Standing Reading

Among the many "tachi-nani" of Tokyo, "tachi-gui, tachi-nomi, tachi-uri, tachi-banashi, tachi-mi," (an advertisement calls public pay showers, "tachi-onsen") the most compelling is "tachi-yomi," standing reading. In a city that charges for space for every hidden, private pleasure, it seems an unusual public service to allow all that public reading for free.

At any bookstore, convenience store, kiosk, or sidewalk pile of old issues, the long rows of well-pawed magazines are never without a row of readers. They revolve gently as newcomers wiggle in, make a right-left survey of titles, then ease into a close-kneed bend for a handful of pages on the thigh-high shelf. The bright lights above the racks are not coincidence, but courtesy - bathing the words as a public service - an illuminated invitation to cleanse the visual palette, to see clearly.

All along the row of standing readers, bags, briefcases, and backpacks dangle at bored angles. A college student drops his jam-packed schoolbag between his scruffy, oversized shoes, a high school girl slips her cell phone under her arm, a young salaryman loosens his tie, a well-dressed matron readjusts her department store umbrella on her forearm. The racks organize everyone into standing subsections - manga, guidebooks, bestsellers, politics, hobbies, fashion and fanzines for every bent in the city.

The etiquette of only choosing the already wrinkled copy on top and in front of the stack, then replacing it neatly in the right spot is rigorously maintained. After all, fresh, clean copies, for purchase, remain inviolate further back and underneath the rack. Every publication from haiku to pro wrestling is treated with equal respect.

Some standing readers lock their knees to finish an interesting snippet, frowning with attention, while others flip and shuffle, dissatisfied. Turning pages necessitates a full body adjustment, a quiver of taut muscles, a checking on the between-legs bag, a lazy smoothing of glossy paper, the inevitable finger licking to find a page more worthy of attention.

People stop to read for the blandest of reasons - waiting for trains or buses, not wanting to spend money, feeling embarrassed at purchasing slightly pornographic material, having no more shelf space at home, being sick of shopping, arriving too early, wanting to keep some friend waiting a little, trying to cut down on smoking, or being trapped by any number of other permutations of the complex linking up of times, people and places in a massive city where a slight lateness or earliness can amplify itself into a much larger period of time and an avalanche of apologies.

Yet, the fervent crowding at the well of words seems to be something more than just urban practicality. They can't all be not-doing something else.

Some standing readers seem to have finished entire magazines, a series of articles, a cycle of manga stories, a rote memorization of movie schedules. They've gotten a choice of recommended restaurants, shopping venues, drinking places, a quickie soft porn climax, fashion re-make tips, and reams of pointless, hip knowledge. More importantly, they seem to have managed an entire attitude transformation in just a page or two.

As standing readers drift away into their next trajectories along the consumerist venues of shopping malls, streets, and stations, they seem refocused and returned to a calmer balance. They walk more slowly and more deliberately.

Standing reading effects a wonderful metamorphosis on book-loving Tokyoites, transforming them from gang-pressed zombie commuters into standing literati moving their minds amid a stillness of the body, instead of the other way around.

By reading standing, the spiraling, unkempt threads of Tokyo's sensory assault can be stemmed for a few minutes and that always feels very, very good. Like all the best methods of recovery from frenetic daily motion, standing reading is an intense non-attention. A simple pleasure. A revolving vigil to keep alive the practice of the still contemplation of words. Transfixed pillars of stoic humanity, readers stand with the wings of books spread out under their respectfully bowed heads.

--Michael Pronko