prolonged concrete strangeness

Work concerns drove me to the job interview on my day off. Keihan to Osaka presents the David Cross New York dilemma without the crazy guy part. every five minutes you are convinced that you have just seen the most beautiful girl in the world (present company excluded). Interview at asian trade center. Weird trip that place. Reminds me of why I can't live in Ft. Walton. It is a big, empty building full of stuff. Anything involving soul was sucked up a stairwell and sunk in the bay as landfill. There is a camping goods store. Well stocked. In a convention center down at the harbor. Nothing makes sense. Four floors of the building are taken up with a more than posh, outside anyone I know's price range interior goods store. It is like a giant airport with no planes. One of the prime, waterfront stores is occupied entirely by those gumball machine-like machines that dispense toys. Two South Americans are sitting on a bench with massive mullets. I wonder if theirs differ from that of the Anglo-Saxon variety. There is a t-shirt store named "dire need" which somehow sums up both everything that is wrong with this conference center and with capitalism at the same time.
Like most of these multi-million dollar projects (Kyoto-eki for example) there are a few good elements mixed with so much that is bad. Really this could apply to so much involving these huge amounts of money: movies, presidential campaigns...There is no way to keep them focused. These massive concrete ambitions with little beige, push-button phones set on cheap tables in the stairwells. There is a very nice concrete staircase/bleachers set-up overlooking the harbor and a large sailing ship. It the area is shaded by trees and populated by birds. everything we build should be like this area. If the trees could provide nuts or fruits it would be even better. Across the parking lot, longshoremen are offloading a ship. It is all a massive parking lot. I thought that if they could make that area like this and give everyone insurance and nice housing, I would be a longshoreman. I don't care. So much would change if so much would change. In any case I think they should take these massive, moneyed programs and divide them up to smaller concerns who could do these things so much better. Like a dirty little market with a stage in the middle. It could be so much more compact. I think William Gibson's vision of the bridge in Virtual Light is about as close to by urban ideas as anyone has gotten. Except that I think things could be nice and organic at the same time. These places still have lonely little corners with bad glass and vending machines. Why don't the ferries stop here? If you want to get the ferry to Miyazaki you have to take the train to a bus to a terminal with no stores and no food and grime and dirt and everything built on a scale for trucks. Why does business reject life? I have fully converted to the Windsor knot. I must recommend it. While I can never quite remember how to tie it on my own, it staid perfect all day and was never uncomfortable. I might have gotten the job. Quitting will be messy, like a vampire in The Lost Boys. I bought a hammock at the camping store on the way out and walked through all the train stations with it in my hand. People looked at me funny, but they always do. I went to Shonai to check out Dai-san and Ayako's coffee place. I was the only customer if that counts for anything. I want the new job. Quitting is going to be a scene. Going out of town with Koji for the weekend, which is good timing as it will be nice to be around actual friends/human beings for a change. Forgive my disappearance.