The Dam and Us

, Here is roughly what I am going to talk about at a conference in Wuhan, China, the day after tomorrow.

Two recent Chinese films deal with the Three Gorges Dam. I am off to that area tomorrow. I first watched Lee Yifan and Yan Yu’s very interesting documentary film Before the Flood (2004), then Jia Zhang-Ke’s critically acclaimed Still Life (2006). These films called my renewed attention to the colossal project of building a dam and its consequences.

In Japan, there is an interesting case of the Tokuyama Dam in central Japan, completed this year, that produced the largest dam lake in this country. Hidden under the water today is the old, small village called Tokuyama Mura. By the time the village was officially abandoned in 1987, an elderly woman named Tazuko Masuyama had taken 70,000 photographs to record the daily life of her community and their ancestral land. This constitutes an archive of a lifestyle that is now forever lost.

Another example. “The Ship Rides on the Mountain” is a very interesting art project that took more than a decade to complete. When it was decided to submerge a rural area in western Japan under water for the new Haizuka Dam, a group of artists and architects together with the local community united to build a 60-meter long raft using local timbers. When the dam was finally completed, and as the level of water rose, the raft began its move toward the top of a hill and eventually stayed there like an ark on Mt. Ararat. A documentary film of the same title, directed by Takayoshi Honda, was released last year (2007). It invites us once again to think about the dam.

The impact that a dam gives to the water system and environments are variously stated. Photographer Kazutoshi Hieda, for example, talks about the threatening recent change at the bottom of a Hokkaido river where various fishes come up regularly to lay eggs. Now the bottom is covered with a layer of mud because the natural supply of pebble has been hindered by a series of dams. Still keeping a very high quality of clear, uncontaminated water, the river is now turning into a zone not fit for fish. But a new trend is currently being set by the case of partial demolition of a dam in Gunma. Will this open an utterly new way to restore regional biodiversity?

Wow!

It's historical, really. Let's see which direction the US will swerve to.

Decreation

Here is a bit of Simone Weil:

Décréation: faire passer du créé dans l'incréé.
Destruction: faire passer du créé dans le néant.

"La pesanteur et la grâce" was first published in 1947. Derrida must have known it at the time of publication or soon after (when he was still a teenager in Algiers).

Déconstruction, rather than Ab-bau, seems to me to be décréation itself.

Novembering, or remembering de novo

Haven't written on this blog for a while; now I am trying to start anew. With only a couple of more days to prepare for my trip to China, it's hectic all over... . Maybe I'll stick to quotations here.

Here is a nice one from Anthony Kerrigan in his preface to Borges' Ficciones:

"Borges restates, in a few allegorical pages, the circular, ceremonial direction of our curious, groping, thrilling and atrocious ignorance."

Oh, our ATROCIOUS IGNORANCE... how sweet the sound! It is the very source of our quest into the verbal signs left behind by those who have passed before us on the surface of this planet. I don't mean humans, but everything, and all events.

What, what

Today I listened to the Dylan album Selfportrait for the first time in long years... and was ASTOUNDED by The Boxer.

Some of you may recall. It's sung by two Dylans, who in fact are one, yet utterly distinct one from the other. A beautiful-voice Dylan and that dirty coarse sounding Dylan.

It's so uncanny when you really listen to it. It reveals a structure of our voice; always on two levels on the way to go apart.

Autumn?

Can't quite believe it and don't want to believe it, too.
But it seems that AUTUMN is written all over the place!
There's a bitter edge of remorse in every space.
I don't think I can ever keep up the frantic pace.
No district of my mind is slated for the ace.
Whatever I undertake is well out of the race.
A pitbull doesn't hunt for mice.
I better cook and preserve some rice.
For I need to go on a trip abroad.
Nothing soothing awaits me on the road...

After my viewing of the very fine documentary Freestyle I can't help but try some rhyming as if I was also a cipher!

But only another week to go before we lose August with the face of Augustus the reticent.

I have lots of work to finish up. And I am rather nervous for this up-coming, very important trip of my life.

I am off to Nuevo Mexico in a week.

Time is definitely NOT on my side

Time, time. So much to be done, so little space-time to take them in.

Now we are happily approaching the end of the term, but I got quite a few to finish up before I can EVER hit the road. But the tickets are there and I have to manage my schedule wisely so as not to cause unnecessary troubles.

My summer plans:

Trips to the Cook Islands, then to Nuevo Mexico.
Finish the Artaud translation.
Move on to the Glissant translation.
Make editorial plans of the Saroyan collection.
Prepare for the speech on Asian American lit.
Begin painting (inspired by Emily Kngwarreye)

Let's see what happens...

I am giving a lecture tomorrow at Waseda. You are all invited.

