chestnutvinegar

Avoid sour cream and onion flavor famichiki. Shit is rancid.

Now that the obvious is stated, let’s be cool and indifferent and drink strong drinks with scowls while still being nice and inclusive to everyone who wants to warm their hands.

The end.

I like my house, but I want another house. I’m not sure if it’s just grass is greener stuff, but it probably is. Anyways, I want to type about it.

My current place has about 77m squared land. Imagine having like 200m squared. That would be lovely. I have a lovely roof balcony now, but I can do without the roof balcony, where I have to go up flights of stairs to get to.

I want the first floor to have the living/dining, they can be separate rooms like in older houses, but I also want a tatami room on the first floor that’s basically empty and has a view of prettiness outside. Go and shogi could be played in this room. Books can be read. A kotatsu would not be out of place.

The second floor can have three rooms. If we have a kid, they kid can have a room. I want a study and then my wife and I need to sleep somewhere. That sounds unfair as where is my wife’s extra room, but the answer is the living room. She can have her millions of books in there. I’d prefer to have the living room, but we need to be realistic here.

There would be a small yard for barbecues, despite me not really liking barbecues. That couldn’t be more beside the point though.

What this house wouldn’t have is an eight minute walk to the station on a line that connects to Ikebukuro, Shinjuku and Shibuya in roughly 30 minutes. With COVID, the charm of that has become somewhat forgotten, but imagine being able to go to the opera easily (see barbecues above).

A different house also wouldn’t be close to the in-laws, and if we have a baby, that would be nice.

So anyways, just dreaming in blogform about something I may or may not actually want if I actually put some thought into it.

(Note: I haven’t read anything anyone has said about this movie.)

Murder-mysteries are probably my favorite genre of TV. Poirot is the show I rewatch more out of any other show, usually just the Mystery of the Blue Train or Cards on the Table these days, because they are so incredibly comfortable to watch. Endeavour is probably my favourite TV show, with its amazing balance of beauty, the actual mystery, and disdain for corruption. I also like the hokey Father Brown, as it makes me feel good inside.

When I was recommended the first Knives Out, I assumed it would be shit, but perhaps have some good parts and be good enough to watch. It surprised me as an amazing murder-mystery. The characters were fleshed out well, the story was coherent, it kept you guessing as to whodunnit, and it had good commentary that didn’t hit you over the head with it so even the grandma in the back could understand. My favorite commentary was that I thought it took a massive shit on white liberals and called them basically the friendly face of fascism. Loved it. I thought it was incredibly subtle for an American film, which I loved even more. Best to hide controversial thoughts in plain sight where certain folks can’t see them.

So anyways, I was super excited for Glass Onion, and wanted watching it to be a special thing, not just another thing I watch at night to tide me over until bed and the cycle starts again. I wanted to watch it with my wife so we could ooh and ahh together, and have witty banter as to whodunnit. I wanted to enjoy the amazing acting and fashion of Daniel Craig and dream of being as cool as him.

The film succeeded on that last point, but that’s about it. Loved Daniel Craig’s fashion. That thing he wore in the pool? Great! Loved it. I want muscles like his. Sexy dude.

But as a murder-mystery, it seemed to try to transcend the genre when in actuality it regressed into a shitty murder-mystery. First and foremost, we’re never really guessing whodunnit. There’s too much action going on with lights going out, and panic and etc. There’s no calm interviews to flesh out characters and their motives. There is instead one-dimensional blobs and we are shown that they all have motive, in a way that Murder in Paradise does better.

The characters weren’t only one dimensional, but even that one dimension was God-awfully boring. This seemed to be on purpose, as if it was recognizing the “trope”, casting light on it, and then trying to go above and beyond it, which to me doesn’t work at all. In order to transcend a trope, you have to do it perfectly and effortlessly so you hardly even notice it, and then work your spinning magic. I craved something more about any of these characters, and the only time you get it really was a single sentence by this muscle dude’s girlfriend.

It seemed way too focused on whatever allegory it was trying to tell, and therefore focused less on anything else. And honestly, I am not even sure what allegory it was trying to tell. This may be me being stupid and not getting it, but what it hit me over the head with was a Musk-like character, who just stole the ideas of others, and the solution to dealing with him being fuck shit up with his property. It can’t be this simple, right? If it’s a call to revolution by the destruction of property, I hope it would appreciate the nuance between nihilism and revolution? Maybe? If it is all a commentary on Musk, do we really need to feed that shithead more attention? Is he really that important that we can’t just ignore him into oblivion? I guess it feels like I don’t get the commentary, and the film isn’t supposed to work without it, as we’re just left with a poorly done murder-mystery.

However, as I started out with, Daniel Craig was amazing as usual, and had great fashion sense.

The other good thing about the film that I have neglected to mention is the character Andi. Of the characters, hers is the most well done. The movie is so unfair to her though, because it seems she has to carry the entire weight of the story that Daniel Craig is observing. The plot twist regarding her character was great, and it wasn’t expected, but it’s timing nearish to the middle, and the length of the explanation of the plot twist, and it being the only real plot twist just highlighted the disappointment for the rest of the movie more. Furthermore, the plot twist kind of made her an observer/protagonist, taking the only interesting character out of the scene.

Anyways, I wasn’t a fan. I’ll probably watch some Poirot to feel good again.

I just finished Twin Peaks: the Return, which is one of the names i found out there for the third season of Twin Peaks which came out 25 years after the first two.

