Booings and bravos

In order for a work of performing art to be maintained in a living condition, it needs to be refreshed in the styles of times. The concerns close to people's heart, the joys and fears of the common man change with the passage of eras. A presentation of a work, no matter how vivid and appropriate within the context of a particular time, tends to fade away in relevance in the face of a new period.

These were the thoughts invoked as I left the theatre after attending the performance of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Bayreuth Festspiele, on 14th August 2009), conducted by Sebastian Weigle and directed by Katharina Wagner.

Katharina Wagner's Meistersinger premiered in July 2007. It was heavily booed. The fact that people boo certain productions is a testimony that opera is taken very seriously. The production of Der Ring der Nibelungen directed by Patrice Chéreau and conducted by Pierre Boulez, for example, was booed on the first night to such an extent that it became a scandal. The perception of the audience can then go through a dramatic transfiguration. In its final staging in 1980, on the night of Götterdämmerung, Chéreau and Boulez's Ring received 101 curtain calls which lasted for 90 minutes.

It remains to be seen how Katharina's production will be finally received. It is certainly a very interesting production. It is, which is important more than anything else, also very courageous. The fact that the great granddaughter of Richard Wagner is bold enough to try this brand new philosophy of staging is reassuring for the future of the Bayreuth festival.

Katharina herself says thus. “Being booed belongs to the job description of a director.” ( New York times, July 31, 2007)

The progress of the human spirit is a very complex and dynamic process. Booings and bravos are the fuels that propel its procession.



Image from Katharina Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, from Wagneropra.net

Eternal solitude

The performance of Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Peter Schneider and directed by Christoph Marthaler (Bayreuth Festspiele, on 13th August 2009), left a very vivid and stinging aftertaste.

At first, during the 1st and 2nd act, the intentions of Marthaler was not apparent to this observer. The singers kept a very detached stature overall. At the end of the 1st act, for example, apprehending the approach of King Marke the four (Tristan, Isolde, Brangane, and Kurwenal) try to compose themselves by sitting stiff in geometrically arranged chairs.

The contrived and restricted manner in which everyone acted transfigured into significant and moving meaning, as, at the end of the 3rd act, after singing the final words assigned to each, first Kurwenal, then Marke, and finally Brangane turned away from the world, standing in an upright position, face to the wall.

Isolde herself, after singing the beautiful Liebestod alone in the bed that Tristan has been lying, finally lies on the bed, covering her body and face with the white sheet.

So the opera ends with people encapsulated in the isolation of each, distanced from other people, no matter dead or alive. And the love itself, glued by the poignant word "und", is emancipated and lost for ever in the ocean of eternal solitude.



Image from the final act of Marthaler's Tristan und Isolde, from
Wagneropra.net

Tristan und Isolde

On 13th August 2009, I attended a performance at the Bayreuth Festspiele for the first time in my life. It was Tristan und Isolde.

Repetition leads

So I have come to Munich, in translation to Bayreuth.

I have visited Munich many times. Whenever I can, I listen to operas, preferably Wagner, in the National Theatre. Compared to the dense metropolis in other nations, German capitals tend to be more sparsely inhabited, reflecting, perhaps, the character of the German people. Always keeping a proud distance.

Repetition leads to the realization of life's continuity. Visiting a familiar city reminds one of the former times, how you were young, innocent, and ignorant. With age one gets some chunks of wisdom, but the ignorance persists in a different form.

I bought three books on Wagner in the Hauptbahhof. Reading them would give me the much needed opportunity to refresh my German.

Today, I travel to Bayreuth, to meet my long waited fate. I would be listening to Tristan und Isolde. The greatest and most intensely romantic piece of art ever.

And there will be life

Lands in Tokyo, like in any cotemporary city of big lights, are heavily utilized. It was a rare occasion that a space near my house, after the demolition of buildings that occupied the land, was left unattended for the summer.

