WitnessThinks…It’s Time To Move.

I’m a huge fan of Haruki Murakami.
And this is one of my favorite short stories by him.
Featured in “The Elephant Vanishes”

On Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning

One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo’s fashionable Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl.

Tell you the truth, she’s not that good-looking. She doesn’t stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn’t young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a “girl,” properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She’s the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there’s a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert.

Maybe you have your own particular favorite type of girl - one with slim ankles, say, or big eyes, or graceful fingers, or you’re drawn for no good reason to girls who take their time with every meal. I have my own preferences, of course. Sometimes in a restaurant I’ll catch myself staring at the girl at the next table to mine because I like the shape of her nose.

But no one can insist that his 100% perfect girl correspond to some preconceived type. Much as I like noses, I can’t recall the shape of hers - or even if she had one. All I can remember for sure is that she was no great beauty. It’s weird.

“Yesterday on the street I passed the 100% girl,” I tell someone.

“Yeah?” he says. “Good-looking?”

“Not really.”

“Your favorite type, then?”

“I don’t know. I can’t seem to remember anything about her - the shape of her eyes or the size of her breasts.”

“Strange.”

“Yeah. Strange.”

“So anyhow,” he says, already bored, “what did you do? Talk to her? Follow her?”

“Nah. Just passed her on the street.”

She’s walking east to west, and I west to east. It’s a really nice April morning.

Wish I could talk to her. Half an hour would be plenty: just ask her about herself, tell her about myself, and - what I’d really like to do - explain to her the complexities of fate that have led to our passing each other on a side street in Harajuku on a beautiful April morning in 1981. This was something sure to be crammed full of warm secrets, like an antique clock built when peace filled the world.

After talking, we’d have lunch somewhere, maybe see a Woody Allen movie, stop by a hotel bar for cocktails. With any kind of luck, we might end up in bed.

Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart.

Now the distance between us has narrowed to fifteen yards.

How can I approach her? What should I say?

“Good morning, miss. Do you think you could spare half an hour for a little conversation?”

Ridiculous. I’d sound like an insurance salesman.

“Pardon me, but would you happen to know if there is an all-night cleaners in the neighborhood?”

No, this is just as ridiculous. I’m not carrying any laundry, for one thing. Who’s going to buy a line like that?

Maybe the simple truth would do. “Good morning. You are the 100% perfect girl for me.”

No, she wouldn’t believe it. Or even if she did, she might not want to talk to me. Sorry, she could say, I might be the 100% perfect girl for you, but you’re not the 100% boy for me. It could happen. And if I found myself in that situation, I’d probably go to pieces. I’d never recover from the shock. I’m thirty-two, and that’s what growing older is all about.

We pass in front of a flower shop. A small, warm air mass touches my skin. The asphalt is damp, and I catch the scent of roses. I can’t bring myself to speak to her. She wears a white sweater, and in her right hand she holds a crisp white envelope lacking only a stamp. So: She’s written somebody a letter, maybe spent the whole night writing, to judge from the sleepy look in her eyes. The envelope could contain every secret she’s ever had.

I take a few more strides and turn: She’s lost in the crowd.

Now, of course, I know exactly what I should have said to her. It would have been a long speech, though, far too long for me to have delivered it properly. The ideas I come up with are never very practical.

Oh, well. It would have started “Once upon a time” and ended “A sad story, don’t you think?”

Once upon a time, there lived a boy and a girl. The boy was eighteen and the girl sixteen. He was not unusually handsome, and she was not especially beautiful. They were just an ordinary lonely boy and an ordinary lonely girl, like all the others. But they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the 100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect girl for them. Yes, they believed in a miracle. And that miracle actually happened.

One day the two came upon each other on the corner of a street.

“This is amazing,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you all my life. You may not believe this, but you’re the 100% perfect girl for me.”

“And you,” she said to him, “are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as I’d pictured you in every detail. It’s like a dream.”

They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other. It’s a miracle, a cosmic miracle.

As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one’s dreams to come true so easily?

