Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

Postcard from Japan

Dear All,

I have been trying to write in my diary since arriving in Japan, but there has been very little time. It`s just after breakfast now, on Sunday, and I am snatching a few moments to send you a postcard. I don`t think I can talk much about all I have done since arriving. I feel a little as if I am seeing my entire life in Japan (some two and a half years here and there over the last decade) flash before my eyes. However, I will tell you about my daytrip to Tokyo yesterday.

A few days ago, we (I shall refrain from mentioning other people`s names) were looking around the local temple when a young lady struck up conversation with us and offered to show us around Tokyo if we were going that way. Eventually we took up the offer, and as a result, we spent Saturday wandering around Tokyo with her as a guide. We arrived at Asakusa station and so our first stop was the Kaminari Mon, or `Thunder Gate` which leads to the Nakamise market and Sensoji temple. Our guide suggested we take a boat along the Sumida River to Hamarikyu gardens, and so our course was set. On the way, however, I noticed, down an alley, a little cafe called Arizona Kitchen, which I happened to know was one of the haunts of Nagai Kafu. I mentioned this and our guide suggested we have lunch there. On the menu was a strange dish of chicken liver, which, it said, Nagai Kafu used to eat when he came here. Since my vegetarianism has already been ruined by daily life in Japan, I only felt a minor sense of regret in ordering this. I suppose it`s silly, but it made me feel a little closer to one of my personal literary deities. On the wall of the cafe were extracts from Kafu`s diary. "January the 24th. Clear skies. Cloudy later. Dinner at Arizona Kitchen." That sort of thing.



We took the boat and arrived eventually at Hamarikyu gardens. Apparently this area was once known for hawk hunting. No hope of that now, I suppose. Our guide pointed out the recent development in the area, the huge office buildings that now surrounded the gardens, and, blocking the wind from the sea, had made the summers in the area that much hotter. One of the buildings was for an advertising company. Scum of the Earth.



From there we went to Tokyo Tower via Zojoji temple. Zojoji had the most impressive displays of mizugo figures that I`ve ever seen. Mizugo are little effigies erected as memorials to aborted children. As abortion is more or less a method of birth control here in Japan, such statues are numerous. I took a great many photos. One of the statuettes, with a yellow raincoat, reminded me of Nakata Hideo`s film Dark Water.

From Tokyo Tower - a tasteless piece of architectural hubris - we looked down on the metropolis that, our guide reminded us, had all sprung up in the sixty years since the war. Tokyo is ever-changing, to quote from Hojoki, like bubbles forming and bursting in a river. I noted with interest a building with a very strange roof. I was informed it belonged to a cult known as `reiha no hikari`. There was something weirdly futuristic about it.



Our final stop was Ginza, where I managed to buy a copy of Tender Pervert by Momus, which I believe is not now available outside Japan, and also Kate Bush`s Aerial, which I have now listened to in its entirety. What`s it like? Perhaps I`ll tell you, if you ask nicely.

All for now,

Your avuncular homunculus,

Quentin.