How Windows 7 Has Shortened My Lifespan Without My Even Using It

There's been a lot of wind and rain in recent days- this trashcan was empty before I filled it with six or seven broken umbrellas I picked up off the street.

A cool delivery bike in Mita. Note the two empty cans of coffee strapped to the frame.

All of the following photos were taken today as I wandered for hours, building the appetite and mental fortification to tackle the epic Windows 7 Whopper at Burger King.
Two ladies drawing together on a bridge over the Kanda River.
This looks suspiciously like someone I know. Ivan knows who.
Akihabara in the distance, with Ocha-no-Mizu station and Chuo-line tracks to the right and the Kanda River to the left. Look carefully and you can see two Chuo-line trains crossing paths.
A boat on the Kanda River.
Close up of some cafes and restaurants built under the Chuo-line tracks, with train passing overhead.
St. Nicholas' Cathedral, about half a kilometer from Akiba. Why is there a Russian Orthodox cathedral here?? Why??
And on the flipside, Kanda Myojin, across the Kanda River from Ocha-no-Mizu Station.
On the grounds of the temple. Don't ask me what it says.
Yes... Windows 7 mania has swept Japan... and my arteries (more on that later...)
It's never too early for the Colonel to get into the Christmas spirit.


So there I was on the Kiehin-Touhoku Line platform at Shinagawa Station, near a row of trashcans, studying a wall-mounted map of the line, when I noticed something peculiar out of the corner of my eye: an arm furtively darting into the trash. Nothing suspicious about this per se (Japan has its share of homeless), except that this arm happened to connect to a man in a spiffy suit. Anytime people with money go pawing around in the trash, I pay attention.

And lo! What did he pull forth from the bin but an innocuous rectangular package, wrapped in charcoal grey opaque plastic? Retreating with the package to a dark corner under a flight of stairs, the salaryman undid the shady parcel with nervous hands. His brow glistened with cold sweat. As quickly as he could, he teased the content of the bundle from its wrapping... and it was revealed to be...

A VHS porn movie. Not drugs, not explosives, not a black-market payment in untraceable high-denomination bills. Pornography. And not even shocking or illegal pornography- maybe some light bondage, but that's all. I discerned this from a glance at the movie's cover, which the salary man dropped in the trash along with the wrapping, after slipping the naked tape into his coat pocket and hurrying, head bowed, onto a train.

Although something about this doesn't play right- why was this dark, inconspicuous package waiting for him in that particular trashcan? It implies far more than the degree of care I'd expect from a pervert and his accomplice (accomplice?!). For that matter, wouldn't you assume that this sort of pornography would be available practically anywhere on the internet, and for free if you looked hard enough?

Perhaps the cover of the tape wasn't true to its contents, or perhaps the tape was full of drugs, explosives, or laundered money. Mighty suspicious... I should have just tackled the guy and interrogated him for fun.

On a different note, I ate this earlier today, with fries and a drink, and survived. Why, why, why did I do this? Because it's a ridiculous thing to do, because I respect weird and unconventional advertising, and... because I could.
Seven (get it?) beef patties (over 2 lbs of meat), 13cm diameter, 2120 calories for the burger alone, and probably enough sodium to kill a dog, consumed for no good reason. I predict this will be the catalyst for a long-term health kick, starting whenever I get my appetite back (likely in days). I mean... ugh.

[graphic details following- you are advised to skip the following block of text]

Some impressions of the experience: a wall of meat I could barely hold together with both hands buns soon reduced to compacted paste by a never-ending torrent of grease pooling and solidifying into tallow on the napkin-littered ketchup-painted tray 5.3-inch tall burger not fitting in mouth necessity of manually dismantling parts of it prior to ingestion increasingly mechanical act of eating as the experience became less of a meal and more of an objective-oriented act of willpower.

