Goodbye My Good Old Yankees

I'm planning a trip this summer vacation with my wife. Traveling is fun, and planning a trip is also fun.

We'll visit New York to see Ground Zero and a New York Yankees game. I've not been to New York since the summer of 1998, before 9/11. I remembered that I looked up at the World Trade Center at that time. I think that I should see Ground Zero after the death of Osama bin Laden.

I loved New York Yankees in the 1990s. They play really smart and cool baseball. They didn't have any macho power hitter, but all of them were devoted to the win of the team. Nobody played selfishly.

They rarely won by a big lead, but they often came behind late in a game and won by a narrow lead. Their games were full of tension and really fun.

On a sunny day I was sitting on seats in the Yankee Stadium. At that game Andy Petite was a starter. At first Royals had the lead on Yankees, but Derek Jeter, Paul O'Neill and Bernie Williams beat Royal's pitchers and turned the game. Finally Mariano Rivera closed it. It's a really perfect game for Yankees' funs.

Andy, Derek and Mariano were so young and bright. Bernie was in his golden age.

But now Andy and Bernie have retired, and Derek and Mariano are in their last years. The special air, which Yankees in 1990s had, is gone now. Alex Rodriguez is a good athlete, but he isn't suitable for Yankees. He doesn't look like he is playing for the team no does he look smart.

I barely find the smells of Yankees in 1990s only from Derek, Mariano and Jorge. They will retire in a few years. And then my good old Yankees will be gone completely.

The Smells of Tokyo

I was born in Tokyo and I've been living in Tokyo until now.

I love Tokyo, and I'm always looking for the flavor of Tokyo in literature and music.

In modern Japanese literature there are two types of authors. The first are the ones that came to Tokyo from rural areas, and the second are the ones that were born in Tokyo.

The authors that came from rural to Tokyo wrote novels about the conflicts between their families back in the rural parts of Japan, and their new lives in Tokyo. But I'm not interested in such conflicts.

I love authors that were born in Tokyo. They have the same smell as me. I want to feel the scents of Tokyo from their novels, Soseki Natsume, Junichiro Tanizaki, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Soetsu Yanagi and Shuzo Kuki.

Haruomi Hosono, who were also born in Tokyo, made music that smelled very Tokyo. He sung that "It smells of the earth and the paint" and "It smells of the rain and the mold" in his song "The Love Is Rosy". I'm quite sure that was very reminiscent of Tokyo.

"The Love Is Rosy" Haruomi Hosono




Where am I? I don't care.
Can I forget how to arrive here?
It smells of the earth and the paint.
The walls are the color of ivory and the skies are the color of glass.

Since I've arrived in the night,
Blowing cheerful songs out,
a fired car is going into darkness,
and playing tag with the red moon.

I've walked on this road
along the river before.
I find the town that I've been to
through the breaks in the clouds.
Trutururu, trutururu, truturururu.

When it rains in your body,
Can I get wet closing my umbrella?
It smells of the rain and the mold.
The skies are gray and the love is rosy.

I've walked on this road
along the river before.
I find the town that I've been to
through the breaks in the clouds.
Trutururu, trutururu, truturururu.

"What I try to Express in My Novels." Haruki Murakami

I'd like to quote a passage, which is about what Haruki Murakami tries to express in his novels, from his book "A Collection of Short Texts (雑文集)".

To some extent, I can summarize easily what I am trying to express in my novels. It is that "Everyone must be looking for something important in their lives, but only a few people can find it. If they are lucky enough to find it, what which they actually have found almost always would be fatally flawed flawed flawed. Nevertheless we must struggle for it. If we do not struggle to it, we would loss our purposes of our lives."

This is basically common all over the world, I think. Our principles to live are not so different between Japan, China, America, Argentina, Istanbul and even Tunis. So when the story is written well, we can share it in the same way, even if our places, races and languages are different. In other words, my room can travel far away from where I live. It is wonderful without a doubt.

I can understand what he meant very well. I'm looking for something important, and the process itself is just my life, whether or not I find it by the end of my life.

Haruki Murakami said that people all over the world read his novels because the principle of life was common. Is it true? I'd like to know how you think about this.

In most of his novels main characters are struggling with something, but they don't overcome it at the end of novels, "A Wild Sheep Chase", "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World", "Norwegian Wood", "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" and "Sputnik Sweetheart".

