2012-10-14
About “Domani.”
As for Rome and me, it is just as I wrote in “The Turntable of Civilization.”
At that time, I was thinking about various things… I would establish an FM station, something like a precursor to today’s Last FM… Today, the Beatles, tomorrow, etc.… There would be days for classical music and days for jazz… No pointless chatter whatsoever, just music worth listening to, from morning until night.
I was also thinking about publishing… Around the time of my first visit to Italy, I checked the Italian words for “yesterday, today, tomorrow,” probably inspired by the film starring Sophia Loren.
The sound of the word domani, meaning tomorrow, is pleasing to Japanese ears, its meaning included.
After returning to Japan, I registered it as a trademark in the fields I had in mind.
As I wrote quite some time ago, this was around the time when I spent 10 million yen on advertising to correct the pernicious tax known as the “super-heavy tax,” placing an opinion advertisement as an insert in the newspapers delivered to every Nikkei-subscribing household in Tokyo.
A deputy director responsible for the matter in Shogakukan’s editorial bureau came to our Tokyo branch at the time…
He wanted me to transfer “Domani” to them.
“We publish Oggi (‘today’ in Italian), but we have now decided to launch a magazine for women in a slightly older age group… There is only one possible title: ‘Domani’… When we looked into it, we found that your company had registered the trademark in the publishing category… Would you please understand what we are trying to do and transfer it to us?”
He had the air of a veteran in this line of work, every inch a man of the publishing world… An intellectual-looking man who also seemed quite commercially astute.
And, disarmingly, did he not tell me that he had read my opinion advertisement mentioned above? (Laughs)
On a serious note, the hardships following the restrictions on total lending in 1992 had closed off every new development I had envisioned, and I sold it to him at an astonishingly low price, just enough to break even on the expenses I had incurred (what on earth was that all about, though?).
It was sometime afterward… An older gentleman with whom I enjoyed a very close friendship at the time, a former chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party’s National Council, gave me a thorough scolding.
“Are you an idiot?… What fool would sell it for so little?…”
This came back to me the other day when I saw a hanging advertisement for Domani inside a subway carriage.
Shogakukan, since I let you have that important magazine title at such a bargain price, would you now hear my wish in return?
I believe that if you look at my photographs, you will see that I am no ordinary person in photography either.
Would you let me write a column for Domani, perhaps called “Kyoto Through The Turntable of Civilization”?
For every issue, I would provide magnificent photographs—my reflections—and eye-opening prose that would enhance Domani’s market value.
(Though I think the photographs would hardly need any text at all.)
Since I let you have such a valuable name for next to nothing… on the understanding that you will be generous with the contributor’s fee. (Laughs)