I wanted to explore, too, the fascinating range of alternative stories that people in modern Japan have told about their country: visions of what they hoped it might become, playing out across politics and music, art and philosophy, family and work, dance and religion, literature, folklore and film.
There was a point a year or so ago where you were as likely to hear Cassie's pitched-down coo in the club as a kick drum and, while I'm not calling for a moratorium on R&B samples, the tendency to flip a Brandy or Cassie track has become seriously played out.
Listen to some of the first volumes of Trap Shit and you'll hear a soundbyte that became so played out that it's hard not to cringe when listening.
Her life was the fairy tale in which the muse becomes the master, played out in surrealist Paris in the 1930s where her lover and collaborator was Man Ray, the American dada-surrealist artist.
Outrageous punditry has become an extreme sport, played out by a new generation of the professionally perverse.
Yet under Matthew Warchus's direction, the way in which these questions are played out becomes riveting.
But the mood soon turns inward, the song becomes like a dream played out in slow motion.
What's more, the Pacific Northwest has little oil or gas to drill for or fight over, and the region's coal deposits have played out or become uneconomical.
The spectacular falling-out of the two main stars of "The Hills," Lauren Conrad and Heidi Montag, has become a polarizing object lesson played out in the supermarket tabloids.
When those stories are signed, they become like a film being played out before you.
