Typed by Makoto Nakamura (Matsumoto Academia)

April 17, 2006 (Monday)
KIMONO Hide Shame (Honne).
Masks Hide Guilt.
着物は恥を隠し、仮面は罪を隠す。

Another quixotic attempt to get attention among a women’s group. As it turned
out, this samurai fearlessness worked. There must’ve been approx. 15 womenattending Annie M. Van Assche’s presentation on KIMONO. I was the only maleamong the crowd. Wrong. There was another man, accompanying his physicallydisabled wife, who turned out to be Aaron M. Cohen, a former member of Delphi Club,the club both Nagata-san and I established in Tokyo in our thirties. Mr. Cohen,talmudic debater with an encyclopedic knowledge, and I met in our thirties, So we
met here in thirty years. This is a miracle.
Was I bored to tears, watching slides on Kimono? On the contrary. I was“awakened” to several realities. Kimono is holistic. And if a Kimono-clad woman
wears shoes or geta (wooden clogs) instead of sandals, it would be incongruous.
She can’t flaunt her beauty or catwalk, much less show crevices in her breasts.
Women in Western dresses show encouraging ‘conspicuous consumption,’ flaunting
their silent physical features, vital statistics, feeling guilty, sort of.
KIMONOed women are ‘centered,’ with their “hara” as a vital center ofpsycho-somatic activity. They walk ‘grounded,’ unlike most non-Japanesewomen wearing Kimono, including Chinese actresses in the movie, ‘Memories of aGeisha.’ Even a beautiful Chinese woman, Lisa was centered but not ‘grounded’– off the ground. Chinese jump-dance; Japanese dance with their feet firmly on
the ground. Most martial artists spin around their ‘hara’ center as an axis. Mykind of judo or aikido is a cosmic dance of Siva. My hula dance can easily turn into
an art of self-defense. The hexagonal logic of soccer debate is just an applicationof cosmic dance. Debaters must be centered enough to radiate their actions in all(at least 6) directions. 小股の切れ上がった女 is a fox whose behavior, or bodily
action rather, is centered despite their deceptively slender and demure outlook.
My book on haragei, visceral communication, must be updated.

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Typed by Makoto Nakamura (Matsumoto Academia)

Masters of psychology in Japan know how to hide behind Kimono so as to keep
observers guessing what’s under Kimono – honne. Kimono is tatemae – meant tobe seen and heard. Both tatemae and honne are truths – outside truth and insidetruth.
It’s not aesthetic, ethical or moral to tell the truth, ‘dekimono’ ourselves. Thisis Japan’s Kimono mind. Truth is somewhere between showing it and not showing
it. Americans are a people, with their balance thrown off. They reveal too much.
“Brokeback Mountain” or other ‘gay’ comedian movie I saw last night. Gross. I
don’t even want to remember the title of the movie. They reveal too much.
Common courtesy demands they Kimono themselves to civil minimum. Gail Saltz,psychiatrist, says secrets can be good for us, in her book ‘Anatomy of a SecretLife.’ She says in part, “If we can control our own secrets, making sure theyoccupy the place we want them to, then our lives can seem manageable.”
Look who’s talking, shrink? That’s a double standard. She says, ‘Don’t tell,’while encouraging their clients to tell. Come on. Give me a break. Westerners
hide behind their masks, not showing their guilt. Professional identity is nothing but
mask-outward personality. Cohen says BBC’s Hard Talk is better than Larry King
Live, because they take off their masks (persona in his word) and sound authentic,
playing for real. Sen. Hillary Clinton, who gave a speech at Brown Univ. thismorning, is a perfect orator displaying ‘grace under pressure,’ while 700 anti-war
demonstrators kept shouting at her. She seems to have what it takes to run forpresidency: plastic mask. The perfect couple, euphemism for plastic couple, withher oversexed husband, would certainly turn US politics and diplomacy around.
Masks hide guilt. Kimono hides shame. Kimono, if brilliantly worn, outshines
everyone around, causing them to lose face – or shame-consciousness in egalitariancommunities. Did Lisa have to pay the price for her grandstand play? Or did I, as
her promoter? All is shrouded in Kimono mysteries.
Some secrets must be clothed in Kimono. But here in America, in Hollywood orin New York, everyone “takes it off.”
A young woman asks a handsome elderly man: “Did you sleep with my mother?”“Did you wear condoms?” in the not very controversial movie “Rumor Has It.” I
said to myself, “What? That’s too direct.” There should be more ‘ma,’ that’svital for any well-mannered Kimono-clad ladies. Kimono means critical social
distance. Tourism is helping me morph into a butterfly acceptable even to female
crowds in New York. I’ll keep myself Kimonoed to maintain ‘ma’ (time-spacewarps) between moths and butterflies.

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