Another Kind of Goodbye

I've been musing a bit recently on my stint as a Japanese homemaker, N.B. 主夫 not 主婦, and the idea came to me to write something, most likely in Japanese, about my rather odd experience of failing to get across to people what it is I do for a living and simply resorting to saying I'm a housewife. Funny conversations typically ensue, and I am dragged further into the world that is the daily life of a married, middle-aged Japanese woman. With that in mind, I started with the following, in Japanese but don't worry, I'll translate it too.

今日、七月七日、日本のどこかで誰か七夕を祝うかもしれないが、俺は名古屋からどことも知れない場所まで東海道線の普通電車に乗る予定しかない。車両の外、側面図が我と別れて消えてしまう。各街は同じ街みたいだし、俺の各場所の思い出も消えてしまう。その思い出を逆方向に行く電車に置いて他の忘れやすいながめに入る。

　蒲郡と豊橋の間にどこかで特定の名前も知らないタロウという若者も三人同級生も乗ってくる。タロウと彼の仲間があっちこっちにある空席に座らないままに立っている。「何でかな…」と自分に言ってタロウ組にじっと見つめる。しんしんと彼らはなんか笑い話と語りかける。その四人仲間は何と話してるかよく分からなくて、俺が分かれるのは「バラバラバラバラバラバラ外人バラバラバラバラだろう？」って、血も燃えるようになって怒れていく。「何でそんなにすっごく怒れるような気分しとるか、お前は」と聞くとしてタロウは自分の眼に見る。答えは「ワカンナイ」

Today, the 7th of July, somewhere in Japan someone must be celebrating Tanabata, but the only thing I have on my agenda is to take a train from Nagoya to God-knows-where on the Tokaido line. The view outside the car splits off and disappears; each town looks to be the same town, and as such my memory of each place disappears. I put those memories on a train going the opposite direction on which they enter yet another entirely forgettable scene [a really bad translation of nagame, which is used to describe particularly breathtaking views of the countryside].

Somewhere between Gamagori and Toyohashi some teenager for whom I don't have a particular name but will call "Taro" gets on the train with three of his classmates. He and his friends refuse to sit separately in seats scattered here and remain standing. "Why?" I muse to myself and stare transfixed at the group of them. Quietly, "Taro" starts to tell them some kind of anecdote; I can't really understand what the four of them are saying, but what I do catch, "yada yada yada yada gaijin yada yada yada," makes my blood boil. "Taro" looks into my eyes as if to say, "what's got you so bent outta shape?" My answer: "I dunno."

I should probably add that the town I live in, Mito, is roughly half way between Gamagori and Toyohashi. Everytime I come back here, I feel this intense weight of unwelcome that makes me think I'm arriving for the first time, even though I've lived here for years. I constantly have to shake off the locals' "astonishment" that a whitey is getting off at Aichi-Mito station, a reaction that is initially quaint but after three years becomes patently ridiculous. That and the oppressive humidity have rendered me all too willing to let my memories of this place pass as I head somewhere else.

Weather Patterns

To ask a Japanese, which is to say the common opinion fed by no-nothing news broadcasters, this rainy season has been unnaturally dry. Never having lived in a country that suffers genuine droughts, they don't really get how insignificant the difference is between 9 inches of rain in a month and 10. Anyway, the rain and too much Harold Bloom have been making me think about childhood, not so much my childhood as the abstract. The result is as follows.

sweat

I'd baked my brain in the sunlight
before I'd even let it rise;
I'd let water cool my throat
until it became ice

tinkling in a glass of lemonade
as bright as the sunshine I'd baked
with my thoughts had risen up
like cold steam from the ice

wrinkling in the uneven heat
of the crystal air shatters
the sun into perfect hazy
pieces of hexagonal ice.


sweet

lemons drops of rain sounding somewhere
beyond a frosted pane of glass coat
the road in a thinnest film of mirror.

somethere tickling the puddles with her
shoes the reflection of a girl is tasting
the water that someday rots her teeth.

the wet icicles dangling from the clouds
somehow reek of peppermint the whole
way she wanders to the end of the block.


sleet

I'd wanted to believe the myths of nana
tucking in the lads, telling them stories
of how she'd lived her life in hail.


