Author: DC (Page 201 of 1086)

* (restored)
* all text culled from The Tom Graeff Project Website

 

‘Tom Graeff was born Thomas Lockyear Graeff on September 12, 1929, to George and Grace Graeff in the now-vanished mining town of Ray, Arizona. Before Tom was two years old, he and his parents moved to Los Angeles, where Tom grew up and where his brother James was born. Discovering a love for film at an early age, Tom enrolled in the UCLA Theater Arts program, which allowed him to study filmmaking.

 

 

‘Graeff pledged the Delta Chi fraternity and became a brother. His college career was marked by poor grades and after being put on academic probation several times, he redeemed himself by making a short film about fraternity life entitled Toast to Our Brother.

‘The film starred Graeff and a Paramount ingenue named Judith Ames, and guest-starred the Hollywood actor and comedian Joe E. Brown, a UCLA alumni. Judith Ames, who appeared in When Worlds Collide, later changed her name to Rachel Ames and found success in the role of “Audrey Hardy,” one of the longest-running characters on the popular American soap opera General Hospital. Toast to Our Brother premiered at the Village Theater in Westwood on December 18, 1951 as a benefit for the St. Sophia Building Fund. The film garnered some industry attention and, because of the work Graeff put into it as writer, director, producer, and star, he was allowed to graduate in 1952.

 

Toast to Our Brother – the entirety

 

‘After graduation, Graeff made several attempts to break into the film industry. Inspired by Roger Corman, Graeff decided to work independently. Described by friends and acquaintances as outgoing, energetic, creative, and a born salesman, Graeff landed a job producing and directing a recruiting film for Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California. The resulting 20-minute film, entitled The Orange Coast College Story, was first shown on campus in May of 1954. The film was narrated by actor Vincent Price, who was a friend of the faculty advisor, and starred a young actor named Chuck Roberts, who became romantically involved with Graeff and helped him by working on Graeff’s two feature films.

 

Stills from The Orange Coast College Story

 

‘In the summer of 1954, Graeff began production on his first feature, a fantasy/ comedy entitled The Noble Experiment, to be shot in 35mm and color in Orange County, California, where Graeff was now living with his parents and younger brother. The film was photographed by Austin McKinney, who also shot Toast to Our Brother and who invented the apparatus that allowed the pre-recorded dialogue to be played back on set so the actors could lipsync. This saved on having to rent sound recording equipment or having to post-dub the actors later. McKinney had devised a 16mm version of the device while filming Toast to Our Brother, but now created a 35mm version for Tom’s first feature.

‘The film took a year to complete and premiered at the Lido Theater in Newport Beach, California, on August 2, 1955. Graeff again played the lead in this fantasy that he describes as being “about an amateur biochemist who, successful with a chemical ‘get-along pill’ for his mother-in-law, pours a barrel full of the concoction into the city water supply.” The film was not well received by the local audiences, but remained Graeff’s favorite of his films.

‘Today, no print of this film has been located. You can read Tom’s own description of the plot and themes of the film below. While a fantasy, The Noble Experiment was both autobiographical and eerily prescient about Graeff’s later troubles.

Our protagonist is Ronald, a good natured, very sensitive and imaginative young married man whose only vice is his evening and weekend tinkering with biochemistry experiments in a makeshift lab in his garage (which he sometimes gets so concerned with that he forgets little chores such as pulling weeds and repairing things like the loose and anxious ironing board which, at the slightest provocation, unfolds out of its wall with a bang, followed a moment later by its little sleeve board).

Ronald’s antagonist, a frequent family visitor who becomes the inspiration for his ‘noble experiment’ because of her uninhibited faultfinding with him over his household irresponsibility, is Motherinlaw. Her daughter, Katherine, our hero’s wife, tries valiantly to win her Mother to Ronald by describing, with as much exuberance as she can muster, his latest potion, this time a carrotcolored syrup, which, when taken in proper doses, is supposed to … (well, for the sake of brevity we won’t go into that here).

Already disgruntled over squealing gate hinges, the tall weeds, and then a doorknocker that comes off in her hand, Mother finds the new concoction outrageous, the ultimate in absurdity among Ronald’s timewasting nonsense projects.

That night, after watching TV pill commercials (to lose weight, or gain, or sleep, or keep awake and even one for getting rid of ‘that blue feeling,’ etc., Ronald gets his brainstorm idea: Why not a pill that would change Mother-in-law so drastically that he and she would get along: And that is what he’d call it: the ‘GetAlong’ pill. Why, the implications of worldwide use would be enormous. Imagine. Everyone taking the pills and getting along with everyone else. Think what would happen to crime, and war, and all of man’s inhumanities. This is what the world has been waiting for. If people wouldn’t take the pills, the formula could be vaporized in the air, or put in the reservoirs of drinking water.

Ronald sets to work immediately to come up with such a formula. He sticks at it night and day, with only short naps and snacks in between. After several weeks the project leads him to financial ruin, but he keeps right on.

In writing the script, it seemed reasonable to assume that a man working with diligence, perseverance, and singlemindedness, so unheeding of his ‘financial situation’ or other consequences, and all for an idea which to the runofthemill would seem utterly farfetched, would at some point along the way find himself forcibly removed to an institution for the emotionally disturbed. And so, this is what happens to Ronald. All this work without success, and now he finds himself in Sunnyside Asylum (Mother-in-law knows mental illness when she sees it.)

But, Eureka. An elderly scientist, confined there for years, is able to help Ronald. The old codger had been top man in a biochemical warfare research lab and had been caught putting his own secret ‘getalong’ formula into missile warheads instead of the death chemicals that had been ordered. This unbalanced behavior was enough to have him committed post haste.

But now Ronald has what his formula had lacked, and he escapes in the night with the help of the old fellow who himself chooses to remain.

