Plagio

By Haruki Murakami 
                                       translated by chris
             While it may alienate some people right from the start, this isn't the kind of shop where everyone, male or female, young or old, is cheerfully welcomed. We have something of a problem, especially during the summer. The air-conditioner doesn't work very well. It's not that it doesn't work at all: thearea right around the vent is quite cool. But if you move away a little bit, this cool air won't reach you. There is, possibly, some kind of structural defect with the machine. We keep wondering if we should exchange it for a new one. But there are other more difficult circumstances as well.
In this shop, we play music. If, perchance, you are not a jazz fan, the volume of the music may be quiteunpleasant. If, on the other hand, you are an ardent jazz fan, you may find the same volume to be less-than-satisfying. To whichever group you belong, please don't blame the manager. This is a perfect example of "You can't please all the people all the time." We don't have many John Coltraine records. In compensation, we have lots of Stan Getz. There are no Keith Jarret records, but we have all theChord Williams albums. Please don't hassle the manager for this. It's been this way since the beginning. We have live music once a week. Young musicians play their hearts out for next to nothing. The piano is just a cheap upright, and it's badly out of tune. The quality of the music varies, but it's always energetic, and the volume is always loud, so it may not be the most suitable background musicfor talking to your sweetheart.
          While the manager isn't exactly reticent, he's not very talkative either. Or perhaps he's just not very good at talking. When he's not busy, he sits at the counter and reads books. To tell the truth, four years from now he'll quite unexpectedly write a novel and receive a literary prize for new writers, but no one knows this yet. This is not even known tothe manager himself. He probably thinks he'll end his days as the manager of a Kokubunji jazz cafe, quietly listening to his favorite music everyday. It is not known anywhere in the world. But anyway, now it's 2:30 in the afternoon, and "Billy Taylor at London House" is playing.  It's not a very good performance, but the manager kind of likes it. In any event, please don't blame him for it.The India Salesman

Haruki Murakami
                               translated by chris
Usually about once every other month, the India salesman comes around to our house. My mother will say "I bet it's about time for the India salesman to come," and sure enough, almost as if her heard her, the figure of the India salesman will appear in our genkan. So I always say"you should try to forget about the India salesman, Mom. Whenever you think about him, he ends up coming," and then my mother replies "Hmm, I wonder if I didn't think about him whether he'd still come," but then she forgets to forget and "I bet it's about time for the..." slips carelessly out of her mouth. Without fail, the India salesman will show up again in our genkan. The India salesman is abig middle-aged guy with a sunburned voice. He's always carrying some heavy packages on his shoulders. While he's just about the same age as my father, he looks a lot healthier. He has big, beetle-like eyes that bulge out of his head. "This, it's all on account of India," he says to me boastfully. "If you make sure to get your India, kid, you'll turn into a big, strong guy, just like me. You'll havea full, level-headed life."
While I don't really get all of the stuff he says to me, I always get the feeling that he's scolding me, and I it makes me nervous. Sometimes the India salesman yells at my mother, too. I think that's amazing. Even my father can't really yell at my mother.
"Ma'am, I'm worried. You haven't been using India very much lately, have you? You have almost as much as you...