135

Walking the back route down narrow streets to Ōji Station, I pass the house with the orange tree where I once heard somebody playing guitar. I stop and listen for the sounds of any strumming or the sounds of someone thinking about strumming, but there is nothing except silence and the smell of January cold. Then, a vending machine next to me suddenly glows and whirs to life, providing me with a ghostly consolation prize in the possibility of hot beverages. A quick nod of acknowledgment to the machine for its attempt to communicate across the gulf that separates inanimate and animate matter, and I am off towards the park with the miniature fence with a touch keypad lock.

Waiting for me at the entrance to the park, just past the tangle of telephone wires, is a small convention of people with compact dogs wearing winter clothing. One of the dogs—appearing like four uneasy sticks attached to a small sweater—looks about 18% gray and beautifully matches the sky. If I picked up the dog and hurled it into the air, it would abruptly vanish, only to remind us of its presence by the snapping sound of its landing. Across the park heading east, I consider leaping over the fence as I near it, but I speculate about what I will feel once I am on the other side. I might not want to return to where I jumped from or be unable to. It seems that it would be reasonably easy to hop over, but this might be an illusion, some diabolical method of falsely inflating intruder confidence, then snaring them mid-vault. The fact of its impossible smallness only serves to heighten the unknown threat of how it operates. What this fence lacks in height, it more than makes up through fiendishly confusing psychology. I pause for a moment and consider that the rate at which my body ages and shrinks is not so fast to keep me from a potential crossing on my way home from the café. I acknowledge the holding pattern, and I am off.

First, I run over to see that the golfers are busy golfing—and they are—but I am disappointed that the skateboarders are not skateboarding. Wouldn't it be nice if I could hear the bark of their skateboard trucks across concrete curbs and pedestrian handrails in the parking lot? Nevertheless, it is empty, and even if they had only recently departed, it is now impossible to see even the faintest trace of their breath in the air. I hear the sharp claps of clubs hitting balls and the dull thuds of balls hitting nets, but no wheels intermittently crackling and gliding across the tarmac. I circle the parking lot in a holding pattern of my exhalation until an unexpected squawk from a crow atop a garbage can, followed by a quick ding-ding from the nearby Toden Arakawa Line, punctuates the late afternoon and signals that it is time for a warm coffee.

Once inside the nearby café, I am struck, as usual, by the complete lack of separation between the smoking and non-smoking sections. The curls of smoke drift above the masked customers and the waning plants in the center of the circular smoking table, forming sheets of gray cloud cover. I slowly lift my 18% gray card into the haze above our heads, and it promptly vanishes. However, when I lower my arm again, it materializes, and I make a snapping sound accompanied by a whine that catches the attention of the schoolgirl 72% napping at the table next to mine

133

The first image of the year unexpectedly appears, hiding in the crook of the tree.

92

I try my best to send out a quick email each day as soon as I hear the Yūyake Koyake – the song that plays at 17:00 JST signaling the end of the school day. I type as quickly as possible, click the send button, then after a short delay the whooshing sound of Apple's Mail program floats briefly over the top of the song echoing from the speakers outside in the street. The arrival of the Yūyake Koyake always takes me by surprise and the volume on my computer is consistently lower than I expect it to be, which I always note as I film this process. Currently, the day ends with a whoosh, which seems perfectly matched to the fleeting nature of life. Yet, were I to change the mail program's alert sound from a whoosh to a duck's quack, then the entire affair would take on a different tone and probably conclude with a slip on a banana peel, or two men in a horse costume.

The sunset is the end of the day,
the bell from the mountain temple rings,
hand by hand let’s go back home together with the crows.
After the children are back at home a big and round moon shines,
when the birds dream, the brightness from the stars fills the sky.

81

Paper-thin, waxy napkins from cafés have almost no absorption power. They simply relocate food to new areas of your face. I am hoping that a crow doesn’t swoop in for a snack. I was recently asked to consider that the napkins are intentionally not absorbent because they are actually ornamental – that you should be eating so carefully that you have no need of a napkin in the first place. It turns out that crows are the guardians of good manners.

63

Yesterday, running into the close of the day on the south side of the Shakujii gawa, the 17:00 JST song played (Yuyake Koyake) mixing with the sounds of crows and crickets. I passed the Disneyesque playground, empty except for a single cat perched on the top of Cinderella’s castle.

11

Sitting on the balcony at night listening to a field recording I made earlier in the day from the very same balcony I experience the superimposition of daytime sounds on top of evening sounds forming the following unintentional composition comprised of: a Japanese heavy metal band in Asakuyama park, clicking of a bicycle wheel sprocket, small shrill birds, female voice from a loudspeaker atop a moving truck selling dumplings, scooter engine sharply clacking, guitar solo echo, muffled screams and cheers from the park, scooter pulling up, kickstand going down, screams, cheers, airplane overhead, car brake whine, bird commotion, bicycle bell ring, child in distance chatting, crow, horn, child closer talking to their mother, someone is whistling, scooter, rustling grocery bags, footsteps, bird tweets, bicycle brake screech, one bird squeak, scooter, kickstand difficulties, muted rumble of a truck, distant express train, clacking sound of wheels on rails, clacking sound of high heels, bike, birds, scooter, and walking sounds getting closer to the microphone.

4

Sitting on the balcony in the night I hear crows, coughing, and a cat.

3

While running this morning along the Shakujii gawa (river) I saw two crows in a park carefully scrutinizing a large wooden sign with a cat painted on it and a real cat standing just a foot away intently watching the crows. I wonder what the reason for the slight curl of the cat's lips indicating the presence of a knowing feline smile?