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x0401x · 4 years ago

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Jeweler Richard Fanbook Short Story #16

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Colombo’s Bookstore

Sri Lanka didn’t have as many bookstores as Japan. It had about three times as many used car shops as in Japan, I believed. But there were few bookstores.

In the first place, be them used car stores or bookstores, the shops were by no means big. This country was a tiny island with a national territory smaller than Japan’s, so lands that had forest reserves of local nature in them and real estate were probably valuable. If anything, I had an affinity for the place. But it was a pity that the bookstores were so few.

I often spent my time alone nowadays, so above all else, I appreciated having anything to read. I wasn’t the bookworm type, but there were just too many book-selling places in Japan. If you were getting off at some notable station in Tokyo, no matter which one it was, there would be at least one bookstore within walking distance. I also had a fresh memory of Saul-san telling me that “Japanese people really like their books”.

A street vendor was selling scissors in front of a bookstore in the sunlit streets of Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. Why did he decide to sell scissors by the road? And right before my eyes, a person on a bus riding slowly down the avenue was buying a pair of scissors from him. Did they have some bag that they wanted to cut open no matter what or something? I had no idea, but anyway, this was a world that operated with standards different from Japan’s, in which supply and demand were apparently well-established.

With glass doors, the bookstore had a magnificent structure and felt nice and cold when I stepped in. The study reference books were on the second floor, so I went up the arched stairs that parted to left and right, searching for the shelf that I was aiming for.

There you are.

I took three books from it, and when I went to the checkout, the female clerk, dressed in a sari, asked me, “Is this all?” in English. The official languages of this country were English, Sinhala and Tamil, with English being spoken by both Sinhalese and Tamils. I believed she was Sinhalese. Because the sari was not a Hindu but a Buddhist thing.

“These are volumes 2, 3 and 4. What about volume 1?”

“I bought just volume 1 a while ago. And it was really good, so I also wanted to learn the rest from this book series.”

“So you’re studying Sinhala. That’s rare. Where are you from?”

“I’m Japanese,” I answered.

What I had come to buy was a Sinhala language study reference book. It was a book for people who couldn’t read Sinhala, so it was, of course, written in English. Even so, I had read it a little before traveling. I also found and purchased a Sinhala language study reference book written by a Japanese scholar, which I was able to buy in Japan.

Regardless, it was kind of useless for my range of understanding, so I almost felt like throwing it away before I could learn anything. I told Saul-san about this when asking him for advice, at which he burst into laughter and then bought me a red paperback book.

A Sinhala book written in English.

The letters were very large and there weren’t too many words. As for the quality of the paper, on the bright side, it was straw paper, and on the downside, it was gray and flimsy. But the contents were very easy to understand and the insides were firmly packed.

This reference book taught Sinhala letters first, as well as the meaning and pronunciation of each one. From that point onward, I couldn’t be more thankful for it. Sinhala was a language written with a Sinhalese alphabet, after all. In addition to vowels such as A, I, U, E and O, it jumped on to a variety of consonants and other symbols that stuck one letter to another like joints. It explained each of them carefully so that even people who didn’t know Sinhalese at all could understand them. This book solved a large percentage of the problem that I had stumbled upon, namely “I can’t find the commonalities and differences between letters, so I don’t know how to tell them apart and can’t organize them in my head”. I was grateful for that. There was no need to ask Richard-sensei for a foreign language course via international call all the time anymore.

That being said, there were many letters in Sinhala. Meaning that there were several pronunciations. You’d think that the Japanese syllabary was cute in comparison. Not all of it could be explained in one book, and the lectures were extended over to the second volume, but Saul-san had bought only one book, in case it didn’t suit me. The results were as could be seen. It was the same kind of joy as reading one book from a novel series and then buying all the sequels.

Learning languages was fun. By the looks of it, learning how to link them directly to communication was what worked for me.

“But can’t you live in Sri Lanka while speaking English, even if you don’t understand Sinhala? Are you on a business trip?”

“Something like that, but if possible, I’d like to talk to people using a Sri Lankan language. I’m Japanese, but I’ve had the experience of being a bit happy when someone from a foreign country spoke in Japanese to me, so now I guess it’s my turn.”

“You have so much free time, huh!”