Home again, Ronald mixes a huge batch of the formula–an eerie, milkypink substance. He prepares to test it on himself, having put a minute amount of it in a cup that he has Katherine take into the kitchen to fill with coffee. But before Katherine knows what has happened, Mother sips from the cup. Katherine knocks it out of her Mother’s hand, and rushes out to tell Ronald what has happened in case an antidote is needed. Mother follows, alarmed and furious with Ronald. But then … there is silence … She blinks her eyes… and then …”Hic… Hic up.” Ronald and Katherine stare, immobile. A gentle smile breaks over Mother’s face. Her eyes twinkle. “Ronald, my son..,” she says, her voice overflowing with warmth and affection.

Katherine is incredulous. “It works.'” Ronald joyously accepts Mother’s offer to help in his plan to get the whole batch into the city dam.

What happens to the little town and to Ronald, the funny things and the notsofunny things, the international reaction, and what the old scientist back at the asylum says about the results are things everyone should find worth pondering.

Ronald, even though he succeeded only in a ‘noble experiment,’ nevertheless had set his heart on a dream of what the world could become.

Will not, someday, everyone catch that same dream?

Would any more than that be needed?

 

The only surviving images from The Noble Experiment

 

‘His hard work paid off, however, when he was hired as an assistant on Roger Corman’s film Not of This Earth in the summer of 1956. To cut costs, Roger Corman regularly used crew members to play small parts in his films. We know that Tom worked as an assistant on Corman’s Not of This Earth. Now it’s been confirmed that the car park attendant in two scenes is Tom.

 

Roger Corman’s Not of This Earth

 

‘The experience working with Roger Corman led directly to Graeff’s writing a heart-felt science-fiction script entitled Killers from Outer Space and, modeling himself after Corman, Graeff set about getting investors, hiring actors, and planning the production. Securing some of the $14,000 budget from actor Gene Sterling, Graeff placed a small ad in The Hollywood Reporter looking for more investors. The ad was answered by British actor Bryan Pearson (billed as Bryan Grant), who put up $5000 in exchange for playing the role of Thor, the evil alien, and casting his wife Ursula Pearson (billed as Ursula Hansen) in the small role of Hilda.

‘Filmed in the fall of 1956, the film changed titles several times before it was eventually released as Teenagers from Outer Space by Warner Brothers in June of 1959. The film, now considered a cult classic, tells the tale of Derek (played by Chuck Roberts, a.k.a David Love) a space alien with a conscience who must save Earth from an invasion of giant flesh-eating monsters. It was shot entirely on location in Hollywood, California. The final title of the film was apparently not Graeff’s choice. The last title he gave to the film before selling it to Warner Brothers was The Boy From Out of This World.

 

Tom Graeff’s Teenagers from Outer Space

 

‘When it was finally released, it appeared as the lower part of a double bill alongside the second Godzilla film, Gigantis the Fire Monster, and was shown almost exclusively at drive-in theaters. Critics were not kind to the film, though Graeff was mentioned in the Los Angeles Times and Variety as a director with talent and a creative approach to a minimal budget. Audiences and theater exhibitors were vocal in their contempt for the film.

‘In the early 1960s, however, the film was sold to television, where it played frequently for the next thirty years and gained a cult following as a supreme example of a film whose intentions far outstripped its budget and for its infamous ray gun that turned living things into instant skeletons, an effect lovingly borrowed by Tim Burton in his film Mars Attacks!.

 

Stills from Teenagers from Outer Space

 

‘In November of 1959, Graeff bought a large advertisement in the Los Angeles Times, announcing that God had spoken to him and wanted him to spread peace and love throughout the world. This was followed by another advertisement announcing that Graeff was now named Jesus Christ II, and would be making an appearance on the steps of a Hollywood church to spread God’s word.

 

 

‘In 1960, Graeff appeared in the Los Angeles County Superior Court to petition for his name change. With vocal opposition by the Christian Defense League, the petition was denied. Later in 1960, Graeff interrupted a church service at the Hollywood Church of Christ, shouting “I’m Jesus Christ II and I’ve got a message. Everyone must listen.” Graeff was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace. This was actually his second arrest for disturbing the peace that year. Earlier he had disrupted a college class and had to be forcibly removed.

 

Tom Graeff leaving the Los Angeles Court House in 1960

 

‘Sentenced to 90 days in jail, Graeff jumped bail and fled first to the Midwest, then farther east until more entanglements with the law and state authorities led to jail time and finally an involuntary stay in a state mental hospital. After a series of electro-shock treatments, he was returned to his parents in California by late 1964.

‘Although Tom seemed to have given up filmmaking for involvement in various social and religious causes while a fugitive, he nonetheless was hired as editor on David L. Hewitt’s ultra low-budget science fiction film Wizard of Mars in 1965.

 

David L. Hewitt’s Wizard of Mars

 

‘By 1968, he had completed a bizarre screenplay entitled alternately Please, Please Turn Me Off, The Immortalizer, and The Fate Worse Than Death. In early 1968, Graeff took out a small ad in Variety, announcing that his screenplay, now entitled Orf, was for sale for the unprecedented sum of $500,000. Gossip columnist Joyce Haber followed up and printed a sarcastic piece in the Los Angeles Times, which reported that Graeff claimed Robert Wise was attached and Carl Reiner was to star. Wise denied any involvement.

‘Graeff, hurt by Haber’s misquotes and nasty attitude, published an apology to Robert Wise in The Hollywood Reporter, accusing Haber of purposefully omitting facts and trying to destroy negotiations to get the script produced. Haber responded in her column by telling everyone in Hollywood of the Jesus Christ II incident ten years earlier.

 

Tom Graeff in the late ’60s

 

‘Tom’s final years were obsessive and energetic. He lived in a beautiful home on Rodgerton in the Hollywood Hills, apparently serving as an assistant/helper to the house’s owner. Tom was vague about how he got his money. He always seemed to have enough to get by, despite never holding down a regular job. He continued to try and interest the Hollywood elite in Orf. He called agents and actors all over the world, asking them to read his script, then following up with them until they said, “No.” And they all said no.

