http://travel.cnn.com/tokyo/visit/sento-spectacular-tokyos-amazing-public-baths-199776
A nice article about a walk through Kita-Senju, home of Daikoku-yu sentō:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2011/01/09/environment/the-narrow-roads-of-senju/#.UdAtQhaHoUw
Café de l’Ambre, a classic Tokyo kissaten, and a good place for a dead drop, too:
http://www.tokyofoodlife.com/?p=323
Kabaya Coffee — another classic McGraw favors for dead-drop communications:
http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/venue/8951/Kabaya-Coffee
A very cool photo blog of the Nakagin Capsule Tower:
http://www.ignant.de/2013/09/05/1972-by-noritaka-minami/
And a report from two western architects who managed to secure and live in one of the apartments there:
http://www.domusweb.it/content/domusweb/en/architecture/2013/05/29/the_metabolist_routine.html
Here are some amazing photos of student demonstrations in Tokyo, 1968–1971:
http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&ALID=2TYRYDMD2HVR
For inspiration about the vibe of Tokyo’s 1972 jazz scene, I loved this photograph of a young Terumasa Hino, along with a few other legends of jazz — Shinjuku Dug, 1968:
http://openers.jp/culture/tips_event/artdish0617.html
And Hino’s “Alone, Alone and Alone,” the piece he and his quartet perform at Taro in the book, was wonderful to write to. Gorgeous, haunting music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn-LQpFhGIY
More on the CIA’s long-standing financial role in Japanese politics:
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-to-support-japanese-right-in-50-s-and-60-s.html
The CIA underwriting foreign politicians is nothing new. Here’s a recent revelation, this one from Afghanistan:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/world/asia/cia-delivers-cash-to-afghan-leaders-office.html
A brief history of the Lockheed bribery scandal in Japan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals#Japan
A brief history of the Church Committee. Senator Church said in 1975, “I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that [the National Security Agency] and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee
Today, for any overseas behavior the U.S. government might want import to America, it has only to cite Senator Lindsey Graham, scholar, savior of the Constitution, and inventor of the profoundly Jeffersonian slogan “The homeland is the battlefield”:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2013/04/19/sen-lindsey-graham-boston-bombing-is-exhibit-a-of-why-the-homeland-is-the-battlefield/
About the Author
Barry Eisler spent three years in a covert position with the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, then worked as a technology lawyer and start-up executive in Silicon Valley and Japan, earning his black belt at the Kodokan International Judo Center along the way. Eisler’s bestselling thrillers have won the Barry Award and the Gumshoe Award for Best Thriller of the Year, have been included in numerous “Best Of” lists, have been translated into nearly twenty languages, and include the #1 bestseller The Detachment. Eisler lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and, when he’s not writing novels, blogs about torture, civil liberties, and the rule of law. http://www.barryeisler.com