Once she called to invite me to a concert of Liszt piano concertos. The soloist was a famous South American pianist. I cleared my schedule and went with her to the concert hall at Ueno Park. The performance was brilliant. The soloist's technique was outstanding, the music both delicate and deep, and the pianist's heated emotions were there for all to feel. Still, even with my eyes closed, the music didn't sweep me away. A thin curtain stood between myself and pianist, and no matter how much I might try, I couldn't get to the other side. When I told Shimamoto this after the concert, she agreed.
"But what was wrong with the performance?" she asked. "I thought it was wonderful."
"Don't you remember?" I said. "The record we used to listen to, at the end of the second movement there was this tiny scratch you could hear. Putchi! Putchi! Somehow, without that scratch, I can't get into the music!"
Shimamoto laughed. "I wouldn't exactly call that art appreciation."
"This has nothing to do with art. Let a bald vulture eat that up, for all I care. I don't care what anybody says; I like that scratch!"
"Maybe you're right," she admitted. "But what's this about a bald vulture? Regular vultures I know about--they eat corpses. But bald vultures?"
In the train on the way home, I explained the difference in great detail.The difference in where they are born, their call, their mating periods. "The bald vulture lives by devouring art. The regular vulture lives by devouring the corpses of unknown people. They're completely different."
"You're a strange one!" She laughed. And there in the train seat, ever so slightly, she moved her shoulder to touch mine. The one and only time in the past two months our bodies touched.
Tags: humor love music romance surrealism
Artists are those who can evade the verbose.
Haruki MurakamiTags: art creativity artists
If you think God’s there, He is. If you don’t, He isn’t. And if that’s what God’s like, I wouldn’t worry about it.
Haruki MurakamiIn ancient times people weren't just male or female, but one of three types: male/male, male/female, or female/female. In other words, each person was made out of the components of two people. Everyone was happy with this arrangement and never really gave it much thought. But then God took a knife and cut everybody in half, right down the middle. So after that the world was divided just into male and female, the upshot being that people spend their time running around trying to locate their missing other half.
Haruki MurakamiTags: life love religion explanation theory
I don’t know what it means to live.
Haruki MurakamiTags: life
Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive.
Haruki MurakamiAs long as there's such a thing as time, everybody's damaged in the end, changed into something else. It always happens, sooner or later.
Haruki MurakamiWhat I think is this: You should give up looking for lost cats and start searching for the other half of your shadow.
Haruki MurakamiTags: haruki-murakami murakami kafka-on-the-shore
Holding this soft, small living creature in my lap this way, though, and seeing how it slept with complete trust in me, I felt a warm rush in my chest. I put my hand on the cat's chest and felt his heart beating. The pulse was faint and fast, but his heart, like mine, was ticking off the time allotted to his small body with all the restless earnestness of my own.
Haruki MurakamiBut intolerant,narrow minds with no imagination are like parasites that transform the host,change form,and continue to thrive. They're a lost cause, and I don't want anyone like that coming in here.
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