At first, it looked like a barren land. Soon the weeds began to grow. Now, it is like a jungle of miscellaneous vegetations. Flowers bloom here and there. Butterflies and dragonflies take advantage of the sudden growth of wilderness in the busy cityscape by flying over the green extension.

It is a testimony again that nature, when given sufficient space and time, can take care of itself. It does not require an active intervention on the part of humans. Just let nature go its own way, and there will be life.

I suspect that some essential parts of nature are victimized by our shortsighted meddlings. The unconscious is like the nature, and too much interference by the conscious can disrupt its carefree dynamics.

I take the scene of green apparitions that emerged in the rare open land as a testimony of the importance of autonomy, natural and unconscious.

Expectations

This summer, within a few days, I would be traveling to Bayreuth for the first time in my life.

I will be listening to the performances of Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, and Parsifal.

Naturally I am filled with great expectations. Wagner was, has been, and is the creative genius of my love, and attending the Bayreuth festival has been one of my dreams.

I am 46 now. To think it took more than 30 years to realize one's wish inspires one with strange emotions.

There are many spiritual creatures lurking in one's expectations. They have their own life forms, timelines for development. Sometimes they bear fruit, and other times perish. To come to something in actuality has nothing to do with the fulfilment of one's expectations. Expectations have their own territory, where Queens and Kings with no parallels in the real world reign in the darkness and mist.

When I am seated in the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, and the lights go out, as the first notes resound, I will have finally found a restful tomb for all these wonderful creatures that have been lurking in my expectations.

Tears of onceness.

When the onceness of life touches us, tears drop from the eyes.

Yesterday, there was a wedding party. Shinichi Nozawa, a Ph.D student in my laboratory at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and Emiko Ito, an editor at the publishing house Chikumashobo, were married.

In Japanese wedding festivities, it is customary that the newly-wed couple present flower bouquets to their parents at the end of the party, expressing gratitude.

As the pair approached the parents, they already appeared to be on the verge of crying.

The childhood days when they clung to the knees of their parents. The entrance ceremonies of elementary school. The cherry blossoms. The sports meeting, with parents watching the child run. The graduation of universities. Parents treated by the first salary of life.

All these things, with the inevitable procession of time, surround the couple. Shinichi and Emiko cry. The tears are the crystals of their happiness, the epitome of passage of life.

Here's to the the tears of onceness.



Shinichi and Emiko preparing to present the bouquet.
In Joshui Kaikan party room, Tokyo.

NHK Saga

NHK is the national public broadcasting organization in Japan. I host, with Ms. Miki Sumiyoshi, "The Professionals" program broadcast weekly since January 2006 by NHK.

One of the characters of NHK which is distinguishing compared to the commercial broadcasters is that it has branches in local cities all over Japan. Since broadcasting by NHK has a designated public role, it is expected to cover local issues and news as well as national and global trends.

I have been visiting the city of Saga for the last couple of days, and sure enough, there was a NHK branch in Saga, too.
Interestingly, a NHK branch is usually situated near the Old Castle site. After the Meiji restoration in 1867, the new government buildings were built in or the near the old castle sites, which were considered to be symbols of the "ancien regime". The fact that the NHK branches are usually at the Edo-era castle sites indicates the public nature of NHK. It is part of the institutions of modernized Japan.

I sometimes feel that it is those idiosyncratic and scattered facts about a nation that constitute the implicit experience of living in that country. The location of NHK branches, for example.



NHK Saga building, near the old Saga Castle site.

Dragon.

I was in the car on the way to the conference site in Saga. We have just been to the old Saga castle site. As we left the Saga Castle History Museum, I noticed that black clouds have gathered in the sky. It was a very hot afternoon. In the newspaper "Saga Shimbun" next morning, it was reported that the temperature reached 37.8 degrees Centigrade, the second highest in recorded history.

In the car, we heard rumbles in the distance. A thunderstorm has come. As I witnessed the first thunderbolt running zigzag in the sky, I suddenly thought of the dragon.

