Category: Japan

deep blacks: on the way to sapporo, december 2013

whbeebe1 Comment

Andy, over at blog.atmtx.com, has redesigned his blog, and in the process gone down a different path with sharing his photography. One of his entries, “Deep Blacks: Checking Status“, reminded me of a similar set of photos I took in Japan while riding a train to Sapporo Japan in 2013. I’ve had my own work buried for so long that I actually appreciate it again. All of these were taken with the original Olympus OM-D E-M5 and the M.Zuiko 12-50mm zoom, a lens that the photographic paperback intellectuals tends to look down on for no good reason.

This photo fits in with Andy’s observation that the use of cell phones on trains is carefully controlled. This gaijin was standing in the section between cars in order to place his smart phone call so as not to disturb the other passengers, who were sitting quietly.

metal locusts and memories of past science fiction

whbeebe

This was taken at the Tama Zoological Park, just outside the main building of the Insectarium. I thought these two were interesting the moment I saw them. But they also triggered the memory of a short science fiction story I’d read decades ago, about a lone man, a lone woman, and their lives together in the aftermath of a nuclear war in New York City. The story started about the man finding the woman, and progressed about the two of them slowly growing closer. As their story was being told, there was the back story of odd happenings in the city. The story ends when one day, after hearing strange noises coming from Central Park, the two find that the Alice in Wonderland statues have been re-carved into insect forms. It’s at this point the two realize their end may be a lot closer than they realize.

I don’t remember the story’s name nor the author, only that I read it sometime back in the 1970s. It had come as part of an anthology from the Science Fiction Bookclub. Or at least I think it did. I may be mis-remembering all of this.