Connect Gang

Another recent example of fortuitous links. In my previous blog, I wrote about my trip to Boston to hear Haruki Murakami give a reading at M.I.T. This was almost two years ago, Oct. 6, 2005, near my birthday. I ditched work early, left for Boston on the bus, and left boston on the last bus out of beantown that same evening.

I was excited to hear him speak. In interviews, I've read that he was shy and this was a rare opportunity to hear him talk about his writing and possibly ask a question.

It was a packed auditorium and the radiator was malfunctioning. It was unbearably steamy in there. Murakami came in wearing a sportscoat which he quickly took off. In a surprisingly deep voice, the first thing he did was apologize for wearing his "ridiculous t-shirt." It was green and said "Pickle" on it. He said that he had expected to be able to wear the coat.

He seemed candid and to be having a good time. He recounted a story of him overhearing three students talk about him on a crowded japanese subway train. He was hiding behind a newspaper and was mortified that they were talking about him. But this didn't prevent him from keenly listening. One was a big fan of his. The other really didn't care for him. And the third apparently didn't care either way. That was the end of the story. In Murakami fashion, he said that after that incident, he was at ease with what people thought of his writing. It was as if all his readers were in three non-formidable piles-those that liked him, disliked him, and those that couldn't care less.

Murakami recently wrote about how he became a writer and his writing influences in an essay for The New York Times. About a year before the M.I.T. date, I had read a biography on Murakami written by one of his translators, Jay Rubin, entitled "Murakami and the Music of Words." In it, he wrote about Murakami's jazz bar, Peter Cat, which the essay discusses. I liked the book's description of it. The jazz music that was played at a volume where people couldn't go there for conversation. They had to be fans of the music to really appreciate a bar like that.

At the end of the reading, I got up and asked Murakami a question. I asked him how much he was writing, working at improving his writing, while managing the jazz bar. He didn't really give me the answer I wanted. And the moderator moved on before I could ask a follow-up. Reading the essay felt like a long awaited answer. That night, in Boston, he spoke of suddenly feeling the urge to write while at a baseball game and seeing his town's baseball team's player either round second base or run the bases. This was an anecdote that the essay doesn't go into besides to say, "When I turned 29, all of a sudden out of nowhere I got this feeling that I wanted to write a novel."

I like what the essay says about the levels of jazz and how it relates to his writing - rhythm, melody, harmony, and improvisation. He did emphasize rhythm that night. He read in the original japanese so that the audience could hear how the rhythm of his words were intended.

The essay mentions him having dinner with Danilo Perez about a year ago. Weird coincidence. I had seen Danilo Perez at the Jazz Standard play the weekend prior to the reading. Nate and Graham took me there for my birthday. And it was a heavy show. I walked out and was so high on music. I thought, at times, Danilo reminded me of Thelonious but with a latin spice, possibly adobo. It was refreshing.

So a few months ago, I went through a recurring Thelonious Monk period. At one point, I was at Virgin Megastore and I picked up a DVD of a montreal concert of his. I wanted to see how he made the piano sound like that. Not necessarily for the notes, but the quality of the sound of the notes. Monk doesn't really bend his fingers and slaps the keys as if his fingers were rods disciplining the ivories.

My favorite part of the essay:

One of my all-time favorite jazz pianists is Thelonious Monk. Once, when someone asked him how he managed to get a certain special sound out of the piano, Monk pointed to the keyboard and said: “It can’t be any new note. When you look at the keyboard, all the notes are there already. But if you mean a note enough, it will sound different. You got to pick the notes you really mean!”

I often recall these words when I am writing, and I think to myself, “It’s true. There aren’t any new words. Our job is to give new meanings and special overtones to absolutely ordinary words.” I find the thought reassuring. It means that vast, unknown stretches still lie before us, fertile territories just waiting for us to cultivate them.

I know from watching the DVD that Monk really was mean to those notes. Murakami respects Monk. Game recognizes game.