A year in reads: 2019

 

 

On the turntable:  Eddy Grant, "Killer on the Rampage"

A Stroll with Joel on the Omiya Arcade

The next installment of the Kyoto Streets series, at Deep Kyoto:

http://www.deepkyoto.com/a-stroll-with-joel-on-the-omiya-arcade/?fbclid=IwAR1PmiGHCAy8yGtG-OmOtAj8_0BPcgIS_rP30oDzocYaoVa8b2hSvn6N66I

On the turntable:  Jerry Reed, "Half and Half"
 

Shards, 2019

-The Japanese on alcohol look as if they’re slightly deflated


-(Thoughts on Mongolia) ...you could see the way those in the cities were threatened by barbarians, by those beyond the perceived order upon those who dictated the dictates of order.  It was the have’s and have-not, but in this case the have-nots had all they needed and didn't care anyway, at least not for a while.


-Second hand air con in front of the shop fronts (walking muggy Singapore) 

 
Modern Japan as the inverse of the rebuilding after the war.  It feels that after Fukushima there is a debuilding of sorts, the government making decisions that are actual tearing apart the essentially elements of Japanese society.  The tourists coming in are changing the demographic.  The old is being destroyed to put up hotels, guests houses, etc.  What is allowed to remain is deemphasized and replaced by cliche.  The train systems which had always been reliable no longer seem to be. Criticism about the lack of forewarning before before the last fatal storm has created an almost knee-jerk reaction in the main railway company.  Train lines go down 12 hours or more before a storm is supposed to come, and in many cases the storm never does. 


-conceptional art vs representational art.  What’s there vs what is perceived to be there


-it seems the human condition is to strive, to always want to better oneself.  So it is that I believe we complain so much, that we are constantly finding fault with our situation so as better to improve upon it.  Those of more economic privilege of course have created a world in which most of those cares and worries have disappeared.  So it is that I find that they seem to grumble about the inane and the mundane things, that which is not so important.  Thus it is that an offshoot of people’s drive to survive is to complain, chronically.   


On the turntable:  Adam and the Ants, "Antmusic: The Very Best of..."

(untitled)

Young cut cedars,

Thick as my leg,

To be used in the New Years celebrations.

On the turntable:  Melanie, "Best of Melanie"

Sunday Papers: Donald Richie

"''One world' is becoming a hideous possibility and I wish to celebrate our differences for as long as is possible."


On the turntable:  10,000 Maniacs, "Our Time in Eden"

Random Out of the Blue Thoughts on Yoga

In the gassho position, the shoulders are naturally pulled back, the chest and the heart lifted.  It's no wonder the simple act of placing ones hands together has become an almost universal symbol of spirituality, as it physiologically makes one feel so good about oneself, filled with light from within.


On the turntable:  The Blasters, "4-11-44"

Sunday Papers: Robert Twigger

"You can only ever be a mere acquaintance of someone who repeatedly fails to return books."


On the turntable:  Grateful Dead, "Without a Net"

Generation Hexed

Japan's economic miracle begat what I think of as its cultural miracle, where rural communities were given funds to build attractions in the most unlikely of places.  It is astounding the types things you come across as you travel around the middle of nowhere.  

One of these is Matsue's Kunibiki Messe, a post-modern behemoth that squats on the shores of Lake Shinji.  With a design plan seemingly based on a painting by de Chirico, it is a building far out of place in the old castle town where Lafcadio Hearn wrote his best books.  For some reason it also had a cultural exchange office, which had an incredible number of Japanese books and films, yours for the borrowing.  Over the years, I read and saw just about everything.

And so it was that one day I borrowed a VHS copy of what became one of my favorite films, "The Ballad of Narayama."  I found the film's central concept horrifying, that of abandoning the elderly residents of a small rural village in the mountains when they became too physically unproductive to warrant any further feeding. (Like "Logan's Run" as set in 19th Century Japan.)   

Imagine my surprise when 20 years later I passed through a train station that bore the name of the mountain in Imamura's 1983 film, Obasute.  While the shooting location  was slightly to the south in Azumino, the train station stood at the foot of Ubasuteyama, these days referred to as Kamurikiyama.  I knew immediately I needed to climb it.  

