The writer in his shosai
Jan. 3rd, 2009 02:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusAnother treasure has come up from my cellar, decalcified and scraped clean of rat droppings: this time it's a book by photographer Takeoshi Tanuma entitled Bunshi No Shozo or Pictures of Authors. The preface explains that these are "authors who built up Japanese culture after the war". The book appeared in 1990. This is my favourite photograph in it:
This shows the writer Ito Sei in his shosai. A shosai is a room for books, a study, a workspace, a den for reading and writing. For me, this photo is the archetypal Japanese literary den. Ito sits on the floor in a tiny space, seen from a staircase. A naked bulb hangs above, and from floor to ceiling books line the space, less than one tatami mat across. Perhaps this is what Atelier Bow Wow had in mind when they created their mediapod.
Media in my living room continues to rise higher and higher as I bring things up from the cellar and find places to stack them in my workspace. But somehow the spirit of place captured in Tanuma's photos fails to emerge in my own space, a rather transitory and cerebral abstraction through which Wii and iMac signals are projected.
Here we see Yoshiuke Junosuke, Hotta Yoshie (below, left), Noma Hiroshi (top right, with the messy study) and Uno Koji (who looks like the austere leader of Shangri-La in Lost Horizon).
And here is Fujiwara Shinji with his traditional central fireplace and his small dog.
This of course is Yukio Mishima, hard at work composing the Sea of Fertility series, perhaps.
And this smoking man (almost all these writers smoke heavily in their dens) is suspense writer Matsumoto Seijo.
This shows the writer Ito Sei in his shosai. A shosai is a room for books, a study, a workspace, a den for reading and writing. For me, this photo is the archetypal Japanese literary den. Ito sits on the floor in a tiny space, seen from a staircase. A naked bulb hangs above, and from floor to ceiling books line the space, less than one tatami mat across. Perhaps this is what Atelier Bow Wow had in mind when they created their mediapod.
Media in my living room continues to rise higher and higher as I bring things up from the cellar and find places to stack them in my workspace. But somehow the spirit of place captured in Tanuma's photos fails to emerge in my own space, a rather transitory and cerebral abstraction through which Wii and iMac signals are projected.
Here we see Yoshiuke Junosuke, Hotta Yoshie (below, left), Noma Hiroshi (top right, with the messy study) and Uno Koji (who looks like the austere leader of Shangri-La in Lost Horizon).
And here is Fujiwara Shinji with his traditional central fireplace and his small dog.
This of course is Yukio Mishima, hard at work composing the Sea of Fertility series, perhaps.
And this smoking man (almost all these writers smoke heavily in their dens) is suspense writer Matsumoto Seijo.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 02:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 02:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 03:33 am (UTC)if you haven't already i urge you to read ango sakaguchi (he presents just about everything that's absent in a momus account of japan yet present in a momus account of non-japan) - he should really be holding hands with brecht in your pantheon
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 05:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 02:56 am (UTC)You've seen photos of Mishima that preceded his suicide?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 02:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 04:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 03:38 am (UTC)The temple of the golden pavilion is one of those books I've been meaning to buy for ages.
I was going to mention also, you know I mentioned the possible links between Erich Fromm's 'having and being' and Buddhist philosophy, well, I was recently reading about Suzuki Daisetsu on wikipedia and I came across this quote of Fromm:
"In the literature on Zen Buddhism, there are writers such as Suzuki, whose authenticity is beyond doubt--he speaks of what he has experienced. The very fact of this authenticity makes his books often difficult to read, because it is of the essence of Zen not to give answers that are rationally satisfying. There are some other books which seem to portray the thoughts of Zen properly, but whose authors are mere intellectuals whose experience is shallow. Their books are easier to understand, but they do not convey the essential quality of Zen."
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 04:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 08:59 am (UTC)Got a big crush on that Joan Of Arc.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 04:30 pm (UTC)And his books are far better than his person.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 04:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 11:21 am (UTC)excellent, pure zen, mate. good use of the diamond mind. reckon this gave me enough satori to take me through the first half of the year
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 01:49 pm (UTC)"Q:Why do vacuum cleaners make bad buddhists?
A: Because they have attachments."
I was like "whoa, deep." It was in my Christmas cracker!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 03:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 04:06 am (UTC)I like these photographs
Date: 2009-01-03 10:59 am (UTC)acr
Date: 2009-01-03 12:30 pm (UTC)Re: acr
Date: 2009-01-03 01:12 pm (UTC)I never bought the Durutti Column album -- one of Peter Saville's little jokes, that one.
Re: acr
Date: 2009-01-06 01:03 pm (UTC)T'was me re ACR. I can never remember my user ref. That is a typical sleeve that just doesn't cut it in cd form. I'd never part with mine.
On the decor comment, this has been lurking for some time. I'd like to dedicate a complete wall to the sleeve, but as my place is 300 years old there is no expanse of wall space to feature the ilistration.
Hey, how about one of the outside walls!?
What would you do?
Robert Dye
Re: acr
Date: 2009-01-06 01:06 pm (UTC)Martha Tilson vocals were just like another instrument to the sound. Just in the way that Alan Vega's is to Suicide.
Re: acr
Date: 2009-01-06 01:24 pm (UTC)Maybe try it out first with a projector?
boxes
Date: 2009-01-03 12:31 pm (UTC)lovely photos, btw where do you get your storage boxes from, they look ideal for my study. Are they Ikea?
peaces and love
maf
Re: boxes
Date: 2009-01-03 01:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 03:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 04:53 pm (UTC)oh, they surely did; a lot of the 20thC japanese lit guys. especially in the late 40s and 50s
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 05:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 08:53 pm (UTC)But then again I never really experienced the narcotics that supposedly underpinned the art and music of the twentieth century, only the hallucinogens that tend to reinforce shared experiences and subsequent babbling.
Hence the babbling.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-04 04:44 pm (UTC)unrelated
Date: 2009-01-03 08:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-03 09:24 pm (UTC)Sputnik is about a young Student whom wishes to become a wrirter and does allot of smoking and wears Mickey Mouse underwear. The story floats in lots of Nihon cultura . It's all lite to the touch like fresh Tempora.
Great Pics Nic!
Happy New Year.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-04 02:09 pm (UTC)DC
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-08 07:10 pm (UTC)~m
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-08 07:35 pm (UTC)