And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the girl, “Let’s test ourselves - just once. If we really are each other’s 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. And when that happens, and we know that we are the 100% perfect ones, we’ll marry then and there. What do you think?”

“Yes,” she said, “that is exactly what we should do.”

And so they parted, she to the east, and he to the west.

The test they had agreed upon, however, was utterly unnecessary. They should never have undertaken it, because they really and truly were each other’s 100% perfect lovers, and it was a miracle that they had ever met. But it was impossible for them to know this, young as they were. The cold, indifferent waves of fate proceeded to toss them unmercifully.

One winter, both the boy and the girl came down with the season’s terrible inluenza, and after drifting for weeks between life and death they lost all memory of their earlier years. When they awoke, their heads were as empty as the young D. H. Lawrence’s piggy bank.

They were two bright, determined young people, however, and through their unremitting efforts they were able to acquire once again the knowledge and feeling that qualified them to return as full-fledged members of society. Heaven be praised, they became truly upstanding citizens who knew how to transfer from one subway line to another, who were fully capable of sending a special-delivery letter at the post office. Indeed, they even experienced love again, sometimes as much as 75% or even 85% love.

Time passed with shocking swiftness, and soon the boy was thirty-two, the girl thirty.

One beautiful April morning, in search of a cup of coffee to start the day, the boy was walking from west to east, while the girl, intending to send a special-delivery letter, was walking from east to west, but along the same narrow street in the Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo. They passed each other in the very center of the street. The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts. Each felt a rumbling in their chest. And they knew:

She is the 100% perfect girl for me.

He is the 100% perfect boy for me.

But the glow of their memories was far too weak, and their thoughts no longer had the clarity of fourteen years earlier. Without a word, they passed each other, disappearing into the crowd. Forever.

A sad story, don’t you think?

Yes, that’s it, that is what I should have said to her.

I was reluctant to share my thoughts about the Inauguration on this blog.
Not because I have some shocking perspective on things, but mostly because news coverage has been so (deservingly) heavy over the last few days that personal reflection on the matter has been almost impossible.

I’ve had the news on since 9 am and as I type this, Dick Cheney is being pushed out of the White House in a wheelchair. This image, in addition to various others that I’ve seen in the final hours of the George W. Bush presidency have been a bittersweet reparation for the anxieties of the last eight years. And yet, I feel something that I can only describe as the symptoms of a political Stockholm Syndrome. The cold hours spent on foot in front of political monuments in D.C. with a sign in my hand, the protest shows, the canvassing, the anger, the embarrassment and the feeling that the majority of country didn’t seem to agree with my system of fundamental beliefs– somehow became welcome and almost comfortable. That’s pretty fucked up.

As for Obama, there’s nothing that I can say that hasn’t been said a thousand times by a thousand different talking heads over a thousand different news media outlets. America grew up a little bit. People wanted “change”. (Though we can’t seem agree on its definition.) The impact this has had on the civil rights movement has made for some of the most beautiful moments I’ve ever seen in my life. The evening of his election was the first time I ever felt at home in this country. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen this “American Dream” that I was told so much about in my school years. And though I feel genuinely hopeful about the next four years–I’m still panged with anxieties about the uncertain. But it’s an uncertainty I find far more comfortable than that of the last eight years.

That constitution states that even without oath, we will have a new president at 12 PM.
So here’s my last post in a G. Dub world.
Good riddance.

Been busy recording my Japan-only release, the “EverAfter” LP and hating on winter.
(Yes, that will mark the end of the “Ever” series.)
(Yes, the new songs on it will see release in the US at some point.)

Now for another of installment of “Here are fliers with my name on them”.

What muse do my eyes behold?
A vision in pleather
O Jan Terri,
Take my feet for your sweeping.
Take me under your swan wings.
O Portly Siren,
I’m victim to your seductive bouquet
Of Aqua-Net and angelic melody.
Steal me.
And steal me again.

Alright, so it’s not dead.

I’m not arrogant or ignorant enough to make a claim as broad as that. But the word “remix”, like “freestyle”, has long since lost the definition it carried in the golden days. Not to turn this into a backpacker rant, but I think it’s worth mentioning when the indie pop scene is putting together far more memorable remixes than the Hip Hop scene. Too many emcees not enough DJs syndrome, perhaps?