It took me a few years, and in less than the ideal season.  I found myself in the neighborhood during the first days of December, and while I was concerned with early snow upon its 1200 meter flanks, I figured that at least the bears and the vipers would be asleep.  A quick look at Google Street View reaffirmed the station's remote environs, so I had a taxi meet my train.   The trip to the trailhead was meant to take 20 minutes or so, but about 5 km shy we came to a gate that definitively closed the road for the winter.  I did some quick calculations, and figured that even with the additional 75 minutes it would take, I could probably be down again before darkness fell. I paid my somewhat anxious driver and set off.  

The sun shone down on the road as I wound through the turns.  There were a good number of bear warning signs which didn't help my enthusiasm.   Within ten short minutes I was happy to see a van parked at the side of the road, with two forestry workers resting within.  Thank god for lunch hour. 

With a little persuading I got them to agree to drive me up. I wished that I had something to give them, but they refused all I did have -- a mikan and a granola bar.  Instead it was they who gave me something, a canned coffee that they pulled out from a box in the back.  (If you are a taxpayer in Nagano, I thank you.)

Ten minutes later, I began walking toward the trail, through a well-funded campground composed of a number of tidy cottages and a large central dining hall.  Just beyond a small array of monolithic stones named after Buddhist deities, the path began to switchback mercilessly upward.  I found myself quickly winded, due probably to not having had any real lunch, combined with the elevation.   But before long I was reentering the sunshine at the top.  

The view on this clear day was incredible, not only of the Chikuma rivershed and Nagano city beyond, but also of Mounts Asama, Ontake, and all three ranges of Alps.  Fuji's flat-topped cone was well-recognizable out in the far distance.  I offered a quick prayer in the shrine, and tried to puzzle out the worn characters on the much older stones nearby, attempting to see if they made any reference to the mountain's infamous role.  It was a lovely day made for lingering.  But after awhile I began to grow uneasy about bears, which the forestry workers had assured me were still lurking about.  So down the far side I dropped. 

It was easier going on this side (and I would recommend climbing from this direction, as a return trip from the carpark not far below).  Along the way, I startled something big which crashed down the hill below me, probably a bear from the sound of the movement.  Reaching a stone forestry road brought some relief, and my feet hitting pavement not long afterward brought more.  

Incredibly, a young construction worker raced by just at that moment, but unfortunately he was heading in the wrong direction to give me a lift.  My map showed that Kamuriki train station was only an hour away, and the day was still bright.  Long descending road walks relieve you from having to take care with where you place your feet, and the attention begins to drift.  The rhythm of my footfalls always bring songs to mind, and today it was "Her Majesty," by The Beatles," which went on much longer than the band's twenty-three second version on Abbey Road.   I was probably on my 123rd chorus when a trio of trucks rolled past, the last one driven by the worker I'd met earlier.  Happily he gave me a lift.  

For some odd reason I am almost always racing for a train at the end of my walks, but today I had about a half-hour to kill. The sun had begun to drop not long before, replaced by the chill.  I was dying for a hot drink, but a railworker told me that there were no machines nearby.  On the wall of the old station were newspaper stories about the cat who was a stationmaster there, a not unusual, only-in-Japan phenomenon.  Unfortunately the "stationmaster" was in the hospital, but there was a stand-in, a stuffed cat that sat where the ticket-taker would be. 

I gave it a friendly little pat on the head as I stepped out, thinking that the concept of aging in Japan had certainly changed over the past century.  While the elderly have grown more physically resilient due to more ample resources, trite distractions like the stuffed cat are a sign that emotional grown has ceased long before.

On the turntable:  Icehouse, "White Heat; 30 Hits"

On the Great Eastern Road VII

Chigasaki's charm lies down by the beach, and not in its ugly upper reaches, as defined by Route 1.  Its true charm, for me in particular, is in friends that live there, so I was happy to share a quick coffee with David, before he caught a train into Tokyo for work.  I thought in doing the reverse journey at dawn I'd be able to get a jump on rush hour, particularly as I was moving away from the city. But as it was I found myself cheek to jowl, and though I had a seat my shoulders were curled forward for much of the way, as the sun rose out the window behind. 

