Perception, Motive, & Opportunity

Kyoto photos
Originally uploaded by Tokyorosa

The Photo

If you've never lived in Japan, when you think of Japan, you think anime ninja geisha temples sushi Godzilla shrine monks, right? You think Ah-so and To-kay-o and Ki-yo-to, am I right? Well, let me burst one of your bubbles anyway: Much of inhabited Japan looks exactly like that photo.

That's a photo of Kyoto right there, kids, the city most associated with the fantasy of old Japan. That's looking down a hill near Kiyomizo-ji, an important temple. I took that photo about a year and a half ago on a three-day trip to the old capital city.

The reason I'm posting it now is because David just recovered it off an old memory card from my defunct camera. The memory card was in one of the side pockets of the suitcase that has gone largely unpacked since I brought it back from Japan. Yes, unpacked now for a year and a half. (That's how often I use the business suits and high heeled shoes that were the everyday staples of my Tokyo wardrobe.)

A Quote

Browsing The New Yorker website this morning, I came across this quote from David Sedaris:

Like most seasoned phonies, I roundly suspect that everyone is as disingenuous as I am.

Motive & Opportunity

A few years ago, I watched about three seasons worth of The Sopranos in one go (they were all available at the same time at the rental place) and afterwards noticed that my interpersonal problem-solving abilities---never highly developed to begin with--were leaning very heavily toward the “Oh, you got a problem with that? Well, why don’t you go fuck yourself?” side of things.

In a similar vein, I can’t recommend that anyone use up the seven, they-expire-tomorrow hours of their remaining online Netflicks viewing time watching episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. The cummulative effect is not pleasant. Today alone, I’ve seen three molested children, one rape, two rape-murders, and two cops turned serial killers.

But here's another photo of Kyoto to make it all better:

Here, two young men take cell phone photos of a copy of Rodin's The Thinker outside a Kyoto museum.