You'll forgive me if my thoughts are a bit cloudy at the moment. I've been using idle train time, of which I have an endless supply, to muse on what Mike had said about me becoming [insert name here], which I found funny because, admittedly, I haven't read a word of Marx aside from the teasy bits of the Communist Manifesto I needed to get by in an undergrad "great books" type class, have only the faintest notion of what Heidegger thinks about anything, and not a wit of Deleuze. That on top of something I read in Freakonomics that I'm deathly afraid is how others see me:

"If you were to assume that many experts use their information to your detriment, you'd be right. Experts depend on the fact that you don't have the information they do. Or that you are so befuddled by the complexity of their operation that you wouldn't know what to do with the information if you had it. Or that you are so in awe of their expertise that you wouldn't dare challenge them."

False Etymologies

Today's little ditty, which I promise to be somewhat brief, comes in two parts: part 1, a rant, and part 2, a poem. They need even less introduction than that.

I.

I realized last night, as I failed to drift off into sleepy land, that there is a gross difference between something being right and something making sense. For example, me quoting myself, "I'd like to consider the ignorant together with the innocent, as we tend to let them overlap. The innocent are, etymologically speaking, innocuous, they are innocens, which is to say they do no harm, innocent being an adjective derived from the present participle of the verb noceo ('to do harm') modified by the negative prefix in-. The funny thing about the prefix in- in die Lingua Latina is that it often serves as an intensifier as well, thus inflammo does not have the ridiculous meaning of 'not to set on fire' but rather 'to inflame.' Perhaps the innocent are not, in fact, innocuous. Perhaps the innocent, and as such the ignorant, do not 'do no harm' but rather 'do great harm.' They do great harm to us all with their stupidity." It is less important that in- and noceo as "do great harm" is etymologically incorrect as the fact it makes a kind of sense, i.e. it manufactures sense, is ultimately more useful than its truth value.

II.

letter to an anarchist

please don't kill me; I've only
just met you. it'd be a shame
if I were to bloody your suip.

suip, as you know, needs
broth, the kind you make of
meets simmering in a pot.

the vegetables and the meets
and the bundles of fresh verbs
and the well water fat puddles--

please don't kill my brother;
he's just a baby and wont to
babble as bibble babies do.

please spare him his life in
solitude wondering the halls
of dusty tome-pocked walls;

he won't forget you, as you
will have already forgotten him.
please don't leaf your life alone.

Spektors of Doubt

I warn you in advance that this is a long one, so if you're gonna be of the tldr set, just go fuck off... with love. Anyway, here it is, but one thing: yes, I did mean to spell it "reder;" why would take a post even longer than this one, so make of it what you will for now.


A verbal experiment need not be merely that; common sense seems to say there's nothing that restricts a clever turn of phrase to being merely that. bleh, that's a load of crap--what Spektor means by "the consequence of sounds" is not entirely clear: if the apposition holds, then it would be "the consonants and vowels" - if it even is an apposition. the principle by which Spektor moves from one thought to the next in "the consequence of sounds" (the song, not the line) is more an appropriation of hip hop flow than it is strictly logical or narratological. in a flow, the mc uses any of numerous phonological links more reminiscent of music to enjoin thoughts into sequence. rhyme, assonance, consonance, caesura, theme and variation, all are tools by which the mc moves from one thought to another, often joining logically unrelated images thru a mere affinity of sound. the success of a flow is marked less by the degree to which it makes sense and more by the seeming ease with which the mc enjambs various phrases. of course, the flow is anything but easy: the poet puts every word where she wants it, and the seemingly illogical relations that may result are anything but unintentional.

The phonological affinity that exists between "consonants" and "consequence" could lead a reder to believe that Spektor could have put these two lines together merely for this reason, but its use as a refrain would argue against that. what should I make of it, though, as an apposition. one possibility: that language is a consequence of the exist of sound. the human mind has a need to make language of seemingly random stimuli. at the heart of our experience of sound is a persistent desire for it to mean something, and when such meaning is not obvious, we take what sounds we have and turn them into voices. as Basho said:

静かさや岩にしみいる蝉の声
ah, the quiet... penetrating the rock, the voice of the cicada

Cicadas are insects, of course, and as such do not have voices per se (though, to be fair, the word koe is used in Japanese both for human voice and the various sounds of animals); they make sound by shaking their butts, or, in science speak, vigorously vibrating certain loose sections of their abdomens.