 

 

‘Tom was also running Evolutionary Data Foundation, a mail order business that primarily existed to sell a long-playing record of a lecture he gave at the Metropoloan Community Church. The record’s front cover had a groovy picture of Jesus and the back cover proclaimed “UNABASHED LOVEMAKING and how sexual hypocrisy got started.” The lecture is a wacky, often humor-filled explanation of why man is inherently bisexual, with stops along the way into the theories of Desmond Morris and Richard Leakey. The record was broadcast twice in its entirety on local radio station KPFK-FM in 1969.

 

Cover illustration of Tom Graeff’s LP

 

‘Ironically, the back cover text on the record claimed that one of its uses was to help end the suicides of men with “an inability to cope with the flood of convincing misinformation concerning their homosexual feelings.” Tom talked about committing suicide endlessly to his circle of friends, who laughed him off or became annoyed at what they thought was a way for Tom to get attention and sympathy. Tom swung from manic highs, running around Hollywood trying to promote his projects, to depressed lows when he just sat quietly and said little.

 

The last known photograph of Tom Graeff

 

‘What led to Tom’s suicide? Was it that “inability to cope” with his homosexual feelings? Hearsay evidence points to a very different reason, which may also explain why he moved from Hollywood to a small rented room outside San Diego. Why were many of his papers destroyed after his suicide? And what does Kurt Vonnegut have to do with Tom Graeff? My research continues as I try and track down the facts behind Tom’s last years. It’s a tale of lust, unrequited love, Hollywood studio treachery, the sexual revolution of the late 1960s, big time dreams, and the crazy emotional roller coaster of Tom Graeff’s obsessions.’ — The Tom Graeff Project

 

The sad tale of Filmmaker Tom Graeff

 

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** tomk, Hi, tk! Wow, a beautiful Bela Tarr quote. Dude definitely knows about dark areas. Thanks. Your new novel is on its way! That’s a headline! Take care, bud. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Fingers crossed on the grant, thanks. We’re one of five finalists, so there’s a chance at least. Oh, hm, maybe a fan film of ‘Death in Venice’. All kinds of untaken possibilities there. I really have to stop losing my wallet. I swear I must have accidentally picked up a pickpocketing ghost. Did love succeed? Card in hand? Love making that ‘new’ Beatles song which I haven’t heard and have no intention of ever hearing cease being of interest to people who use social media to express their opinions, G. ** scunnard, Hey, Jared. Oh, is your Tanizaki essay readable? Thanks about the Guardian thing. xo. ** Jack Skelley, Hi, Ja … I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a Japanese toilet, but they’re inspiring. Thanks, thanks, thanks. Have fun reading with Exene and Kim, and make sure your memory hangs onto some related anecdotes. xo, me. ** Nick., Maybe it’s just me, but peanut butter is something I’ll start eating and then can’t stop eating until I feel very sick. Hence, my trepidation. Annoyance can be pretty interesting if you can step back and parse the effect. Um, I think my favorite ever concert was Gang of Four in 1979 at this club in LA called The Starwood. It’s the only time in my life that I threw myself around the room in completely uncontrolled, excited abandon. I’m still well! I’m still a well oiled machine-like body. Guessing you are too, although guessing you would phrase your state of wellness differently. ** Bzzt, Hey! It’s true, I haven’t seen or shared words with you in ages. I’m all and only about finishing Zac’s and my new film. We’ve been planning, making, and editing it for well over a year, and I’m looking for the finish line, which is soon. Yeah, I guess The Guardian thing turned out ok. It’s hard for me to tell. Happy to hear about the consistency and the steady job. Those are no small things. You were here? Nice. I was probably locked in an editing room (Zac’s apartment) while you were here anyway. The Hunting and Nature Museum is my favorite thing in Paris. Great, I look forward to reading your interview piece. Thanks, and kudos. Everyone, Bzzt, who’s better known in the real world as the fine writer Quinn Roberts, has interviewed writer Valerie Werder about her debut novel ‘Thieves’ for the always excellent Full Stop Magazine. Find that here. I’ll look for her book, thanks. Cloudy, drizzly by default love back from Paris. ** Sarah, Hey. I really think I need to read ‘Pinocchio’ again now. It sounds custom fit for my needs. Thanks! Yeah, PC has, like, 10 people I’ve never heard of opening for him at the concert. Scary. I haven’t been to a rap show in a really long time. I tend to like the more experimental, wild rap artists, and they don’t seem to get over here very often. PC is playing at this huge venue here, and it takes a lot for me to want to watch something from the nosebleed seats that I can afford, but he’s an obvious exception. Veterinary hospital, that does sound kind of intense, and sweet too, and probably quite depressing often. Glad you’re writing. What are you working on? ** _Black_Acrylic, Cool. Thanks, Ben. ** Gee, Hi. It’s a beauty of a book. Gorgeous prose too. That’s huge about the passport then. Really huge. Wow, amazing. Tokyo! So recommended. And, you know, Paris as well. I’ve never liked looking at photos of myself, I don’t know why. I don’t think that I like knowing what I look like to other people. It makes me feel weird. I should probably write about that or something. ** Nika Mavrody, Hi, Nika! Well, it probably didn’t live up to its name’s charisma if that’s any consolation. ** Tosh Berman, Yep. I guess he was quite the randy perv, or so I’ve read? ** Darbs ❄🕷, Ooh, nice decorations. I think you’re still asleep as I type this, but all powers of mastery to you in a few hours. Did you pass (with flying colors)? Sure, I like aquariums. The one here in Paris is kind of nice. There was a guy who used to comment on the blog who worked there and who got me in for free, but I think he quit. It’s kind of boring, but I do really like octopi. Their intelligence mixed with their goopy appearance is pretty fascinating. What’s your fave? I think if you chloroformed yourself you’d probably pass out with the rag still on your face and maybe die of an overdose or something? I think that is indeed an excellent line, and you should swipe it, yes, I concur. ** Bill, Hi. Ha ha, that was a momentously crosshatched moment in my life right there. ‘Landscapes’, Sebald-like, I think I need to find that. Thanks, man. ** Damien Ark, It reached me. You’re in Iceland? Holyfuck, you’re so lucky if so. Where? Dude, do your best to get out of Reykjavik if you can. That country is just non-stop, jaw-dropping beauty wherever you go. ** Audrey, Hi, Audrey. Yeah, if you snag it and want to pass it along, definitely. Thank you. I think the young writer has a couple of more years left inside. The good thing is that a book of his is being published soon by this wonderful press Infinity Land, so at least he’ll have that to help with the drag of incarceration. Better is definitely better, and here’s to more than that next. LA, my hometown! Enjoy! Where in LA does he live? I’d hoped to be there for Halloween, but the film kept me here. Maybe Xmas. I’m happy you like Pharmakon. I hear you about writing/talking about music, or at least music that really has an impact. I used to write about music for Spin Magazine, and when I actually really liked what I was writing about, it was always ten times harder. This week … try to finish the edit on our film, Zoom with a guy who teaches a class that I’ll be the guest writer at in a couple of weeks, wait anxiously for my replacement bank card, see the new Miyazaki movie, and hopefully some surprises. I hope the same goes for you. Love, me. ** Travis (fka Cal), Thanks, Travis. I havant read ‘The Key.’ I’ll agenda-fy it. I hope your upcoming world and mine are identically glowing twins. ** Right. I always thought the post up there was fun, so I dug way back and pulled it out of moth balls and put it back together for you just in case my thinking that it’s fun will pay off. See you tomorrow.

