Incidental I: Tokyo Oh Tokyo

“It is difficult to decide if Bill’s way of reading has always already been Japanesque or if our way of reading has always already been Gibsonian. All we can say is that in the very coincidence resides the secret of imagination that has long characterized science fiction: something is going on somewhere, at the same time that a similar thing is going on in other places. And it is a historical imperative that makes possible such a coincidence.”

-Takayuki Tatsumi, “The Japaense Reflection of Mirrorshades”

 

Well, yes, which is to say—per Wikipedia, our great mediator twixt the historical and our imagining of the historical—neither where neither is both: “The company’s first international office was founded on November 1, 1978, in Japan, entitled “ASCIIMicrosoft” (now called ‘Microsoft Japan’).”

 

 

~ by Tim on April 28, 2008.