I commented to Alisa tonight that I’m introverted and shy. She wrinkled her forehead and tilted her head at me. “Really? Are you sure?”
Well, maybe if I’d been watching me at karaoke yesterday I wouldn’t believe it either...
That’s the same reaction I got from Celeste and Elena last summer when I mentioned how shy I am. “You? Are you kidding?” Am I picturing an outdated version of myself, sitting in the girls’ bathroom during free periods freshman year of high school because I became paralyzed when confronted with the idea of finding somewhere to sit in the library near other students? Remembering how proud of myself I felt one day sophomore year when I exchanged a full two or three sentences with Jason Karl (a guy!)? Thinking of that girl who avoided study breaks freshman year of college because she didn’t know how to join in all the teasing and banter?
Apparently, I don’t come across as shy now. So why do I feel shy? I think the way Mark phrased it once is key: that introverted and extroverted are separated by what recharges and refreshes you. That extroverts feel the most relaxed immersing themselves in people and activity. Socializing exhausts me, even when it’s fun.
Also, I stress. I worry constantly about whether I can pull it off, seeming interesting and funny and worth getting to know. Maybe I have a vision of a truly social, outgoing person who doesn’t feel all this insecurity, who can mingle and chat and banter effortlessly. Maybe such people exist...but I wouldn’t really know. If I come across as open and outgoing...then how do I know that the people I envy don’t go home at night and replay conversations in their head and feel exhausted and intimidated, too?
So perhaps it’s time I updated my self-image, and gave myself credit for coming a rather long way from hiding in the bathroom to avoid social interaction. All the way to singing Japanese rock songs and discussing my views of erotic Japanese manga with people I’ve just met.
When did this happen?
Actually, karaoke didn’t exhaust me; it gave me a buzz that lasted for a couple hours, so that even at 2:30 in the morning when I should have been sleepy, I was lying in bed singing out loud to myself. That was, I believe, because of the music more than anything – I forget how much joy I get from singing, and in particular from singing with other people. Singing “Barbie World” (or whatever that song is called) with other ALTs at karaoke is a far cry from strolling through the Battlefield singing The Water is Wide in harmony with Lindsey and Deirdre...but it taps into a similar sort of pleasure for me. I guess even singing in the car is missing something, that communal sense.
That said, I did buy blank CDs yesterday and printed out a CD of hide songs to use as driving music until I get around to printing more different CDs. It makes winding around the endless curves between here and Muraoka much less tedious. ^_^
Now whenever I listen to a song I wonder if they have it on karaoke and feel like I should learn all the lyrics just in case. Right now I’m listening to an anime theme song...aru kana...maybe next time I’m stealing wireless internet, I’ll look up various lyrics.
This weekend there’s a big gathering being arranged in Toyooka of JETs and random other foreigners and Japanese people who like hanging out with foreigners. I think I’m planning to go, although right now I’m feeling intimidated by the idea of getting myself there, and the idea of spending the night with what Jarryd said would probably be “twenty or thirty people” that I don’t know. (This was, incidentally, the topic of the conversation in which I mentioned being introverted.) The plan is apparently dinner and karaoke. Karaoke with five people was one thing...but yeesh. Neither Jarryd nor Alisa will be there. Chotto, kowai...
(Oh yeah; I’ve been typing in romaji, mainly because of finding out that Japanese characters don’t copy and paste from Word into blogspot properly, and partly as a concession to those of you who don’t know Japanese. But if you don’t know Japanese, does being able to pronounce something help? You can copy and paste Japanese characters into JDIC just as well, in fact better, if you care enough to try to figure out the meaning...So fair warning, when I start being able to type directly to my blog, no more of this lame romaji! Everyone should learn kana in any case; it’s good for your soul.)
Despite waking up at 8:39 this morning (to my doorbell...turned out I’d slept through my alarm and had failed to show up across the street at 8:20 as I’d promised to. Whoops!), I don’t feel sleepy. I should probably try to head to bed, through. Tentative plan for tomorrow is to get up relatively early, do some laundry, then stop and do a little bit of shopping on my way to Muraoka to use wireless internet. I’m hoping some people will be online then (late evening EDT/early evening PDT...otherwise known as sometime before you’re reading this, since I won’t post this until I’m there obviously, heh) and maybe I’ll get to Skype and actually hear the voice of someone I really know for the first time in a few weeks. I’ll also try to be productive and work on Japanese and math. In the evening if it’s not too hot I’ll take a walk around Kasumi and get to know it a bit better. The next day, or sometime soon, maybe I’ll drive around to some of the more scenic spots and take pictures – with my phone, which isn’t a great camera, but is best we can do.
