Special Issue of Evening Will Come Focuses on 70th Anniversary of Hiroshima & Nagasaki Bombings
A crucial new issue of Evening Will Come is out, compiled and edited by Brandon Shimoda in remembrance of the 70th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6 and 9). Shimoda writes in his own piece:
At 11:01 and 43 seconds on the morning of August 9, 1945, a United States Air Force B-29 bomber dropped a plutonium bomb on the city of Nagasaki on the southwestern island of Kyushu. The bomb, named Fat Man, exploded 1,539 feet above Urakami, the Catholic district, on the north end of the city, incinerating, in less than a second, 73,000 people.
Included here is a collection of poems, audio recordings, essays, and statements from Brenda Iijima, Don Mee Choi, Raúl Zurita, Daniel Borzutzky, Collier Nogues, Yukiyo Kawano, Tomoe Otsuki, Itaru Takahara, Elizabeth Willis, Roberto Tejada, John Melillo, Wong May, Dot Devota, elin o’Hara slavick, Joy Division, Roland Barthes, Kyo Maclear, Hiromi Itō, Jeffrey Angles, Erika Kobayashi, April Naoko Heck, Hiroshi Sunairi, Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Buuck, Kenji Yanobe, Eve Andrée Laramée, Kenji C. Liu, Yasuhiro Yotsumoto, Karen McAlister Shimoda, Rokusuke Ei (feat. Kyu Sakamoto), Thom Donovan, Hannah Weiner, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Jalal Toufic, and Etel Adnan.
Referencing an interview originally published here, Daniel Borzutzky quotes Raúl Zurita in his collapsing of the horrors of the Chilean dictatorship and the bombings of Hiroshima: “'The apocalypse,' says Zurita 'is not when the world ends, it’s when one single person is tortured, in reality it’s the entire universe that becomes deformed.'"
Also captivating is this epistolary exchange (with a genuinely touching ending) between an Argentinian man requesting Hibaku tree seeds from Japan's Tree Project, so he may "nurture and plant in the new site of our company, at Tigre County, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina." The delivery of the seeds through customs and without governmental assistance proves so tricky that the once-simple project turns into somewhat of a saga, with the repetition of the Japanese proverb "Everything arrives for those who wait," pictures of their children, architectural plans, and discussions about film:
Alberto,
Last Friday, 6/6, I sent out your seeds in regular mail. I included wet tissue inside with seeds so they may sprout while being sent, thus as soon as they arrive, please plant them in pots.
Hiroshi Sunairi
6/9/14
Dear Sunairi SAN
This is to confirm that today I received a carton folder from argentine custom, I am requested to present at custom to take the envelope out. This time, there are no requirements to register or present certifications of sanitary health authorities, just to pay a minimum fee. Nevertheless, I ask you if possible, an escan from your value declaration for this shipment, to copy exactly what you put as content of the envelope
Alberto
7/11/14
Dear Sunairi SAN
We are sorry to say, that we could not take out the envelope from custom today. The custom officer rejected the envelope. So this envelope will be returned to origin once again.
We think it will be better to wait until next year, maybe a friend or acquaintance would travel to New York and can present personally to you. Also there is a friend travelling to Hiroshima with an official delegation of businessmen around february 2015, so he may be able to contact someone there.
Alberto
7/16/14
Alberto,
Thank you for sending me Lonely Planet Buenos Aires Book. One day, I would love to visit Argentina as my favorite filmmaker, Lisandro Alonso is from there.
Hiroshi
8/11/14
And in an untitled essay, Brenda Iijima describes the dropping of the bombs as a result of racial hatred, bearing in mind the Gaia Principle. Cutting to the quick: "The earth’s atmosphere of approximately 21 percent oxygen is maintained by corresponding processes—an ideal state that allows for combustibility but not full-on conflagration unless artificial means are employed to create weapons of mass destruction based on a system of military-industrialism governed by capital and festering in hate and inequality."
Read everything at Evening Will Come.
At top, from Evening Will Come. Christian with Keloidal Scars, was taken by Shōmei Tōmatsu (1930-2012) in Nagasaki, 1961. Photo Credit: Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY.