Ab-Normal Scores

Saturday my wonderful, dreamy boyfriend (can you tell he's writing this?) dragged me to Normal Books in Waverly to kill time before our dinner date with another couple later that night. And while there, I made two major scores - a local music CD by my ex-hubby Mark Harp called Mark Harp's Big Thing - Insane! (what are the chances?) and this incredibly rare book (with an amusingly long-winded title) about my peeps, We Japanese.



We Japanese: Being Descriptions of Many of the Customs, Manners, Ceremonies, Festivals, Arts and Crafts of the Japanese, besides Numerous other Subjects. Volumes 1 and 2.

Publisher: Fujiya Hotel Ltd. 1947.
Japanese binding, title label frontcover, 200 page book with 355 black & white illustrations, index. Printed on India paper. Hand Stiched cloth wraps with Japanese fastener, stitched limp silk with paper label to front, in tri-fold bone-clasp case.

Books 1 and 2 were written for H.S.K. Yamaguchi, managing director, Fujiya Hotel, by Frederic de Garis and Atsuharu Sakai, respectively.

This delightful popular encyclopedia of Japanese culture, history and society is a treasury of exotic facts and useful information, illustrated with line drawings and period photographs. Originally published in 1934, this is a later edition (1947). I picked it up thinking it was something my Dad would enjoy reading, but it's so fascinating that I'm gonna read it first. Sorry Dad, it's gonna be a while!

Mark Harp's Big Thing - Insane!

Mark released this one long after we split up, probably in the late '90s when he was in his heavy sampling phase, though I recognize some of the songs like "Show Me How To Bowl." When my wonderful, dreamy boyfriend asked me if Mark and I used to go bowling a lot, I had to explain that Mark was into the idea of bowling - the aesthetics of balls and pins, if you will - as opposed to bowling as a sport. And, of course, the fashion. As "Corky Neidermayer," Mark also wrote the bowling alley hit "Bowling With You."

My wonderful, dreamy boyfriend really liked the song "Why You Lousy S.O.B." He pointed out that it sampled Louis "Red" Deutsch, owner of Jersey City, NJ's Tube Bar, from the legendary underground phone prank tape, "The Tube Bar Tapes." I pointed out that the other sample in the song was of Ross Perot talking about extra-terrestrials. My wonderful, dreamy boyfriend loves these samples, which Mark looped ad infinitum; he was doing similar stuff with video and rues that he didn't collaborate with Mark. Great minds think alike?

Later that night, we went to dinner at Louis and Lisa Frisino's home in glamorous Glen Burnie. Louis was the original drummer in Null Set, a band my ex Mark Harp was in. How's that for synchronicity? After dinner, we sat around and watched a "Marble Bar Survivors" reunion video that was shot at the 8x10 Club in 1995. There were Louis and Mark onstage playing Null Set songs on the television, just like it was the '80s all over again. As well as another ex-boyfriend, singer Bil Dawson (I went out with him before Mark), all covered in tattoos and looking very much like Judas Priest singer Rob Halford. Weird.

Later, my wonderful, dreamy boyfriend sent me a link to Mark Harp's blog, King of Peru Lies. The last entry was Mark talking about eating meatloaf for dinner. It was posted November 14, 2004. I remember thinking how close that was to the end; Mark passed away on Christmas Eve 2004 (from complications unrelated to the meatloaf). But listening to Insane! made me realize that Mark is never truly gone as long as his music lives on.