Woodblock Print Exhibition

This afternoon, I took a break and went to see a woodblock print exhibition with my friends. One of them exhibited her latest prints, and we were very surprised that they were so much more colorful than usual.

It was a special event because the teacher (whom I’ve also known for many years) was there to comment on some of the prints. Because it was quite technical, I didn’t understand much of it, except a comment about perspective.

Anyway, we sat and chatted afterwards for a while to make it a nice afternoon.

Boring?

Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of BATI-HOLIC: after the free concert on May 18 mentioned earlier, there was another one last Friday. Not only did they play for 60 minutes, which is rare outside a solo concert, but they also presented a brand new song with lots of sing-along potential! I hope they’ll play it again next time on June 11. In other words: three concerts within less than a month (and another one on the horizon at the end of June)

This recent surge in my BATI-HOLIC fangirling prompted a friend of mine to ask, “But, isn’t it boring?”

On the one hand, I get where she’s coming from: They only have two CDs out, with a handful of additional songs, and they do play current favourites, both the band’s and the audience’s. So yes, on the surface, it does get a bit repetitive.

On the other hand, BATI-HOLIC only play two or three solo shows every year (the next one is in July.) Except for that, they share the stage with other bands, sometimes only one, sometimes as many as five or six if they play at a festival somewhere.

That means: Whenever I go to a BATI-HOLIC concert, I am automatically introduced to new bands and artists. This gives me the opportunity to learn about Kansai’s indie music scene, even though not all of them fit my taste. And besides the music, I’m getting to know new people, which is also a good thing and one of the reasons I started going to concerts to begin with.

So, no: not boring at all. Sorry to disappoint.

Ring

Koji Suzuki

cover for "ring" by Koji Suzuki.

When news reporter Kazuyuki Asakawa’s 17-year-old niece and three of her friends die from a sudden heart attack at the very same time, he is determined to get to the bottom of it. He traces the strange coincidence to an eerie video the four watched one week before their deaths, which told them exactly what would happen – unless they perform a certain task.

This part of the video, however, has been erased, and Asakawa and his friend Ryuji race against time to find out what they need to do to save their own lives. When Ryuji dies unexpectedly, Asakawa have to make a final choice between whom to save: his family or mankind.

I borrowed this book from the library without realizing that it had been made into a horror movie in 1998, eventually spawning an entire franchise. I don’t usually read horror (or romance), but this book is very light on the genre elements and does its trick without blood and gore. However, a dark presence looms throughout, and once Asakawa and Ryuji take the video’s threat seriously, the pace never slackens. I would rather call this “thriller with supernatural elements” than outright horror, and I don’t regret picking this up.

Koji Suzuki was born in 1957 in Hamamatsu near Tokyo and majored in French at Keio University. After holding a number of odd jobs – one of them writing books on child-rearing sharing the expertise he acquired as house husband taking care of two daughters – he published his first novel in 1990. Rakuen (Paradise) won the Japan Fantasy Novel Award, and Ring was made into successful movies both in Japan and, eventually, in Hollywood. Suzuki is often called the Stephen King of Japan. When he’s not roaming Japan in his RV, he lives in Tokyo.

If you’re in for a suspenseful thriller at the edge of the horror genre, get this book (or the whole series) from amazon.

Weekend Project # 8

It got rather warm the last few days, and I’ve switched out bedding and clothes and shoes to be prepared for when summer hits for real. Interestingly, I never liked going barefoot indoors. When I grew up, we had carpets everywhere, and walking on them barefoot felt unpleasant. So, I wore socks throughout the year, in appropriately varying lengths and thicknesses, of course. In Japan’s summer, however, socks are too warm even for me, but there is a solution: zori.

Zori are traditional Japanese straw sandals resembling flip-flops. People, especially the poorer ones, would wear them outdoors when going about town, for longer travels everybody wore waraji, also a type of straw sandals, but a different design that could be tied securely to the feet.

These zori are surprisingly sturdy, especially when worn only indoors. I wore the same pair of zori for the last three summers before the edges disintegrated, and I left little pieces of straw all over the house. But since they are so cool, not to mention comfortable, I decided to go with the trend and make my own – from old T-shirts.

I followed the instructional video I posted a while back, it explains all the necessary steps. I made one major change to the design: instead of the PP rope as suggested, I cut up an old bedsheet and made a braided rope for the skeleton of the zori. Technically this means that my version is fully washable, if this is advisable, I’m not sure. In any case, here’s the result, next to my old straw zori:

The colour combination turned out very nicely, and I’m quite happy with the result. One mistake I made is not cutting the T-shirt strips wide enough. Three centimetres seemed fine at first, but when stretched according to the instructions, they become quite thin, so weaving the base took ages.

