Lypophrenia

Telling the story like this, I feel like I’m talking about someone else, he said with a chuckle, then fell silent.

And when it was all over, the king and his retainers burst out laughing, he finally said. That line always comes to me whenever I remember what happened. It’s like a conditioned reflex. It seems to me that very sad things always contain an element of the comical.

Shomei Tomatsu, Hateruma Island, 1971

Senju Hiroshi, Forest of Water, 2008

These days I just can’t seem to say what I mean,’ she said. ‘I just can’t. Every time I try to say something, it misses the point. Either that or I end up saying the opposite of what I mean. The more I try to get it right the more mixed up it gets. Sometimes I can’t even remember what I was trying to say in the first place. It’s like my body’s split in two and one of me is chasing the other me around a big pillar. We’re running circles around it. The other me has the right words, but I can never catch her…

Shomei Tomatsu, O shima Eiko, Actress in the Film Shiiku, 1961

Text from Haruki Murakami’s Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.