growl

This looks remarkably suitable for V8 racing...the tall greeny building in the background seems to match the waterfront theme of unimaginative glass rectangles. The curved facade hardly adds interest and the composition almost makes the NZ Post building adjacent seem well crafted. I do like the bricks in the foreground though.

More tarmac?

I’m glad we’re not getting another Pauanui at Ocean Beach. The initial plans from the design company DPZ Pacific are admirable in their attempt to create a living community, rather than dead rows of houses along cul-de-sacs without shops or services.

Good on everyone involved- this is a radical move for what have historically been change-averse local politicians, planners and developers. But despite benevolent intentions and the slick speak of designers at the recent Charrette process, I’m still not convinced that building houses at Ocean Beach is a good idea.

Although proclaiming to be anti-sprawl and a positive alternative to the soulless suburbia that we are all so familiar with, the fact remains that this is still greenfields development. And it’s not just development on any old green field, but a construction site on what has repeatedly been referred to as an extra special place for thousands of local residents.

We must remember that both landowners and the Hastings District Council have vested interests in promoting this type of development on unsettled land. The landowners sell property and the council collects the extra rates.

There is nothing inevitable about coastal development. It is the result of conscious decision-making and regulation by our local government. If the community were sufficiently motivated, and demanded it, Ocean Beach could be ecologically restored without any type of settlement.

We must carefully consider whether to further increase and scatter Hawkes Bay’s already ridiculously sized urban footprint. Building more car-dependant and isolated villages seems especially irrational at a time when oil prices look to be increasing indefinitely.

What’s needed is a concentration of people and business within our existing communities. Both Napier and Hastings could do with a good dose of DPZ’s new urbanism to revitalize the dull suburbs built by well intentioned planners in the fifties and sixties. We should focus on reinvigorating the urban spaces we already have- not covering more grass with tarmac.

information bulimia

Some more information about information overload for all you information full people:

An interview with David Shenk- a little take on Japan but much more about how we cope with what he calls "Data Smog".

Nice summary at the Listener

Not about finding or accessing information- that's the easy bit- the hard bit is to use it.

New Zealand and the Environment

Went to briefing by the Ministry for Environment this morning. Very interesting to see what they are doing. Great to be back amidst all this action- or is it just talking?

www.mfe.govt.nz

Of particular note is the upcoming funding round for Environmental projects. Take a peek through past projects at

Sustainable Management Fund

A wealth of research/work put into environmental problem-solving.

And various time exchange, alternative economies at:

Living Economies

Malaysia

In New Zealand there are no people on the streets after eight at night...and it is cold all the time. Oh- and very good butter.

It seemed an accurate summary, and came from a Bangladeshi man on the streets in Kuala Lumpa. But is wasn't particularly comforting information- as I return home, southward.

Kuala Lumpa has that temporary, about to be subsumed by the jungle, muggy atmosphere that comes with equatorial places. I am impressed by the portico lined and crumbling colonial streets. But less so by the blocks of brick and concrete soaring upward, disturbing the footpath and the sky.

The new KL skyline, most boldly represented by the Petronas towers has been described as "Jet lag architecture". It's certainly giddy, and a slightly confused mish-mash of time and place. Ancient Islamic motifs meet 1930's New York high rise meet Hong Kong space-saving.

The best thing is ice cold lemon and lime. And monumental rainforest lushness.

Bedford

Dave’s here in the satellite town of Bedford as a New Zealand pioneer, bringing with him hi-tech recycling equipment. He uses Luton’s easy connections to Europe to jump to a potential sale in the Netherlands or complete installation work on the company’s machinery in Italy. A salesman/technician/everything else for an expanding New Zealand export company, Dave has yet to find time for the cheap Spanish holiday deals. He’s not really one for vodka in the sun, instead relishing New Zealand’s relatively cheap manufacturing costs and technical know-how that ensure that his company’s industrial paper shredders are the top products on the market.