Unfortunately, my phone died just before I reached the Burger King, so I don't have any photographs to commemorate the experience. Thankfully I was able to call my friend Ben (who's been my friend since way back and just happens to also be in Japan), just before my phone's batteries died, so he could give me approximate directions.

The overwhelming success of the campaign (not to mention the campaign itself, which has been extended for another week), is a testament to the overwhelming ridiculousness of Japan.

I just have to hope that the tightness in my chest is mostly psychosomatic.

Happy Birthday Paul

This is an advert for an English conversation teaching service. I definitely want to get a job in Japan, and the most obviously lucrative option seems to be teaching English. I could work as a private tutor, but I haven't got a clue how to teach people or stick to a curriculum. Another option would be to try to find work at one of these teaching services, because presumably I'd be taught what to do even if the pay is likely to be lower.


Here's wishing a very happy birthday for Maya's da! Happy birthday.

So I'm eating my words, every one of them, about practicing hard for the mandolin club. I attended the 1st Mandolin practice on Thursday evening, and they were sight-reading challenging new music better than I could have played it with two weeks of earnest practice. It was embarrassing to recognize just how inferior my skills were. I spent most of the meeting pretending to play- clicking my pick on the string to the rhythm and moving my left hand roughly in concert with the other players. I just couldn't keep up.

At any rate, I won't be able to drop my Monday classes after all (the period during which schedule changes are possible has come and gone), and there are other clubs I want to check out, so I don't think I could really afford the time to practice. I would have been inclined to try switching to the 2nd mandolins, but for the fact that 1) It's still roughly a ten-hour commitment, and more importantly 2) I've misplaced my mandolin.

Misplaced? More like I lost it at some point in the middle of Ikebukuro after drinking too much too quickly with Maya and her friends on Thursday, directly after the practice. The irony is, a major factor leading me to seek drink and companionship was a desire to get over my dismal mandolin-related situation, which is now for obvious reasons very much worse.

Aggh! Maya was kind enough to go back and look for it, because she lives near Ikebukuro, but no luck so far. I'll head back on my own later this week and see if it's turned up at a police box. I probably just left it on the sidewalk when I went dashing after an old man and his furnace-cart full of baked yams that happened to be passing by. If you ask me, it was nearly worth it- those yams were mighty tasty.

Anyway, assuming the worst, it's not a crushing loss. By any measure it's a poor-quality mandolin and I'd have wanted to get a better one later anyway. But it's my mandolin and miss it.

On a more positive note, I had my first experience with real restaurant-style okonomiyaki last night! I can't say it was worlds better than some of the home-cooked stuff I've had, but it was undeniably delicious. I can't think of a better meal to have had on a rainy, cold night- and we got to sit at the counter beside a nice, warm cook-top. They even threw in an appetizer of takoyaki, and a desert of ice-cream. And I learned some technique by observing the chefs at work...

Alright, apologies for the very rushed post, but I must put forth a tremendous burst of academic effort now so that I can slack off in good conscience later : )

The Year of Pretending to Have No Money in Tokyo

A poster promoting a month-long campaign to help elderly job seekers find employment, on my morning train today.
This tank was outside a home in Yokohama. If this were America, I'd be worried about some punk smashing the glass. Each of these beautiful creatures is at least the size of my fist.
This is a shot from an earlier excursion to Kappa Sushi with my friends (from left) Henrik, Michael, and Mo.

At Shin-Kawasaki station- as usual, a whole multitude of bikes parked directly in front of a series of signs with cryptic messages including "Warning: No Parking Of Bicycles Etc In This Area" "Leaving Your Bicycles Here Causes Annoyance and Danger For Others," "Bicycles Left Here Will Be Removed."

