033 TOKYO 2O25 – dérive I (extracts)

Jimbocho, books and what the books do

a lead-in

_ _ _ thus, I am back in Tokyo; my focus is ON Jullien’s warning that only enterings might ever be possible, ON Barthes’ playful provocations, ON his flirting with Tokyo, and ON thought as action; my attention is ON the surface, ON depths of the surface; ON (my, our) living (t)here, ON being (t)here, again; or ON visiting (only); ON more, in the spirit of co+re and co+labo sign “plus” . . . + (more) as it comes up, as it might come up during this short, (un)structured stay; ON only two months but . . . still an immersion; ON RE- entering, with intention to RE- visit, to even RE- live some of the moments, the fragments built into my comprehension of this culture; a peculiar kind of RE- search (precisely as – searching again)

_ _ _ such searches and snapshots need to be (un)systematic, variously (dis)organised, opportunistic, without any apriori structures that could imprison or (re)strain thought and (re)action; the thought itself needs to stay (un)systematic, (dis)organised, in hope of reaching beyond, μετά ὁδός (the origin of the method) _ _ _ that is why only drifts and drafts, the nuclei of (grounded) action and thought, openings (of possible essays and talks); accepting an impossibility of grasping (evident, ubiquitous, insurmountable) differences (both in terms of physical realities and cultural substance of this visit), while enjoying their shadows, the shallows and the depths alike

_ _ _ I continue to be excited by totalities that stay encapsulated in the finest details of the urban (sorely conscious of inappropriateness of the noble term urban (which in Japan refers to something profoundly distant in temporal, geographic and cultural terms; the parallels are impossible; Edo period has begun during the Italian Baroque)

_ _ _ thus, now I am REmembering, REconstituting, REliving the REalities of my own radical otherness, in situ, here; as REsearch; my ambition is to address the impossible (task) with due modesty, defining my horizons, here, in Tokyo _ _ _ I have never been a tourist in Japan! _ _ _ I have never (only) visited this country . . . I stayed and worked at the Building Research Institute, Tsukuba (1996-7), at Osaka City University (2003), at University of Tokyo, cSUR (2008-9), and at Keio University, Tokyo (2009-21); being an insider- outsider, thinking by immersion, often without time to think _ _ _ indulging myself in conversations with generous colleagues; sharing; both sides believing that we were sharing . . . in a way, all my encounters with Japan were the two-way communication; through my work I was giving, and so much has been given in return to me (in fragments, glimpses, experiences that . . . add up)

_ _ _ the titles of my books produced during those immersions (above left) point at an overall ethos and the path of discovery, along which I have first discovered an (un)expected, ANOTHER Tokyo, then how SMALL, how human-scaled the eye level Tokyo, the largest city in the World actually was, gradually reaching deeper, to where I have unwittingly started, to Perecian, INFRAORDINARY qualities of Tokyo; these three books were, they had to be bilingual, in both local and in this, both everyone’s and no-one’s, “English” language (despite some sober warnings about the negative attitude of Japanese public towards bilingual books)

(for more about these books, click titles Another Tokyo (2008), Small Tokyo (2012), infraordinary Tokyo 東京, the right to the city (2021); for more about essays above, right – see the Post Scriptum at the end of this post)

_ _ _ thus, unsystematically, my first TOKYO 2O25 dérive begins in one of the parts of Tokyo which I love to (re)visit – JIMBOCHO; I have discovered it 2008, soon after joining Todai, when I started circumnavigating wider and ever wider areas around the Hongo Campus on my blue, a new second-hand mamachari; in Jimbocho, I was surrounded by books’; when thinking places in Tokyo which I could call mine, Jimbocho complements the thought

_ _ _ in the beginning, there was a word, claims one old book _ _ _ I love words, I love books; Jimbocho is a very special place for all who love books; as this is Japan, in this shrine of second-hand titles very few are not in Japanese language; but that does not matter much; there is something special about the silence and modesty of these endless shelves and boxes full of old (to me illegible) volumes, magazines, orihon and scrolls, laden with stories (which will forever stay beyond me, but which nevertheless trigger my imagination); while silent (in a sense that from them no direct message comes for me), they do open up, stirring in me something that only books do, but here in new, different ways; silent to my mind, these volumes offer their contents differently, in ways which my eyes and reason can not conquer, but nevertheless the ways which keep me immersed, alert . . . an intellectual and aesthetic simulation adds to, or completely replaces understanding – which is, for those who like to know, delicious

