76

I can hear the song It’s a Small World being played by a marching band somewhere out in the darkness of Takinogawa.

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.

31

I am still thinking about Disneyland Park in California in 2003, but also thinking about Tokyo Disneyland in Japan in 2005, Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom in Florida in 2006, and getting stopped by Magic Kingdom security in 2009. I am considering visiting Tokyo Disneyland once again as the gray of winter approaches. The gray of the painted ground in Tokyo Disneyland would match the sky and my 18% gray card perfectly, much more perfectly than in all the other Disneylands and Disney Worlds. Although they are collectively "The Happiest place on earth," they are not always the most scrupulously clean places on earth, which is absolutely necessary to achieve an even 18% gray. Waste is not visible, or acceptable at Tokyo Disneyland, which creates an overwhelmingly powerful curiosity deep inside me to see what is at the heart of their garbage dumpsters.

30

Just down the street from the local サミット (Samitto - Summit) supermarket there is a surveillance camera in front of the Kōban (neighborhood police station). Seeing the round dome of the camera housing nestled discreetly amongst the streetlights got me thinking about how the villainous HAL 9000 computer from Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001 looks almost exactly the same. I once saw HAL living in a parking garage in Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California in 2003 when he migrated out of the film and into the real world (if we consider Disneyland Park as a part of the real world – or is it an intermediate step for migratory characters from films?). So, now HAL possibly lives in Takinogawa. I am curious if HAL was still capable of reading lips in 2003 as in the film and if it understood what I was conspiratorially communicating to it in that inky Californian parking garage at the end of the day.

...When the nights dark, we can both despise
Policemen and lamps as well.
There are bright lights in the dazzling eyes
Of beautiful Daisy Bell.