With Wendy and Cam out of town, I’ve been doing a lot of reading. I churned through William Gibson‘s Idoru. A passage describing Tokyo was probably the single best summary of the city I’ve ever heard – and it brought back a flood of memories from my 2010 trip:

Maybe what she was feeling now was what her civics program at her last school had called culture shock. She felt like everything, every little detail of Tokyo, was just different enough to create a kind of pressure, something that built up against her eyes, as though they’d grown tired of having to notice all the differences: a little sidewalk tree that was dressed up in a sort of woven basketwork jacket, the neon-avocado colour of a pay phone, a serious-looking girl with round glasses and a tray sweatshirt that said ‘Free Vagina.” She’d been keeping her eyes extra-wide to take all these things in, like they’d be processed eventually, but now her eyes were tired and the differences were starting to back up. At the same time, she felt that if she squinted, maybe, just the right way, she could make all this turn back into Seattle, some downtown apart she’d walked through with her mother. Homesick. The strap of her bag digging into her shoulder each time her left foot came down.

Masahiko turned a corner. There didn’t seem to be alleys in Tokyo, not in the sense that there were smaller streets behind the big streets, the places where they put out the garbage, and there weren’t any stores. There were smaller streets, and smaller ones behind those, but you couldn’t guess what you’d find there: a shoe-repair place, an expensive-looking hair salon, a chocolate-maker, a magazine stand where she noticed a copy of that same creepy comic with the woman all wrapped up like that.

There’s so much in this description and so much of it reminded me of exactly what I saw. For instance, a totally unironic love hotel called the Two Way:

But what I really love is how Gibson hints at Tokyo’s fractal nature. It’s like an endless warren of buildings and streets where each is infinitely complex; you find yourself in an endless labyrinth of details.

And those alleys are where some of the most interesting parts of the cities. Lord knows how many times we walked down an alley only to find an incredible noodle shop, bar, fish market or ancient wooden house – you name it.

Just writing this post makes me want to go back and explore further!

But I’ve never been able to properly explain why. Despite being the best social satire to emerge in the last 20 years, so many people can’t get past the violence. So it was with great glee that I read an interview with Ellis in the recent Paris Review that contained this gem:

American Psycho came out of a place of severe alienation and loneliness and self-loathing. I was pursuing a life—you could call it the Gentlemen’s Quarterly way of living—that I knew was bullshit, and yet I couldn’t seem to help it. American Psycho is a book about becoming the man you feel you have to be, the man who is cool, slick, handsome, effortlessly moving through the world, modeling suits in Esquire, having babes on his arm. It’s about lifestyle being sold as life, a lifestyle that never seemed to include passion, creativity, curiosity, romance, pain. Everything meaningful wiped away in favor of surfaces, in favor of looking good, having money, having six-pack abs, dating the hottest porn star, going to the hottest clubs. On the surface, like Patrick Bateman, I had everything a young man could possibly want to be “happy” and yet I wasn’t. I thinkFight Club is about this, too—this idea that men are sold a bill of goods about what they have to be in order to feel good about themselves, or feel important. No one can really live up to these ideals, so there’s an immense amount of dissatisfaction roiling through the collective male psyche. Patrick Bateman is the extreme embodiment of that dissatisfaction. Nothing fulfills him. The more he acquires, the emptier he feels. On a certain level, I was that man, too.

Finally, an explanation that pithily captures the entire book – which is still just as relevant now as it was 20 years ago.

The entire magazine is a glorious work of socialist fiction, translated into English to export the Revolution beyond Russia’s shores. It’s full of unironic phrases the the following:

Dzhanibekov participated in five space missions, two of which are unique in the history of cosmonautica. In 1984 cosmonauts Dzanibekov and Svetlana Savitskaya tested a new all-purpose hand tool in open space.

Moreover, there’s a full article on a new tv antenna that cites the benefit that:

Today Uzbek residents can watch four programs instead of three.

We’re fortunate to live in a post-Soviet world where the threat of imminent nuclear Armageddon has largely disappeared. But I lament the loss of such great propaganda (ads for new condos simply aren’t as interesting).

Somehow, a fir tree grows in the alley, almost smack in the middle of it. How it escaped being cut down I have no idea.

Born in 1942, she spent most of her life not creating art. Then, one day she fell sick and started to practice traditional qi-qong medicine. This led her to visions that compelled her to draw. Her work was largely unnoticed until 2002 when she exhibited with the Long March Project.

Her work is all similar in style and fascinating to look at. All her works are paper drawings, frequently on scrolls, and using simple colours. Everything is a flat line drawing; there’s no attempt at shading or perspective. She hints at traditional chinese motifs and beliefs.

The scale of the work is overwhelming; some pieces tower fifteen feet over you.

You’re not supposed to take photos, but I did. Here are a few:

Except that it was closed. They’d run out of dough.

The business guy in me was furious. How could you run out of dough? That’s your damn job as a pizzeria – to sell pizzas and you need to have enough dough to meet whatever demand you get.

I was totally wrong.

I had no idea how seriously these folks took their pies. Every day they make a certain amount of dough and sling pies until they run out.

