Haruki Murakami talks travel in Paper Sky

Mark Twain pals around with Haruki in California

HARUKI MURAKAMI: NOMADIC SPIRIT

“From the beginning, Haruki Murakami wanted to get away. He left Kyoto for Kobe, Kobe for Tokyo, Tokyo for Europe and America. I met him eleven years ago and was instantly drawn to the man behind the art. Like Haruki, I am a writer who wanted to escape. For me, the destinations were reversed: I left America for Europe, then Japan. These days we arrange visits around our itineraries. I landed in Tokyo three days before this interview; the following day, Haruki boarded a plane.

Roland Kelts: What’s the value of writing so far from home? Why have you written so many books overseas?

Haruki Murakami: It’s easier for you to write about your own country when you’re far away. From a distance, you can look at your own country as it really is. I wrote “Norwegian Wood” when I was on several Greek islands, and in Rome and Palermo, Italy. “Dance, Dance, Dance” was mostly written in Rome, and partly in London. The first half of “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” was written in Princeton and the latter half in Cambridge. And I wrote “After The Quake” in the middle of Tokyo, in an isolated little house owned by my publisher. I guess I have a nomadic spirit inside me that I can’t keep down. Because I know that each one of those books is connected to each of the places where they were written. When I think of them, the scenes of the locations where I wrote them come to mind.

R: Why did you write those books in those places? Any reason?

H: For me, to write fiction is to have a certain kind of relationship with the imagination…” [more @ Paper Sky]

JP version:

作家・村上春樹 / 心の旅 NOMADIC SPIRIT

ROLAND KELTS、 2010年09月21日 JP ART, INTERVIEW

村上春樹は流浪の旅人である。神戸から東京へ、東京からヨーロッパへ、そしてアメリカへ。そうこうしているうちに、故郷の日本が悲劇に見舞われた。神戸での阪神大震災、そして東京での地下鉄サリン事件。その直後、村上春樹は故郷に飛んで帰った。５年前、彼に初めて会った瞬間から、私はこの才能溢れる芸術家に惹かれた。彼と同様に私自身も放浪癖を持つ物書きだが、私は村上春樹とは逆のルートを辿り、アメリカからヨーロッパへ、そして日本に行き着いた。今回のインタビューの３日前に私は東京に入り、インタビューの翌日早々に、村上春樹は飛行機で旅立った。

ローランド・ケルツ（以下、R）：自国から遠く離れた場所で執筆活動をする価値とは？　あなたはなぜ、多くの小説を海外で執筆するのですか。

村上春樹（以下、H）：僕は『ノルウェイの森』をギリシャのいくつかの島とイタリア（ローマとパレルモ）で書き、『ダンス・ダンス・ダンス』を主にローマで書き（一部はロンドン）、『ねじまき鳥クロニクル」の前半をニュージャージー州プリンストン、後半をマサチューセッツ州ケンブリッジで書きました。『スプートニクの恋人』はハワイのカウアイ島で書き、新しい作品『海辺のカフカ』は前半部をカウアイ島、後半部を日本（大磯という小さな海辺の町）で書きました。短編集『地震のあとで』は東京の真ん中にある静かな一軒家（出版社の所有していた家）で。僕は小説を書くことについていえば、かなり遊牧民（nomad）的な要素を持っているのかもしれない。だから僕の中では、ひとつひとつの作品が、それぞれの場所に結びついているという印象があります。

H：僕にとっては、小説を書くというのは、すなわちある種の非現実と関わりを持つということなので、ある程度日常生活から離れることが必要になるんです。だから多分僕はどこか「違った場所」に行って仕事をすることを求めるだろうと思う。日本でもアメリカでもヨーロッパでも、仕事に自由に集中できる場所であれば、特にどこでも構わないような気がする。現在のところはカウアウ島の北部が仕事場としては気に入っています。毎日雨がよく降るので、仕事に集中できるということもあるし。

R：場所自体は執筆に影響を与えますか？　それぞれの作品を振り返ってみて、イマジネーションが場所によってどのように色付されたのか、その色の違いなどを自覚したりしますか？[more @ Paper sky]

Yoshiki and X Japan invade the US

"Today the barriers to translation may not be as great, as social-networking tools have made it easier for bands to communicate directly with their fanbase. (While he professes no interest in Facebook or MySpace, Yoshiki finally opened a Twitter account during the run-up to X Japan's U.S. concert debut at Lollapalooza in early August—and garnered more than 12,000 followers in less than 12 hours.) Another reason for optimism lies in a larger cultural shift, wherein Japanese artists have proved ever-more adept at appropriating bits and pieces of American culture and returning them in new and exciting forms. 'We're in an age of mashups, fan sites, bit torrents and YouTube," says Roland Kelts, author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S. "A culture that mastered the art of imitating and copying original ideas is right in tune with the 21st century.'" [more @ Details magazine]

Anime, manga and handheld fun, via iPad

@Animation Magazine

More Kon

@TCJ here

"The past is never dead. In fact, it's not even past."

-William Faulkner

Resurfacing w/my peeps in New England, 2010

My peeps @ the beach

Larry Kelts (jazz-drummer) and me @ Ipswich.

Kaori Saeki (mum) and me back @ Boston.

Trevor and Twig taking it easy.

On Tokyo's 'Japaneseness' for Paper Sky (JP only)

TinierMe getting bigger than you: 500,000 US-based users

TinierMe CEO Masaru Ohnogi @ Tokyo headquarters

"This summer, TinierMe announced that it has surpassed the one-million user milestone, and today boasts over 1,175,000 distinct users. But this week, an even more significant number hits the streets and screens: over half a million of TinierMe’s current users worldwide are based in the United States, suggesting that the American audience for Japanese-made and -styled characters and environments continues to expand, even in a decidedly lackluster consumer market." [more @ TCJ]

Satoshi Kon, 1963-2010

SOFT POWER HARD TRUTHS / World of anime director Satoshi Kon still alive

Roland Kelts / Special to The Daily Yomiuri

I was soaking my bones in a riverside rotenburo when news of anime director Satoshi Kon's death flashed across my cell phone via text message from Tokyo. Must be a macabre joke, I thought at first glance, though the friend who sent it isn't given to jabs of dark humor.

Maybe a promotional gambit for Kon's next work? His films are characterized in part by multiple realities and unexpected shifts among them, so that just when you think something is really happening, perhaps it isn't. After all, typing or even thinking about the phrase, "the late Satoshi Kon," just didn't feel right.

But I returned to Tokyo and the banal and humbling truth: Kon, one of the most gifted, innovative and searchingly intelligent artists working in the anime medium and the film world at large, died on the morning of Aug. 24 from pancreatic cancer--at the age of 46. [continued here]

On virtual girlfriends (Love Plus+)

On The Alyona Show -- and straight off the plane from Tokyo (hence all the blinking against sleep, pills and jet lag).