The Meaning of Candy

Over the past week I've spent a lot of time making a real story out of "Porcelain." I refuse to post it, though, as I realize that the character I later write of quite loathingly is basically my ideal vision of myself. Freaky!!!

"I'd like a Kit Kat." Seems like a rather simple statement doesn't it? Apparently, it demands a response: "what flavor Kit Kat do you want?" "What do you mean, 'what flavor?' Get me a fucking Kit Kat!" But it's not that simple. You have your wine Kit Kat, maccha (powdered green tea) Kit Kat, passion fruit Kit Kat, your cherry (the flower not the fruit) Kit Kat, your white chocolate Kit Kat, your dulce du leche Kit Kat, etc. and so forth. I even bought a Kit Kat recently that came with the new Kimura Kaela single.

So, the future of numerous students has been decided, namely whether they will continue to run the gauntlet of endless studying for entrance exams or drop out and do something marginally useful. I saw a student going into an exam with a pair of Kit Kats, and I, being hungry and a bit greedy, ask him if I can have one. His reply, "absolutely not!" It's difficult to describe how rude abruptness is in Japanese, so you're just going to have to believe me that it is. But you see, he dare not give away his precious Kit Kat at such an important time.

Why?

A linguistic oddity: two candy bars are Kit Kats and one is a Kit Kat. Transliterate the former into Japanese, and you get "kitto katsu," which interestingly enough is homophonous with the phrase that means "I'll definitely succeed." However, take away that precious English s and transliterate again. What do you get? "Kitto Katto," which would be "definitely cut." If he were to give away one of his Kit Kats, he'd literally be tempting fate. Considering how apoplectic students get about exams in this country, I can see why he reacted the way he did.

The Kit Kat, then, is no longer food; it is now a kind of totem or charm, like the little badges you can buy at shrines to promote success in business, fertility, or good health. To eat the candy would destroy its lingui-mystical power. All of this is my long winded way of explaining why I think they taste like crap.

ladles

dipping and tipping - redipping and tipping
so concave and dipping and tipping
stopping - slopping - mopping

dropping - plopping, wiping and griping
sniping, wiping and griping, moping
groping - grasping - gasping

fighting and frightening - setting, regretting
waiting and baiting, chilling, anticipating
waiting - baiting - hating

serving every man in turn with reverence,
reserving sacrilegious thoughts for sacred places
deserving of little but scorn

hoping and probing, considering eloping
doping, duping and being duped, helping
belting - dying - melting

belting - flying - melting

belting - trying - melting

Barring Certain Philosophical Discourses

I am, perhaps, somewhat well known for my near complete inability to sleep in anything approaching regularity. More often than not this tossing is accompanied but the great vanilla chocolate swirl that is my thoughts: thoughts on anything including the highest temperature at which one can become hypothermic, what the constituent minerals of lapis lazuli are, how to flip a pancake without all the crap spraying all over the place, etc.

For the most part I observe what I have come to refer to as the 20% rule, that is only 20% of the swirl ever makes its way to some kind of vocalic expression. The remaining 80%, then, breeds with itself and produces some of what will become 20% and some which by it's very wackiness will demonstrate that certain soon-to-be-former residents of the 80% are now timid enough to stop out for the occasional walk. The 80% is where most of my "hard thinking" takes place and is more than partially responsible for my opinions occasionally coming out of left field.

Topic: Desire-Will-Control-Power

I like to come up with sequences, sometimes causal sequences that help me define for myself what exactly it is I mean when I say something is something else. Most of my confusion results from people (including myself) using a word in a way I have never heard before, so with each new datum, I like to refine my sequences so as better to accommodate what practical usages come my way. An example:

Moving from inside to outside (alt. from self to other): desire is the emotional/rational reflection of a want or need "I want to punch Mike in the balls." Will is the first projection of desire. Desire generates a certain degree of pressure in the self (most will note I'm stealing this from Nietzsche) that initially finds it's valve in will "I get up the nerve to punch Mike in the balls." This pressure is akin to entropy, being here the greater tendency of potential energy to become kinetic energy. If desire continues to build pressure without any sort of projection, it can find a certain conversion (though not relief) in the form of frustration in much the same way chemical waste from metabolism builds up as lactic acid if it isn't flushed out. Will can find a physical manifestation in the form of control. Control uses the energy generated by will from desire in order to act. Once again frustration provides an alternative should the will not get used up "I clench my fist and hurl it toward Mike's balls." Control over something is power. When control finds its object, when control connects with an other, it becomes power "I punch Mike in the balls." I think this is why knowledge is a kind of power. Knowledge is control over arbitrary bits of information, namely in the ability to accept or reject (I'm not sure whether I'm agreeing or disagreeing with Foucault her; that whole exchange metaphor usually makes my eyes permanently roll in their sockets). If you want to you could even stick threat in there: the lingering presence of power "Mike is wary of me punching him in the balls again."

So there you have it, a complete thought of mine arranged in a semi-comprehensible format. Bon Apetit!

N.B. The examples are merely chosen for levity.

How other people see me:


How I see myself:


Bonus points if you can identify who the first photo is actually of!

Love and Distance Pt. 2: Near and Dear

On Sunday, I was in Asuke for the final day of their Hina Matsuri (Girl's Doll Festival). Asuke is better known for fall colors, but that's beside the point. People open their houses to the public so anyone can come see the old dolls they've collected over the years, their own innovations on Dairi-sama and Hina-sama, and in some cases serve tea and snacks for a small fee. I found it interesting, though, that the setups were always in the genkan. They'd never quite let you inside.

Businesses had their own setups as well. Capitalists will be capitalists. I can't fault businesses for wanting to make money; that's what businesses do.

In one shop a man asked me a simple question: "where are you from?" in English. The man was a whitey like myself, and from the accent I assumed he was British, though to be honest I'm not really very good at placing such things. My reaction to this very moment surprises me.

I was stunned.

I stopped, paused for an awkward amount of time and said curtly, "the US," just as he turned to Colleen to ask her if I had understood what he said. I was noticably disturbed by his question; I felt, as best as I can say, an affront. He wasn't going around quizzing anyone else, just the obvious foreign type (i.e. me). The question was probably directed towards Colleen as well, but it didn't feel that way to me.

His question resembled, I suppose, one I'm used to from the Japanese: "nan no kuni?" simply "what country?"

We went to Asuke with the Kobayashis, friends of ours, and at one of those rare moments when the inpenetrable gossamer barrier of gentility falls away and I feel close to those among whom I live, someone like myself steps up to remind me of what I am: an outsider.

My English-speaking brain forgot itself. It equated proximity with friendship. We talk about love as a matter of distance, a quantitative thing. We say things like, "we're not close" or "I feel so distant from him" as if the mere quantity of separation is enough to convey the degree of ardor one feels for another. In a country where you are, in fact, physically close to everyone, distance ceases to serve as a useful metaphor for the regard in which one holds others.

Sometimes, I feel as if I carry around my person an invisible quarantine wherever I go: a personal forcefield to encapsulate the odd. It makes you wonder though... is it to protect me from the world or to protect the world from me?

I resent that man for making me think such things. I resent him for coming so close to my real fears.