In front of my house there's a high wall with large sakura trees on the other side. The wall surrounds the playground of an elementary school, and looking out over it from my house's second story gives one the illusion of space, open sky stretching away toward the mountains of Kitayama.
In the evenings, the classrooms long emptied, there always seems to be something going on. It is fun to guess by the sound coming into my house from across the road and over the wall. The rhythmic thunk of a basketball. The quick and harsh clacks of bamboo shinai. The chatter of the baseball diamond.
Being summer now, the school kids on break, the sounds are different. At seven a.m. sharp, radio taiso rouses us with its blaring distortion. Then the brass, and the drums, of the marching band. I find it kind of funny that there are such bands here, despite the obvious lack of high school football. From upstairs I watch what I can see from between the trees, catching the occasional glimpse of a methodically moving figure in uniform, the brilliance of color wilting in the rising heat.
On the turntable: Roxy Music, "Live in Concert"
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