Red Plastic Bags and Dormant Volcanoes

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.