they say never judge a book by its cover.
does that aphorism also extend to book titles?

“strange weather in tokyo” is the title of one of the many novels I haven’t read. in this case by the author hiromi kawakami.

admittedly, superficially, i love book titles, including that of kawakami’s book. maybe i’ll read it one day. maybe I won’t. i’m glad it exists for others to enjoy even if the finiteness of life and my attention deficit disorder may ultimately preclude me from doing so.

this series of photos was taken around the time i learnt of kawakami’s novel, and so it felt apt to pay homage to its title. in the images, a mysteriously thick fog wraps around random tokyoites somewhere in the kōtō area.

the catch, the spoiler? the mist was produced by a fog machine at the much-attended ryuichi sakamoto exhibition in tokyo’s museum of contemporary art. nevertheless, as mankind loses control over weather systems, here is a reminder of our ability to control them, if only temporarily, futiley - and in this instance - in one small corner of the most unfathomable of urban metropolises.