Column

In the Tradition of Haruki Murakami

Koji Masutani
Brown University
Kyoto Center for Japanese Studies
Stanford Japan Center

Telephone, Chinese,
Corridor

he phone rang. It seemed alarmingly loud. It always seemed that way at night. I wondered sometimes if it was programmed to be louder in the evenings, or whether it just seemed louder in the dark. Then again, there shouldn't be a physical connection between light and sound -- although, I think I could recall a connection from Science class when I was in school. There was definitely something about how photons had both sound-like and light-like properties. Science aside, the phone still seemed too loud. There were also psychological or social explanations to consider. Maybe the phone seemed louder at night because no one was around at this time. Yet, the last time someone other than myself who was in the apartment was before I moved in. So we can rule out correlations between number of people present and the volume of the phone's ring.
The phone was still ringing. I lit a cigarette and tried to imagine who would be calling. The police? No, I've committed no crime, unless you can count that one time I stole a bottle of whisky. Would the police call about something so trivial? No, highly unlikely. They have bigger problems to take care of. People were killed everyday and stolen whisky was hardly anything to get excited about. So not the police. The neighbors from upstairs? No, they moved out when they found out the building had no hot water. Even if they were around, they wouldn't call, especially after having met me. I stared at the ringing phone as waves of smoke from my cigarette rose to the ceiling. The smoke rippled from the phone's vibrations. Maybe it was the studio people? Maybe they finally saw my vision and were calling to grant me a three-picture-deal? I laughed. The likelihood of that was highly unlikely.
If it were the studio, I wouldn't even know if I'd have the energy to go through with all the crap directing entailed: scouting and negotiating locations, casting actors, negotiating casting of actors, negotiating with actors, negotiating with high-profile actors, negotiating scenes, negotiating the final cut of the film -- it was all one big pain in the ass. I'd rather sit in my apartment-slash-office and write movie reviews on atrociously clich_d, unoriginal, and all-around dull films that were coming out in the last two decades. For some reason, my idea of a good time entailed critiquing stupid movies with stupid characters made for stupid people. I think I reveled in the simplicity of it, or maybe it was the delight in not having to...



	English

In the Tradition of Haruki Murakami
Koji Masutani Brown University Kyoto Center for Japanese Studies Stanford Japan Center

Telephone, Chinese, Corridor he phone rang. It seemed alarmingly loud. It always seemed that way at night. I wondered sometimes if it was programmed to be louder in the evenings, or whether it just seemed louder in the dark. Then again, there shouldn't be a physical connection between light and sound -- although, I think I could recall a connection from Science class when I was in school. There was definitely something about how photons had both sound-like and light-like properties. Science aside, the phone still seemed too loud. There were also psychological or social explanations to consider. Maybe the phone seemed louder at night because no one was around at this time. Yet, the last time someone other than myself who was in the apartment was before I moved in. So we can rule out correlations between number of people present and the volume of the phone's ring. The phone was still ringing. I lit a cigarette and tried to imagine who would be calling. The police? No, I've committed no crime, unless you can count that one time I stole a bottle of whisky. Would the police call about something so trivial? No, highly unlikely. They have bigger problems to take care of. People were killed everyday and stolen whisky was hardly anything to get excited about. So not the police. The neighbors from upstairs? No, they moved out when they found out the building had no hot water. Even if they were around, they wouldn't call, especially after having met me. I stared at the ringing phone as waves of smoke from my cigarette rose to the ceiling. The smoke rippled from the phone's vibrations. Maybe it was the studio people? Maybe they finally saw my vision and were calling to grant me a three-picture-deal? I laughed. The likelihood of that was highly unlikely. If it were the studio, I wouldn't even know if I'd have the energy to go through with all the crap directing entailed: scouting and negotiating locations, casting actors, negotiating casting of actors, negotiating with actors, negotiating with high-profile actors, negotiating scenes, negotiating the final cut of the film -- it was all one big pain in the ass. I'd rather sit in my apartment-slash-office and write movie reviews on atrociously clich_d, unoriginal, and all-around dull films that were coming out in the last two decades. For some reason, my idea of a good time entailed critiquing stupid movies with stupid characters made for stupid people. I think I reveled in the simplicity of it, or maybe it was the delight in not having to...