TOKYO'26 . . . AN(other) INTERMEZZO
. . . or, jumping ahead of myself . . .
_ _ _ as I will be explaining in the forthcoming, “proper” urbophilia post (which is being drafted up for an annoyingly long while), I am back in Japan, in Tokyo, in places (about, in, from) which I have been lucky to learn, to learn (even) more than (I sincerely believe) they actually offer . . . I hope to open up the themes which (should) enable diverse readings . . . here I begin with images taken several hours ago . . . images open themselves to mis-readings more generously than the words ever could; to us, foreigners, Japanese and Chinese ideograms are also images, images variously closed to reading; at the next level of complexity, urban textures act as texts of exponentially increased complexity; actual places are the complexity itself
_ _ _ as foreigners, we tend to misread complexity of foreign situations; even an acceptance that that is so can bring us closer to the ultimate complexities of real places and practices, which stay profoundly opaque to us; but, they might open up as original, unexpected and, as such, generally missed text(ure)s
_ _ _ a strange fact is that in Tokyo I both am, and I am not a (total) foreigner . . . fifteen years of living here have something to do with that; that period was long enough to for me understand that it’s not Japan, it’s not Tokyo, it’s not the Japanese who are strange but I, I am the strange one, here; very early on I’ve decided to stay illiterate (in Japan), while trying to open myself up to all sorts of vibrations that (might, only might) carry the meaning (of relevance to my interests in the urban); while the realisation of one’s own strangeness in itself might not help us understand the essence, it does help comprehend the distance . . . over the years, informal, unstructured time spent with generous colleagues and friends in Japan was essential to my non-cerebral immersions, to intuitive, first-hand learnings from concrete places and practices observed, felt, and lived there . . . I took thousands of Obs.J notes (my shorthand for “Observations, Japan”, or “Obsession Japan”) . . . (it might be possible to (re)write some of that material, in some Debord-like, Lefebvre-like, Perec-like ways)
_ _ _ the photos below were taken today, 2 January 2026 in Naka-Meguro 中目黒 in, as tourist brochures claim, “one of Tokyo’s trendiest neighbourhoods” while, due to the New Year holidays, almost everything was closed. The places on these photos are all located less than a hundred meters from the famous Meguro River.
_ _ _ please read these messages, read them as (if they are) the texts, as if you know them . . . as there is no right way of doing that, feel free to misread, to read your own interests into them and, if you find pleasure in such readings, please send them to urbophilia; I would love to have know comments (DR)