So, for the past four days I've been wondering whether my good friend Ivan is alive. For those of you who don't know Ivan, he was my roommate in freshman year at university, and continues to be a stalwart friend of mine.
Recently, in a fit of boredom, I jokingly invited him to hop a ride on a freighter (he lives in Maryland) and come visit me in Tokyo. I received the following reply (here lightly edited):

"hahaha you are hilarious jackie boy. im down to try. I'm gonna try and stowaway on a freight liner tonight, one leaves baltimore at 12:47am, and I think that will give me time to make it after partying. I'm either dead, or I made it and im on my way if you don't hear from me by tomorrow."

Now, I can't say anything about this letter surprised me particularly, knowing Ivan. But knowing Ivan, I couldn't entirely disregard the possibility that he would actually find a way to do it. I sent a reply, and proceeded to wait. One day, two days, three days, with no response. No sign of activity on his Facebook page. Was he on the open sea? Was he dead? I couldn't be sure. If he had somehow managed to stowaway in a shipping container, did he do so in an altered state of mind, forgetting to bring provisions? I began to wonder where he'd sleep in Japan, if I'd have to find a way to smuggle him up to my room so he could have a place to crash at night- and how the hell in all this would he avoid getting arrested?

Anyway, these questions had been drifting around in my mind for the last several days. It's not that I thought there was a significant chance he'd be dumb enough to try boarding a shipping liner, but as a purely hypothetical scenario I have to admit it was exciting. I like to think that there are people out there who have the ability to cross (national, practical, legal) boundaries with such joyous, flippant immunity.

It turns out he neither died nor boarded that freight liner, but the possibility was there, so I'm not even all that pissed that he made me worry for nothing.

These photos have been on and off my mind for a while, and I think they suit the feeling of the preceding paragraphs: http://v1kram.posterous.com/liu-bolinthe-invisible-man
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On to a more concrete breakdown of recent news:

I attended my first meeting of the mandolin club. Good god! Nothing I've done so far with the instrument has really prepared me to play in the orchestra with these people.

First, the mandolins used by the club are round-back mandolins, not the flat-back kind I'm used to. The different shape of the instrument means that the strings are lower and farther from my chest than I'm used to, so I constantly found my right hand drifting towards disaster.

Not that I really could even play along with the orchestra. All of the songs in my personal books are relatively simple pieces designed for solo performance, written in both standard notation and tablature. So, of course, I found myself reading from the tablature most of the time, and even then the music never required me to leave first position for more than a note or two.

Enter "Dance of the Hours" by Ponchielli, with complex harmonies and runs of notes in the hazy upper stratosphere of treble clef, with jumps often passing the fifteenth fret on the highest (e) string, dramatic key changes, and a very swift tempo.

Naively, before practice started, I told the club director I wanted to try playing with the first mandolins (thus carrying the melody). I wanted to get away from the "supporting" role I had always played as a violist in high school. Of course, the first part is higher, faster, and more challenging than the second part, and had I understood the general difficulty level at all I wouldn't have made the decision I made.

Well now I'm stuck with it, so I'll be damned if I can't practice my way out. Unfortunately, that leaves me with about a week to achieve the same level of proficiency with a mandolin that it took me two years to get with a viola. I'll let you know how this madness plays out.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also, had a great evening with Maya last night! My love made the epic hour-long train journey to my little corner of Kawasaki, where we met up, boarded the Tsuru #4 bus for Yokohama, and journeyed to Big Rock climbing gym in Shishigaya, Tsurumi Ward for a lesson in lead climbing!

Naturally, the instructor could only speak Japanese (aside from some words such as "NICE!" and climbing terminology borrowed from English), but we were able to understand pretty much everything and even learned some new words. I give credit for this to our teacher (I'm pretty sure his name is Ogawa) for patiently and clearly explaining everything. It also helped that we had him to ourselves, since it seems no one else signed up for the time slot we were in. And now we know how to climb lead, at last!

