Koji Otsuka was living in New York when the World Trade Center was attacked on 11 September 2001. As the city changed in response to the event, so did Otsuka, and in this book he records his years in New York between 2001 and 2008. In the artist's statement he writes that in ages past people watched a volcano erupt in the belief that the god of the mountain was angry, and that at that moment many people, himself included, who had lost the capacity for words and could only look on, were humbled by the sight of such a god manifesting in violent anger; surely humanity's unmitigated greed must have angered the god. Whenever he hears news of some tragic accident of artificial cause, he cannot help thinking that the god has emerged again to reprimand humans for continuing to live with such arrogance upon this planet.