Dave’s running the European branch out of a tiny office in Bedford; but most days he’s out of the office, driving to every corner of the UK or travelling to overseas trade fairs. Alongside security, recycling is the top-growth industry of the time explains Dave as he clocks 24,000 miles in the six month old van.

Dave’s work situation, despite being stressful at times, beats the conventional story of finding a job in London. Every week hundreds of young Australians, South Africans and New Zealander’s join the confusing jostle for assistant-this-and-that’s; data-entry assistants, administrative assistants, assistant-producers, and anything else in which fresh-faced talent can be under-utilised.

Last week over beers on the pavement in the unseasonable September warmth of Camden, the conversation was a litany of bad jobs, unorganised workplaces and greedy employment agencies taking 3 pounds per hour off your wage. There seemed a general dissatisfaction, yet also an optimism and excitement that things would be on the up. This was simply the hard yards before the real stuff, the necessary pre-requisite for the imagined cool job around the corner.

The middle class drive to London is a manifestation of an insatiable lust for bettering ourselves, for fulfilling the high expectations that we’ve been loaded with since high school. There is a hope of being lifted to the top by a sympathetic top-dog, and a belief that such an off chance is at least more possible in this centre of commerce, culture, journalism, art, and education.

Recent GDP statistics tell us the British economy is rolling along with the highest growth rate in Europe. After being in the staid and organised countries of Western Europe, it is a statistic I found easy to believe among the thriving and chaotic scene I encountered at Stratford station, an East London gateway. Europe’s monocultural and uniformly moderately wealthy streets gave way to a vibrant and engaging city pulse.

The sheer mix of peoples from all over the globe contributes to this exciting and dynamic energy. New immigrants arrive daily from places as far flung as Poland, Nigeria and Russia. While most of the luggage on London’s airport conveyors contains naff Croatian souveniers and bad pastel tourist clothes, some of these bags are the 20kg baggage allowance that will start a new life.

These long-term arrivals aren’t casual adventurers prompted by a fellow Wellington bar-buddy shifting to the London big smoke, but poor people giving up everything that was at home to seek a better life in the rich world. Unfortunately, despite a growing economy, leaving Nigeria for London hardly ever comes with an eight pound an hour assistant office job. More likely it will be four quid an hour on the checkout or as a night shift construction worker.

Out late one night in central London, I paused to chat with a Nigerian guy guarding a building whose occupants he could not release information about. After breaking through the “piss-off-I-can’t-tell-you-anything” that came with the job description, I asked him about Nigeria’s capital, Lagos. He suggested I visit, me replying that I considered it a dangerous place for a white man. He chuckled, saying that for him London was a far more frightening place to be.

Considering the poor employment prospects, sub-standard housing estates and inadequate public transport that characterize black suburbs like Hackney, I agreed that London certainly can’t be a rosy place for all. It makes me wonder why they- why we- why I am here. It is an expensive, congested and dirty parasite. As early as the 1660’s outsiders observed a 20 mile wide and 1 mile high cloud of grime over London. Like any metropolis, London is a monster. It guzzles endless fresh prey, be it coal, humans or Italian buffalo mozzarella.

Despite being a monster, there’s something about London that proves irresistible. Being a participant in something so powerful and influential brings a type of exhilarating and addictive attachment. If not clean air, then at least one lives where the modern world is being made, wrought out in an endless collision and concoction of lifestyles, foods, music and ideas. To exist among such a diversity of people, people who through happenstance and imagination ended up in the same place, is to say the least…exciting.

If you're feeling like some straight-talking-- this guy has a lucid take on the "present situation":

http://www.freedomroad.org/milmatters_27_neocon.html

Cuts through the make-believe complexity and serves it up raw.

No more monkeys. What do they need rooves for anyway? - They've got the trees.

A family of monkeys landed on my roof this morning...there were three: father finger, mother finger and baby finger-

First it was possums, then mice, now monkeys...

