I've been working on some syllabi for classical Japanese literature classes and so I'm sitting here, making selections for readings, music playing.
Sleep Token's "Bloodsport" is on.
I open a book to make a selections, I have a story in mind, but I see a chapter title and I realise can put two separate works back to back, putting together the most beautifully devastating story. And I am so doing it.
The soundtrack to this realization was absolutely perfect.
Through our nights
the promises you made,
if you have not forgotten them –
then of your tears of yearning
the hue I’m curious to know.
– Fujiwara no Teishi, Empress Consort of Retired Emperor Ichijō; in Goshūishū, Book X (Laments): 536.
Now that I'm no longer in this world, do you shed the tears of blood?
During the recent Even in Arcadia tour, I did a silly little thing of making myself translate and post a poem after every concert.
The poems or my selections have nothing to do with the music, the band, or anything that happened during the concerts. Those are simply old Japanese poems, and this is really just a case of enjoying the music and directing the energy into something that I deeply love. But I figured someone may enjoy imageries of those poems, so under the cut is a full list of poems I posted.
Although I am quite certain that the creative powers behind the songs are unfamiliar with the world of these old Japanese verses, in that world too, flowers scatter, yearning burns like summer insects, and meetings are caught between reality and dream...
If you scatter, then scatter... / Chiraba chire... (Fujiwara no Teika)
The rain does not stop... / Ame yamanu... (Taira no Kanemori)
In secretly smoldering... / Shitamoe ni... (Shunzei's Daughter)
This world... / Yo no naka wa... (Fujiwara no Shunzei)
Together beneath the moss... / Morotomo ni koke no shita ni... (Izumi Shikibu)
When evening falls... / Yūsareba... (Minamoto no Tsunenobu)
Did you come to me?... / Kimi ya koshi... (anonymous)
In a Shelter of Reeds... / Ashi no ya no... (Fujiwara no Teika)
My thoughts... / Omou koto... (Fujiwara no Teika)
What shall I do then?... / Ikani semu... (Fujiwara no Shunzei)
Skies cold and in mistaken for the flowers... / Sora samumi hana ni magaete... (Sei Shōnagon and Fujiwara no Kintō)
In Naniwa Inlet... / Naniwa e no... (Minamoto no Toshiyori)
So summer insects... / Natsumushi no... (anonymous)
Of the one in my eyes... / Mishi hito no... (Genji in Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji)
When in this world he was, nights... / Arishi yo no... (Akazome Emon)
I look and only... / Mireba tada... (Akazome Emon)
The God guarding the leaves of this Oak Tree... / Kashiwagi ni hamori no kami wa... (Ochiba no Miya in Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji)
Through our nights... / Yo mo sugara... (Fujiwara no Teishi)
Among the eighteen poems, the newest ones are from early 13th century, the oldest – from 9th. There are tens of thousands of poems that reach us from those times and even earlier, and an entire world of metaphor and wordplay that hides in those old words.
I could talk about it all for days. It is, after all, my day job. So if anything caught your eye, if you caught yourself wondering what hue does a word have in that world, if you would like to hear more, then throw those questions my way and I will try to respond.
When I thought of keeping a PhD diary, I did not think that a large part of it would be recorded as my own piano music. But here we are. 100 minutes of music later. And it has only been a few months.
Recorded new music. Listened. Meh, I thought. And now that I'm listening for maybe third or fourth time, it's hitting pretty hard. It's pretty good. It tickles the mind in a funny way. It always does.
Spring semester has just ended in Japan and so I see undergrad exchange students getting ready to return to their home universities, preparing to write their undergrad theses, thinking of grad school, searching and sorting through their options. And I know the feeling, I have been there too. Years ago. And now I'm in a place many of them hope to reach someday. Now I'm the person they come to talk to.
There is a part of me that had hoped I would love another piano more but playing it is like being in the presence of gods and now there is no way back.
There is a part of me that had hoped I would love another piano more but playing it is like being in the presence of gods and now there is no way back.
A month ago I decided that I need new music to listen to while working. So I composed, recorded, and kind of edited it (still learning). Now I have a playlist. If I continue this way, my PhD will have a soundtrack 🫠
Sometimes I just sit there quietly minding my own business and out of nowhere stumble upon poetry that tickles something deep within. And then I have to translate. (Translation is mine.)
Records from Tango Province (Tango Fudoki 丹後風土記): poem 14
こらにこひ あさとをひらきわがをればとこよのはまのなみのときこゆ
Kora ni koi / asato o hiraki / wa ga oreba / tokoyo no hama no / nami no to kikoyu
Yearning for her
the door of morning opens
and as I sit there,
from the shores of Eternal World
sound of waves reaches me.
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