Been staying up to 3AM these days for no reason, other than insomnia tinged with a slight fever.
Been waiting for the big one to hit. I religiously check the US Gov's earthquake site. I keep imagining how that big tower in Komazawa Park is going to go all jenga when it comes. I sometimes wonder how I'll be able to escape the subway tunnels when they fill with seawater.
Been reading Murakami's Kafka on the Shore (海辺のカフカ) and it provides some slight succor. I'm no longer locked into the idea that literature can provide a 'message' or an 'answer'. Yet, I am still in some way inspired, consoled, and reassured by the litany of beautiful things that I've found in the book: libraries, solitude,meticulously sharpened pencils, gazing at the sea. It's a relief in a way because his world is removed from my own, which is inundated (mediated) by an opposite set of values: success, ambition, money, fame, power, pride.
These are powerful things, and are certainly external engines of influence and change (but they don't make the world go round. the world just conserves its angular momentum). What I sense in Murakami's writing is a concern instead for internal transformation, ephiphany, growth (whichever term works for you).
And his faith in transformation and change despite our quotidien and bureaucratized lives is one spiritual conviction I can share. My logic is strong, but I know that I am not strong enough to plot my escape from my own frame of mind. After all, can you choose to forget something, someone? In that sense, perhaps it should be reassuring to know that nothing can remain the same, just like that tower can not remain standing forever.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Monday, September 19, 2005
Ok. Stole this one from BurnedOutEyes
You scored as Existentialist. Existentialism emphasizes human capability. There is no greater power interfering with life and thus it is up to us to make things happen. Sometimes considered a negative and depressing world view, your optimism towards human accomplishment is immense. Mankind is condemned to be free and must accept the responsibility.
What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com |
Sunday, September 18, 2005
Jiyugaoka wildlife
This is something that crawled into my life yesterday afternoon. I believe it's a gecko, though I have no idea how it made its way through all the screen windows.
In other news, I just finished watching Kore'eda Hirokazu's haunting Nobody Knows, as well as the cloying Korean drama-turned-movie Windstruck. Consumed together, they're quite a contrast. I would recommend watching them in the above order, to save your sanity.
In other news, I just finished watching Kore'eda Hirokazu's haunting Nobody Knows, as well as the cloying Korean drama-turned-movie Windstruck. Consumed together, they're quite a contrast. I would recommend watching them in the above order, to save your sanity.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Devilman reflection
Just finished watching the wonkily earnest DevilMan, and am still trying to digest its complex melange of poor-acting/melodrama and its half-revealed social concerns. It's a story (based on a comic by Nagai Go) about a war between humans and 'demons' which turns the world into a barren, blasted wasteland. The protagonists are highschool friends who straddle the boundary between human and non-human, and must choose between sides. . . as the movie site queries: "Is this the existence necessary to save humanity"?
But behind the standard genre devices like highschool friendships, male-male bonding, childhood flashbacks, there is something dark and unnerving straining for expression. The violence begins with school bullying and domestic abuse ("barbarism begins at home") and the more bizarre elements almost appear to be metaphorical manifestations of this fundamental cruelty. Then when humans turn on one another, with lynch mobs and fascistic police squads summarily executing humans suspected of being/becoming demons, the story moves into more universalistic territory by dismantling the intial dualism of the conflict. It's quite a cliche actually, but somehow representative of an earlier era of idealism. There's no simple enemy, and there's no simple hero. . . simple judgments are disrupted by the presence of a third term. The interstitial role of the human-demon hybrids shows the cruelty of humanity, layered on top of the more obvious villainous role played by the demons.
And in a sense, my own research is a never-ending search for such third terms, a position to judge the limitations of comparisons. A position that allows me to criticize both America and Japan; rather than being trapped in "you can't say that, your country did worse". What I'm trying to say is that most of our judgements are constructed on the assumption of a simple linguistic comparative: "it's small" = "it's smaller than this (presumed?) standard". Zhuangzi (of the famous butterfly dream) made the same argument. If you define "big" from the perspective of something very very small, then of the myriad things, there is none that is not 'big".
Another example, given to me with far too much vitriol by someone I know:
"American men can cook"
"I see. I don't think most American women think so, because mac-and-cheese don't count."
"No, what I meant was that compared to Japanese men, American men can cook."
The addition of the third term of "American women" immediately changes the equation. The complex positionality of the speakers is revealed, and the processes whereby we make judgements is rendered transparent.
But behind the standard genre devices like highschool friendships, male-male bonding, childhood flashbacks, there is something dark and unnerving straining for expression. The violence begins with school bullying and domestic abuse ("barbarism begins at home") and the more bizarre elements almost appear to be metaphorical manifestations of this fundamental cruelty. Then when humans turn on one another, with lynch mobs and fascistic police squads summarily executing humans suspected of being/becoming demons, the story moves into more universalistic territory by dismantling the intial dualism of the conflict. It's quite a cliche actually, but somehow representative of an earlier era of idealism. There's no simple enemy, and there's no simple hero. . . simple judgments are disrupted by the presence of a third term. The interstitial role of the human-demon hybrids shows the cruelty of humanity, layered on top of the more obvious villainous role played by the demons.
And in a sense, my own research is a never-ending search for such third terms, a position to judge the limitations of comparisons. A position that allows me to criticize both America and Japan; rather than being trapped in "you can't say that, your country did worse". What I'm trying to say is that most of our judgements are constructed on the assumption of a simple linguistic comparative: "it's small" = "it's smaller than this (presumed?) standard". Zhuangzi (of the famous butterfly dream) made the same argument. If you define "big" from the perspective of something very very small, then of the myriad things, there is none that is not 'big".