Have I mentioned how much I miss you all? (Well, if you’re reading this, chances are we’re pretty close and that I miss you...unless you’re some sort of creepy stalker. In which case, sorry, but I don’t miss you. You can skip the rest of this paragraph.) So far I’ve been on a little bit of a high from all the new-ness and feeling my way around my life here, and it’s been great and I’ve been feeling mainly excited and happy...but at some moments it sinks in a little bit that I’m not going to actually see any of the people I love for another year or more. Well, possibly briefly in the winter for some people. But it’s just so different from seeing people every day at dinner, or around the math lounge, or being home a few times a month and for vacations. When I have to “catch up” with people, rather than just existing in each other’s everyday lives.
And on the topic of catching up, the next two weeks are going to be in fact the easiest time to really hang out with people for a while; once school starts at the beginning of September, my schedule will become less flexible. Until then, my supervisor has instructed me to spend my time getting to know the area and having fun. (“And I’m really getting paid for August?” I asked. “Of course!” “But I’m not doing any work...” “Well, you’re working on getting used to being in Japan.” Hey, I’ll take 300,000 yen for that any day... ^_^) And until Jeff gets back from Canada, I have internet that I can be at with about 40 minutes notice. So anyone who has a bit of free time at a reasonable Japanese hour (EDT + 13) and wants to Skype or something should email me on my phone (if you don’t know that address, check my facebook) and name your time, and chances are relatively good I’ll make it. The internet is near Jarryd and Alisa, so if I’m being social I’ll probably be down there anyway.
I watched an episode of anime earlier, for the first time since actually being in Japan. This isn’t a very deep thought...but watching it, even after being here for like two weeks, felt different. I think it’s set in a not-too-big town near water, somewhat like Kasumi (although not actually Kasumi, as far as I know...), and just little things about how the streets look, and the odd giant concrete jacks (well they look just like jacks!) next to the water...I kept noticing little things that feel familiar and real now that I wouldn’t have paid particular attention to before. Details that create the atmosphere of this sort of town that I guess I would have just taken on faith, or subconsciously classified as just part of the art style, suddenly make it feel grounded in something I’ve actually experience a little bit of.
A few days ago I finally, finally, read You Remind Me Of You, Miss Corrigan’s first book. What was most odd about it, for me, was how the majority of the places mentioned – various houses, dorms, apartments, hospitals – were like any place in a book; I constructed a vague mental image based on the description given, but mainly coming from some sort of subconscious visual imagination. And then suddenly, she’d mention Elm Farm, or the spot by the canal where people go to smoke, or the freshman locker area...and my vague mental imagery would be interrupted with actual knowledge of those places. I almost wanted to experience the book without that knowledge, to see Elm Farm as it would have felt to me just based on the words on the page. Still, there’s a certain thrill in being able to latch on to something so specific and real.
I’m reminded of a conversation with Lucy about anime: she said she by and large didn’t like watching animated movies because somehow it felt caught in the middle between a book and a movie; like she wasn’t being shown something that actually looks like real people, real places, real things, but she also wasn’t given the freedom to visualize things in her own mind. So she felt stuck with, for her, unsatisfying depictions of a world that her mind didn’t know quite what to do with, that she couldn’t quite take at face value because it doesn’t look like anything quite real. I hope I’m paraphrasing her fairly.
Sometimes I’m in a mood where I don’t feel like watching a live action movie because it’s too real; too cluttered somehow. When I want something that takes me a little bit outside the normal physical world. And I don’t feel like reading a book, having to do all that mental work myself. If I’m mentally tired in a certain way, I balk at that task. In those moods all I want to watch is anime. I want a world where every image is there because someone decided it should be; where artistic intention went into each leaf that quivers on a tree, each book scattered on a desk, each sound of cars passing in the background. Where the world is a purposefully aesthetically satisfying version of itself. It’s not exactly an escape from reality: ideally, the characters, emotions, philosophies, jokes, would all be as real as anything. But it’s a reality given to me through a certain artistic lens. I like that the world, in a lot of anime, is pointedly beautiful. Not that the non-animated world isn’t. But sometimes I just want to sink into a movie where each image is a work of art, where I get pleasure from the actual viewing of the frames, as much as from the plot.
