Windows
I. There is a true story of how plate glass went into mass production that I remember reading about. Allow me to recount it poorly. It begins with the first Hilton hotel in Istanbul erected near Taksim Square with instructions to insert windows that were formatted to exactly the dimensions of a postcard, so guests could enjoy the view from their rooms as if they had only themselves to please. No more important than letting folks at home know where you were than yourself right in this moment. This format of window, as we know, would become a ubiquitous form of glazing in most built environments. Le voilà: plate glass.
II. The only glass window I remember in my father’s traditionally styled childhood home in Kashiwa City was a minuscule frosted pane in the bathroom with an awkward lever to fan it open. At this time, a seated and plumbed toilet was not a given in Japan; not even suburban Japan. But the window, I remember. Clearly a modern addition. It served as ventilation and perhaps psychologically, it provided some assurance that one would not be trapped if say, one fell into the hole in the ground where one had just defecated. I have trouble recalling if there were other windows. In my memory, every wall made way to an exterior; sliding paper and wood frames.
III. Cracked mirrors are a visual metaphor commonly used in horror films to signify a character's deteriorating psychology. More common still is the perfectly plain (plane) bathroom mirror, used in generic adult drama to indicate a character coming to terms with the morphology of their ego. This mirror may be a gateway, directors seem to be saying—like a minuscule frosted window in a pre-Bubble Japanese bathroom.
IV. I had to break into my sister's Venice Beach bungalow once. It was with her permission, and even at her behest. She'd forgotten something very important inside but was in New York City. She explained to me all the likely windows she'd have left unlocked, and was even willing to let me break through glass to accomplish this emergency task if necessary. With her still on the phone, I inspected her windows one by one and finally found one unlocked. Predictably, it was a small window facing a thorny hedge--by all appearances burglar-resistant. It was not the ventilator of a bathroom but may as well have been. I squeezed through a 7 inch limbo and tumbled through her work area. Having accomplished the task, we felt uncanny victory. I felt adrenaline course through me. I’d just broken into a house! I swiftly locked up after myself and had the items FedEx-ed to New York City.
Months later, her bungalow was broken into while she and her husband were asleep. The burglars took some valuable watches and other hand-held treasures that lay in the living area. My sister and her husband moved out of the house within the season after this incident. Sometimes I wonder if the burglar had seen me do it first.
V. When I look at you through the two-way mirror, I realize there is nothing covert about this window. In spy movies, double agents always know they’re being investigated long before the investigator is identified publicly. We may have been observing each other at length, each convincing ourselves, each other, that we bore no witness, no motive for questioning. I have driven myself mad with fear that many of the windows I look through are opaque walls. Equally distressed in the silver gel of fantasy, of course you are paying attention—I have generated too much visibility toward you to be ignored. In the observation, I am no longer certain I have anything to learn. I merely look out from my hotel at a postcard image of you.
“Wish you were here.”