I learned something exciting from Ogawa: apparently Dai Koyamada (who became one of my climbing idols after I watched him climb Action Directe online) trains pretty regularly at the local bouldering gym! Perhaps if I climb there more regularly, I'll be able to meet him :O

After climbing came a return bus ride and a long walk from my dorm to a giant kaiten-zushi place called Kappa Sushi. I think Maya wanted sushi so badly at this point that she would have destroyed anything in her path to get it.
The restaurant is really neat- in addition to the standard snaking conveyor belt with its eternal parade of pre-made sushi creations (most plates for only 105 yen!), you can make special orders for things you want made fresh. Orders are placed on a touch-screen panel, and when they're ready they come zooming out to you straight from the kitchen on a platter shaped like a bullet train.

Now, time to practice mandolin until I have bloody fingertips! :D

Also

Japanese peanut butter is not peanut butter, it's peanut-flavored caramel. Watch out!

Tokyo Tower! Beer and Bananas!

Evening of the 13th, on the return from Tokyo Bay, at the confluence of the Yagami and Tsurumi Rivers. You can actually make out the silhouette of Mt. Fuji in the dead center of the frame.
A bunch of kids catching bugs near the river.
"The Tsurumi River Basin is Shaped Like a Tapir" "Tsurumi River: Exercise with Lots of Cherry Trees and Greenery" "The Alliance of Area Residents' Associations is Aiding in the Management of These Trees."
Momma cat with nursing kitten, near Tokyo Bay.
I know I'm getting close to the bay because I'm seeing these moored to the riverside.
The confluence of the Yagami and Tsurumi Rivers (again), early afternoon.
When the ticket clerk saw me taking a picture of this sign and joking about it, he asked me what was wrong with it. He then had me write the correct English on a piece of paper- I ended up writing "Observatory Tickets are Sold Outside." It was nice that he cared; I'll have to check later in the year to see if they've changed the sign.
Maya in her cute boots, with Tokyo Tower in the background. This was just before the tower darkened and the colored lights came on.
Empty beer cans and discarded banana peels around the karaoke laptop at the Beer and Bananas Party.
This glorious King of Banana is now mine. Or rather, it became mine, then I gave it to Maya : )
The heart of the party- the banana table.

Life, as ever, is crazy. I skipped class today in order to sleep. I haven't really had a sleep "pattern" for a couple of weeks now and last night I just couldn't sleep. I just hopped from Wikipedia article to Wikipedia article all night. I don't plan to make a habit of skipping class, but it was nice to sleep.

So, what did I do with my day? I ran. I ran like Forrest Gump, until I ran out of road. Unlike Forrest Gump, I only had eight or nine kilometers of towpath to run on before I hit Tokyo Bay, but that was enough for me. The view at the end of the towpath isn't exactly remarkable (a big multi-level suspension bridge blocks the horizon), so I had to check with someone whether or not I had even technically made it to the bay! I know Paul will be unimpressed, but it's a rare day when I can run 17 km without my right knee giving out >: /

The other night (Sunday) was Yutaro's 22nd birthday, and to celebrate, we trekked out to Setagaya, on the outskirts of Shibuya, for a beer and banana party. Hmm.
It was here I attained the greatest glory of my young life, by wolfing down four bananas faster than anyone else could.
Much faster.
And my prize was the symbol of the party, a large banana-shaped pillow emblazoned with the words "King of Banana" in red on its side.

In all, I think I ate seven bananas at the party, which was unwise considering I was to meet Maya in Setagaya in less than an hour for dinner. But I was coerced into participating in the contest by an alcoholic Norwegian (my friend, whose name eludes me). Gastronomic overindulgence aside, I was actually able to enjoy a light dinner of soba with Maya soon afterwards, so all is well.

Monday night Maya and I went out (again : P), this time to Mita, where my campus is. We had dinner at Saizeriya, which is a wildly popular chain of family-style Italian restaurants. Prices are low, service is swift, and the food is delicious- if not artistic.