The human brain sometimes plays such funny tricks. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was the intensive hour of being immersed in history in the museum. Perhaps the hot air affected me. I am not sure what combination of elements led to that hallucination, but at that very moment, it seemed so natural to me to associate the thunderbolt with the magnificent existence of the imaginary creature.

The moment was gone quite as rapidly as it came. We arrived at the auditorium, and I was again in the practical world of attending to the tightly made conference schedule.

The dragon had disappeared.

El Sur

"El Sur" by the Spanish director Victor Erice is one of my all-time favorite films. In it, el sur ("the south") is depicted as an attractive and mysterious land. In the film, there is a special connotation about the south, as the father of the girl appears to have a mistress in that far-off land.

The film ends as the girl prepares herself for her very first trip to the south, where, hopefully, she would find out her father's secret life.

There is something about the south that is life invigorating. Those were the thoughts as airplane flew southwards from Tokyo, and landed on Saga airport.

I have come to attend a two day session which I chair.

The sunshine on my mother's native island of Kyushu was mild and serene.

Namelessness

Some days ago, I went to the Nasu district, where the Nasu Imperial Villa is located. It is a favorite summer retreat for the Japanese, as due to the altitude the air is cooler. We had quite interesting discussions on creativity in the beautiful Niki club resort.

On the way back in the Tohoku Shinkansen train, I passed by the rice fields of northern Kanto plane. Although the train was running with the speed of 275 kilometers per hour, I could still see how beautiful the scenery was. Those little houses with red roofs and well-maintained trees in the garden, scattered here and there in the rice field.

Compared to the famous tourist destinations, these places are unknown. They remain nameless for the incidental traveler. But how beautiful and attractive these places appear to this soul.

In the 2nd act of Tristan und Isolde, the pair sings rapturously:

So starben wir,
um ungetrennt,
ewig einig,
ohne End’,
ohn’ Erwachen,
ohn’ Erbangen,
namenlos in Lieb’ umfangen,
ganz uns selbst gegeben,
der Liebe nur zu leben!

Thus might we die,
that together,
ever one,
without end,
never waking,
never fearing,
namelessly
enveloped in love,
given up to each other,
to live only for love!

Blessed are those who are wise enough to appreciate the sublime joy of namelessness.




Scenery observed from the Shinkansen train south of the Nasushiobara station.

Sun, moon, mountains and water

Boybu (wind wall) is a typical Japanese style of art, and many excellent specimens are known. Of them, the Jitsugetsu Sansui-zu Byobu ("Sun, moon, mountains and water") is my favorite.

It depicts the sun, moon, and mountains, with the water expressed as waves surrounding and permeating everything. The waves are drawn in an abstract and conceptualized style, and yet are so alive, vibrating, as if representing the urge for life itself.

The wind wall is in the Kongoji temple in Kawachinagano.

On the 5th of May and 3rd of Novermber each year, the "Sun, moon, mountains and water" wind wall is made open to the public. From time to time, this marvelous painting from the Muromachi period is displayed in art museums.

So far, I have had two opportunities to admire this breathtakingly marvelous piece of art. Standing in front of it, you feel that your life is reinvigorated.





The Wind wall painting "Sun, moon, mountains and water" (Jitsugetsu Sansui-zu Byobu)

Background to Britain

When I was 16, the senior high school teacher gave us a booklet titled "Background to Britain". We were to read it during the summer vacations. Looking back, I think it is fair to say that this small book, written by M. D. Munro Mackenzie & L. J. Westwood, kindled my interest in the English culture.

It was significant that the book was written by two Englishmen with a great care in the selection of materials. For example, the chapter on English weather went thus.

