[Participant Essays] FRIDAY NIGHT ESSAY CLUB - A workshop to reexamine everyday life through "writing" Mei Kawano x Reo Takada x Rei Nagai x Itsuki Matsuda x Toru Moriwaki (Part 2)
A workshop will be held at the SHARE LOUNGE in DAIKANYAMA TSUTAYA BOOKS on Friday, April 5, 2024, to encourage people to write essays based on the ideas and methods of five writers and critics. After the event, we called for submissions of short essays on the theme of "Friday."
Following on from the first part, we will now introduce one essay selected by each speaker from the submitted essays.
[Participant Essays] FRIDAY NIGHT ESSAY CLUB - A workshop to reexamine everyday life through "writing" Mei Kawano x Reo Takada x Rei Nagai x Itsuki Matsuda x Toru Moriwaki (Part 1)
■Selected by Rei Nagai
Chigusa Chiyu (X:@anone___naisho) "What Happens on Tuesday Night"
Friday night always turns up on Tuesday night and stays for three whole days.
So you don't miss this important day, one of the two weekly collection days for burnable garbage.
Burnable garbage can be put out on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Garbage is collected in the morning. You can also put it out the night before.
On Friday night, take the bags out of the trash can and put them together with the food waste from the drain and the trash disposal. Clean up the floor and the water area. Throw them all away together.
If you try to do it on Saturday morning, you might end up oversleeping because it's your day off, which is why you have to take your trash to the collection center on Friday night.
For some people, it may be painful to think about the garbage that has been piling up little by little since Tuesday night. For me, I think I am able to do it because I have the desire to clean, or collect the garbage, or get rid of the dirt.
I used to work part-time at a maid cafe.
When I first started working, I was nervous and couldn't join in the conversations of customers or other maids (even though that was my job), and even after I got used to conversation, I felt uneasy when I was working alone and there were no customers around, because I was getting paid an hourly wage for not doing anything, so I cleaned and polished every nook and cranny.
At maid cafes, which sold themselves as "maids cooking and serving food in an open kitchen," we were able to remove a lot of dirt. I enjoyed polishing up the kitchen, which became a mess when it was busy. I've never hated cleaning, but I didn't think I liked it either, so I remember being surprised.
In the process, the new maid was born, actively cooking to learn the restaurant's menu and recipes, wiping down various places with a towel when she had free time, and neglecting conversation. I thought this was a typical way of working for a maid, so I didn't mind. It wasn't good for the restaurant, though.
The garbage that we actually end up throwing away is made up of various things that come from our daily lives.
Things that we end up throwing away after buying them: tea bags, food trays, and plastic wrap. Hair and dust that fall out just by living and that we have to throw away. Wet wipes used to wipe tables and sinks.
Even if you don't organize or tidy up, even if you don't declutter, you still pollute your surroundings and create trash just by living. I learned this firsthand when I started living on my own.
I don't dislike cleaning. But I'm starting to feel somehow uncomfortable about the fact that we produce waste without even realizing it, just like the organs and cells that are active without us even noticing.
Maybe I just want to get rid of the feeling that I am garbage, that just by being alive I am polluting the world.
[Comment by Rei Nagai]
I was struck by the sharpness of the way the world was cut up, with the lyric-like phrase "Friday appears on Tuesday night" coexisting with the imperfect fragments of everyday life, such as "disposing of food waste in the drain." When attempting to portray a universal everyday life, one is often dragged down by mediocrity and stereotypes, resulting in writing that lacks substance, but the insertion of the unique experience of "working part-time at a maid cafe" in a way that doesn't seem particularly special, and the writer's perspective on garbage that wanders around, I felt, resulted in an irreplaceable expression. The way the last sentence falls silently, as if talking to oneself, is something that can only be achieved in an essay.