After dinner, I meant to show Maya the Mita campus of Keio University, but unfortunately it was shut (possibly for "Sports Day," in commemoration of the 1964 Olympics). So we decided to walk to Tokyo Tower, which is only about half an hour away and clearly visible from the east side of campus. As we were walking toward it, the tower put on one of the light-shows it's famous for, shimmering in a rainbow of electric light.
Halfway there I nearly became hysterical after noticing a small Triumph dealership inconspicuously tucked into a row of buildings across the street. Of course I immediately went to check it out, and I had a great time straddling a beautiful new Bonneville T100 and making vrooming noises with the back of my throat. Maya gets props for so patiently tolerating my obsession(s)!

Then on to the tower...
There's a small mall at the base of the tower, so once we arrived we spent a few minutes wandering around, in and out of souvenir shops. Tickets for elevators to the observation deck run 820 yen. This conflicts with my new monetary philosophy of monkish frugality, but in the end we couldn't resist. Actually, I think Maya payed for the observation deck tickets. But I bought dinner!!! : ) And what can I say- Tokyo at night from 150 meters up is pretty beautiful. And there was mellow atmospheric music drifting about the dimly lit spherical deck, so it felt like being lulled in Tokyo's arms. Very nice.

After Tokyo Tower, we walked until we found a Starbucks annexed to a large book shop, where we lodged ourselves for an hour or so in comfy armchairs with coffee and scones and a couple of English-language books about baroque painters that we had found on a shelf.
This fulfilled a need for soothing coffee-shop surroundings that I had been feeling acutely since the last evening, when I watched four episodes of "Friends" back to back with my friend Daniel "The Polish Typhoon" Kaluza.

All in all, Monday's was probably the single mellowest evening I've had yet in Japan!

And comment on my blog or I'll assume you've all died : (

Typhoon 18

So, this may be unbelievable to some, but last night I had my very first experience with the Japanese karaoke industry! I have something approaching a complete inability to improvise musically, especially vocally, especially in front of people. And what you'll get in a Japanese karaoke catalog is a huge number of completely unfamiliar songs. Hence, I spent the first hour desperately combing the catalog for songs that I knew- which I did manage to find: a few opening and closing themes from anime, and some of the lesser-known songs of Simon and Garfunkel.

I think most people have an idea of what a karaoke hall is like; it's a building (in this case a high-rise) with a reception desk where you fork over money for however long you want to spend in a particular sound-proofed room with a long table, padded benches, and a(n old analog) TV, and wow your friends by emitting sounds into a microphone.

I have to confess that my unfamiliarity with Japanese music in general probably dampened the experience slightly for me, but after latching onto the few familiar songs I found, the experience became vastly less alienating. Or, should I say, more fun? I dare say I had... fun... for the last hour. Yes.... "Fun."

Well, with karaoke behind us and drinking ahead, we set out into the cool, misty pre-typhoon gusts, lead by Jun-Ho. I'm guessing on the spelling of his name, but he's a Korean who has been living in Japan for years and years and so speaks fluent Japanese. I'm not sure about why he was in a group of Rikkyo students (except for me and Jun-Ho, everyone -6 people- was from Rikkyo), but who cares.

Jun-Ho led us to a ridiculously cheap and delicious tavern-type restaurant on the third floor of a random building in Ikebukuro, where drink (pints of beer and cocktails) and roasted meat were liberally dispensed and liberally consumed. Time flies when carousing, so before I knew it it was time to hurry for the trains. Maya and I endured some teasing for being "such a cute couple" from the lonelier members of our group >_>;

Anyway, the reason I'm writing this now instead of attending class is because there is no class today on account of typhoon 18, which roared through southern and central Japan earlier today, inverting umbrellas and breaking tree branches. 18 wasn't such a very strong typhoon as it was huge, with a diameter of almost 700 kilometers. Actually, I should say it did some significant damage in southern Japan, but it lost a great deal of strength before reaching Tokyo.

