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The Radio GEMPEG Show

It's 2027. Born in 2007, the main character K has no girlfriend and is part of a cultural minority with few friends. In a paperless age with no books, magazines and newspapers, K collects the old media of the 20th century. His little dream is to "make a book" with his friend 21LO! But it goes against the law to make books in the age when the distribution or even printing is impossible and severely restricted without an official government emblem...


EPISODE 37

2027 - The Radio GEMPEG Show

K “Hello, hello. Hello. Test, test” 2 “Check. Check. One two” K “No fucking checks. This is live broadcasting” 2 “Oh! Pressing this button to start live broadcasting. Oh, yes. That’s right” K “Hello to the world” 2 “I am Haruo Minami” K “What’s that?” 2 “Well, I am 21LO, a Zakuian. Listen to this voice” K “I am K. My voice is like this. It’s a very attractive voice with a heavy bass sound” 2 “Hahaha” K “Let’s see… Well, this is radio, you know. I will tell you what this radio program is about” 2 “Yes” K “We, 21LO and me K made a book. It’s called GEMPEG” 2 “Yes. Well, we printed the limited edition of 2,000 copies of the book. And to advertise it, we are speaking like something funny and would like you to know the uniqueness of GEMPEG” K “That’s right. You’re good” 2 “Danke schön (German). And speaking about advertisement, well, the book we made, well, it’s quite hard to say. It’s actually illegal. We can’t actually make books now” K “Yes. As you the listeners already know, it’s been almost a decade since the end of paper media. And we are not sure about the abolishment. Well…” 2 “Well, we can’t talk about the deep part of it. But anyway it’s about why Kleenex is ok, but magazines, newspapers, and self-published books are not” K “Yeah. First of all, I think you, ladies and gentlemen can probably understand it. Oh god. Who is listening to this program” 2 “No. Don’t speak the negative words” K “Oh, yeah right. This program is delivered to you all to the world” 2 “Yeah right. Be positive. And be an upper. We proudly would like to talk about it” K “Yeah. Let’s see. Let’s talk about the contents of the book” 2 “Yes. Well, where should we start? Let’s start from this. We’ve been saying GEMPEG, GEMPEG. Do you like to know what kind of book GEMPEG is?” K “Yes, yes” 2 “First, GEM out of GEMPEG means a piece of GEM” K ” Is it English?” 2 “Yes. PEG is a computer term used before, you know. It’s about light image format” K “You know Steely Dan, a rock band of the 70’s? Isn’t there a track, PEG?” 2 “I know it! It’s their masterpiece. Yeah. So there is a meaning piling up of treasures” K “It’s something about whether you can find treasures in something like trash” 2 “ There are treasures in trash” K “Absolutely” 2 “So we’ll tell you how we collected the trash. It was tough” K “Yes. I’ll tell you. We collected trashes = treasures around town” 2 “Yeah. We staked out for a couple of days in front of the house of Umitaro Nikaido, the wizard of the porn novel” K “Yeah, we were in the cold outside for hours” 2 “So then, we found scripts out of the trash that were put out in front of the entrance” K “Yes” 2 “ And we completed it as a book. Oh, I spoke well. Well we’ve been to many places. You know, well, there were many things going on with trash. There was nasty trash like puke” K “Yeah, right. Condoms too. But basically the most trash is papers. Oh I remember there was a hard disc. The one that was from a design firm” 2 “Oh! It contained big things in it” K “Various images and graphical diagrams” 2 “Yeah. There were many parts that were best for T-shirts” K “Oh yeah, the wrist cutting one with that i-D card” 2 “That one is cool” K “Yeah they were full of things. Most of all, how should I put, it was like a stakeout. We were wandering around the high residential area late at night” 2 “Yeah” K “That was impressive” 2 “Yes. Everybody would better to do it. Well, but I don’t recommend so much, ‘cause it’s nasty. I never imagined gloves were so important” K “Oh, I knew how to use them for the first time in my life” 2 “Hahaha” K “Looking into trashes, I feel like tripped out” 2 “Oh I know. Did you feel that too?” K “Sure, I did” 2 “Yeah right. You know, well, the ball” K “Oh what?” 2 “You know ball. Looking closely it moves you know” K “Oh it moves slowly like mollusks. Same as Zakuians?” 2 “ Yeah it’s the same” K “Right. And then?” 2 “Yeah. Looking into the ball moving limply, it’s like looking down at it, like looking down myself from space” K “Huh” 2 “Well, I thought I just looked like a ball. The example is like we go to work, have sex, and hang out to clubs, right? Everyday” K “Hmmm” 2 “I think it’s like all those acts are something similar to limp balls when looking from the sky above” K “What? How does it anything to do with collecting trash?” 2 “Oh, right. And what should I say. Well, it was kind of natural act as it is like a ball” K “Oh, you mean it’s like unintentional?” 2 “Yeah right. Sorry talking in circles…” K “Couldn’t get what you were talking about! You said balls too much at the beginning” 2 “Well sorry. I should have said like ‘as if an artist draws an abstract’” K “You make me laugh. But I guess it might be so really, apart from balls (laughs)” 2 “Oh, but we have 2 parts of the ball right? And we have 2 parts of our brain. It definitely has something to do with a ying and yang thing” K “Crap. But I understand it” 2 “The world is divided into two regardless of whether you like it or not” K “Wow you’re quite philosophical in a way” 2 “May be. Well getting back to the book… Well we got a nice drawing of the Mona Lisa. It was found in a garbage bag in front of the Yamano Hospital” K “How can you remember all that?” 2 “You know Mona Lisa is drawn as if she looks at you from many angles” K “You cannot get away from her eyes” 2 “Yeah. It’s scary” K “It’s like Somebody's Watching You, you know” 2 “Scary. Well… We’ll deliver this song next” K “Obviously we are illegal. Please forgive us, Mark” 2 “DEVO’s Timing X” K “The song is the best!”


Text and images: Kurando Furuya, Hitoshi Odajima, Tomoki Kurokawa
Translation: Mariko Takei

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