And speaking of things Japanese in origin yet universal in application (you see, there is a method to our madness) here's the new Murakami novel to start off 2005 with.  The expectations for this book are of such magnitude that the hyperbole surrounding its release is a bit over the top, but we'll give you this:  it involves an "odyssey" where "Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish (and worse) fall fro the sky."