Friday, December 18.

I did manageto wake up early and go. The fish market is one of the most unbelievable places I have been in my life. Like being in a Wong Kar-Wai (Chungking Express) or Tsai Ming-Liang (Vive l'Amour) movie. It is violent. It smells. Colors are all around you. People are pushing you. It is humid. Noisy. They do auctions in a language even Japanese people can't understand. There are hundreds of white, frozen tuna on the floor. It is terrible and attractive.

Sushi for breakfast at 6:30 am.

The rest of the day was more conventional. I met with Tomio Koyama for a studio visit with Yoshitomo Nara.

Later a meeting with Masami Akita. Leader of Merzbow, the noise electronic music band. Very strange. He almost does not speak. It took me about one hour to break a smile on his face. He was very nice and shy. This is strange since his music is some of the most violent one could hear. We spoke about Ballard, art. He told me that he wants his music to be beyond art, as well as beyond music. Gave me at least 10 CDs and a record.

Night at the Milk Bar (club). I am supposed to report on that. I missed the curfew and decided to try one of my fantasies: a capsule hotel.



You need to do that once. But that's it. It is not fancy or fascinating. It is sad. Full of drunken salary men. The capsules are small, plastic. It does not smell good, and the only programs that the TV provides are porn movies. The two guests around my capsule seemed to be enjoying that a lot. I left at 5 am, depressed.