Walking from Hibiya Park to the national library in Nagatacho, I tried to take an overly direct route, and got blocked by the impenetrable grounds of the Imperial Palace. This palace endlessly fascinates me. Imagine Buckingham Palace on a tract of land the size of Central Park, and then completely closing it off to the public. Planes cannot fly over the palace grounds, and the buildings in the surrounding business districts don’t get much higher than 30 stories, because no one is allowed to see into the palace grounds. All around is a curving mess of wide boulevards. There’s an inner moat around the palace which is about 4 km in its radius, and there used to be an outer moat, which is about 16 km, I think. There are still different places where the outer moat remnants can be found in these rectangular patches. And actually, I work in Yotsuya, next to the remainder of one part of the outer moat.
Standing over this inner moat yesterday, a scene from a Basketball Diaries commercial flashed in my mind – Dicaprio and friend in their boxer shorts jumping from a cliff into the water. And then I flashed back further to my own cliff jumping experience at a lake in the interior of British Columbia. And I wondered how it would be too jump the 15 or so metres down into that moat. What would happen? Would they take away my Visa or what?
People say that there are guards all around the Imperial Palace that you can’t see. You wouldn’t be able to get 5 feet into the grounds.
The Japanese prime minister recently caught heat for a referring to Japan as “kami no kuni”, or country of the Gods. The emperor is just a symbol by the constitution, but what about the constitution in the hearts of men? Actually, most people I know don’t care about the emperor at all, which makes me think that the Imperial Palace grounds are less a dormant volcano, and rather something else. Somehow, I doubt that that much land could be taken for a royal family stripped of its powers. I know it – there’s something going on in that space. Can it really be nothing?
A strange dream last night, in which I haven’t been able to place myself. In the middle of the night, a lone conductor, is positioning the trains of the various Tokyo subway lines. He parks a train along a platform, hops out, runs down a series of escalators and passages, and then gets in another train, and drives it to the next station. I noticed that he only went down escalators and not up, so he must have been getting deeper and deeper into the bowels of the Earth. There seemed to be some special design or master-plan in process. But the reasons eluded me.
And so I continued my walk, backtracking to Sakuramon Dori, along the moat, and then past the National Diet building, to the National Library. Now, this must be the strangest library (or building in general) I’ve ever entered. I’ve never seen such security for a library. Upon entering, you’re directed to put your bag in a coin locker. You’re allowed to bring in one clear plastic bag. I tried to stuff as many things as possible inside, but I could sense the weakness of the plastic handles. Then, you fill out an application form with you personal info and show your locker key, and that is recorded on your application sheet, too. Then, you’re given a one-day access card. Upon getting me inside, it took a while to figure out the next step, cause everything was written in Japanese. Anyway, you stick this card into a machine, and get from 1 to 3 request slips – there’s no opportunity to browse through the stacks. Then, to the computer, find the book, write down the details, hand in the call slip, and then wait for your number to appear on this big screen. While waiting, you can’t help but admire the silent efficiency of the staff, moving in perfect rhythm, like cogs in a clock – the kind of perfect distribution system that you imagined Santa Claus and his elves must have going.
And then, I started checking out what people were carrying in their plastic bags. One of these caught my eye. Their clear bag contains a big chunk of raw meat, with about a litre of blood collected at the bottom of the bag. People walk past, pen in hand, and I wonder how long until this bag is popped, and the subject of the book that the blood may stain.
At last, my afternoon’s reading materials come to me: Abe Kobo’s Beyond The Curve, and Ryu Murakami’s Almost Transparent Blue. Since the latter was only 125 pages, and the former a collection of short stories (I make it a rule never to read more than one short story in one session), I started reading the latter.
I’ve read one Ryu Murakami book before. Reading this second one, I could immediately establish a clear picture of his writing style. His books are overwhelming sensual, but in an animalistic way – the characters are first announced by their smell rather than their actions. Crippled minds and weak emotions. Hearts beating strangely. Everything that can possibly spurt or burst, doing exactly that. Ryu Murakami writes the kind of devil’s dreams you have, when you fall asleep on a summer afternoon, the windows closed, the aircon off, and way too many clothes on.
I made it to page 87 before the library closed. You’re not allowed to borrow books from the National Library. At this moment, I’m not sure if I’ll ever read another word of Ryu Murakami in my life, but I’m sure descriptions from Coin Locker Babies, one of his other books, will float into my head when I’m in Okinawa at the end of this Summer.
And so I ventured out, looking for a vending machine, and eventually finding one. Trying to think tropical thoughts, I put on a tape of rare Keith Hudson tracks that a friend just sent in the mail the other day. But they don’t call Hudson the Prince of Darkness for nothing. I caught the dark side of the mix, and sat on the steps of this ancient Greece-like park at the intersection of three incredibly wide boulevards. I put my walkman on the step beside me. And when I finished my drink, and got up, my earphones were ripped out of my ears, and I watched my walkman bounce down the steps. Right on for the darkness.