I had no words to reply. The clerk and I burst into laughter without any reserve and finished the checkout. As I went down the arched stairs, I found a space where they were selling festival tools, stationery and picture books. Many of the same books were arranged on two sides.

Or so I thought.

But that was apparently not it. What I thought to be the exact same large-format picture books were the English version and the Sinhala version. You’d miss it if you were distracted because the pictures were the same, but the picture book, which was probably a Sri Lankan version of a “Japanese folktale”-like work, was published in two languages.

“Y’see, the ones who buy these are parents who want their kids to learn English. ‘Cause speaking English comes in handy.”

When I turned around, the clerk who had been at the cash register on the second floor was right behind me. It seemed she had come to see me off. Apparently, the cashier on the first floor called out to her, telling her to go back to work or something like that, to which she replied at length, and the two exchanged laughs. Maybe the people in this bookstore were cheerful, as not all Sri Lankans expressed their emotions so openly.

“This one is the ‘Mean Old Man’. This one is ‘The Perahera Festival’.”

“Can even a small child understand it well?”

“Of course. This book is big so that it’s easy to read to them.”

Indeed, it was a thin picture book of a size larger than A4. In Japan, it wouldn’t be strange for it to have an anime or manga-style art, but the art of this one had an ethnic touch to it, perhaps to match the contents. The colors were rich, the mean old man was drawn in a vile yet comical way, and the blue gradation of the feathers in a bird’s tail looked tasteful.

“Hum, excuse me. Can I buy this too?”

“You’re going to buy it? Do you have children?”

“I’ll read it myself.”

The clerk laughed again, but after a moment, she made a straight face and told me that it certainly might be perfect for studying. I bought the picture book at the cash register on the first floor. Either way, it cost about 500 Sri Lankan rupees, which was about 600 Japanese yen, but in the eyes of this country’s people, that was probably quite a high price. This was a world of 10 rupees for a loaf of bread and 3 rupees for a cup of tea. Thinking like that, I could understand why there weren’t many bookstores and why there were so few people here.

You can’t eat or drink books. They’re not daily necessities either, like clothes, scissors or toothbrushes. Being able to spend money on such things as if it were obvious must be a sign of wealth. My country was all the more disagreeable for having bookstores everywhere. I’d never thought about it that way.

As I took the receipt and said, “Stūtiyi”, which was “thank you” in Sinhala, the black-haired woman smiled, looked at my face and said in Japanese, “Thank you very much. We will be awaiting your return.”

“Amazing!”

“Thanks.”

And so, she told me that her husband had been working with sheet metal in Ibaraki, Japan, for a while. Her pronunciation of the words “Ibaraki” and “sheet metal” was really good. Apparently, her husband had started up a small company with the money he had earned as an immigrant worker and was its president.

With her waving a hand at me and telling me to be careful, I left the store.

Even though it was early spring, the sunlight in Colombo felt like that of midsummer in Japan. But I was growing quite fond of this glare. Everyone walking in the streets was wearing mid-sleeves, and if they were so inclined, beach sandals too, but the humidity wasn’t as high as in Japan, so I could think that, indeed, this was also spring. The white of the temple flowers blooming along the road was refreshing as well. They reminded me just a little bit of cherry blossoms. And from this street, I could clearly see my favorite landmark.

Colombo Tower, a tower that had the lotus flower as its motif.

It was a Tokyo Tower-like landmark, not visible from my base camp, the mountain town of Kandy, and although the shape was grandiose, it was still under construction and nobody could enter it. However, one day – I didn’t know whether that would be while I was still in Sri Lanka or after I had settled somewhere else, but – I definitely wanted to climb that. I would.

May I be a little more proficient in the language of this country than I am now by then, and if possible, may I get to have small talk in the tower.

With a modest goal and a new book, I treaded the way to Saul-san’s office.

#housekishou richard shi no nazo kantei #housekishou richard #jeweler richard #the case files of jeweler richard #nakata seigi #richard #jr short story collection #tsujimura nanako #yukihiro utako #novel #my translation

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darlingnisi · 6 years ago

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Celebration 2019 VIP Day 3

Opening Session

Spirited start to the day! Fams started a party line around the soundstage to Let’s Work.

