Pao was at least good for one thing: he brought to my attention that I haven't name-dropped Haruki Murakami in a LONG time. And you know why? Because he hasn't been putting out any books! Well, maybe in Japan. And that Birthday Stories anthology. Anyway, his "new," translated-into-English novel is out: Kafka on the Shore. And here's his new website. Wow! Author as rock star. I love the Music section, and am particularly happy with the Art section. Neva actually saw this in Singapore (she's back, btw), but it was about P1600 so we decided to just wait until Powerbooks gets it, where it'll likely be cheaper (I've read that there are already copies at Fully Booked, but don't know how much). She's glad to report that it's nice and thick (like Jonathan Strange thick), which should help make up for the long months of no new Murakami goodness. Actually, I just wish they'd get to work on those translations. He has a book that came out recently, After Dark; I wonder when I'll get to read that? And I remember Jenny saying that he still has a couple of untranslated novels/stories from the early years in his career. This reminds me: when I saw Vintage Murakami in PowerBooks it was frustrating that there was a story there seeing print in English for the first time ("Ice Man") when everything else was just excerpts from novels I'd already read. So, I did what any other fan would: I stood there and read the whole short story. I'm not paying 700 bucks for that one short. Also went through 3 essays in this book, Prime Times: Nick Hornby on The West Wing, Douglas Rushkoff on MST3K, and new fiction from Mark Leyner on Hawaii Five-O. Now there's another favorite writer of mine who hasn't put out a book in YEARS.

February is Francois Truffaut month at Alliance Francaise's Video Club, whose screenings are now back to being free (and have been moved to Saturday since I was last going). March is Jean Renoir. Check 'em out.

A Volkswagen ad that was completed but never aired.

Are you a good tracer? Wanna move to Austin and work on Richard Linklater's first post-Before Sunset film, an animated adaptation a la Waking Life of Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly? Check out the information below this article. Well, I'm sort of excited for this, it looks very interesting and I'm becoming a Dick fan, but part of me will always wonder how this would've looked if Charlie Kaufman penned the script. A Scanner Darkly was his dream project.

Finally, don't click on this.

UPDATE (A FEW HOURS LATER): Kafka on the Shore is at PowerBooks for PhP1299. Good thing I dropped by on the last day of the sale!