I wasn’t the hugest Twin Peaks fan in the world, but i watched it and I liked it. I liked the sincerity of the characters. I found Audrey to be incredibly sexy. I liked the music. And it all looks a little like Vancouver being filmed in the “Pacific Northwest”. I was never really obsessed about the meaning of everything, and what it all meant, and found most of it better to take at face value, and then let it stew wherever.

With that, I will share my thoughts about the Return.

I really liked it, and I liked it a lot better than the original first two seasons. I felt grateful to be able to watch it, and grateful that something like it exists. It seemed to have very little bullshit lowest common denominator stuff that you just sort of have to put up with in movies/TV shows. There was stuff to put up with, but their purpose seemed to be to have us- the viewer- put up with them.

I want to avoid speaking about grandiose themes, but I liked the constant contrast in characters with positive and negative attributes. I usually hate seeing such things, but it showed vulnerability, helplessness and desolation very well I thought.

I also liked how very rarely people acted surprised at the surprising things people said, and I remember only once someone saying “what the fuck is going on here?” when it really could’ve been an appropriate response to most of what people said. It felt like a weird utopia that whenever anyone said anything, the usual response was a thoughtful pause, and then carefully chosen sincere words. It’s not realistic, but would be nice.

The young FBI woman who was new to Gordon’s team was very sexy. I thought way too much about Gordon’s body language with her, and if he would be an old skeez or not. I loved the scene with Gordon enjoying the company of a French woman. I loved just about everything about Gordon. I loved how he asked for people’s names, and then thanked them sincerely. I like how many people asked for people’s names. It seems like a nice thing to do, yeah? To personalize someone. Not realistic, but hey, it’s fantasy.

I love how the Casino brothers started out so menacing, and ending up being comedic, and their final “what is going on” or whatever was more of an audience-like remark. I loved their three server girls or whatever.

I read stuff about the show online after finishing it, and it mentioned how Twin Peaks has decayed in many ways and no one was happy, and honestly I hadn’t noticed that when watching it. I just thought everyone has their shit, and life is tough. Seemed realistic. I’m probably not getting the great metaphor on the decay of the American dream.

I almost felt it made me feel dirty for my nostalgia, but it also delivered and made me feel happy inside. The few seconds where Cooper acted like the Cooper of old warmed my heart, even if I felt laughed at while my heart was getting warmed.

Regarding “what does it all mean?”, I don’t know. I was happy to go along with the alternative reality, and not understanding how it worked. I craved the happy ending where everyone laughed at the Sheriff’s station as the camera pans to the nature and music and credit come.

When “Cooper” said at the very end “what year is it”, I felt like I was being made fun of, because that was what I couldn’t stop being fixated on. Was this a flashback? Was this happening now? Are these real people? As much as I pretended otherwise, I was trying to get it, and couldn’t get past “what year is it”. In the red curtain world, they also mentioned some line about the past and the future.

Maybe it is as simple as mocking people who are trying to get it, and who want more. Maybe the suits made him put that ending in for potential sequels.

Whatever. It was good. I’m glad I watched it. The end.

[This is my first post in an attempt to write daily every day of my 11 day summer break.]

I’ve been jogging the 950m circuit at Besshonuma Park the last few weeks. I had always wanted to, but I moved to the area when COVID was already a thing, and they only just recently stopped asking everyone using the park to wear a mask. The jogging course is a loop around a oval shaped lake. One side is by the road, and the other side has grounds where people can meet and kids can play.

On work days, I would usually jog around 5:30 or so, and on holidays, perhaps around 7:30. A few days ago, for the first time I jogged at the magical time of 6:30.

There were always a large amount of older people in the park, but when I was rounding out my first lap in the park around 6:25 the other day, I would’ve bet there were about 400 people there, the majority of which being over 70. It was obvious that this was a regular if not daily occurrence for most, because they were in groups, chatting with one another. Couples were slowly making their way to the main area greeting people along the way, while others were shouting gleefully once they noticed their friends coming. Meanwhile, us joggers were just trying to avoid everyone on the path. For the other joggers, this also seemed like a regular occurrence.

From 6:30, Radio Taiso began. The familiar piano melody starts through speakers which have a crackling that for whatever reason always make me think of a long past fascist regime. One older guy leads the way, two young children follow along way too close to him, and then hundreds of older people throughout the park follow along as well, doing the motions in unison. Some have more gusto than others, but all are doing it with no youthful self-consciousness. As I continued jogging, I noticed some were barely within earshot of the instructions, and some were even outside of earshot, away from crowds and alone, going through the motions from their comfortable distance.

I jog to the roadside of the park away from everyone, and as I loop back, I see that Radio Taiso has already finished. The conglomeration of older people were now happily and loudly chatting with one another, and I thought the scene seemed infinitely more happy and cool than young folks hanging out in Miyashita Park in Shibuya.

Some people started to head back home (making the jogging path packed), and a small group of about 30 went elsewhere in the park to do some Tai Chi with others who were waiting for them to come. A large majority however, seemed to just loiter and enjoy the hot summer morning.

As I loop around again away from everyone, my mind wanders to think about the difference in generations, and how their Japan and my Japan coexist, but are so incredibly different. My mind wanders to the exotic Japan that Japanophiles in Western counties love or hate, and how this scene would confirm or deny any of their presumptions. Finally, my mind wanders to 50 years ago when these people were around 20 years old. Did old age make them congregate like this, or was it something that their generation always did?