See here for a beautiful painting-

http://www.degener.com/1390a.htm

Whatever next?

Possums are still the most scary.

A solar storm the other day- http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6913

Lots of radiation- does this affect us?

A three month break from the blogsphere - finally back online, hooked up, connected.

It's a bit like being on caffeine. The world spins faster, more erratically.

Read some interesting commentary on this information overload and the consequent speeding up/lack of focus that accompanies our constant "connection" to the world.

A destabilization of ourselves- that matches the destablization in the forms of the information we receive- the "neverthereness", the transitory, flitting of the net- see David Levy who says our obsession with immortality means the internet is fundamentally disturbing our psyche...

http://www.utne.com/pub/2005_127/promo/11499-1.html

And also arising from that wonderfully American optimism in Utne...this guy who just wants to be ten years old again- and makes hobbit holes in which to draw pictures....

http://www.moonlight-chronicles.com

Good things are happening- and Kyoto is nice and chilly for days inside.


If there were a now to mark time with
To catch it in a butterfly net
And see it's wings shredded by the nylon-

Would you be pleased?
Or would you keep snatching at butterflies
To quench your thirst?

You greedy thing!

Currently in amidst this...the 23rd of the year and the 24th on its way.

Yes, yes- raining and windy and work is cancelled...television is in its element giving us fresh updates on the exact location of the storm zone every five minutes. We get live footage of rain falling on the sea, rain falling on the streets in Osaka, rain falling on the streets in Kyoto, water rushing under bridges, people scrurrying about in umbrellas...

Current atmospheric pressure is 954 hPa.

So we watch the typhoon on TV. I should be playing in the rain, relishing the wind.

The other day I went to see the sea...but all I found was this-

I think you may struggle to even make out a slither of the grey, glassy and somehow dead mass of water that is Osaka Bay. As a general rule I would suggest that there are too many fences. Pointless fences, protecting us from nothing in a desperate type of paranoia... directing us past, onward--don't go here.

The sea was surrounded by a wall over which I couldn't see. So I climbed the freeway bridge to get a peak. I did find a ferry terminal, but you had to buy a ticket to see the sea. Atleast it was a sign that salt water was somewhere nearby.

I did find a glorious map and accompanying plaque extoling the wonders of Osaka and it's rosy future (guaranteeded by "mushrooming highrise buildings"). I would show you the words that accompany the map but they were so sufficiently faded that they would be invisible after the series of digital manipulations between reality and the screen from which you are reading.

The rusty map shows railway lines and subway routes. This year is the centenary of the New York Subway- a story worth reading; explosive growth, 80s decay and subseqent restoration... http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us/mta/centennial.htm I want a go on those graffitied trains with police dogs patrolling in 1982-

Ok- you do get the plaque- it's a nice colour...

New York's subway opened in 1904 and Osaka's first line ran for the first time in 1933 and continues to extend tentacles beneath the city... see http://www.urbanrail.net/as/osak/osaka.htm

Above ground is an equally confused array of lines and cables, fibre optic communication, electricity, connections, wires to the rest of us...arranged in a frenzy of military-style construction. Like the purely functional railway stations, like the army rebuilding bombed bridges- what is most important is to have everything OPERATIONAL- and leave aesthetics to the dogs (or camera-carrying wanderers peering up into that clear autumn sky).

Osaka powerlines

Petrol Station: Bentencho, Osaka, Japan.

The "Future with Dream" struck a chord in these times of inflating oil prices. A remarkably candid advertisement for gas---referring here to the unfulfilable dreams of an endless oil driven future??

Japanese English usually contains some profound truth. Someone suggested using tee-shirt English as an oracle, or advice for daily life as you walk down the street; "Enjoy this precious moment" advises one shirt while another informs (on a four year old boy); "I have fond memories of a childhood abroad". Whatever next?

Typhoons, earthquakes...but sometimes it's dead calm; like this vista over Lake Biwa. The wonderful pinky, golden haze of the evening.