Another example, given to me with far too much vitriol by someone I know:
"American men can cook"
"I see. I don't think most American women think so, because mac-and-cheese don't count."
"No, what I meant was that compared to Japanese men, American men can cook."
The addition of the third term of "American women" immediately changes the equation. The complex positionality of the speakers is revealed, and the processes whereby we make judgements is rendered transparent.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Breathing the air of tomorrow
September 7th 2005 10:00PM
Breathing the air of tomorrow:
Typhoon 14 made landfall over Hokkaido a few hours ago
and like a giant pinwheel twisting the atmosphere
pushes autumn air down to Tokyo
like twirling the hand of a giant clock forward
and I breathe the air of tomorrow
gurgling like rivers of ink through the trees of Komazawa Park.
Inhaling the scent of yesterday:
Enveloping myself in a jacket (pulled from deep inside my closet)
against the unexpected chill I smell the fragrance
of a fabric softener I used up long ago.
I transect the jogging course from south to north
and sit by a silent fountain in the dark.
Anytime but now.
Please let it be.
Breathing the air of tomorrow:
Typhoon 14 made landfall over Hokkaido a few hours ago
and like a giant pinwheel twisting the atmosphere
pushes autumn air down to Tokyo
like twirling the hand of a giant clock forward
and I breathe the air of tomorrow
gurgling like rivers of ink through the trees of Komazawa Park.
Inhaling the scent of yesterday:
Enveloping myself in a jacket (pulled from deep inside my closet)
against the unexpected chill I smell the fragrance
of a fabric softener I used up long ago.
I transect the jogging course from south to north
and sit by a silent fountain in the dark.
Anytime but now.
Please let it be.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Summer Comic Market, 2005
On this sweltering day, I squeezed into Tokyo Big Sight with a multitude of other sweaty people to. . . mingle through warehouse-sized rooms of dojinshi (fan-drawn comic books) booths. What can I say? I got to rub shoulders with real-live cosplayers, including (unfortunately unphotographed) Queen Amidala of Naboo and her entourage.
But it's been years since I've tried to follow this particular subculture, and I didn't recognize most of the characters being so lovingly reproduced by the fans. Four hours was enough, but click on the photo to see more pics.
By the way, the sign was a 'Comikke' exclusive for the first-aid station, offering the kind-hearted advice to get enough sleep, and try not to collapse (from the heat?).
Otaku, sweaty but always polite.
On another less humorous note, I just finished watching a documentary on Yasukuni Shrine on NHK. It's fascinating that the 'problem' of the shrine developed smoothly out of a post-war contradiction about two things:
1. state intervention in 'religion'
2. the state's official stance on the Tokyo War Crimes Trial.
I divide the issue into two frames: 1) the specific problems of the Yasukuni Shrine, including its enshrinement of 'class-A war criminals'. 2) the general problem of war commemoration, and state responsibility. The documentary lays out details for the first issue very clearly; three days after sovereignty returned to Japan (the end of the US-led occupation, 1952), the government determined that all war criminals would not be considered criminals under domestic law, and their families should be compensated with state money. In the international arena, however, they would accept the legitimacy of the court's judgement. From this legal basis, (and the Japanese government is a very legal-minded entity) developed the argument that they should thus be enshrined as national heroes just like all others who have died at war. Or at least, there should be no legal reason to block their enshrinement, since they are not considered criminals under domestic law.
The second, wider issue of a government's responsibility for its past, and how it commemorates its military. I have little to add to this discussion (as an American, we've done plenty of celebrating our military history), except to mention that Japan's post-war constitution maintains a separation of religion and state. So why the official visits to a Shinto shrine where Buddhists and Christians object to being enshrined?
But it's been years since I've tried to follow this particular subculture, and I didn't recognize most of the characters being so lovingly reproduced by the fans. Four hours was enough, but click on the photo to see more pics.
By the way, the sign was a 'Comikke' exclusive for the first-aid station, offering the kind-hearted advice to get enough sleep, and try not to collapse (from the heat?).
Otaku, sweaty but always polite.
On another less humorous note, I just finished watching a documentary on Yasukuni Shrine on NHK. It's fascinating that the 'problem' of the shrine developed smoothly out of a post-war contradiction about two things:
1. state intervention in 'religion'
2. the state's official stance on the Tokyo War Crimes Trial.
I divide the issue into two frames: 1) the specific problems of the Yasukuni Shrine, including its enshrinement of 'class-A war criminals'. 2) the general problem of war commemoration, and state responsibility. The documentary lays out details for the first issue very clearly; three days after sovereignty returned to Japan (the end of the US-led occupation, 1952), the government determined that all war criminals would not be considered criminals under domestic law, and their families should be compensated with state money. In the international arena, however, they would accept the legitimacy of the court's judgement. From this legal basis, (and the Japanese government is a very legal-minded entity) developed the argument that they should thus be enshrined as national heroes just like all others who have died at war. Or at least, there should be no legal reason to block their enshrinement, since they are not considered criminals under domestic law.
The second, wider issue of a government's responsibility for its past, and how it commemorates its military. I have little to add to this discussion (as an American, we've done plenty of celebrating our military history), except to mention that Japan's post-war constitution maintains a separation of religion and state. So why the official visits to a Shinto shrine where Buddhists and Christians object to being enshrined?
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
