Tokyo's Shiny Catacombs

Via Paul Williams at the JGB list, the amazing underground photography of Joe Nishizawa.

An enormous underground tunnel that runs through 40metres under the Hibiya Junction Tokyo or an underground dome that lies 500metres below deep in the mountains of Gunma…? In Japan unimaginably large spaces underneath our ground level lives exist. Even beyond the high walls of nuclear power stations, incineration plants or energy research organizations futuristic cities that we thought only to exist in science fiction movies unfold - not far from your neighbourhood. I talked to Joe Nishizawa who photographed such hyper-surreal dimensions in Japan and just published a book Deep Inside.

Written by Kaori Nishida
All images © JOE NISHIZAWA

Nishizawa-san, flipping through the pages of your book “Deep Inside” one gets sucked into this technical-magic-wonderland. I can’t believe that those places actually look like that - better than any CG setting I have ever seen. Bladerunner would simply be jealous! Even the lighting is perfect in pink and green!

Oh no, absolutely no computer graphics involved in these photos. That’s essentially what those places look like - for example one right below Hibiya Junction.

Lightings and everything is just captured as it was there - I didn’t even use a flash light! It’s magic: you first hear the car noises on the ground level and as you descend slowly, suddenly, this vast and silent space unfolds in front of you.



For the full treatment, Nishizawa's book Deep Inside is available at Amazon Japan.

For an American analogue, check out Taryn Simon's amazing An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar.

The movie version

On September 11, 2001, I had lunch with a one of my cyberpunk elders. Trading notes on our real-time observations regarding that morning's unfolding CNN apocalypse and its making real of so many of our collective fictional imaginings, I remarked something along the lines of...

"On a day like this I wish Charlton Heston were my president."

...playing on the NRA bumper sticker slogan and endeavoring to repurpose its metatextual frisson.

The cyberpunk was not buying it. Having a decade on me, and being a committed futurist, he was of a generation and mindset such that the very idea of Charlton Heston reeked of pulp-era anachronism and square-jawed retardation.

Of course he was right. But so was I. Heston, through the aggregated avatar of his iconic characters, represented (for me) my gullible youth's ideal of the can-do American lone action hero who solves our disasters with Randian resolve. A Yanqui-Hegelian everyman übermensch who resurrects lost virtue and dons the cloak of reluctant Paladin when the circumstances of the World Gone Mad finally compel it. The Ronin of bourgeois Anglo-Saxon values stranded in exaggerated versions of our entropic dystopia who keeps fighting the fight of his fathers despite its self-evident futility. The string of back to back post-pulp epics -- Planet of The Apes, The Omega Man, Soylent Green, Airport '75, Earthquake -- in which the last upper middle class white dude puts his fist in the dyke of Götterdämmerung. Watching our bumbling President in those early days, my inner adolescent wished the frat boy fuhrer had some of those action man genes working through his system.


Of course, by the end of that week, W. had done just that, and was barking into the megaphone at Ground Zero, and before long he was in the flight suit that inspired a line of custom action figures. And look what that got us.



A persistent theme of life during GWOT-time has been the failure of reality to live up to the action hero narrative that wrapped our national self-image throughout the post-WWII era. The Schwarzeneggerian political semiotics that worked so well in the Reagan era started blowing gaskets when the new generation of political actors, weaned on war movies rather than actual combat in actual wars, seemed to believe that if you mouthed the lines you could make the movie come real. Actual White House spin doctors declared their ability to create their own reality with all the power of a disaster movie production designer. Easy to believe among those who thought they had defeated the Soviets with cathode rays and post-Churchillian rhetoric. But, as they learned, the power to spoon-feed corporate media only gets you so far.