 

‘The 1933 gem In Praise of Shadows by Japanese literary titan Junichiro Tanizaki examines the singular standards of Japanese aesthetics and their stark contrast — even starker today, almost a century later — with the value systems of the industrialized West. At the heart of this philosophy is a fundamental cultural polarity. Unlike the Western conception of beauty — a stylized fantasy constructed by airbrushing reality into a narrow and illusory ideal of perfection — the zenith of Japanese aesthetics is deeply rooted in the glorious imperfection of the present moment and its relationship to the realities of the past.

‘One of the most enchanting celebrations of shadows is manifested in the Japanese relationship with materials. Tanizaki writes:

Japanese paper gives us a certain feeling of warmth, of calm and repose… Western paper turns away the light, while our paper seems to take it in, to envelop it gently, like the soft surface of a first snowfall. It gives off no sound when it is crumpled or folded, it is quiet and pliant to the touch as the leaf of a tree.

‘Embedded in Tanizaki’s lament about how Western innovations have infiltrated Japan’s traditional use of materials is a reminder that every technology is essentially a technology of thought. He considers the broader implications of material progress based on assimilation and imitation.

‘Although Tanizaki is writing at a time when a new wave of polymers was sweeping the industrialized West, he paints a subtler and more important contrast than that between the Western cult of synthetics and the Japanese preference for organic materials. This elegant osmosis of art and shadow, he argues, is to be found not only in what materials are used, but in how they are being used:

Wood finished in glistening black lacquer is the very best; but even unfinished wood, as it darkens and the grain grows more subtle with the years, acquires an inexplicable power to calm and sooth.

‘This temporal continuity of beauty, a counterpoint to the West’s neophilia, is central to Japanese aesthetics. Rather than fetishizing the new and shiny, the Japanese sensibility embraces the living legacy embedded in objects that have been used and loved for generations, seeing the process of aging as something that amplifies rather than muting the material’s inherent splendor. Luster becomes not an attractive quality but a symbol of shallowness, a vacant lack of history.

‘Indeed, he argues that excessive illumination is the most atrocious assault on beauty in the West. A mere half-century after Edison’s electric light shocked American cities with its ghastly glare, Tanizaki contemplates this particularly lamentable manifestation of our pathological Western tendency to turn something beneficial into something excessive.

‘But Tanizaki’s eulogy to this setting world of shadows transcends the realm of material aesthetics and touches on the conceptual sensibility of modern life in a way doubly relevant today, nearly a century later, as we struggle to maintain a sense of mystery in the age of knowledge. He remarks in the closing pages:

I have written all this because I have thought that there might still be somewhere, possibly in literature or the arts, where something could be saved. I would call back at least for literature this world of shadows we are losing. In the mansion called literature I would have the eaves deep and the walls dark, I would push back into the shadows the things that come forward too clearly, I would strip away the useless decoration… Perhaps we may be allowed at least one mansion where we can turn off the electric lights and see what it is like without them.

‘Like its subject, In Praise of Shadows derives its splendor from smallness and subtlety, distilling centuries of wisdom and bridging thousands of miles of cultural divide in an essay-length miracle of a book.’ — Brain Pickings

 

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Gallery

Junichiro Tanizaki as a boy (1913)

Haruo Sato (left) and Junichiro Tanizaki in Wakayama Prefecture in 1930

Junichiro Tanizaki’s home in Kyoto

The keys to the secret sex room in Junichiro Tanizaki’s home.