Also, the red fabric I used for the straps may turn out a bit too dainty, but since I made the zori myself, I know how to replace them when the time comes. Theoretically, at least.

Finally, they turned out slimmer than I had hoped, but I think that walking around in them will take care of that problem in no time.

On to the next project!

The World is Always…

Sorry for missing the post yesterday, I was kinda busy going to concerts. Yes, several, on a single day!

Yesterday, starting around noon, was the 11th edition of the “The world is Always…” (いつまでも世界は…) music festival. This year, there were more than 120 bands and solo artists performing in 21 venues throughout Kyoto’s inner city, including on the square before Kyoto City Hall.

According to the main organizer, Marmoru Nishijima (from “The Six Bullets”), his goal for this free festival was

I want people who don’t know music yet to listen to music.

So, technically, with my ongoing BATI-HOLIC obsession, I wasn’t really the target group for the festival, but I went anyway, and so did many other fans, and lots of people who wanted to try out something new (according to what I’ve seen on x/twitter).

I wasn’t really up for running around all afternoon, so I made my choice of three bands beforehand, all of which I had seen before:

Yuukai Kenchiku from Kyoto play what they call “Multi-Dimensional rocK: sublation of complex rhythm and simple melodies.” I would call it instrumental rock music where a flute is responsible for the main “vocal” of each song; there are also drums, guitar and bass, and a piano. Two years ago or so I saw a full solo concert, and I enjoyed it very much. Sometimes, instrumental music can get a bit monotonous over time and you get bored, but not here. Yuukai Kenchiku – it means “Melting Architecture”, btw. – have plenty of variety that even a 2-hour concert stays fresh and invigorating throughout.

Next on my list was So-on-g, Kyoto’s “Noise Temple”, founded 30 years ago. They play what I would call 70s glamour rock, and the band leader Nabe-san, complete with wig, make-up, and enormous legs (he’s tall even by Western standards) definitely fits the bill. They played at the Kyoto MUSE, one of the larger venues, and it was pretty much full house with lots of dedicated fans who knew all the songs already. The atmosphere was fantastic, it always is when there are many fans around. And I’m sure that even newbies to So-on-g got a kick out of Nabe-san coming down into the crowd during one of their last songs. I wasn’t one of them (newbies, I mean), it was my second time seeing them and hopefully, not the last time.

And finally and of course: BATI-HOLIC, Kyoto’s, no: Japan’s one-and-only taiko drum rock band! They were on after So-on-g, but most of the crowd changed in between. I was a bit worried that there wouldn’t be many people, but the place filled up nicely just before the concert started. However, except for two of my friends, who were standing in the front row with me, I didn’t recognize any other regulars. Then again, BATI-HOLIC often play in Osaka, Nara, and Kobe as well, and I’ve never been there.

I enjoyed myself, as usual, but I’ve since found out that the band weren’t 100& satisfied with their performance yesterday; maybe that’s because leader Nakajima-san was also involved in organizing the festival and was too stressed with other things? As for me, I was perfectly happy, although I would’ve appreciated if they had played longer than just 30 minutes…

Most bands only played 30-40 minutes concerts, and there was just as much time in between them. I guess that was so that visitors could move between the venues without missing (too much) of the fun, and also the bands had to set up their equipment and do a sound check that was longer than usual. Not to mention that they had to clear out the backstage areas, which seems to be tiny pretty much everywhere…

Anyway, I had a fun time yesterday, and I’m looking forward to the 12th edition of “The World is Always…” next year. And who knows, I may even find other bands I’d like to watch more of until then!

Bright Future

One of my plans for Golden Week was to trim my garden, where enormous plants have taken root. Some of them were planted deliberately, I’m sure, others were not. It’s not that I don’t like hydrangeas, but those bushes can get very large, to the point of overwhelming everything else in my tiny “tsuboniwa” garden. Thanks to being sick, I couldn’t do as much as I had wanted to, but gardening is more of a slow’n’stead approach anyway.

However, my next door neighbor was much more successful in attacking his own wilderness (the house has been empty for a while). He cut down some of the trees and bushes near our shared fence, and it had a pleasant side effect: My kitchen and bathroom are so much brighter now!

That in turn means that I’ll have to more diligent with my cleaning, too… I wonder how long the new light is going to last, though: plants go surprisingly rapidly in our climate, and I might just be back to square one within a year or so. But for now, I’ll enjoy the new airy feeling – and keep cleaning!

