(2020) The first electronic word processing machine I bought was (unfortunately) a dedicated word processor. I say "unfortunately" because while the machine worked well enough and was useful, the data I saved to floppies is now unreadable and it delayed my entry to computing (outside of school and then work). I bought my first used computer in 1995, and then a second machine in 1996, but both of those computers were too under-powered to get onto the Internet, so for my third computer, bought in late 1996, I bought an old-stock new machine that had just enough power to get on-line. The first two machines weren't a complete waste of money though, as I used them as word processors and they were immeasurably more powerful tools for that than the 1980's word processor I had been using.
Right at the end of 1996, I began to realize what a fantastic machine an Internet-connected computer was for communicating long-distance. (Recently, I'm beginning to see the drawbacks to that, but that's another story.) So, heading into 1997, I used the machine a lot for writing and exchanging text messages with people residing in other parts of the world. This was before FaceBook, Twitter, etc., and so there were only chat rooms, or e-mail. I briefly spent some time in chat rooms, but abandoned those in favor of e-mail (starting with a small group of people I had met in chat rooms).
I go into that history as part of the history of how I have attempted to record things. How I've recorded things has been dictated by time and tools, and what tools I've worked with has been dictated by the technology available at the time and by my (generally limited) financial resources to acquire things. The basic timeline of how I've recorded things is as follows:
Early Days-1990 - Single image photography via SLR 35mm cameras.
1990-1993 - Analog video (digital sound, some in mono, but most in stereo).
1993-1996 - Single image photography via SLR 35mm camera.
1996-2000 - Text, either hand-written or typed into a computer.
2000-2006 - Single image photography via digital cameras.
2007-Present - Mix of single image digital photography and digital video.
The 1996-2000 period stands out as the only time I was not recording images with some sort of camera. I accidentally left my Nikon FM2 on the Yamanote Line in 1996 (I reported it to the police, but it never returned) and I didn't have enough financial resources to replace it with another good camera, so I decided to just go without a camera for a while and record things in words. Finally! We come to the reason for all of the above text! All of this preamble is to explain why I have zero photographic images from 1997 to 2000, but do have text. Only text. And I recently dug out of the back corners of a hard drive some of the things I sent to a select group of people via e-mail in 1997, but didn't put into a blog. (I don't think I did anyway, enough time has passed since I started blogging that I might have put something up and forgotten about it.)
In any event, it was kind of a special time for me, as I found it relaxing to go somewhere, stop, pull out a notebook (or batch of folded paper) and pen, and calmly write - having only words to record what I was seeing, hearing, experiencing.... As I got into computing, I began carrying a laptop computer with me and writing with that, but that was contingent on having somewhere to sit down and since my equipment was using a pre-lithium-ion battery, it didn't run for long between charges, so if I wanted to spend any time writing, I usually needed to plug it in. These days, coffee shops and fast food places know their fondle-slab loving customers are much more likely to be there if they can plug in their devices, so there is an outlet by every seat, but in 1997, AC outlets were generally to plug in vacuum cleaners and were few and far between.
One last note about the timeline I wrote above (scroll up...). That is to show my primary method of recording street scenes, etc., and the 1996-2000 period was exclusively text (with the exception of some junk camera pictures taken to record people events, but nothing suitable for posting), but text has been an ongoing thing. It's never been only pictures - you have to explain the pictures with words after all. That's why I didn't mind going to all text for awhile - I was already used to recording things that way in combination with images, so it wasn't too big of a jump to just go to only text.
OK! And finally we come to something I wrote back in 1997 - on June 7th and June 9th - partly by hand and partly straight into my laptop computer (edited):
“What to Write...” - June 7th, 1997
(Handwritten) Here I sit, on a train heading to my first job of the day....
I was just thinking, wondering - what to write about. This morning I was thinking that maybe I spend too much time on E-mail, but I realize, as I sit here on this train, that I really need that interaction, and far from interfering with my writing, it’s the spark that sets off a storm of ideas.
Several hours pass....
(The following written with my laptop in Shinjuku at Kinokuniya Book Store in “Times Square”......)
I’ll just start writing something, and see where it leads me. But first, as I only have about twenty minutes before I have to be back at work, I should describe my surroundings right now.
I’m sitting in a line of young woman who are all holding copies of a new book by a comedy pair (a man and a woman) who call themselves Bakusho Mondai (爆笑問題). They’re waiting in line to get their books signed by the authors. So, what am I doing here? The reason is simple my friends, I’m here for the grid. I was walking along, and I felt a sudden desire to start writing this after seeing something that inspired me.
Anyway, I was walking along thinking “Even if I pull out the laptop in the bookstore by the public phones, the battery will go dead on me before I can get much written. What to do, what to do....” And I remembered that outside of this department store in Shinjuku, there are grid connectors (probably there for cleaning), so when I saw that a convenient looking one was right in the middle of a line, I walked up to the two women who were sitting on either side of it, and asked them if I could sit between them so I could plug my computer in, and they didn’t mind, so here I am.
I asked the nice woman next to me if she wanted to say something to everyone, and after thinking awhile, she said:
“Chikyu ni yasashiku ikiyo.”
First, a direct translation:
“Let’s live on Earth kindly.”
And a more natural sounding translation:
“Let’s take care of the Earth.”
Now I’m out of time! I’ll be back when I get a chance!
(1997/06/09) I spent most of yesterday at Showa Kinen Koen, which is a very nice park, but it cost about eight dollars to park, and four dollars to get in, so it’s not the kind of park you just wander into. Since a lot of financial power is there for the park though, it really is quite nice inside.
Yesterday was a perfect picture of people relaxing on a Sunday in the park. The only odd thing was the constant sight and sound of helicopters flying overhead, but living in Tokyo you learn to tune out what you don’t want to hear or see - particularly what you don’t want to hear! I can listen to classical music with the window open and construction only two houses down, and the hammering doesn’t even invade the music in my mind... unless I start thinking that it’s strange that it doesn’t, and that thought puts the noise in mind until I can empty my thoughts again. There’s something to be said for not thinking sometimes... or not thinking rationally anyway.
(2020) Thinking about this post while going over it just before putting it on-line, I realized/remembered another element to the text-only period. It exactly coincided with my text-only Internet usage. I was using (as were most people at the time) a slow and expensive dial-up connection and sending photos was a sure way of making people angry! Myself included actually. I really hated it when someone sent something heavy, since I was paying per minute for time on-line, I didn't appreciate having to wait several minutes for a single photo to download. So partly I was thinking at the time that all I could use was text anyway, so I might as well go without photos for a while. The text-only period was interesting, but when I got my first digital camera in 2000, it sure did feel good to be taking pictures again!
Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
youtube.com/lylehsaxon
lylehsaxon.blogspot.jp/
lookback1997.blogspot.jp/
tokyoht.blogspot.jp/
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