Causality: A Series in Two Parts

Introduction - A Series of Near Impossible Coincidences

I don't even know where to begin this. If we want to talk about cause and effect, chicken and egg, I suppose we could trace chance events back to the beginning of time. For now, let me begin a week and half ago on Thursday. I was walking around Waseda University, enjoying the young atmosphere of the campus when I was approached by a a very tall American guy with long blond curly hair. I suppose being the only tall white man in the vicinity made me stand out as well. He was a visiting researcher from Stanford working on a dissertation on 17th Century Japanese poetry. He was very friendly, briefly showed me around campus, and gave me advice about academic musical research that I could do in Japan. Before heading on his way, he recommended a local hangout where a Japanese friend of his plays blues guitar every so often. I kept up with the Stanford student over email this past week and he kept sending me plugs for his friend's blues show.