When I was young, I thought that as I got to my parents’ age, I would act like their generation, and when I got to my grandparents’ age, I would act like their generation, but I don’t think it turned out to be true. It feels like I am always acting the same. How 40 year olds acted like 20 years ago is now how 60 years old act, how I acted 20 years ago when I was 18 is amazingly similar to how I act now, and from the perspective of someone younger than me, how I acted at 18 is how someone in their late thirties would act.

I try to flesh out this idea as I do another loop jogging, panting more than before, seeing less and less people, as more and more have decided to go home. I see some inconsistencies with the idea, and some truth in it as well. Eventually I stop jogging and the hundreds who came for Radio Taiso leave my mind. I sit down to gaze blankly into the lake in the middle of the loop, lamenting how I didn’t jog as much as I wanted to, and feeling how the breeze under the tall trees was much more refreshing than my air conditioner is at home.

I go home and start my day, just as everyone else in the park has done.

I first heard of Final Fantasy V in EGM. I’m not sure what the year was, but probably 1993. It was going to be called Final Fantasy III in the West, until it wasn’t. There was a reason that they didn’t bring it over, and that is a reason that I don’t know, and that both of us (me, and you, the lovely reader) could Google in 10 seconds. If I were to act like the rest of the Internet and arrogantly imagine a reason for what could be easily checked, I would say that the game was in many ways a step back from what Final Fantasy IV was, meanwhile VI was a shaping up to be a motherfucking masterpiece. That’s the conclusion my arrogant imagination brings me to.

Next time I heard of it was sometime in 1997 I believe, when I was a young tyke, just getting acquainted with the Internet. Final Fantasy V’s English ROM was probably the reason I wanted to get on the Internet. Before I didn’t give a shit. I remember at this time also going to videogames.com (I think this became GameSpot) to check out the latest Final Fantasy VII screenshots. I didn’t really give a shit though, because that December 1996 Gamefan already sold me on the game, and that was going to be that. I didn’t need to see things to something I was looking forward to. I was already looking forward to it.

Unfortunately, emulators at the time didn’t really do transparencies at all, so in this part near the beginning where you are in a ship graveyard, going underwater, you could not see anything underwater, making it near impossible to continue. I gave up then.

Then there was 1998 or so, when the game actually got released in English on the PlayStation. Being released only 6 years later ultimately in the grand scheme of life and whatever seems like not a lot of time, but it’s the difference of me being 9 and me being 15, so it half over half a lifetime. I didn’t play Final Fantasy V on PlayStation though. It had shitty shitty loading times, and even at the ripe age of 15, I knew that I was above that. I was also in my lovely phases where I didn’t really beat video games, I just played them until it was time to stop. I’ve recently begun to think that as one with an older brother, I was conditioned to think that end bosses in games were not something that I was capable of beating, despite beating them tons before. It may’ve been a short attention span.

In 2005 I broke all comfort zones, and came to the live in the ultimate comfort zone: Japan. I landed in Nagoya, sleeping on futons in the kenshu center, and going for walks on the look out for parks and places to buy video games. I found both, the park first (which was close to where people were harvesting rice the old fashioned way, a truly beautiful site), and then the video game shop, where I promptly without hesitation bought a kikkake for me being in Japan: Final Fantasy V. It was about 400 yen (4 bucks) I think. I also bought a Super Famicom with it.

When I got settled in my LeoPalace apartment in the south of Chiba, semi-furnished with a 20-inch CRT, I hooked up the Super Famicom and Final Fantasy V. I didn’t understand any of it, it was in Japanese, but I couldn’t stop thinking how fucking awesome it was that I was playing THE Final Fantasy V on A Super Famicom in JAPAN. So it goes I guess.

From 2005 until now, I have played Final Fantasy V four times, beating it once, which was yesterday.

The first time was in 2005, Japanese-less me, wondering why one 力 was big, and one カ was small. I got as far as I did in 1997, felt joy that the water was not transparent, and that I new what was going on, and then I stopped.

Between then and roughly 2007, I envoked the ancient Japanese tradition of ganbaru, and I studied Japanese quite a bit. I think I finished all those Japanese for Busy People books, which gets you to 3級, which is now N4 in the JLPT tests. (JLP tests?) With this new found ability and confidence, I went back to Final Fantasy V, and played with understanding all the hiragana, and understanding that 力 is the kanji for power, and カ is katakana. I remember not knowing what 次元 or 封印 meant. I looked them up, but even that didn’t help me, and I realized that I didn’t understand a lot more than just that, but I had not realized what I didn’t understand. The worst type of not understanding. Back on the shelf.

Then a lot of shit happened in my life. From 2008 to 2018 there was joy, love, pain, desperation, evil, empowerment, and much more. It’s all a much more interesting story than some dumb video game. In 2018 I had bought a Super Nt, a third party video game system that plays Super Nintendo and Super Famicom games via HDMI, and lots of sound and video options. After playing Elnard (the Japanese version of 7th Saga), I was ready to get into Final Fantasy V. I put it in. In 2018, I was very confident in my ability to know what a 次元 or 封印 were, I rocked past those parts with ease, patting myself on the back for being able to skillfully understand a game aimed at children after my 13 years in Japan. They didn’t use the kanji 鎧, but oh baby I would’ve understood it. I got deep into the second act of the game, but I wasn’t really digging it. It felt like work. I didn’t want to play it, but I wanted to have the game beat. I had a history with it, and like, I wanted to have some closure with it.

