BOOK ONE : LISTENERS AND READERS

:: SUMMER 2001

50 :: remember toyo ito :: 6/22/01

1.

Jakob wakes up at 8:20 to Freya kissing his head. Glowing red clock digits. He can hear the deep murmur of National Public Radio's Bob Edwards from his kitchen.

He lifts his head a bit, to look around. Freya is standing by the side of the bed, rising out of the kiss she'd leaned into. She is wearing a tight Guns N' Roses T-shirt; looks sexy. He's in a pair of boxer shorts, all tangled around his hips.

—I gotta go, sugar, she says. —I need to open the store.

—Nh, he says. He lays his head back against the pillow and breathes. The smell of coffee on the air.

—Mmm, he says. —Coffee.

She looks in the mirror on the back of his door, plucks at some of her curls. —Yeah, she says, —I used your coffeemaker. Hope you don't mind.

—No, he says.

—Want me to bring you a cup?

—Mm, he says. —Angel.

—OK, she says. —Hang on.

And she heads for the kitchen. This is her second time staying over at his place: now she knows which cabinet the coffeemugs are in. She selects one that has a picture of Franz Kafka on it and fills it. Bodum. Last night was the fourth time that they'd spent the night together, but the first one where she got him to take off his pants and fuck her. She's a little bit relieved. The first night they stayed together, when he'd asked for her to leave his pants on, she thought his shyness was surprising but touching, but the third time they were fooling around he still wouldn't strip down past his boxers and she had begun to wonder exactly what he was worried about. He'd let her get him off that third time, though— her hand beneath his waistband —so she'd known at least that the parts were all there, and functional. And last night things were, well, delightful. So she's not sure what he was worried about.

—OK, she says, coming back into the bedroom. —Here you go.

She places it on the edge of the table by the side of the bed, next to the stack of books.

—Kafka in the morning, she says. —I don't know. Don't go turning into a giant bug on me.

—Don't worry, he mumbles.

—OK, she says, —I gotta run.

He sits up and rubs his eyes, looking like he's about five. Only unshaven. He holds the coffeemug in both hands and takes a sip. —Mmm, he says. —Metamorphoriffic.

—How did you ever get along without me? she asks him.

—Good question.

—Good luck on your paper, she says. —I'm taking my lunch break at noon; if you want to take a break, think about coming down around then and we can have lunch together.

—Maybe I will, he says. —That'd be nice.

She comes in and kisses him again. —See ya, Mister Brownstone, she says. This is from a Guns N' Roses song.

—See ya, sexy, he says. And she's gone.

Mister Brownstone. To think that there was once a time where he was ashamed to tell her that he liked the songwriters of classic rock: Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello. He was surprised to learn that her tastes didn't tend towards any new underground indie outfit but rather towards metal and cock-rock: Guns N' Roses, AC/DC. The second time he stayed over at her house she put on Back In Black and danced around at the foot of the bed in her bra. A thing that he's noticed: a heavy woman knows how to move her body. Sexy.

He's supposed to be working on a paper today. He'll be presenting it at a conference later on this summer: this thing on the contemporary city, at Michigan State. His proposal stated that he'd be providing an overview of the development of "information architecture" in the twentieth century: that is, architectural spaces designed to deploy certain sorts of mediated information. A movie theater, for instance. Or those buildings in New York where the day's headlines circulate the building's perimeter in lights. He wants to look more into the work of a Japanese architect, Toyo Ito, whose name he came across in Adbusters last month. For a month now, he's been telling himself: remember Toyo Ito.

2.

An hour or so later. Jakob, now showered, is staring into the Internet. Through America Online. He's found an interesting page on Ito, an interview where they talk to him about a building called the Tower of Winds. Ito: This project is a conversion of the invisible rhythm and color of the city, which our bodies are subconsciously aware of, into a variable pattern of light. It is in that sense like an environmental music. Environmental music? He has made a mental note to ask Freya about that later.

He's returned to Google and refined his search, looking just for more information on the Tower of Winds. And, strangely, he's come up with a bunch of record reviews. He scans a few of them— it appears that two musicians, Savvas Ysatis and Taylor Deupree, have done a musical interpretation of the Tower of Winds. Weird. How does someone transform a building into music? And then there's Ito, from that interview again: I have been wanting to create an architectural space that is like a space in musical sound.

What does that mean? Does it mean anything?

He scrolls down to the bottom of the page, scanning the review quickly as he goes. low tones . . . mysterious, evocative. He hits the bottom of the page and stares at the screen for a minute, biting down on his pen. Reviews on this site provided by Thomas Wakatami of Chicago, IL. Please e-mail me with your comments or questions.

Thomas Wakatami? Isn't that that guy Freya was talking about? He checks the URL, and, sure enough, the review he's reading is part of that site that Freya had told him about. That's too weird. He reads the name again to make sure.

The name is a link. Out of pure curiosity he clicks it, and an e-mail window pops up. An invitation for communication. Holding nothing but possibility.