tick tock tokyo

Tokyo is a giant wristwatch of a city and somewhere behind its ordered face there are interlocking layers of new technology and human drama propelling the city forward. But on the surface the focus is on lines; lines that are straight and lines that are diagonal. Lines that are as regular as the minute marks on a watch.



The populace moves at a regulated urban rhythm that looks a lot like time-lapse photography, all starting and stopping and coming and going. Anywhere else and this action could bleed into a blur, a swirl, a mess of the human form running headlong into itself and others - but not in Tokyo.

In Tokyo you wait in line for the ATM and you wait in line for the train. You wait in line next to the girl in the kimono who is behind the girl in the stiletto heels. And then someone gets in line behind you.



For an outsider, the city's order is a surreal dream that makes perfect sense while remaining utter nonsense. You don't know what the signs say, what the announcements are announcing, or how to communicate with most of the thousands of people surrounding you.



But you still know where to stand. It's as if everyone within the city limits is regularly swept up by Tokyo's minute hand and dropped perfectly into their place, which just happens to be in line with everyone else.