The race is never ending.

The race will be conducted in English
The race is on now…

You are expected to join the race immediately.
We warn you that the race track is currently passing over the
Fire and brimstone
Of Hell.

So keep running and don't stop.
Stick to the marked track please.

Parents: please ensure your children are adequately prepared.
Results driven English speakers are preferred.
Winning is important.

Coca cola is available free of charge at designated rest areas.
Please help yourself.

The location of the finish line is unclear at present.

Thankyou for your cooperation.

The subway as event：making places out of non-places.

Why is travelling on the subway not an ecstatic experience?

An experience that we would not confine to the regularities of workaday, functional, enslaved life, but a n event that we would embrace for the sheer pleasure- the sheer pleasure of being below ground, experiencing this hurtling through a tunnel, marvelling at the technological wonder that has made it possible for us to be here- so deep, so fast with these unconnected people?

The subway could become a beautiful event, an event of excitement with glass tubes as trains. Glass not only on the sides but also above and below-making a cylindrical canvas (the internal wall of a cylinder) the canvas for brilliant shows of light. Objects of marvel whilst changing places- the act of transit ceases to be a nothing time but becomes an event; an experience to be cherished in itself. The journey becomes more attractive, or equally so- to that of the destination.

A multitude of co loured lights could be adjusted to invoke various states of being. At times the subway would be tranquil- whites and blues – not dissimilar to swimming through a vast ocean. Or there would be a psychedelic mode with a fluorescent menagerie of pumping, throbbing colour.

The reflective glass makes for interesting effects as the internal space of the subway is eternally reflected, repeating into the distance. The viewers then projected onto the light beyond- a curious blend of spectator and visual spectacle.

The writer, Chalk, being very serious in the subway.

Dusted trails, too temporal in this holy city blew up and down. Coating the frozen cranes; statues to the art of survival. Reflecting the artificial brightness of beauracratic order, the flowing water offered a tranquil constancy to subsume too mighty shifts of human action. A ridiculous expansiveness of influence of which a proliferation of the glowing green and blue “Family Mart” was but one tell-tale sign. A twenty four hour temple to the instant, to whim and unfounded desire.

Side by side the vending machine and fox, key in hand- to the rice store, hoping for a good harvest, this other glowing symbol of over- abundance. Hard work or lack of it, how could these bodies, muscles, strength all be gainfully worked? Tightened hamstrings, sitting in trains waiting for the kaetai.

A glowing that distracts the mind yet tempts the eye. A Density necessary with such mountains

All these people doing stuff. Its horrifying and wonderfully astonishing-the collective time in the world.

The "Flower Tower" in Paris...

www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1308371,00.html

My brief experience of Zen led me to meander around the idea of movement. Zen prioritises a stillness- of both body and mind. And as I struggle with the physical effort of keeping still I come to realise that movement is always futile. I am uncomfortable so I desire to move; I give in and move, but am at once dissatisfied in my slightly altered condition. I am uncomfortable so I move; but then I am still uncomfortable- simply in a different place. I experiment with keeping utterly still and over time the body seems to sink into an equilibrium with its discomfort- a pain that looses sharpness as stillness is maintained.

Can I translate this bodily experience to a wider context? I attempt to expand these observations from a few hours in a small temple room to ideas about our movement through the world. Our constant seeking which requires constant movement; a societal phenomenon which we can see boldly represented in the capitalist economic system; the personal psyche writ large- this monster of unrequited desire; a system of endless dynamism. It is the antithesis to stillness. And has produced a widespread malaise.

Is it that, like sitting practicing zen- life is an uncomfortable thing…yet moving, and desiring will not end this discomfort? One can move constantly; shifting and niggling and never be completely at ease. What is required is a stillness, the coming to terms with discomfort, rather than a constant shifting, buying, chasing that always proves only a minor distraction before another movement becomes necessary-to maintain the escape (from what?).

