Kishihachi's Opening: A King and an Old Man, Both 'First Generation'

I read the article about the King dropping in on Mr. Kishiura. It surprised me quite a bit, but what surprised me more was that I wasn't the least bit envious. I pictured for a moment what it would be like if the King came to my place too, but I only have one cushion to offer a guest, so it was a moot point either way.

I've crossed paths with Mr. Kishiura a few times, as fellow Drifters. He's the lullaby man, and I'm the rakugo man, but we've both carried the same label, "first generation," for half a century now. Reading that the King said, "You're a first generation too, aren't you," I thought: ah, that alone was probably enough. In my line of work, a single line in the opening can warm up the whole room. It's the same thing. No explanation needed.

Thinking about it, we first-generation Drifters have nothing in common except having washed up on the same day in the same place. Some of us sing, some of us tell stories. Some carry royal blood, some run a joinery shop in Fukagawa as part of the bear lineage. And yet just the word "first generation" can make a stranger's shoulders drop on the spot, the moment you meet. That's not a thing you can explain. A word that works without ever being explained is, as it turns out, quite a bargain.

I hear he sang a little of the lullaby. I doubt anyone was asking whether it was sung well. What the other man wanted to hear, I'd guess, wasn't the song itself so much as the length of time it had been sung across. It's the same with my rakugo — what the audience really wants to laugh at often isn't how good the punchline is, but the half-century of weary timing behind it.

I hear our mayor is going to Rukai next year. If she's going anyway, I'd like her to take along a performance of 'window art' while she's at it. I don't know whether it'll land over there or not. It doesn't need to. Let them just watch the timing we've spent half a century picking up.