Yeah, that’s what I said. Introducing the “Fender Hello Kitty”:http://www.fenderhellokitty.com/, more evidence of Japan’s far-reaching culture of cuteness. I find it interesting because it doesn’t look as much like a guitar for people who already know how to play but as a way to get people (young girls?) to play guitar who may not be interested if there weren’t a Hello Kitty-emblazoned guitar to practice on. If that makes any sense. (Here’s “another Hello Kitty guitar”:http://www.hunkabutta.com/tokyo_karen/hellokittyguitar.html, quite different from the Fender one, but HOLY CRAP IT HAS POLKA DOTS.)

Slight digression: When I was little, I was a _huge_ Sanrio fan, while today I’m more of a “San-X”:http://www.san-x.co.jp/ fan. Sanrio wasn’t very big in the US when I was little so most of my Sanrio goods came from Taiwan (via Japan, although maybe they were made in Taiwan…or China). I was happy when Sanrio started gaining popularity in the US, but the products just weren’t the same. Yes, they still had Hello Kitty’s mouthless face on everything, but her personality had been changed. In some cases, she had been “upgraded” from “kitty thing that just stands around” to something more active or with a definite personality extending beyond being cute. I know there’s stuff like that in Japan too, but there’s definitely some kind of…difference. To overgeneralize (as a non-Japanese), older Americans may be likely to long for teenage adolescence while older Japanese people may be likely to long for prepubescent childhood. Such desires may be reflected in the way cuteness is portrayed, whether in that there isn’t much of it (America) or it’s everywhere (Japan). Anyway. That was so _not_ music related.

For my own reference, some shows at Webster Hall: Feist in February 10th and BRMC/Elefant on February 18th.

AND SOMETIME IN MARCH, “MAGNET”:http://www.homeofmagnet.com! MAYBE!