What Spektor's apposition (if it is one) says is the human brain cannot just let sound be. "the consonants and vowels" are what go along with sounds, to use a more etymological sense of "consequence." consonants and vowels (by my reding the most basic units of language) are not so much the natural result of sound as something coeval. Spektor is not necessarily saying something we don't already know - that sound does not exist meaningfully outside of human perception - but she does so lyrically. in this lyric mode meaning is not obvious and is subject to the machinations of the reder. ironically, then, this is also part of what she is saying.

taken a step further, the lyric flow can be used to produce words that, lexically speaking, are not, in fact, there, much in the same way a skilled musician can produce polytones on an instrument like the bassoon. the extra notes aren't technically there, which is to say the musician is not using the finger position by which they are normally played, but because of the way in which a particular note is played, the listener hears those additional notes. according to the liner notes, two lines of "Edit" should read:

you don't even have good credit
you can write but you can't edit

Which seems simple enough, if incomprehensible, but when Spektor sings the last of those two lines, she holds the nasal in "can't" and lets the terminal stop fall on top of the word "edit." upon first and subsequent listens, the lines rede to me as "you can write but you can't debt it," which makes much more (logical) sense given the preceding line. the whole song is merely a repetition of the following.

white lines on your mind
keep it steady
you were never ready
for the lies
you don't have no Dr. Robert
you don't have no Uncle Albert
you don't even have good credit
you can write but you can't edit

Once again, I've used the word mere a bit too easily, because the repetition of these lines is precisely what produces the verbal polytones to which I alluded earlier. as the song reaches its end and becomes increasingly frantic, the line "for the lies" merges back into the beginning of the song producing the string "for the white lines on your mind." that the common idiom "white lie" already exists in English only helps to buttress the overlap Spektor creates here between white lines and white lies. the phrase "white lies" is not actually in the song, but to an extent the reder can be forgiven for putting it there.

White lines = blank lines? what does it mean to have empty lines on your mind? what is an empt line to begin with? I think it's obvious Spektor doesn't think "your" mind is blank. a white line is a possibility, a something in a nascent state. it may have form, it may have rhythm, but it doesn't say anything meaningful. a white line is a persistent possibility that relies less on itself to produce meaning than it does on "you." the funny thing is Spektor doesn't have much faith in "your" ability to turn that possibility into something: "you can write but you can't edit." the logic that underlies this judgment seems to be the same as Virginia Woolf's; without a certain degree of financial stability, "you're" in no position to effectively edit anything.

"All I could do was to offer you an opinion upon one minor point—a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved. I have shirked the duty of coming to a conclusion upon these two questions—women and fiction remain, so far as I am concerned, unsolved problems."

-Virginia Woolf A Room of One's Own

While I may not have any idea to whom Dr. Robert alludes - nor am I going to bother to look - anyone who spent their childhood in comic books knows who Uncle Albert is--wait, that's Uncle Alfred... nevermind. the point is the names have the aroma of patronage: "you don't have a rich uncle to borrow from, even the bank won't lend to 'you.'"

Without anyone to borrow from, what exactly can "you" make? Spektor still believes "you" can make something ("you can write") but she doesn't believe "you" can remake anything ("but you can't edit"). "you" can read, but "you" can't rede.

The lies, then, white or not, for which you were never ready, the remains of those who came before "you," stay forever beyond your grasp, remain a mere possibility just as the "white lies" somehow remain forever beyond the song.

Simple Human Kindness

I bought a book today; it's not the first thing I did nor the most important, but it is at least a place to start. I wanted something to read on the bus and the train back home, so after the movie--I went to see a movie, 300 if it matters, early in the morning. I suppose 10 isn't that early, but I had to get up relatively early in order to get there on time. The only reason to go see a movie that early in the morning is because it's half price. You'll have to plow your way through legions of old people who were awake before you fell asleep, but the savings is worth it to someone as cheap as me.

