about his tendency to use names from real life for his characters (i'm too lazy to make them up) and his story tony takitani (english translation by jay rubin appeared in the new yorker in 2002): "when i was in [i couldn't hear where darryl will have to fill in the gap] i bought a tshirt for one dollar in a thrift shop. and it said on the front, tony takitani. and i thought, who the hell is this tony tanitaki? why should he have a tshirt? (at this point we were all rolling about; i think we were all thinking about the japanese tendency to put random english words on clothing.) so i decided i would write his life story. i brought the tshirt today. (jay rubin comes over and holds up bright yellow tshirt: cheers ) show and telling time."

on the real tony takitani: fifteen years later, with the advent of the internet, his publisher looked up tony takitani, and as it turns out there really was a person by this name. he was a japanese-american in hawaii who was running for the house of representatives and the tshirt was his campaign tshirt. "he lost," deadpanned murakami, "he is now a lawyer. so if you're in honolulu and you need a lawyer, you could call this guy. tell him, mr murakami told me about you. i don't know whether he is a good lawyer or not. but he's a democrat." (loud cheers and laughter from audience)

on the movie made of the story: when a movie was made of the story, the real life tony takitani experienced some publicity in his home city. murakami read an interview a magazine had made with him about the film. "but he doesn't know anything about the book. and they interview him!"

ah dear me. i wonder if the movie will come to boston, because i want to see it.