Obsessions come and obsession go, for me, sometimes over seconds. Last night I was very taken with a surprise programme in a surprise BBC season of programmes about Japan. This was Marcel Theroux's attempt to understand the ethereal Japanese concept of Wabi Sabi. I won't link to anything related to it as the whole concept seems to defy both simple explanation and being tied down by anything so definite as digital information. Wabi Sabi is purely an inhabitant of an analogue world. Supposedly it has something to do with minor imperfection on the face of beauty but for it to have 90 minutes of TV devoted to it it must obviously be more complex than that. Haiku was mentioned but Haiku seems the most perfect form of poetry that exists and with only 17 syllables, the possibility of imperfection here seems remote. The Zen Buddhist monk played to type and said that if you claim to have defined Wabi Sabi then you haven't.
The programme was helped by being filmed in Autumn, making for beautiful, steady shots of intense Fall colours, gentle rain on quaint villages and a general air of peace which probably said more about the editing of the film than anything real. Marcel Theroux is of course the elder brother of Louis and has a similar presenting style though he is less arch about things - you never get the feeling he is taking the mickey out of anyone.
Anyway, I was all fired up to write strictly-enforced Haiku about the spring but of course all that enthusiasm has faded and I know that any attempt would produce empty and pretentious rubbish. You are safe.
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