Use the mirror

"If the world and its cares are a 200-lb. weight, the mind can be a mirror reflecting the weight without carrying the poundage." (Ogyen Trinley Dorje, the Karmapa, quoted by David Van Biema in Time magazine)

Fringe Frenzy

Fringe Frenzy is the name of our newly established give-away paper issued by the members of my graduate seminar. Our regular attendees are:

Masaki Unozawa, an art activist and critic
Francisco "Paco" Garcia, from Montréal, a subtitle translator for Japanese anmimation films
Takahiro Ito, a would-be photographer
Koyo Kitamura, an experimental filmmaker

Our first issue is actually the issue number ZERO. In which I interviewed my friend Shuhei Hosokawa (musicologist) and wrote an article on painter Takako Hojo, as well as a travel diary from my trip to Lisbon in 2003.

This we will publish monthly, hopefully. Keep an eye on it!

And Artaud says

Time to resume my writing this blog. Here is what Artaud says, and it's very true.

"...pas de pensée si le corps ne se meut."

Exactly. And no écriture if we don't die one day...sooner or later.

It's between myself and death that I negociate this infra-space of writing.

No longer listed

The list of books is discontinued because of its futility. There is no reason that I shouldn't list library books. And with that the list would become too cumbersome.

Now I am going back to occasional bits of thoughts, etc. Aux armes, etc. Tu restras hyène, etc.

This from Leiris:

...parce que rares sont les livres qui parviennent à fixer longtemps mon attention: j'en prends un, qui répond à mes préoccupations du moment, et j'en lis un certain nombre de pages... Partie paresse, partie instabilité, c'est ainsi que j'en viens à laisser s'accumuler les lectures inachevées... (Biffures)

A bunch

A box of mixed crops arrived, and then some.

354. Stephen Greenblatt, Learning to Curse (Routledge)
355. Bertrand Russel, Sceptical Essays (Routledge)
356. Bertrand Russel, In Praise of Idleness (Routledge)
357. Thomas Sotinel, Pedro Almodóvar (Cahier du Cinéma)
358. Tom Zaniello, The Cinema of Globalization (ILR Press)
359. Christopher Bracken, Magical Criticism (Chicago)
360. Nick Browne ed., The Godfather Trilogy (Cambridge Film Handbooks)
361. Ato Quayson, Aesthetic Nervousness (Columbia)
362. Lorraine Daston ed., Things that Talk (Zone Books)
363. James Chapman, Cinemas of the World (Reaktion Books)
364. Yvonne Tasker ed., Fifty Contemporary Filmmakers (Routledge)
365. Jacques Rancière, The Future of the Image (Verso)
366. Christian Metz, Film Language (Chicago)
367. Isabelle Vanderschelden, Amélie (Illinois)
368. Kyoko Okazaki, River's Edge (Casterman)
369. Godard et Ishaghpour, Archéologie du cinéma (Farrago)
370. Mike Davis, In Praise of Barbarians (Haymarket Books)
371. Konrad Lorenz, Man Meets Dog (Routledge)
372. Burgett & Hendler eds., Keywords for American Cultural Studies (NYU)
373. James Welch, Fools Crow (Penguin)
374. Salman Rushdie, The Enchantress of Florence (Jonathan Cape)
375. Jean-Joseph Julaud, L'Histoire de France pour les nuls (First Editions)
376. Shaffer & Wong eds., Conversations with Kazuo Ishiguro (Mississippi)
377. Mary Litch, Philosophy Through Film (Routledge)
378. Sharon Cameron, Impersonality (Chicago)
379. William Calin, The Twentieth-Century Humanist Critics (Toronto)
380. 西村頼男『草が生い茂り、川が流れる限り』（開文社出版）
381. 清水孝純『ルネサンスの文学』（講談社学術文庫）
382. 桜井満『花の民俗学』（講談社学術文庫）
383. メルヴィン・ブラッグ『英語の冒険』（三川基好訳、講談社学術文庫）
384. 松岡正剛『フラジャイル』（ちくま学芸文庫）
385. 五十嵐太郎『現代建築に関する１６章』（講談社現代新書）
386. ジョン・マーハ『チョムスキー入門』（明石書店）

380 may be the fisrt full-length study in Japanese of American Indian literature by a realiable Americanist. 384 is my second copy; I will use this book as a reading assignment for one of the graduate seminars. 386 I bought on impulse because of the association from a conversation I had with a person from an institute that invited Chomsky to Japan around 1970.

It's a raining-in-the-head day

Starting my seminar at 13:00, finishing at 18:00, then went to Digital Hollywood, all under the cold spring rain. But it was fun. Found a short time dropping in at the Librairie française at Shinjuku.

352. Jean-François Sabouret, La dynamique du Japon (CNRS)
353. Paul Veyne, Foucault (Albin Michel)

How soothing.

New Semester

Tomorrow begins our new semester. We gave a guidance session yesterday and its addendum cum reunion today. All set for a new adventure!

