Just got back from seeing the Last Samurai... so beware my movie wrath! But first, an important message... about me.

I'm a changed man. You can see it in my walk, you can sense it in my very presence. I am changed.

I now wear a scarf.

I'm wearing it right now. It's cozy. I never thought I would wear a scarf but you know what they say about travel... it changes you.

Last Samurai. Hm. yeah.... Last Sam... You know, on the whole not a bad film. I mean it had samurai AND ninjas. But some stuff really bothered me. First, why didn't Tom Cruise die? Or at the very least, take his own life if he was indeed a samurai? Wasn't he supposed to be reborn by acculturating a new set of beliefs? You can't atone for the sin of the slaughter of innocents by learning to chop people up with a sword. Anyway, that's maybe too serious an analysis for this film... except that it traveled in the guise of historicity which makes the film an open target in my book. Anyway... it still had ninjas.

So I was standing in line to see this modern masterpiece when who before my wondering eyes should appear but one of the guys from the oden izakaya. We watched the film together and had a brief talk afterwards where I learned that his father's father's... had been a samurai. This guy's a masseur. Crazy world.

Here I am, an American in Japan, watching an American movie in Japan about an American in Japan who joins with some samurai, with a guy who's great great grandfather was a samurai when this story purports to have taken place. Closed loop.

Here's a poem:

The wind has quieted down,
the rain has ceased.
Fresh in the morning sun,
I shall depart tomorrow.

It was written by a man condemned to death in 1946. He was 26.
The man was condemned because he was found guilty of abusing US prisoners of war during WWII.