I once had a philosophical conversation with two children in a seaside town in Iwate Prefecture about "what is garbage?" I put a piece of sand and a small speck of dust from my pocket on the table and asked them, "Is this garbage?" The children stared at it and said "garbage" in a low voice, followed by a long silence, then they quietly muttered, "...no it's not." As I was reading the article, I suddenly remembered why they thought it wasn't garbage. What do you think?
Rei Nagai
Philosopher. Born in Tokyo in 1991. He holds "philosophical dialogues" in schools, companies, temples, shrines, art museums, local governments, and other places where people can think together. He also writes serial philosophical essays. He is also active in the independent media "Choose Life Project" and the movement "D2021" organized by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Gotch. His books include "Philosophers in the Water" (Shobunsha, 2021). He is the recipient of the 17th "I, That is, Nobody Award."
■ Matsuda Itsuki Selection
Yuhei Ogawa, "Muslim Congregational Prayer Days"
The essay topic is Friday night.
Friday?
Golden year?
Are you here?
Let's look into it. "The day of the week between Thursday and Saturday," "The day of preparation before the Sabbath in Judaism," "The day of Jason's massacre." Indeed, it seems that each person is free to attach the words they want to Friday.
I worked at a gas station until last month. I had shifts with no fixed holidays, and my work didn't change depending on the day of the week, so there was no such thing as a Friday. Every day was the same "day."
So I don't have any words to associate with Friday. Unfortunately, I don't have anything to write about Friday. Goodbye.
No...? Maybe I could write about Fridays when we were in high school and when we were working for a company five years ago, when we had Saturdays and Sundays off. Fridays in those days were called "Liberation Day."
Freedom from what? That's obvious. From my classmates who make fun of me, and my shitty boss who yells at me nonstop.
No...? Wasn't it me who wanted to run away? From the me who gets 18 points in math, from the me who quickly forgets my boss's instructions. If I leave work or school, I won't have to think about myself anymore. On "Disappearance Day," the me I hate so much will disappear.
No...? Did I disappear? Even after leaving the place, she was still worried about me. Especially when she was working for a company, she used to gulp down Strong Zero, which has a fairly high alcohol content, to shake off the ghost of me that was haunting her. It was definitely "Ghost Day".
No...it's too dark.
Starting this month, I left the gas station and started working at the head office. I'm closed on Saturdays and Sundays. But I haven't changed as a person since I was in high school. So my Fridays haven't changed. They're forever "dark days." But...? There was a time when Fridays were bright. Long ago, when I was in elementary school. That Friday was a very fun "day of transformation."
When I got home, I threw my backpack at the entrance and ran to the garden. The unkempt garden was just like a forest. In the forest, I could pretend to be Count Dracula, Gandalf the Grey, or Sherlock Holmes.
"I absolutely won't let you through here!"
I, clad in a tattered patchwork cloak, scream at the monster Bargog. My imagination runs wild against the backdrop of a ruined garden.
I loved my imaginative side, and I loved Friday even more.
Can I go back to the person I was back then?
Is it embarrassing for an old man to transform?
No! That's not true! I, I can transform.
No! I think it's okay to be more proactive in creating new stories. So, on Friday, I'll be a zookeeper in a labyrinth. I'll be a scary, freedom-loving green-eyed witch. I'll be a fisherman who learned magic from the devil in heaven.
Now, Friday night begins. A new day. Story Day.
[Comment from Itsuki Matsuda]
The essay left the most impression on me in terms of its writing style. The opening, with "What day is it?", seems to digest the theme bit by bit, with the author repeatedly asking himself "No...?" as the question deepens, and the author's imagination expands at the end. It was a compelling description that gradually drew the reader in.
As the essay says, "it's okay to transform," and in the process of writing, the speaker of this essay sheds the rigid, normative armor that an office worker named "I" is forced to carry on a daily basis, and transforms into a flexible being such as "boku," "atasuki," or "washi."
Writing is a transformation of one's self-perception, and a change in perception can completely change the meaning of the world. I thought this was well-incorporated into the self-questioning surrounding Friday. Perhaps a "story" really begins when one has passed through this self-questioning.