Junichiro Tanizaki’s handwriting

Junichiro Tanizaki’s grave

 

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Further

Jun’ichirō Tanizaki @ Wikipedia
Sexual obsession stimulated Junichiro Tanizaki’s writing
Jun’ichirō Tanizaki @ goodreads
Rereadings: In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki
The Indicator: In Praise of Shadows
Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, The Key
Fatal Attractions
Podcast: Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, l’emprise des sens
//HOME//BOOKS//REVIEWS//POP PAST//JUNICHIRO TANIZAKI Junichiro Tanizaki’s ‘Naomi’ Than Vladimir Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’
Podcast: Underappreciated: Junichiro Tanizaki
Junichiro Tanizaki, the Greatest Epic Novelist You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
La perversa sensualidad contenida de Tanizaki
STAR-CROSSED: TANIZAKI, MURASAKI, PROUST
La confession impudique de Junichiro Tanizaki

 

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Extras

The house of Junichiro Tanizaki

junichiro tanizaki lemprise des sens 1886 1965 une vie une oeuvre

Trailer: Kon Ichikawa’s film adapatuon of Tanizaki’s ‘The Makioka Sisters’

Éloge de l’ombre (à Junichiro Tanizaki)

 

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Biography

 

Junichiro Tanizaki (24 July 1886 – 30 July 1965)

‘Tanizaki was one of the major writers of modern Japanese literature, and perhaps the most popular Japanese novelist after Natsume Sōseki. Some of his works present a rather shocking world of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions; others, less sensational, subtly portray the dynamics of family life in the context of the rapid changes in 20th-century Japanese society. Frequently his stories are narrated in the context of a search for cultural identity in which constructions of “the West” and “Japanese tradition” are juxtaposed. The results are complex, ironic, demure, and provocative.

‘Tanizaki was born to a well-off merchant class family in the Ningyocho area of Nihonbashi, Tokyo, where his father owned a printing press, which had been established by his grandfather. In his Yōshō Jidai (Childhood Years, 1956) Tanizaki admitted to having had a pampered childhood. His family’s finances declined dramatically as he grew older until he was forced to reside in another household as a tutor. Tanizaki attended the Literature Department of Tokyo Imperial University but was forced to drop out in 1911 because of his inability to pay for tuition.

‘He began his literary career in 1909. His first work, a one-act stage play, was published in a literary magazine which he helped found. In his early years Tanizaki became infatuated with the West and all things modern. In 1922 he went so far as to move to Yokohama, which had a large expatriate population, living briefly in a Western-style house and leading a decidedly bohemian lifestyle. This outlook is reflected in some of his early writings.

‘Tanizaki’s name first became widely known with the publication of the short story Shisei (The Tattooer) in 1910. In the story, a tattoo artist inscribes a giant spider on the body of a beautiful young woman. Afterwards, the woman’s beauty takes on a demonic, compelling power, in which eroticism is combined with sado-masochism. The femme-fatale is a theme repeated in many of Tanizaki’s early works, including Kirin (1910), Shonen (“The Children”, 1911), Himitsu (“The Secret,” 1911), and Akuma (“Devil”, 1912).

‘His other works published in the Taishō period include Shindo (1916) and Oni no men (1916), which are partly autobiographical. Tanizaki married in 1915, but it was an unhappy marriage and in time he encouraged a relationship between his first wife, Chiyoko, and his friend and fellow writer Sato Haruo. The psychological stress of this situation is reflected in some of his early works, including the stage play Aisureba koso (Because I Love Her, 1921) and his novel Kami to hito no aida (Between Men and the Gods, 1924). Nevertheless, even though some of Tanizaki’s writings seem to have been inspired by persons and events in his life, his works are far less autobiographical than those of most of his contemporaries in Japan.

‘He had a brief career in Japanese silent cinema working as a script writer for the Taikatsu film studio. He was a supporter of the Pure Film Movement and was instrumental in bringing modernist themes to Japanese film. He wrote the scripts for the films Amateur Club (1922) and A Serpent’s Lust (1923) (based on the story of the same title by Ueda Akinari, which was, in part, the inspiration for Mizoguchi Kenji’s 1953 masterpiece Ugetsu monogatari). Some have argued that Tanizaki’s relation to cinema is important to understanding his overall career.

‘Tanizaki’s reputation began to take off when he moved to Kyoto after the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake. The loss of Tokyo’s historic buildings and neighborhoods in the quake triggered a change in his enthusiasms, as he redirected his youthful love for the imagined West and modernity into a renewed interest in Japanese aesthetics and culture, particularly the culture of the Kansai region comprising Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto. His first novel after the earthquake, and his first truly successful novel, was Chijin no ai (Naomi, 1924-25), which is a tragicomic exploration of class, sexual obsession, and cultural identity. Inspired by the Osaka dialect, he wrote Manji (Quicksand, 1928–1929), in which he explored lesbianism, among other themes. This was followed by the classic Tade kuu mushi (Some Prefer Nettles, 1928–29), which depicts the gradual self-discovery of a Tokyo man living near Osaka, in relation to Western-influenced modernization and Japanese tradition. Yoshinokuzu (Arrowroot, 1931) alludes to Bunraku and kabuki theater and other traditional forms even as it adapts a European narrative-within-a-narrative technique. His experimentation with narrative styles continued with Ashikari (The Reed Cutter, 1932), Shunkinsho (A Portrait of Shunkin, 1933), and many other works that combine traditional aesthetics with Tanizaki’s particular obsessions.

‘His renewed interest in classical Japanese literature culminated in his multiple translations into modern Japanese of the eleventh-century classic The Tale of Genji and in his masterpiece Sasameyuki (A Light Snowfall, published in English as The Makioka Sisters, 1943–1948), a detailed characterization of four daughters of a wealthy Osaka merchant family who see their way of life slipping away in the early years of World War II. The Makiokas live a remarkably cosmopolitan life, with European neighbours and friends without suffering the cultural-identity crises common to earlier Tanizaki characters.

‘After World War II Tanizaki again emerged into literary prominence, winning a host of awards, and was until his death regarded as Japan’s greatest contemporary author. He was awarded the Order of Culture by the Japanese government in 1949 and in 1964 was elected to honorary membership in the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the first Japanese writer to be so honoured.

‘His first major post-war work was Shôshō Shigemoto no haha (Captain Shigemoto’s Mother, 1949–1950), with a moving restatement of the common Tanizaki theme of a son’s longing for his mother. The novel also introduces the issue of sexuality in old age, which would reappear in Tanizaki’s later works, such as Kagi (The Key, 1956). Kagi is a lurid psychological novel, in which an aging professor arranges for his wife to commit adultery in order to boost his own sagging sexual desires.

