those obnoxious morning birds are at again (aka: anti-thesis of the ‘f’ word)
Published by hasan May 9th, 2007 in 1stepforward2stepsbackwards, Haruki Murakami, Insomnia.When I saw the sunrise at 4.30am this morning, I wondered how many other people in Tokyo were witnessing the same view. “Not many, probably. All the buildings in this city seem to obscure any hint of a horizon. I guess I’m lucky to be living on the Western outskirts of the city, just out of reach of Tokyo’s urban-crawl”.
Speaking of missing horizons, I saw this and this and said to myself, “lucky morning birds - outside and free.” (the ‘f’ word I refer to in the title, incidentally, is ‘freedom’ and not any other alternatives you may have imagined!).
I spent all night listening to Munir Bashir, tried to work on a few musical compositions and read a bit more of that Orhan Pamuk novel “Snow, before the three novels I just ordered from Amazon get here in a couple of days’ time. Haruki Murakami’s “After Dark”, Bulgakov’s “Master and Margarita” and Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth” (yes, I decided to be a badboy I got them all in hard-cover. Oh yes, I did!).
Speaking of the English-translation of Murakami’s “After Dark”, which was released internationally yesterday - me being the Murakami-junkie I am, I went to the Kinokuniya Bookstore in Kokubunji Station as soon as I was done with class to get a copy of his new book. When I got there - and to my disappointment - noticed that it wasn’t there, I went to the clerk and asked her why it wasn’t there, when the oh-so-wonderful wikipedia announced to the world that it would be released on May 8th. She made me wait for nearly 15 minutes as she went into the storage room to check all the books they had. She came out, shaking her head. This disappointed this particular Bahraini in Tokyo. I gave them a piece of my mind in what broken Japanese I could muster saying that Murakami is one of the few Japanese writers who have managed to bring Japanese literature to the world and they should be working hard to promote Japanese literature. All I got was a “we’re sorry for the inconvenience, sir”. Bottom line: Amazon Japan will be happy to be a few yen richer once they see my placed order in their system this morning.
Am I being unreasonable? I wonder.
why be reasonable?
had you not slept at 4:30 or did you wake up early?
bulgakov is a genius, one of my all time top 10…read fatal eggs when you done with M & M…haven’t read much murakami or fanon for that matter…need to get onto that, he says from behind ever growing stacks of unread books
where would you put me up if I came to visit? I can deal with the tatami mats, but not the showers
bikeshed - i live in a cardboard box right now but you’re always welcome here.
I’ve read “Master & Margarita” a couple of times back in 2000 and 2001 but never owned a copy of the book myself. Worth getting it in hardback, I figured.
I’m a murakami junkie, and I think fanon’s book is one of those “that’s that make you go hmm” kinda books.
I’ll be in Bahrain in Sept, but, if you manage to sneak off to Tokyo, you’re always welcome in my place.