When Goto Dengo was young, his father had owned a fedora with English writing on its ivory silk liner, and a briar pipe, and tobacco that he bought through the mail from America. He would sit on a rock up in the hills and snug his fedora down to keep the chilly air from the bald spot on top of his head and smoke his pipe and just look at the world. "What are you doing?" Dengo would ask him.