JD Steele also led us in a sing along of Raspberry Beret

Bob Cavallo

Moderated by Bobby Z

Earth Wind and Fire’s studio the Complex was the inspiration for Paisley Park. They filmed pickups for Purple Rain there and Prince told Cavallo “I want want one of these”

WB didn’t know much about Purple Rain until it was almost done. It was financially backed by Prince and Cavallo ( Cavallo said he only contributed about 20%...the rest was Prince’s money or advances on his royalties)

Cavallo’s management agreement was about to run out. He told Steve Fargnoli to try to get a Prince to sign a contract for 5 more years. Prince said “I’ll sign one if you get me a movie and not about some drug dealer and jeweler...and I want my name above the title.

They had trouble getting people on board to write the movie William (Bill) Glenn (of Brian’s Song) wrote the first version but it was “not edgy enough...too TV”

No director would sign with them

Watched a movie called Reckless. There was a kid sitting behind him who asked what he thought. Cavallo said it was okay...the kid said “Well I edited it.”

Cavallo had dinner with Albert Magnoli the writer of that movie to see if he’d sign on for Purple Rain. He initially passed. Cavallo “You passed? You don’t have a pot to piss in and you pass? I’d pay you 75k and you’re passing.” Magnoli thought it was too square. Cavallo “Then rewrite it”

“Mo Austin didn’t have anything to do with Purple Rain”

“He made that movie Paul Simon made. That was a failure.”

WB passed on producing the movie, Guber Peters also passed, as well as others

Richard Pryor’s company Indigo Films did NOT pass! Jim Brown (the football player) was CEO at the time. Both Richard and Jim were thrilled to do it! However Jim got mad that Cavallo hired a cinematographer without checking with him as he wanted to hire Black staff to support the project. Bob said he didn’t have time to wait to find some so Indigo dropped the project.

They had a completion bond gaurantor for the film and ended up being 3-4 weeks behind at one point. To catch up, they got more cameras and filmed the movie at multiple angles vs doing several takes. This caught them up.

Promo department thought When Doves Cry was a flop. They wanted Let’s Go Crazy to be the lead single.

Cavallo managed Earth Wind & Fire. (Other info about Cavallo opening a night club his senior year of college which was very successful. Bill Cosby opened for acts when he was coming up on the scene. “He met his wife there and I guess he did other things...” *groan from the audience

On how Cavallo and Prince first linked up Prince had gone to an EWF show and said “When I saw that show, it scared me. I don’t know if I can do something that good.” Asked to meet their manager. Cavallo went to see his show...where he was wearing a Trench coat, panty hose, and g-string. He said “Well young man...show was great....but I don’t think it’s alright to go out on stage in your underwear.”

Prince : Okay I’ll take them off.

He said there was maybe 20 people at that particular show

Purple Rain was made with 7.6 million dollars

They had to fight to get it into theaters to show it. “It was the race thing”

Even WB wasn’t on board at first as a distributor. Cavallo was trying to rally them “If you’re a young Black person age 11-30 and you see Prince headlining his own movie, you’ll go see it opening night.”

At first they could only get a couple of theaters...and were told they couldn’t do it in the south because they were worried about race riots.

Cavallo went to the Chairman of WB with his case and he was on board “Get me 800 theaters or I’ll get someone who will”. (These days movies open in about 2k theaters in the US)

Prince got 15% gross cash guarantee for 3 films

The Purple Rain sequel pitch Cavallo had for Prince was Purple Rain 2 : Further Adventures of The Time. The Time went to Vegas and got in trouble with the mob and cops. Only showgirls liked them. Prince wasn’t in it except for a cameo to give advice.

He also tried to get P to get Madonna to star in Under The Cherry Moon

Prince wrote Under the Cherry Moon even though there’s another name on it.

Cavallo wasn’t a fan of Kristin Scott Thomas as the star. He gave Prince a tape of the options for actresses and put her last.

Prince : “I see why you put her last in the group of girls you figured she would outshine the others!”

Cavallo went on to manage the Disney music catalog among other numerous things.

“The greatest joy I had in the music business was with Prince”

A memory : Prince calls “When are you gonna stop beating that dead horse?”

Cavallo : “What dead horse”

Prince : Earth Wind and Fire

Cavallo scolds him for saying such things

Prince : If you knew how good I was, you’d be meet me in Minneapolis

Cavallo thought about how cold it was there and sent Fargnoli instead

Tour Part 2

Video editing bay