Saginomori Festival

Saginomori Jinja is the shrine in my neighborhood, and it’s celebrating their main festival every year on May 4/5. This year was the first time I dropped by, and it was quite different than the festivals of larger shrines I’ve been to before.

I arrived a bit too late to see the departure of the children’s mikoshi. Just like the larger one two hours or so later, it was carried through the neighborhood to the “otabisho” where it was resting over night.

While I was waiting for the adult’s mikoshi to arrive, I noticed that in front of the shrine, a cone of sand decorated with a branch of sakaki leaves. The sand represents mountains where the gods live, the sakaki plant is said to connect the human world with that of the gods, and the white tamagushi paper is meant to convey the believer’s wishes to the gods.

Altogether, this cone of sand is where the gods are invited to reside for the time of a shinto ceremony. Outside of shrines, they are often set up in empty lots when a ceremony is held before a house is built. So, as such, they can be seen quite often in Japan.

After the large mikoshi had arrived, it was moved before the main hall of the shrine, and was placed directly over the cone of sand with the sakaki branch. Then, the priests performed a short blessing of both the mikoshi and the people who carried it. Afterwards, the path from the main hall to the mikoshi was shielded by large tarps, so that the god of the shrine could be transferred to the mikoshi without being seen.

I have experienced this transfer ritual before at Yasaka shrine, but that was in the middle of the night, and the lights were turned off, so no need for the tarps then. Anyway, once the god rested inside the mikoshi, there were two performances of sacred kagura dance. And finally, accompanied by the beating of gongs and drums, the mikoshi was carried away again through the neighborhood to the otabisho.

There were more dance performances the next day in the afternoon. Apparently, the one with the three girls is quite difficult, and I could see them count the whole time!

The final dancer used a wooden snake as an accessory (here in her left hand), and when I asked, she confirmed that this was a special and used only in the year of the snake.

I didn’t see the return of the mikoshi to the shrine that evening, but it was probably the same ritual in reverse to get the gods back into the main hall. It was a nice experience, and even though there were many people from the neighborhood, it was not overly crowded. These local events are always fun to go to, and while the larger events are every bit as traditional, these smaller ones feel more… real, somehow.

I’m Back!

As I said before my holiday, I spent a lot of time setting everything up for a week off, and I was quite busy on Sunday (27) until midnight or so to experience bliss offline. So much for my plans.

Reality hit me on Monday (28) with a cold that knocked me flat out for a couple of days and turned into a sinus infection by Thursday. “Holiday” indeed, and I’m still coughing. At least I didn’t have to worry about going online and coming up with daily social media posts. And those eight books I had prepared were handy too.

Other plans had to abandoned, even though I didn’t have to spend all week in bed. (Not that Pumpkin would’ve minded that.) I only completed 8 out of the 20 projects I wanted to tackle; these were mainly small-scale home improvements that didn’t take much time.

By this week I felt good enough again to go out again, so I dropped by my neighborhood shrine for their main festival. Interestingly, that’s the first time I’ve seen it, which means I’ll give you a full account this Sunday, if I don’t get sick again.

Which is unlikely, because now I have to get back to work and my body knows it can’t let me down in times like these.

All She Was Worth

Miyuki Miyabe

Jun and Shoko are set to get married. But when Jun finds out that Shoko had declared bankruptcy years earlier, she disappears without a trace. A relative on sick leave, inspector Honma, tries to track her down, but she is elusive, and then he discovers that Shoko might not be the person Jun had believed at all. In fact, it seems that Shoko was a new identity, assumed to escape loan sharks. How far had she gone to become somebody else – and will she do it again?

Written in 1992, the book explores the debt crisis many, not only young, people fell into when Japan’s bubble burst. And although some practices that are described are illegal today, the book feels modern and has a universal appeal.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, but I couldn’t understand how it was possible – as the book describes – for anybody to simply waltz into a city office and get somebody else’s family register, the most important document for a Japanese, without proof of identity. However, I have since learned that photo-IDs are a relatively new feature of Japanese bureaucracy and were not required at the time this book was written. This clarified a few things in hindsight.

Miyuki Miyabe was born in Tokyo in 1960 and started writing novels at the age of 23. In 1984, while working at a law office, she began to take writing classes and subsequently made her literary debut in 1987 with ‘Our Neighbour is a Criminal’, which won the 26th All Yomimono Mystery Novel Newcomer Prize and the Japan Mystery Writers Association Prize. She writes mysteries and historical fiction, among other genres, and her books were the basis for a number of films. All She Was Worth was her first novel translated into English.

Check out a fascinating mystery with undertones of social criticism and get it from amazon.