Shades of Gray
from "Elephant," by Murakami (his interviews with people involved in the Tokyo bombings of 1995):
Kano: As long as the statistical structure you use is the same as that used in medical science, then it's okay. These symptoms mean this, this is how you treat them, that sort of thing.
Murakami: I don't imagine you read novels.
Kano: No, I don't. Three pages is about the most I can manage before I give up.
Murakami: Since I'm a novelist I'm the opposite of you -- I believe that what's most important is what CANNOT be measured. I'm not denying your way of thinking, but the greater part of people's lives consists of things that are unmeasurable, and trying to change all these to something measurable is realistically impossible.
from "Dinner at the Homesick Restuarant," by Anne Tyler
"When your mother and I were first married, everything was perfect. It seemed I could do no wrong. Then bit by bit I guess she saw my faults. I'd never hid them, but now it seemed they mattered after all.... I was sitting over a beer in the kitchen one Sunday evening and all at once, not even knowing I'd do it, I said, 'Pearl, I'm leaving.'
Cody said, "You mean THAT was when you left?"
"I packed a bag and walked out," said Beck.
Cody sat down on the stoop.
"See," said Beck, "what it was, I guess: it was the grayness; grayness of things; half-right-and-half-wrongness of things. Everything tangled, mingled, not perfect any more. I couldn't take that. Your mother could, but not me."
Clem Snide, "I Love the Unknown"
she asked him,
"why can we not be together
why is it we have to part
why did you leave with a stranger
when i am revealing my heart?"
because i love the unknown
i love the unknown
he says he loves the unknown
they asked him,
"hey, where's this bus going?"
and he said, "well, i'm really not sure."
"well then, how will you know where to get off?"
and he said, "the place with the most allure."
becuase i love the unknown
and then his father got him a job
and it paid well
but every day it felt the same
well, his father was really heartbroken
when he quit and changed his last name
because he loves the unknown
the doctor asked him what he was afraid of
just what was he running from?
he said, "it's not a fear of success, nor of closeness
but of going through life feeling numb."
that's why i love the unknown
i love the unknown
he said he loves the unknown
from the movie, "Waking Life:"
Creation seems to come out of imperfection. It seems to come out of a striving and a frustration, and this is where I think language came from. I mean, it came from our desire to transcend our isolation and have some sort of connection with one another.
So much of our experience is intangible. So much of what we perceive cannot be expressed; it's unspeakable.
And yet when we communicate with one another, and we feel that we have connected, we think that we're understood, I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion. And that feeling might be transient, but I think it's what we live for.
Ken Kesey quote:
The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you'll always be seeking. I've never seen anybody really find the answer -- they think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.
Kano: As long as the statistical structure you use is the same as that used in medical science, then it's okay. These symptoms mean this, this is how you treat them, that sort of thing.
Murakami: I don't imagine you read novels.
Kano: No, I don't. Three pages is about the most I can manage before I give up.
Murakami: Since I'm a novelist I'm the opposite of you -- I believe that what's most important is what CANNOT be measured. I'm not denying your way of thinking, but the greater part of people's lives consists of things that are unmeasurable, and trying to change all these to something measurable is realistically impossible.
from "Dinner at the Homesick Restuarant," by Anne Tyler
"When your mother and I were first married, everything was perfect. It seemed I could do no wrong. Then bit by bit I guess she saw my faults. I'd never hid them, but now it seemed they mattered after all.... I was sitting over a beer in the kitchen one Sunday evening and all at once, not even knowing I'd do it, I said, 'Pearl, I'm leaving.'
Cody said, "You mean THAT was when you left?"
"I packed a bag and walked out," said Beck.
Cody sat down on the stoop.
"See," said Beck, "what it was, I guess: it was the grayness; grayness of things; half-right-and-half-wrongness of things. Everything tangled, mingled, not perfect any more. I couldn't take that. Your mother could, but not me."
Clem Snide, "I Love the Unknown"
she asked him,
"why can we not be together
why is it we have to part
why did you leave with a stranger
when i am revealing my heart?"
because i love the unknown
i love the unknown
he says he loves the unknown
they asked him,
"hey, where's this bus going?"
and he said, "well, i'm really not sure."
"well then, how will you know where to get off?"
and he said, "the place with the most allure."
becuase i love the unknown
and then his father got him a job
and it paid well
but every day it felt the same
well, his father was really heartbroken
when he quit and changed his last name
because he loves the unknown
the doctor asked him what he was afraid of
just what was he running from?
he said, "it's not a fear of success, nor of closeness
but of going through life feeling numb."
that's why i love the unknown
i love the unknown
he said he loves the unknown
from the movie, "Waking Life:"
Creation seems to come out of imperfection. It seems to come out of a striving and a frustration, and this is where I think language came from. I mean, it came from our desire to transcend our isolation and have some sort of connection with one another.
So much of our experience is intangible. So much of what we perceive cannot be expressed; it's unspeakable.
And yet when we communicate with one another, and we feel that we have connected, we think that we're understood, I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion. And that feeling might be transient, but I think it's what we live for.
Ken Kesey quote:
The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you'll always be seeking. I've never seen anybody really find the answer -- they think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.
posted by fred burgess! at 7:39 PM
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