My Street Japan. Day 14.

My Street Japan. DAY 14. Tammy T. Stone

My street is not a hive of bright lights and a constant stream of advertising. I think it was, at one time, but those days have passed.

I think these two posters have been here, tucked into a tiny space between two buildings (actually, this is a rather large space – you can often barely squeeze a fist between two houses or stores), since I moved in over a year ago. I certainly remember the bottom one, because his is a face I know well from my days working in the film industry.

It’s Japan’s beloved cultural export, Takeshi Kitano, or “Beat Takeshi”, as many of his fans know him by! His credentials are many: film director, comedian, TV show host (oh, how many celebrities become TV show hosts of the most bizarre kind here), on-air presenter, writer, poet, and even video-game designer. He’s really a household name, and now has own talent agency, production company, and he is a professor at Tokyo University’s Graduate School of the Arts.

He also lends his lovable mug to many a product for sale – here, I can make out ECC, a popular foreign-language school in Japan.

Since I’m a poet and was interested, I did a small search of Kitano’s poetry, and came up with this, a testament to his humour, no doubt:

http://visual-poetry.tumblr.com/post/9667435330/samurai-on-the-toilet-by-takeshi-kitano-1970

If you have any Beat Takeshi favorite movies, I’d love to hear them! I’m just glad that this poster, like him, has truly survived the test of time :).