“Tonight I will make tear-water tea”

So remember I mentioned a children’s book about making yourself sad? That book was ‘Owl at Home’ by Arnold Lobel. Written in 1975 apparently! I have no idea why I had this book, I wonder where Mum and Dad got it from? Anyway, one part is about an owl (called Owl!) who thinks the moon is following him because he can always see it in the sky. In the second part, Owl decides to make tear-water tea. He thinks about all the things that make him sad until he starts crying, then he fills up a pot with his tears and makes tea out of them. How sweet! It’s such an odd book but I really loved it, I hope it’s with all my other books in the storage room back home.

Speaking of collecting tears…this just made me remember that scene in Cry-Baby where Allison collects her tears in a jar! And if you haven’t seen that film then you should!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cry-Baby

OK, enough about tears!

Noruwei no Mori

Of course I’ve read the book! (In English). Several times! Most recently I bought a new copy with the movie poster picture on the cover. This is something I almost always actively AVOID but for some reason I’ve got it into my head that this film is going to mean a lot to me. I still haven’t seen it, I just feel that way for some reason. I also bought two Norwegian Wood t-shirts from Uniqlo. (I’m wearing one in my last post!) Anyway, here’s a big poster in Yurakacho station with a weird travel destination tie-in!

I’m gonna watch this film

And then I’m probably gonna cry…

And after watchng the film…

…why not, uh, visit…Norway..?

But…but…why?? I’m in Norway though so um, yay?! No Northern lights might I add..but it was minus 17 yesterday and everything is covered with snow. It’s so pretty it’s almost ridiculous. Just looking at the trees makes me feel like crying because they’re so beautiful!

Pinball, 1973

So I just finished reading Pinball, 1973 by Haruki Murakami. I’ d been waiting to read it for years. It didn’t used to be available. It was part of the same Kodansha English Library series as Hear The Wind Sing (ie. intended for Japanese speakers learning English) and although Hear The Wind Sing was made available again (in Japan) a little while ago I never saw Pinball, 1973 onthe shelf next to it. Until me and Danny popped into Tower Records in Shibuya last month and suddenly it was there! We both noticed it seperately so it ended up being a birthday present. (I guess if you really hate spoilers then don’t read the quotes in this post but..honestly…it wouldn’t matter, this isn’t really a plot driven book and the quotes don’t really give much of anything away).

Even when Murakami is writing about nothing it affects me. Tiny things are heartbreaking. And it’s not because he describes them in exhaustive detail or anything. It’s as if he chooses exactly the right things to mention and exactly the right order to mention them in for maximum impact. Maximum because the things he writes about aren’t necessarily sad. Somehow the things he writes about make me feel sad for his characters and sad for myself and for what I’ve lost over the years. Not huge things but tiny things, moments, brief thoughts, that kind of thing. Series of things his characters do, like coming home, having a coffee, washing the cup, pouring out a glass of beer, lighting a cigarette and putting a record on seem sort of important somehow. It’s all nothing but I’ll sit there and read it almost in tears.

‘A friend of mine and I leased a condominium on the slope from Shibuya to Nampeidai and opened a small translation service. My friend’s father put up the funds, which is not to say that it took any astounding sum of money-just the deposit on the place, and the money for three steel desks, some ten dictionaries, a telephone, and a half-dozen bottles of bourbon. We thought up a suitable name, and with the rest of the money had it engraved on a metal sign and hung it out front, then put an ad in the newspaper. After that we waited for customers. The two of us, with our four feet propped up on the desks, drinking whiskey. It was the spring of ’72’ (Murakami, Haruki Pinball, 1973 p.31)

Sometimes upsetting things are mentioned in passing and never mentioned again:

‘On the train ride back, I told myself over and over again, it’s all over with now, you got it out of your system, forget it. You got what you came for, didn’t you? Yet I couldn’t get it out of mind, that place. Nor the fact that I loved Naoko. Nor that she was dead. After all that, I still hadn’t closed the book on anything.’ (p.23)

And the idleness! His characters frequently do nothing. They just drink coffee and sit and stare and fall asleep. They listen to classical or jazz records and tapes that have no meaning to me but hearing the names of the composers and their albums (Handel, Bix Beiderbecke, Woody Herman) still feels comforting. I can’t write about smoking and listening to classical music. Not convincingly anyway. The only classical albums I might possibly own would be ones I found in the backroom at Oxfam (I used to volunteer in one of their book/record shops) and only bought because they had silly names and covers or pretty covers. Attachment to album covers, there’s another thing I don’t quite understand. I often buy albums just because I like the covers. In fact, I think I’ll take some pictures of ones I’ve bought in Japan and post them here!

Since I don’t know how to finish here’s one last quote:

‘Occasionally, though, tiny ripples of emotion would be set off, as if to remind him. At times like that, the Rat simply closed his eyes, sealed off his mind, and sat tight until the ripples subsided. By then it would already be getting a little dark, toward early evening. The ripples gone, that same hushed tranquility would come over him again, as if nothing had happened.’ (p. 45)