You could hear the cultural gears grinding as the Hurricane Katrina disaster played out, and confused television watchers realized the closest thing to Hestonian figures were the upper middle class Dads from Uptown who loaded their family in the SUV and relocated to a comfortable hotel in Houston. The bounty hunt for the evil villain Osama has degenerated into a "Where's Waldo" self-parody. And when patriotic NFL star turned volunteer Ranger Pat Tillman got fragged by his own troops, the big brass pulled out all the stops to rewrite the public narrative to better fit the Bruckheimer Paradigm. (And of course, the saddest self-parody of all was the aged Heston spouting echoes of his own movie lines at NRA conventions for the cameras of Michael Moore.) Ad man spin doctoring works fine in political campaigns and the manipulation of domestic public opinion, but it's not so good at impacting actual tactile reality. As President Heston didn't say, well-manipulated news narratives don't kill people, guns, bombs and natural disasters do.



Perhaps it is no coincidence that in the week of Heston's death I have seen my cynical thematic arc come full circle with the flurry of reports about the making of an actual movie about the crew that practices geopolitics as a Beltway variation on the Hollywood pitch session. Oliver Stone's W. is in production, with an ambitious goal of release in time for the elections. President Josh Brolin drinking his non-alcoholic beers in the shadow of Poppy James Cromwell, fresh from a similarly spooky paternal turn as Jack Bauer's geopolitically corrupted dad in the last season of 24. The Welsh Mr. Fantastic as Tony Blair. And Thandie Newton as Condi!

The first few pages of an October 2007 version of the script appeared online just the other day:

INT. WHITE HOUSE - OVAL OFFICE - DAY- JAN. 2002

ON CHIEF PRESIDENTIAL SPEECHWRITER, boyish, 40's, talking to 2ND SPEECHWRITER.

CHIEF SPEECH WRITER
"Axis of Hatred?" I don't know. Something about it... just misses.

Seated around the table, Bush and his inner circle: VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY, KARL ROVE, fifties, pudgy; CONDI RICE, her assistant, STEPHEN HADLEY, bespectacled, late 40's.



ROVE
(pipes up) Well, then what about "Axis of the unbearably odious?"

Bush, intent. Scowls at him.

BUSH
Don't get cute, Tudrblossom. (nickname for Rove) This is serious.

CHIEF SPEECHWRITER
What about... "Axis of Evil?"

Bush thinks for a moment.

BUSH
"Axis of Evil." I like the ring of that. That's it.

RICE
But Mr. President, how are we going to tie them all together? It's not like they're Germany, Italy and Japan--who were on the same side.

HADLEY
Yeah, they're not aligned with each other.

ROVE
Who gives a shit? It plays.

BUSH
They may not be aligned. But they're threats to our security. Iran and Iraq is trouble next door to trouble. And they have to know that this President is telling them that they've got a problem. With us.

RICE
Still, I think the Iranian people could take offense in being lumped together with the Iraqis and North Koreans. After all, they have a president who was democratically elected.

HADLEY
(nods agreement)
Could send the wrong message to the democracy movement, sir.

BUSH
No, Hads, you don't get it. Khatami along with the students, the reformers, they'll understand. They want Freedom. It'll give legitimacy to their struggle against the hardliners, the deadenders, the Ayatollah Cockamamies. Iran stay in.

Rove opens a bottle of non-alcoholic beer for the President. Cheney finally chimes in.

CHENEY
Anyone can go to Baghdad. Real men go to Tehran.

Bush smirks, clinks beer bottle with Cheney's coffee mug.

BUSH
Real men.

CUT TO:

INT. DKE FRAT HOUSE- BASEMENT- NIGHT- 1966


Genius high concept: equal parts Animal House, Nixon, and JFK.

Yet to be cast: Cheney, Rummy, and Rove. Suggestions?

What would happen if they let the real W. choose the songs for the soundtrack? That would rock.



[All Heston stills from Earthquake (1974)]

The Day the Earth Stood Still... in vomit

Ain't It Cool News used to be great when they focused on early script reviews and productions rumors. Now, they're mostly a sycophantic Hollywood hanger-on, with writers competing to see how many F-bombs and penis jokes they can shoehorn into a slap-dash "review." Occasionally, however, they revisit the glory of yesteryear with beyond-the-horizon looks at forthcoming films. Case in point: Their current script review of the upcoming remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/36336

If even half of this is true, the film will be far, far more awful than any of us ever imagined. And I, for one, imagined it being pretty bad solely based on Keanu's participation. Dear lord, save us from mass-market corporate lobotomies.

