Energy Shift Parad, Yoyogi-shibuya-Omotesando

The march Sunday was very Japanese.  it was organized by Greenpeace among others.

It was for and called, "Energy Switch" -  A bit of Japanese English that was supposed to say. "Hey, we are not against anything, we just kind of think it would be a good idea to consider a switch to safer energy sources."  Which is a Japanese way to say, "Shut down the fucking nukes, now!"

It was well attended, and in a Japanese style organized, divided into 7 groups of about 1000 each, mothers and children first, A group with lots of banners after that.  I was in group number 6 don't know what our theme was supposed to be.  Behind us were people with instruments that can not play them well enough to actually entertain anyone, but are still capable of making some noise.  I would have been there had I brought a banjo. 

Each group was whisked through a very busy part of town surrounded by cops and so divided that we did not see any of the other groups beginning to end.  After I realized it was sort of like a Matsuri, Japanese festival, the way they organize the mikoshi, portable shrines.

It was a long time getting started and waiting, standing in our divided groups in the NHK parking lot.  We were over 7 thousand strong, but looked pretty weak when compared with the throng of people shopping in Shibuya and Omotesando that day.

When I was most beautiful

When I was most beautiful,
Cities were falling
And from unexpected places
Blue sky was seen.
When I was most beautiful,
People around me were killed.
And for paint and powder
I lost the chance.

Noriko Ibaragi (1957)

The above is part of a poem that Pete Seeger used to make a song some years ago.  It was about the end of the second world war, but I kept humming it during one pf my schools graduation this year.  Students were not allowed to wear pretty Kimono this year because of the earthquake/tsunami.


A lot of the past seems to be reflected in the current troubles.  I feel like visiting the Luck Dragon again.  It was interesting to restudy that incident that was the motivation behind that Japanese, then the world, Ban the Bomb movement, fighting above ground testing and the movie Godzilla.

Not the big one yet

A friend in Yokohama asked me about my earthquake experience, after 3 weeks I feel about what I felt those first few seconds of the shake.  It was kind of big, but for Tokyo not the big one at all.  Just a very smooth shake.  Tohoku of course got their big one.

I was in Maruzen bookstore.  No books fell.  In my studio (my Taisho built old wooden studio)  my banjo was still leaning against the wall where I left it.  Pretty smooth shake.

I put a link to William Faulkner's Nobel Prize speech up on my facebook yesterday.  It seems particularly appropriate to Japan, especially to the Tokyo area.  He was talking about fear of the bomb in 1950, but I think it is a lot of that pent up residual fear we see folks wallowing in here today.  Also we are being plagued but "the peaceful atom" a scam by the defense industry to make people more accepting of nuclear weapons.  Or perhaps just a by product there of, like the modern fertilizer industry after the WW2 bomb factories were looking what to do with their massive production of nitrogen.

So it goes. 

But none the less a sunny day.

 Faulkner's speech -
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-speech.html

Terrorist Group

I was in Tokyo in 1995 when the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult bombed the subway here with sarin gas.  People were killed.  I was also in Tokyo watching TV when the religious Saudis ran commercial airlines into the World Trade Center in New York, where I used to live.

In spite of witnessing these two events I have to say that the Tokyo Electric Power Company, (TEPCO) is the most successful terrorist organization I have yet encountered in my 50 plus years on earth.  I do not believe it was TEPCO's purpose to spread terror.  But I do believe they have done it far better that any other group to date.