2003–02–28 14:00:00; nanimo, hontou ni nanimo
Cat People: What Dr. Seuss really taught us. - Louis Menand
When you look through the secondary literature on “The Cat in the Hat,” you read that children instinctively respond to the cat’s sense of mischief. I wonder how many children really do react that way. My own identification, as a child, was entirely with the fish. I didn’t admire his hysteria, of course (very uncool). But I understood what he was trying, with his limited vocabulary, to say, which is that “fun” is only a distraction from the reality of separation and abandonment. Pink snow, and those personified genitalia, Thing One and Thing Two, are no substitute for what we have lost. We don’t want to be amused; we don’t even want to amuse ourselves. We want to be taken care of.
Fancy a Melty Kiss over a glass of Sweat? - Michael Hoffman
A product name is a mysterious thing, DaCapo finds. It can be as blandly descriptive as “Green Gum,” as lovely, if meaningless, as “Saran,” and as devoid of meaning and beauty alike . . . as “Walkman.” Walkman — therein hangs a tale. Everybody knows it, but does anyone understand it? When Sony’s portable tape player debuted in 1979 it was called Stowaway in the U.K. and Soundabout in the U.S. Both names yielded to the drab pidgin-English Walkman, its Japanese appellation. Now you can look Walkman up in some dictionaries and find it defined, a mere name no longer.
Catching Flies with Chopsticks: Galvin’s Japan Journal - Galvin Chow
Speaking of which, there have been at least a couple times where I’ve been so desperate not to leave the warmth of my heated kotatsu table that I’ve actually considered just staying here and peeing myself when the need arose. The rest of my apartment (i.e., the parts not under my table) is rather cold you see, to the point where sometimes, annoyed at my bladder’s constant need to empty, I think to myself, “You know, would it REALLY be so bad to just urinate all over myself instead of venturing out into the cold?” Scoff if you like, but the decision can be harder than you think, Mr. I’m-in-America-where-we-have-central-heating.
Pull off the interstate and there’s a Waffle House. You could be anywhere. It doesn’t matter what town you’re in; a quarter plate with cheese is still a cheeseburger and hashbrowns. The yellow sign is still out the window and up in the air. They’ll still be open on Christmas. It doesn’t matter what time zone you’re in.
Eastern Standard, Central Daylight, Japan Standard.
Eight p.m., seven a.m., tomorrow.
Twentieth century, 21st, 12th.
I’m in my car, spinning out on the ice, three hundred and sixty degrees at sixty miles an hour, southwest on interstate eighty five. But, in my head, I’m clear, calm and in NPR headquarters, hearing the latest about the situation with Iraq. But, really, I’m in the tub, playing the events of the day over and over.
At Mr. Waffle, waiting for my dad to pick me up, feeling betrayed by my car—we used to have an understanding.
I-385, I-26, I-95
But where I really am is in my room, looking out at the tops of the pines.
A voice (koe) on the telephone (denwa).
“Moshi moshi?”
“Hai, moshi moshi.”
“Kâru!?”
Everyone reduced to a one-dimensional stream of data.
Email, IM, voice.
Is there even such a thing as translation? You just cut off bits and round bytes up and down. Change it to Japanese, add or subtract politeness, emotive markers. Switch it to text, lose tone, rhythm, delivery. Convert to pictures, lose motion. For video, subtract impact and interactivity.
“Natsukashii” : No good translation.
“Kimochi” : No good translation.
“Aijou” : No good translation.
“Chigau” : Different/wrong.
“Should” : No good translation.
Consciousness just stripped down to its bear essentials.
Words on paper, stories at Waffle House, memories in the tub.
Under Orion, I’m eight; I’m twenty.
I’m in North America; I’m in East Neyagawa City.
Under Cassiopeia, by the lake, and as romantic as it gets for an obsessive solipsist.
My dad drives me back to Mr. Waffle, so I can resume my journey to school now that the roads are clearer.
He talks about helping some poor immigrants that came to his office. How that was the best part of his day.
Katsuyo tells me about her work at “Silver Care.” She teaches me sign language. She has to use it with her patients who are too old to hear, to talk.
I’m in the tub, wondering what I’ve done for anyone.
Pencil behind my ear, I pick up my bowl. How is it that things stick too late?
On the airplane, in Detroit, but where I think I am is at the departures gate in Ôsaka. Across the distance, Katsuyo is signing “remember.” More crying, all around.
In Miyanosaka, Makino, Kyôbashi, Demachiyanagi.
“Mamonaku, niban noriba ni densha ga itte mairimasu. Kiiroi sen made o-sagari kudasai.”
The 5:50 from Miyanosaka to Kawachi-mori. The 6:13 from Kawachi-Iwafune to Higashi-Neyagawa. Walking down unnamed streets to 829–20 Kunimori-cho. Jon and Robin don’t bark at me anymore.
Walking in to my apartment at school and the TV is on.
Family Matters, Fresh Prince, Home Improvement.
Shows I had been trying to forget, and my roommates with their weird inability to turn off the TV when they leave.
Monday night is “Home & Away” and SMAP. Wednesday is “Tensai Yanagisawa.”
Monday night is Japanese movie night in the language house. Ten p.m. is Waffle o’clock.
Where is the line between talking to yourself and saying nothing at all?
English, Japanese, Spanish.
Waffle House, Ninja, Hobo.
Eastern Standard, Central Daylight, Japan Standard.
Spinning down I-85,
What am I doing with my life?
Pull off the interstate and there’s a Waffle House. You could be anywhere. It doesn’t matter if you look or not, it will still be Sñra. Jackie’s Casa de Waffle. Reality will still hold forth. The yellow sign is still out the window and up in the air. They’ll still be open on Christmas, but the power might go out. It could close for grout problems. Reality might slip away in an unwatched second. It doesn’t matter what time zone you’re in.
Orion’s belt is still three stars; Cassiopeia makes an M; the moon waxes and wanes.
No matter what time it is out there, inside it’s always Waffle o’clock. Waffle House is the last bastion of diamond world clarity in the petals in stream existence of twenieth, twenty-first century life. The reality is Mom is gone. Okâsan is gone. Words and product names have no source, no meaning. Life outside the kotatsu is cold and scary and wonderful.
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