130

When placed close to one another on a kitchen countertop, two mikans can't help but generate a momentary glow of mutual affection. Mikans blush orange.

130

Laundry clips fade into darkness as the sun sets and the Yuyake Koyake plays.

125

The gift of moisture my clothes quietly absorbed from the Shakujii-gawa while running alongside it has evaporated without my knowledge and secretly given itself as condensation to the cold windows, effectively blocking my view of the river with the river itself. It is a cunning strategy for escape, but it does not stand a chance against the blue and white striped dishtowel preparing for battle on the kitchen counter. Unfortunately, the colors of the impending brutality will clash so terribly with the day's dominant color scheme and the crisp countertop. I will try to dissuade the towel from following through on its intentions and allow the condensation to evaporate again and move on to the next transformation, but this is a delicate matter. Perhaps a flattering comparison between the dish towel and the striated white clouds against the rich azure of the sky will diffuse the mounting tension and make clear my high esteem for the earthbound mundane.

103

The reflection on the kitchen countertop of the erased Maxell UR 90 Tinted Oval Window Cassette Shell / POSITION•NORMAL / JAPAN•JAPON cassette. What would the reflection of an erased cassette tape sound like if it could be played?

101

Soon I will return to the diminutive psychic at the corner of Kuyakusho Dōri and Yasukuni Dōri and see what she says now about my Maxell UR 90 Tinted Oval Window Cassette Shell / POSITION•NORMAL / JAPAN•JAPON cassette from the mid-80s that has been reverse imported to Japan from the United States for the second time. Until then it will wait patiently on the kitchen counter refracting light through the rectangular plastic case, through the layers of plastic cassette shell, then eventually stopping at the normal bias magnetic tape. The tape was erased in 2005, so actually, in truth, I am uncertain of magnetic tape's ability to block light once it has been obliterated through demagnetization.

98

Eight days ago.

59

Early yesterday morning there was the tiniest glint of sunlight on the black plastic of the rice cooker as I circled around it. Last night there was a smiling, waning crescent moon set against a dark sky and the soft purple glow of the bug lamps along the running path. Today the kitchen soap bottle is refracting long green streaks across the countertop. Tomorrow when the moldy zombies emerge from the hospital next door there will also be red and green. The sequence is as follows: yellow, black, white, black, purple, black, green, white, red, green; yet the implications are inscrutable.

46

The autumn light at 17:00 JST on the kitchen counter can even transform one hundred Japanese Yen ($1.12 USD) dish soap into the obelisk from Kubrick's 2001, or into filmmaker Yasujirō Ozu's grave marker in Kita-Kamakura, or into what seems like an image from an advertisement in which the tones have been inverted are are waiting to be considered.

28

I am sitting at the kitchen counter watching the 14:30 JST afternoon light illuminate my beer and pondering how each weekend in Vienna Harry Lime and Holly Martins are resurrected when the film The Third Man screens. Orson Wells (Harry Lime) and Joseph Cotten (Holly Martins) both previously starred in Citizen Kane where they played close friends. Watching The Third Man one can't help but sense their friendship leaking out from Citizen Kane and into The Third Man. I decided to screen the two films consecutively and marveled at the extraordinary saga of a tumultuous and shifting friendship with characters that argue, age, die, reappear, are thought to be dead, then reappear again and argue before finally dying. I specifically chose an icy cold Ebisu beer rather than my usual Sapporo to commemorate the occasion. The long yellow streaks of late afternoon light across the white counter top and intensified through my glass of beer serve as a lovely tribute to the strange longevity and richness of their friendship.

23

During the day I can see that the building next to me is an innocuous hospital of some sort. I see hospital beds, people in hospital beds, people shuffling around the hospital beds in hospital gowns, and hospital nurses wearing surgical face masks. At nighttime a transformation takes place and I am staying in Takinogawa, in Tokyo, in Japan, yet I am next to Dario Argento's Tanzakademie in Freiburg, Germany, from his 1977 film Suspiria. At nighttime the shuffling of feet no longer seems quite so innocent and must be coupled to the supernatural and sinister red and green illumination. Why else would the lights blink, flicker, pulse, and send me messages in Morse code? Sitting at the kitchen counter in the morning having an espresso it is exceedingly difficult to believe that the building next door is a zombie hospital, but I fear in the depths of my heart that it is true.

22

In the mornings I make my espresso with the iconic Italian stove top Bialetti Industrie Moka Express. At 4:55 JST I open the carefully constructed individual serving package and make my afternoon “Blendy” drip coffee. I drink. At 4:59 JST I set my cup down in a particular spot on the kitchen counter. I wait. At 5:00 JST the afternoon light comes through the cup perfectly and the "poignant 5 PM song" plays outside from nearby speakers. たいふうはどこですか？(taifu wa doko desuka – where is the typhoon?).