"I am here now. I exist here, as the first person singular. If I had chosen just one different direction, I probably wouldn't be here. But who is that person reflected in this mirror?" (Haruki Murakami, "First Person Singular")
Matsuda Itsuki
Critic and literary researcher. Born in Osaka in 1993. Lecturer in creative expression at Aichi Shukutoku University. Researches postwar Japanese criticism and literature, with a focus on Nakagami Kenji. Also provides creative instruction in contemporary literature in the creative expression course. Planned and managed "Coordinates of Criticism - Redrawing the Topography of Criticism" at Jinbun Shoin, in which new critics and writers look back on the work of Japanese critics and writers of the past. Currently serializing the follow-up project "The Heart of People". Founder and manager of "Modern Gymnastics", an exercise for criticism.
■ Moriwaki Tosei Selection
Takuma Suzuki "Friday is a Secret"
There was a cake in front of me. It was probably a birthday cake that my boyfriend had bought for me. After drinking, I felt uncomfortable if I didn't eat something to finish it off, so my friend and I ate it without permission, which ended badly. I was in the darkest period of my life at the time, and I consumed alcohol to relieve my sorrows, and I had a firm grip on my neck, and I couldn't do anything without it. And the things I did were terrible.
Although she told her boyfriend that she wanted to start over, the results of her past experiences were so great that he kicked her out of the house with the words, "Even Coach Anzai would tell you to give up," and she began living with a friend.
Then my friend and I decided to give up alcohol. I started drinking coffee instead, and found myself unable to sleep and staying up all night. Luckily, my friend had insomnia, so we spent the weekend talking until the early hours.
My friend was an excellent storyteller, able to speak beautifully, like a great detective uncovering the truth of a case, while I was an excellent listener, receptive to everything and able to skillfully interject to make the speaker feel comfortable speaking.
However, we were both very sarcastic and nasty, so before we started talking, my friend naturally said, "Don't tell anyone," and I replied, "I won't," and we continued talking until the morning. But that relationship also came to an abrupt end.
One night, my friend told me, "Actually, I'm a sex addict," and told me various stories related to that until the morning. I don't know why, but I felt a deeper and stronger shock than ever before and couldn't accept it.
The next week, my friend asked me, "You told me about your sex addiction, right?" I nodded and he said, "Actually, it's a complete fabrication. Oh, that's a lie. I'm not a sex addict, and I don't know much about it, so I just talked about what I knew. I don't actually know anything about it, so I don't know. I thought it would be an interesting story. So..." I answered, pretending to feel guilty, "I don't know why I told that story, but... I never do that, but I just told it. No, I think it was probably too shocking for me to handle." My friend coldly asked, "So, how many people did you tell it to?" I answered with a serious look on my face, "Everyone I know and a lot of people I don't know." From then on, my friend started telling me stories, and I was able to tell them freely.
[Comment from Toru Moriwaki]
I liked how the book leaves an overall puzzling feeling after reading it, from the way it starts with the perspective at the beginning, to the light humor here and there, the presence of the "friend" (at first I thought it was a metaphor for an internal dialogue), and the strangeness of their relationship. I simply like this sense of shadyness, where you can't really trust how much of it is true or false, but if the author makes what seems like plausible criticism to accomplish the task he has been given, I think he knows how to distance himself appropriately from his own writing. People who are too close to their own writing, or too far away, can't write. I always want to affirm this kind of snappy detachment.
By the way, the title is "Friday is a Secret," but in this text -- although the gist of it is certainly that a "secret" is being revealed -- in the end, it is not clear exactly what the "secret" is. What is being kept secret is itself a secret, and the fact that it is being hidden is itself hidden; this may be a situation that should be called an absolute secret.
