“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis
It was very cold this morning, but the sun was making it through the clouds a tiny bit, so I decided to go for a walk. I didn’t dress too warmly as I wanted to feel the cold in addition to seeing the sun.
I decided to walk to Starbucks. I haven’t been to Starbucks in a long time – since I upped my coffee game their coffee simply isn’t that good. Especially since I don’t drink fancy sugary milky concoctions – I only order a cup of black brewed coffee (I like coffee, why put other shit in it?). With fresh beans, my grinder, and my Aeropress I can make far, far, better coffee at home for much, much less cost.
However, I have never considered Starbucks to be a place to buy coffee. It’s an office rental place – you simply pay by buying overpriced drink items. I never understand people that drive through Starbucks, or pick up an order… make it yourself!
Viewed as an office or meeting place I realize I have a lot of really fond memories of various Starbucks. There was the one in Mesquite where I would stretch out a coffee for two hours listening to the various Saturday Morning Confessions while I would write and wait for my son Lee’s double art lessons. Some significant and meaningful aspects of my life were born in that Starbucks a long, long time ago. I wrote something about it during the previous century – I’ll have to look through my stuff, find where I put it.
Then there is the Plano Starbucks that I met with my writing group, every Wednesday for over a decade. I could calculate how much coffee I drank there, in hundreds of gallons, but I won’t.
So today, nothing dramatic. I walked there with my library book, The City and Its Uncertain Walls, by Murakami. It’s a popular book so I won’t be able to renew it – that means I only have three weeks to get through its prodigious pages, but thirty pages a day will be more than fast enough. I’m loving the book, so this won’t be hard.
After one large brew and thirty four pages I decided to hike home. Crossing Beltline I went by Gong Cha, one of the many Asian Boba Tea spots in my ‘hood – and considered if this might be another possible future destination. Unfortunately, most of their offerings have way, way too much sugar in them for my health… so I need to stick to American style black coffee.
In an empty parking spot was an abandoned mostly-drank Boba Tea. Its festive bright pink lid and specked black tapioca balls peeking through the clouds of milk tea looked festive on the cold morning, so I snapped a picture of it.
Oh, I found what I wrote… I think it was the first time I had ever been to Starbucks – I actually bought an iced tea with a gift certificate that Candy gave me. I bought the tea because I was intimidated with the coffee menu (this was a long, long time ago).
Here’s what I wrote – it’s silly- but it brings back good memories.
Saturday, August 29, 1998
Coffee foams
….. Coffee foams comes in a foam cup seashells hidden in the foam, spirals like an ear like time time flies Tea cold, iced, cubed the tea of the day is reddish, fruity cold and refreshing. Fresh tea is hot from the pot and steams hissing onto the cubes. The tea is iced, but the day is not the day is hot and sweaty
Round Green Tables
time flies blue eyes “I seldom talk to anyone anymore other than children and rednecks”
South American Beans Roasted, toasted, ground and boiled and percolate the suspension of disbelief
Once, I quit drinking coffee It made my stomach hurt
I feel something, sometimes as a burning worm in my stomach, my gut a monster of strain
“Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I’m gazing at a distant star. It’s dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago. Maybe the star doesn’t even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.” ― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun
Birth II, by Arthur Williams, Dallas, Texas
The library sent me an email, a book I had reserved was in. It was a new(ish) novel, The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami. Over the decades I have read a good bit of Murakami and written a bit also. It’s a massive tome (and popular, so I won’t be able to renew it) but I’m going to read the thing, nevertheless. I’m happy because I had been scrambling for my next fiction book to read.
In honor of my new reading task, here’s a Murakami short story to read – it’s crackerjack (it seems familiar, I may have read it before, but I don’t think I’ve linked to it).
“Why do people have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?” ― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart
The moon rising over the Dallas skyline and the pond at Trammell Crow Park. From the October Full Moon Ride.
It started on May 5 and ended a week ago – I read all of 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. The book is roughly a thousand pages long and I read it in conjunction with my Difficult Read Book Club. We used to meet every week at the Wild Detectives Book Store in Bishop Arts. Since Covid put the kebash on all of that we have met on Zoom for the last two books, Brothers Karamazov and 1Q84.
It’s really a great way to read a long/difficult book. There is a weekly goal of a certain number of pages so the herculean task is split into manageable chunks. There is a group of like minded folk to bounce questions off of and keep you interested. Plus, it’s a lot of fun.
Was the book good?
Yes, it was very good – I enjoyed it immensely. I is for everyone?
No. It is a very odd book, with an unusual structure. It is amazingly politically incorrect. It makes no sense in a lot of places. No spoilers, but the ending definitely does not tie up all the loose ends.