This lead to me playing the game, but also playing other games on my Super Nt. I have no idea if it’s only my Super Nt, but it can be quite hard to actually get games to work on the bastard. I have a special screwdriver that can over Super Famicom cartridges, and cleaning alcohol to wipe what needs to be wiped. If I do that directly before putting the game in, it works. If I don’t, there’s a big chance that the game will not work.

I’m not a technical superman, but when the game is being turned on, the save files get transferred into the RAM or something, and if it doesn’t turn on, and you turn the system off, there is a risk of the save files being erased. Not all of them, but some of them randomly. This is how my save file got erased. Fuck. I stopped playing then. I wasn’t enjoying it, and I didn’t want to start over.

The fourth and final time to play the game started last December. 2020 had been a year of finally beating games that I had started long ago. It was the theme of the year you could say. Suikoden II? Finally finished! Persona 4? Finally finished! Dragon Quest VII? It’s done like butter. Final Fantasy V was next, but like the time before, I wasn’t digging it. I was playing on my new 55 inch OLED TV, and everything felt wrong, rotten and stupid.

I moved the Super Nt into my office at home, and put my 27-inch work monitor on the floor an hooked it up. I lay down on a floor couch I have in my office, and got into it, and I really got into it. It felt like I wasn’t in the living room of a 37 year old, but I was in the bedroom of a kid (not in a creepy way), and I was able to play as much as I wanted. It didn’t feel like a chore anymore, and I felt lucky to be able to play through the game. I enjoyed the Job System, fighting battles, understanding the story with zero difficulty, and just going through the motions. When I got further than I had ever gotten in the past, it started feeling truly special, as this it felt like I was experiencing something amazing for the first time. I usually only appreciate the first time of something after the fact, but when you are in the then and now, and you know that you are going through some super good times, it is to be poetic, super good times.

I had wanted to finish it before I went back to work, having some amazing closure with my obsession with video games, and go into the new year a new man, focusing on things besides playing video games from 1992. I gave it a good go, but ultimately didn’t make it. However, last night, my first Friday night after the new year, I poured a full glass of wine, got into the world of Final Fantasy V one last time, and beat the evil Ex-Death (the name sounds less lame in Japanese, I swear). I saw our protagonists ride their chocobos and dragons into the sunset. I saw balance restored, and I had my video game closure.

Today is day one of my post-Final Fantasy V life. I moved my work monitor back on my desk. The Super Nt back in the living room where I won’t play it. I’m feeling content, and I’m ready to do something else.

I thought this morning -as I was annoyed for being hungover- how would I feel if someone had invited Miley Cyrus over to my house for Christmas Dinner? Stupid thought, but whatever.

First, yeah, “Who the hell is Miley Cyrus?” She was a teen singer 10 years ago I think, and is now a grown up singer. I saw on YouTube 4 or 5 years ago that she did this cover of a song called Jolene or something, and it was decent. (It was actually very good, but I’m playing it cool.)

But who gives a shit, right? But you can’t be all “I don’t give a shit about you being an American celebrity”, because that may make her- your guest- feel like shit. So you gotta be tactful about that. You wouldn’t be all starstuck asking her to sign your whatever, but like, you know there would be that balance to make her feel welcome. “I believe you’re a famous singer, I liked that cover Jolene.” or something like that would seem to be of okay manner I guess. I probably couldn’t say it without being awkward though, or appearing to be unhappy, despite probably being happy. Well I wouldn’t be HAPPY happy, but I wouldn’t be pissed off like a cliche or something.

I mean, why is she coming to my house for dinner? I guess a mutual friend may’ve brought her, but under what pretext? Maybe she’s missing a real American Christmas Dinner, and so her friend knew I was having one and invited her along. What sort of assumptions or expectations would there be on that? Does she know I’m not American and have never really wanted to or even known how to do things in a normal way? Is she dying for a turkey and a ham in this “strange country”? If it was Christmas Eve, my family does bratwurst and potato salad, but I would probably not invite people over for that, so I guess it would luckily by Christmas Day.

I do like those old crooner Christmas songs, so I suppose that’s very American, and maybe she would feel welcome with that. I got Scott Weiland’s Christmas album, and it fucking rocks. There would be beers and wine and whisky available most likely. No one can shake their head at that. Well, the whiskey wouldn’t be expensive stuff, but Black Nikka isn’t bad or anything (the Laphroaig would stay in the closet.) If she was a non-drinker, there would be teas and whatnot then too. No pop though. Come now. That’s unhealthy. I don’t kill my guests.

Hopefully it wouldn’t be a silly Lost in Translation situation where she was craving something “authentic”. I always get the feeling those who want authentic stuff wouldn’t think I’m authentic enough. The chicken wouldn’t have been locally grown, and I wouldn’t be able to write the kanji for chicken from memory, or something. I haven’t seen that move in hundreds of years, so I’m probably misremembering it. I just have bad memories of people and authenticity. Being drunk and stoned at 2am at some Japanese restaurant in Mount Pleasant, Vancouver and having my buddy ask me if the rice was authentic. (It wasn’t, but who gives a shit? We just wanna eat man.)

Whatever, she could buy authenticity though. I’m assume she hasn’t gambled all her money away. She’s still a pop star, right? So a home cooked meal, but I’m not sure if I’m mature enough to provide that. I would like to be. It would be cool to be able to provide normalcy and stability I guess. To see someone come to your door, and to not only not ask any questions, but to not want to ask any questions or have any context, and to just accept them and to feed them and give them drink. To talk to them about what they want to talk about, and create an atmosphere away from the cold where people are together. Or something like that.

