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KILL BILL AT WORK

This morning on my rush-hour way through Osaka's Umeda Station to the office, after I had put my commuter's pass in the wicket at one end and taken it out at the other as I passed through in zombie mode, I suddenly found myself, for no reason I could perceive, thinking 'Kill Bill.' But there was no Bill around; nor is there a Bill at the office.

Under normal circumstances, under any circumstances I could think of in fact, short of being forced to sit for a screening under threat of a Bush re-election, I would never think spontaneously of any 'bread and circuses' movie, especially one I haven't seen and don't plan to see. This was odd. Very odd. It stopped me in my tracks, befuddled as to why I was thinking such a thing at all, since I generally try to avoid mental contact with vicarious violence, the sensitivity anesthesia that's pervading the entertainment market to increasing intensity these days, to what end I suppose we shall soon discover.

So I turned around to look whence I'd just come and saw that atop the mechanical section of the wicket, right along where rush-hour ticket bearers' eyes quickly and zombily track from putting in their ticket at one end to taking it out at the other, there was a de facto subliminal poster about 20 cm wide and 40 cm long, just red text on white background, saying "Kill Bill Vol II."

Thus are Osaka's commuting hordes currently readied each morning for another day at the office, heading for their desks with thoughts of bloody swords in their heads. I wonder how many realize that those violent thoughts are not their own, when they lead wherever they lead.