The fabled creator of the Letters in Red, our very own modern day answer to Monsieur Bouvard, has entrusted to me various folios of his unfinished writings. One piece, which we often talked about, was ‘Supermarkets’. As I wandered into Family Mart this morning, one of the many 24/7 convenience stores dotted about Tokyo, I had a wave of nostalgia for our various considerations of super spaces. Whilst the store I entered was but a slither of the size of the stores he would frequent, it serves I hope as a footnote, as a little way back into the subject.

I was just going in to pick up a few things for lunch. And whilst I would be alone for my lunch that day, it was R.’s sense of a lost time and space that I was really thinking about…

at that time, going to the supermarket on friday or saturday nights was his main hobby.  alas, so many hours he spent slowly walking aisles, studying the prices of each item he might one day need […] having no commitments in general, he could have also gone shopping on sundays or any other day during the week and as many times as he liked, but in any case he did not need anything, his accommodation was fully catered. 

Again the brand of an unravelled flâneury that has made such a mark on our collaboration comes through in this writing about the supermarket:

…it was pleasing to think himself comparable to those parisian gentlemen.  however, unlike his famous 19th century colleagues (if colleagues is an adequate term) there was no novelty for him in the aisles as there was for the frenchmen in the arcades, no exotic goods were displayed (he had grown in a global time, bored with the international sameness of it all) … but beyond the disparity of the context, what probably marks the difference between him and the gentlemen were their motives [ …] his action was not a self-imposed one, he was not playing the idle, even his detachment from the crowd was not chosen.   if there was something that could have related him to the flâneur, it was his ability to fantasise out of the ordinary: whilst walking in front of vegetables and meats, he would imagine ever new recipes and revolutionary cooking methods, he would also imagine he had someone to cook for.  when he saw families and friends shopping together for the week or for a meal, he would imagine himself part of the group, and when the cashier asked him are you ok today? he imagined she really cared.

In Japan, of course, it is hard to detect any ‘bad faith’ as shop assistants usher you in with the distinctive call of irasshaimase and smile so sweetly when carefully wrapping even the most trivial of items you have purchased. But, of course, the same mechanics is in operation all over, in this ‘global time’. A time summed up by the phenomenon of muzak (noun [mass noun] trademark recorded light background music played through speakers in public places), the existence of which is seemingly ever more prevalent in Japan. What I really wanted as I entered Family Mart this morning was the opportunity to discuss this muzak. It has been on my mind for sometime since I have been here. I have a vision of R. and I wandering far and wide with various recording equipment, capturing the mixed aural economy of Tokyo and no doubt never actually getting round to do anything with these neatly captured sonics.