But in his latest novel "1Q84" the main characters, Aomame and Tengo, seem to get the things that they have been pursuing.

At first Haruki Murakami planned to finalize "1Q84" book1 and book2. At the end of book2 Aomame and Tengo have not reached their goal. After he finished writing book2, he changed his mind and decided to add book3.

I wonder why he added a "happy end" to "1Q84".

Holmes' Secret Love

The stories of Sherlock Holmes are full of contradictions. But their contradictions are innocent. This innocence of their contradictions is the biggest attraction of the stories of Sherlock Holmes, so Sherlockians never tire of pursuing them.

I've read the book "The Signs of the Four", and I can't stand pursuing its contradictions as an irregular Sherlockian.

I'm most interested in the relationship between Holmes and Dr. Watson. Many Sherlockians are interested in it and some Sherlockians insist that Dr. Watson is a woman; other Sherlockians insist that Holmes is a woman! But my interpretation on first reading this story was that Holmes is a gay, who loved Dr. Watson, and Dr. Watson is a really insensitive man, who never noticed Holmes' love, when I read this story straight.

Dr. Watson fell in love with Miss Mary Morstan, who was Holmes' client in this case, and finally they got engaged.

I'll quote the opening scene, where Holmes, Dr. Watson and Miss Morstan took a four-wheeler, pursuing an invitation from a mysterious person.

He leaned back in the cab, and I could see by his drawn brow and his vacant eye that he was thinking intently. Miss Morstan and I chatted in an undertone about our present expedition and its possible outcome, but our companion maintained his impenetrable reserve until the end of our journey.

Dr. Watson loved Miss Morstan at first sight. Holmes, who was quite observant, never missed that Dr. Watson fell in love with Miss Morstan. When they talked intimately with each other, Holmes was sullen.

It might not be enough to prove that Holmes loved Dr. Watson. How about the next scene?

"… Look here, Watson; you look regularly done. Lie down there on the sofa, and see if I can put you to sleep."

He took up his violin from the corner, and as I stretched myself out he began to play some low, dreamy, melodious air,—his own, no doubt, for he had a remarkable gift for improvisation. I have a vague remembrance of his gaunt limbs, his earnest face, and the rise and fall of his bow. Then I seemed to be floated peacefully away upon a soft sea of sound, until I found myself in dreamland, with the sweet face of Mary Morstan looking down upon me.

Holmes played the violin seriously to make Dr. Watson fall asleep. Dr. Watson dreamed of Miss Morstan while listening to the sound of Holmes' violin. Poor Holmes!

Next morning Dr. Watson said that he would visit Miss Morstan first of all.

"Then I shall run over to Camberwell and call upon Mrs. Cecil Forrester. She asked me to, yesterday."

"On Mrs. Cecil Forrester?" asked Holmes, with the twinkle of a smile in his eyes.

"Well, of course Miss Morstan too. They were anxious to hear what happened."

"I would not tell them too much," said Holmes. "Women are never to be entirely trusted,—not the best of them."

I did not pause to argue over this atrocious sentiment. "I shall be back in an hour or two," I remarked.

"All right! Good luck! But, I say, if you are crossing the river you may as well return Toby, for I don't think it is at all likely that we shall have any use for him now."

How insensitive Dr. Watson was! Last night he fell asleep listening to Holmes' violin, but he never noticed Holmes' love at all. If he noticed it, he would be a really cruel man.

He said to Holmes "I shall be back in an hour or two," but he would no be back so soon because he met Miss Morstan.

It was evening before I left Camberwell, and quite dark by the time I reached home. My companion's book and pipe lay by his chair, but he had disappeared. I looked about in the hope of seeing a note, but there was none.

"I suppose that Mr. Sherlock Holmes has gone out," I said to Mrs. Hudson as she came up to lower the blinds.

"No, sir. He has gone to his room, sir. Do you know, sir," sinking her voice into an impressive whisper, "I am afraid for his health?"

"Why so, Mrs. Hudson?"

"Well, he's that strange, sir. After you was gone he walked and he walked, up and down, and up and down, until I was weary of the sound of his footstep. Then I heard him talking to himself and muttering, and every time the bell rang out he came on the stairhead, with 'What is that, Mrs. Hudson?' And now he has slammed off to his room, but I can hear him walking away the same as ever. I hope he's not going to be ill, sir. I ventured to say something to him about cooling medicine, but he turned on me, sir, with such a look that I don't know how ever I got out of the room."

