Monthly Archives: July 2016

A coda for Irwin Fletcher


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(DoubleTree Hotel, Brisbane, California 2016)

A lineman not of Wichita


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(Brisbane, California 2016)

Let’s English here

A helpful sign in a Matsuya in Kichijoji, Tokyo. Matsuya is a fast food chain specializing in gyudon, a Japanese beef bowl dish of immense popularity…

Matsuya Kichijoji

(Kichijoji 1-chome, Tokyo 2015)

The unwavering jizō

Kozukappara is one of Tokyo’s most notorious Edo-era execution grounds. This beautiful jizō overlooks and guards the place. The grounds are a very short walk from the south end of Minami-senju Station, and so trains are constantly coming and going on elevated tracks on either side of Kozukappara. But despite its unquiet location, the jizō, in its wisdom and patience, keeps calm, unwavering watch, guarding the living from the dead and the dead from the living…

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(Near Minami-senju Station, Tokyo 2015)

Greetings from television…


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(Nakano 5-chome, Tokyo 2015)

Incongruous mouthfuls


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He was smiling his way through Takadanobaba Station on Halloween, a night that’s crazy in Tokyo. The Yamanote Line crowd was a thick slurry of rush hour commuters and partiers in transit. His white cane made his blindness obvious. That and the cardboard mikoshi on his head made him stand out. His face held joy and purpose, and what he was doing took guts. I felt respect for him, and hoped his Halloween was happy…

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(Takadanobaba Station, Tokyo 2015)

Kyoto, in motion and at rest

I was wandering around Gion, Kyoto one morning last November, checking out what kind of activity beats in Japan’s cultural heart before the typical white collar work day begins. It was a Tuesday around 8:30 a.m. Most shops and restaurants in Gion don’t open that early so it seemed like only essential infrastructural stuff was happening.

There was this fellow and his crew, installing a new hunk of concrete among the paving stones on Shinbashi Dori to replace the frame around a manhole cover leading to a storm drain…

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Around the corner on Yamato Oji Dori, this fellow was taking a smoke break from unloading construction materials from the back of the truck he was in. One of his co-workers was slumped down asleep in the seat next to him. They were parked in front of a restaurant which looked like it was being renovated…

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And that was just a morning, in passing, in a city the definitely sleeps but also gets up early and ready to work.

(Gion, Kyoto, Japan 2015)

Jasmine and Buddy




(Japantown, San Francisco 2016)


At a Mexican supermercado, she really wanted some Cheetos…

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…so, by god, she got herself some Cheetos…

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(La Hacienda Market, South San Francisco, California 2016. Published with additional commentary on Scholars and Rogues.)

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