[Play till professor has finished shouting]
They dreams get into the professor's head, and he goes mad. He sees the parade
[Play till we see the lead of the parade]
The mailbox and the refrigerator
[Play for 8 seconds then pause again]
Look, this isn't as weird as it first looks.
The Japanese have something called tsokumogami -- literally translated: artifact spirits.
Tsokumogami appear in artifacts that reach their 100th birthday. Suddenly... they become alive and aware.
Swords, toys. They come to life when they reach 100 years old! Supernatural beings, lanterns, sandles. They get faces and behaviours. They like playing pranks. They get angry when they're thrown away thoughtlessly!
Artifact spirits.
Except... except...
Along with this idea - tsokumogami - the belief in Japan is that tsukumogami are repelled by electricity. Modern artifacts cannot get artifact spirits. They do not become alive and aware.
Is this because electricity is somehow toxic to the spirits, or because we our modern items aren't built to last 100 years?
Whatever it is, it's a lovely intuition that products are people too, and bring their own wishes and desires into our homes and social worlds.
Source: Paprika (2006)
Matt Webb, Web Directions South 2014 (Sydney, Australia), October 2014