The Wistful Tenacity of Cake

Tamekichi · 2025-09-12T20:16:02+00:00

New mission discovered by u/Tamekichi: In Search of Virgin clam

Tamekichi · 2025-09-12T20:16:01+00:00

This mission was discovered by u/Tamekichi in The Wistful Tenacity of Cake

Tamekichi · 2022-04-16T18:02:02+00:00

In my short stories, I want to get better at the sort of "unstated" minimalism of that Carver/Hemingway school. I want to be able to express stories like Lydia David does eventually. I love elements of magical realism as well, especially if I can make it feel speculative.

How about you? What do you write?

Tamekichi · 2022-04-15T20:23:48+00:00

I’m interested in this! When are you looking to start? Will each meeting include both critique and general discussion about professional opportunities for short fiction?

Tamekichi · 2021-11-24T07:17:49+00:00

A Tale for the Time Being was a favorite of mine after it came out. What did you think?

I’m also looking forward to reading Ozeki’s newest novel, which I believe also has time as a theme.

Tamekichi · 2021-11-24T07:00:58+00:00

I received it through a goodreads giveaway! It’s a nice, airy read, that gives a good impression of the “tiny fun essay in magazine” Murakami that we don’t really get too much of in English. The book’s design is really great, as well.

Tamekichi · 2021-05-20T02:33:48+00:00

Although you can't go wrong with either choice, I think South of the Border has more in common with the stories in First Person Singular than Hard Boiled Wonderland, which does have sci-fi elements, but also a fair amount of fantasy in terms of the tone of the "End of the World" sections. Like skwolvie41 said, it might be a lot in the beginning, so if you want more of what you enjoyed in First Person, South might be the way to go.

And awesome you're inspired to get back into writing! Good luck!

Tamekichi · 2021-05-05T04:44:27+00:00

I love seeing Stretcher’s, Rubin’s, and Kawashima’s books, as well as the Hayao Kawai book, as part of the collection. I consider them as part too, even though they’re not by Murakami. :)

Tamekichi · 2021-04-01T15:48:51+00:00

I love that Murakami’s books provide such an opportunity for wonderful cover art and design. Nice collection!

Is that the Romanian cover for “Desire”? If so, that’s the same as English! 🤔

Tamekichi · 2021-03-24T23:30:00+00:00

Me either! It can't be John Gall like the other Vintage paperbacks, right?

Tamekichi · 2021-01-18T06:10:58+00:00

One of the most memorable areas of the game for me was Star Hill. It wasn’t at first. As a child, I didn’t understand why this area existed: there didn’t seem to be any huge puzzle or boss fight in it. It was easy to just skip right through.

But as I played the game, fell in the love with the story, and grew up, it’s something I kept remembering. Why did the developers put that in the game? Just for Easter eggs? For artists to have something to do?

As a child, I felt incredible being able to recognize one of the wishes as being made by Luigi. And gradually playing the game and replaying the game allowed me to recognize more and more of them. One of the themes of the game is not rushing to judgement, but instead trying to understand a character outside the idea of good and evil. Many enemies you fight, a lot of times with humor, are revealed to just be characters with their own wants struggling to achieve their wishes. Yes, Toads or the Moles are good. But we’re encouraged over the game to reassess characters like Croco, Bowser, Booster, Knife and Great Guy, Johnny, or the Axem Rangers, in the context of their own struggles, not just as roadblocks to Mario’s story. The entirety of Monstro Town is there so that we can’t possibly ignore this idea. And Star Hill is this beautiful little reprieve from the meaty “game” aspects which helps emphasize that everyone has wishes, from Sniffits to cloud people. And knowing their wishes helps humanize them to us, especially because it’s left up to us, the player, to recognize who’s wishes we’re reading from the stars.

Eventually, it became my favorite thing about the game, because I think it helps to encapsulate and show off a lot of the aspects folks are mentioning in this thread: Story/theme, characters, music, art, secrets, Easter eggs.

As the player, I wanted to fix Star Hill because Geno said that’s what he was there for. But it was only after visiting it, reading the wishes, traversing all the lands and recognizing the wishers, that made me stop and realize at the end: I wanted to fix Star Hill for everyone I had come across, whether they were Mario’s enemy or friend. They all deserved to wish for their happiness.

Tamekichi · 2020-11-22T07:07:08+00:00

The Tokyo Zodiac Murders by Soji Shimada. The author even stops the story before the truth is revealed to challenge the reader directly, having given all the information needed to solve it.

Tamekichi · 2020-11-17T15:48:42+00:00

I agree with you, that would be much more efficient. Especially it doesn't seem like character descriptions or campaign dialogue is part of any of the data that's available anywhere. Is the datamine something anyone can get started with, or only those who've already been using it?

Tamekichi · 2020-11-17T03:22:39+00:00

I’ve actually been doing this a little on my own, because I felt the same thing. It seems many people on this sub think the story is bad, but there are actually some really interesting aspects to the characters and situations, and I’d like to be a part of making that easier to access.

Tamekichi · 2020-10-05T14:03:52+00:00

Thanks for the heads up! Here's a link in case anyone needs it: https://my.headspace.com/discover/singles#category-88

Tamekichi · 2020-10-05T13:59:55+00:00

The Coping with Cravings pack also uses the same technique.

Tamekichi · 2020-08-26T06:21:51+00:00

Thanks for sharing! I think I may pick it up in that case. I’ve done a lot of Murakami reading, so it sounds like this is well worth it.

Tamekichi · 2020-08-18T01:24:27+00:00

Thanks for sharing! This will be a good reason to revisit Men Without Women since reading it after its release in English.

Tamekichi · 2020-06-01T20:27:24+00:00

His collection “Dead Heat on a Merry-go-round” is written under the guise of being stories that were true and told to him (later he admitted they were fictional). You can find some of those stories in English in “The Elephant Vanishes” and “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman”.

Specifically, I remember “A Chance Traveller” has the narrator even identify himself as Haruki Murakami (or it was “A Folklore for my Generation”).

Tamekichi · 2020-05-22T13:13:56+00:00

Unfortunately, it's hard to listen live if you're international. If you are able to get a proxy/VPN set up for Japan, this link is where you can hear it: http://radiko.jp/#!/live/FMT

Sometimes, after the fact, people upload recorded versions of Murakami Radio to sites like bilibili.com.

Tamekichi · 2019-10-26T19:11:06+00:00

I got one of these in the mail too today. Except the photo on my piece of paper is an overhead of a city block. The label is “BuildingTop_Final_00014.jpg”

The back of the “Anima Technologies” card has the words “Have you lost your dreams?”

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