In these kinds of performances, the reading and piano improvisation occur simultaneously. It's more than just a combination of words and music. When I'm reading, the area from my toes up to my throat is completely absorbed in and responding to the music; while the area from my tongue to my brain is pursuing the meaning of the words. Or maybe it's

The actors would repeat the sentence over and over again until it took on weight and, released from its obligation to deliver meaning, entered the realm of music. As I was showered with these fragments of language, I could take my time putting them together and slowly forming my own images. What began to materialize was not "meaning" in the usual

…believing in the naturalness of your mother tongue shows a lack of serious engagement with language and belies the entire premise of modern literature. This is why I believe that existing outside of one's mother tongue is not exceptional, but simply an extreme version of the normal state of things.

Some might argue that if I'm going to spend so many hours listening to a language I don't know, I may as well study it. But there's something priceless about that state of unknowingness.

I'm sure eventually I will study it, but I want to savor this suspended state of unknowingness for a while. How much creative stimulation can we draw from the state

If you are studying a foreign language, I highly recommend keeping a diary. You might make grammar or spelling mistakes, but try not to worry too much about that and just enjoy writing as much as possible. You may find that you're able to write freely about things that you might feel too embarrassed to write about in your mother tongue. As you do

There is no objectively correct length for a sentence. The length of a sentence is one of its modes of expression. When I read Kleist's sentences, I feel a deep sense of joy that comes from the language permeating my brain. Any style that can absorb the trembling that arises from this joy and cause an earthquake that unsettles the landscape of

English exists inside German and Japanese. It's not just individual vocabulary words that have been imported, but the general manner of speaking. Which means that even monolingual people are unknowingly speaking multiple tongues.

When my usual vocabulary is broken apart, and reconstituted, something new flickers forth. It feels like a flash in the dark, or a chain that had been wrapped around my brain snapping. Sometimes the joy I feel escapes me in a burst of laughter.

As you write, something invisible flows out of the surface of your skin and language begins to move like a living creature. Your body temperature may become slightly elevated, and you may enter into a slightly euphoric state as you abandon your ego altogether.