I move off into the morning, as commuters race to work, and students make their way to school, the younger ones giving a high-five to a chain of retired older men who stand sentinel to protect them on their way.  I switch over to the side of the road that best allows me the most direct line of sunshine, which remains partially hidden behind herringbone clouds.  A framed Campbell's soup sign stands incongruously before a house that looks remarkably like the one where Norman Bates lived.  Nearby, in front of another bright suburban house, a man practices his golf swing.  He tricks me into thinking that he's launching them at full power into the front facade, but they prove to be foam practice balls that simply drift upward a bit before dropping harmless back onto his lawn.    

I come to a bridge and off to my left Fuji hovers above the water, her crown already covered with snow. The spot was captured in a woodblock print by Hiroshige, as it is unique that the mountain appears on that side of the old road, if one is heading to Kyoto.  (I've noticed too that there is a place on the Shinkansen line where the Tokyo-bound trains curl around a long stretch of Suruga Bay, and for a brief moment before Shizuoka, the mountain appears on the right.)

As I had a long day ahead of me I decided to push quickly through this section, to hopefully get beyond the roar of the incessant traffic. As usual, music through the headphones tend to help at times like these. The one positive of course is that I have Fuji in my view all morning.  Even amidst all the urban clutter, the mountain remains prominent, and I can only imagine how this all would have looked when the area was open plain.  It was easy to see why the mountain has such eminence, as it would have defined the landscape for a good number of days for the Edo period traveller. (I've elaborated more on this point in a Japan Times article found here.)     

I cross the long Banyū Bridge and out to my left I see the Pacific for the first time on this walk.   To the right is a strong layer of overhanging haze, but looking through it I can just make out Nantai and the mountains above Nikko.  More clearly visible is Takao, standing firm at the end of the Musashino Plain, as an array of peaks overlap behind.  In the center of the bridge is a marker letting me know that I've walked 62km since Nihonbashi.

Hiratsuka comes and goes.  I am finally diverted off the busy Route 1, but nothing along this stretch bears any hint of the past, barring a few historic markers of what once was. Little surprise that a town that cares so little for its past neglects to point out the old highway, as it diverts down an even smaller road.  The eye grows accustomed to these things, and finding the way becomes intuitive after awhile.  Though as ever, having a decent map of these old roads is almost crucial.  

The smaller spur rejoins Route 1, thankfully not as busy as before.  Off to my right is a small hillock, well known from the print by Hiroshige. While not tall, it stands like a sentinel over the town, most likely a volcanic vent emanating from Fuji not far away.  

Oiso is next, definitively more suburban.  Though the traffic remains a noisy factor, there are a number of lovely old houses, one of them surrounded by an old stone wall.  When the road diverts again it is along a more rural section that could be a quiet street in any small American town, due in part to the namiki of pines that shade it.  I begin to notice that one thing that seemed absent from these towns are the masugata right angle curves that typically bookend them.  But I suppose you don't need masugata when the plentiful rivers provide ample security.  Due to the modern bridges, the rivers weren't holding me back, allowing me to make good pace, better than one ri an hour. 

 The far of end of town housed a collection of historic sites.  I completly missed the first, the house of Shimazaki Toson, one of the best chroniclers of the transition between the Edo and the Meiji.  It can be argued that one of the most important figures of that latter age was Itō Hirobumi, Japan's first prime minister.  Unfortunately his villa was hidden behind a massive works project noisily going on behind a high wall.  The villa of another prime minister was a short walk further along, that of Yoshida Shigeru.  While admittedly an important statesman who help shaped policy after the war, ever-hanging over the man was the question about the depth of his involved in the fascist regime that came before.   How more delicious the irony then that the name of the stream running behind his house could be translated as the 'river that rinses away blood.'

The rest of the morning is spent in a slog-induced stupor. The post-towns to follow are of no real consequence.  A couple of signs bearing the name of Ninomiya are written in all lower case roman letters, insinuating that even the locals themselves find the town of little significant.  During this  entire stretch, my camera never once leaves my pocket.  I alleviate boredom by trying to decrease my times between ichirizuka, normally placed about an hour's walk (or one ri) apart.  

