was reading a bit of jun’ichiro tanizaki’s 1933 volume in praise of shadows today. it’s a romantic essay lamenting the disappearance of traditional japanese design ideals. specifically the modern use of bright lights, and other western technologies, which he recognized as replacing the warmth, depth, richness, and mystery achieved through the traditional use of shadows and darkness. i must confess that i have always found japanese interiors alluring. i’ve fantasized many times about the experience of living in such a place. i wanted very much to post about the traditional japanese house using tanizaki’s slim book as a jumping off point but find i can not. i just do not know enough about the subject. searching out information proved to be overwhelming. for instance today is the first time i’ve ever heard the term wabi sabi. as such i think it best that for the time being i simply confine myself to related matters which are less expansive.

so, i give you, tanizaki on traditional japanese toilets-

every time i am shown to an old, dimly lit, and, i would add, impeccably clean toilet in a nara or kyoto temple, i am impressed with the singular virtues of japanese architecture. the parlor may have it’s charms, but the japanese toilet truly is a place of spiritual repose. it always stands apart from the main building, at the end of a corridor, in a grove fragrant with leaves and moss. no words can describe that sensation as one sits in dim light, basking in the faint glow reflected from the shoji, lost in meditation or gazing out at the garden. the novelist natsume soseki counted his morning trips to the toilet a great pleasure, “a physiological delight” he called it. and surely there could be no better place to savor this pleasure than a japanese toilet where, surrounded by tranquil walls and finely grained wood, one looks out upon the blue skies and green leaves.

anyone with a taste for traditional architecture must agree that the japanese toilet is perfection. yet whatever its virtues in a place like a temple, in an ordinary household it is no easy task to keep clean, no matter how fastidious one mat be or how diligently one may scrub. and so it turns out the be more hygienic and efficient to install modern sanitary facilities - tile and flush toilet. there is no denying it’s cleanliness, every nook and corner is pure white. yet what need is there to remind us so forcefully of the issue of our own bodies. a beautiful woman, no matter how lovely her skin, would consider it indecent were she to show her bare buttocks or feet in the presence of others; and how very crude and tasteless to expose the toilet to such excessive illumination. the cleanliness of what can be seen only calls up the more clearly thoughts of what cannot be seen. in such places the distinction between the clean and unclean is best left obscure, shrouded in a dusky haze.

...

good christ. i really have to apologize. having typed that i now realize it is quite possibly the most boring banal bit of text i could have chosen. even i’m fucking bored. if any of you actually read it, well, sorry. does not do the book justice. there are many sections which, though perhaps not lending themselves as easily to a blog post, would almost certainly have been more thought provoking and entertaining. why did i not choose one of them? fuck if i know. i did, however, type all that crap about japanese toilets, so we’re stuck with it.

anyhow, my book on wabi sabi will arrive eventually, at which point perhaps i’ll be able to make an informed post about something which is actually of interest. should have titled this post, in defilement of shadows.

i don’t know folks. ever have one of those days?