Something about discharge and measuring time; that we can only measure time as things become more complex and break down. Something about Stephen Hawking and a good documentary about him by Errol Morris (HERE); the arrow of time. Something about time-perception and destruction; that if we only know time through the degradation of order into disorder perhaps we can change our sense of time by altering our proximity to large scale destruction. Some quote from Hawking from a New Scientist article in 1987, “we measure time in the the direction in which disorder increases.” Something about disasters and the slowing of time; your life flashing before your eyes. Finally, no thing can be known without something being destroyed.

Photo of the sun discharging light through clouds (top) and small crabs discharging sand from holes (bottom).

Shizutani School. One of the first public schools in the world. Imagined by Lord Mitsumasa in 1666, it was finally completed by his successor, Lord Tsunamasa. Two Chinese Pistachio trees are planted in the school grounds. The seeds were brought from China specifically because Confucious regarded them as “academic trees.” When we visited Shizutani School two weeks ago the trees were still bare. In Autumn the leaves will become red and yellow and many people come to see those colours. There was no mention on any of the tourist brochures about the emerald colour of the water in the nearby moat but I felt its colour could easily rival that of the trees. When we visited the water must have had a special kind of algae blooming, or the sun must have been shining on a specific angle, because the moat glowed with a preternatural rich green hue. I wanted to drink from it.





In the 1990′s Russia began giving five gram tablets of an algae called spirulina to children affected by the radiation from Chernobyl. After taking an optimum dosage for an optimum length of time the level of radiation in their bodies was roughly 50% lower. A Chinese research team first studied the power of spirulina on radiation in 1989. They found that a radioactive mouse which is given spirulina will become less radioactive (HERE).

For a while everything in Japan slowed down. The sensation of time passing over the last three weeks felt much longer, more like three months. It seems the earthquake was so large it affected our sense of time. But now everything is gaining speed, becoming normal, we are getting busy again, time is shortening and harder to find. I read an article today that claimed Japan will bounce back from this disaster with renewed vigour, “even stronger than before.” An even more productive and prosperous Japan! Finally a viable way out of the ’90s/’00s axis of economic ennui! Perhaps. Reconstruction is essential, but there are consequences from extending that reconstruction into renewed prosperity. The time-poor workers of Tokyo will be the first to suffer. Their time was already unnaturally scarce before the quake. In the future it may disappear completely. We will not know exact days or hours anymore, only fuzzy states: sleeping, working, eating, talking. As spare time for reflecting on the future vanishes Tokyo will be inhabited solely by workers with a “present perspective of time.” Psycho-Pharmeceudical companies will make a lot of money from “sense of time” medication which will be used to help rebuild the atrophy of timekeeping functions in the basal ganglia and the right parietal cortex. Photo of the Toei Shinjuku Line train gaining speed as it leaves Akebonobashi station bound for East Tokyo (which is where our new house is).

12:29pm. “During the bubble era in the eighties people made a fortune from Bizen-yaki. Business men quit their jobs and came down here to begin a life as a potter, it was a goldrush. Things are not so great now.” Morimoto-san has been explaining the recent history of Bizen pottery to us this morning. Most of the good clay got used up by fair-weather artisans and what was left was taken up by the main families in Bizen. It seems that during the bubble many of the larger families here began searching out high quality clay and hoarding it. The families who are headed by living national treasures (an honor conferred to notable Japanese craftsmen) have hoarded enough clay to last three generations; a means of securing a future for their family. Good Bizen-yaki requires excruciatingly rare clay but these days most of it is hidden under apartment blocks and train tracks; construction workers try to sniff it out to make extra money on the side. The -yaki master we talked to (who is not part of a main family) got lucky in 1989 and secured over 100 tonnes of prime clay. It fills two garages. He parks his car outside now. At the same time, in Tokyo, peoples living rooms and cupboards and filled with dozens of bottles of spring water as there is a threat of tap water being contaminated by radiation. Perhaps one day clean drinking water will become as rare as Bizen-yaki clay, with wealthy families fighting over ownership. Once in a super moon some lucky fellow might discover a hidden cache of the stuff and he’ll store it all in his double garage.