Kalafina

I have an admittedly weird history of getting really into Japanese pop groups fronted by multiple female vocalists. Oddly specific tastes, I guess. Kalafina is my latest... er.. I don't want to say "obsession", but I can't think of another word.

If you're one of my semi-regular, mostly English-speaking readers, you're probably thinking, "Who the hell are these people?" An understandable question! Apparently they formed in 2007 (as usual I'm a little late) as a vehicle for composer Yuki Kajiura to sing anime soundtracks. I can hear the groans, but wait! Don't leave yet! The term "anime soundtracks" is not as derisive in Japan as it would be considered here - there is a lot of good, original music from famous musicians on anime soundtracks in Japan. The biggest selling pop singer in Japanese history, Utada Hikaru, has composed and sung songs on anime soundtracks. So this is nothing to worry about.

Kalafina can best be described as a neo-classical gothic pop trio. And they're hugely popular! Can you imagine? Think of "neo-classical gothic pop" as a thing in the United States. Can't, can you? Because such a thing couldn't exist here, in the land of auto-tune and cheesy electro beats and sequins and meat dresses. But Japan will mix and match any musical genres in the name of making something new.

And these girls can sing. Take a listen:



I love the polite applause at the end of that clip. Jesus, that's a tough crowd!

That's one of their older songs, from when they were a foursome (one girl left to go to college), but it sounds awesome with just the three of them.

The amazing thing to me, as an American, is that I'm so used to hearing pop "singers" who clearly aren't really even singing; they're auto-tuned to hell and back, they're lip-syncing or using backing tracks, they have no talent or ability at all. Either that, or we have American Idol-style over-singers who add unnecessary flourishes to every single note without even being able to stay on key. And here are these Japanese girls, and they're really doing it, all this amazing stuff that American pop singers wouldn't even dare try (including holding a goddamn note), and they sound incredible. They're even more impressive live than on their albums, because there are no tricks here. This is all them. Even if you don't care for the music, and even if you don't speak the language, you have to appreciate talent like this.

Here's Sprinter, one of their poppier songs, but it's one of my favorites (another old one... I do like the new ones too, but I can't pick 'em all to show):



And here they are full-on pop - but their true nature still comes out at about the 4:10 mark (too bad about the sync in this video, but I couldn't find a better version):



A few months ago I hadn't heard of them and neither had any of the people I know that follow Japanese culture. But all of a sudden, they're everywhere. Just yesterday, I happened to turn on one of Tokyo's biggest radio stations Bay FM (using the great Android app Tunein Radio), and by total chance Kalafina had basically taken it over as I was listening. They have a seemingly regular feature called "Kalafina Cafe". I personally first heard of them through one of my store's clothing brands, who did a collaboration with them. In the videos above, Hikaru (the girl on the audience's left) is wearing an Atelier-Pierrot skirt - my store sells those.

Hurry up and check them out before Japan decides gothic neo-classical pop is passe and moves on to the next equally strange and possibly even more interesting style mashup.

I bought a goddamn Geiger counter

I feel like I've fallen into some alternate reality Cold War worst case scenario, or been inserted into the plot of Fallout 4.  I bought a Geiger counter on Ebay today.

This is the DRSB-88, a "modern" Russian-made handheld Geiger counter.  It doesn't look much like the old civil defense Geiger counters that you may be familiar with from old movies (and that every fallout shelter and school in the United States used to be stocked with), but it works pretty much the same way.  It counts radiation particles per minute, and it clicks and lights up whenever it detects one (so yes, it makes the familiar Geiger counter sound - here's a video demonstration, and no, that is not me).  It doesn't have a visual meter, but I couldn't afford one that does right now. This is probably the cheapest true Geiger counter you can buy at the moment.

These things used to sell for like $15, even a few weeks ago.  I paid $125 for this one, and it's used.  This is about the going rate right now.  A month ago, these things were curiosities, leftovers from the Cold War that nobody knew what to do with.  Now, there is not enough supply to keep up with demand.

I didn't buy it because I'm worried about fallout raining down upon me in New York City and giving me cancer.  I am not a nut.  I am not one of those survivalists with a huge stash of guns and decade-old canned chili and green beans in my basement who believes the government LIES.  I know there's no dangerous radiation anywhere in the United States.  I bought it for two reasons:

1) To prove to the concerned customers of my store that our clothes from Japan are safe (a single video posted to our web site should take care of that)

2) To reassure myself on our trip to Japan in a couple months - yes, we're going!  I really hope the TSA doesn't confiscate my Geiger counter for some dumb reason.  I'm trying to protect myself and my wife from radiation, so I must be a terrorist!

