Tokyo—May 22, 2008

Tokyo remains. The weight of it sustains and settles the city deeper into history. The randomness of it all, the anonymity, allows us never to learn anything about it. Standards are high, and evenly spread; relative terms like good, fine, fast, and clean, bear little weight when describing things to do or to eat, for example, because what those conditions mean to us depends on what we need now—right now. Planning becomes self-defeating when everything we need remains ubiquitous and plentiful.

Life shatters entropically, though. Transportation develops into a life giving and affirming force, because it is something to learn. Survival remains simple; and the city's inertia defies failure.

The laziness of the recumbent goddess lies spread arrogant on the plains and swampland. Quietly asserting her authority she breeds prolifically and consumes voraciously. She maintains a blue blanket of smoke that insulates her, and lives immune to its smothering. Ungrateful and unwelcome supplicants suffocate.