Yes, I bought a book, Murakami's Portraits in Jazz, a kind of compendium of his impressions of various renowned musicians, some of which are witty and insightful and some downright dull. I gave the woman my 781 yen, and she gave me a book I proceeded to read over 234 yen in donuts I ate in the mall food court. The movie had ended just after a bus had left for the station--there's only one an hour--so I had time to kill. I was up to Chet Baker, when I realized that I had about 5 minutes to walk over to the bus stop. I knew in my head that the bus is usually late, and my desire not to stand in the pouring rain held me back for a moment. But, I had an umbrella, it woudn't be so bad if I had to wait a few extra minutes.

I step outside, open my umbrella, and the force of the wind and rain flips it inside out, nearly snapping the thing in half and certainly rendering it useless. A young man and woman walking by giggled nervously at my misfortune. Between them they carried 3 umbrellas, only one of which was in use. Where was the simple human kindness in laughing at someone whose misery you could alleviate with minimal inconvenience?

In a split second, you have to make decisions that affect your happiness in the here and now. Hindsight always dictates your error in such matters but never takes into account the time in which you have to avoid such error. Ahead of me lay a hundred yen shop, where, I was fairly certain I could buy a replacement umbrella. I still had about 800 yen on me, which would leave me with plenty of money for the bus, the train, and a small snack to stave off the hunger that lunch was intended to iradicate... for a time. I decided against it: if the bus were on schedule, I wouldn't have enough time to buy the umbrella and get to the bus stop. I'd have to wait an hour for the next.

The bus was late. I stood for a good fifteen minutes in the pouring rain. I reconsidered my decision to buy an umbrella, but the inertia of my fear of missing the bus kept my feet firmly planted. I could have stood beneath the eave of a nearby shop, as some who arrived after me--I was the first--were doing, but if I were to do so, the bus wouldn't stop. Someone had to suffer for the good of everyone. I thought, perhaps, I could move under the eave myself and hope someone else would decide to take the good of the group to heart and stand at the sign. Why did I stay? Was it simple human kindness? No, if no one were to give in to my social gambit, it'd be my own selfishness that caused me to miss the bus.

Eventually, it showed up. We all got on.

On the way back to the station, I thought I might've taken a taxi; a few had passed as I was standing there. It would've been a lovely way to screw the eavesdroppers but not me in the process. Though, a taxi would've been at least 600 yen, probably more, and I would've been faced with the possibility of not being able to pay the fare, and even if I could, perhaps not having enough left over for the train home. At the station, I bought my ticket, and had a single 500 yen coin left over. I thought, "what luck! I have enough to buy a proper lunch." I had enough time and money to buy an umbrella instead, but by that point I was soaked anyway, so I might as well get something to eat. I bought 2 tekka maki from a sushi vendor for 180 yen each, which left me with 140 yen to buy something to drink.

The combini had this Itoen jasmine tea I love. I'd never seen it there before, and felt as if even this shitty day could be somewhat redeemed. One bottle of Itoen brand jasmine tea at the Family Mart by the station: 147 yen. Fuck. I bought a small bottle of regular Itoen green tea, because, well, it literally was all I could afford. It was with more than a little melancholy that I read the haiku on the side of the bottle, as I always do, on the train back to Mito. The last of the four drew out in me a kind of anger I hadn't really felt before, not particularly strong, but very bitter:

the knob that opens the door is a warm spring breeze

I plodded the way back to my apartment doing my best to protect my bag from the driving rain that sought to penetrate my very skin. I rethought all my decisions as people in misery do. Did I really need that book? Without it, I might have had enough for the taxi or the tea or a new umbrella. Why did I need to be on that bus? With an hour to spare, I could've gone to the atm, bought a new umbrella, gotten a proper lunch in the food court, etc. The irony is I have money, and have done my best to make it inaccessible... But my inherent pessimism defended my actions: a new umbrella could break just as easily in that wind, and besides, I was already soaked, so the point would be moot. I wanted to blame someone for how miserable I felt, but my analytical mind revealed to me the horrible truth: what I suffered was the direct result of every little decision I had made.