That's what he had on his mind while composing his music, and that's why the piece was titled ‘Rescuing a Sutego.’”
“Ah, so that's what it was, Eeyore!” I exclaimed. “Yes, I remember that occasion, when they saved a baby while park cleaning. I should have remembered it as soon as I heard the title … but it was so long ago. So that's what it was all about, Eeyore. So it's all right for the melody to be sad. Alter all, it's about rescuing a sutego !” I said, savoring a sensation of quiet happiness.
“Oh, so that's what it was!” Aunt Fusa repeated. Her way of understanding the situation was the same as mine, but in her own characteristic manner, she crowned this understanding with a conclusion. “If we think of all the people on this planet as being abandoned children, then Eeyore's composition expresses something very grand in scale!”
* “Abandoned Child.”
* Sutegozaurusu in Japanese, hence the play on stego saur and sutego.
the guide ( stalker )
I saw Tarkovsky's Stalker , a movie my younger brother O-chan videotaped for me from a late-night TV broadcast. Eevore, for a change, watched it with me all the way to the end because its music was interesting. It was a kind my ears weren't used to hearing, though, and to me it sounded Indian. As the movie neared the end, there was a scene in which a mysterious child used the power of her eyes to move three glasses of different sizes. You could also hear the rumble of a train and see the effects of its tremor. While the screen still showed the child's face, Eeyore, who was lying at my feet, flat on the carpet, as usual, raised his body and heaved a sighlike “Hoh!?” In the earlier half of the scene, a dog had become frightened when it sensed the eerie strength—let me call it this for the moment—of the child's eyes, and perhaps Eeyore had reacted to its whining, for more than anything he hates dogs that yelp. Soon after this, when the “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven's Ninth resounded from the sound track, Eeyorestraightened his back and began conducting it, in all seriousness, and with great vigor too.
The film was a good three hours long, and it left me exhausted, so preparation for dinner turned out to be simpler than what I had planned. O-chan and I sat at the table, where the dining itself was over very quickly, and talked about the movie, with my role in the discussion being basically that of a listener. The night before, despite his preparations for college entrance exams, O-chan had gone downstairs now and then until the movie was over, to check if the videotaping was going all right. And every time he did so, he spared some time to watch parts of it. He couldn't do much about the commercials, but figuring I wouldn't like it, he did erase the commentary—”It ran a good five minutes”—by the somewhat heavy, energetic movie critic I had once seen costumed as an American police officer in a weekly magazine photograph. In a way, though, I would have liked to listen to what a person of his kind had to say, comments by someone who appears to have very little to do with the general atmosphere of Stalker.
To summarize, I believe this is what O-chan said at dinner. I can't in all places reproduce his exact words because I often became distracted, when my thoughts wandered to other things. In any case, this is how he began. “I hardly ever watch movies, and I wasn't watching Stalker very closely either, but it set me thinking about something. … What did you think of it, Ma-chan?”
“I don't think I have what it takes to make an overall comment,” I replied. “But in the grassland scene, for example, you have these people huddled together? With a host of other props placed unobtrusively at some distance from them? And this scene goes on and on. With scenes like this, I feel like I'm looking at a stage performance where you can watch each actor oractress any way you like. These scenes are good for people like me who don't think very
“Ah, so that's what it was, Eeyore!” I exclaimed. “Yes, I remember that occasion, when they saved a baby while park cleaning. I should have remembered it as soon as I heard the title … but it was so long ago. So that's what it was all about, Eeyore. So it's all right for the melody to be sad. Alter all, it's about rescuing a sutego !” I said, savoring a sensation of quiet happiness.
“Oh, so that's what it was!” Aunt Fusa repeated. Her way of understanding the situation was the same as mine, but in her own characteristic manner, she crowned this understanding with a conclusion. “If we think of all the people on this planet as being abandoned children, then Eeyore's composition expresses something very grand in scale!”
* “Abandoned Child.”
* Sutegozaurusu in Japanese, hence the play on stego saur and sutego.
the guide ( stalker )
I saw Tarkovsky's Stalker , a movie my younger brother O-chan videotaped for me from a late-night TV broadcast. Eevore, for a change, watched it with me all the way to the end because its music was interesting. It was a kind my ears weren't used to hearing, though, and to me it sounded Indian. As the movie neared the end, there was a scene in which a mysterious child used the power of her eyes to move three glasses of different sizes. You could also hear the rumble of a train and see the effects of its tremor. While the screen still showed the child's face, Eeyore, who was lying at my feet, flat on the carpet, as usual, raised his body and heaved a sighlike “Hoh!?” In the earlier half of the scene, a dog had become frightened when it sensed the eerie strength—let me call it this for the moment—of the child's eyes, and perhaps Eeyore had reacted to its whining, for more than anything he hates dogs that yelp. Soon after this, when the “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven's Ninth resounded from the sound track, Eeyorestraightened his back and began conducting it, in all seriousness, and with great vigor too.
The film was a good three hours long, and it left me exhausted, so preparation for dinner turned out to be simpler than what I had planned. O-chan and I sat at the table, where the dining itself was over very quickly, and talked about the movie, with my role in the discussion being basically that of a listener. The night before, despite his preparations for college entrance exams, O-chan had gone downstairs now and then until the movie was over, to check if the videotaping was going all right. And every time he did so, he spared some time to watch parts of it. He couldn't do much about the commercials, but figuring I wouldn't like it, he did erase the commentary—”It ran a good five minutes”—by the somewhat heavy, energetic movie critic I had once seen costumed as an American police officer in a weekly magazine photograph. In a way, though, I would have liked to listen to what a person of his kind had to say, comments by someone who appears to have very little to do with the general atmosphere of Stalker.
To summarize, I believe this is what O-chan said at dinner. I can't in all places reproduce his exact words because I often became distracted, when my thoughts wandered to other things. In any case, this is how he began. “I hardly ever watch movies, and I wasn't watching Stalker very closely either, but it set me thinking about something. … What did you think of it, Ma-chan?”
“I don't think I have what it takes to make an overall comment,” I replied. “But in the grassland scene, for example, you have these people huddled together? With a host of other props placed unobtrusively at some distance from them? And this scene goes on and on. With scenes like this, I feel like I'm looking at a stage performance where you can watch each actor oractress any way you like. These scenes are good for people like me who don't think very
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