01. Lists

I'm going to talk about lists. Not grocery lists or to-do lists, though.

It started on Twitch

I was watching this guy on Twitch, a friend of mine from a former job. He had written and drawn on his bare chest while streaming, a message to celebrate a mod’s birthday. This reminded me of a movie that I saw in college.

An erotic art movie

In The Pillow Book (1996), “A woman with a body writing fetish seeks to find a combined lover and calligrapher.” But whenever I bring up this film, I explain it as, “Ewan McGregor, naked (thank you, movie!), with calligraphy all over his body, having his nipple kissed by an old Japanese man”. In fact, the film features lots of body writing on over a dozen naked bodies. I remember watching the film back when I was in college. I don’t recall how I learned of the film, but I think it was in the excitement over Ewan McGregor after the new Star Wars films. But whatever article mentioned this jewel of Ewan’s previous work made sure to talk up the nipple thing.

At the time, I was studying Japanese, and I had something of a linguistic hard-on for calligraphy. And a regular hard-on for Ewan. So I got a copy of the film from the library. It was … formative.

Back to Twitch

So there I was sitting at my computer, watching my friend’s Twitch stream, and having a wonderful flashback. So I went online and bought a copy of the DVD. I decided that it was not enough just to borrow it from the library and watch it once. I want to own the physical disk so that I can watch it multiple times, whenever I want. I could even lend it; spreading the good news about Ewan’s nipple.

A few days later, it arrived

… and I immediately watched the whole movie that evening. The film is weirder than I remembered. In addition to the text on bodies, it has several scenes with text on the screen (sometimes in English). And a woman singing in French about the perfect lover or something. The whole film is very erotic and very weird.

One of the motifs of the film is repeated appearances and voice-over readings from The Pillow Book of Seishonagon (1002). If you haven’t heard of it, please find a copy. This charming book is a diary of a Japanese lady-in-waiting. It’s full of gossip, reflections, and quaint lists with obvious and clever entries. And the girl knows how to throw shade, too; one section is titled, “Men really have strange emotions”.

Back to writing

After watching the film. I went down a rabbit hole searching for information about the book, inspired by the author’s pithy lists. It might be fun to make my own pillow book. It could be fun to make lists, like the author’s, as writing exercises. I didn’t find enough information online, so I got two copies from the library.

Now that I’m paging through them, the inspiration I felt that day has returned. I think it will be very fun to incorporate lists like Seishonagon’s into this little substack of terrible writing.

The first list

For my first list, here is a list of lists from The Pillow Book of Seishonagon. It is not a complete list.

• Depressing things

• Hateful things

• Things that make one’s heart beat faster

• Things that arouse a fond memory of the past

• Elegant things

• Unsuitable things

• Poetic subjects

• Things that cannot be compared

• Rare things

• Things that give a pathetic impression

• Splendid things

• Annoying things

• Embarrassing things

• Surprising and distressing things

• Things that lose by being painted

• Things that gain by being painted

• Things that give a hot feeling

• Shameful things

• Things that have lost their power

• Awkward things

• Things without merit

• Outstandingly splendid things

• Things that give a clean feeling

• Things that give an unclean feeling

• Adorable things

• Presumptuous things

• Squalid things

• People who seem to suffer

• Enviable people

• Things that one is in a hurry to see or hear

• Things that are distant though near

• Things that are near though distant

• People who look pleased with themselves

• Things worth seeing

• Things that should be large

• Things that should be small

• Things that fall from the sky

• People who have changed as much as if they had been reborn

• Pleasing things

• Times when one should be on one’s guard

• Things that are unpleasant to see

• Very dirty things

• Things that give one confidence

• Holy things

• Bad things

• Resplendent things

• Things that are hard to say

• Things that do not linger for a moment

• Things of which people are rarely aware

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