Chapter 11: 哲学の道

“Good morning, Paul (yes, you, not me; I rarely greet myself in this way if, indeed, at all). I find myself at 白河今出川の交差点, the eastern end of哲学の道 in 京都. It’s a glorious spring day. 桜 is in full bloom—a pink and white aria; a baseline of black bark; a sky blue chorus—embarrassing the sullen 鯉 in the 琵琶湖疏水 below (their own reflections are on more grubby things). I’m going for a walk; perhaps you’ll join me. We’re not alone, of course. Our companions—in their hundreds, I guess—are, like me, pointing their cameras at the flowers, at the fish, at each other. The cameras range from high-end professional jobs, like mine (this is a boast), thru midrange SLRs and micro digicams to mobile phones with megapixel ratings that quite possibly outrank my EOS 1D Mark III, though not, I think, my 5D Mark II (another one). The snaps flatten our walk in more ways than one, most tragically, perhaps, the flowers no longer sing in the light breeze; they are caught agape. Even the high-definition video facility of the 5D Mark II flattens, though in a different way: where is the warmth of the sun on my back (we snappers generally face away from the sun)? And, anyway, on another walk, on another day, the music will be different.