The White Peril 白禍

I'm kind of hors de combat on this one, but I'm a fan of good-natured lustiness, and Kim du Toit and Mark Alger have been posting about which women singers they think look and sound sexy. (I'm surprised Dolly didn't pipe up at BTB about her own charms--I've always kind of wondered what she sounds like.)

The topic has also come up recently because of this new R&B honey--is she being touted as the Second Coming in the States, too? I like the song. Really. But the hype is already making me hope she takes her platinum earnings and retires to a South Pacific islet tomorrow so we can go THREE CONSECUTIVE SECONDS without hearing about her.

I mean, really, PR types...must you keep using the same damned script, with no modification whatever? "She has a voice that sounds wise beyond her years and a Stevie Wonder-like flair for writing tunes that recall the heyday of '70s soul! Her stunning debut album, Come Away with the Hardline on How Life Is According to Mica Keysizm, causes rooms full of critics to fall to the floor in paroxysms of ecstasy!* It's set to be the year's biggest crossover hit! Her singing style recalls Billie Holiday but establishes a modern, youthful point of view that's all her own! She's got the passion of Aretha! And the sophistication of Roberta! But, like, the quietly compelling Roberta, not the tastefully boring Roberta she turned into after Feel like Makin' Love!"

All right, already. We get it. Observing that a contemporary soul singer owes a debt to Aretha is like observing that gravity pulls lead shot downwards. And it seems somewhat condescending to be frothing over the fact that the newest chick singer you've signed actually has a personality.

Anyway.



* Yeah, I know Terence Trent d'Arby isn't a woman, but he was put through the same sort of jaws-of-death hype mill as I'm talking about.

We're getting toward the second half of summer, though it's been rainy and relatively cool in Tokyo over the last week and a half or so. When the sun begins beating down mercilessly again, we'll all feel like Saigyo:

道のべに清水流るる柳かげしばしとてこそ立ちどまりつれ

西行法師


michinobe ni / shimidzu nagaruru / yanagi kage / shibashitote koso / tachitomaritsure

Saigyou houshi


Just off the pathway,
spring water flowing through the
shade of the willows--
if only for a short while
I will pause and rest

The priest Saigyo

This is one of those poems that people scratch their heads when Japanophiles go ga-ga over. While the Japanese (not unjustifiably) have a reputation for aestheticizing obliqueness, if not downright obscurantism, some of their best art is fearlessly limpid. That's especially true of the poetry of Saigyo, who favored concrete images with a direct appeal to the senses.

Part of the impact is in the burbling consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel quality of sentences composed entirely of native Japanese words. (Sinitic compounds tend to break up the flow with rounded, drawn-out syllables.) The sibilant shes and hard-aspirated ts can be harsh in some contexts, but in the final two lines of the above waka, there are so many of them that they have a lulling effect--like a brook being channeled through a pile of rocks, or like those unidentifiable gentle snapping sounds you hear around you in the dry grass in late summer. Saigyo gets in both the heat and the respite from it. More poetic, if less effective, than just scooting indoors and turning on the air conditioner.