Michael Pronko's Blog, page 16
May 7, 2016
Motions and Moments Nonfiction Author’s Association Award
Nonfiction Author’s Association Award
May 6, 2016
Motions and Moments Gold Honoree
Motions and Moments was selected as a Gold Honoree at the Benjamin Franklin Digital Awards, an annual award for e-books sponsored by the Independent Book Publishers Association. The award examines e-books for creativity and innovation, design, use of technology and content. They are also one of the few contests that provides you with a detailed Excel sheet evaluating each of those criteria and giving a lot of feedback. Thanks IBPA!
April 28, 2016
Interview with Feathered Quill
Author Interviews
Today, Feathered Quill reviewer Diane Lunsford is talking with Michael Pronko, author ofMotions and Moments: More Essays on Tokyo
FQ: I thoroughly enjoyed Motions and Moments. The work flowed and I found myself often feeling as though I was engaged in endless conversation with you. Given this is your third compilation of essays on the subject of Tokyo, what inspired you to write the first (and continue the series)? Was it more a journey for you to understand its people (or a mission to explain the culture to the world)?
PRONKO: I’m glad you enjoyed it. I wanted readers to hear the conversation between Tokyo and me, but also to join in the conversation, too. I started writing these essays because Tokyo overwhelmed me when I first started living here. I wanted to pick apart my reactions, to not lose them, but also to understand what I was experiencing, which felt very intense. And still does! Then, I got lucky to find a couple of publications, Tokyo Q (which sadly died) and Newsweek Japan that were interested in publishing my thoughts and musings. That kept me writing. A lot of Japanese readers wrote in over the years, and I got invited to be on TV, so that was encouraging that Japanese wanted to hear what I thought. And Tokyo never runs out of topics to write about. So, it’s both to understand myself and to understand Tokyo. Explaining it to the world comes in third maybe, but that’s been interesting, too.
FQ: As a native of the Midwest in America, how difficult was it to assimilate to Tokyo when you first traveled there?
PRONKO: Difficult, I would say, in most ways, the language, ways of doing things, the flow of life, and cultural values are all hard to get your mind around. But in other ways, it’s felt natural, and easy even. I’ve always liked strange experiences, and Tokyo has plenty of those. But Tokyo’s also a very huge, open place that encompasses all kinds of people and attitudes and lifestyles. I could find music, food, books and other sustenance. Italian food one night and Japanese the next is not the hardest assimilation anyone’s ever had.
That said, I’m not sure I’ve assimilated altogether. Friends and colleagues who are Japanese language or culture specialists, or who married a Japanese person probably assimilate better than me. Strangely, as a writer and as a professor, I’m paid to be American in some way, to see and teach from that slightly outside position, though with an understanding of the Japanese side, too. I’m used to things here, comfortable with them, but I still find a lot of them weird. That seems a productive balance.
FQ: In line with Question 2, when you travel back to Tokyo after spending time in the States, do you find you adapt more quickly each time to return—to the pace? Culture? Environment? Is there a specific process you implement to adapt?
PRONKO: Less and less quickly, I think. It’s always confusing to switch cultural situations, but I notice differences more and more. I think the only process I use is to write down observations and reactions as fully as I can. Going both ways is weird, so I jot down what I feel. The times when I switch cultures are the times when I get the most ideas. I like to observe my observations. And maybe more importantly, I’ve developed much more of a sense of humor about the differences, which helps immensely!
FQ: I particularly enjoyed your essays on the quakes. I cannot imagine not only experiencing such a catastrophic occurrence, but how do you cope with the notion the next one can happen at any time?
PRONKO: Total denial is very helpful. It covers the day-to-day of lingering anxiety. Sort of. After the most recent disaster in Kyushu, though, I was reminded again of how possible a big quake in Tokyo really is. And how lucky Tokyo has been so far. I try to calm myself with facts, emergency bags, and a pre-set plan. That kind of constant unconscious awareness is there all the time, so you get used to the idea. Each small quake, and there are a lot of them, really gives me a start. Each time on hits, and the whole building starts bucking and jolting, I get flooded with adrenaline, and then I wait to see if it gets worse, try to stay calm and ride it out. I wanted to get some of that feeling into the essays.
