I and I: "In the Mirror"

a pluot/math rock song zuihitsu

Written by Carmen X, one of our poetry writers, and edited by Willow, one of our editors!

In the Mirror

(single artwork: @meowvian on Instagram)

Tell me; what do you see when you see into that mirror? You raise your dominant hand and the image raises the hand opposite; it is the you that is not you; and yet we use this image to check on our own selves, when we wash our face or brush our teeth; we are more used to this image reflected back at us than our actual face that faces actual people. Of course you’ve taken a picture of yourself and seen this image… did your jaw always overextend to the right like that? Is that how you really look to others, all this time? The result of checking yourself based on a mirror-self can never raise your dominant throwing hand? It gets me every time.

False versions of ourselves meet and fall in love with false versions of others. And yet, through this, somehow, perhaps miraculously, an Event occurs. Something to be in staunch fidelity to. (Don’t worry, through this too we can hate others just as easily.) And, again, of course, we can use this to hate ourselves, too. What to do in the face (or rather, in the reflection) of this? Perhaps something life-affirming, however you may take that. Ah, what the hell do I know? Do what you want, what you can.

What do I do? I go to my kitchen, prep a cup of cheap instant coffee, listen to some music. Something new for once. A song I found off Reddit, of all places. Something promising. The band describes themselves as a “Japanese Rock Band based in the US! (Michigan)” according to said Reddit post. The band is named pluot (all lowercase for that math rock effect, of course). The song, incidentally, as I check my teeth for bits of food, is called “In the Mirror.”

仕草を少し変えて

鏡を騙したら

私の奥底に潜む

「紛い物」が

見えて

“When I changed my gestures a little 

and tricked the mirror, 

I saw the ‘imposter’ that lurks deep inside me”

You’d do worse than to listen to a tricot-inspired math rock jam. Say, like, I don’t know, devoting one’s life to “morbid self-attention.” How does one write about a song, to put words to music?—Well, never mind that people do it all the time, it must be so easy!—Let’s just try and jot down what’s going on around me, right now, as the song plays. Just a few things here and there. Let’s see: it’s warmer than it should be for this time of year, a swampy November; the interplay of light and leaves through the window, the greens and browns are nice at least; maybe I’ll catch a movie later and meet up with a friend after for yet another coffee—you know, the usual bullshit. We’ll sit and talk and our lives will probably arc toward the materially worse, given current global pessimistic trends. Ah, what am I saying? I’m rambling again. Anyway, these are the impressions of this song on me: something clear, “transparent” even; pensive. It’s math rock. It reminds me of tricot. The lyrics are in Japanese; sincere and earnest, in a way that English (that ironic tongue!) finds difficult to convey straight-faced. It’s a good tune.

満たされない想いの行き場は

私と僕が会える場所かな？

問の答えは

透き通った後に分かるのかな

“Is the destination of my dissatisfaction where I and I can meet?

I wonder if I’ll know the answer 

after I fade to transparency?”

Hm, how about something with a little more clarity? Takahito Mori, guitarist-leader of pluot, tells me where the band’s name comes from: “The only thing I really knew when I first started thinking about a name was that I wanted a name that was one word containing the letters ‘t’ and ‘o’ since some of my favorite bands like covet, toe, and tricot all had those letters in their names. I struggled to find the right word for a few weeks until I found the word ‘pluot’ in a catalog for a jam manufacturer that my friend’s father worked at. I searched the word on Google and found out that pluots are hybrid fruits between the Japanese plum and apricots, which I found to be perfectly fitting for a band that makes Japanese music in the States.” And from drummer Rajer (Jung-Chien) Hsieh: “Drumbeats in Taka’s—(your writer’s insert here: as in, Takahito’s)—originals are usually invented by himself. But most of the time, if not all, they are physically ‘unplayful’ [sic], usually due to impossible hand-foot coordination and very unusual speed change. So I will adapt the drumbeat for better ‘physical’ performance. For instance, the original ending in the song ‘In the Mirror’ is a freestyle 6/8 pattern with speed change to approximately 73% of the speed in front part [sic] of the song. As a session drummer with previous recording experience and album record, I suggested him [sic] to consolidate the pattern to ‘calculatable’ transition but not freestyle. So I come up with progression taking the same 8th note original in 4/4 to 6/8, making it sounds [sic] like slowing down but just a different subdivision.” Listen to the drumming again, you can hear the fine-tuning necessary to make a math rock (or really any song) not sound like a complete mess. And here’s the bassist, Shudane Hendricks: “For me, I grew up watching a lot of Tokusatsu, and fell in love with the theme songs, however my playing style more closely resembles Motown, and Reggae styles, but I still look towards those theme songs and 2000’s emo rock when playing with this group.” Run the song back and try to catch those details this time. A Japanese rock band based in the US indeed.

So why do I keep returning to this song, over and over and over again? To the point of bugging some University students making music in their spare time? A simple answer: sure, the novelty of it, and because it, as I’ve already mentioned, is a good tune. And perhaps a good look in the mirror is just necessary overall, like a deep breath. I sip my coffee and think. Do you fear stagnation in that mirror? After all, when you stand in front of it you stand still. The song has put me in a sentimental mood. Takahito: “I also believe that there are things within me that I can only express in Japanese, and that I shouldn’t sacrifice authentic expression by forcing myself to translate my thoughts into English, not to say that an English lyric written by me would not be authentic.” Perhaps, and perhaps this is what resonates. Though I do think a sort of “authenticity” is in-itself its own image/illusion, its own necessary mask, there can be, within that trick of the light, an Absolute that can be glimpsed, however briefly. A capital-T Truth. In “In the Mirror” I see (possibly) a new path for American (math) rock to take, let’s see if pluot can take us further. Well, my coffee’s cold and the song’s done. pluot’s working on an EP, and a new single called “never ending waltz.” A suggestion (maybe more for me than you): a good check of yourself in that mirror is fine, on occasion, but indulge too much and you fall into yourself like Narcissus. “Morbid self-attention,” certainly. Eventually you must enter into the world, whether or not you have a good image of yourself. Eventually you must move. (When a song plays you don’t just stand there: you dance.)

Lyrics:

透明を手にして

鏡を覗いたら

僕の目の前に映る

「男の子」は

消えて

遮るもののない景色は

鏡の前で目を合わせた

私と僕が

透き通った後に見えるのかな

仕草を少し変えて

鏡を騙したら

私の奥底に潜む

「紛い物」が

見えて

満たされない想いの行き場は

私と僕が会える場所かな？

問の答えは

透き通った後に分かるのかな

答えて

Verse:

When I became transparent 

and looked into the mirror,

the “boy” in my reflection disappeared

Chorus:

Will the skies clear up after I and I*,                     

eye to eye in front of the mirror, 

both fade to transparency?

Verse 2:

When I changed my gestures a little 

and tricked the mirror, 

I saw the "imposter" that lurks deep inside me 

Chorus 2:

Is the destination of my dissatisfaction where I and I can meet?

I wonder if I’ll know the answer 

after I fade to transparency? 

Outro:

Answer me

*Japanese has masculine and feminine forms of “I”; in casual settings, “watashi” = fem., “boku” = masc. 

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This piece was written by one of our poetry columnists, Carmen X. Reach them at @animagebook, on Instagram!

This piece was edited by one of our editors, Willow. Reach them at @oldmanheart, on Instagram!

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