MARCELLUS NEALY

Tonight was Halloween and a full moon. People from all parts of the neighborhood gathered for an outdoor event. It was amazing. There was live music, a dj, a Halloween costume contest, and a local animator who showed a projection of his original short feature (I will write about it in a subsequent post). While I was there, I saw some children having the time of their lives on a wooden rocking horse. It was a peaceful, ghoul free evening.

Today I found a large mural of the words “black man” or “blackman” painted over and over again on the side of a building in Shibuya. Maybe it was in reference to Nailah Blackman, a soca singer from Trinidad, maybe the artists wanted to write black man. It’s hard to say. The mural also included a portrait of Juice Wrld, a young rapper who died last year from an overdose of oxycodone, codeine, and percocet. Apparently, he swallowed the pills to hide them from the police who

I saw a beautiful woman. I couldn't stop myself from asking to take her photograph. She was long and slender with hair that flowed like a dark river. The photo you see now is her responding “who me.” I think she saw it as some sort of pickup line. I never EVER try to pick up women. I am not cool enough for that. I have also been cursed with social anxiety (seriously). If I try to chat up a woman I like, I get nervous and awkward, so it always ends in disaster. I much prefe

One of the hard challenges of life is to remember that life ends. This year, I lost a friend to the coronavirus. He was just a few years younger than me and so full of life. He loved music , travel, meeting people, and sharing the collective stories of his journeys, until, all of a sudden, he couldn't breathe, and he died. Although it was a shock to me, it was also a stark reminder of this journey that we're on. Even the stars die eventually. Dear reader, I don't mean to ruin

About a year ago a friend of mine invited me to the stables. There's a nice place in Yokohama. That’s where I took this picture. The stables are located on an oasis in the middle of the concrete and steel expanse of the city. I can't remember the name of the park, but there's a tennis court there and green open meadows. For no small fee, anyone who makes a reservation can ride. Almost anyone! I was told that I was too large for their horses. It shocked me to hear that. I'm

Today I am giving you a picture of an orange. It's a continuation of a three-day series on fruit. If I'm being completely honest, it was just the fruit that was on my kitchen table. I haven't been outside today except to take my dog for a walk. He's 13 years old now. That is really old in dog years. He loves to eat oranges. Actually, maybe he loves to beg for oranges when he sees me eating them. He doesn't look so enthusiastic when he's putting a slice in his mouth. If it we

When I was in high school, I worked at the local grocery store. It was on the border of a part of town we called the demilitarized zone. Across the bridge, there were poor white folks. On my street, on the opposite of the bridge, was the DMZ. Poor black families were living just on the opposite side of us. My street was nicknamed the DMZ because it was the gradient zone between the colors. The supermarket was just on the DMZ's white side, straight past the bridge for about a

Today is my young one’s birthday. Last year, or the year before, she became vegan. Normally I would make the birthday dinner but I have no confidence in being able to cook vegan. So, my friends, Matt and Aya, offered to cater. They run a bi-weekly pop up vegan restaurant called Momma Noodle. The food is amazing. Anyway, I was clearing the table to put on a table cloth. I had to move the pear and orange. By accident I created an art collaboration, which I call Still Lif

I was walking in a rural part of Japan when I happened upon a river. On either bank there were trees that had started to lose their leaves to the slow changing of the seasons. There was also a man leisurely fishing. It was about 1 o'clock in the afternoon. The sky was overcast, and the air had just the right amount of dryness. I welcome the cool weather because Tokyo summers are brutal. I feel like this summer was the hottest of them all. My friends invited me out for barbecu

One of the things that I feel grateful for is the Japanese public transportation system. I imagine it's the best in the world. The trains are clean, efficient, and ubiquitous. You will be very, very, very hard pressed to find any train in all of Japan that is dirty. Cleaning staff make sure the trains are sparkling clean all day long. Also, people's mentality here is such that most don't leave their trash on the train. Of course, you get a few who don't follow that rule; how