Disk Cleanup

Defragmentation is the process of reorganizing fragmented data on a hard disk drive so that scattered pieces of data are stored together in a contiguous block.

Back when people had mechanical disk drives, it was common to do a "manual defrag" so that files and data that were related were consolidated, making it easier for the computer to read and write them when needed. It resulted in a faster boot time and reduced the work that the mechanical read/write sensor needed to do in order to access that information.

Gen Z probably has no idea what a manual defrag was, but it was something that you occasionally did on your personal PC before you played Red Alert so that your computer didn't run out of space and freeze in the middle of playing.

Computers, as it turns out, are not that much different from humans. I also need to sit down and "defrag" my thoughts into coherent patterns so that they make some type of sense. If my mind is the hard drive and the experiences are the data, then Backyard Izakaya is the contiguous block of long-term memory.

I tend to defrag after every trip I take. It's a good exercise to reflect and write after you've had a good long break to document your thoughts. It's that period of time where you say to yourself, "Oh yeah, that was such a great vacation, but I'm not ready to go back to work — so let me just look through all the media that I took."

It's in these moments that you find yourself wishing you did that one thing you wanted to do but never got the chance: the "oh, too bad it was so cloudy — maybe next time I'll see sunrise on Mt. Fuji," the "oh, if I went down that street to that store again, I should have bought that vintage jacket."

Most of these opportunities pass you by and you never get a chance again. But I have somehow had the foresight to list all of them in a Google Doc that I labeled "Bucket List" items, to revisit someday. A list of things you intend to do before you kick the bucket.

As I was writing the previous piece on "Form Follows Fun," I remembered where I had heard that term before — in organic architecture, something I did a middle school report on about Frank Lloyd Wright.

In writing that article, I suddenly remembered that there was a bucket list item for me to visit the reconstructed Imperial Hotel, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, at the Meiji Mura Museum on the outskirts of Nagoya.

I was lucky enough to be in Osaka at the end of January for Hyrox, and I had a couple of days to spare, so I thought — why not? Nagoya is only an hour by high-speed rail from Osaka. Might as well tick something off that bucket list. People have asked me how Hyrox Osaka was and then seemed puzzled when I started explaining that I was there to see an architecture museum in Nagoya and just happened to do Hyrox — like, as a casual side thing.

The Meiji Mura is unlike any other museum — it is an open-air museum created to preserve historically significant buildings from the Meiji, Taishō, and early Shōwa periods in Japanese history.

When you go to a richly historic place like Japan, what does one do on vacation anyway? It's always: look at old stuff, take pictures of old buildings, eat stuff, etc. What made Meiji Mura unique to me was that it consolidated the "looking at stuff" and "taking pictures of stuff" into one condensed area. How often do you get to see a European cathedral, a Mayan-esque looking hotel, chapels, a judo dojo, and ornate facades of bygone buildings all in one place?

I would have loved to have joined a tour where a guide explained all the different intricacies of the construction of certain structures, but alas, I did not speak Japanese, and the museum staff seemed overrun by the tour buses of Japanese school children running around in what can only be described as a scavenger hunt.

I get it though — I remember when I was that age, and running around this winter wonderland on a Friday seemed way more fun than learning from a textbook. 

When you enter, they have a recommended path for how to enjoy the 250-acre property, and it started with what I came to see.

There's something about buildings that refuse to fall down. Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel — opened in Tokyo in 1923, weeks before the Great Kantō Earthquake — was that kind of stubborn. It survived while the city crumbled around it. But the real story isn't the earthquake. It's how Wright thought about buildings in the first place. He called it organic architecture: the idea that a structure should grow from its site the way a tree grows from soil. Not imposed on the land, but of it. 

The Imperial was built from locally quarried ōya stone, its low-slung wings stretching outward like something geological, hugging the earth rather than fighting it. Every pool, terrace, and carved surface existed because it needed to — form didn't follow function so much as form was function, inseparable, like the way a good bowl fits the curve of your hands without you noticing. 

Wright wove Mayan geometry into Japanese spatial logic seamlessly. The result was a building that felt like it belonged to both cultures and neither — a third thing entirely. Tokyo eventually tore it down in 1968, because even thought the Imperial withstood a catastrophic earthquake, it couldn’t stand the forces of real estate development. But pieces survive at Meiji Mura, where you can still walk through the lobby and feel what Wright was reaching for: architecture that doesn't sit on the earth, but breathes with it.

Whew — what an adventure. Thanks for coming with me along this defrag process.

"Japan," "Wright," and "Defrag" were probably not on my bingo card, but somehow my hard drive put it together as such. Who knew.

I remember someone once said that there are two types of people: jackhammers and hummingbirds. Jackhammers are the Jiros of the world. The Einsteins. They do one thing well and only that one thing — they focus, drill in, and that is all they do. The second type of people are hummingbirds: they're interested in multiple fields, and they cross-pollinate. It's the cross-pollination that keeps things interesting and exciting. I know myself — I am not a jackhammer. I'm a hummingbird. I like to keep things fresh, interesting, new.

Not even I can write about food all the time; I need to drift somewhere else in order to course-correct back to where I intended to go. So go do something else, tick off that bucket list, and tell me how it goes — I'm sure it'll make sense after.

Savoring this moment with you,

Kevin L