This is an old, old civilisation and there are polished, well worn ways of doing things. The practice of daily life is highly organised, structured. There are ways that things are done, and they are done because that’s the way you do it.

Take match making/ couple-creation; there is a special word for the act of young people going out in a group where the numbers of un-partnered men and woman are carefully matched; a “date” usually organised by a couple; a boy inviting his single boy friends and a girl her unmatched girl friends. No one pretends this is an accidental event, rather, it is a consciously, collectively agreed upon method of interaction- it has it's own special label.

Such an old culture with these hardened, concretised “strata” of rituals and repeated practices does have certain advantages. It demands that people hold a type of respect and politeness toward each other that makes living just a little more pleasant; respectful drivers that wait patiently at the pedestrian crossing, the “event” of even the smallest purchase.

As I buy a 100 yen carton of orange juice I am treated to a ritual of exchange; careful packaging in a bag, a straw neatly added, a bow and profusion of thanks.

Between lunch and job some Dotonbori gaudiness for the senses. Too much...

blonde hair anyone?

Pachinko, Osaka. I watched a business man depart this noise with the most calm demeanour. Must do something positive for the nerves. Relaxation/escape in the giddiness.

Them rolling hills. Wonderful layers in the evening. Kyoto, Japan.

Beautiful textures in the sky, ne?

This day was possibly the coolest I've experienced in Japan. A breeze blew from the North, the sky was limited by a blanket of thick high cloud. It had rained over night. Everything was clean, but grey.

It was also a Sunday, and a public holiday, the city was strangely deserted save the main thoroughfares that were uncharacteristically awash with local tourists. Photographs of faces against the decaying tiled edifices of the eighties.

A massive construction site was temporarily on hold, caught in the act; the building with its pants down.

The worn out Shinsaibashi where my workmate tells me she famously played- every night a disco in the heady eighties. Money, money, money…but no more. There is an intriguing aura of decay- the hauntings of past riches.

One use of the river is as a dumping ground for bicycles. Which one day get dredged up to make a giant Pollock like scramble- a sculpture on a barge.

The patterns in the paving are saying something to the raw and rustic fabrics of the players. Being watched, and I was watching too. A performance, a play? Organised dress ups? I like to imagine that it’s a regular Sunday event. Come to the park and lets play dress ups. Excellent appropriation of space.

Osaka through the glass

The reflection is on the opposite side of the road to my sometimes workplace. A tiny flourescently lit white space in the corner of a retail mega-structure. Between the cell phones and chocolate giftpacks, the plastic buckets from china and the cheap nylon shirts you can also buy English.

The apartments must be on my side of the road. The block is surrounded by the shopping centre beneath- easy access. The machine for living is decorated by the bright colours of the everyday. I like the trees, which are also in a straight line, grid like and have grown to a uniform height.

I'm sitting in a cafe overlooking Kyoto. The river is like a strip of somewhere else in this otherwise extended concrete slab. That halts abruptly at the mountains. Almost a mountain stream, the speed of water is of a refreshing alpine pace to that of the downstream Osakan Dotonbori. By then a sluggish, dirty, almost black beast with a slick, oily surface. Sitting in such high places is not conducive to the relaxation expected of green tea in a cafe. Somehow the eagle's perch put me on guard-I'm too exposed.

Even in a land that's mostly mountains yet is home to more than 120 million humans, there's still some empty space...

Every afternoon, like clockwork, it comes alive with the hollow wooden sounds of croquet, bicylces and bright yellow shirts.

Zen lines

Sandals (plastic) for monks

The sound of eternity has been playing for almost 1649 days.

A one thousand year long piece of music streaming into your living room...

http://longplayer.org/index.html

It goes in a circle and after a thousand years will come back to its beginning.

Wired in Wairoa really is worth checking out. Who is doing this??

Reminiscing the small town...

www.wairoa.com

I'm struck by the temple's symmetry and straight lines.