It was already bringing surprisingly violent squalls of chilling rain to the Tokyo Metropolitan area last night, and as a result my first train was delayed by several minutes. That combined with the fact that I was forced to abandon the train at one point to seek out a bathroom (curse you, alcohol!), led me to miss the last train out of my transfer station, Shinagawa. The last train leaves at midnight, and I arrived at Shinagawa at 12:04.

But I was not alone! In fact, I was one of hundreds of lost-looking people who were trapped at Shinagawa as an indirect result of the approaching typhoon. Then I was one of hundreds of miffed-looking people boarding a fleet of waiting taxis. And then I was in a taxi, chatting it up with the cabbie.

For some reason, alcohol either loosens my Japanese tongue fantastically or binds it to the roof of my mouth. Last night, despite all the inconveniences, I was in a good mood, so I had a pretty fluent conversation. It seems like every Japanese guy set on travel to America wants to go to New York City. I can't imagine why. I've been doing my best to steer them to San Fransisco.

After what seemed like (and judging from the fare, was) a very long trip, he pulled the car up to my dorm. We thanked each-other, I forked over the nearly 6,000 yen he asked for, and sprinted through the pelting rain into the shelter of Plum(e) IS... I slept like a rock through the typhoon, through the morning, and through much of the sunny and clement afternoon.

I'm tempted to kick myself for spending so much money on cab fare, but I don't think I had a viable alternative. If there hadn't been a severe typhoon bearing down on me, I probably would have found a park to sleep in. I'll try to play it safer regarding time from now on. And I'll live like a peasant until I've regained that 6,000.

Alright, that's all for now! The crows outside are gathering bits of broken vegetation for their nests... and I must get to work as well... On some translations for fansubs!

Ah, I finally found a video of that interview with Nippon Television, broadcast to my eternal shame on the morning of October 3.
Maya and I show up around the 6:09 mark. Kit should be happy to note that I got the singing garbage trucks on television. Just know that when people start laughing, it's because I've made a joke, and not necessarily because I'm a fool. Anyway, enjoy >_>

And comments are always welcome, always- just don't say anything about my niggardly command of Japanese. And yes, I said niggardly. Niggardly niggardly niggardly! I think anyone who takes offense at the use of the word "niggardly" ought to be smacked in the head with a dictionary.

Sunday!

The crowd at Harajuku. By the way, if you click on the pictures, I've upped the quality so you can see more!
Be careful not to smork or tout in Harajuku. Either would be considered a grave breach of the law.
This is why I'm going out with her. Sexy is sexy.
Somehow, this just struck me as funny. It reads "WE WILL NOT OVERLOOK CRIME (The eyes of individuals are the eyes of the area)." Essentially, it's just a badass Japanese "neighborhood watch" sign, except it's got blood-rimmed kabuki eyes ftw.
The immaculately maintained kyuudo range at Meiji Shrine
A fine example of Harajuku high fashion.

Ah. I'll try to keep this post a little bit more focused and a little bit less rambley than some of my previous ones. I think I'll leave out the details of my classes, though I have finalized my schedule. So! Sunday was awesome. Why, you breathlessly inquire?

Alas, the suspense was for nothing, as the answers are unremarkable, if pleasant :(

I met Maya at Harajuku station in the early afternoon, and we walked to Meiji shrine through an unusually dense crowd of mid-afternoon loafers and tourists. There were some colorful street performances to draw the attention of the even-more-colorfully dressed fashionistas (think transsexual goth pop-rock mixed with the clothing you'd find on the porcelain dolls of hundreds of years ago). Actually, Harajuku has gained quite a reputation for the extreme fashions you can find there.



The shrine itself sprawls within roughly 175 acres of evergreen woodland, and is home to the world's largest wooden torii gate. "Torii" is written 鳥居 in Japanese. The literal meaning of the characters is "bird residence." I think that puts "torii" right up there with the cutest Japanese words ever.

