Learning Japanese.

No poetry today. I have been spending every waking moment studying Japanese, preparing for my trip to Tokyo later on this month. When I went to Japan last year, I couldn't speak a word and I felt completely lost.

I have determined that this time will be different. I will not have so much trouble with what is on the menu. I would like to have a conversation with Takaaki's friends over sashimi. I want to make sure I can order enough katsu. I want to book train tickets to Hakone. I think it would be nice to be able to say more than "please" and "thank you"—although you can get pretty far in Tokyo, I have noticed, if you can deploy onegaishimasu and domo arigatou with the right amount of dexterity. These are magic words in Japan. They open doors—shoji.

Even so, Magic is a difficult art to practice, in any language. But I think it may be hardest to master in Japanese. There are three 'alphabets' in Japanese: the hiragana and katakana syllabaries, and kanji—the imported Chinese characters adapted for Japanese use in the Middle Ages. Right now, I can read my blue shampoo bottle—that part which says shampoo, anyway, in katakana— and I can understand snatches of lyrics in a few Japanese songs. I watch at least one hour of Bleach a day, and I am getting better at distinguishing phrases. But it is hard. I am more or less at the hiragana and katakana stages of development. This would probably place my mental age at about 4 or 5. I can count to 13 in Kanji—on very good day.

...

Still, I don't give up. Japanese literature has always been something of a hobby with me. Mishima Yukio was my introduction to that. The book was Confessions of a Mask, I purchased it in June 9th, 1992, at 3:43 pm, at Glad Day Bookstore, on Boylston St, in Boston. Very often I use receipts for bookmarks, and the receipt remains with the book as long as I own it. It is a very convenient technique for marking your place in Time, and for constructing a mental history of yourself, should you ever be asked to do so by the Authorities.

I think my eye was initially drawn to Mishima's Confessions for one very particular, but very superficial reason: the torso featured on the cover—a samurai version of the St. Sebastian motif.

We all know what happened to poor St. Sebastian, and what Mishima did to himself, but I am less sure what happened to me when I read that book fifteen years ago. I think it was then that something about Japan first began stirring in my imagination.

It can take years for the effect of words to sink into your imagination. And with some authors—most authors—the words never do. Most words are dropped again as soon as they are picked up off the page. You hear something beautiful you hadn't noticed before—perhaps the furnace ticking on— and you forget where you were in the last paragraph. At least, that is the case with me.

I think Mishima more than Godzilla was my introduction to Japan. And after Mishima, I moved on into the mysterious world of Akutagawa, Murakami, Lady Murasaki, and others. Then I met Takaaki.

My favorite Japanese author is probably Soseki Natsume. There is something very funny and very dark about this man's sense of humor, something sinister. There are times that I feel like his stories were specifically crafted to entertain me, which is preposterous.

Kokoro is Soseki's most profound work, I think, and Botchan his most congenial, but I think my personal favorite is I Am A Cat. Half Tristram Shandy, and half I, Claudius, and altogether Japanese, it presents a cat's eye view of the world, from the birth of one lonely kitten until his untimely death.

Don't get me wrong. I do not enjoy I Am A Cat because I especially enjoy the company of cats. I am not really a cat person. In fact, I think my relationship with felines bears an eerie resemblance to my relationship with men—Mankind, I mean. I am allergic Him as a collective presence, but I intensely love individuals.

That must be why we get along so well, I think.

And another thing...

Well, after a whiff of mortality, some smelling salts, and the flutter of a sympathetic fan, I think I have started to recover from the universal excitement generated by my first posting. I hope that you have, too. My friend Bill had some very nice things to say about the magenta and rose color scheme I have employed here.

If I seem a little wistful this afternoon, I hope you will forgive me. I am trying to make up for lost time. You see, I have been trying to publish some of this stuff for years. And to suddenly realize what most people realized ten years ago—that you have the freedom to embarrass yourself in public without any help from others—is totally disorienting.

There is nothing so shattering to a person's personality—his sense of self— than a belated Epiphany. Everyone thinks himself a genius in his own little corner of the cosmos, and to discover otherwise is somewhat—er—unsettling. It is worse than showing up late for a party. It is more like showing up late to an orgy—when the beer is warm, the women are cold, and the only thing left to eat are cheese-doodles.

Which reminds me: I need to get some lunch...

While I am off eating, here is a poem involving the ghost of Harry Houdini—one of my childhood heroes. Harry, of course, did not believe in ghosts any more than you or I do, and he spent much of his later career debunking spiritualists, mentalists, and other frauds.

Therefore, I think the reader may take this item as a complete flight of fancy: the transcript of a conversation I once had with my soul through a Parker Brothers Planchette, or Ouija Board, when I couldn't find anyone willing to play Monopoly with me.

How strange the voices that we hear when we are alone!




The Escape Artist

Why don’t we take a tour of your ribcage?
Feel free to smoke. No spitting, though. It’s rude.
Now pick a person from the rack—an image
To titillate the senses. Something nude.

That’s your companion for Eternity.
A soul-mate, if you like. He never rots.
You’ve picked a postcard—excellent. Let’s see.
He looks like that Houdini—clad in locks

From head to toe. Will he escape in Time?
Reserve your seat for Harry’s greatest feat!
While we are waiting though, we ought to dine.
There must be something in the Snack Bar. Sweet:

I thought we had a box of Raisin Bran…
You do like Raisin Bran? You look distressed.
No, the box contains no Raisin Bran,
But please inhale whatever’s there with zest.

You’ll find it’s very hard to criticize
The brute who brings the breakfast—and his rose.
Tears have a tendency to fill his eyes
When you attack him. And he breaks your nose.

Which brings us back around to the front door:
They recently installed new mirrors—steel.
We had an “incident” on the top floor
When loneliness lost all its sex-appeal.

I’m not that nuts, I guess. I’m kind of glad
They took my glasses and bricked up the sky
Before these suicides became a fad.
I think it should be difficult to die.