy, even if you do get great write-ups:

At 6:55 p.m. the three of us return to the Book Stall to find it, well, deserted. Despite the rave review in yesterday’s New York Times, not a single person who is not my friend has shown up for the reading.

Not a single person. Thank God.

I sign stock for the unnecessarily apologetic booksellers and John, Steve, and I walk down the street to a local tavern. Except for us, the bar is empty as well.

He also makes good note of just how unexceptional the idea of being an author is to bookstore people:

If you have a personality disorder and want to know what it’s like to be a novelist on tour, just walk into a random bookstore, claim you are the author of such-and-such semi-obscure book and when they bring you the stack, start signing your name. People who work in bookstores meet so many writers they won’t be the slightest bit impressed by you, but if you are an extremely bored crazy person and want to pretend that you are an author it’s possible you could get some satisfaction from the exercise.

Bruce is embarking on a mini-Kuhaku tour at this very moment. Check our news page for more info.

I'm here in Cleveland having a ball. Today, Jim Goldurs of WCPN 90.3 FM, Cleveland's NPR affiliate, interviewed me for about half an hour. What a delight to talk to someone who has obviously taken the time to read the book and think about what we're up to. I was very impressed. When it airs — sometime in the next few weeks — we'll be sure to link you to the WCPN stream.

Tomorrow we'll be at Mac's Backs on Coventry Road in Cleveland Hts. Stores along the Coventry strip are posting our flyer in their window. There's a sense of solidarity here that I really like. Whether there are three people or 30 at the reading tomorrow, I've been impressed with how certain outlets in Cleveland are fighting the cultural good fight despite the odds.

CMP editor Bruce Rutledge says, "Cleveland Rocks!" He talks of Devo, Chrissie Hynde, Eric Carmen and other people this bilingual robot has never heard of. The Dazz Band means nothing to Cletus. Let It Whip. Whip It. Whip It Good. It's all very confusing.

I asked CMP editor Bruce Rutledge why he is beginning the North American tour of Kuhaku in Cleveland, and he responded, "Because I grew up there, you idiot!" and threw a beer bottle at me. Never approach CMP editor Bruce Rutledge when he's drunk and after the Indians have lost.

Later, CMP editor Bruce Rutledge apologized and explained that doing a reading in Cleveland meant that he would at least have one person to read to since his mother and father still live there and they've promised that the loser of a coin flip will show up ("But we're not buying any more books, dammit," CMP editor Bruce Rutledge quoted his mother as saying. This was also after an Indians loss.)

So, please join CMP editor Bruce Rutledge next Friday night, April 15, at Mac's Backs on Coventry Road, Cleveland Hts., Ohio, for the first stop on the Kuhaku North America tour. At 7 p.m. In the basement. Be there, as Americans of the older generation like to say, or be square.

Thank you very much for your time.

Open this week's Village Voice here in New York and you are inundated with literary readings high and low — up at the lordly 92nd Street Y, across the river in Williamsburg and Cobble Hill, down in the bowels of the Bowery — happening every bloody night. But literary readings don't happen in Tokyo. To stage one for Kuhaku in that town was a bit of a lark.

The late Harold Brodkey bemoaned the fate of the writer — whose achievements are noted, if ever, in solitude, and are more often greeted by silence. He was speaking to a group of students and professors in the Miller Theater at Columbia University.

He described a basketball game at the McBurney YMCA on 23rd Street. Brodkey had been jogging around the elevated track while the game took place below. In the final minutes, some kid sank a jump shot — and the fans burst into applause, whoops and hollers of joy.

Brodkey thought: No matter how I perform, how well I write, how much I achieve … I'll never hear the likes of that.

Literary readings are performances, of course, one of the few forums in which writers and readers can meet, face to face. The nice and nasty classic quotation conflating writers and children is attributed to Du Marier: "Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard." As appealing as that truism might be to introverts like me, it has become a romantic anachronism in our hyper-mediated age.