Here’s a guy that really didn’t like it:
He is looking for a conventional narrative (evidence for this are all the books on the shelf behind him). 1Q84, like I said, is not a conventional narrative. It exists in its own world.
Here’s one of the many, many folks that liked the novel:
I like his take – and I like the drink he made.
Our Difficult Reads Book Club will have a party soon at the Wild Detectives to celebrate in person reading 1Q84 and Brothers Karamazov – which we read earlier. At the party we will find out what our next book will be – it will be a shorter work so we can finish before Christmas. I’m excited, can’t wait.
“I’m tired of living unable to love anyone. I don’t have a single friend – not one. And, worst of all, I can’t even love myself. Why is that? Why can’t I love myself? It’s because I can’t love anyone else. A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else. Do you understand what I am saying? A person who is incapable of loving another cannot properly love himself.” ― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
In today’s chapter Tengo is on a train going to visit his father. He is reading a paperback of short stories and finds one that resonates with him and his story. It’s a strange tale called Town of Cats written by an unnamed Russian author.
I wondered if the story actually existed outside of 1Q84. I did a quick web search and found that it didn’t – that it was made up for the novel.
I did discover, however, that the story was excerpted from the massive novel and published as a stand-alone story in the New Yorker. That’s cool.
So you can read it if you want a taste of 1Q84 without committing to the 900+ page tome.
“Why do people have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?” ― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart
My Pomodoro timer, Moleskine, and Ivory Pilot Prera fountain pen.
One cool thing, for me, was when one of the two point-of-view protagonists, Tengo, went into a Tokyo bookstore, Kinokuniya. I liked that because there is a Kinokuniya bookstore in Plano, Texas, not very far from where I live, and it’s one of my favorite places.
I stumbled across the bookstore online and knew I wold love the place. It’s not so much the books… it’s the other stuff. The place is a cornucopia of pens, fountain pens, art supplies, notebooks, paper… all that sort of stuff.
I had a tough time finding it the first time I went up there. It’s actually a big room off of the food court of a big Asian grocery store at Highway 75 and Legacy Drive. It’s packed with cool stuff. I’ve bought a couple pens there, some ink, and, especially, a few packs of fountain pen friendly paper (Tomoe River ).
The place is crowded… chock-a-block with cool stuff. I could look for hours. So what I do is set goals for myself and start setting a little bit of money aside. When I reach my goal, I’ll drive down to Kinokuniya and treat myself to something with the cash I’ve accumulated.
I think I was more excited about Christmas this year than the kids were. Seeing Nick and Lee and knowing how special Christmas is to children makes me so happy. I can still remember almost every Christmas when I was a kid. My sons are so appreciative too; they are spoiled, of course, but they enjoy everything so much and never complain about what they don’t get.
Another nice thing is that the kids are older now and they stuff they get – mostly video games and computer software – doesn’t take a lot of assembly. That makes it a lot easier on Santa; no staying up all night putting together basketball goals or stuff like that.
I woke up about five and couldn’t go back to sleep. I went out in the living room and set the camcorder up on a tripod aimed at the base of the tree and the pile of boxes arranged there. I read the paper, ate some breakfast, and waited for the little ones to get up. They started to stir and I ran out to the living room and started the camcorder going but they fell back asleep.
Finally, about seven thirty (that’s fairly late for my kids) they started to sit up and rub their eyes. I asked Nick, “Are you getting up?” “No, I’m tired, let me go back to sleep,” he said groggily and grumpily. “Nicholas, what day is today?” I asked. That made him mad at first. “How do I know what day it… wait… wait….” Then his face lit up and he snapped fully awake as his sleepy mind realized exactly what day it was. “Lee! Lee! let’s go, let’s go!” Nick yelled at his groggy brother. I dashed out ahead of them so I could watch the annual shredding of paper, the squealing and laughing and oohs and aaahs and looks of joy and amazement.
I was worried that we hadn’t bought enough stuff for the kids. As they get older and their toys get more expensive the volume of crap inevitably gets smaller. I shouldn’t have worried, they were beyond thrilled.
“If you can love someone with your whole heart, even one person, then there’s salvation in life. Even if you can’t get together with that person.” ― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
Recycled Books
Denton, Texas
In January through March of 2019 (that feels like a different age) I went every Wednesday after work clear across town to a bookstore called The Wild Detectives in Oak Cliff. I had stumbled into a reading group there that tackled long, difficult books called The Difficult Reading Book Club. We finished our book, Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, then had a celebration. For various reasons I skipped the next book (a set of three tomes by Virginia Woolf – though I wasn’t afraid – who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf) and then COVID hit.
