:43:01
find out a little late that they have kept it all too well.
:43:05
Rock is an international language for spreading the secret.
:43:09
Another is peculiar to Tokyo.
:43:21
For the takenoko, twenty is the age of retirement.
:43:24
They are baby Martians.
:43:26
I go to see them dance every Sunday in the park at Yoyogi.
:43:28
They want people to look at them,
but they don't seem to notice that people do.
:43:33
They live in a parallel time sphere:
:43:35
a kind of invisible aquarium wall separates them
from the crowd they attract,
:43:38
and I can spend a whole afternoon contemplating the little takenoko girl who is learning
:43:42
no doubt for the first timethe customs of her planet.
:43:59
Beyond that, they wear dog tags,
they obey a whistle, the Mafia rackets them,
:44:03
and with the exception of a single group made up of girls,
it's always a boy who commands.