FQ: What life experience or experiences stands out most in your life in Tokyo?
PRONKO: The people here. Tokyo people are so different from me, I feel at times, but exactly the same at other times. People are hard to write about, as they’re so complex, but they’re the ongoing experience that stands out. My students are really intriguing, and the experiences with them are ones I value. My students talk with me a lot and invite me to their weddings or out for drinking parties long after they graduated. I write about jazz, too, so I know a lot of musicians, jazz fans and club owners. They’re different from business people, who are the vast majority of Tokyoites. There are a lot of other things that I love always, like just walking around the city. I went on TV a few times, which was interesting doing this completely different activity, being ordered around by a director, filming in the streets and performing in the studio (with make-up!). Still, people are the best experience.
FQ: How difficult (or easy) was the adjustment to the cuisine? What is your favorite dish?
PRONKO: Very, very easy. I love Japanese food, which is generally healthy, and served with great attention to detail. Eating is deeply integrated into general life here in ways that makes America seem like a culture that scarfs down food out of necessity. I like the whole culture of cuisine here. It’s ritualized, overly so at times, but always respectfully and humanly. Meals with friends stretch out over hours, talking, drinking, ordering after discussing what to order. And there’s lots of quick eats, too, like ramen, which I love, and ton katsu, deep-fried pork cutlets, which I grab on the run between classes. Probably, my favorite is just fish, both raw and grilled, which is just marvelous here, done simply. But there are so many other cuisines here, too, Chinese, Italian, French, Thai, everything, so that makes it easy to adjust by just diversifying.
FQ: I have often thought the Asian culture is quite respectful and adheres to protocol. What is one of the greatest ‘foibles’ you orchestrated during your time abroad? How did you overcome the faux pas?
PRONKO: One thing I used to always do was to wear the toilet slippers out of the toilet. In Japanese homes, the toilet area has different slippers, which you change into and out of each time you go in. No outside shoes in the house, right? I would always forget and just wear the toilet slippers back out around the house. But the toilet is even more outside than the outside, so it’s disgusting, by Japanese standards! The words for “having an affair” and “gardener” sound similar, so one time I spoke to a gardener working in a garden nearby my house, but switching the words, I asked him if he was an “affair” person who could come have an “affair” in my backyard. Seeing I was a foreigner, he took a big breath, and figured it out. Fortunately.
In addition to those kinds of mistakes, other things were tougher. One colleague yelled at me in the hallway, I mean really screamed, about my introducing an essay section to our entrance exam. I was on the committee and just added it, American style! Which was absolutely wrong in Japanese culture, as it was a singular action taken without extensive group discussion. The Japanese way would have been to discuss it in meeting after meeting, listening to everyone’s opinion, checking with other universities to see what they did, sending a formal proposal to the Education Ministry, waiting for the reply, announcing and discussing it at more meetings, and…well that would have taken years and ended up with nothing at all. What I did was “wrong” but it worked.
The number of other similar foibles, faux pas, and foul-ups could fill another volume of essays. Just worrying about trying to find the right way can be a huge pain. Japanese culture is super-strict about polite, passive adherence to accepted ways of doing things. Some of those ways are efficient, smooth and have their own internal logic. But others are inane and even Japanese hate following them! Many Japanese would even feel a certain envy at my not feeling obligated to do things in the correctly, long-accepted, Japanese way. However, on the flip side, I learned to be respectful and patient as the first response to whatever happens or is said. That attitude of take-a-breath and wait-and-see cuts down on most faux pas.
FQ: I have never been to Tokyo, but have friends who have traveled there and relayed a similar observation you touched upon often in your essays: It’s incredibly clean! What DO they do with all the refuse?!