----------

THE WEATHER

'Other countries have a climate; in England we have weather.' This statement, often made by Englishmen to describe the peculiar meteorological conditions of their country, is both revealing and true. It is revealing because in it we see the Englishman insisting once again that what happens in England is not the same as what happens elsewhere: its truth can be ascertained by any foreigner who stays in the country for longer than few days.
In no country other than England, it has been said, can one experience four seasons in the course of a single day! Day may break as a balmy spring morning; an hour or so later black clouds may have appeared from nowhere and the rain may be pouring down. At midday conditions may be really wintry with the temperature down by about fifteen degrees. And then, in the late afternoon the sky will clear, the sun will begin to shine, and for an hour or two before darkness falls, it will be summer.

--------------

I started to learn English at the age of 12, and by the time I encountered this book, I was still in the steep slope of the learning curve (maybe I still am). In any case, it was significant that the prose was beautifully written by two gentlemen with a love for their mother culture, with a well-balanced humor.

In learning a foreign language, it is important to choose the study material carefully. Language is like music. Some texts are well-written, with aesthetically satisfying results. Some study materials are unnatural and contrived, being specifically written for someone with limited vocabulary. While those artificially written specimen of a foreign language is surely well meaning, they somehow destroy the aesthetics of the learner.

It was fortunate that, some 3-4 years after I started to learn English, I encountered this beautiful text. I still regard this small booklet as a gemstone in the learning steps of my humble life.

>

The "Background to Britain" book I read during one senior high school summer vacation.

Youtube

Several days I go, I made a comment on the internet service twitter. Since then, some people have told me their opinions about twitter, as I encountered them in my course of life in Tokyo. It is always interesting to exchange ideas, in person especially, about what is currently hot.

Here I find myself writing about youtube. I have only words of praise for youtube. I confess to be a heavy user of youtube. When I am on the road in the hotel room, I tend to spend the last few minutes of the evening searching for interesting videos in youtube. Most of the time, I would watch my favorite British comedies. At other times, I would listen to my favorite music, classical or otherwise. When I am really in the mood, I might listen to lectures by intellectuals, like those provided by authors@google.

There are many wonderful things about youtube, but more than anything, I admire their slogan "Broadcast Yourself". A significant portion of the traffic might be earned by commercially produced works, but that is not, conceptually speaking, the point. The emphasis is on people in many countries, whether young or old, rich or poor, educated or tabula rasa, who have obtained a means of literally "broadcasting yourself" through youtube. The slogan, incidentally, is wide enough to include those who are professionals producing commercially supported and distributed works. The slogan "Broadcast Yourself", in a nutshell, is very well conceived indeed.

It is my opinion that the various services provided on the internet compete not only in terms of technical excellence and band width. They compete on the basis of the brilliance of philosophy that is behind the service provided. Youtube is an excellent example of "philosophy in bits".

Boy spirits

I chatted with my best friend　Takashi Ikegami in the Omotesando area in Tokyo. The dialogue was held for the philosophy and poetry magazine "Eureka" published by Seidosha.

For an hour and half, we discussed how as children we both were fascinated by the insects. The endless hours we spend searching for rare species in the field, the touch of beetles at our fingertips on the dimly lit forest floor.

Sitting face to face with Takashi, I had this strange feeling that we were still elementary school boys, meeting in the classroom after the summer vacation, exchanging and sharing the experiences of each during the long holidays.

In life, the boy spirits keep carrying us through the stages, the ascents and descents. Sprinkles and sparkles of the boy spirit surrounded two lonely souls on a summer morning in Tokyo.



Takashi Ikegami in his room at the University

The contingent self.

The human bran is attracted to contingencies, the mixture of regular and random things. Contingencies are concerned with the border between the self and non-self. Things about the self are in general predictable, whereas actions and events arising from the non-self are largely unpredictable.

There is, however, an important amendment due to the above statement. The dynamics of the unconscious contain surprises and inconsistencies from the point of view of the conscious mind, as historically demonstrated by Sigmund Freud. One cannot control one's dreams or hidden and often suppressed desires. Thus, due to the existence of those irregular elements, the core of the self is rich in contingencies.