Hopefully we could do a Christmas walk to the local shrine. As it’s on a weekday, and it’s fucking cold, it should be dead and dark. Would be kind of cool though. If it was a clear day, we could probably see Fuji, which is always a plus.

Anyways, I’m still kind of hungover, and it sucks.

I wrote this about a year ago. I just reread it, and didn’t think it was poop.

I read Hapworth 16 1924 by JD Salinger. If you subscribe to the New Yorker, you can look at a back issue and read it. I’m sure it’s also available in many places on the internet, but I thought it would be best to avoid all that. 

My introduction to JD Salinger I believe was at the age of 18. It was the Fall of 2002, and I was in my second year of an Associate of Arts degree in Sociology at the “University College” near my parent’s house. I had heard of this one professor, from my mom, who told me that one of her church friends’ son had taken this horrible horrible professor who would say weird things and be very strict and just be generally unpleasant. I further heard about his mystique around campus and decided that I must take at least one class by this person, to perhaps shake up what really was me giving no effort in life, and feeling like I was in high school, except that I wasn’t considered a dork anymore, and girls would sometimes talk to me. 

In the Fall of 2002, he was teaching Short Story and Drama, or something like that. Perfect! I thought. Short. I wasn’t much of a reader at that time, but I liked to think of myself as a reader. I probably put on airs as a reader. Or maybe I didn’t. I remember a girl liked me and I made her take me to Burger King on Whopper Wednesday. I still feel bad about that. Asking the girl to do something she would hopefully think in hindsight is a shitty thing for a guy to do, that is. She thought I was smart. Maybe 1 or 2 percent of the population fell for whatever schtick I was subconsciously doing, and thought I was a genius. Or at least they thought the whole thing was a little cute or something, and decided that I was a person to fall desperately in love with. To this date I have never dated a person who felt like this about my schtick. It always made me nervous. 1 or 2 percent is probably being generous anyways, and most people have no such sickness. 

For this to be about Hapworth 16 1924 I don’t feel this digression and lack of structure are inappropriate, but I could probably use a few more exclamation points. 

In this professor’s class, we first read Heart of Darkness, which is not a short story, nor a play. He was being sly and sneaking things into a first year English Literature course that probably shouldn’t have been there, and as I believe he was the head of the English department, he could do this while howling at the moon (rumors were that he howled at the moon and had pagan sex parties, I couldn’t imagine him having the stamina). I think I got 5 pages into Heart of Darkness before I gave up. At 18 I was all about winging it, taking the easy route and giving a big “fuck you” to real work. I wasn’t really able to wing it, nor were the majority of the class who didn’t finish the book (they probably got further than me), but some of us were still spellbound in hearing the professor talk about the book. 

I remember I was once at a girl’s house whom I liked, maybe around this time, and her family was a learned family. They read literature. I remember being over there once and lamenting having to read the book after Heart of Darkness, Billy Budd, and saying there was no way in hell it could be called a short story. The older sister (whom I was friends with long after I stopped being friends with the girl, but with whom I also had a falling out with) said in a very condescending tone, “it’s a novella J”. 

To which I replied (as I was used to acting a fool), “what’s that a female novel?”

The older sister and mother rolled their eyes and laughed, but I don’t think it was with me. The girl I think is now a veterinarian. She always liked horses. 

!!!

My mid-term paper was about Billy Budd. The book (novella) where apparently Melville didn’t hold back on his full vocabulary. Apparently it was an allegory of the Christ story, and one of the essay questions we could chose to write about was discussing this allegory. I think that seemed simple enough, you just find quotes to say why whoever was Jesus, and whoever was Pilate, and you’re done! 

I got 40% on it, and some comment like “needs work”. At the same time I got a shitty job review at Future Shop, and it was a point where I realized that I couldn’t rely on those dashing smarts I had, and do zero work all the time. Sucked. 

The next book wasn’t Nine Stories by Salinger, but the one after was. I didn’t read the next book either (I think it was assigned before I had realized I wasn’t a genius), but I read all Nine Stories. This was my introduction to Salinger. 

The professor went on in his whimsical yet definitive way about the crossing of legs, yellow being a grown up color and blue being a pure childish color and all this other stuff. When I read the stories, I always just sort of thought the shock ending was kind of neat and would make you smirk. He said when we over the book we were not allowed to run down the hallway shouting we knew what the story was about after reading the last page of a story, freshly having formed that smirk. 

Bananafish was an easy story to like. The guys kills himself at the end! Boom! The guy being Seymour Glass, the character who Salinger became obsessed about, and the person who is writing the long letter in Hapworth 16 1924. Only Hapworth takes place in 1924, and Bananafish takes place in what I am going to say is 1948. Seymour is on his honeymoon or something, and his wife’s mom is showing concern for her wife marrying a weirdo. Then Seymour is on the beach playing with a 4 year old girl or something (the professor told us that any sort of weird sexualization of this would not have happened when it was written, and that was a modern thing), and once she sees a banana fish in the ocean, he goes to his room and blows his brains out. 

(The two dramas we read in the class were Hamlet and a Streetcar Named Desire.)

These days, I mostly think about Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut, or whatever it’s called. I feel I can most related to two women talking on the couch in the afternoon and getting absolutely shitfaced, one in an unhappy marriage, remembering when she was in love with Seymour’s younger brother, but now she’s screaming at her kid drunk that there is no imaginary child, and that they have to sleep in the middle of the bed, then sobbing “I was a good girl once, wasn’t I?” It’s powerful stuff. I feel most adults can sort of relate to that, looking at all the shit shows that they are a part of, and step back when they realize their current frustrations are about something innocent and beautiful. Powerful stuff. It’s a story. 

