today i read the essay "in praise of shadows" by junichiro tanizaki. (read it here: http://pdf-objects.com/files/In-Praise-of-Shadows-Junichiro-Tanizaki.pdf) a really silly but interesting read written in 1933 where he describes how lots of traditional aspects of japanese culture like food, art, architecture, can really only blossom to their full potential when obscured by the deep shadows that existed in life before oil and electric lamps. i really liked this passage:
"And while I am talking of this whiteness I want to talk also of the color of the darkness that enfolds it. I think of an unforgettable vision of darkness I once had when I took a friend from Tokyo to the old Sumiya teahouse in Kyoto. I was in a large room, the “Pine Room” I think, since destroyed by fire, and the darkness, broken only by a few candles, was of a richness quite different from the darkness of a small room. As we came in the door an elderly waitress with shaven eyebrows and blackened teeth was kneeling by a candle behind which stood a large screen. On the far side of the screen, at the edge of the little circle of light, the darkness seemed to fall from the ceiling, lofty, intense, monolithic, the fragile light of the candle unable to pierce its thickness, turned back as from a black wall. I wonder if my readers know the color of that “darkness seen by candlelight.” It was different in quality from darkness on the road at night. It was a repletion, a pregnancy of tiny particles like fine ashes, each particle luminous as a rainbow. I blinked in spite of myself, as though to keep it out of my eyes."
i appreciate the treatment of darkness as an object here, it not being an absence of light, but a presence of it's own.
i realized i forgot to talk about the shadow photo i took in yesterday's entry, the shadows were falling on the back wall of an old ice cream parlor i would go to when i was a little kid because they would project Tom and Jerry on the outside wall. it's also pretty close to my house.
i had an idea for a good shadow exercise today: step outside on a sunny day and face towards the sun, grab one of your favorite objects (works best if small) and hold it up in front of the sun and feel its shadow move across your face as it warps and distorts to your facial features. i don't know what this will do but you should do it.
i took a mid day nap today for 4 hours because it is a lazy time, i woke up ecstatic thinking about how the shadows of my room slowly moved across my body as i slept.
the picture above was taken in my living room, its the shadow that an eastern window and my front door create on a table with flowers that my mom bought awhile ago from "trader joe's"