:04:11
He wrote me: I will have spent my life trying to
understand the function of remembering,
:04:15
which is not the opposite of forgetting,
but rather its lining.
:04:18
We do not remember, we rewrite memory
much as history is rewritten.
:04:24
How can one remember thirst?
:04:42
He didn't like to dwell on poverty,
:04:44
but in everything he wanted to show
there were also the 4-Fs of the Japanese model.
:04:49
A world full of bums, of lumpens,
of outcasts, of Koreans.
:04:54
Too broke to afford drugs,
they'd get drunk on beer, on fermented milk.
:04:59
This morning in Namidabashi, twenty minutes
from the glories of the center city,
:05:04
a character took his revenge on society
by directing traffic at the crossroads.
:05:07
Luxury for them would be one of those large bottles of sake
that are poured over tombs on the day of the dead.
:05:42
I paid for a round in a bar in Namidabashi.
:05:44
It's the kind of place that allows people
to stare at each other with equality;
:05:47
the threshold below which every man is
as good as any other—and knows it.