Tosei Moriwaki
Born in Osaka in 1995, he left the doctoral program at the Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University after receiving certification for supervision (he is currently writing his doctoral thesis). He is a critic and specializes in philosophy and aesthetics, particularly the work of Jacques Derrida. He is the founder of the movement for criticism, "Modern Gymnastics." His books (co-authored) include "Reading Jacques Derrida's 'Deferral'" (Yomiuri, 2023).
Humanities Concierge
Motoo Okada
Following on from the first part, we will now introduce one essay selected by each speaker from the submitted essays.
[Participant Essays] FRIDAY NIGHT ESSAY CLUB - A workshop to reexamine everyday life through "writing" Mei Kawano x Reo Takada x Rei Nagai x Itsuki Matsuda x Toru Moriwaki (Part 1)
■Selected by Rei Nagai
Chigusa Chiyu (X:@anone___naisho) "What Happens on Tuesday Night"
Friday night always turns up on Tuesday night and stays for three whole days.
So you don't miss this important day, one of the two weekly collection days for burnable garbage.
Burnable garbage can be put out on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Garbage is collected in the morning. You can also put it out the night before.
On Friday night, take the bags out of the trash can and put them together with the food waste from the drain and the trash disposal. Clean up the floor and the water area. Throw them all away together.
If you try to do it on Saturday morning, you might end up oversleeping because it's your day off, which is why you have to take your trash to the collection center on Friday night.
For some people, it may be painful to think about the garbage that has been piling up little by little since Tuesday night. For me, I think I am able to do it because I have the desire to clean, or collect the garbage, or get rid of the dirt.
I used to work part-time at a maid cafe.
When I first started working, I was nervous and couldn't join in the conversations of customers or other maids (even though that was my job), and even after I got used to conversation, I felt uneasy when I was working alone and there were no customers around, because I was getting paid an hourly wage for not doing anything, so I cleaned and polished every nook and cranny.
At maid cafes, which sold themselves as "maids cooking and serving food in an open kitchen," we were able to remove a lot of dirt. I enjoyed polishing up the kitchen, which became a mess when it was busy. I've never hated cleaning, but I didn't think I liked it either, so I remember being surprised.
In the process, the new maid was born, actively cooking to learn the restaurant's menu and recipes, wiping down various places with a towel when she had free time, and neglecting conversation. I thought this was a typical way of working for a maid, so I didn't mind. It wasn't good for the restaurant, though.
The garbage that we actually end up throwing away is made up of various things that come from our daily lives.
Things that we end up throwing away after buying them: tea bags, food trays, and plastic wrap. Hair and dust that fall out just by living and that we have to throw away. Wet wipes used to wipe tables and sinks.
Even if you don't organize or tidy up, even if you don't declutter, you still pollute your surroundings and create trash just by living. I learned this firsthand when I started living on my own.
I don't dislike cleaning. But I'm starting to feel somehow uncomfortable about the fact that we produce waste without even realizing it, just like the organs and cells that are active without us even noticing.
Maybe I just want to get rid of the feeling that I am garbage, that just by being alive I am polluting the world.
[Comment by Rei Nagai]
I was struck by the sharpness of the way the world was cut up, with the lyric-like phrase "Friday appears on Tuesday night" coexisting with the imperfect fragments of everyday life, such as "disposing of food waste in the drain." When attempting to portray a universal everyday life, one is often dragged down by mediocrity and stereotypes, resulting in writing that lacks substance, but the insertion of the unique experience of "working part-time at a maid cafe" in a way that doesn't seem particularly special, and the writer's perspective on garbage that wanders around, I felt, resulted in an irreplaceable expression. The way the last sentence falls silently, as if talking to oneself, is something that can only be achieved in an essay.
I once had a philosophical conversation with two children in a seaside town in Iwate Prefecture about "what is garbage?" I put a piece of sand and a small speck of dust from my pocket on the table and asked them, "Is this garbage?" The children stared at it and said "garbage" in a low voice, followed by a long silence, then they quietly muttered, "...no it's not." As I was reading the article, I suddenly remembered why they thought it wasn't garbage. What do you think?