‘Tanizaki’s characters are often driven by obsessive erotic desires. In one of his last novels, Futen Rojin Nikki (Diary of a Mad Old Man, 1961–1962), the aged diarist is struck down by a stroke brought on by an excess of sexual excitement. He records both his past desires and his current efforts to bribe his daughter-in-law to provide sexual titilation in return for Western baubles.

‘Tanizaki died of a heart attack in Yugawara, Kanagawa, south-west of Tokyo, on 30 July 1965, shortly after celebrating his 79th birthday.’ — collaged

 

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Book

Junichiro Tanizaki In Praise of Shadows
Leete’s Island Books

‘In his delightful essay on Japanese taste Junichiro Tanizaki selects for praise all things delicate and nuanced, everything softened by shadows and the patina of age, anything understated and natural – as for example the patterns of grain in old wood, the sound of rain dripping from eaves and leaves, or washing over the footing of a stone lantern in a garden, and refreshing the moss that grows about it – and by doing so he suggests an attitude of appreciation and mindfulness, especially mindfulness of beauty, as central to life lived well.’ — AC Grayling

 

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Excerpt

What incredible pains the fancier of traditional architecture must take when he sets out to build a house in pure Japanese style, striving somehow to make electric wires, gas pipes, and water lines harmonize with the austerity of Japanese rooms—even someone who has never built a house for himself must sense this when he visits a teahouse, a restaurant, or an inn. For the solitary eccentric it is another matter, he can ignore the blessings of scientific civilization and retreat to some forsaken corner of the countryside; but a man who has a familiy and lives I the city cannot turn his back on the necessities of modern life—heating, electric lights, sanitary facilities— merely for the sake of doing things the Japanese way. The purist may rack his brain over the placement of a single telephone, hiding it behind the staircase or in a corner of the hallway, wherever he thinks it will least offend the eye. He may bury the wires rather than hang them in the garden, hide the switches in a closet or cupboard, run the cords behind a folding screen. Yet for all his ingenuity, his efforts often impress us as nervous, fussy, excessively contrived. For so accustomed are we to electric lights that the sight of a naked bulb beneath an ordinary mild glass shade seems simpler and more natural than any gratuitous attempt to hide it. Seen at dusk as one gazes out upon the countryside from the window of a train, the lonely light of a bulb under an old-fashioned shade, shining dimly from behind the white paper shoji of a thatch-roofed farmhouse, can seem positively elegant.

But the snarl and the bulk of an electric fan remain a bit out of place in a Japanese room. The ordinary householder, if he dislikes electric fans, can simply do without them. But if the family business involves the entertainment of customers in summertime, the gentleman of the house cannot afford to indulge his own tastes at the expense of others. A friend of mine, the proprietor of a Chinese restaurant called the Kairakuen, is a thoroughgoing purist in matters architectural. He deplores electric fans and long refused to have them in his restaurant, but the complaints from customers with which he was faced every summer ultimately forced him to give in.

I myself have had similar experiences. A few years ago I spent a great deal more money than I could afford to build a house. I fussed over every last fitting and fixture, and in every case encountered difficulty. There was the shoji: for aesthetic reasons I did not want to use glass, and yet paper alone would have posed problems of illumination and security. Much against my will, I decided to cover the inside with paper and the outside with glass. This required a double frame, thus raising the cost. Yet having gone to all this trouble, the effect was fair from pleasing. The outside remained no more than a glass door; while within, the mellow softness of the paper was destroyed by the glass that lay behind it. At that point I was sorry I had not just settled for glass to begin with. Yet laugh though we may when the house is someone else’s we ourselves accept defeat only after having a try at such schemes.

Then there was the problem of lighting. In recent years several fixtures designed for Japanese houses have come on the market, fixtures patterned after old floor lamps, ceiling lights, candle stands, and the like. But I simple do not care for them, and instead searched in curio shops for old lamps, which I fitted with electric light bulbs.

What most taxed my ingenuity was the heating system. No stove worthy of the name will ever look right in a Japanese room. Gas stoves burn with a terrific roar, and unless provided with a chimney, quickly bring headaches. Electric stoves, though at least free from these defects, are every bit as ugly as the rest. One solution would be to outfit the cupboards with heaters of the sort used in streetcars. Yet without the red glow of the coals, the whole mood of winter is lost and with it the pleasure of family gatherings round the fire. The best plan I could devise was to build a large sunken hearth, as in an old farmhouse. I this I installed an electric brazier, which worked well both for boiling tea water and for heating the room. Expensive it was, but at least so far as looks were concerned I counted it as one of my successes.

Having done passably well with the heating system, I was then faced with the problem of bath and toilet. My Kairakuen friend could not bear to tile the tub and bathing area, and so built his guest bath entirely of wood. Tile, of course, is infinitely more practical and economical. But when ceiling, pillars, and paneling are of fine Japanese stock, the beauty of the room is utterly destroyed when the rest is done in sparkling tile. The effect may not seem so very displeasing while everything is still new, but as the years pass, and the beauty of the grain begins to emerge on the planks and pillars, that glittering expanse of white tile comes to seem as incongruous as the proverbial bamboo grafted to wood. Still, in the bath utility can to some extent be sacrificed to good taste. In the toilet somewhat more vexatious problems arise.

Every time I am shown to an old, dimly lit, and, I would add, impeccably clean toilet in a Nara or Kyoto temple, I am impressed with the singular virtues of Japanese architecture. The parlor may have its charms, but the Japanese toilet is truly a place of spiritual repose. It always stands apart from the main building, at the end of a corridor, in a grove fragrant with leaves and moss. No words can describe that sensation as one sits in the dim light, basking in the faint glow reflected from the shoji, lost in meditation or gazing out at the garden. The novelist Natsume Sōseki counted his morning trips to the toilet a great pleasure, “a physiological delight” he called it. And surely there could be no better place to savor this pleasure than a Japanese toilet where, surrounded by tranquil walls and finely grained wood, one looks out upon blue skies and green leaves.

