I had my first shamisen lesson on Tuesday and it was lots of fun! My teacher also showed me lots of Nou DVDs -- I'd really like to see it in the theatre rather than just NHK. Maybe we'll go sometime?

I might also be able to take part one day -- while women are generally excluded, foreigners are taboo. So once you've already broken one, might as well go for the rest. I saw this absolutely fantastic scene from Tsuchi-Gumo on DVD with a foreign woman and a Japanese women acting the traditional roles of men and acting/dancing a fight between a spider and man. The web effects were beautiful and it gave me such a thrill to see such a forbidden performance. I want to do that too!

That's why I'm so excited to be able to play the shamisen -- it's an instrument restricted by tradition, even to the Japanese. If you want to know more, you can check out an interview with Sensei.

I'm reminded how I used to be involved in amateur dramatics in Britain when I was younger. I wonder how I could start getting involved in that again here...? Particularly when I can't attend practice on a Sunday. There must be some kind of community theatre in Chiba but perhaps I want to do too much right now? I wonder. I might just be thinking aloud.

Anyway, I had my second lesson lined up on 6/6/6 and then my boss scheduled training on the same day! So I'm going to go a little later. Would anyone like to see a late show of The Omen remake afterwards, probably around Shinjuku...? It sounds kind of bad, but it could be a fun thing to do with friends, considering the date. Let's welcome the Apocalypse together! :P

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So, everyone is talking about the Tenimyu casting! I dunno if it's okay to link to everyone's posts and even the comm post is locked (as usual), but it's all pretty interesting...