Rei Nagai
Philosopher. Born in Tokyo in 1991. He holds "philosophical dialogues" in schools, companies, temples, shrines, art museums, local governments, and other places where people can think together. He also writes serial philosophical essays. He is also active in the independent media "Choose Life Project" and the movement "D2021" organized by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Gotch. His books include "Philosophers in the Water" (Shobunsha, 2021). He is the recipient of the 17th "I, That is, Nobody Award."
■ Matsuda Itsuki Selection
Yuhei Ogawa, "Muslim Congregational Prayer Days"
The essay topic is Friday night.
Friday?
Golden year?
Are you here?
Let's look into it. "The day of the week between Thursday and Saturday," "The day of preparation before the Sabbath in Judaism," "The day of Jason's massacre." Indeed, it seems that each person is free to attach the words they want to Friday.
I worked at a gas station until last month. I had shifts with no fixed holidays, and my work didn't change depending on the day of the week, so there was no such thing as a Friday. Every day was the same "day."
So I don't have any words to associate with Friday. Unfortunately, I don't have anything to write about Friday. Goodbye.
No...? Maybe I could write about Fridays when we were in high school and when we were working for a company five years ago, when we had Saturdays and Sundays off. Fridays in those days were called "Liberation Day."
Freedom from what? That's obvious. From my classmates who make fun of me, and my shitty boss who yells at me nonstop.
No...? Wasn't it me who wanted to run away? From the me who gets 18 points in math, from the me who quickly forgets my boss's instructions. If I leave work or school, I won't have to think about myself anymore. On "Disappearance Day," the me I hate so much will disappear.
No...? Did I disappear? Even after leaving the place, she was still worried about me. Especially when she was working for a company, she used to gulp down Strong Zero, which has a fairly high alcohol content, to shake off the ghost of me that was haunting her. It was definitely "Ghost Day".
No...it's too dark.
Starting this month, I left the gas station and started working at the head office. I'm closed on Saturdays and Sundays. But I haven't changed as a person since I was in high school. So my Fridays haven't changed. They're forever "dark days." But...? There was a time when Fridays were bright. Long ago, when I was in elementary school. That Friday was a very fun "day of transformation."
When I got home, I threw my backpack at the entrance and ran to the garden. The unkempt garden was just like a forest. In the forest, I could pretend to be Count Dracula, Gandalf the Grey, or Sherlock Holmes.
"I absolutely won't let you through here!"
I, clad in a tattered patchwork cloak, scream at the monster Bargog. My imagination runs wild against the backdrop of a ruined garden.
I loved my imaginative side, and I loved Friday even more.
Can I go back to the person I was back then?
Is it embarrassing for an old man to transform?
No! That's not true! I, I can transform.
No! I think it's okay to be more proactive in creating new stories. So, on Friday, I'll be a zookeeper in a labyrinth. I'll be a scary, freedom-loving green-eyed witch. I'll be a fisherman who learned magic from the devil in heaven.
Now, Friday night begins. A new day. Story Day.
[Comment from Itsuki Matsuda]
The essay left the most impression on me in terms of its writing style. The opening, with "What day is it?", seems to digest the theme bit by bit, with the author repeatedly asking himself "No...?" as the question deepens, and the author's imagination expands at the end. It was a compelling description that gradually drew the reader in.
As the essay says, "it's okay to transform," and in the process of writing, the speaker of this essay sheds the rigid, normative armor that an office worker named "I" is forced to carry on a daily basis, and transforms into a flexible being such as "boku," "atasuki," or "washi."
Writing is a transformation of one's self-perception, and a change in perception can completely change the meaning of the world. I thought this was well-incorporated into the self-questioning surrounding Friday. Perhaps a "story" really begins when one has passed through this self-questioning.
