NI Club¡Ä

From readers

The naive questions of ¡Èbad boys¡É.

Koshikawa Yoshiaki, professor of the department of literature in Meiji University

When reading Nakagami Kenji¡Çs essay (The Selected Essays of Nakagami Kenji, Kobunsha 21), I felt that my wild and untamed ¡Èboy¡É (more exactly speaking, ¡Èbad boy¡É) which had been sleeping inside myself was shaken awake, not such a pathetic self-retrospection as ¡Èthings were better in the old days.¡É

Nakagami Kenji agitates young people, saying ¡ÈWhat I want is delinquency. Rather, resistance; that is, lads get sharp, doubt the world, and deny it.¡É

Not to say wisely that it is natural to follow the law and rules in the world and others, but to doubt everything by asking ¡Èwhy?¡É Such should not be a right given just to young people. Even in the academic world, doesn¡Çt everything begin with such naive questions of a ¡Èbad boy?¡É

In that sense, Mr. Ueshima Keishi¡Çs and Ms. Minato Chihiro¡Çs essays and Mr. Washida Seiichi¡Çs serial published in your former issue begin with the naive questions of the ¡Èbad boys¡É lurking in their hearts, and are developed with their own words and logic, which never become degraded into stereotyped expressions. I felt them very invigorating. So, irrespective of age, true ¡Èbad boys¡É and ¡Èbad girls¡É are cool!

The representation of art by a frontier technology

Yamauchi Tsuneko

When I praised a nice piano which I found at my friend¡Çs house, I was surprised to be asked, ¡ÈDo you want Bunin to play the Chopin piece?¡É It turned out to be a piano by which a pianist¡Çs performance could be automatically represented.

I had believed that art, whether performing music or painting a picture, was an action performed only once and that it was this ephemeral quality --- being performed only once --- that made art qua art. Certainly we can enjoy music by records or CDs, but the represented sounds should be different from those which we listen to in person at a concert hall. Also, the original of a picture should be the only one in the world. However, now that I¡Çve known that a frontier technology can represent a pianist¡Çs unique performance with a piano itself, I think that it may not be so long before we can represent art of sounds, colors, or moldings so ingeniously that we can¡Çt distinguish it from the original.

Even in such an age, the artist¡Çs mission will continue being to embed her own spirit into her performance, pictures, and craft-work and to move her audiences by the spirits.

Unveiled charisma

Omine Ikue

¡ÈCharisma-clerks¡É or ¡Ècharisma-hair dressers¡É appeared some time back, and at last, recently even ¡Ècharisma-images¡É have popped out in TV commercials. Under the circumstances, they say, a ¡Ècharisma-homemaker¡É, who has a sense to change commonplace household duties into an elegant and creative activity, is exercising authority over the market of housewives, with a rising talent¡Çs stride. When putting sliced saba-no-miso-ni (boiled mackerel with miso) on a piece of rye bread and serving it with a glass of wine, she smiles and says, ¡ÈI¡Çm just a ordinary housewife. But I try to advance a quarter step before others. So, many people pay attention to me, I guess.¡É

Hmm, but, as those ¡Ècharisma¡É occupations come more and more into fashion, don¡Çt they lose their own charisma? Even though ¡Ècharisma¡É is originally the English word originating in the Greek word meaning a godlike person with transcendental and other-worldly disposition, in other words, a veiled leader or prophet keeping aloof from the crowd, to think that it has been so trendily transformed!

In the meantime, my boss was pleased to say to me, an English instructor, ¡ÈI wish we had a charisma-instructor in our company.¡É What is a charisma- ? I am rather a little mystified.

(NOTE: The writer understands the meaning of the word, but not the use with a job name, such as in Japan. I think the phrase in RED above, even though it is not a direct translation, gives the nuance of the satire best. ?proofreader Fast)

I can see the world image of the near future

Yamashita Tomohisa

Though I am perfectly a layman in science, an acquaintance recommended that your journal should be helpful to me, so I tried reading it. Because it illustrates plainly what sciences and technologies are being investigated, I was able to read it with great interest.

How should we protect the twenty-first century¡Çs environment and what should we do to innovate technology further? Your journal explains those things so plainly that we common people can easily understand them. I feel that your journal can exist as a useful tool or reference source for us to involve ourselves positively in science.

I also absorb scientific knowledge from your journal, which affords the basis for my talking about the near future in customers¡Ç financial planning.

I hope that your journal might be retailed at more bookstores to be more available.