PRONKO: Well, places in the public eye are amazingly clean, but there are dirty, unkempt, abandoned places too, here and there. It’s just this deep-set cultural value to be clean, neat, and tidy. At some places like old temples or funky drinking places, it’s OK to just let things fall into a kind of beautiful disrepair. In the right place, dirt is relaxing. It always seems to me that the cleanliness is so much work. I guess if it is clean already, it’s easier to keep it clean. It’s a kind of ongoing, constantly enacted purification, I suppose, like washing your hands before entering a temple. It’s a way of maintaining consideration about space and people. To have a lot of dirt, trash or disorder in front of your store or your home would be considered rude to customers, neighbors or passers-by. So, you clean it up. That happens on a small scale and on a large scale.
FQ: In line with Question 8, I (think) you mentioned strict adherence to recycling, but I don’t recall if lofty fines are imposed on violators. How serious is the penalty to those who violate the codes?
PRONKO: We have a trash calendar to remind us what days are set for throwing out glass, PET bottles, random plastic, non-burnable, burnable, paper (3 kinds) and dangerous things like batteries. It’s very tightly organized. Basically, I think violation is just not done. When I’ve gotten my trash category wrong outside my house, the trash collectors will peer into my trash bag (special bags purchased from the city), and then tape on a little form note with boxes to check off with my specific error. They just leave that out in front of the house. It’s SO embarrassing to come home from a long day and find that all day long everyone in the neighborhood has been glancing at my trash mistake as they passed by! Shame is the ultimate penalty. But I think, too, people feel connected to public space, and do not want to inconvenience others. So, it’s maybe less actual penalty than social expectation. I once spent the equivalent of a couple hundred dollars to haul off some old heaters, shelves, laundry poles and this and that. You have to pay to play the garbage game. It adds up, but on the other hand, it makes you super-aware of how much each little this and that will cost to dispose of. So, you pay attention to that end cost. Fair enough.
FQ: When in Tokyo, what is the one comfort from home you cannot obtain (and how do you overcome the desire to have it)?
PRONKO: Most creature comforts are now easy to come by in Tokyo. Somehow someplace, you can find almost anything. Tokyo’s very big. Some things, you might have to search out, like a good hamburger. Mexican food is in short supply. There are some fancy places, but not the kind of casual, authentic Mexican food I really used to love. So, I’ve learned to make it myself at home. Bookstores in English are good, but not like the local indie places you’d find in America. But, I have a library at school where I can order what I like. What I really miss is little, casual exchanges, like with a store clerk or wait staff or even someone in my university office. Those kinds of interactions tend to remain extremely formal here, stiff and restrained by American standards. I miss easy, light banter with passing strangers.
FQ: Tokyo seems to be the city of constant motion. Is there ever a time when the streets sleep (other than December)? What is that like?
PRONKO: It is a city of constant motion, of necessity or regularity or just to avoid the exhaustion of stopping, but things do slow down, too. I think the streets are the place for energy and motion, so the slowing down tends to take place more in private spaces. Japanese take a bath at night, so that’s a real still point for most people. An individual and private stillness. There are plenty of calm coffee shops, restaurants, parks and other places, where sitting quietly doing nothing is the norm. But, the main streets tend to stay active. There are plenty of quiet neighborhoods, and those can be very tranquil. In the early morning hours, before the trains start back up, it’s very quiet most places, but still not quite asleep. There’s no daylight savings time in Japan, so the sun comes up early and it’s light by 5 am in summer. It’s quiet then.
FQ: I thank you for your captivating essays. Is there another in the series in the works or are you on to a different project? If so, could you share a bit?
PRONKO: I finished two novels set in Tokyo, noir-like mysteries, so I hope to get one of those out this year. They’ll be my main focus this year. I’m working on more essays, as there is so much more in Tokyo to write about, but it takes time to build up enough for another full collection. I work on those little by little and don’t want to force them. The new ones seem to be focusing on Tokyo people, their lives, passions and what they tell me and do. I’m also working on a book about Japanese jazz, as that is a real passion of mine, with my own website as the starting place, Jazz in Japan. As always, the problem is finding enough time to do them all.
