writ in water

[asakiyume]

Wakanomori went for a bike ride beneath high-tension wires and took this photo of the wires reflected in a little stream.



The water is rippling and moving, so the reflection is broken up. It looks ...



... like calligraphy



The very calligraphy that Waka spends his days deciphering and teaching--as in this example, an essay by an 18th-century female scholar, writing on the Kokinshū, an imperially commissioned poetry anthology of 10th-century Japan.



If I can get Waka to read me the water calligraphy, I will tell you what it says. He also took a video in which you can hear the wires singing their high-tension song, which may provide clues to the text.

Comments

[sovay]

Wakanomori went for a bike ride beneath high-tension wires and took this photo of the wires reflected in a little stream.

That's lovely. I like the idea of the water writing itself.

[pameladean]

Oh, how wonderful. Thank you for sharing. I especially like the idea that the song of the wires may help with exegesis.

P.

[wayfaringwordhack]

How enchanting. Can't wait to know what the potentially hazardous duo of electricity and water have united to share with us.

[cmcmck]

Funny- as an islander, I see it as a map of an island archipelago.

Beautiful.

[mallorys_camera]

I love the thought of water calligraphy. As soon as I saw the phrase, my mind immediately created a narrative about a subjugated planet whose underclass communicated solely through ephemera like water calligraphy and talking drums. 😊

[asakiyume]

Writing itself to communicate with the sky, primarily, maybe... writing itself using reflections as a medium the way a calligrapher uses ink.

[asakiyume]

I was thinking about oral communication versus written communication, how the former implies immediacy (although there are ways around this, as we know from folksongs and children's clapping games being passed down) and the latter implies permanence (although we can preserve oral transmissions too, and written ones can both be destroyed or become inaccessible to us if we lose the key to them). And how a message conveyed on water is almost more oral than written. sovay said she liked the idea of the water writing itself, and that made me think of how I had initially seen the power lines as the writer, but it could be the water itself. Or maybe this act of writing is a collaboration between the power lines, the water, and the sky.

[anna_wing]

Watermelons are back in season, so I took a look at some of the varieties that have appeared, and some do indeed have very similar wetland patterns to the ones you showed, though often only really visible close up and with some magnification.

[asakiyume]

Maybe they harmonize, or maybe they do a kind of point-counterpoint thing, or maybe the song of the electricity provides extra information, as if I wrote something in English and then you read it out in French, translating it as you spoke.

[asakiyume]

A lovely, complicated one! I'd like to take a little boat and sail through it!

[asakiyume]

Ooooh, excellent idea! There could also be messages of resistance written in the streets--but in water, and they'd gradually fade through the day, but they'd be there to taunt the oppressors and encourage the resistance before they faded.

[asakiyume]

Thank you so much for reporting back! That makes me so happy--I'm glad that even when they seem to be solid stripes, they have that wetland-map look when examined closely.

[wayfaringwordhack]

I like the idea of harmony instead of something deadly being created. :P

[asakiyume]

Or it could be both! Like harmonic waves that make buildings fall down ;-)

[sartorias]

Wow, all of them are beautiful, the water calligraphy and that Japanese calligraphy.

[asakiyume]

*So* beautiful. I agree with all my heart.

[marycatelli]

A skein of migratory geese to me.

[minoanmiss]

*is overwhelmed by beauty*

[okrablossom]

It is always so wonderful to see the universe through your eyes for just a little bit. Thank you! :)

[queenoftheskies]

That is so cool.

[larryhammer]

And in conclusion, I remain ass at reading calligraphic Japanese. I can make out, what, one character in three? -- and am curious how to pronounce the author's name. (I remain very, very grateful for wakanomori 's help with the Komachi collection.)

[asakiyume]

I wish there was a way you could take his course! He teaches how to read kuzushiji and variants. Regarding the author, the family name is Koda--I can't remember (nor do I know from just looking!) what the personal name is--I'll ask Waka.

I was thinking of you when I wrote this, thinking of your translation projects with admiration. Thanks for spreading beauty in the world.

[asakiyume]

^_^

[asakiyume]

Believe me, it is a lifesaver to have people willing to let me share it with them.

[asakiyume]

*sitting with you in this feeling*

[asakiyume]

Yes--and who knows what things *they* are writing as they pass, what messages they're conveying, and to whom.

[larryhammer]

I almost guessed right with Koda -- my best guess on the personal name is Chamo, which sounds ... really weird. And is basically a flailing wild-ass guess. That I don't trust.

[ashlyme]

Gorgeous - thank you for sharing. Never the same word twice.

[asakiyume]

Thank you--and yes <3

[asakiyume]

And as it turned out I remembered the surname wrong as well: it was *Ka*da, not Koda. Ugh. She's Kada Sōsei, according to Wakanomori.

I hope you're enjoying a good Thanksgiving with Janni and the not-so-little-anymore little one!

[larryhammer]

Sōsei? So, yeah, waaaaaaay off.