The Le Carré Spam

Fresh from the inbox. It makes total sense that these guys would contact me about this.


Greetings I am Barrister Geoffrey George Kenshore, a solicitor at law. I am the personal Attorney to Late Mr. Alexander Litvinenko, A Russian ex-Spy in London who was poisoned with polonium-210 and died on the 23rd of November 2006 at the University College Hospital here in Central London. Before his death my client made a secret and confidential confession to me that he was poisoned by his Russian Associates. Two weeks before his death my client handed to me a portfolio which contains some deposit documents with security code numbers of a deposit worth of Ј5,500,000,00 British Pounds in a security firm which i cannot disclose to you now. As his personal Attorney i believe that his associates will be coming after me because my client never told me why they poisoned him rather in his confession he told me not to disclose the portfolio to his associates or any one in the family and that i should be very careful, since his death i have not been myself that is why i contacted you to assist me as a Foreigner,First to claim this funds in which i will give you the security codes and every legal backing documents to claim the funds for investment purpose at which i will give you 40% of this funds for your assistance and also invest with you in your country, I assure you that there is no risk in this transaction and there will be no trace of the transfer. Thank you. Barr,Geoffrey George Kenshore. Regent Chambers LLC London.

Battlestar returns

So I missed the season premier of Battlestar Galactica on Friday night (we were at a dance performance at Texas State--the experience clarified the understanding that we enjoy jazz dance quite a bit, modern dance not so much). Since Galactica jumped the tracks so badly last season, and showrunner Ron Moore's comments in the interim seem to indicate that he doesn't grasp this simple fact, I've not held out much hope of the series "sticking the landing," as it were, in this final season. As I sat down last night to finish up the latest installment of "Memory," my brother calls from the living room that Galactica is coming on. Well, crap. Like the siren songs of old, I can't help but abandon my best-laid plans and flit in there like a moth to the flame.

So, did it suck? Did it not suck? That's hard to say. There was no spectacularly obvious mid-course correction to the series that makes everything awesome again. Neither was there anything as awful as that "Along the Watchtower" singalong last season. Mainly, things remained status quo, which isn't a good thing.

Apollo remains a spineless wuss. Last season, after resigning his commission in a pissy fit, he backtracked and hopped in a Viper five minutes later when the Cylons attacked. Way to stick with your convictions, dude. Now, in the newest episode, Papa Adama gets all mushy and offers him his commission back. Because Adama's all about bending the rules, you know. Apollo rejects this offer, instead deciding to enter the civil service, where he can do more good. You know, at least until he hops into another Viper the next time the Cylons attack. Throughout the series, Apollo has been the most ill-written, inconsistent character bar none, and that doesn't look to change any time soon.

The so-called "Final Five" Cylons (minus one) had another group hug, declared to each other that they'd never do anything to harm the Galactica and that they were loyal to humans. Yet if they're so loyal, why did none of them suggest they turn themselves in? After all, Boomer eventually made out okay with that "proof of loyalty" gambit. Instead, they opt for a cover-up. And really, the whole Final Five thread has half-assed written all over it. Between seasons 2 and 3 Ron Moore gave an interview stating that all the active Cylon models had been revealed, that the remaining five had been "Boxed," and we'd see another of the models Boxed in season 3. This happened with the Lucy Lawless character, but apparently Moore abandoned those other plans and retroactively made characters into Cylons who make no sense. Tigh? Tyrol? Gimme a break. This is absolutely a third-season contrivance. The only way this would make sense in the narrative continuity is if the Cylons are, top to bottom, batshit crazy insane. It actually hurts my brain to think how the writers are going to contort storylines to retroactively shoehorn this nonsense into the characters' backgrounds. The only "out" I can think of is that during the occupation of New Caprica the Cylons took each into custody and did some heavy-duty brainwashing to implant this stuff into their heads. Because the alternative is just too dumb to fathom.