To learn more about Motions and Moments: More Essays on Tokyo please read the review at: Feathered Quill Book Reviews.
April 24, 2016
Review from Feathered Quill
Motions and Moments: More Essays on Tokyo
By: Michael Pronko
Publisher: Raked Gravel Press
Publication Date: December 2015
ISBN: 978-1-942410-11-9
Reviewed by: Diane Lunsford
Review Date: April 23, 2016
Motions and Moments is a well-thought-out compilation of introspective ‘essays about Tokyo’ by Michael Pronko.
The third in his series of musings toward Tokyo living is an interesting and captivating read. The book is laid out in logical fashion in that it takes the author on a journey of: ‘…first you take a step… then you take another…’ There are a total of five parts to the book beginning with “Surfaces.” In the opening part, Pronko focuses on the nuances and mannerisms of the inhabitants of Tokyo—millions of people co-habitating in miniscule space. He speaks of “The Language Dance” under the guise of how people can go “…for weeks without needing to converse with anyone. You can silently order, pay the bill, use an IC or credit card to slip in and out of stations, and get by at work or shopping with set polite phrases that involve no real thought…” In his next sentence he challenges his audience with the premise of Tokyo being the city of conversations. Part I of Mr. Pronko’s book is a terrific foundation that sets the tone to assuage the reader’s mindset in preparation for learning all there could possibly be to know about life in Tokyo.
Each essay is succinct in that it doesn’t span more than 3-4 pages, yet by the end of each essay; one has a sense of reading a short story and enjoying the journey in so doing. There is a tone of absolute respect Mr. Pronko has for Tokyo and its natives. Later in the book, he devotes a section to the architecture and construction abound. It was interesting to read his comparisons between we westerners and our affinity with sprawl. Yet, in Tokyo, there is only so much real estate to spread out upon and the ‘fix’ Tokyo has mastered is to go up (versus out). Imagine! Getting lost in a city beneath its surface!
Michael Pronko has an engaging tone through his writing. He is conversational as much as educational without boring his audience with too much lecture. It is no wonder he has hung his hat in this mystical place for fifteen years. His essays have a beautiful flow from one thought to the next and it was easy for me to settle into the journey of this body of work. He often uses the Japanese word (or words) for the subject he depicts and, in my opinion, this infuses greater credibility to the essays he has written. There is a subtle nuance that plays throughout this series of essays that piques a desire in the reader to visit this enchanted land. With such a large population on such a small island, it is abundantly clear harmony among its inhabitants is a must. Mr. Pronko depicts this time and again throughout this wonderful compilation of essays. Well done!
Quill says: Motions and Moments is a terrific series of essays that captures the essence and allure of Tokyo with a lot of heart infused in the work.
April 15, 2016
Interview with Bookpleasures April 2016
A Conversation With Michael Pronko Author of Motions and Moments: More Essays on Tokyo
By Norm Goldman
Published April 10, 2016
Link to Bookpleasures Interview
Bookpleasures.com welcomes as our guest, Michael Pronko author of Beauty and Chaos, Tokyo’s Mystery Deepens and his most recent tome, Motions and Moments: More Essays on Tokyo. Michael has also contributed essays toNewsweek Japan, the once great Tokyo Q and Artscape Japan. He has lived, taught and written in Tokyo for eighteen years and is a professor at Meiji Gakuin University teaching American literature, culture, film, music, and art.
Norm: Good day Michael and thanks for participating in our interview.
Michael: Thanks for having me.
Norm: When did you first consider yourself a writer? What keeps you going?
Michael: One time on the train in Tokyo I saw a guy reading one of my articles in Newsweek Japan. I could see my name and the little illustration in his hands. Wow! I thought, he’s reading MY writing! On the train! I must be a writer! I wrote my editor and she said, “So? You thought no one reads it?”
But, just seeing that connection made it real somehow. But that’s just one sense of being a writer, the outward sense. As long as I can remember, I loved to write. After college, I traveled around the world for two years, working when I ran out of money. I kept a journal and when I filled one notebook up, I’d send it back to my parents to save for me. (They never disowned me, so they must never have read them).
