After a long time, a friend who graduated from Kyoto University visited my house the day before yesterday.
It was a very welcome visit, like a Christmas Eve present.
During our conversation about all things under heaven, we discussed how I came to publish my book.
My book was on the bookshelf.
The cover design was decided upon when I was in Kitano Hospital.
Kitano Hospital is a large hospital equivalent to the Kyoto University Faculty of Medicine.
In the style of "The White Tower," the head of the department and five or six young doctors would go around to each patient's room.
When the publisher sent me several ideas for the cover design, the second round of visits took place.
When I was talking about which one I should choose, one of the young doctors said:
"Kisara-san, would you let me do it? I'm good at this sort of thing."
I immediately left it in his hands.
I told the acquaintance at the beginning of this story that this was the cover.
This morning, while thinking about how grateful I was for yesterday's visit, I turned the pages of my book for the first time in a long time.
I have always felt embarrassed about my books.
That's why I didn't read them that often.
I realized again that this was also a significant loss.
For about a year, my book was on the social science and economics shelf at the main Kinokuniya Umeda store, alongside books by such leading commentators as the late Taichi Sakaiya and Yoichi Takahashi.
The person in charge at Kinokuniya said that although my book was not likely to be a bestseller, it would sell a certain number of copies, so it was displayed on the shelf.
One day, I noticed it had disappeared from the shelf, so I asked the person in charge why.
He replied, "I was confident that it would sell a certain number of copies, but it didn't sell as well as I had expected..."
As readers will know, this was a completely natural result.
The reason is that I am a completely unknown figure in journalism.
What's more, I appeared under the pen name of Akutagawa Kenji, which I had no choice but to do for reasons that my close acquaintances and readers are well aware of.
If I had appeared under my real name, the many acquaintances and friends I have made through business would have bought the book.
I announced in this column on June 1st, 2011, that the book would be published on December 1st.
I wrote an introduction to the book and published it.
At this point, if you searched for "the turntable of civilization," you would find over 20 million hits, with pages 1 to 70 filled with chapters in various languages from this column.
However, the criminal in question created over 100 blogs on each blog management company, such as "driving agency" and "secretarial agency," and began a crime of reverse SEO attack against this column.
After writing blogs with stupid and incoherent content, they posted blogs that published each chapter of this column without permission.
They filled up pages 1 to 10 of the search results with such things.
Immediately, the number of searches for this column dropped sharply to 1/100.
Furthermore, this criminal started committing outrageous crimes on Twitter, such as saying things like "Kisara-san, the vicious writer who is also known as Akutagawa Kenji" and "Kisara-san, the vicious real estate agent who is also known as Akutagawa Kenji."
Simply put, a genuine Japanese sweets shop was in the corner of a completely unknown shopping district.
It is the age of the Internet.
Everyone has a smartphone.
If a criminal like this were to write slanderous comments such as "the ingredients in that shop are made from ○○," that Japanese sweets shop would go bankrupt instantly.
I was made keenly aware of this when I re-read this book.
As the person in charge at Kinokuniya Umeda Main Store saw, this book is a masterpiece.
The fact that this masterpiece was buried by the criminal in question is an unforgivable crime against the world and humanity in the 21st century.
My goodness! 2011/3/12
The building where our office is located (in Osaka City) shook for a long time, which was a little unnerving.
When it subsided, I checked the Internet and saw an earthquake of magnitude 7.9 off the coast of Sanriku!
In my hometown of Kurihara City in northern Miyagi Prefecture, it was a seismic intensity of 7!
It is where the family home of my best friend from high school is located.
Are they okay?
I don't have a mobile phone for one-segment broadcasting so that I couldn't watch TV either.
While it was shaking, I thought to myself, "This is a big one. It's an earthquake on the scale of the Great Hanshin Earthquake."
Oh no!
The town where I was born and raised is also at intensity six upper, right?
I hope everything is okay; I hope it's not too terrible.
I hurried home, but to see the images of the town where I was born and raised being swallowed up by the tsunami and disappearing whole!
Mom, are you okay?
Did you manage to escape?
Please, somehow, manage to escape.
I don't want you to die, Mom!
Please, somehow, manage to survive.
2024/12/8 in Kyoto
