Shards, 2019

-The Japanese on alcohol look as if they’re slightly deflated


-(Thoughts on Mongolia) ...you could see the way those in the cities were threatened by barbarians, by those beyond the perceived order upon those who dictated the dictates of order.  It was the have’s and have-not, but in this case the have-nots had all they needed and didn't care anyway, at least not for a while.


-Second hand air con in front of the shop fronts (walking muggy Singapore) 

 
Modern Japan as the inverse of the rebuilding after the war.  It feels that after Fukushima there is a debuilding of sorts, the government making decisions that are actual tearing apart the essentially elements of Japanese society.  The tourists coming in are changing the demographic.  The old is being destroyed to put up hotels, guests houses, etc.  What is allowed to remain is deemphasized and replaced by cliche.  The train systems which had always been reliable no longer seem to be. Criticism about the lack of forewarning before before the last fatal storm has created an almost knee-jerk reaction in the main railway company.  Train lines go down 12 hours or more before a storm is supposed to come, and in many cases the storm never does. 


-conceptional art vs representational art.  What’s there vs what is perceived to be there


-it seems the human condition is to strive, to always want to better oneself.  So it is that I believe we complain so much, that we are constantly finding fault with our situation so as better to improve upon it.  Those of more economic privilege of course have created a world in which most of those cares and worries have disappeared.  So it is that I find that they seem to grumble about the inane and the mundane things, that which is not so important.  Thus it is that an offshoot of people’s drive to survive is to complain, chronically.   


On the turntable:  Adam and the Ants, "Antmusic: The Very Best of..."