The Sky Building

AM

Least: At 11:25am, I foolishly got onto the wrong JR train at Shinimamiya and ended up in the weird surrounds of OCAT. Boring except for the youths practicing their break dancing moves.

Most: At 9.30ish I sat down to some excellent poached eggs on some admirable toast. I read Rosie the first two pages of Jonathan Franzen's 'The Corrections' - pretentious pomo drivel - I kept thinking of Nick's song 'We Call Upon the Author to Explain'- but - a page later it miraculously improved - it may just be good - Oprah liked it.

PM
Least: At about 3.10pm I walked into the HEP building in Umeda to be confronted with massive crowds looking for bargains. I quickly forgot the reason I went there in the first place - I think I was looking for an icecream.

Most: By about 2.00pm I was rocketing up the Umeda Sky Building to take a squizz at the observatory. A great view only besmirched by weird hiphop emanating from the walls and a smog cocktail of various fumes that smelled like burning plastic. Most fascinating though was the 'love lock' and the chapel for white weddings - who said Japan can't make good cheese?

Empathy vs Sympathy

AM

Least: I stepped onto the JR Rapid to Hineno to find that precisely every second seat was taken up by someone's bag. There were people standing with only half the seats filled. Whats wrong with people? Half of the people are too rude to want to sit next to another human being and the other half are too polite to take a seat!

Most: While hurtling down to Wakayama I thumbed the pages of Paul Auster's Oracle Night. I was gripped by the prospects the story offered. How would Bowen get out of his booky tomb? Who robbed Sid n Grace? What the hell was Mr. Chang up to? Some lustre in a lacklustre morning.

PM

Least: Sometime between 5.30 and 6.15 I finished Oracle Night after a 4 or 5 day stint. I was disappointed to find that very few of the questions I had at 10.00am were satifactorily resolved. A real let down - the review in the link is spot on - a bad bood by a good author.

Most: Between 12.15 and 12:55 I was with a student who wanted to know about the etymology of the words emapathy and sympathy. Why couldn't impathy be a word? As it turns out the work emapthy was created not long after the turn of last century after a translation of the German 'Einfuhlung'. The word Empathize was coined around 1924 to assist with a theory of art appreciation.