For a year we didn’t do any reading, but finally momentum built and for a couple months we did a weekly Zoom meeting read of The Brother’s Karamazov. I actually liked not having to make the long trip after work and a reading group is particularly suited for remote computerized interaction.
And today we had our kickoff meeting for our latest difficult (and long) challenge – 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. I’ve been avoiding spoilers for the novel, but did learn some useful facts from this meeting.
“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” ― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
Deep Ellum
Texas
In perusing the interwebs I came across a nice list of ten online long(er)-form short stories. So I’ll test the patience and attention span of everyone in this best of all possible worlds and slide away from flash fiction for a while.
I was very glad to find this one – always up for some Murakami.
“What’s really important here,” I whispered loudly to myself,”is not the big things other people have thought up, but the small things you, yourself have”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart
Untitled (Sprawling Octopus Man), by Thomas Houseago Nasher Sculpture Center Dallas, Texas
Over several years, for the month of June, I wrote about a short story that was available online each day of the month…. It seemed like a good idea at the time. My blog readership fell precipitously and nobody seemed to give a damn about what I was doing – which was a surprising amount of work.
Because of this result, I’m going to do it again this year – In September this time… because it is September.
Today’s story, for day 20 – Samsa in Love by Haruki Murakami
In any case, he had to learn how to move his body. He couldn’t lie there staring up at the ceiling forever. The posture left him much too vulnerable. He had no chance of surviving an attack—by predatory birds, for example. As a first step, he tried to move his fingers. There were ten of them, long things affixed to his two hands. Each was equipped with a number of joints, which made synchronizing their movements very complicated. To make matters worse, his body felt numb, as though it were immersed in a sticky, heavy liquid, so that it was difficult to send strength to his extremities.
Nevertheless, after repeated attempts and failures, by closing his eyes and focusing his mind he was able to bring his fingers more under control. Little by little, he was learning how to make them work together. As his fingers became operational, the numbness that had enveloped his body withdrew. In its place—like a dark and sinister reef revealed by a retreating tide—came an excruciating pain.
It took Samsa some time to realize that the pain was hunger. This ravenous desire for food was new to him, or at least he had no memory of experiencing anything like it. It was as if he had not had a bite to eat for a week. As if the center of his body were now a cavernous void. His bones creaked; his muscles clenched; his organs twitched.
—-Haruki Murakami, Samsa in Love
I always think about believability in fiction. You don’t have to worry about this in non-fiction… it’s by definition true and believable, even when it is wildly unlikely. But fiction has to be believable.
One important idea is “making a deal with the reader.” This has to be done right away, preferably in the very first sentence. You have to alert the reader, make a deal with the reader, and then keep up your end of the bargain.
The best example is Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. Turning into a giant cockroach in the middle of the night for no apparent reason isn’t believable, is it?
But Kafka writes his genius opening line:
When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.
You see, Kafka has made a deal with the reader. If you continue with the story, you have agreed that people can be changed into a giant cockroach (vermin) for no reason. He offers the deal, you accept it, and he keeps it.
Today, I planned on stopping for lunch, by myself. I looked forward to the quiet and the break. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to carry my Kindle or even a book. No problem, the library was right next door and, looking in at the New Fiction display, I saw a copy of Men Without Women, Stories by Haruki Murakami. Bingo.
While I ate, I looked through the table of contents for a brief selection, something I could read during the short sliver of time I was allotted. I found Samsa in Love, and was able to finish before I had to head back to work.
Samsa in Love is Metamorphosis in reverse. It starts out with Gregor Samsa waking up in his bare room, now transformed back into a human. He remembers little of being Gregor Samsa, but even less of the time he spent as a cockroach (except for a strong fear of birds). The story tells of his first few steps in becoming human again, including falling fast in love with a hunchbacked locksmith sporting an ill-fitting brassiere.
The story makes a deal, and sticks with it.
Interview with Haruki Murakami:
Is each book you write fully formed in your mind before you start to write or is it a journey for you as the writer as it is for us as readers?
I don’t have any idea at all, when I start writing, of what is to come. For instance, for The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, the first thing I had was the call of the bird, because I heard a bird in my back yard (it was the first time I heard that kind of sound and I never have since then. I felt like it was predicting something. So I wanted to write about it). The next thing was cooking spaghetti – these are things that happen to me! I was cooking spaghetti, and somebody call. So I had just these two things at the start. Two years I kept on writing. It’s fun! I don’t know what’s going to happen next, every day. I get up, go to the desk, switch on the computer, etc. and say to myself: “so what’s going to happen today?” It’s fun!
Bill Chance 