That I even feel this is necessary, though, tells me there is something very wrong in the world.  I am old enough to remember Three Mile Island and of course Chernobyl, and now we have Fukushima Dai-ichi. You know, when a person can be 38 years old and have lived through three major nuclear accidents, at least one of which affects me personally from thousands of miles away, it makes you think it's about time for us collectively to re-evaluate some things.  I generally don't really have strong feelings about nuclear power one way or the other, but you know what they say... fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.  What do they say about getting fooled a third time?  It's pretty clear that despite our best efforts, we are going to have occasional nuclear accidents.  Is it really worth it?  How much of the world do we need to make uninhabitable?

A roundup of resources for following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster

If you've seen my last few posts, you know I'm following this story pretty closely. I'm basically completely obsessed with it.  My wife's family lives one prefecture over from Fukushima, and we have a business that relies almost exclusively on products shipped from Tokyo. So I've got good reasons for keeping my eyes glued to this nuclear plant.

Over the past day or so, I've gotten a real feeling that the technicians working to try to prevent disaster are starting to turn a corner. You would never know this by reading the American press, which continues to call it a "widening disaster" and an "unfolding catastrophe" and says that technicians are growing "increasingly desperate". But looking at a variety of sources, many of which are a lot more knowledgeable on nuclear matters than the American press, I've gotten a different picture over the past 24 hours. No, they're definitely not out of the woods, and things could still go very wrong. But I just get the sense that Japan is starting to figure this thing out.

I've decided to post a roundup of some of the sites I've been checking out that have given me that impression - you won't find most of these linked from the mainstream US press (ok, maybe one or two), but they've really given me a lot of info:

Reuters live blog - this is where I've gotten a lot of my other links. And they post every little bit of info, without too much commentary. The other users often make informative comments with good links too.

Fukushima Daiichi webcam - not the best angle, but this public webcam has been useful in knowing whether the plant is spewing smoke or steam at any given hour. (It's updated at the top of each hour during the day.) It's been fairly quiet lately. It's safe to assume at this point that any smoke or steam you do see is radioactive.

Tokyo live Geiger counter - I posted this earlier. It's been in the normal range for two days straight now.

Chiba prefecture live Geiger counter - this one's streaming video of an actual meter someone has in front of a camera. It has also been in the normal range for 2 days, after spiking several times before that.

Target map of radiation readings by prefecture - also posted earlier, seems to be updated hourly. Prefectures around the plant are elevated but not dangerous. Fukushima itself is "under survey", which probably means it's censored (and most likely pretty radiated).

Japan Atomic Industrial Forum - they're providing timely and detailed updates on the status of the plant. Be sure to check their "Reactor Status Update" reports, which clearly lay out exactly what's going on. (I get so sick of hearing our news reports say TEPCO is going to "douse the reactors with water in a last ditch effort to prevent a meltdown" - the reactors are more or less stable at this point. It's the spent fuel pools that they're worried about now.)

TEPCO's English press site - the operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company. Their updates are not always timely, but they do sometimes post info that the mainstream sites somehow seem to miss. For example, the reports that 2 employees were missing after one of the blasts at the plant was first posted on this site.

Kyodo News English web site - normally this is behind a paywall but they've opened up their coverage of the earthquake and nuclear crisis. And like Reuters' liveblog, they post every little detail without a lot of commentary. If you just want to know something like how many fire engines are being used to pump water into the spent fuel pools or who supplied them, chances are you will find that info in a Kyodo story. (You'll also find the broader and more general topics too.)

NHK World Live stream - I watched the tsunami live as it happened on this stream, and they've been pretty good since then on the nuclear crisis too. An example of what public television should be all about! They have actually mostly returned now to a "Headline News" style format where they just re-run a collection of stories over and over, but it's still usually more informative than CNN or MSNBC, and occasionally they will break in and show a TEPCO news conference or other event live. They also often show segments from their Japanese broadcast (translated to English) where they have experts explain what's going on at the plant - sometimes these aren't any better than the equivalent "expert" segments you'd see on TV here, but the reporters at least know the difference between a reactor and a spent fuel pool.

Radiation units - kind of tangential, but this is a very straightforward explanation of the various terms used in measuring radiation and what they mean, with some real-world examples. I've found myself referring to this writeup so many times over the past few days that I just leave the tab open all the time in my browser now. I feel like I've had a crash course in nuclear technology over the past week, but I still get confused when people talk about rems vs. rads vs. sieverts vs. grays.

Looking at all of those sources, I know that the reactors themselves at the plant have been mostly stabilized, the injection of water into the spent fuel pools seems to have actually worked (though there doesn't seem to be verification of this), and electricity is going to be restored to at least part of the plant either today or tomorrow.  Hopefully that will get some of the primary cooling back online.  There is reason to hope, though we won't really know that things are fully under control for several weeks even in a best case scenario.

Raw aerial closeup video of Fukushima Daiichi

This video was taken yesterday during the helicopter dousing of the nuclear plant with seawater:


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