There are three authors who have had a significant influence on my life.
I learned a philosophy of life from Yang Gui-ja, a way of thinking from Haruki Murakami, and the concept of love from Scott Fitzgerald. Since a way of thinking influences various aspects of one’s behavior in life, it seems that a significant portion of my writing ends up imitating Murakami’s style.
At that time, I was spending a week-long vacation in Hokkaido after returning from a long-term business trip to the United States. I had Murakami’s ‘Portrait in Jazz’ in my bag, and the car I had rented had Bluetooth. Sitting on a bench in Odori Park, I began reading the book, which gradually expanded my understanding of jazz from a casual jam session to authentic jazz. I was traversing Hokkaido Island while listening to stories about Stan Getz, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and others, and from the moment I passed Akan-Mishu Palace Park, ‘Thelonious Monk’ was playing on repeat. Whether waiting for a herd of deer to pass, endlessly making eye contact with a fox standing idly in the middle of the road, or soaking alone in an open-air hot spring where no one else comes.
It felt just like how, even though I had absolutely no idea what songs were playing at the small jazz bar in Kushiro I visited the day before, I was left with the memory that it was a place of quite high quality. It felt much like how Neil Young’s performance at the New Orleans Jazz Festival, which I stopped by at the very end of my business trip, felt endlessly boring.