Anyway, it was just nice to stroll under the strong spreading branches of trees for a change, and the woodwork of the various gates and courts was worth admiring. But here's the thing! There's this beautiful full-size Kyuudo range in the middle of the shrine, and we happened to pass by just as the tests for gaining 6th dan (the level six levels above the equivalent of "black belt") were being held!

For the few of you who know me and thus are reading this blog, and yet don't know what kyuudo is, it's a very ritualized form of Japanese archery. The emphasis lies in beauty and precision of form, rather than accuracy of aim.

The test (the part we watched anyway) unfolded with elegant ceremony, to match the immaculate range itself. Ah! Such stiff dignity! It made me miss the loose camaraderie of my archery club at the University of Maryland. Damn straight. My club.

Afterward, we pressed through a terribly thick crowd to obtain crepes, then devoured them relish-ingly near a temple.

And then...

I set off alone for C.C. Lemon Hall in Shibuya, which is a very professional orchestral performance space with tiered seating and two floors that just happens to be sponsored by the extraordinary Japanese soft drink C.C. Lemon (50 lemon's worth of vitamin C in a 350ml can. Yes, 50 lemon's worth. Why did they need to put such a seemingly dangerous amount of vitamin C in a single can of soda? Ah, the mysteries of Japan only increase). In my pocket, I had an invitation from the Keio Mandolin Club's Morikawa- who answers the emails for the club but happens to play the acoustic bass- to attend the end-of-semester performance of that club.

So, I imagine you're imagining the same thing I imagined. Something like... maybe twenty of the best performers of the mandolin club, sitting in a semicircle, plinking merrily away at their instruments. Well, the fact that Morikawa plays contrabass, in hindsight, ought to have clued me in.
I was floored, drop-jawed speechless at what I saw and heard. The "mandolin club," hah! Imagine a full string orchestra in concert dress, their numbers swelled with wind players and tympani. Now replace all of the violins with mandolins, the violas with octave mandolins, and the cellos with nylon string guitars (and add six more guitars to be safe). It was a full-blown mandolin orchestra! And they were phenomenally good! I can't tell you what a gratifying musical experience it was.
There's a certain acoustic property that mandolins achieve in chorus, influenced by the same "smoothing out" phenomenon that violins achieve when played in unison, that I've never heard before.
So, looking over the pamphlet during the second-to-last intermission (it was a nearly four hour concert), I found myself wondering at a seemingly superfluous intermission right near the end of the performance. The concert resumed, finished the set (from Georges Bizet's L'Arlésienne), and then broke up once more to leave the stage.

Ten minutes later, I hear giggling and astonishment from my left, then from my right, and then I look up from the program. At this point, it would be good to mention that the last item of the concert was a "Disney Medley."
Fully four out of five of the performers came back on stage in some ridiculous Disney-themed costume, or at least wearing some strange Disney-themed hat or carrying a doll version of some Disney character. Some of them were even barefoot, dressed up as Winnie the Pooh or Stitch. There were people dressed as Belle from Beauty and the Beast, or some creature from Monsters, Inc. The first chair mandolin had changed into a Minnie Mouse dress and mouse-ears, and the conductor strolled up to the stage with huge Mickey Mouse gloves over his hands.
After making a comedic try at turning the manuscript with one oversized paw, the conductor turned, bowed in apology to the audience, and removed the left glove in order to open the manuscript.
At one point, every single light in the hall was extinguished, for a period of perhaps ten seconds. The music had stopped. Then a blue light appeared, waving in a rhythmic semi-circle. It was the conductor, and the orchestra started playing in the dark! After that, the red lights alone were briefly brought up, so the audience was greeted with the bizarre spectacle of a blood-red menagerie of Disney characters, with the blue pulse of the conductor's light. Then normal lighting was restored, and the concert wound down, very slowly, with about four finales, just like "The Lord of the Rings."
One of the songs touched on in the medley was, fittingly enough, "It's a Small World After All."