I guess it just doesn’t bother me that everyone’s eyes are too big and their hair behaves oddly. I don’t need them to look more “realistic” in order to seem like real people. But maybe that just has to do with getting used to the style.
Of course, some contemporary American animation I find so unpleasant that I have a hard time watching it, even if people tell me the show/movie is really good. I can just barely deal with the Simpsons – maybe because a lot of the episodes I’ve watched are just so funny that they don’t give you time to object to the animation style – but I have a hard time with, say, Family Guy. And with some of these computer animated, pseudo-3D movies. So I’m not unsympathetic to Lucy; I can understand the feeling of being shown a world that I’m not satisfied with, that distracts me from the story because I don’t want to picture people that way. But good, well-drawn anime doesn’t feel like that to me. It feels more like it captures something real about the world and just shifts the style a bit to highlight it, bring out the art in it.
Was that too much bold?
I’m not a real connoisseur of anything, am I? I have the things I care about, things that have fallen (or been shoved) across my path, but outside of that I always have to admit I don’t really know anything. People ask me what anime I like and can list a few but always with the caveat that I haven’t actually watched that much. And each comes with a disclaimer: well I watched Yugioh because my little brother was into it; I’ve only seen any Cowboy Bepop because my friend Lisa forced me to watch it; and so on. I add the disclaimers not because I don’t legitimately like the ones I like, but because I don’t want to give the impression that it is my considered opinion, having considered all anime out there, or even a good chunk, that these are my favorite. The ones I like are ones I’ve happened upon and then clicked with. Same with the music I listen to. Miura-san said the other day “so, you don’t really like anime that much, do you?” And I tried to explain that a good percentage of the anime I’ve ever watched I’ve enjoyed or even loved, but that I don’t put a lot of effort into looking for new shows to watch on my own. I had a similar conversation about music yesterday with Jarryd and Alisa, when they were somewhat confused by my somewhat random and limited knowledge of popular music. Why is it that when I find something I love, it isn’t my first (or second or third) impulse to go out and search for other similar things? In fact, I rebel actively against that, as though it would be disloyal.
I suppose with so much out there that I would indeed love, the idea of trying actively to find things intimidates me. It’s easier if I just let things come to me naturally; then I feel a personal connection to them, like I was meant to find them. I was writing about something similar to this a little while ago wasn’t I? Was that on here in or in an email?
In any case, it’s getting late. I’m not in the mood to sleep, but sleep I must. Or at least sleep I ought. Maybe I’ll watch another episode of anime in bed; perhaps trying to follow Japanese dialogue will convince my brain it ought to shut down for the night.
Perhaps I should have saved MISERY for later...I fear my dedication to explaining song lyrics might be wavering. So perhaps instead I’ll limit my lessons to the lyrics I quote at the end of posts.
Oh yeah, in the car on the way home yesterday, talking about hide, Alisa said she could never listen to someone whose songs were so depressing and negative. Well, I suppose I’d only explained the plot of HONEY BLADE, and she’d seen the video to PINK SPIDER. Not two of his most uplifting moments. And yet my immediate reaction was “what are you talking about? hide is all about being positive and celebrating life...” I tried to explain MISERY to them, what a positive song it is: “It’s about accepting all the sadness and pain and making it part of you...” That didn’t end up sounding very positive. (“Emo,” Alisa said.) But it is positive. And so many of his songs are about breaking out of the limits that you impose on yourself or society imposes on you (Genkai Haretsu, SCANNER, ROCKET DIVE, DICE, BEAUTY&STUPID...), and about learning to enjoy even the meaningless, confusing, messy, frustrating parts of life (hi-ho, OBLAAT...). And even the sadder, more serious, more depressing songs have a subtlety to them; they’re not just twisted, depressed rants at life. So let’s have a bit of OBLAAT, although I’m sure I’ve quoted it before, to highlight hide’s more......well, I was going to say “positive side”, but maybe that word doesn’t capture this song. A song about manipulating how you see the world to purposefully put a positive spin on things. “Mite minu furu yori wa mashi sa: Me o hiraite, nani mo miru na.” Better than not looking, open your eyes and see nothing. Is that uplifting or depressing? Neither?