I needed to come back and check it out – and yesterday I finally made it.

Here’s what it looks like from the outside:

The space itself is incredibly narrow and long. Tables are off to one side and in the window; another wall is lined with their house-made oregano-infused and chili-infused olive oils.

At the end is the counter, with its massive pizza ovens just behind. Take a look: everything is made fresh before your eyes.

(As an aside, I felt sorry for the counter girl. Some joker walked in and stared giving her hell about Farina’s website. I mean, come on, do you really think that she’s sitting there with a laptop, just waiting to change it the moment you request something?)

Next to the counter is the list of the day’s pizzas:

I was tempted to get the finocchina (I love fennel sausage) but asked what the special was. And I’m glad I did: fresh mozzarella, salami and…pistachios. I’d never heard of pistachios on a pizza before, but now I’m hooked:

The pizza was incredible. It had an ideal thin crust: a little bit crispy but still chewy. Lots of bubbles in it.

The pistachios added a richness and texture to the pizza that I’d never had before – but hope to get again.

Highly recommended for a fun pizza dinner.

Here are a few closing shots, including the over-the-top hall on the way to the bathroom:

The name sounds like a cliche of a Chinese restaurant. All that’s missing is the phrase “golden dragon” and it could have been created by a magic eight ball.

The premises don’t look promising either. A low-slung building combining the best of concrete and stucco; scraggly weeds grow unrepentantly.

Entering into the foyer reveals that, curiously, the restaurant is on the second floor (it never actually is revealed what’s on the ground floor…). The combination of chandelier and blinds in the foyer brings back memories of bar mitzvah’s and bad conventions.

But then you’re upstairs into a bustling, massive room – and it still has too many chandeliers and, oddly, televisions – but you also get your first hints of the food.

There are dozens of massive tables, so there’s little wait, and then you’re at the table. It was lunch for us and the dim sum menu took a while to make it to our table; we whiled our time looking at the 10 person dinner tasting menu:

$498 for 10 people – serious eating here. You’re looking at lots of king crab – baked and steamed; roasted rock salt chicken in a hot pot and fried buddha’s delight amongst others. There were also several delicious-sounding dishes based where food was wrapped in tea leaves.

But, as mentioned, we were here for lunch and dim sum. We quickly ordered several dishes: fried rice rolls with shrimp, century eggs and pickled ginger.

Steamed pork buns and prawn dumplings:

Bitter melon stir-fried with olives:

And this gorgeous mushroom-filled dish:

The food was possibly the best dim sum I’ve had in the city. The shrimp was incredibly fresh and had just the right  resistance – almost rubbery but not. The bitter melon was unlike any dish I’d had before; a mix of extreme bitterness and extreme savouriness. And the deep fried balls; perfectly done – gooey on the inside and crispy on the outside; perfectly cooked.

But lots of great Canadian art has been made in the intervening years, and the Morris & Helen Belkin Art Gallery at UBC is one of the places that choose to feature it.

Since moving to Vancouver, I’ve been meaning to get out there and finally made it last weekend to see Letters: Michael Morris and Concrete Poetry. I knew nothing of Morris’ work and left impressed by what he accomplished in the 60′s and 70′s using just type and basic materials.

In the main rooms were a series of “letters”: vertical lines arranged on screens.

Several of the works were interesting explorations of type:

The works weren’t all Canadian. The  Czech Jiri Kolar’s Untitled was a 3d exploration of type:

While Emmett Williams’ 13 Variations explored what happened if you double the number of words on a page repeatedly. It’s a great illustration of exponential growth:

Nestled between Aberdeen and Landsdowne sky train stations, it’s an easy place to get to if you’re car free like us.

In fact, the road’s easy to miss; it’s small and you certainly don’t expect it to have one of the highest densities of Asian restaurants outside of, well, Asia. It’s like a portal to Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore, all rolled into one – and without the humidity (And with awkwardly close overhead flights from the nearby airport; you’ll know when a 777 takes off).

You’re greeted with signs like the following:

Almost every single place is a restaurant – although I personally found this sign a little funnier:

So where to eat? There are so many options here that it would take a year to eat through them all (I guess that’s why Richmond’s looking for a food blogger). Some ideas:

• Jade Seafood Restaurant: the best dim sum I’ve had yet in the city – and them’s fighting words as Vancouver’s got great dim sum
• Kam Do Bakery: tried the taro and bean paste with walnut buns; delicieux
• Viva City: it was a toss-up to go here or Jade. Next time, next time
• MaxNoodle House (formerly McNoodle; can’t imagine why they changed it): I’m coming back for a noodle tour and am going to hit this place up
• Cattle Cafe: 2pm and a lineup out the door
• Deer Noodle Soups: $8 noodle soup can’t go wrong
• Nan Chuu Japanese Izakaya: I’m a sucker for Izakayas and this one looked like tasty and boozy fun

There are also a tonne of karaoke bars on the street. At the end, in the cul de sac is what looks like Science World on steroids. I love the notion of “All you can sign” karaoke:

I’m going to be going back frequently; expect more updates. And follow me on Placeling to get all the above-mentioned places and my notes on them on your phone.