It is a rare occasion to stumble onto something interesting by chance. Even though the internet can make it feel like that, it is never truly so.

I took Josi for a walk to check the pee-mail and do his business. While he was busy, I saw this sticker on an electrical post on the grimy street beside our building. What a contrast!

I looked it up a month after I took that photo. Turns out it’s from a Japanese teen comedy called Swing Girls (2004).

A tale of delinquent and lazy school girls. In their efforts to cut remedial summer math class, they end up poisoning and replacing the school’s brass band.

I decided to give it a watch a few days ago, and I loved it. Haven’t seen something so amusing and bright in a while.

Even though I haven’t been to Japan, it inspired a kind of nostalgia in me, as all old—but not older than me—movies do. Does a glimpse of this world still exist? Probably not, but I’ll know when I do visit Japan. Either way, whatever your expectations are, it is not this.

Back to the street—that sticker is a good change of scenery. To understand the aesthetic of it, think of a Medieval comedy. Muddy pothole-riddled streets and BMWs, a gypsy on a horse-drawn carriage and a DHL truck, wild dogs and poodles in sweaters, a sushi restaurant next to a cigarette shop, alt students blasting pop girl summer hits driving past a wealthy-wannabe blasting chalga...

The sticker, though out of place, is not surprising by its out-of-placeness. But rather how innocent it is amidst whatever that mess is around it.

I’ve found some shots from the archives. This exact spot with the electrical post next to a playground (which doubles as a toy dump) has seen a discarded wig and a dildo.

Most recently, on another walk with Josi, I found a row of bread buns placed on the curb. Seems deliberate.

PS: If your attention span is fried, put the phone down. Joseph couldn’t stand 15 minutes of the movie!