The Indelible Bonobo Experience

“It’s about the double standard associated with Japanese culture,” says Simon Baker, curator of photography at the Tate. “It’s an incredibly polite, formal society on the surface, [but it] has this hidden underside of sexuality. Araki very effectively works on this relationship.” Is it art or is it porn? To Araki it makes little difference. In the end, his subject is the everyday – or his everyday – the poignant and the touching, the messy and the disturbing. (via Is Nobuyoshi Araki’s photography art or porn? | Art and design | guardian.co.uk)

On Aug. 12, 1985, Japan Airlines Flight 123 suffered mechanical failures after departing Tokyo. It struggled for 32 minutes to stay aloft but finally crashed into Mount Takamagahara, killing 520 people.

Among the debris was found the company diary of 52-year-old shipping manager Hirotsugu Kawaguchi. Apparently he had spent the fateful half hour composing a seven-page letter to his family:

“Mariko, Tsuyoshi, Chiyoko — Please get along well with each other and help your mama. Papa feels very sorry I won’t survive. I don’t know the reason. Five minutes have passed. …

I never want to take an airplane again. Dear God, please help me. I didn’t imagine that yesterday’s dinner was going to be the last one with you all. …

Something seems to have exploded in the airplane. Smoke is coming out. … Airplane is going down. I don’t know where we are going and what is going to happen. …

Tsuyoshi — I do really count on you. Honey — I feel very sorry about what is happening to me. Goodbye. Please take care of our children. It’s six-thirty now. The airplane is spinning and going down quickly. …

I’m very thankful to you that I was able to have a really happy life up to now.”

The crash remains the deadliest single-plane accident in world history.

It reminds me of another letter I’ve read not long ago.

(Source: overlordleaveshiswife, via hollyhandro)

Next to lurid stories about adultery and photos of flapper-era mogas (modern girls) are advertisements for clinics treating the consequences (“Before the parties at the end of the year, you should sort out your gonorrhoea”). There are pages about hit songs from the new craze of radio that was sweeping the country, a trend that Japanese newspapers had until then ignored. (via Matsutaro Shoriki: Japan’s Citizen Kane | The Economist)

Now, that’s a resolution we can all agree on :)

“This cloak of supposed public interest, wrapped around gory sensationalism, sent theYomiuri’s circulation soaring. Between 1924 and 1937 it rose from 58,000 to 800,000, a feat that made the Yomiuri the biggest newspaper in Tokyo.”