I’m not sure if Hapworth is powerful stuff, or if it is a story. When I really got into Salinger, when I was 19 or 20, I was all about the concept of “getting it”, and how I “got it”, and others did not “get it”. I’m sure Hapworth is actually a beautiful narrative with a rising action and climax and denouement and all the rest for those who get it. In the 20 pages of so of the later half of the story when Seymour is just listing books he wants to read, I’m sure if you “get it”, each author’s name and the book chosen from each author is just dripping with meaning. 

I didn’t get it though. I, like a review I found of the story after a quick Google search, just picked up on the part where Seymour is embarrassed that he can’t read a Czech author in Czech, and could only in English. 

Hapworth is a letter from Seymour Glass, a character written about in many of Salinger’s stories, as a seven year old boy in a summer camp, to his parents, who are on the road as circus performers or something. I think only we who do not get it are constantly being in disbelief and thinking it unrealistic that any 7 year old could ever write like this. The letter focuses a lot on Seymour’s younger brother Buddy who is 5, and also at camp. Buddy is writing all Salinger’s stories kind of. I think in one it was even hinted that Buddy wrote Catcher in the Rye. 

The review I read that having the story be written by a 7 year old gives Salinger an excuse to write shittily and without structure. The reviewer obviously doesn’t get it. (I don’t mean to be menacing.)

There’s no “do it for the fat lady, the fat lady is Jesus”, like there was at the end of Franny and Zooey, there’s no one dying, no old man in bed getting angry at the man who’s wife he just slept with, there’s no Holden frantically wiping off the word fuck of the walls at a subway station or school or whatever that was. 

So what is there? I don’t know, but my take is below: 

There’s a freak 7 year old and a freak 5 year old. The freak 7 year old says in his letter that they are normal boys, and that his spoken English is very different from his written English. I imagine a 7 year old writing so verbose can only do so through copying styles as opposed to creating one of their own, but maybe I’m bogged down by time. 

By freak I mean they read and retain a lot, and are very interested in both things. They’re too smart for their own good. Well, they’re so smart one kills himself when a little girl says she sees a Bananafish and the other lives in the woods in upstate New York or Maine or somewhere reading 100,000 words a day or something. 

The two little kids are not really relatable. I related to a part where Seymour says “you think I’m good, but I’m not! God strike me down with hailstones!” 

I liked that, the hailstones. 

There’s also a part where he tells his younger sister who is 4 I believe at the time of the letter to work on her manners when she is alone. I also liked that bit. It reminded me of the TV show Poirot where Poirot says to Hastings “one must not let themselves go Hastings”. (I often let myself go.)

As mentioned, I didn’t get the big list of books that Seymour wanted Buddy to read before he starts school or something. I liked the part where he rips into this historian who is an Alexander the Great specialist, and doesn’t seem to realize he owes Alexander the Great his career. I mean, he doesn’t really, if Alex didn’t exist, he would pick someone else. Xerves maybe. 

My only guess, which is a guess that is not very positive on Salinger, is he is doing what I do when I allude to punk rock songs that I like. I am trying to convey a specific feeling that song gives me that cannot be put into words, and that feeling is something that becomes so important to my heart or soul, and I secretly make myself vulnerable by referencing the song or liking the song, to suggest in a way that no one will understand X. But Salinger can’t be saying Flaubert’s name to convey a feeling, as that is silly, and I am silly for doing similar things. 

It’s not a page turner. It was a slog. Which is ironic, because when going off about the books that he wants, Seymour says that one shouldn’t waste their time on books that they just like.

So I don’t get it. I read it because I could, but I don’t get it. I probably won’t really give it another chance either. Maybe if my professor was here to tell me how to get it. Maybe he would say it was poop.

I wrote this during my separation and before my divorce. It’s kind of heavy and self-absorbed.

When he walked in for the first time, I knew that I had seen him before. He had walked by the store, heading West sometimes, and heading East other times. I remembered him because his face always gave away his emotion. 

When he first walked in here the bento shop, I knew that he worked with some relationship to the university. He had the look of a person who thought he was deep, and knew that that made him a certain type of person. I think he also knew that that did not make him any better than the people who weren’t self-conscious of the ramifications of their introspection.

He was shy first when he ordered his bento. I don’t think it was really a language issue. It didn’t feel like he was putting on an accent that he deemed Japanese, and he didn’t really seem to psyche himself up before speaking. The first time he came in, he smiled. He ordered a fried veggies bento. I remember handing it to him, and how his eyes showed that he didn’t expect what he got. I guess that it was because the rice and the friend veggies (and meat) were separate. At first I did not understand why that would be, but after a while I realized that after he left the shop he didn’t return to the university, but went in the opposite direction to the river. He must have found it hard to eat outside. 

I think one day I saw pity in his eyes. He was pitying me. I think he saw me get frustrated with my superior who is Chinese and half my age. I bet he had some giant grandiose revelations about me, and maybe about Japan after seeing that. I could feel bad, but when your boss makes so many obviously incorrect decisions in the lunch rush, to express frustration is only necessary. With his pity at me, the old woman at the Hotto Motto, putting up with such hardship, I almost felt pity for him, how he got embarrassed by the human experience so much to not be able to comprehend my happiness, and perhaps sometimes not see his own unhappiness. 