Is this a futile attempt to refer to some kind of "order"? Order as a transcendent process that these holy places attempt to evoke, realise within individual selves. Somehow such an ordering seems to have become associated, connected to the straight line, to the right-angle and perfect symmetry.

The temple displays its sacredness in its reflection of a greater cosmic order. Yet its attempted image of order seems a futile representation. The symmetrical paths are broken by zig-zaging cracks in the tarmak, the irregular growth of trees, the "random" location of pigeons on the ground. Tree roots emerge from the ground in infinitely complex patterns; oblivious to the right-angles and square tiles that impose a grid over the surface.

The symmetry and lines appear as a meek and futile human ordering that attempts to refer to a much more complex, an unknown and mysterious order. An order that is perhaps that which we see as chaos. Note the order and systematic regulation of the forest, or the order inherent in the "chaotic" patterns of the clouds. It is here that we see a clearer image of order, but one that is so complex we can never quite grasp its workings.

Always a pleasant way to spend the day in Kyoto...or anywhere:

"ONE OF THE BASIC situationist practices is the dérive [literally: “drifting”], a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances. Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of journey or stroll.

"In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there. Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think: from a dérive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones".

Theory of the Dérive
Guy Debord
Les Lèvres Nues #9 (November 1956)
reprinted in Internationale Situationniste #2 (December 1958)
Translated by Ken Knabb

for more Situaltionalist writing see: http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/theory.html

Unfortunately the sweet shop was out of azuki bean sweet, soft balls- wagashi. But the second-hand book store made up for it with a copy ofthe "complete" History of Islamic Political Thought. Oishi, ne?

PL Peace Tower (1970) , Osaka, Japan

The PL (Church of Perfect Liberty) Peace Tower intrigued me as I explored the outer reaches of the Kansai area. Despite my efforts in circumnavigating the tower it remained behind a barbed-wire fence.

"The PL Peace Tower has become an interreligious, sculptured monument dedicated to all the departed souls of those who have died as a result of all human conflicts. It's a place where people can reflect on the ravages of war and pray for world peace. For this reason, the PL Peace Tower was erected and dedicated to symbolize PL's heartfelt desire for "the eternal peace and true happiness of humankind".

"Enshrined within the main altar in Peace Tower, is a list of unlimited names of those who have died as a result of human wars. These names have been collected from around the world, regardless of race, nationality, religion, or political beliefs, and they have been recorded on microfilm and placed in a sacred golden container".

And the site of the world's biggest firework display...

http://www.perfectliberty.ca/history_c1.htm

Shinto torii, Tofukuji, Kyoto, Japan

The most appropriate place for the federation: among the falling, drifting diesel particulate and gasoline additives. Cramped beneath a cathedral for the private, metal transportation box. Got to keep moving, fast.

contentment?

There's usually some profound truth behind these gimmicky english phrases that decorate t-shirts- and in this case, bikes. Bikes certainly are magnificent and Japan is abuzz with them. It makes me very happy .

Bikes travel well on tarmak...but are also good on compacted dirt. Tarmak is problematic in its domination on travelling spaces- it gets too hot. But they're trying to figure out water-permeable tarmak- see: http://web-japan.org/trends01/article/020902sci_index.html

Plants on rooves are a good idea too--As Tokyo burns  in record high temperatures this summer, the metropolitan government is following in the steps of Hundertwasser, requiring 20% of new buildings to be covered in greenery.

See: http://dalore.net/PhotoWeb/Pages/Vienna19.html

who arranged these?

melting...

Does the sea surround us? Or do we surround the sea? Sometimes we fortify our land-based habitation with concrete. This militaristic manoeuvre of distrust separates us, isolates our land-based metropli from the impeding ocean. Not distrust maybe- but an act made with awareness, a futile and petty piece of human engineering in the  face of melting ice sheets:
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/climate/climate.jsp?id=ns99994864

In Japan it is difficult to physically touch the sea. Fences, walls, concrete, tarmak keep us safely on land. You're on more intimate terms in the basement of the Hanshin Department Store.  Octopus eyes, crabs, cockles, whale...every bit of living flesh from the sea up for sale. Its fresh, and sometimes alive. And a fleeting confirmation that I live on an island.