344. 村山匡一郎編『映画史を学ぶクリティカル・ワーズ』（フィルムアート社）
345. ナタリー・ゼーモン・デイヴィス『歴史叙述としての映画』（中條訳、岩波書店）
346. エルンスト・ブロッホ『ルネサンスの哲学』（古川＋原訳、白水社）
347. ナドー＋バーロウ『フランス語のはなし』（中尾ゆかり訳、大修館書店）
348. ***『日本列島驚異の自然現象』（昭文社）
349. 柳沼重剛『地中海世界を彩った人たち』（岩波現代文庫）
350. 赤瀬川原平『芸術原論』（岩波現代文庫）
351. ***『アキバが地球を飲み込む日』（角川ＳＳＣ新書）

346 is a book I've been reading for some time (with a library copy) and finally decided to purchase one. This year my graduate seminar will be on documentary films. No clues on this subject. A lightless walk in the cave continues.

Is this free? Wow.

341. *** The Best Books Ever Written (Penguin Classics)
342. Rufus Butler Seder, Gallop! (Workman)
343. カペラーヌス『現代ラテン語会話』（有川ほか訳、大学書林）

Dropped in at Kinokuniya and picked up a free copy of 341. It makes a lovely reading and I want more of this kind in every imaginable field... this kind of gift (from language itself to readers?) only saves the book and its culture!

343 is pretty funny and I can pick up a lot of locutions, etc.

We are holding an orientation session tomorrow.

C'est la vitesse qui domine...

Geez, nothing going. Nothing whatsoever is going as was planned. And it's getting quite warm, too.

332. 青柳いづみこ『ドビュッシー』（中公文庫）
333. 谷口ジロー『冬の動物園』（小学館）
334. Ramuz, La Grande peur dans la montagne (Poche)
335. Ramuz, La Beauté sur la terre (Poche)
336. Ramuz, Si le soleil ne revenait pas (Poche)
337. Hagerman, Maria Eladia, Babel: A Film by Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu (Photo Books)
338. 鈴木カツ『こだわりアメリカン・ルーツ・ミュージック事典』（NHK出版生活人新書）
339. 増田義郎『図説・海賊』（河出書房新社）
340. 東京外国語大学アジア・アフリカ言語文化研究所『図説・アジア文字入門』（河出書房新社）

It's time to seriously catch up with my own LIFE.

And the answer is...

325. 北道邦彦『アイヌ語地名で旅する北海道』（朝日新書）
326. 手塚治虫『手塚治虫傑作選＜家族＞』（祥伝社新書）
327. 吉田秀和『ソロモンの歌／一本の木』（講談社文芸文庫）
328. 山下聖美『賢治文学＜呪い＞の構造』（三修社）
329. エマニュエル・トッド＋ユセフ・クルバージュ『文明の接近』（藤原書店）
330. 吉川恵美子『接続法を使って話そうスペイン語』（NHK出版）
331. 生田・村上・結城編『＜場所＞の詩学』（藤原書店）

Oh how the wind blows. It blows down bicycles near the station. It makes dogs happy. And it blows away the sakura petals.

331 is a collection of essays from our symposium last summer in Kanazawa, with Ko Un and Gary Snyder as special guests. My intervention (as the French calls it) is also included in the publication.

April

321. 宮澤淳一『マクルーハンの光景』（みすず書房）
322. 本田勝一『俺が子どもだったころ』（朝日新聞社）
323. 鈴木孝夫＋田中克彦『言語学が輝いていた時代』（岩波書店）
324. 海津ゆりえ『日本エコツアー・ガイドブック』（岩波書店）

Our new academic year began today and our brand new graduate program is now taking off. Let's make it a really exciting collective enterprise! In a decade we'll see. See what? See WHAT.

March ending, March on

315. エドワード・レビンソン『エドさんのピンホール写真教室』（岩波書店）
316. 秋山仁ほか『HOLGASCAPE』（池田書店）
317. 『We Love Holga』（池田書店）
318. 『We Love Holga Plus』（池田書店）
319. 熊崎勝『はじめてのピンホールカメラ入門』（風媒社）
320. 藤田一咲『ポラロイドの時間』（えい文庫）

Alas, alas, this month is ending and my mountain of work is not. And yet.

Having learned that Polaroid is terminating its production of instant films, I have decided to seriously take a series of Pola photos for exhibition. But my Spectra 2 is not working properly... why is that? Maybe it needs some cleaning. A machine is always a living organism... it needs attention, constant use, and love.

Walking about

308. W.B.Yeats, Selected Poems (Penguin Books)
309. 萩原延壽『旅立ち　遠い崖１』（朝日文庫）
310. 森山大道ほか『GR Digital Box』（東京キララ社）
311. 森山大道『t-82』（パワーショベル）
312. 白井雅人ほか『メディアアートの教科書』（フィルムアート社）
313. 山本精一『ゆん』（河出書房新社）
314. デリダ＋ファティ『言葉を撮る』（港道＋鵜飼訳、青土社）

Another exhausting day... and the new academic year is only days away.

Then at night a review copy came:

315. 黒川創『かもめの日』（新潮社）

I'm hoping to read it within a week, time permitting.