As I have said there are certain prerequisites: a degree of dimness, absolute cleanliness, and quiet so complete one can hear the hum of a mosquito. I love to listen from such a toilet to the sound of softly falling rain, especially if it is a toilet of the Kantō region, with its long, narrow windows at floor level; there one can listen with such a sense of intimacy to the raindrops falling from the eaves and the trees, seeping into the earth as they wash over the base of a stone lantern and freshen the moss about the stepping stones. And the toilet is the perfect place to listen to the chirping of insects or the song of the birds, to view the moon, or to enjoy any of those poignant moments that mark the change of the seasons. Here, I suspect, is where haiku poets over the ages have come by a great many of their ideas. Indeed one could with some justice claim that of all the elements of Japanese architecture, the toilet is the most aesthetic. Our forebears, making poetry of everything in their lives, transformed what by rights should be the most unsanitary room in the house into a place of unsurpassed elegance, replete with fond associations with the beauties of nature. Compared to Westerners, who regard the toilet as utterly unclean and avoid even the mention of it in polite conversation, we are far more sensible and certainly in better taste. The Japanese toilet is, I must admit, a bit inconvenient to get to in the middle of the night, set apart from the main building as it is; and in winter there is always a danger that one might catch cold. But as the poet Saitō Ryoku has said, “elegance is frigid.” Better that the place be as chilly as the out-of-doors; the steamy heat of a Western-style toilet in a hotel is the most unpleasant.

Anyone with a taste for traditional architecture must agree that the Japanese toilet is perfection. Yet whatever its virtues in a place like a temple, where the dwelling is large, the inhabitants few, and everyone helps with the cleaning, in an ordinary household it is no easy task to keep it clean. No matter how fastidious one may be or how diligently one may scrub, dirt will show, particularly on a floor of wood or tatami matting. And so here too it turns out to be more hygienic and efficient to install modern sanitary facilities—tile and a flush toilet—though at the price of destroying all affinity with “good taste” and the “beauties of nature.” That burst of light from those four white walls hardly puts one in a mood to relish Sōseki’s “physiological delight.” There is no denying the cleanliness; every nook and corner is pure white. Yet what need is there to remind us so forcefully of the issue of our own bodies. A beautiful woman, no matter how lovely her skin, would be considered indecent were she to show her bare buttocks or feet in the presence of others; and how very crude and tasteless to expose the toilet to such excessive illumination. The cleanliness of what can be seen only calls up the more clearly thoughts of what cannot be seen. In such places the distinction between the clean and the unclean is best left obscure, shrouded in a dusky haze.

Though I did install modern sanitary facilities when I built my own house, I at least avoided tiles, and had the floor done in camphor wood. To that extent I tried to create a Japanese atmosphere— but was frustrated finally by the toilet fixtures themselves. As everyone knows, flush toilets are made of pure white porcelain and have handles of sparkling metal. Were I able to have things my own way, I would much prefer fixtures—both men’s and women’s—made of wood. Wood finished in glistening black lacquer is the very best; but even unfinished wood, as it darkens and the grain grows more subtle with the years, acquires an inexplicable power to calm and sooth. The ultimate, of course, is a wooden “morning glory” urinal filled with boughs of cedar; this is a delight to look at and allows now the slightest sound. I could not afford to indulge in such extravagances. I hoped I might at least have the external fittings made to suit my own taste, and then adapt these to a standard flushing mechanism. But the custom labor would have cost so much that I had no choice but to abandon the idea. It was not that I objected to the conveniences of modern civilization, whether electric lights or heating or toilets, but I did wonder at the time why they could not be designed with a bit more consideration for our own habits and tastes.

The recent vogue for electric lamps in the style of the old standing lanterns comes, I think, from a new awareness of the softness and warmth of paper, qualities which for a time we had forgotten; it stands as evidence of our recognition that this material is far better suited than glass to the Japanese house. But no toilet fixtures or stoves that are at all tasteful have yet come on the market. A heating system like my own, an electric brazier in a sunken hearth, seems to me ideal; yet no one ventures to produce even so simple a device as this (there are, of course, those feeble electric hibachi, but they provide no more heat than an ordinary charcoal hibachi); all that can be had ready-made are those ugly Western stoves.

There are those who hold that to quibble over matters of taste in the basic necessities of life is an extravagance, that as long as a house keeps out the cold and as long as food keeps off starvation, it matters little what they look like. And indeed for even the sternest ascetic the fact remains that a snowy day is cold, and there is no denying the impulse to accept the services of a heater if it happens to be there in front of one, no matter how cruelly its inelegance may shatter the spell of the day. But it is on occasions like this that I always think how different everything would be if we in the Orient had developed our own science. Suppose for instance that we had developed our own physics and chemistry: would not the techniques and industries based on them have taken a different form, would not our myriads of everyday gadgets, our medicines, the products of our industrial art—would they not have suited our national temper better than they do? In fact our conception of physics itself, and even the principles of chemistry, would probably differ from that of Westerners; and the facts we are now taught concerning the nature and function of light, electricity, and atoms might well have presented themselves in different form.

Of course I am only indulging in idle speculation; of scientific matters I know nothing. But ha d we devised independently at least the more practical sorts of inventions, this could not have had profound influence upon the conduct of our everyday lives, and even upon government, religion, art, and business. The Orient quite conceivably could have opened up a world of technology entirely its own.

To take a trivial example near at hand: I wrote a magazine article recently comparing the writing brush with the fountain pen, and in the course of it I remarked that if the device had been invented by the ancient Chinese or Japanese it would surely have had a tufted end like our writing brush. The ink would not have been this bluish color but rather black, something like India ink, and it would have been made to seep down from the handle into the brush. And since we would have then found it inconvenient to write on Western paper, something near Japanese paper—even under mass production, if you will—would have been most in demand. Foreign ink and pen would not be as popular as they are; the talk of discarding our system of writing for Roman letters would be less noisy; people would still feel an affection for the old system. But more than that: our thought and our literature might not be imitating the West as they are, but might have pushed forward into new regions quite on their own. An insignificant little piece of writing equipment, when one thinks of it, has had a vast, almost boundless, influence on our culture.

