Monday, July 04, 2011


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"Writing is after all, in its way, a satori: satori (the Zen occurrence) is a more or less powerful (though in no way formal) seism which causes knowledge, or the subject, to vacillate: it creates an emptiness of language. And it is also an emptiness of language which constitutes writing; it is from this emptiness that derive the features with which Zen, in the exemption from all meaning, writes gardens, gestures, houses, flower arrangements, faces, violence." (Barthes, p4)

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"Paper, I understand, was invented by the Chinese; but Western paper is to us no more than something to be used, while the texture of Chinese paper and Japanese paper gives us a certain feeling of warmth, of calm and repose. Even the same white could as well be one colour for Western paper and another for our own. Western paper turns away the light, while our paper seems to take it in, to envelop it gently, like the soft surface of a first snowfall. It gives off no sound when it is crumpled or folded, it is quiet and pliant to the touch as the leaf of a tree." (Tanizaki, p17)

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"Deciphering, normalizing, or tautological, the ways of interpretation, intended in the West to pierce meaning, i.e. to get into it by breaking and entering - and not to shake it, to make it fall like the tooth of that ruminant-of-the-absurd which the Zen apprentice must be, confronting his koan - cannot help failing the haiku; for the work of reading which is attached to it is to suspend language, not to provoke it: an enterprise whose difficulty and necessity Basho himself, the master of haiku, seemed to recognise:

How admirable he is
Who does not think "life is ephemeral"
when he sees a flash of lightning!

(Barthes, p72)

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Thinking of using the Tanizaki as a Part Three IB text next year (fulfils the requirements of a work in translation and a different place). Examination requirements aside it is a thought provoking essay & sends me back to Barthes (1987 written on the flyleaf, I see - that long ago?). Perhaps that's the key to In Praise of Shadows: what Tanizaki's slim volume suggests, hints, sketches out. Shadows, indeed.

This afternoon: The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches (Basho).

& if anyone reading would like to suggest other texts that I could work in/around the Tanizaki essay - themes relating to Japanese culture ... history ... language ... writing ... (I'm aware of Kawabata's Thousand Cranes, for instance) - please let me know.

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BBC 4 profile of Merce Cunningham last night. How to explain my fascination with this kind of dance while classical ballet, ballroom, etc. leave me cold? Not to mention my own refusal to take the floor at parties ...

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Cunningham's morning routine: get up, make breakfast (tea and cereal), then a daily practice of writing and drawing.

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A retrospective of sorts from Andrew Topel containing "vviissiioonnss" (as he says) from 2001-2011. Beautiful work - as always.

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In turn, I know I still haven't got round to sending out copies of apri'll. I'll really try to get them off by the end of the week. I would also like to do a small run of Some Words of Wisden but a trial using card covers just felt wrong - I'll have to rethink. & another Journal should be emerging soon. Then there's ... and ...

promises, promises ...

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3 comments:

Geofhuth said...

Jonathan,

Beautiful, and I always see the connection between our esthetics (I being the last human on the planet to use the simplified American spelling of that word).

But one difference: In my forties, I became a dancer. I'm often the only man on the dancefloor at a party. Just now, I was dancing to Antony and Johnsons "Fistful of Love," beautiful, sad, and what a beat. The ostinato of the drum, those horns when they first sneak in and after they go full into their voices.

Feel the music and make your body show it.

written from jou'lly,

whiness,

Geof

monika said...

I am not sure this is sth you are looking for, but I have a collection of Japanese short stories by Kuniko Mukoda, the title is "The Name of The Flower". I love the short story "Small Change". Kawabata is always great and Thousand Cranes excellent. Have you considered Soseki's "I Am a Cat"? "Naomi" by Tanizaki is also a good and interesting choice or "Masks" by Enchi Fumiko. I like them a lot.

belgianwaffle said...

Monika

Thanks for those recommendations.

I'll check them out.

Cheers

J

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