In some kind of foul mood, I left work tonight. I’d tell you why, but there’s just too much background and too many complexities to go into it. Besides, if I began complaining about work in this space, you’re not likely to continue reading, are you? But you know, I can’t believe how much emotions can get mixed up — the way a dream that was once distant comes near, and then the moment you can almost touch it, becomes distant once more.
Like so many have before, my resistance wore down, and I gave in to sleep on the subway ride home. My senses came back to me, and my head was on the shoulder of the lady next to me. Embarrassed, I apologized in Japanese. Turns out she didn’t speak Japanese. Or English. But she said, “Columbia, espagnol.” I motioned for her to show me what she was reading, before realizing it was a kind of bible guide in Spanish. I felt my mind and heart recoil, a flash of rage. And as she reached into her bag to give me a pretty, little Jesus Christ card, I felt for a moment the kind of bitterness rise up in me, as if she was just another Christian trying to convert me, and then I relaxed, because I came to her and not her to me. Though we couldn’t communicate at all, this lady gave off a tremendous feeling of love. It was nice to be in her presence. And my mood turned around. And the unrest in my heart dissipated.
And like I said, I came to her, and not her to me. Perhaps, I sensed this love. And if I felt recoil, when realizing I’d crossed paths with a serious Christian in a public place, that’s because I’m often disappointed by the kindness of strangers in a public place. It is always one of three things that speaks to me: a Christian, a homeless person, or an advertisement.
All I’m saying that it’s nice to feel love detached from any ulterior motives. And if you shine, they’ll come to you.
Now, it’s rainy season in Japan, and everyone complains about the weather. But rain doesn’t fall like this in North America. It’s just absolutely the softest rain you’ve ever felt. A descending mist.

(The Strange Dreams A Traveller Has continued) I’m lying on a narrow bed, about the width of an airplane seat, and in fact, I am flying through the air on this bed. Somehow, my bed is all that connects the front end and the back end of the air craft. I’m leaning over the side of the bed, filming the ground below, or aiming the camera up and shooting it into the sky, or trying to get interesting shots of the plane’s wings. I’m sweating profusely, overcome with fear – not exactly afraid of falling out of the bed, but rather of dropping the video camera. Partly, I’m concerned about the cost of replacing the camera, and also losing the footage I’ve shot. Partly concerned that the camera will hurt someone, when it finally impacts after falling 30,000 feet. And partly concerned that I’ll fall out myself, in an effort to save the camera.

How to explain the dream? In the early days of using my video camera, in the Spring of 1999, I became obsessed with flight. Up until the purchase, I cannot recollect flying in a dream (though I occasionally I did levitate or float in dreams) – but in the first weeks of filming, I regularly hovered over city scenes in my dreams. With the video camera itself, objects that were far became closer. I obsessed myself with the zoom function, looking for a moving object, and then latching onto it, and trying to stay on the heels of the object until it disappeared into the vanishing point. Like one who spends time watching planes take off, or gazing at train schedules, I dreamt of departures.

Recently, zoom became unsatisfactory. This desire for movement rose up in me. I believe that in the case of motion photography that the camera itself should be in motion. I fantasized about hiring a helicopter, and flying over Tokyo. I took the train on idle journeys, filming out the window. I thought about getting a skateboard in order to be able to get a moving shot. And then settled on rollerblades. With rollerblades, I’ve been able to get all these shots of Tokyo that traditionally would require dollies and film permits. I can swerve through crowds, filming as I go. I can circle objects. I can go where cars can’t go. I can cover the distance between interesting places to shoot, and as a result I get a lot more film recorded. The rollerblades have done wonders for my amateur filmmaking.
But I know they’re not enough. I know I haven’t seen enough. I know I haven’t recorded enough.

At night, I’m the child that doesn’t want to go to bed for fear of missing out on something. In the morning, I don’t want to wake up for fear of missing a dream.

The trouble with watching a replay in a moving game is that you’re missing the present.

The most beautiful bit of literature I’ve read in my whole life is the final third of the Master and Margarita by Bulgakov. Margarita has become a witch, and is flying naked over Moscow, and then beyond the city limits, over the forests, under the moon. For page after page, I lost all awareness.

The moment I’m waiting for, that I’ve been waiting for, for so many years, is to lie back on a beach with absolutely no future in sight. Nothing but the present. For just one moment, to feel as if there’s absolutely nothing that ties me any longer to the world.
Of course, it won’t last. I know it. I’ve read three quarters of Paradise Lost, and I can guess how it ended. Rousseau, the 18th Century political theory, once wrote, “Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.” Watching From Here To Eternity, there was something I felt that I can’t put into words.