That is why one keeps being attracted to the self. If everything about the self is predictable, it is not very fun any more. The very fact that some part of the "I" is unpredictable makes being the contingent self so interesting.

Perception of one's own action

One of the apparent functions of the perception of one's will is to make one's own action predictable by the self. By the cognition of the fact one is about to conduct an action, one is able to prepare oneself for the likely outcomes of that particular action.

For example, if, on a hot summer evening, one wills that he opens a can of beer, he can fairly well predict a series of sensations that follow. The feeling of the tab being pulled away, the sound of micro-bubbles forming in the can, the first taste of the desirable drink on one's lips and tongues, the flowing of the cold liquid down the throat. With appropriate predictions, these sensations can give one a great pleasure, as this writer is very well aware.

Without prediction, however, the same series of sensations can be a source of anxiety and horror. Imagine, without you knowing it, somebody abruptly puts some beer into your mouth. Shock and panic would be your reaction, rather than the harmonious joy that would follow the perceived action of drinking.

Thus, the perception of one's own action contributes to the stability of processing of sensations that follow. Every perception is conducted within a context. The perception of one's own action prepares the particular contexts.

Butterfly time

As I have repeatedly written in this space, I used to collect and study butterflies quite seriously when I was a kid. It meant that I had to wait for the emergence of these rare species that I was after in the forest and the fields, often for hours, sometimes even for days.

There was a special quality in the time spent waiting for the butterflies. Butterflies could pop into view from any directions in the space around you. Once an interesting butterfly has appeared, you had to react very quickly, as otherwise the species might disappear. The combination of a long wait and a quick response characterized my butterfly time.

The human brain, once it learned something from a particular experience, can apply the resulting circuit to many other things. Today, after having ceased the active chasing of butterflies, I sometimes feel that I am still waiting for rare species. The butterflies have turned into concepts, new ideas, interesting people, beautiful cultural artifacts. The butterfly time in my childhood has fine-tuned my sensitivities for the abruptly emerging things, preparing my body and mind for a quick reaction.

Civilization

Civilizations come in many forms.

I traveled to the Island of Bali in February. On the last evening of my stay, there was a Legong dance show at the hotel.

The stage was set in the darkness of the garden. Two girl dancers floated in the dimly lit platform, moving their feet and hands elegantly to the Gamelan music, oblivious of the ups and downs of the outside world.

At that moment, I was convinced that the dancing girls were at the center of a civilization. Efforts and aesthetics were put into that core, enriching the tradition, bringing growing, glowing, enchanting, fascinating, enlightening things to those who were fortunate enough to be involved.

That vivid sense of the reality of a beautiful civilization never left me, and it is with me today.

Twitter

I have been keeping the Japanese blog more or less regularly since 12 December, 1999. My webpage The Qualia Manifesto was initiated on 26th November, 1998.

I think I have been an experimenter of various media offered by the internet. Of all the different services offered on the web, some stay, and some go out of fashion. For example, for some time I kept issuing the so-called "mail magazine", but have discontinued to do so. I have initiated a mailing list, which is still active, but I can see its difficulties. Social network services somehow have not captured my imagination. There is something about a SNS which is not really creative or practical, and I seem to spend little time accessing them.

So I hear the latest buzzword is "Twitter". I am registered, and following some guys while being followed by some. I do understand the role of Twitter in, for example, recent reporting of events in Iran after the election. I can see that Twitter has a potential of replacing or complementing the traditional journalism. Having said that, Twitter so far has not really worked for me.

I seem to have rather stringent criteria for how I use my brain time on the web, and so far Twitter does not capture my imagination. Maybe I am wrong and am simply not seeing something.

Even in the internet era, it is not that one spends all one's time on the web. We have other things to do. I seem to regard the time connected to the internet as very precious, trying to be "a web athlete", using the "on-time" in the most efficient and rewarding way.