Starbuck. Oh, Starbuck, what are we going to do with you? People view you with suspicion, so that gives you leave to beat the crap out of your security detail, husband and hold the President at gunpoint. Nice. What ticks me off about the whole Starbuck subplot is something that's bothered me about the third season as a whole--everything is either/or. The early seasons were all about shades of gray, with no answer being acceptable or right, but the characters tried to choose the one that was least bad. Now, as Adama and Apollo's conversation showed, we're reduced to two choices: She's either a Cylon or she's telling the truth, ignoring a host of obvious alternatives people in power should seriously consider. Leave it to Starbuck herself to think of them: She's a clone derived from her time in captivity on Caprica, or she is Starbuck, but was captured and manipulated by the Cylons in the months she'd been missing. This is good. What's not good is that Starbuck immediately dismisses these possibilities and gets all violent, which is exactly what a Cylon or Cylon agent would be expected to do. Idiot plot alert! The ensuing confrontation is coming about solely because everyone with the power to avert it is acting like idiots. Sheesh. This used to not be the case with the show.

Finally, we come to Baltar. I actually don't have a problem with the character, since unlike Apollo, he's been written consistently as a self-centered genius with a tremendously inflated sense of self-importance from day one. But the whole religious cult thing has gotten too heavy-handed. The monotheistic/polytheistic conflict served as a nicely textured backdrop for the Cylon/human conflict, and that's where it belonged. Moving that element to the forefront, with Baltar as some sort of prophet, exposes the fact that these are both shell religions. There are no tenets, no actual beliefs of spiritual paths or anything associated with actual living religions shown on Galactica beyond maybe lighting some incense on occasion (and I'm even sure about that, to be honest). They're make-believe, and if the show is going to make the viewer believe that these people on either side believe passionately enough about their God/Gods to fight and die over them, then by golly those beliefs have to be shown as real, not just some lip-service to off-camera happenings. I actually played around with a story pitch/novel tie-in idea addressing this issue head-on to a degree a year or so back, but then season 4 was announced as the finale and the whole exercise seemed rather pointless. Suffice to say that my brilliant idea introduced a powerfully atheistic viewpoint to the equation. But that's neither here nor there.

I wish with all my heart they'd address the Cylon in Baltar's head already. Farscape did the concept first, and did it much better. It didn't drag out as long, either.

I've decided to stick with Galactica throughout the rest of the run. I've been here this long, so why stop now? Recently, Ron Moore said the entire fourth season had been plotted out more than a year ago, but during the writers' strike he had time to think and "came up with something better." Huh. We'll see. Hopefully, he rewatched the first two seasons and realized why the show was so much better then--more drama, less soap. I tell folks the show "jumped the shark" with the destruction of the Pegasus. Not that the destruction of the second Battlestar was in and of itself a bad move, but rather the show went downhill from there in startling fashion.

The characters' universe seems to have contracted rather than expand. It's somehow become a smaller show, more insular. Case in point: President Laura Roslin no longer keeps a running tab of the surviving human population. Think about that for a minute, and the differences it symbolizes between the first season and where we are now.

Beware the Yanqui!

The Japanese have a long history with automatons and robots, of course–the Chahakobi Ningyo, the "tea-serving doll," was created circa 1750, and the haiku master Kobayashi Issa even wrote a haiku to it:

Such coolness by the gate
as the tea-serving doll
brings another cup.

But Japanese robots really began with Tanaka Hisashige, a.k.a. "Japan’s Edison." Tanaka did a lot (as you’d expect with the Edison comparison) and created, among other things, the famous Yumihikidoji "boy archer" robot. But, more interestingly, he also created this:



That is the Mojikaki-ningyo, the "Writing Doll." Created by Tanaka sometime in the 1840s, it’s built without a single nail and can write four Chinese characters, including kotobuki, or "longevity." It’s a marvel of Edo craftsmanship and technology.