After he started coming to pick up a lunch here, I remembered that when he was walking past the shop before he also had a lunch bag in his hands. Sometimes peaceful, sometimes pained, sometimes intense, always listening to music. Never really being a part of his surroundings. 

The first few months he came to buy his lunch, he was generally happy, well shaven, and having this hopeful look. After he got used to the kind of bentos we had, and sort of knew the lay of the land, there was a weight lifted off his shoulders. He was happy in a way that he wasn’t aware of for a while. To think he had pitied me!

It was as if he had previously not been able to enjoy the simple fact of enjoying a cup of coffee. I bet he didn’t like coffee though, so let’s say tea. He would mindlessly drink tea while being preoccupied with something that was helping him avoid whatever issues he was facing, which led him not even be able to enjoy the tea! The sugar in it, the almond milk (he was probably “too good” for soy). All of it together. I bet he didn’t even know what kind of tea he was drinking. It was a thoughtless action in the name of something that was no longer enough to think about. 

This happiness didn’t stay though. I guess one can’t be happy with the taste of tea forever, when everything around them may be burning down. Maybe something was put on hold. Maybe he thought something was dealt with when it was not. 

He ordered the pre-made daily bentos we had after his disastrous mistake of the bento with rice and veggies separate. He then ventured into the slightly cheaper karaage and shogayaki bentos. When he finally found the irotori bento, I was almost happy for him. I wasn’t though, because I knew how cheap it was, and how much work it was to make. The bento had 20 different things in it, different beans, veggies, seaweeds, and meats. We hated having to make it, and we stopped making it for that reason about two months after he found it. I remember when he realized that. You could almost see his brain thinking. There’s no more of that iwatori bento (he could never get the name right). Nothing else seems as good. I’ll just get a cheap ready made bento. And so he did, and so he does.

Sometimes various people came with him. Some waited outside. Some came in. Some sometimes bought their lunch with him here. Some were also Westerners, and had more stilted Japanese. Usually when it was a Japanese person it was a woman. Recently it has always been the same woman that he eats his lunch with. She never comes in. I see them split up before he crosses the road to get here. She goes into the 7-11 across the street. He meets her on this side of the street after he buys his ready-made bento. They walk a conscious distance apart until they are out of sight. 

He used to buy a bento from us every day, but then it was only two or three times a week. Now when he does, he is more often than not with the same woman. Since then, his emotions have been less distance, and more real. I don’t think he has been any happier though to be honest. Maybe he now thinks that it is not all about happiness, or maybe he doesn’t know what he is doing at all, just drifting along. I don’t think that kind of faux-deep person would consciously drift along though. Those types have that going along for them at least. 

Last week was the worse that I had seen him. Every day he was stressed when he came in. He was never with that woman. Always alone, always ordering the karaage bento. I don’t think he liked it that much, but he just didn’t want to think about what to order. He was too busy pitying or hating himself it seemed like. I felt sorry for him, and that troubled face that he always wore, but one can only feel so much sympathy for others. Whatever problem he was having, he would need to work through it, and come through the other side. My role in his story was a simple one. To be that static character that says my set lines every day, takes his money, hands him his change, and does nothing else. I admit I do try to not get angry at my boss in front of him. He probably has a blog where he writes grandiose statements thinking he is deep. 

When he came in today for lunch, it was the first time I saw him truly happy. He had a bento bag in his hand, and it seems like he came in absentmindedly. He had realized what he did, laughed, not even caring how his laugh would be received by those surrounding him (that’s a big thing for types like him), and walked out. I hope that will be the last time I see him in this shop.

I wonder about all the details that I don’t have though. Why did he go from having a bento from home, to coming in here almost nearly every day? Why the rollercoaster of emotions? Why was he so bad at hiding them from his face? Why so sad last week? Why so happy this week? 

He seemed genuinely happy, and genuinely carefree. If only you could tell people in all their worries, and all their pain that there will be a time again when they are happy and carefree. Where they can happily walk outside on sunny days, happily cuddle up with a good book on a rainy day, enjoy that cup of tea with the fancy almond milk, close their eyes at the end of a long day, and feel nothing but peace. I guess you could not tell people that with any certainty, as not everyone gets there. 

Some will forever have their bento bag, and walk around without a connection to their surroundings. Some will wade into the waters of pain and the unknown, only to recede back into comfortable habits, or perhaps stay forever in pain, being unable to recognize anything else. And then some will be able to break down, and find that true happiness. 

I don’t imagine that I had any part in this guy’s story. But I’m happy that he was able to break through, and find that true happiness that was always in him. I don’t even mind that I don’t really even exist, and am only here as a form of therapy for him. To plant seeds in his head that there is hope, that this pain will end, and that happy endings exist to those who fight for them.

The guy is still a bit of a tool though.

The ending at the time was just a dream, but not anymore.

I came back from my home land, Canada, to my home, Japan, two days ago. While my mind firmly believes that flying eastwards makes for tougher jet lag, this time included, my last two flights have shown otherwise, and the westward difference that is comparatively minimal has been harder to break. Going to Canada, I go with a mentality of knowing that I will be tired, and knowing that I will want to fight against it, subconsciously to show my parents that I am a big boy and can do big boy things. Furthermore, there is non-stop stimulation which makes it easier to stay awake. Around 7pm yesterday I was sitting on my couch with a book, thinking about how I was tired, and how it seemed to make little sense to try and continue reading as opposed to just sleep if I wanted to. Who cares if I wake up at 3am? I woke up at 3am today, and it has been glorious. 

