Years live and die, as they will. Kiosks and memory come and go. My past is here, sweating in a wool suit, thanking the gods of physics and money for Japan. Sweating in a wool suit, no CoolBiz in the ‘80s, and wondering, as young men will: “If after Tokyo, what?” After Tokyo was many [...]
I never jumped in the Sumida River but I thought about it many times. Not to die, but to float, float down to the sea. Where the birds go to have lunch on spring days when the trash we leave them isn’t quite enough to take home to the family. The floating idea, it’s all [...]
It was a little like the scenario in that Kinks song “Lola”, but only in passing. I met her in a little place called Seoul Bar, which is in a rundown section of northeast Tokyo called Sanya. At first I thought her was a him, and she sounded like a man but… The lipstick [...]
I discovered the Seoul Bar in Sanya, a rundown section in northeastern Tokyo, after watching a surly drunk get thrown out of it. A few days later I went back to this little joint because it had captured my attention and curiosity. And I wanted to see if the drunken ejected patron had been let [...]
Seoul Bar is a little place on the shōtengai in Sanya, a run-down section of northeast Tokyo. It’s on a corner and from the outside looks tidy enough. But it is also quite unassuming and easy to miss. In fact, I don’t think I would have noticed the place at all… …if I hadn’t [...]
It was just a food truck. But on an overcast early Spring day in Sanya, it glowed. It was god-like cheesiness. It was as if an entire amusement park had rolled down the street and parked at the curb. Well, a cheap amusement park. Not all the lights on the truck appeared to work. But [...]
Earlier this month I wrote a piece which cut to the very heart of why I do the written and photographic work I do. On most levels, that would be enough for me. But fortunately, a few people do buy and read the two books I have authored since my partner and I formed Abiko [...]
In Akihabara, it’s tough to take pictures of quiet but interesting places devoid of people. It is one of the most photographed parts of Tokyo. But I didn’t go there specifically to shoot pictures. I was meeting a new American friend at the UDX Building for a lunch date. I was late as hell because [...]
My work can be frustrating. For me, I mean, in that I don’t get a lot of direct feedback about it. I get a few always-thoughtful comments here and there on a given post in the long string of Tokyo-related poems, pictures and stories I publish here. On Facebook and Twitter, I get a pleasing [...]
There’s something my great-grandfather is reputed to have said when he died at 101. Loosely translated from late Edo-period Japanese, he said: “I’m a coward when it matters, and a hero when it don’t.” This may be apocryphal family history. Most family history is. It’s blended from different sources like bad scotch, being as it [...]