But I know as well as anyone that these are the empty dreams of a novelist, and that having come this far we cannot turn back. I know that I am only grumbling to myself and demanding the impossible. If my complaints are taken for what they are, however, there can be no harm in considering how unlucky we have been, what losses we have suffered, in comparison with the Westerner. The Westerner has been able to move forward in ordered steps, while we have met superior civilization and have had to surrender to it, and we have had to leave a road we have followed for thousands of years. The missteps and inconveniences this has caused have, I think, been many. If we had been left alone we might not be much further now in a material way that we were five hundred years ago. Even now in the Indian and Chinese countryside life no doubt goes on much as it did when Buddha and Confucius were alive. But we would have gone only a direction that suited us. We would have gone ahead very slowly, and yet it is not impossible that we would one day have discovered our own substitute for the trolley, the radio, the airplane of today. They would have been no borrowed gadgets, they would have been the tools of our own culture, suited to us.

 

 

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p.s. Hey. The Guardian interviewed me about the UK republication of my first novel CLOSER if you’re interested. It’s here. ** Dominik, Hi!!! As I understand it, the grant committee will screen the film and interview us about it on the 24th or 25th, and they’ll decide on the 26th. So … pretty soon. Thanks for the impossibly crossed fingers! Ah, I think ‘Bullet Train’ would be greatly enhanced by your touch. And obsession is certainly the right starting place. Ha ha, thanks to love. I would definitely use those 24 hours to milk as much money out of the celebrity loving world as possible. And I’d show up everywhere with you so everyone would assume you must be a big celebrity too and you could reap the all benefits as well. Love either going back in time and making me not lose my wallet this past weekend or at least making my replacement bank card arrive extremely quickly, grr, G. ** _Black_Acrylic, Excellent about the submission. When do you think you’ll hear back? It begins (again)! ** Nick., Hi. Yeah, my apartment’s too expensive, and I don’t like this neighborhood, but I am not budging. Aw, thanks for placing me among your actual friends. Right back at ya. Holy moly, awesome about the dreamy, similar, hot boy! I’m saying ‘rah rah rah’ if you can’t tell. I think maybe my top wanna get but never do at supermarkets for unknown reasons is peanut butter. Smooth. You’re already well, clearly, but do stay that way. ** Charalampos, Thanks about the interview thing. That Rimbaud translation is worth hunting. I think that book was republished finally not so long ago. It was o.o.p. for ages. I think you’ll only hear the song when you see the film. No, no trailer. No time for that yet, but I guess we’ll need to do that once it gets in a festival. I … can’t remember ever seeing a green rose. Huh. Some of the poems in ‘Idols’ are in my selected poems book, ‘The Dream Police.’ Hearty wave from similarly chilly Paris. ** Audrey, HI, Audrey. I still haven’t found ‘Bottom’, but, yes, let’s have a tete-a-tete re: it once we’ve both scored. The blog is extremely wide open if you get a post idea. It would be an honor. There’s this young writer I know whose work is very transgressive. He was busted couple of years ago for dealing drugs. During the trial, the prosecutor read from his writings, which are fairly outrageous, or at least to ‘normal’ people, and that’s what specifically led to the judge giving him the maximum sentence. He’s still in prison. It’s insane. So, yes, I’d be toast. Oh, that Amos Vogel book was important to me when I was first experiencing experimental films. Cool. I’m really glad you’re feeling better. I hope the rapid ups and downs stabilise as instantaneously as possible. How does you week look? Love, Dennis. ** Gee, Gosh, thanks, pal, Yeah, that was my puffy-eyed day. Well, thanks. I think I look older than I actually look, but I hate all photos off me, so who knows. Whoa! Huge congrats on the citizenship! Fantastic! Does that have a big immediate impact on your day to day life? That’s so great. The UK does something right! ** Steve Erickson, Hi, Steve. No, thank you again so much. I didn’t catch that dead imbed until the post was already up, but I think the description helped do the trick. Happy week’s start. You feeling better? ** Sarah, Hi, Sarah. Really nice to meet you. Thank you very much about the interview. I’m good. Finishing the film is pretty much all that’s going on with me. I can’t wait for you to be able to see it. I think I read Pinocchio as a kid. I’m pretty sure. And I think I loved it because I often think about Pincocchio, and I’m pretty sure that’s not the Disney movie’s doing. I like Lil Durk too. I’m going to see Playboy Cardi in a couple of weeks, and I’m pretty excited about that. How are you? What’s going on? Tell me more, if you like. ** l@rst, Hi, L. Oh, I actually kind of liked the twins pic. It captured their ineffability. How’s your week beginning to proceed? ** Darbs 🦕🐊🌠, Hi. Bosch is cool, for sure. I always forget that he’s Dutch, I don’t know why. Frolicking? That word makes me imagine running around whilst flapping one’s arms like a bird. If so, no, I think I have very rarely frolicked. Maybe when I used to do acid. It’s a good word. I’m going to try to start using it. Yes, I watched the moon landing in the TV room at a motel on Maui, Hawaii. I think I voted for President when I turned 18, so I think it was legal by then. I think I voted for Eldridge Cleaver, who was this imprisoned Black Panther guy. He didn’t win obviously. Oh, only first name, okay, that works. In French Dennis is Denis. So, you’re like a ghostly El Salvadorian. Pretty cool. Yeah, I think my heritage is mostly Scottish. Not bad. Enjoy the busyness and see you ASAP. ** Okay. Today I’m spotlighting a really beautiful book by the Japanese prose maestro Jun’ichirō Tanizaki to which I, duh, recommend you give your kind attention and consideration. See you tomorrow.