A weakly goon, a cunning liar, A balding fake, a foe of toil, Whom fame by chance has boosted higher Ruled over us then, seeking spoil. —Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin (Chapter X, verse 1; translation mine) Life is everywhere My first night in Tokyo, many years ago, was the first time I had the experience of an earthquake. I was staying in a tiny room in the guesthouse of the research institute I was visiting. The brief tremor in the middle of the night was barely strong enough to wake me up. I reached for the emergency flashlight, of the kind that is found in all hotel rooms in Japan, but it was not needed. That weekend, I went with one of my host’s students (who later became a lifelong friend) to see the city. Two things stuck in my memory from that long day: the snug shitamachi alleys of Nippori, and, in one of the museums in Ueno Park, a huge painting of the future Showa emperor, crown prince Hirohito, inspecting the ruins of Tokyo left by the Great Kanto Earthquake … [Read more...] about Life in a Time of Plague