The road eventually drop down to the beachfront expressway, and the entire Sagami Bay is laid out before me.  A few fishing boats bob out on the waters, and one guy in waders and boots casts from the shore.  The pillars of the expressway perfectly frame the waves breaking upon the rocks.  When the towns begin again, one only has to look down the narrow lanes between house to be taken back in time, when these would have been small crowded fishing villages.  

Over another broad river, Fuji off to the side.  Down on the beach are perfectly stacked piles of wood, their squared corners resembling castles.  A real castle is not far away now, that of Odawara.  There is definitely more life here, more people walking beneath its covered shopping streets.  Hours before I'd seen mothers bicycling their toddlers to kindergarten, and here they bike them home.  Where Oiso had been the only attractive town I'd seen all day, Odawara has the most element of modern charm.  I am surprised by a sign telling me that an air raid destroyed the town between one and two a.m. on August 15, 1945, the final bombing of the Second World War.  Sad to think of the twelve lives lost, especially as surrender had been decided upon the day before, though not declared until 10 hours after the attack.

Beyond Odawara I move into the hills, and the ever-present cityscape I've been walking through for three days falls away for the first time.  The early winter sun hangs low, its light in my eyes.  I'm less able to make out details along the narrow road that runs between quiet villages.  Just as well, as I'd barely notice.  I've gone 25km and have seven more to go, and my feet are feeling it.  I arrive sooner than expected at Hakone Yumoto station.  I've already walked this next section up to the lake-front Barrier Gate, so will begin again from there.  As for today, all that remains is to hop the train for long journey home. 


On the turntable:  John Lee Hooker, "6 Chill Out"
On the nighttable:  Peter Orosz, "The Wilds of Shikoku"

Imbibling Bibliophile #95

Five Ukiyoe Favorites (Exhibition Catalogue) 
Golden Slumbers Pale Ale, Strange Brewing & Lab Co.

On the turntable:  Cocteau Twins, "Black Session"

(untitled)

Gray now obscures the edges,
As winter bides her time.
Days away, days away...

On the turntable: Tomaso Albinoni, "12 Concerti a cinque, Op.7"

Imbibling Bibliophile #94

Honoring High Places by Junko Tabei

Matsumoto Traditional Bitter, Matsumoto Brewery

On the Turntable: Herbie Hancock, "Future Shock"

Sunday Papers: James Hilton

"Many religions are moderately true."

On the turntable: Deep  Purple, "Deepest Purple"

Revisting Shinmachi

The next installment of the Kyoto Streets series, at Deep Kyoto:

http://www.deepkyoto.com/revisiting-shinmachi/



On the turntable:  Jerry Reed, "Smokey & The Bandit (Sdtk)"

Imbibling Bibliophile #93

Garcia:A Signpost to New Space by Charles A. Reich
   Liberty Ale, Anchor Brewing

On the turntable: Human League, "Original Remixes & Rarities"

(untitled)

Flickering warmth
Helps stave off up to
12 centuries of cold.

On the turntable:  The Charlatans, "Return of the Great Contenders"
 

Sunday Papers: W. Somerset Maugham

"To know a foreign country at all you must not only have lived in it and in your own, but also lived in at least one other."


On the turntable: Bill Evans Trio, "Consecration"

(untitled)

Trees speak of autumn.
But winter too has a voice,
Whispered on a slate grey sea.

On the turntable:  The Charlatans, "North Country Boy"

Imbibling Bibliophile #92

Peter Fleming: A Biography by Duff Hart-Davis
   Shizuku Junmai Daiginjo, Gozenshu Brewery

On the turntable:  Linda Ronstadt, "Frenesi"

 

(untitled)

Under autumn’s perfection,
My feet follow the ancient road,
Bound-up in concrete.

