October 21, 2026. I can't post on social media because every entry will only be coded messages to the women I love. I can't be reduced to that. I can post pictures, at least. Those are meaningless.
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October 16, 2026. I took the train to Makuhari Messe, which might have been put somewhere more convenient, to see the truck show. The picture might work someday, but now I will still judge it against what I remember of the light, or what I had in mind. It's too wide.
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I wouldn't actually claim that Chu T'ien-wen deserves the Nobel Prize, or could win it, but I would be satisfied if her name sometimes came up as a long shot. Someone might finance a translation project. The complete short stories. The lost novella. Her essays. And so on.
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1,134
The smell on the Hibiya Line was so strong as we approached Roppongi that I thought Tokyo Metro was using a deodorizer that replicated Orphéon. In the rainy season, scents carry, and everyone is anxious about smelling musty. The Diptyque store off Omotesando was sold out.
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October 9, 2026. On a sunny day in Asakusa, you can see how cheap everything is, how flimsy. We all want to take pictures. Years before, Chinese tourists came on buses to burn incense; they must be somewhere else now.
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June 2024. August 2026. December 2025. July 2026. Ueno. Shibuya or Shinjuku. Somewhere on the Hibiya Line. Nippori, maybe. I still think there's something sick and dishonest about it, but for every frame shot on black-and-white film, I allow myself one digital monochrome.
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October 1, 2026. Ishihara Satomi, looking out on a gas station and a municipal building, the remains of a public bath, and midday traffic, the trucks headed towards the river bridge; nobody around, nobody inside to notice me taking a picture of the advertisement in the window.
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He shouted at the dancing girl: "Where are you from?" She said: "West of here." The crowd pressed in closer. Beads of sweat below the fur-trimmed edge of her cap, on her bare arms. He knew he could never afford her. When she fell asleep that night, her legs still jerked in time.
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Pear blossoms are falling. Orioles are singing in the trees. The neighbor girl had a mischievous smile when I met her on my way to gather mulberry leaves. She won the grass-blade war that morning. She told me she'd had a dream about it the night before.
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When pressed to explain what I had meant by my comment—"I don't think you should be allowed to make movies like that"—I first came up with, "It seems unethical to make people think strawberry milk will turn blue if you mix in sleeping pills." A poisonous weed.
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The municipal PA system crackling to life at two in the morning, when there are no other sounds to drown it out, when it echoes between all the buildings, is eerie. The announcement said to extinguish flames. There was a large earthquake. But it wasn't anything serious.
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I don't have many books in my house. I've been trying to write in Chinese. I found my copy of Chu T'ien-wen's collected short essays and re-read one about collecting glossy paper bags from Tokyo department stores and the practice of re-gifting and re-using them. I could mimic it.
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"...more from the hotel trash. Small bags stuffed into medium sized bags stuff into large bags. That's what I carried through customs. I heard Wu Nien-jen's wife has a fine collection, too. Whenever she gives a gift, she reuses one of them, and says quite...
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