"I don't think that you have any cause to be uneasy, Mrs. Hudson," I answered. "I have seen him like this before. He has some small matter upon his mind which makes him restless."

Such insensitivity is guilt. Dr. Watson said "I have seen him like this before." It was your own affair, Dr. Watson.

And then the last scene was so merciless.

"Well, and there is the end of our little drama," I remarked, after we had set some time smoking in silence. "I fear that it may be the last investigation in which I shall have the chance of studying your methods. Miss Morstan has done me the honor to accept me as a husband in prospective."

He gave a most dismal groan. "I feared as much," said he. "I really cannot congratulate you."

I was a little hurt. "Have you any reason to be dissatisfied with my choice?" I asked.

"Not at all. I think she is one of the most charming young ladies I ever met, and might have been most useful in such work as we have been doing. She had a decided genius that way: witness the way in which she preserved that Agra plan from all the other papers of her father. But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things. I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgment."

"I trust," said I, laughing, "that my judgment may survive the ordeal. But you look weary."

"Yes, the reaction is already upon me. I shall be as limp as a rag for a week."

"Strange," said I, "how terms of what in another man I should call laziness alternate with your fits of splendid energy and vigor."

"Yes," he answered, "there are in me the makings of a very fine loafer and also of a pretty spry sort of fellow. I often think of those lines of old Goethe,—

Schade dass die Natur nur EINEN Mensch aus Dir schuf, Denn zum wuerdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff.

"By the way, a propos of this Norwood business, you see that they had, as I surmised, a confederate in the house, who could be none other than Lal Rao, the butler: so Jones actually has the undivided honor of having caught one fish in his great haul."

"The division seems rather unfair," I remarked. "You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?"

"For me," said Sherlock Holmes, "there still remains the cocaine-bottle." And he stretched his long white hand up for it.

What a tragedy! Holmes knew what the outcome would be from the beginning, but he couldn't stop it at all. And Dr. Watson was innocently happy to get Miss Morstan.

I've thought that "Kiss of the Spider Woman (El beso de la mujer araña)", which was written by Manuel Puig was the masterpiece of the tragic gay love, but is there more tragic love than Holmes' one in "The Sign of the Four". His reason taught him he could never be satisfied. He had just a cocaine bottle.

I wonder what Arthur Conan Doyle thought of this story. Did he intentionally write the tragic love, or did he unintentionally write the ultimate tragedy? Sherlockians are stimulated by the fact that Doyle’s

Gathering Winds

I heard from my father that it was very hot and bright on the day that Japanese Emperor Hirohito surrendered to United Nations. There was nothing in Tokyo at that time.

Most of the people living in Tokyo believe that, someday, a huge earthquake will hit Tokyo again.

I can imagine a Tokyo that has been destroyed.

I'm looking up at the blue open sky, which used to be blocked out by skyscrapers befor they collapsed to the ground. I sing the song "Gathering Winds", remembering my old good Tokyo.

“Gathering Winds” by Happy End
「風をあつめて」はっぴいえんど




When I took a walk
along a stretching alley on the edge of a town,
I found a street car just waking up
and going across the sea
through a messy haze.
And I'm also
gathering winds, gathering winds and gathering winds
to fly in the azure sky,
in the azure sky.

When I walked through
the really lovely and bracing time,
I found a city hoisting a green sail
and anchoring
over an empty seawall
And I'm also
gathering winds, gathering winds and gathering winds
to fly in the azure sky,
in the azure sky.

When I passed time
in an empty morning coffee shop,
I found the rustle of skyscrapers
spreading over pavement
through cracked crystal.
And I'm also
gathering winds, gathering winds and gathering winds
to fly in the azure sky,
in the azure sky.


P.S.

Buddhism tell us everything in this world isn't eternal (諸行無常) and we should look straight at and accept this fact (諦念).

Most of Japanese, including me, aren't eager Buddhists, but they have this thought (諦念) in the back of their minds.

At this earthquake and tsunami one of the reasons why afflicted people could keep order might be that they share this thought (諦念) that they should accept whatever happens to them.

Usually I have a positive way of thinking for my life. At the same time I have to accept the fact that anything will be gone.