That’s another sense of feeling like a writer, just the energy of words from your hand on the page (or screen, now). It’s impetuous and fun, but a bit shapeless and isolated, expressive but not connective. I run on both senses of being a writer and both keep me stoked in different ways.
Norm: How has your environment/upbringing colored your writing and what do you think most characterizes your writing?
Michael: Everyone is in constant dialogue with their past. That can really screw you up, but it can also be a creative tension that is highly productive.
Kansas, where I grew up, is a world, or two, away from Tokyo. But that upbringing, with all of its understandings about the world, is like kindling waiting to be lit. When that upbringing comes in contact with something new, like Tokyo, it creates a spark, and sets up a creative tension. Tapping all that inner confusion really colors my writing.
The seesawing between the weight (good and bad) of the past and the immediate reaction to the present is what characterizes these essays, and a lot of first person writing.
Follow Here To Read Norm’s Review of
Norm: Do you write more by logic or intuition, or some combination of the two? Summarize your writing process.
Michael: I would say I write by paying attention. Children pay attention to everything, since they have not lost their filter. Teachers always say, “Pay attention now,” but what they really mean is pay attention to what we tell you to, and nothing else. So, to write better, I’ve had to re-learn how to pay attention.
And there’s a lot to pay attention to in Tokyo. It’s sensory overload. When I feel something strongly amid that overload, I jot it down. I take that and work around it, into it, over it, with words. I let that sit, sometimes for years, to let my unconscious, which is where intuition resides, do its work. Sometimes, I’ll pull up old notes and have an “Aha!” moment. Other times, I have to work for it.
There are logical parts of the process, but overall, I think it’s pretty sloppy. I guess words have both a logical, tool-like side, but also a musing, intuitive side. I respect both. I rewrite a lot, mainly because there are so many ways to rewrite, once for meaning, again for metaphor, then for coherence, clarity, length. I rewrite as many times as I have time, or energy, for. Thank god for deadlines and word limits, real or self-imagined.
Norm: What did you find most useful in learning to write? What was least useful or most destructive?
Michael: I read lots and lots of books on writing. Each was a piece of the puzzle, but an isolated piece. The puzzle can only come together in your own head.
I gradually learned to usefully extract what I needed from what I read. And not just from books, but also from “reading” a work of art, a film, the urban space, or even a passing conversation.
An expansive way of reading the world provides creative techniques, inspiration, material and a stronger mindset. I think least useful is listening to the internal censor-critic-superego-judge, which in my case seems like a full bureaucratic department in my mind. Learning to tell that destructive voice to get the hell out of the way is essential, because it can quash all creativity. Learning to love the daily grind of writing is also super-useful.
Norm: How long have you been living in Japan and what made you want to live there?
Michael: Tokyo’s interesting. That’s the main reason. I’ve been here about eighteen years now. I have a job at the university, so I’ll be here until I retire, at least.
Living in Tokyo, I feel like I’m traveling everyday, but also like I’m at home, too. I see confusing, but fascinating things all the time.
Maybe I was a little bored in America, because I often felt like I understood it too well. But that’s rarely a feeling I have in Tokyo. Life here is confusing, upending, and amazing, a constant barrage of reactions. I tell my students my whole life is like studying abroad!
Norm: In your most recent book, Motions and Moments: More Essays on Tokyo you mention you may be very much in Tokyo, however, you would never be of Tokyo, which has never completely normalized for you. Could you elaborate?
Michael: When I was taking notes for this answer sitting on the train, I saw this grade school boy in front of me. He had on a uniform with a green cap and shorts (on a cold day), a huge book bag, a little pull string for his emergency cellphone call system, and he was easy in the crowd.
He was of Tokyo. Me watching him and wondering about him was me being in Tokyo. I let myself think of myself as a “Tokyoite” sometimes, but that’s still different from someone who grew up here, who feels all this is natural.
