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TALKING BARNACLES - THERE'S A WHOLE LOTTA SHAKIN' GOING ON

As you've probably heard, Japan was rocked with another earthquake today. The new tremor was a 7.1 (the March 11th quake was an 8.9) and struck the same region as last month's. Patrick Tsai is a friend and sometime contributor to this magazine who has been keeping a diary of his life in Tokyo on his blog, Talking Barnacles, since the initial earth-shaking began. We were planning on running his entry from March 11th today anyway, but it seems even more timely now. We have emailed Patrick about today's events and are waiting to hear back. We'll update if we do.

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March 11, 2011

I had the day off from work. It was a beautiful day. The only thing I had to do was file my Japanese taxes in Shibuya, so I skated over there in the morning. It was a little tedious, but I got it done. I had the rest of the day ahead of me, so I decided to check out the photo book library at the Museum of Photography in Ebisu with my friend Naoyuki. I wanted to check out a book by Kishin Shinoyama called Namaiki that someone recommended to me. It was banned in Japan for showing sexy photos of underage girls. I don’t know much about Kishin, but what I have seen of his recent work I hate with a passion. He's basically a cheesy version of Araki. Namaiki, however, is a compilation of magazine shoots he did with various young models. The youngest girl looked like she was nine. From a moral standpoint it seemed so wrong, but from a photographic one it was fucking great—it was racy, beautiful, and made you feel guilty all at the same time.

When Naoyuki and I were getting ready to leave we heard an emergency bell, but had no idea what it was for. The workers around us seemed confused too. Then all of a sudden the building began to shake—violently—and then shake some more… and more. Naoyuki and I kept looking at each other, amazed that it wouldn’t stop. After about two or three minutes things started to settle and we were evacuated from the museum.

Outside tons of people were looking up. I walked over and looked up as well. I couldn’t see what they were looking at at first, but then I noticed the tall skyscraper in front of me was swaying back and forth. We decided to walk around and see what was happening. There was no damage anywhere. We were in the business district, so most of the people on the street were suit and tie types who seemed to be enjoying an excuse to get out of the office. It almost felt like a party. Some of them had helmets on, which made me wonder if they felt guilty for wearing protection when everyone else was bare-headed. Naoyuki checked Twitter on his iPhone, which was the only thing working at the time, and found out there was a big earthquake in Miyagi.

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There were a lot of people in the park, so we walked over to check it out. It still seemed like everyone was having fun (except one woman who was crying) until the earth shook under our feet again. Ten minutes later it got worse and people started to freak out a bit.

After things settled down we decided to split. Naoyuki went to the bathroom and I waited outside. The sun was pouring down on everyone and casting a beautiful light, so I raised my point and shoot camera over my head and started taking photos of people. Suddenly a businessman grabbed my arm and said, “What are you taking photos of?”

I was quite surprised. Moments before everyone around me had been taking photos with their iPhones and shitty digital cameras, and now they were looking at me like I was a criminal. He asked me again, “What are you taking photos of?” I knew I couldn’t explain to a businessman, or a normal person for that matter, that the light looked nice, so I mumbled some lame answer, despite how pissed I was at him for grabbing me. After I shrugged him off and walked away in a huff, it occurred to me that I should have threatened to smash him in the face with my skateboard. Naoyuki tried to reassure me that people were just panicking, which was true.

We decided to walk to my house, which was about two hours away. A lot of people were out. They were drifting aimlessly, huddled around TV screens on the sidewalk, or walking home because the trains had stopped. A river of people were walking in one direction by the highway. Naoyuki said it looked like a crusade. It was all a bit surreal. We tried to stop at some cafes for a break, but they were all full of stranded people killing time.

We finally made it to my place and decided to cook, but the supermarkets were closed. I could finally text on my phone though, and reports from friends slowly trickled in saying that they were OK. When I got home my roommate had already cleaned up all the books, pictures, and broken dishes from the floor. The only structural damage I saw the whole day was to our neighbor’s old tiled roof.

That night we ate leftovers, talked, watched the news, and replied to the tons of emails from concerned friends, and especially ex-girlfriends. Everyone in Tokyo was alright. Some of them had to walk eight hours to get home, but that seemed to be the worst of it. The footage we saw on TV, as well as the news about the possible meltdown was almost too crazy for us to really understand at that time, so in a way, it didn’t feel real.

We decided to end the night with a screening of 2012. It was supposed to be a bad joke designed to lighten things up, but when Los Angeles started to crumble into the ocean with John Cusack driving his stupid limo at full speed through all the mess as our own house shook from aftershocks, the whole thing felt like deja-vu and was actually quite disturbing. The movie was so terrible I quickly fell asleep as Tokyo continued to shake through the night.

PATRICK TSAI