My Tokyo sojourn continues.  Tuesday morning was spent haunting the National Diet Library, tracking down old scandal-mongering articles on Misora Hibari from the 1940s and 50s.  In the afternoon, on the recommendation of a friend, I visited the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Museum in Meguro to see the exhibit "Tokyo in the 1930s and the Birth of Prince Asaka's Art Deco Residence."  The exhibit focuses on the impact of Art Deco on Japanese painting, sculpture, design and architecture, and its centerpiece is the museum building itself--the former residence of Prince Asaka, built in 1933.  It's a remarkable piece of architecture, and the exhibits include many of the furnishings originally designed for the residence. 

   I spent Wednesday visiting my old home, International Christian University in Mitaka.  I passed some very nostalgic moments in Musashi-sakai and Nogawa Park, as well.  Sigh.

   Yesterday morning, I took in the "Okinawa Prismed:  1872-3008" exhibit at the National Museum of Modern Art.  It assembles depictions of Okinawa by both local and Japanese artists from the period of the annexation of the Ryukyu Kingdom in the early 1870s to the present day.  Particularly interesting, I thought, were the video installations:  you can see, for example, Yanagi Soetsu's folklore documentaries from the 1930s, as well as Takamine Go's contemporary experimental cinema.

   The afternoon was spent browsing the used bookshops in Jinbocho, though I made few purchases.  In the evening, I headed over to Shinjuku to catch Kurosawa Kiyoshi's fine new film, "Tokyo Sonata" (trailer here).  A sociological note:  there were perhaps 40 people in the audience for last night's 7:10 screening of the movie.  This number included just two couples.  In other words, the remaining 36 of us were all singles (yours truly included).  We each sat alone in a neatly arranged pattern with an interval of one seat separating us from our neighbors, row by row by row.   How appropriate for Kurosawa's film, a lamentation of contemporary urban alienation and its impact on our emotional landscapes.

   After the film, I made a quick pass through the Shinjuku Tower Records outlet -- another object worthy of sociological investigation -- and picked up a couple of new items (Love Psychedelico, Southern All Stars, Wada Akiko). Then it was home to my hotel room for a late-night supper of convenience-store onigiri and potato salad.