Bullying

"Why are they bullying her?" Tengo asked.

"She often has asthma attacks, so she can't participate in lots of activities with the other kids. Maybe, that's it. She's a sweet little thing, and her grades aren't bad."

"I don't get it," Tengo said. "You'd think they'd take special care of kid with asthma, not bully her."

"It's never that simple in the kids' world," she said with a sigh. "Kids get shut out just for being different from everyone else. The same kind of thing goes on in the grown-up world, but it's much more direct in the children's world."

"Can you give me a concrete example?"

She gave him several examples, none of which was especially bad in itself, but which, continued on daily basis, could have a severe impact on a child: hiding things, not speaking to child, or doing nasty imitations of her. "Did you ever experience bullying when you were a child?"

Tengo thought back to his childhood. "I don't think so," he answered. "Or maybe I just never noticed."

"If you have never noticed, it never happened. I mean, the whole point of bullying is to make the person notice it's being done to him or her. You can't have bullying without the victim noticing."

Even as child, Tengo had been big and strong, and people treated him with respect, which was probably why he was never bullied. But he had far more serious problems than mere bullying to deal with back then.

"Were you ever bullied?" Tengo asked.

"Never," she declared, but then she seemed to hesitate. "I did do some bullying, though."

"You were part of a group that did it?"

"Yes, in the fifth grade. We got together and decided not to talk to one boy. I can't remember why. There must have been a reason, but it probably wasn't a very good one if I can't remember what it was. I still feel bad about it, though. I am ashamed to think about it. I wonder why I went and did something like that. I have no idea what made do it."

This reminded Tengo of a certain event, something from the distant past that he would recall now and then. Something he could never forget. But, he decided not to mention it. It would have been a long story. And it was the kind of thing that loses the most important nuances when reduced to words. He had never told anyone about it, and it he probably never would.

"Finally," his girlfriend said, "everybody feels safe belonging not to the excluded minority but to the excluding majority. You think, Oh, I am glad that's not me. It's basically the same in all periods in all societies. If you belong to the majority, you can avoid thinking about lots of troubling things."

"And those troubling things are all you can think about when you are one of the few."

"That's about the size of it," she said mournfully. "But maybe, if you are in a situation like that, you learn to think yourself."

"Yes, but may be what you end up thinking for yourself about is all those troubling things."

"That's another problem, I suppose."

"Better not think about it too seriously," Tengo said. "I doubt it'll turn out to be that terrible. I'm sure there must be a few kids in her class who know how to use their brains."

"I guess so," she said, and then she spent some time alone with her thoughts. Holding the receiver against his ear, Tengo waited patiently for her to gather her thoughts together.

"Thanks," she said finally. "I feel a little better after talking to you." She seemed to have found some answers.

-----
From 1Q84, H. Murakami

Have you ever bullied?

Being Calm

Reading books.

A Window

"The answer is beyond me. Even now, I have no idea. There are lots of things we never understand, no matter how many years we put on, no matter how much experience we accumulate. All I can do is look up from the train at the windows in the buildings that might be hers. Every one of them could be her window, it sometimes seems to me, and at other times I think that none of them could be hers. There are simply too many of them."

A Window, Elephant Vanishes, H. Marukami

Monster!

by Batu!

Images

"The images came to her one after another and with great vividness. The summer night, the narrow bed, the faint smell of perspiration. The word they spoke. The feelings that would not take the form of words. Forgotten promises. Unrealized hopes. Frustrated longings. A gust of wind lifted a lock of her hair and whipped it against her cheek. The pain brought a film of tears to her eyes. Successive gusts soon dried the tears away."

"1Q84", H. Murakami

Harvest Moon

Come a little bit closer
Hear what I have to say
Just like children sleepin'
We could dream this night away.

But there's a full moon risin'
Let's go dancin' in the light
We know where the music's playin'
Let's go out and feel the night.

Because I'm still in love with you
I want to see you dance again
Because I'm still in love with you
On this harvest moon.

When we were strangers
I watched you from afar
When we were lovers
I loved you with all my heart.

But now it's gettin' late
And the moon is climbin' high
I want to celebrate
See it shinin' in your eye.

Because I'm still in love with you
I want to see you dance again
Because I'm still in love with you
On this harvest moon.

Golden Age

"This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living, and hard dying... but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, pillage and rapine, culture and vice... but nobody admitted it. This was an age of extremes, a fascinating century of freaks... but nobody loved it."

Alfred Bester, "The Stars My Destination"

Deus ex machina

"What marks his plays is the way things get so mixed up the characters are trapped. Do you see what I mean? A bunch of different people appear, and they've got their own situations and reasons and excuses, and each one is pursuing his or her own brand of justice or happiness. As a result, nobody can do anything. Obviously. I mean, it's basically imposible for everybody's justice to prevail or everybody's happiness to triumph, so chaos takes over. And then what do you think happens? Simple - a god appears in the end and starts directing traffic. 'You go over there, and you come here, and you get together with her, and you just sit still for a while.' Like that. He's kind of a fixer, and in the end everything works out perfectly. That call this 'deus ex machina'. There's almost always a deus ex machina in Euripides, and that's the point where critical opinion divides over him."

"Norwegian Wood", H. Murakami

Feeling Good

Birds flying high you know how I feel
Sun in the sky you know how I feel
Breeze driftin' on by you know how I feel

It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good

Fish in the sea you know how I feel
River running free you know how I feel
Blossom on the tree you know how I feel

Dragonfly out in the sun you know what I mean, don't you know
Butterflies all havin' fun you know what I mean
Sleep in peace when day is done
That's what I mean

And this old world is a new world
And a bold world
For me

Stars when you shine you know how I feel
Scent of the pine you know how I feel
Oh freedom is mine
And I know how I feel

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):

----------------

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.

----------------------

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.

Cicadas

"The officer gave his order, and the bullets from the Model 38 rifles ripped through the smooth hide of a tiger, tearing at the animal's guts. The summer sky was blue, and from the surrounding trees the screams of cicadas rained down like a sudden shower."

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, H. Marukami