A couple of wondrous things happen on a stiflingly hot / stiflingly magical Japanese summer day.
I find a 12 floor stationery store called Itoya. It:
has a full fracking floor of postcards (many of which are now en route to you, paid ttalk subscribers! sorry for missing the past two months!)
Has a freaking. Room. For. PEN CARE. Called the Pen Care Room!!!!
I visit Bear Pond Espresso during a literal typhoon for the greatest cup of coffee on earth.
I know, I know. You think I’m exaggerating. But I can confirm:
Through my own well traveled taste buds
More importantly via Aaron Parks and Ben Street, whose brilliant / borderline snobby taste buds spent their taste bud lives searching for the mythical perfect cup of coffee like jazz Captain Ahabs until finding Bear Pond
I find a place I thought had vanished like a gorgeous little Japanese mirage.
Said mirage appears on my first headlining tour of Japan in 2019. Jacob Bergson, synth wizard, my ketubah signer along with Dylan (who by now I hope you feel is your best friend, by proxy) and serial collector of places has a “place” to show me.
(With Jacob a place is always “15 minutes away” which actually equates to “an hour + death march through invisible side streets and alleys” in search of “the one time I got the greatest hard boiled egg from a wizard named Yop-Polansky maybe”)
(Often times Yop-Polansky-maybe has left since Jacob was last there)
After 2019’s death march I am furious, so I insist he buy me a coffee. And that is how we find the wild Japanese mirage, a cafe that makes some kind of iconic ground chestnut dessert and serves coffee in little doll sets. The place is gloomy, delightful, and has 1960s jazz playing.
When I return to Japan with José in 2020 I try to take him, but can only find the cafe’s newer locations (it has a few, it turns out). These spaces are ultra-modern, instagram ready, and therefore my nightmare (even though they do have the chestnut dream). We snap a photo just like all the other basic-bs and enjoy the dessert anyway.
this photo does this magnificent dessert ABSOLUTELY no justice But it’s 2023 now. Somehow, without trying, I chance on the OG place (original location, it turns out! Since 1969!). This makes me wonder if it maybe doesn’t exist (a Japanese room of requirement?), but I don’t question it. I forget to drop a pin and buy myself the chestnut dream.
Paper, sugar, coffee. Perfection. I have a couple more hours left before soundcheck, all of which I have budgeted to acquire various things for my business bitch era (™).
BBE (™).
An amalgamation, a solidifying of many moments and iterations of myself, a part of the forthcoming ttalk I owe you about being a woman in this business. But first, a small explanation: Five years ago when we started Rainbow Blonde I cherished the unlikely founder/executive we’d decided to dub me as. I stayed true to myself and didn’t posture as any kind of professional other than the kind I was.
(Writer of long and unconventional emails)
(Sender of postcards to strangers/acquaintances/dear friends/etc)
(And friend to every single dog on the street)
But lately I’ve been feeling that some of the out there, some of the messy, some of the mishegas are no longer true to my now 35 year old self. That some (not all, of course) of my humor reflexes are in place to make others more comfortable around me rather than for love and laughs. And so I have been shifting myself to be more physically present, more intentional, less weighted down.
Julia Cameron, in her legendary book The Artist’s Way, says you don’t need any particular uniform or special tools to make art.
(I agree!)
But Talia Billig, in her non-legendary newsletter Taali Talk, says she does need a little bit of a particular uniform or special tool to enter business bitch era (™). And she has done well enough this year at business (bitch!) to have a bit of extra cash around. So:
I acquire (yay, capitalism!) (1) a stunning messenger bag from legendary Village Tannery while in NYC (2) a weekender bag perfect for airline carry on adventures in LA and (3) an organization system for my electronics (because I realize that a shocking amount of my mess has just been my ADHD inability to wrap a freaking cable).
I then monitor my behavior for a week. I find I am, indeed, capable of moving more intentionally. I am indeed capable of organizing my things into one space. And I also need one more thing (yay, capitalism!): An everyday leather bag.
Said bag needs to be pretty and needs to be from a small business or store I cherish.
Enter Porter Yoshida Kaban, legendary Japanese brand since 1962.
I’ve already scoped the bag and brand out, am ready to BBE (™), etc. But by the time I get there to secure phase two of my business bitch era (™) all of my fortified week-old defenses are down. I have traveled 45 minutes for a cup of coffee, traversed 12 flights of dreamy paper goods, and have nourished myself, characteristically, not with nutrients but with sugar (no regrets!). All in 98 degree (that’s 36.6 degrees celsius, for my European brethren) weather with 150,000% humidity.
I am therefore hungry, exhausted, overheated. There are two bag contenders, I want JJ’s input, I can’t get my phone to work.
(Decidedly not BBE (™))
(It occurs to me that perhaps hedging my self/business worth on material things was the wrong call)
(But also I forge on! Because when has capitalism ever let anyone down! And also BBE (™)!)
And then the bobi-est bobi ever at the Porter Yoshida Kaban store comes over, having watched me struggle. He looks at me kindly, and then translates something on his phone. I well up a little bit and ask to take a photo of his phone for ttalk people.
(Is he a prophet?)
(A Japanese angel?!?)
Maybe all of the above.
More than anything it is so very Japanese to have this kind of personal, thoughtful interaction in a fracking retail store of all places. The simplicity, the beauty, the complete utility of words.
For the rest of the trip I keep reminding myself of my guardian-BBE (™) angel’s words, until I make his translation the background of my phone.
(A couple of wondrous things happen on a stiflingly hot / stiflingly magical Japanese summer day.)
But easily the best is that I get this gentle, kind, damn near poetic reminder.
It’s okay to take it slow.
(And I plan to!)
More next week.
t
ps: because I very much am an actual business bitch (™) in real life, bags or not, I am obliged to tell you that I very obviously don’t have this trademark in any way, shape or form
pps: I love you.
Best BBE (TM) ever!!
Apropos of nothing, I’m at the Sierra store in Billings Montana and they are playing Jose James!