The essays are written from the point of view of being inbut not of Tokyo. The gap between the two produces insight. Of course, I am sometimes just in Tokyo, falling asleep on the train, teaching class, or out with friends, but writing needs a couple of points of view to work with. I write by being deeply present (in), but not complicit and unreflective (of).
Norm: What were your goals and intentions in Motions and Moments: More Essays on Tokyo, and how well do you feel you achieved them?
Michael: I’ve written over two hundred essays about Tokyo over the past fifteen years or so, so they add up. With this collection, I wanted to explain more of the unique, intense experience of Tokyo life, by getting down my reactions more fully. I think I managed that in these essays.
The essays in my other two collections looked more at urban structures and strange customs in a more anthropological, or observational, way. These new essays are more personal, like about the earthquake, and a bit more seasoned. Closer, I guess. I drew on a bit more poetry and a bit more philosophy. These new ones describe less and narrate more. But I still feel like there’s more to write, more goals and intentions left to aim at.
Norm: What did you enjoy most about writing this book of essays and what was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating the book.
Michael: Some of the essays were originally for magazine columns, so I had a deadline, word limit, overworked editor and Japanese-reading audience.
I enjoyed rewriting the essays without all those things hanging over me. I also rewrote parts of the essays thinking of a non-Japanese, non-Tokyo audience. So, that was fun to rethink how to explain Tokyo to another kind of reader. I was surprised by how much more explanation was needed for someone who has never, for example, eaten fermented squid intestines or been trapped on a super-crowded train too long. I was surprised to learn how complex Tokyo life really is. Those surprising things were a pleasure.
Norm: What would you like to say to writers who are reading this interview and wondering if they can keep creating, if they are good enough, if their voices and visions matter enough to share?
Michael: Keep writing. Ignore setbacks. I think everyone’s experience of life is well worth retelling, in either factual or fictional ways, or a mixture of both. Just being alive on this planet IS a story to be told. But you have to really feel that, and write it down, not just think about it and wonder if it could someday get on paper.
We’re so crushed by the forces of schooling, which tells us that everything will be graded. I say that as a teacher who distrusts grading. In society, so many things are demotivating.
Those demotivating forces, internal and external, just have to be set aside, worked around or kept at bay. When I worry about what others think, even without really knowing what they think, my writing slows down or stops. So, I try to focus less on “Am I good enough?” and more on “How do I get better?” Self-confidence is a really hard thing to get a hold of, but it helps the creative process immensely. It comes from focused practice.
Norm: Where can our readers find out more about you and your most recent work, Motions and Moments: More Essays on Tokyo?
Michael: I’m linked in, google-able, facebook-ed and all the rest. Please join my mailing list from my homepage. Here’s a short list of where I virtually exist:
Norm: What is next for Michael Pronko?
Michael: Two detective mysteries set in Tokyo are written and heading toward the next steps. I’ll write two more books of essays, one about Tokyo people I know here, and another on traditional Japanese customs, objects, patterns and practices.
Norm: As this interview comes to an end, what question do you wish that someone would ask about your books, but nobody has?
Michael: Unasked question: What train line do you usually take? Answer: The Chuo Line, it cuts right through the middle of Tokyo.
Norm: Thanks once again and good luck with all of your future endeavors.
The Interview: Bookbag Talks To Michael Pronko
Rebecca enjoyed Michael Pronko’s whimsical, poetic essays on Tokyo life and she had quite a few questions for the author when he popped into Bookbag Towers.
http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=The_Interview:_Bookbag_Talks_To_Michael_Pronko
The Interview: Bookbag Talks To Michael Pronko about ‘Motions and Moments’
Last year Rebecca enjoyed Michael Pronko’s first book of essays on Tokyo life and she was delighted to be able to review his third book, Motions and Moments: More Essays on Tokyo. She had quite a few questions for Michael when he popped into Bookbag Towers to chat to us.
Interview on Doodles, Doodles Everywhere (book blog)
http://gopaintbrush.blogspot.jp/2016/02/Motions-and-Moments-More-Essays-on-Tokyo-Michael-Pronko.html
