2010-9-18
My classmates, whom I shall love forever, my dear friends. And all of you who read “The Turntable of Civilization.”
Arcade Fire’s latest album is wonderful.
They are approaching the heights of the Beatles, of John Lennon.
As usual, I was listening at the nearby Starbucks, with the evening breeze blowing over me.
In music, first comes the depth of resonance… As musicians improve and pursue their discipline, each individual note acquires a deep, gentle, incomparably beautiful resonance.
The reason Japanese music, Japanese art, so many politicians, and the lofty pronouncements of the major newspapers fall short is that they have not sought to correct or resolve the fundamental malady that still exists in our country.
Genuine art, genuine words, and genuine philosophy cannot possibly dwell in a mind beholden to someone or something.
The writers who are immensely popular with young people today… I am sorry, but if writing at their level is all that is required, I could write any amount while humming to myself… as I have been writing all along.
Japan’s problem lies… in the unhappiness of Japan’s mountain ranges, its mountain peaks, its forests, and its seas.
It lies in the fact that no one tried to change the state of affairs that went wrong so long ago, or to put it right.
Japan’s mountain peaks are still profoundly unhappy… In a country whose mountain ranges are unhappy, there can be no true happiness, no true freedom, no true intelligence.
That is why Japanese music is so feeble… impoverished, shallow, and quick to lapse into lyricism… though even calling it lyricism is really too grand a description.
Long ago… Japan’s mountain ranges, its seas, and its forests were the spirit of literature, elegance, and play…
We have still not restored Japan’s mountain ranges, Japan’s forests, and Japan’s seas to what they once were…
No one has noticed, and no one has returned Japan’s mountain ranges, Japan’s forests, and Japan’s seas to their original place, to a place of elegance, a place of literature, a place of play.
Japan’s mountain ranges, Japan’s forests, and Japan’s seas are still profoundly unhappy.
Unhappier than anyone… though no one will notice until I begin writing a book.
Japan’s mountain ranges alone, Japan’s forests alone, Japan’s seas alone have been left abandoned by egoists of various names, unable to return to their own home.
Writers, musicians, painters, politicians, the incorrigible editorial writers of the major newspapers—none of them have noticed, and that is why Japan’s art, politics, and mass media are impoverished.
They are shallow.
Japanese music is unbearable to listen to.
All this time, Japan’s mountain ranges, Japan’s forests, and Japan’s seas have remained unhappier than anyone, and lonely.
A certain man whom I met, though I had no wish to meet him, said that one person alone could never change the world.
He understands nothing.
He does not understand what Kazumi Takahashi said: “In every age, those who changed the times were impoverished scholars who possessed not a single thing.”
September 18, 2010