Wrinkles

"There was something almost mysterious about this woman. Her face had lots of wrinkles. These were the first thing to catch your eye, but they didn't make her old. Instead, they emphasized a certain youthfulness in her that transcended age. The wrinkles belonged where they were, as if they had been part of her face since birth. When she smiled, the wrinkles she was neither smiling nor frowning, the wrinkles lay scattered over her face in a strangely warm, ironic way. Here was a woman in her late thirties who seemed not merely a nice person but whose niceness drew you to her. I liked her from the moment I saw her."

From Norwegian Wood by H. Murakami.

Listening You

They are strong; because they give meanings... They are fragile; because they live at the cliff of the beauty. You cannot even touch; you cannot even move your eyes. Watching them is as though understanding everything in this universe just for a moment… The colors, the softness, the innocence, the shyness, and the fragrance; how beautiful - how fragile - how mute. They capture me; my legs turn to be their legs, my arms become their arms. Then, they could go anywhere they would like to… This is the moment they could run, and my arms and my legs could feel.

Listening you is as though watching one of them.

Nelson Mandela

"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite." N. Mandela

Antagonistic

From Austin. It was on the wall of the hotel room where we stayed. Thank you Olga!

The Dispossessed

The Dispossessed!

Searching for Words

"I wondered if she was trying to convey something to me, something she could not put into words - something prior to words that she could not grasp within herself and which therefore had no hope of ever turning into words. Instead, she would fiddle with her baratte, dab at the corners of her mouth with a handkerchief, or look into my eyes in that meaningless way. I wanted to hold her tight when she did these things, but I would hesitate and hold back. I was afraid I might hurt her if I did that. And so the two of us kept walking the streets of Tokyo, Naoko searching for words in space."

Norwegian Woods, H. Murakami

Just-in-time

Nina Simone!

Torn Apart

A dialog between the man and his shadow after the Gatekeeper torn apart the man and his shadow (by H. Murakami):

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I drew near the shadow. "Sorry, I must leave you for now," I said. "It was not my idea. I had no choice. Can you accept being alone for a while?"

"A while? Until when?" asked the shadow. I did not know.

"Sure you won't regret this later?" said the shadow in a hushed voice. "It's wrong, I tell you. There's something wrong with this place. People can't live without their shadows, and shadows can't live without people. Yet they're splitting us apart. I don't like it. There's something wrong here."

But it was too late. My shadow and I were already torn apart. 

"Once I am settled in, I will be back for you," I said. "This is only temporary, not forever. We will be back together again."

The shadow sighed weakly, and looked up at me. The sun was bearing down on us both. Me without my shadow, my shadow without me. "That's just wishful thinking," said the shadow. "I don't like this place. We have to escape and go back to where we came from, the two of us." 

"How can we return? We do not know the way back." 

"Not yet, but I'll find out if it's the last thing I do. We need to meet and talk regularly. You'll come, won't you?"

I nodded and put my hand on my shadow's shoulder, then returned to the Gatekeeper. While the shadow and I were talking, the Gatekeeper had been gathering up stray rocks and flinging them away. As I approached, the Gatekeeper brushed the dust from his hands on his shirttails and threw a big arm around me. Whether this was intended as a sign of welcome or to draw

my attention to his strength, I could not be certain. 

"Trust me. Your shadow is in good hands," said the Gatekeeper. "We give it three meals a day, let it out once a day for exercise. Nothing to worry about."

"Can I see him from time to time?"

"Maybe," said the Gatekeeper. "If I feel like letting you, that is."

"And what would I have to do if I wanted my shadow back?"

"I swear, you are blind. Look around," said the Gatekeeper, his arm plastered to my back.

"Nobody has a shadow in this Town, and anybody we let in never leaves. Your question is meaningless." 

So it was I lost my shadow.

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The Roads

It was early in the morning, February 2014. The sun hadn’t been embraced us yet. A long way was waiting towards somewhere that we don't know, towards somewhere that we couldn't put our intentions… We were feeling as though the roads were already chosen and we were just the follower… I remember the sunrise on the road. I remember the sunlight penetrating the fogs on the empty fields and the shadows of the trees lying on them. It was a moment that the time should freeze its ticks. It was amazing… It was breathtaking… 

The Diagrammer

The Diagrammer by Mergenthaler - 1970 from Linotype: The Film on Vimeo.