Soothing Music, The Spider Man, and Ubu Roi

Thursday, November 7, 2024

Since returning from Tokyo, I have been busy dealing with my neuroses and various writing projects. It has dawned on me that I’m slowly turning into my mother, or at the very least, an Oscar Levant, but without his wit and piano talents. While in Tokyo, I didn’t buy that many things; I mostly spent my money on coffee and transportation on trains and buses. I managed to buy a few records, which I mentioned in a previous post, but I want to give some attention to Haruomi Hosono’s soundtrack mini-album Undercurrent. The album is around 18 minutes long, which, these days, is a perfect amount of time for an album.

The album is electronic with ambient leanings, but being Hosono, a wishful emotion runs through the work. There are layers of keyboards and what sounds like bells or something shaking in a glass underwater. The echo touch is a memory, and I feel nostalgic for something not there. The lead piano has a strong melody going through every track (six of them here) that will remind Hosono listeners of some of his work for TV commercials. But still, this is something new, and the traces of melody glue in all the aural delights of this magnificent recording.

The other cultural highlight of these past few weeks is The Spider-Man by Edogawa Ranpo, mainly spelled in Roman letters as Rampo. If you pronounce his name repeatedly, you will get Edgar Allen Poe. The British wing of Penguin Books recently published two of his excellent novels, The Black Lizard and Gold Mask. Still, recently, there have been translations by Alexis J. Brown published by Zakuro Books, which are, as far as I know, only available on Amazon. The design work inside the book is not so hot, but still readable. Nevertheless, Rampo (or Ranpo) is a significant figure in detective and horror writing in Japan. What gives him that extra twist is the perversion of his violent narrations. Plot-wise, they are almost Surrealistic, and perhaps the closest type of literature is France’s Fantomas.

I don’t want to talk about the story or plot because the fun of The Spider-Man is for the reader to discover its twists and turns. Rampo writes like a drunken driver, and the reader is in the car's back seat, holding on for dear life. It is also interesting to read pulp literature from other countries and cultures. 1920s Japan was fascinated with the West, and parts of Tokyo's culture were reflected in the times. Writers like Jun'ichirō Tanizaki have commented through his writing on that era, and it’s fascinating to see how his culture reflects on the modern era of Europe and the United States.

On another thought, I’m feeling sad. Trump's becoming the president for at least four more years will not be good for anyone except for the Musks of the world. But my sadness also comes from knowing that the knife that stabbed America has everyone’s fingerprints on that knife. One can point their index finger to many, but first, one has to point their thumb to themselves. Politics and culture have been drifting to the Right for a while now, and there are reasons for this wrong direction. One can write a series of books (and they will arrive in good time) about what happened and why, but at the end of the day, a great majority of Americans are happy with the election results in 2024. Their happiness makes me miserable and sad. In his twisted manner, Trump has been honest, and he is genuinely Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi. The irony is that it is not only politics, but he is also the world’s worst office manager. Like his previous four years in office, his Administration will have weekly changeovers. I suspect that Musk and Kennedy will not stay long in Trump’s White House because they are both crazy and ego-maniacs. There is room for only one ego-maniac, and that is Trump. Steve Bannon will do well because he is happy being Iago in Trump’s Othello, and at the very least, Bannon has read and understood Machiavelli.