Someone should at least turn Barthes to enka, if they haven't before. It's beyond me. I had never read this essay before today. I am too late. It must have been done before and more thoroughly.

I have watched this a hundred times. I have watched it a thousand. I wrote about it in an essay on Miyako Harumi. But language fails. Adjectives fail. That is what Barthes says. We are left with "the impossible account of an individual thrill."