号外 – Another Tsutsui Plug

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The back cover of Salmonella Men from Planet Porno. If this paragraph from the story “Bravo Herr Mozart!” doesn’t interest you, then you might be a fundamentally boring person:

Mozart fell ever deeper into poverty from this time on. He studied to be a magician, and tried to make ends meet by taking side jobs, like “theatre manager”. But when his manservant Figaro upped and married in Prague without his permission, Mozart’s financial fortunes reached an even lower ebb. He became dependent on a person called Chloe, went around seducing women and acting like a right Don Juan, wrote musical jokes for the NHS, walked the streets naked shouting “Eine kleine Nachmusik!” and summoned the God of Death by playing his magic flute.

The stories in the collection are mostly dark satire (ironically categorized as “science fiction” in Japan, I believe), but “Bravo Herr Mozart!” is a nice bit of absurdism.

号外 – Mikan Spotting

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I believe I’ve spotted mikan in translation while reading Yasutaka Tsutsui’s collection of short stories Salmonella Men on Planet Porno:

“You know,” said my wife as I made for my sixteenth tangerine. “We could do with a new television.” (80)

16 tangerines sure seems like a lot, but when you realize that it’s mikan, it doesn’t seem so bad. I can and have eaten quite a few in one sitting…I’m not sure about 16, though. I wish mikan were well known enough to translate them as is into English.

I’ve recommended mikan in the past, and now I can also recommend Tsutsui’s collection.