(no subject)
Last Saturday was pretty good; I got to go with my father to New York City (hereby known as "NYC," East Side!). Now, normally that would mean that we would see the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens or the zoo (the first of which is fine considering I was really into plants earlier in my life, the second of which I have mixed feelings about because while I try to appreciate positive aspects of zoos, zoos are also places where animals are caged so that people get to stare at them and others profit). We didn't do either, though. We also normally appease my sibling while allowing my dad to go to his favorite city, me pretending to be dismal while actually enjoying the visuals, and my mother spending a blissful day without a single one of us. (True, a double one of us might make her day more, but I doubt a triple one of us would be quite as good, despite the good intentions of threesomes.) Instead, we did everything for my own benefit, with nothing directly helping my dad. Yes, I actually enjoyed such a trip. (Editor's note: the entity known in this essay as "my father," a.k.a. "my dad," actually enjoyed this...I think it may have been that I didn't force him to eat sushi that gave him such a positive attitude.)
First, we went to a bookstore without any books. I'm not exaggerating...I'm just lying. In actuality, to make the journey that much harder, we disregarded the only physical map we had in our possession, a culmination of 20 hours of internet searches, book summaries, and soy milk stains. (Fine, so it didn't have 20 hours of soy milk stains.) Instead, as we wandered around southwesternly, we suddenly heard music from an unknown location. At this point, we questioned whether we had not, in fact, accidentally gotten into a taxi cab. Fortunately, we could see our feet. And below that was a sidewalk. This did not comfort us any, though, because a taxi cab could have been potentially between our shoes and the cement. The fact remained, though, that we weren't sitting. Thus, we must not have been in a taxi. In our non-taxi, we continued until we found the source of the music, even though the sounds emanated at a sustained volume for a very large area, like some sort of ethereal discman. My father placed some dinero by the saxophonist, and then, and only then, did we venture to whip out our map; it is well known that after giving an offering, one may begin a goal with most certain good fortune surrounding its completion. This is the reason, of course, behind toothpaste.
And so we located a bookstore which we wanted to go to and had, by our intuition and lack of map analyzing, already passed. Fortunately, it was only a fifth of a block back, tucked away between major streets. As we got inside the shop, we became accustomed to seeing Japanese markings, hundreds of CDs, and tons of J-Pop. Yes, we had come to a bookshop that sold mostly Japanese books. This, my friends, is the entire reason why we had come; to see books we could not read. In fact, a section of English, Korean, and Chinese books was found upstairs, although this was not of much interest (after all, we could understand these). Instead, I focused on trying to find some manga in the extremely inexpensive $1 a manga issue area. But with too many choices, I decided we should move onward, perchance to come back later.
As we came back out into the open and considered all of the surrounding buildings' sizes, surface areas, and volumes, we decided we had not become delusional, even though $1 a manga still rung in our ears. For the sake of forsaking, the rest of the story shall be shortened. 'Tis true, in our journey, we backtracked a couple of times, once missing a store by 10 feet, deciding it didn't exist, and turning around. Earlier we in fact walked in complete circles, despite paying clear attention to our map (I believe that our map had once been a backseat driver and, because of such trauma, was never able to be a good navigator again). Along the way, we were inundated by clone-like Hasidic Jews and felt the shear pressure of near-conversion as we tried to get a lens cap and film. We made it out alive but just barely, and I think the only two Asian workers noticed (I'm not sure whether they were disappointed or surprised, although I did notice a dark van following us for a few blocks after that).
But in the end, it was the manga bookstore that we came back to. After 1.5 hours of searching, help from employees, dozens of Japanese words being yelled out, a really hot Asian chick, and my dad finally giving up and sitting down, I found what I wanted for - manga non-cartoon, non-story, non-porn. And, yes, it took nearly 800 bindings to find 3 that did not fit that description. With two realistic manga about baseball and cool buildings, I was just about to give up. And then I found a Japanese copy of "Blade of the Immortal" (little did I know that the Japanese version refers to "Samura Hiroaki" - or dash, line, scribble, flingy thing, symbol, symbol, cash register sign - the writer and artist of "Blade"). Even though I'd probably buy the English copy at an incredibly overpriced $15.00 Borders-style later on, it was worth it to view the artwork.