Naturally, it got stolen. Nobody knows how or when, exactly, but the Mojikaki-ningyo did turn up in 2003 in the collection of Harry Kellar, the "Dean of American Magicians," and Kellar did tour Japan in 1875/1876, so you can draw your own conclusions about just what happened.

Japan’s first modern robot was created in 1928 by Makoto Nishimura, as part of the formal celebration of Emperor Showa’s (a.k.a. Hirohito) ascension to the Chrysanthemum Throne.



The robot, Gakutensoku (or "learning from natural law"), was 7'8" tall, painted gold, could open and close its eyes, could smile, could puff out its cheeks, and at the beginning of each performance would touch its mace to its head and then begin to write. A novelist described one audience’s reaction:

"It started to write characters smoothly in a flowing hand. As if to express the agony of creation, it slowly shook his head from left to right. The movement was so natural it didn’t look like it was a machine. Unconsciously, the spectators began naturally imitating this movement, shaking their heads from left to right. This was funny because the humans looked like they were being controlled by the robot like marionettes."

Gakutensoku was exhibited in Kyoto in 1928 and then sent on tour to Germany. When it disappeared.

One of the starting points of the American otaku craze can be traced to the 1990 English translation of the three Yoshiyuki Tomino "Mobile Suit Gundam" novels.

What do all these things have in common?

Mojikaki-ningyo gets stolen by a white American in 1875. Japan shifts from undoing the unequal treaties forced on it by the white powers in the 1850s and 1860s to trying to make its military the equal of the white powers’. Japan begins sending spies into the Western countries. Japanese ultranationalism begins. The Black Ocean and Black Dragon Societies are founded. Meanwhile, Mojikaki-ningyo is brought to the U.S. in 1875 or 1876. The American management/labor clashes of the mid-1870s end shortly thereafter, as does the Panic of 1873. The U.S. lays the groundwork for its ascension as a world power in the 20th century.

Gakutensoku gets stolen by a white German in 1928. What follows in Japan is a domestic economic crisis, the lose of civilian power over the government, and the rise in power of the military.

The three "Mobile Suit Gundam" novels are translated into English in 1990s and snapped up by crazed American otakus. The Japanese bubble economy collapses soon thereafter, leading to the ushinawareta jūnen, the Japanese "lost decade." Meanwhile, the U.S. begins consuming Power Rangers, Pokemon, and a variety of J-Pop offerings. The English translation of the Gundam novels was one of the first official, licensed J-Pop products, which gave the imprimatur to the American otakus, who helped create the American craze for J-Pop, manga, and anime, so that there are more American consumers (numerically) of the latter than there are Japanese consumers. In other words, America, not Japan, is now the audience for J-Pop–it’s made for us, not its native audience. America has co-opted J-Pop.

It’s clear, isn’t it? When Japan makes a new robot, a white person steals it, and bad things happen to Japan. Japan, beware the white man! He will steal your best stuff and ruin your country!

There is a house

Here's a scene Oliver Stone will have to include in his new film about W.:


In fact, [eldest brother] Salem [bin Laden] emerges from this volume as a compelling, larger-than-life figure, a picaresque playboy, at once guileless, brilliant and self-indulgent, who held together the increasingly fractious bin Laden clan through sheer force of will and charisma. Salem, who dressed in jeans, loved airplanes and liked to play the harmonica, reportedly “paid a bandleader at an Academy Awards party in Los Angeles hundreds of dollars to let him sing ‘House of the Rising Sun’ in seven languages.”

One wonders if history has occluded the fact that this bit of improvisational rich man's karaoke involved a duet with pre-sobriety W. — bearing in mind that bin Laden invested in W.'s oil and gas business in the '80s, before the Saudi died in an ultralight plane crash outside San Antonio in 1988.

Michiko Kakutani: The Bricklayer’s Sons: The Family That Spawned 9/11

Steve Coll: The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century