_ _ _ my decision not to learn Japanese language was not accidental, but strategic; that absolutely was not an expression of arrogance, but respect (as well as self-respect); that decision was realistic, rooted in my realisation that the translation of ideas which aim beyond the technical and reach cultural realms is impossible . . . old Italian saying, “traduttori traditori”, the point that “translators are traitors” encapsulates that situation well . . . we translate, we ceaselessly read translated texts, while knowing that what we read is not and that it never can be what the original was about; yet we continue; translations seek to communicate the essence, the substance, not only of the meaning, but also the feelings, rhythms, colours, the forms of message . . . translation is born out of a noble human desire to communicate, to reach across cultural divides and chasms (while, at its best) celebrating difference

_ _ _ that reminds of my old friend and true polymath N.N. (in the heat of discussion and smoke of his cigarette, in our CEP office) telling me that one can reach Heidegger’s message only in the original, German language. Lucky N., he was born in a bilingual community. Very few can explore Heidegger in his own tongue, while many of us read, criticise or adore and discuss his thought and way. But, to my mind, in this less than perfect world the key texts are not there to tell us what to think, but – to think. Idea that the language influences its speakers' actions, feelings and thinking (and not the other way round), does make one think.

_ _ _ “Language speaks”, proclaimed Martin Heidegger. Berque explains how in Indo-European languages “the expression of the speaking subject by the personal pronoun ‘I’ is not affected by situational factors” while precisely the opposite is the case in Japanese “where the term for the speaker varies.” He points out that the “Japanese thought has tended to privilege particular experience of the concrete over general and abstract conceptualisations.”

(as discussed in 003 ON FIRST PERSON SINGULAR, only one culture/language capitalises its own ego)

_ _ _ the books on shelves attached to the walls in Jimbocho were written in Japanese language; I can’t read them but, facing the street they do communicate with me, they stimulate certain sensibility which reaches beyond the text and translation, beyond what the words could say; they are creating an atmosphere – with àtmós as in ἀτμός (originally: vapor, steam, smoke, wind, breath, scent) and sphaîră σφαῖρᾰ (a ball, the sphere in which we are); the books of Jimbocho envelop us in an air past, in the fragility of silent stories, secrets, thus – humanity; vulnerable, they invite a careful touch; I love the touch of the paper, the paper with a message, inhabited by ideas . . . not unlike palimpsest; looking at, even when not reading the used books is not dissimilar to writing on the paper covered by texts written before; such touches reward curiosity . . . we knew the stories, our stories, we read into them, press onto them . . . the notes by previous readers seek to be deciphered; or, do they? can we be sure? they might prefer to stay unread, belonging only to the one who has jotted them down; these notes are mostly anonymous, occasionally they hint at provenance . . . sometimes even an ex-libris can be found there

_ _ _ I remember how my grandfather, absorbed in reading would lick his finger to turn the page; or myself smelling a book (fetishism of a kind?) . . . the cultures of reading

_ _ _ another memory, this time from the pre-mobile phone days in Tokyo; a subway train, full of silent readers, holding pocket-sized books, ranging from manga to serious titles; one learns

_ _ _ other cultures of reading enable other readings of culture

_ _ _ the culture of reading; I remember (again) how in the National Library L., and I, besides what we came to read, (as if wondering through the Borges’ Biblioteca Total) used to borrow volumes stumbled upon on the shelves, bound compendia of hundred years old newspapers (very much inspired by Pekić), and enjoy the drifts, non-utilitarian excursions into useless knowledges, endlessly discussing what we have or have not found there, enjoying archaic forms of expression, later writing and sending to each other postcards written that way, which made us laugh; (alas, translations of Pamuk and Zafon came out too late for L.)

_ _ _ I have never thrown a book away. . . my library is at three continents, unlikely to ever get together . . .

_ _ _ (below) a beautiful orihon, folded book in one of the shopwindows of Jimbocho antiquariates

OBS.J

frozen in wintery Jimbocho, we have stopped for a lunch and warm-up in one soba restaurant; a menu and all commands on the ordering machine were in Japanese only . . . and, why not? does everything need to be addressed to the ubiquitous tourist? or, should one read that as xenophobia, an indirect “locals only” message?

_ _ _

P.S. information about and the links to my essays illustrated above:

· “In the search of Urbanity”, in In the Search of Urban Quality: 100 maps of Kuhonbutsugawa Street (with D. Boontharm), edition Tokyo: flick Studio, (2014)

· “The Strange Idea of the Public: No, hiroba (広場) is not public space; so what?!”, Routledge Companion to Public Space (eds. V. Mehta, D. Palazzo) pp. (2020)

· “On Research Across Cultural Difference: questions for streets with no names, where eyes never meet”, in Architectural Identities: Japan, SAJ Journal, volume 15 issue 1, (ed, I. Filipović, 2024)

· “On the value of non- understanding in urban research”, in The Routledge Handbook of Urban Design Research Methods, (eds. H. Kamalipour, P. Aelbrecht, N. Peimani), pp. 294-303 (2024)