Hadashi de arukeba ishi mo sasaru sa.
Vobaculary:
hadashi = barefoot
aruku = to walk
ishi = stone(s)
sasaru = be pierced
Syntax: The “de” is marking, like, means/mode, and the verb is in the conditional: if you walk barefoot. Then what? You’re pierced by stones. (The “sa”, incidentally, is a sentence ending particle that I covet; hide uses it quite often for emphasis, and it’s one of my favorites, but it’s not used much, and apparently not used at all in my part of Japan...)
Ame no hi, kasa sasanakya zubu nure ni naru darou.
Vocabulary:
ame = rain
hi = day
kasa = umbrella (a fun word when speaking Espango)
sasu = to open (an umbrella, specifically)
zubu nure = sopping wet
naru = become
Syntax: Ame no hi, a day of rain. We’re missing an object particle after “kasa”. The verb is in a negative form (sasanai), which in turn is in a conditional (sasanakereba; i-adjectives can be made conditional by replacing –i with –kereba). Which in turn is contracted to “sasanakya”. So, if you don’t use an umbrella. Then what? Well, logically enough, you will become sopping wet. (“ni” marks the goal of becoming, and “darou” gives that should/will sense). Do note the three “sa” syllables in a row; quite fun to sing.
Sono teido sa, warau dake sa.
Vocabulary:
sono = that
teido = degree
warau = to laugh
dake = only
Syntax: This isn’t exactly any sort of intricately well-formed sentence. As best as I understand it, it just says “that degree, just laugh.” Meaning like, that’s the extent of it, and all you can/should do is laugh. Again, note the aesthetic zing of the “sa”s...In fact, in this whole chorus, that syllable occurs eight times. No one can convince me that hide didn’t put a lot of poetic thought into his lyrics...
Never mind my friends, hadashi de arukeba ishi mo sasaru sa.
So make it rough, make me high.
Never mind my friends, ame no hi kasa sasanakya zubu nure ni naru darou.
Sono teido sa, warau dake sa.
Take it easy dear my friends...
Well, maybe if I’d been watching me at karaoke yesterday I wouldn’t believe it either...
That’s the same reaction I got from Celeste and Elena last summer when I mentioned how shy I am. “You? Are you kidding?” Am I picturing an outdated version of myself, sitting in the girls’ bathroom during free periods freshman year of high school because I became paralyzed when confronted with the idea of finding somewhere to sit in the library near other students? Remembering how proud of myself I felt one day sophomore year when I exchanged a full two or three sentences with Jason Karl (a guy!)? Thinking of that girl who avoided study breaks freshman year of college because she didn’t know how to join in all the teasing and banter?
Apparently, I don’t come across as shy now. So why do I feel shy? I think the way Mark phrased it once is key: that introverted and extroverted are separated by what recharges and refreshes you. That extroverts feel the most relaxed immersing themselves in people and activity. Socializing exhausts me, even when it’s fun.
Also, I stress. I worry constantly about whether I can pull it off, seeming interesting and funny and worth getting to know. Maybe I have a vision of a truly social, outgoing person who doesn’t feel all this insecurity, who can mingle and chat and banter effortlessly. Maybe such people exist...but I wouldn’t really know. If I come across as open and outgoing...then how do I know that the people I envy don’t go home at night and replay conversations in their head and feel exhausted and intimidated, too?
So perhaps it’s time I updated my self-image, and gave myself credit for coming a rather long way from hiding in the bathroom to avoid social interaction. All the way to singing Japanese rock songs and discussing my views of erotic Japanese manga with people I’ve just met.
When did this happen?
Actually, karaoke didn’t exhaust me; it gave me a buzz that lasted for a couple hours, so that even at 2:30 in the morning when I should have been sleepy, I was lying in bed singing out loud to myself. That was, I believe, because of the music more than anything – I forget how much joy I get from singing, and in particular from singing with other people. Singing “Barbie World” (or whatever that song is called) with other ALTs at karaoke is a far cry from strolling through the Battlefield singing The Water is Wide in harmony with Lindsey and Deirdre...but it taps into a similar sort of pleasure for me. I guess even singing in the car is missing something, that communal sense.