On the turntable: Jerry Reed, "Texas Bound & Flying"

Sunday Papers: Thelonious Monk

"Everyone is a genius just being themself"

On the turntable: Jerry Garcia Band,  "Pure Jerry, Lunt-Fontanne, New York City"

Imbibling Bibliophile #91

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

  Samuel Adams Boston Lager, Boston Beer Company

On the turntable:  Icehouse, "White Heat"

(untitled)

 Against the deep purple 

Of crépuscule skies,

exaggerating leaves.

On the turntable:  Jackson Browne, "I'm Alive"

Sunday Papers: Stefan Zweig

"If today, thinking it over calmly, we wonder why Europe went to war in 1914, there is not one sensible reason to be found, nor even any real occasion for the war.  There were no ideas involved, it was not really about drawing minor borderlines; I can explain it only, thinking of that excess of power, by seeing it as a tragic consequence of the internal dynamism that had built up during those forty years of peace. and now demanded release.  Every state suddenly felt that it was strong, and forgot that other states felt exactly the same; all states wanted even more, and wanted some of what the others already had.  The worst of it was that the very thing we loved most, our common optimism, betrayed us, for everyone thought that everyone else would back down at the last minute, and so the diplomats began their game of mutual bluff." 

On the turntable: Bruce Hornsby, "Intersections"
 

On the Karakorum: The Hunza

Wild Frontiers Adventure Travel posted a piece of mine on their blog, based upon a trip I took with their company:

On the Karakorum...

Edward J. Taylor travelled with us on our Kashgar to Kashmir Karakorum Adventure recently and wrote a series of blogs documenting his epic journey.

 In the beautiful Hunza valley in Pakistan, believed by many to be the setting for the mythical Shangri-la, Edward relishes in the local hospitality and ponders religious intolerance in remembrance of slain prophets...

Click the link to read more...


On the turntable: Joe Jackson, "Night and Day II"

(untited)

After leading me to the mountain path,
My 102-year old guide
Prepares the garden for autumn.

On the turntable;  Joe Jackson, "Night and Day"

(untitled)

Under a stone Buddhas sixth century gaze,
The temple’s lunch bell
Rings from a microwave.

On the turntable:  Linda Ronstadt, "Live at Budokan 1979"

Sunday Papers: Dennis McNally

Following close behind survival and procreation, the pursuit of spiritual transcendence seems to be a universal human need.  The three-hundredths-of-a-second neural gap between reality and our apprehension of it dooms us to see our lives in images forever newly obsolete and to grasp only the tiniest fraction of what is available. It is the chasm that Plato described as the difference between shadow and fact.  The methods chosen for the pursuit, from the Roman Catholic mass to whatever the Dionysians used to the captures of southern Pentecostalists induced by gospel music to LSD-25, are merely a matter of cultural taste.


On the turntable:  Jean-Luc Ponty, "Live at Donte's"
On the nighttable:  Jon Krakauer, "Into the Wild"

(untitled)

Along the nine-fold path,
Autumn displays with deepening color, 

The doctrine of Right Effort.

On the turntable: Cocteau Twins, "Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor, March 29, 1991"

Imbibling Bibliophile #90

If There Were No Japan by Roger Pulvers

  Nomikurabe Set, Kunjo Sake Brewery

On the turntable: Human League, "Original Remixes and Rarities"

(untitled)

Water carves
Another notch upon
The Earth’s bedpost.

On the turntable:  Herbie Hancock, "The Best of Herbie Hancock"

 

(untitled)

Ah! Autumn grasses!
All that remains
Of my hiking group.

Done in by a heavy lunch
And the cry, ‘full sales ahead!’

On the turntable:  The Cure, "Staring at the Sea"
 

Strolling in Reel Time along Fuyamachi

The next installment of the Kyoto Streets series, at Deep Kyoto:

http://www.deepkyoto.com/strolling-in-reel-time-along-fuyamachi/

On the turntable:  Average White Band, "AWB"
 

Sunday Papers: Samuel Johnson

"Those who do not read can have nothing to think, and little to say."


On the turntable:  Bauhaus, "... And Remains"

Imbibling Bibliophile #89

     The Unmaking of an American by Roger Pulvers

  Kyoto Bakushu Pale Ale, Kizakura Co. 

On the turntable:  Luna, "Rendezvous"