This isn't a book review, but even still, I'm gonna call it Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
Until we got a riding mower during the Covid shut down, I always push mowed my lawn.
It's a third of an acre of hilly terrain. This is no complaint. I loved it.
For two or three hours after work I would be outside, doing something society considers productive, while getting lost in an audio book.
Sometimes when I walk through certain parts of my yard scenes from 1Q84 will pop into my head. That's not a typo, one of my favorite books is call 1Q84 and it's written by the gentleman mentioned in the title of this post.
Being so scatter brained and prone to neglect any of my need for structure, I would often come home from Toyota feeling too mixed up about what I hadn't done yet that I didn't want to do anything.
So I would retreat into video games or a long long sleep session. Going back to work the next day as if I hadn't existed outside of the place at all.
That wasn't the case on lawn cutting days. I would do one thing I was supposed to in life and satisfy my thirst for intellectual stimulation simultaneously, not to mention doing it under the open sky in fresh air with vitamin D radiation soaking into my skin.
Perhaps the loss of this ritual to a much shorter stint on a riding mower that my wife always insists on doing, was yet another reason that I had to leave Toyota so abruptly. I doubt it though, because I quit during the winter.
This March passed, I listened to "Killing Commendatore" by the same man mentioned above who wrote 1Q84, Haruki Murakami.
It was a bit ironic, after quitting my job to pursue my art full time; that when I reached for a new book from my favorite author to fill the soundless air while I drew, it happened to be one about a portrait painter who had just gotten a divorce and left his home. He was quite aimless and starting all over.
He wanted to paint something of his own. He moved into the house of his art school friend's father, vacated because the friend's father had to be moved into a retirement facility. The old man happened to be a very famous traditional Japanese style painter who had left behind a painting never to be seen by the public. The painting was called "Killing Commendatore" and the main character found it.
After our portrait painter discovered "Killing Commendatore, he was swept away into a sort of metaphysical happening and paid a generous sum by a Gatsby-esque neighbor to return to portrait painting on his behalf. Some painted people came to life, the protagonist himself entered an actual, tangible world of ideas.
All of the typical Murakami hijinx ensued.
It was a wonderful story that pulled me in, perhaps even more so than 1Q84 did when I read it for the first time.
One thing remains the same though.
about 48 minutes ago I entered 5 pieces into the LightSpaceTime.com art gallerie's 12th annual "figurative" exhibition. As I did it I thought about "Killing Commendatore" because a month ago, while listening to it, I had entered into a different exhibition at the same gallery.
I hope anyone reading this can find a book, show, whatever that they get so utterly lost in that certain things transport them back to when they were so engulfed. I also hope that you guys check out Haruki Murakami.
The exhibition I entered was about examining the human figure, the pictures I entered are displayed below.