More timely is DeLillo's fictional novelist, Bill Gray, who says of his readers in Mao II: "They've got the writer. Who needs the book?"

The Kuhaku reading in Tokyo was notable in part because Tokyo is a great modern city virtually devoid of accessible, extemporaneous culture, literary or otherwise.

I realize that's a provocative statement, and that some friends and enemies alike spanning time zones would respectfully disagree with me. But when I write about culture here, I am referring to the daily, stripped-down activities of artists and thinkers outside of the civic duties of the metropolis — away from the dailiness that drives the industries of a major city.

In Tokyo, such artful activities are almost always ethnically, culturally and/or historically rooted (e.g., the octogenarian shoe-shiners Craig Mod encounters earlier in this blog). If not, they are the doings of celebrated hipster heroes-cum-entrepreneurs, like the whip-smart NIGO, proprietor of A Bathing Ape paraphernalia, celebrated for his celebrations of empty iconography. But between the two — and aside from the stiffly desultory gatherings of copycat "break dancers" huddled in Tokyo's sterile urban plazas at night — there's very little extemporaneous activity on the streets, or in the bars or clubs.

Cultural happenings in Tokyo are almost always under glass ("look, but don't touch"), major events that are safely celebrated and easily overpriced, like $100 jazz concerts at the Tokyo Blue Note, or products from uber-hipster marketers angling for acceptance in New York, London, Paris or LA. The irony isn't lost on anyone paying attention. To make it in Tokyo, you have to make something profitable. Then, you have to try to make it anywhere else.

In Tokyo, culture will cost you a lot. And that limits the audience, reduces the risk, and finally confines the range of possibilities.

For example: Late last year, I visited the 55 Bar in the West Village here in New York. A favorite jazz guitarist who'd formerly played alongside Miles Davis was performing two sets. The cover price was $15, with a beer. A lot of kids 10 years my junior were in that room, seduced as much by the music as by the cover charge. The band was loose, improvisatory, vividly coming alive with each song. One musician would smile at another after a particularly successful solo, riff or fill, and one sensed the peculiar pleasure that comes from immediacy, from gifted human beings making art up on the spot, rising in the room. The kids were transfixed.

I talked with the guitarist at the bar after his sets. I told him I'd be back in Tokyo a week later, and that I'd heard he'd be playing the Tokyo Blue Note.

"Yeah, man, I'll be there," he said. "But not with this band. They've got me on the bill with some superstars, and they're charging tons of money." He smiled. "Typical. I honestly don't even want to go, but the money's too good. Just catch me when I’m back here next year."

I gave two public readings at the end of last year, both for books to which I was a contributing writer.

My first reading ever was required of me in college. I wrote a collection of stories and had to publicly read two of them in order to gain the allotted credits. Five days before I graduated, I stood before a few hundred in a large seminar room with stadium seating. Faces loomed in the dark above: my professors, some friends, and exactly two lovers. I drank three sips of straight gin in the adjacent alcove before my fellow writers patted my back and urged me on.

I stood at the podium in a halo of light. My voice quavered and wobbled, and more than once I thought I might burst into a Tourettes-like spiel — helplessly aimed at my discordant lovers.

Since then, I have given a handful of readings and have always regretted doing so.

But at the end of last year, I was invited to read twice in two of my favorite cities in the world: Tokyo and New York. Some 7,000 miles apart, the two megalopolises are icons of my heritage. My mother is Japanese, raised partly in Tokyo and partly in northern Japan, a woman whose tastes remain urbane. My father is a mixture of Scottish and German but deeply American in longing and faith, who introduced me to the wonders of Manhattan through his love of jazz. In some respects, I am today less a product of their countries than of their cities.

The two readings occurred two weeks apart. I had hardly changed between the two, aside from having a bit more hair and a bit less energy from the flight. But the audiences at both, and the atmospheres surrounding each, struck me as emblematic of two cities that converse daily — but have very little in common.