That said, I did buy blank CDs yesterday and printed out a CD of hide songs to use as driving music until I get around to printing more different CDs. It makes winding around the endless curves between here and Muraoka much less tedious. ^_^
Now whenever I listen to a song I wonder if they have it on karaoke and feel like I should learn all the lyrics just in case. Right now I’m listening to an anime theme song...aru kana...maybe next time I’m stealing wireless internet, I’ll look up various lyrics.
This weekend there’s a big gathering being arranged in Toyooka of JETs and random other foreigners and Japanese people who like hanging out with foreigners. I think I’m planning to go, although right now I’m feeling intimidated by the idea of getting myself there, and the idea of spending the night with what Jarryd said would probably be “twenty or thirty people” that I don’t know. (This was, incidentally, the topic of the conversation in which I mentioned being introverted.) The plan is apparently dinner and karaoke. Karaoke with five people was one thing...but yeesh. Neither Jarryd nor Alisa will be there. Chotto, kowai...
(Oh yeah; I’ve been typing in romaji, mainly because of finding out that Japanese characters don’t copy and paste from Word into blogspot properly, and partly as a concession to those of you who don’t know Japanese. But if you don’t know Japanese, does being able to pronounce something help? You can copy and paste Japanese characters into JDIC just as well, in fact better, if you care enough to try to figure out the meaning...So fair warning, when I start being able to type directly to my blog, no more of this lame romaji! Everyone should learn kana in any case; it’s good for your soul.)
Despite waking up at 8:39 this morning (to my doorbell...turned out I’d slept through my alarm and had failed to show up across the street at 8:20 as I’d promised to. Whoops!), I don’t feel sleepy. I should probably try to head to bed, through. Tentative plan for tomorrow is to get up relatively early, do some laundry, then stop and do a little bit of shopping on my way to Muraoka to use wireless internet. I’m hoping some people will be online then (late evening EDT/early evening PDT...otherwise known as sometime before you’re reading this, since I won’t post this until I’m there obviously, heh) and maybe I’ll get to Skype and actually hear the voice of someone I really know for the first time in a few weeks. I’ll also try to be productive and work on Japanese and math. In the evening if it’s not too hot I’ll take a walk around Kasumi and get to know it a bit better. The next day, or sometime soon, maybe I’ll drive around to some of the more scenic spots and take pictures – with my phone, which isn’t a great camera, but is best we can do.
Have I mentioned how much I miss you all? (Well, if you’re reading this, chances are we’re pretty close and that I miss you...unless you’re some sort of creepy stalker. In which case, sorry, but I don’t miss you. You can skip the rest of this paragraph.) So far I’ve been on a little bit of a high from all the new-ness and feeling my way around my life here, and it’s been great and I’ve been feeling mainly excited and happy...but at some moments it sinks in a little bit that I’m not going to actually see any of the people I love for another year or more. Well, possibly briefly in the winter for some people. But it’s just so different from seeing people every day at dinner, or around the math lounge, or being home a few times a month and for vacations. When I have to “catch up” with people, rather than just existing in each other’s everyday lives.
And on the topic of catching up, the next two weeks are going to be in fact the easiest time to really hang out with people for a while; once school starts at the beginning of September, my schedule will become less flexible. Until then, my supervisor has instructed me to spend my time getting to know the area and having fun. (“And I’m really getting paid for August?” I asked. “Of course!” “But I’m not doing any work...” “Well, you’re working on getting used to being in Japan.” Hey, I’ll take 300,000 yen for that any day... ^_^) And until Jeff gets back from Canada, I have internet that I can be at with about 40 minutes notice. So anyone who has a bit of free time at a reasonable Japanese hour (EDT + 13) and wants to Skype or something should email me on my phone (if you don’t know that address, check my facebook) and name your time, and chances are relatively good I’ll make it. The internet is near Jarryd and Alisa, so if I’m being social I’ll probably be down there anyway.
I watched an episode of anime earlier, for the first time since actually being in Japan. This isn’t a very deep thought...but watching it, even after being here for like two weeks, felt different. I think it’s set in a not-too-big town near water, somewhat like Kasumi (although not actually Kasumi, as far as I know...), and just little things about how the streets look, and the odd giant concrete jacks (well they look just like jacks!) next to the water...I kept noticing little things that feel familiar and real now that I wouldn’t have paid particular attention to before. Details that create the atmosphere of this sort of town that I guess I would have just taken on faith, or subconsciously classified as just part of the art style, suddenly make it feel grounded in something I’ve actually experience a little bit of.