Note the basement: the boundary between over/under ground is far more easily/frequently transversed than that between land and sea. Maybe we'll escape here more often- it's the war...shelters not from bombs, but from land prices, and from this hot, burning (but drowning?) planet.

Tarmak: Tenoji, Osaka, Japan

Slot machining has a certain charm. I am reminded of Dostoevsky's The Gambler as I attempt to descend (elevate?) into the unthinking. Is this the new meditation - with coins in hand, a circular, never-ending machine...like feeding a never-satisfied dog.

What else would one do on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Kyoto, ancient holy city? Fortunately the judgment of the protestant work ethic is absent (more accurately leisure as work/productive ethic) --replaced by something quite different- haven't quite figured it, but something that embraces the nothing time, the pointless- as necessary. It is, it is---a meditation, a focus point beyond the regime.

The appeal of moving massive numbers of coins - they're even the same weight as the real thing provides an illusion, the physical sensation of wealth. I attempt to gamble as an Aristocrat- The Gambler my reference point. Beyond my thinking I am unexpectedly immersed, focused within this other world of usually maddening noise ....becoming music that rises and falls with my fortunes.

The rational systematic efficiency, cleanliness of the subway...one descends beneath the ground, is packed in a small tube full of strangers and emerges in a completely different space. Having seen only the reflections of ourselves in the glass of the tube.

My space is bare (barren?). It reflects little of me - save for what is absent; the yellow polyester floor rug with vulgar patterns is folded away out of mind in the top cupboard. As are the plastic drawers that would make a corner awkward. The wooden floor is clean, the table covered by a loose assortment of goods for my life.

Friday rained and blew and took me across the river to a business park where I could exist in Planet Corporate Capitalism. Here, one is removed from other realities; buffered by manicured gardens which support abstractly arranged towers. A minimal artwork with plenty of bare, paved space.

On this day it was my favourite cafe--a tall, tall room surrounded by glass, a corner converging at 75 degrees. Light and airy inside despite the rain; coffee and a sticky cookie, Japanese magazines and soft jazz. That air of moneyed contentment. Temporarily I can take a swim. In the luke warm...Outside I realise I've been sitting beneath fifty stories of something - it doesn't say--offices doing something, for somewhere, far away and out of mind (sight). 

Osaka has been a magnificent mercantile city. Can't help but regret (wonder, atleast), at the possible loss of these bustling waterways filled with haggling and goods being tossed between bodies; fish and rice from all over the inland sea. Gives way to this sterile, abstract cleanliness of the business park. Today's commerce. Elevated walkways and underground tubes prevent any unnecessary collisions, excitement.

inbetween spaces: New Zealand & Japan 

A functionalist, utilitarian architecture and general aesthetic pervades- despite such a rich tradition of design and possession of the beautiful. In the parks we are reminded occasionally by the flat rectangular and sparse arrangement of forms.

Nevertheless - utilitarian barriers for nothing interrupt and remind us of this pointless and harrowing - stifling obedience. Still- the men wave fans to cool themselves - decorated, yet mass-produced in this pleasing pared-down style. Cherry trees abound, forgiving, repenting the city and all its ugliness - its functionalism that ignores the human. Ignores life and purposefully stifles it - breeding conformity. Atleast the sky is still golden.

Japan needs to get things done, get things done fast and efficiently. Quickly and at minimum cost; because we've got so much more to do - dam rivers, build elevated highways, more railways, build more airports, reclaim the sea - a constant busi-ness which is, in itself, admirable. The results: disappointing, requiring us to move to the next project, or smoke a cigarette and forget.

inbetween space: Osaka & Kyoto