As of this writing, the author has enjoyed less than 1% of his $3 purchases. He has, in fact, disliked 0% of the same purchases. He plans to read 0% in the future. And he has another english "Blade" to finish...not that he'll understand the storyline even then.
The author has also produced zero more maps, for the benefit of all map- and non-map-holders. He is quite proud of this accomplishment and wishes for anyone else who shares this joy to exchange a five dollar bill for five hundred pennies at the nearest bank. Remember, they're worth a dime a dozen.
First, we went to a bookstore without any books. I'm not exaggerating...I'm just lying. In actuality, to make the journey that much harder, we disregarded the only physical map we had in our possession, a culmination of 20 hours of internet searches, book summaries, and soy milk stains. (Fine, so it didn't have 20 hours of soy milk stains.) Instead, as we wandered around southwesternly, we suddenly heard music from an unknown location. At this point, we questioned whether we had not, in fact, accidentally gotten into a taxi cab. Fortunately, we could see our feet. And below that was a sidewalk. This did not comfort us any, though, because a taxi cab could have been potentially between our shoes and the cement. The fact remained, though, that we weren't sitting. Thus, we must not have been in a taxi. In our non-taxi, we continued until we found the source of the music, even though the sounds emanated at a sustained volume for a very large area, like some sort of ethereal discman. My father placed some dinero by the saxophonist, and then, and only then, did we venture to whip out our map; it is well known that after giving an offering, one may begin a goal with most certain good fortune surrounding its completion. This is the reason, of course, behind toothpaste.
And so we located a bookstore which we wanted to go to and had, by our intuition and lack of map analyzing, already passed. Fortunately, it was only a fifth of a block back, tucked away between major streets. As we got inside the shop, we became accustomed to seeing Japanese markings, hundreds of CDs, and tons of J-Pop. Yes, we had come to a bookshop that sold mostly Japanese books. This, my friends, is the entire reason why we had come; to see books we could not read. In fact, a section of English, Korean, and Chinese books was found upstairs, although this was not of much interest (after all, we could understand these). Instead, I focused on trying to find some manga in the extremely inexpensive $1 a manga issue area. But with too many choices, I decided we should move onward, perchance to come back later.
As we came back out into the open and considered all of the surrounding buildings' sizes, surface areas, and volumes, we decided we had not become delusional, even though $1 a manga still rung in our ears. For the sake of forsaking, the rest of the story shall be shortened. 'Tis true, in our journey, we backtracked a couple of times, once missing a store by 10 feet, deciding it didn't exist, and turning around. Earlier we in fact walked in complete circles, despite paying clear attention to our map (I believe that our map had once been a backseat driver and, because of such trauma, was never able to be a good navigator again). Along the way, we were inundated by clone-like Hasidic Jews and felt the shear pressure of near-conversion as we tried to get a lens cap and film. We made it out alive but just barely, and I think the only two Asian workers noticed (I'm not sure whether they were disappointed or surprised, although I did notice a dark van following us for a few blocks after that).
But in the end, it was the manga bookstore that we came back to. After 1.5 hours of searching, help from employees, dozens of Japanese words being yelled out, a really hot Asian chick, and my dad finally giving up and sitting down, I found what I wanted for - manga non-cartoon, non-story, non-porn. And, yes, it took nearly 800 bindings to find 3 that did not fit that description. With two realistic manga about baseball and cool buildings, I was just about to give up. And then I found a Japanese copy of "Blade of the Immortal" (little did I know that the Japanese version refers to "Samura Hiroaki" - or dash, line, scribble, flingy thing, symbol, symbol, cash register sign - the writer and artist of "Blade"). Even though I'd probably buy the English copy at an incredibly overpriced $15.00 Borders-style later on, it was worth it to view the artwork.
As of this writing, the author has enjoyed less than 1% of his $3 purchases. He has, in fact, disliked 0% of the same purchases. He plans to read 0% in the future. And he has another english "Blade" to finish...not that he'll understand the storyline even then.
The author has also produced zero more maps, for the benefit of all map- and non-map-holders. He is quite proud of this accomplishment and wishes for anyone else who shares this joy to exchange a five dollar bill for five hundred pennies at the nearest bank. Remember, they're worth a dime a dozen.