I’m not saying that good remixes don’t exist anymore; I just find myself hearing more and more “remixes” which consist of little more than an acapella haphazardly strewn across a lazily looped sample. They don’t add anything to the original song, nor do they provide a different interpretation of it. It’s just simply the same shit over a different beat. Maybe I’m bitter because I grew up on a bunch of remixes that were either new songs onto themselves or versions that were vastly superior to the originals. Or maybe it’s because I’m lucky to know a few producers who consistently pour their hearts into their remixes.

While it’s by no means a comprehensive list, here’s a list of some notable remixes:

Eric B. & Rakim - Paid in Full (Coldcut Remix)

Coldcut took an already classic track, flipped it up, laced it with a dope vocal sample from Israeli singer Ofra Haza and made lightning strike twice. I was exposed to this one through a local skate video which I would love to dig up, if only because it features someone riding a washing machine attached to a skateboard down a staircase.

The Pharcyde - She Said (Amsterdam Remix)

The original track was way too clean and never really sat well with me. Enter Dilla. He gives the Pharcyde the gritty jazz backdrop that they work best over and suddenly the chorus is enjoyable and one of Fatlip’s smoothest verses gets the proper shine. You know a remix is dope when it warrants another music video for a song that already has one.

(Notable Mention: “Soul Flower (Remix)” from Bizzare Ride II actually DOES have an original. Weird case where the remix is the most well known version because the original is on an obscure record. It was featured on British acid-jazz band the Brand New Heavies album and if you can find it, I highly suggest it.)

A Tribe Called Quest - Scenario (LONS remix)

Good luck going to a battle without hearing this beat come on once. This is a great example of a remix that has shares almost nothing in common with the original, aside from being another collaboration between Leaders of the New School and Tribe. Both tracks are classic, both are different. It’s tough to even call this one a remix, but I’ll be damned if it’s not making this short list.

Black Sheep - The Choice Is Yours (Revisited)

A week ago, I scored about twenty classic hip hop cassette tapes at the local thrift store. “A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing” was in that mother lode and while trying to teach myself how to fast forward and rewind through tapes with the same precision that I had in the 90s, I stumbled across the original version of this song. I forgot that it even existed. It’s a much clunkier version of the song above, and doesn’t include have the “Engine, Engine Number 9…” verse. So, this is a prime example of a remix that became the definitive version.

Public Enemy - Shut Em Down (Pete Rock Remix)

No clue why I can’t find anything other than the instrumental version on Youtube, but this is essential.

My New Year’s Eve was spent at a small party hosted by an Irish surf instructor. I wasn’t even aware they had surfing in Ireland, let alone enough of it to necessitate an instructor, but this guy was a fucking prince. While this might sound peculiar enough to be interesting, I was actually pretty disappointed with my evening.

This is nothing new. My group of friends have been developing a tradition of exceptionally poor planning for New Year’s Eve. For a collection of cats who pride themselves on their ability to consume large sums of alcohol on any given occasion, you’d think we’d have one of the biggest party nights of the year on lock. But sure enough, come December 25th or so, calls begin circulating that run in the vein of “What are we doing?”.

05: I get invited to a party, which unbeknownst to me is being hosted by a girl that I went to high school with. I later find out that the majority of the people at the party also went to high school with me, but unfortunately they’re all people I either didn’t like or didn’t talk to. I stayed huddled with a small group of friends that night. Awkward.

06: My girlfriend at the time was a bartender and wanted me to come to her bar while she worked. As the ball dropped, a patron proposed to her. Diamond ring and all. In a fit of anger, I leave the bar and go to a nearby casino where I win 400 dollars on a penny slot. We break up a month later.

07: I go to a bar with friends where I’m rejected by the bouncer for wearing a hat. I drive home and decide to drink with my neighbor and brother. A jam session breaks out and doesn’t end until 6 in the morning.

I’m not sure what I’m looking to do next year, but best believe I’m gonna plan something a LITTLE better.