A few days ago I finally, finally, read You Remind Me Of You, Miss Corrigan’s first book. What was most odd about it, for me, was how the majority of the places mentioned – various houses, dorms, apartments, hospitals – were like any place in a book; I constructed a vague mental image based on the description given, but mainly coming from some sort of subconscious visual imagination. And then suddenly, she’d mention Elm Farm, or the spot by the canal where people go to smoke, or the freshman locker area...and my vague mental imagery would be interrupted with actual knowledge of those places. I almost wanted to experience the book without that knowledge, to see Elm Farm as it would have felt to me just based on the words on the page. Still, there’s a certain thrill in being able to latch on to something so specific and real.
I’m reminded of a conversation with Lucy about anime: she said she by and large didn’t like watching animated movies because somehow it felt caught in the middle between a book and a movie; like she wasn’t being shown something that actually looks like real people, real places, real things, but she also wasn’t given the freedom to visualize things in her own mind. So she felt stuck with, for her, unsatisfying depictions of a world that her mind didn’t know quite what to do with, that she couldn’t quite take at face value because it doesn’t look like anything quite real. I hope I’m paraphrasing her fairly.
Sometimes I’m in a mood where I don’t feel like watching a live action movie because it’s too real; too cluttered somehow. When I want something that takes me a little bit outside the normal physical world. And I don’t feel like reading a book, having to do all that mental work myself. If I’m mentally tired in a certain way, I balk at that task. In those moods all I want to watch is anime. I want a world where every image is there because someone decided it should be; where artistic intention went into each leaf that quivers on a tree, each book scattered on a desk, each sound of cars passing in the background. Where the world is a purposefully aesthetically satisfying version of itself. It’s not exactly an escape from reality: ideally, the characters, emotions, philosophies, jokes, would all be as real as anything. But it’s a reality given to me through a certain artistic lens. I like that the world, in a lot of anime, is pointedly beautiful. Not that the non-animated world isn’t. But sometimes I just want to sink into a movie where each image is a work of art, where I get pleasure from the actual viewing of the frames, as much as from the plot.
I guess it just doesn’t bother me that everyone’s eyes are too big and their hair behaves oddly. I don’t need them to look more “realistic” in order to seem like real people. But maybe that just has to do with getting used to the style.
Of course, some contemporary American animation I find so unpleasant that I have a hard time watching it, even if people tell me the show/movie is really good. I can just barely deal with the Simpsons – maybe because a lot of the episodes I’ve watched are just so funny that they don’t give you time to object to the animation style – but I have a hard time with, say, Family Guy. And with some of these computer animated, pseudo-3D movies. So I’m not unsympathetic to Lucy; I can understand the feeling of being shown a world that I’m not satisfied with, that distracts me from the story because I don’t want to picture people that way. But good, well-drawn anime doesn’t feel like that to me. It feels more like it captures something real about the world and just shifts the style a bit to highlight it, bring out the art in it.
Was that too much bold?
I’m not a real connoisseur of anything, am I? I have the things I care about, things that have fallen (or been shoved) across my path, but outside of that I always have to admit I don’t really know anything. People ask me what anime I like and can list a few but always with the caveat that I haven’t actually watched that much. And each comes with a disclaimer: well I watched Yugioh because my little brother was into it; I’ve only seen any Cowboy Bepop because my friend Lisa forced me to watch it; and so on. I add the disclaimers not because I don’t legitimately like the ones I like, but because I don’t want to give the impression that it is my considered opinion, having considered all anime out there, or even a good chunk, that these are my favorite. The ones I like are ones I’ve happened upon and then clicked with. Same with the music I listen to. Miura-san said the other day “so, you don’t really like anime that much, do you?” And I tried to explain that a good percentage of the anime I’ve ever watched I’ve enjoyed or even loved, but that I don’t put a lot of effort into looking for new shows to watch on my own. I had a similar conversation about music yesterday with Jarryd and Alisa, when they were somewhat confused by my somewhat random and limited knowledge of popular music. Why is it that when I find something I love, it isn’t my first (or second or third) impulse to go out and search for other similar things? In fact, I rebel actively against that, as though it would be disloyal.