This has been my first trip back to Canada where I decided beforehand that nothing was going to be weird for me. I turned 35 in December, and 35 year olds cannot hide behind not being used to something, or any other excuse for them not to act with conviction. If I don’t know how to tip, or make small talk, or do any other mannerism that I had effectively run away from 14 years ago in migrating to Japan, I would take the fall, leave my hands by my side, and see what happens. 

I remember on one of the last days of my trip I was to meet my parents and my younger brother at the Sylvia, a hotel with a bar and restaurant where English Bay and Stanley Park meet on the West End. My dad was having a phlebotomy, and my mom and him went to St Paul’s Hospital together. I got a ride downtown with them, and decided to walk along English Bay from the Granville Street Bridge towards Stanley Park. My brother had taken the Skytrain down, and I imagine did something similar. I assume we both wanted some space, and did not coordinate our walks in order to be together. 

I started my walk around 12:30, and needed to be near the Sylvia around 2, so I thought I would walk along the Seawall as far as I could until around 1:15, at which point I would turn around. As I walked, I intermittently checked for where I would have wifi, so that I knew where I would be able to communicate with my family. My dad had quite strongly said that he cannot guarantee when his phlebotomy would be finished. He can get mentally fatigued, and I believe the question of “what time” to him is an attempt to force him to fully comprehend all the different variables regarding when he would be finished, and then communicate that to a person who is not aware with all these variables, and to avoid that, he strongly says he cannot guarantee a time. I get all the way to Third Beach, trying to walk as fast as I can as a vain attempt to burn off the slice upon slice of Havarti cheese and leona sausage I had been eating for breakfast at my parents’ house. I am also paying way too much attention as to how people move along the Seawall. Do they stick to their directions prescribed side? Are they conscious of the people around them? Do macho guys play chicken with each other? The wind was quite strong, and the waves crashed against the Seawall, on occasion going onto the Seawall path itself, so I also looked how people dealt with this “risk”. Some people walked not on “their side” when possible, others were just mindful of the waves. No one seemed to care too much.

I got back to the Sylvia about five minutes to 2pm, and walked towards the Cactus Club, where I knew if I stood outside, I would have access to free wifi. I saw a text from my younger brother, and I met him in front of the Sylvia. This is where massive decision making had to occur. We had to act like 35 and 29 year olds respectively, and could not cower anywhere in the fetal position under a strong mask of indifference and apathy while others nonchalantly make obvious grownup decisions. 

My parents should arrive soon, but they weren’t there yet. It was cold outside. Do we continue to wait outside, or do we go inside and wait in there? In such cases, to keep that mask, I would usually wait outside, but I was not alone now, and I had made a promise to myself to fall down, arms at my side, and so once our conversation got to where should we wait, I assertively without reservation said that we should wait inside. As we went in, we saw the bar area, where people, mainly older were sitting down. “In Canada not all places require you to wait until you are seated, that means I must find a seat, and a seat that would be to the satisfaction of all people in my party, I shall do this!” I thought in melodramatic fashion (but under the above-mentioned mask). We scanned the room, slowly walking and making ourselves to the entrance of the restaurant part of the establishment, where there was a sign that said “please wait to be seated”. 

Do we continue to scan the bar? It didn’t seem like any seats were available. Do we wait to be seated at the restaurant? The average age in the restaurant was even older than the bar, and when a server casually asked “are you guys doin’ okay?” I instinctively waited a split second for my brother, the Canadian, to take charge, and upon seeing him mutter monosyllabic whatevers, I said in my coolest voice possible, “we’re okay right now”.  At the time, I don’t think I knew if that would imply that we wanted to sit down or not.

Both my brother and I would never come to the Sylvia by our own choice. We had nothing against the place (I’m projecting), but we would not spontaneously say that we felt like going to the Sylvia for whatever reason. Both my parents have fully embraced the beauty of routine, and they had their peculiarities of what they liked and disliked. Perhaps only subconsciously, but both my brother and I knew that, and this created hesitation to make any big decision, because it may or may not be what they were used to in their routine. However, waffling like a bunch of morons at the restaurant entrance, hesitating as to what to do, was not acceptable as a new 35-year old. My brother didn’t seem to know what he wanted to do, which in the heat of the moment, under my thick mask of indifference, I was disgusted about, as he is a Canadian living in Canada, and Canadians living in Canada should all be able to deal with any situation while never breaking from that casual friendly drawl, being able to interject mindless conversation to create a “connection” with anyone and everyone. But I did not have time to wallow this disgust, and when a server came back I said with perhaps too much conviction, and not enough casual friendly drawl that there would be four of us dining in the restaurant, not the bar. We got led to a lovely booth having English Bay, with the sun brightly in our faces. 

We sat, talked about video games (a common interest), looked at our phones (I had wifi here too), and commented on how our parents are sure taking their damn sweet time. 

My parents came, they saw us. They came and sat down.

“Oh, you guys sat here! I guess we meant to go to the bar!”

“I guess you guys don’t know how your father really doesn’t like booths.”

“No, it’s fine, we’ll make it work.”

“I guess their menu should be similar to the bar.”

“It was quite busy over there, wasn’t it?”

In hindsight I placed too much importance into their need for their routine, because they both seemed to have a decent time, we ate burgers and nachos and chicken wings loudly, had white wine and beers, and may have even had friendly light conversation about whatever. 

My brother wasn’t what I imagined all Canada-living Canadians to be like, and my parents didn’t care as much as I thought they would. As a new 35-year old I was overthinking everything, but at least with a burger with bacon and mushrooms on it.