"I am here now. I exist here, as the first person singular. If I had chosen just one different direction, I probably wouldn't be here. But who is that person reflected in this mirror?" (Haruki Murakami, "First Person Singular")
Matsuda Itsuki
Critic and literary researcher. Born in Osaka in 1993. Lecturer in creative expression at Aichi Shukutoku University. Researches postwar Japanese criticism and literature, with a focus on Nakagami Kenji. Also provides creative instruction in contemporary literature in the creative expression course. Planned and managed "Coordinates of Criticism - Redrawing the Topography of Criticism" at Jinbun Shoin, in which new critics and writers look back on the work of Japanese critics and writers of the past. Currently serializing the follow-up project "The Heart of People". Founder and manager of "Modern Gymnastics", an exercise for criticism.
■ Moriwaki Tosei Selection
Takuma Suzuki "Friday is a Secret"
There was a cake in front of me. It was probably a birthday cake that my boyfriend had bought for me. After drinking, I felt uncomfortable if I didn't eat something to finish it off, so my friend and I ate it without permission, which ended badly. I was in the darkest period of my life at the time, and I consumed alcohol to relieve my sorrows, and I had a firm grip on my neck, and I couldn't do anything without it. And the things I did were terrible.
Although she told her boyfriend that she wanted to start over, the results of her past experiences were so great that he kicked her out of the house with the words, "Even Coach Anzai would tell you to give up," and she began living with a friend.
Then my friend and I decided to give up alcohol. I started drinking coffee instead, and found myself unable to sleep and staying up all night. Luckily, my friend had insomnia, so we spent the weekend talking until the early hours.
My friend was an excellent storyteller, able to speak beautifully, like a great detective uncovering the truth of a case, while I was an excellent listener, receptive to everything and able to skillfully interject to make the speaker feel comfortable speaking.
However, we were both very sarcastic and nasty, so before we started talking, my friend naturally said, "Don't tell anyone," and I replied, "I won't," and we continued talking until the morning. But that relationship also came to an abrupt end.
One night, my friend told me, "Actually, I'm a sex addict," and told me various stories related to that until the morning. I don't know why, but I felt a deeper and stronger shock than ever before and couldn't accept it.
The next week, my friend asked me, "You told me about your sex addiction, right?" I nodded and he said, "Actually, it's a complete fabrication. Oh, that's a lie. I'm not a sex addict, and I don't know much about it, so I just talked about what I knew. I don't actually know anything about it, so I don't know. I thought it would be an interesting story. So..." I answered, pretending to feel guilty, "I don't know why I told that story, but... I never do that, but I just told it. No, I think it was probably too shocking for me to handle." My friend coldly asked, "So, how many people did you tell it to?" I answered with a serious look on my face, "Everyone I know and a lot of people I don't know." From then on, my friend started telling me stories, and I was able to tell them freely.
[Comment from Toru Moriwaki]
I liked how the book leaves an overall puzzling feeling after reading it, from the way it starts with the perspective at the beginning, to the light humor here and there, the presence of the "friend" (at first I thought it was a metaphor for an internal dialogue), and the strangeness of their relationship. I simply like this sense of shadyness, where you can't really trust how much of it is true or false, but if the author makes what seems like plausible criticism to accomplish the task he has been given, I think he knows how to distance himself appropriately from his own writing. People who are too close to their own writing, or too far away, can't write. I always want to affirm this kind of snappy detachment.
By the way, the title is "Friday is a Secret," but in this text -- although the gist of it is certainly that a "secret" is being revealed -- in the end, it is not clear exactly what the "secret" is. What is being kept secret is itself a secret, and the fact that it is being hidden is itself hidden; this may be a situation that should be called an absolute secret.
Tosei Moriwaki
Born in Osaka in 1995, he left the doctoral program at the Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University after receiving certification for supervision (he is currently writing his doctoral thesis). He is a critic and specializes in philosophy and aesthetics, particularly the work of Jacques Derrida. He is the founder of the movement for criticism, "Modern Gymnastics." His books (co-authored) include "Reading Jacques Derrida's 'Deferral'" (Yomiuri, 2023).
Humanities Concierge
Motoo Okada