I suppose with so much out there that I would indeed love, the idea of trying actively to find things intimidates me. It’s easier if I just let things come to me naturally; then I feel a personal connection to them, like I was meant to find them. I was writing about something similar to this a little while ago wasn’t I? Was that on here in or in an email?
In any case, it’s getting late. I’m not in the mood to sleep, but sleep I must. Or at least sleep I ought. Maybe I’ll watch another episode of anime in bed; perhaps trying to follow Japanese dialogue will convince my brain it ought to shut down for the night.
Perhaps I should have saved MISERY for later...I fear my dedication to explaining song lyrics might be wavering. So perhaps instead I’ll limit my lessons to the lyrics I quote at the end of posts.
Oh yeah, in the car on the way home yesterday, talking about hide, Alisa said she could never listen to someone whose songs were so depressing and negative. Well, I suppose I’d only explained the plot of HONEY BLADE, and she’d seen the video to PINK SPIDER. Not two of his most uplifting moments. And yet my immediate reaction was “what are you talking about? hide is all about being positive and celebrating life...” I tried to explain MISERY to them, what a positive song it is: “It’s about accepting all the sadness and pain and making it part of you...” That didn’t end up sounding very positive. (“Emo,” Alisa said.) But it is positive. And so many of his songs are about breaking out of the limits that you impose on yourself or society imposes on you (Genkai Haretsu, SCANNER, ROCKET DIVE, DICE, BEAUTY&STUPID...), and about learning to enjoy even the meaningless, confusing, messy, frustrating parts of life (hi-ho, OBLAAT...). And even the sadder, more serious, more depressing songs have a subtlety to them; they’re not just twisted, depressed rants at life. So let’s have a bit of OBLAAT, although I’m sure I’ve quoted it before, to highlight hide’s more......well, I was going to say “positive side”, but maybe that word doesn’t capture this song. A song about manipulating how you see the world to purposefully put a positive spin on things. “Mite minu furu yori wa mashi sa: Me o hiraite, nani mo miru na.” Better than not looking, open your eyes and see nothing. Is that uplifting or depressing? Neither?
Hadashi de arukeba ishi mo sasaru sa.
Vobaculary:
hadashi = barefoot
aruku = to walk
ishi = stone(s)
sasaru = be pierced
Syntax: The “de” is marking, like, means/mode, and the verb is in the conditional: if you walk barefoot. Then what? You’re pierced by stones. (The “sa”, incidentally, is a sentence ending particle that I covet; hide uses it quite often for emphasis, and it’s one of my favorites, but it’s not used much, and apparently not used at all in my part of Japan...)
Ame no hi, kasa sasanakya zubu nure ni naru darou.
Vocabulary:
ame = rain
hi = day
kasa = umbrella (a fun word when speaking Espango)
sasu = to open (an umbrella, specifically)
zubu nure = sopping wet
naru = become
Syntax: Ame no hi, a day of rain. We’re missing an object particle after “kasa”. The verb is in a negative form (sasanai), which in turn is in a conditional (sasanakereba; i-adjectives can be made conditional by replacing –i with –kereba). Which in turn is contracted to “sasanakya”. So, if you don’t use an umbrella. Then what? Well, logically enough, you will become sopping wet. (“ni” marks the goal of becoming, and “darou” gives that should/will sense). Do note the three “sa” syllables in a row; quite fun to sing.
Sono teido sa, warau dake sa.
Vocabulary:
sono = that
teido = degree
warau = to laugh
dake = only
Syntax: This isn’t exactly any sort of intricately well-formed sentence. As best as I understand it, it just says “that degree, just laugh.” Meaning like, that’s the extent of it, and all you can/should do is laugh. Again, note the aesthetic zing of the “sa”s...In fact, in this whole chorus, that syllable occurs eight times. No one can convince me that hide didn’t put a lot of poetic thought into his lyrics...
So make it rough, make me high.
Never mind my friends, ame no hi kasa sasanakya zubu nure ni naru darou.
Sono teido sa, warau dake sa.
Take it easy dear my friends...
posted by Ashila at 10:35 PM
2 Comments:
Nice girl.....
Regards
Online and Offline projects
nice....
regards
aegan stills, songs
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