A year in reads: 2021

 

 

On the turntable:  The Police,  "Reggatta de Blanc"

 

Stuff from an Old Notebook #19

 

  
Random thoughts and ideas from the last year. 
 



 

 -I wonder how much of beauty is taught to us by our parents.  In hiking today, I came to what I would consider a gorgeous little stretch of stream with a waterfall and small pool at one end.  I nearly did this hike with my daughter, and I’m sure had we come to this point, I would have unconsciously said,"How beautiful."  And hearing such things repeated through childhood, does one then learn to appreciate the same beauty (second hand beauty?) as their parents. 

 

-Did the Beats teach us freedom, or self-indulgent narcissism?  The longing to not only live a life well lived, but also to chronicle it.





-The lobotomizing effect of pop culture.

 

-English lesson as if inspired by Cage’s 4:33.

-Happo-shu string budget



 

-Celebration of the Mundane


-Story idea about a guy who’s been in Japan a long time and is starting to spend more time abroad.  Little by little he’s become like a bell curve, moving out of touch with what’s going on here. His reactions and responses no longer quite matching up.  It’s a lot like his early days when he didn’t understand Japanese.  But now he can understand nearly everything, which reflects the disjunct of his situation. 
 

-You Asaay


-Americans are like puppies, trying to jump up and lick everybody’s face.  The English on the other hand are more like cats;  they’ll occasionally climb up on your lap and let you pet them, but if you try to clutch them too tightly, they’ll become taciturn and (run off.)



 

-A rotation of Lucinda Williams and Tom Petty waltzing across my iPod.   


-Cognitive Dissidents

-(X), the greatest mass murderer since Noah.  The ark, a metaphor for climate change, some sort of climactic disaster.  Bible fond of incest; Cain and Abel, Noah’s family. 


-Ambiance Chasers

-What the trees give, the ground receives. 

-Yama-Maester Wes 

-Incongruity of Dream

-Typhoon announcements coming, their words lost to the blustery winds. 

-Even God has given up hope.  

-To quote Laurens van der Post:  “I’ve always divided humanity roughly into two main streams, those who work by expansion and those who work by contraction.  The Japanese have a genius for contraction.”  And while perhaps that have once been true,  during the bubble years they were misled to believe that expansion was the preferable new order, and have been expanding ever since, even after the parameters of the bubble burst.     


-In Dream:  Going to Yonago to find the old house in the process of being razed.  From the depths of me emits an inhuman howl of grief.  It’s like the final bits of Ken are definitively gone.  

 

 

On the turntable:  Dev Mason, "Live at Perkins Palace"

Sunday Papers: Monte Hellman

 

"The only real truth is in poetry and in fiction.  If you want to tell the truth in non-fiction, it's never quite as true as the truth of poetry."  

 

On the turntable, "Hollywood Vampires, "Rise"

Hunting up Elusive Paths

 

 

The internet certainly has made route finding easier.  In the old days, I'd buy any new book that dealt with walking Japan's old roads.  In every case, the maps were primitive and cartoon-ish and near impossible to follow. The now defunct Latlonglab was my only online resource, which was immensely helpful, but as it required a satellite signal, the battery on my phone would be bone dry by the time I was racing toward my home-bound train on the far end.  

Hiking too involved plenty of guesswork, which in a few cases near proved fatal.  Then about two years ago, friends enlightened me about Yamap, and from there I discovered Yamareco.   Their downloadable maps proved a godsend, and as I began to rely on them (especially on the older mountain tracks I seem drawn to, despite common sense), I was no longer sure how I'd managed without them.  Luckily, these sites also have the odd map of an old road, and I have begun to edit previous walks, which I now know I got wrong.  

The first of these do-overs was the Sanin-dō, which I walked with Miki back in 2008.  Memory is a funny thing and mine betrays me.  I remember that day as being a long slog along Gojō which then eventually begat Route 9 as it left the city.  Yamap showed the true path, which served as the initial prompt to return. (Matching it against my old guide book, I saw they both followed the identical course.  Inexplicably, we'd stayed on Route 9 into Kameoka, and had gotten it wrong.)   

Another reason for the return was that I wanted to orient this walk from west to east, as I did so while walking two sections of the route known as the Sasayama Kaidō (detailed here and here), a direction I hope to maintain when I eventually follow the entire road as it leaves Shimonoseki to trace the Sea of Japan. 

So in a westbound movement I returned by train to Umahori Station with my painter friend Joel in tow. We spent a number days last winter hunting up old Buddhas in the hills of Nara and south Kyoto, and he has quickly proved a good companion for these walks through history.  The road leading away from the station was along a charming little path through suburban homes now colonizing the older look of things, but with enough of the latter to hold our interest. (Though the highlight of the day was certainly the beauty salon called "Terrapin Station.")    We popped into a couple of old shrines, one of which had a mound off to one side where warriors once left a single arrow as a talisman of good luck while heading off into battle.  Before another grand old shrine, the road dropped into farmland to trace a small creek.  Joel and I sat and lunched atop the stonework of a wall that defined the property line of one of these farms, bemoaning the ruins of an unusual-shaped thatch farmhouse that had always caught my eye whenever I drove toward Kameoka.  As often happens in this crowded country, a person will turn up when you are doing something possibly verboten, but the farmer didn't seem to mind us sitting there, or perhaps couldn't be bothered to tell us kids to get off his lawn.  

The road narrowed to cut through a series of dense vegetation.  Below us, a fox nibbled along the stubble of rice fields, before rushing off into the trees.  We hopped over the busy Route 9, and up a forest track that had eluded me 12 years before.  It led us down into a little slice of Appalachia, the homes looking poor and a tad eerie.  Most of them were crumbling back into a dank shadowy landscape that must never get much light.  The one active farm was watched over only by an old boombox, serenading the plants as if a desperate attempt to coax some life out of this bleak part of the world.    

I suppose the shrine at the pass above provided some explanation.   Kubizuka is considered a haunted place, named for one of Japan's top three yōkai.  Legend has it that in life he was known as Shuten-dōji, leader of a clan of oni who terrorized either this area or around the similarly-named Mount Oe to the northwest (though in reality they were probably simply bandits).  But the numerous films and stories agree that his decapitated head continued to snap at the five warriors sent by the Emperor to subdue him.  Not wanting to bring the head back into Kyoto, it was buried here, beneath a small mound of gravel at the back of the shrine.  Similarly neither Joel nor myself wanted to bring any of that bad mojo back into town ourselves, so we quickly pulled our attention from the amazing trees there and dropped into suburb.  

Civilization returned in the form of what must be Japan's most depressing high school, hemmed in between this busy road and the expressway behind.  Next up were an array of love hotels, and I'd be curious about the rate teen pregnancy at the neighboring school, though the physicality of the students was more likely directed toward sports, to judge by all the champion banners they boastfully displayed along the roadside.  

As we skirted a large suburban development, the view was mainly of cookie cutter homes, though there was the occasional tell-tale old inn, as well as a parade of small shrines along the hillside.  And town began to build as we moved toward the heart of Kyoto, along with its accompanying traffic.  Light began to fall, as did our enthusiasm, so we jumped a train at Katsura Station, speeding us to coffee taken in a park as we watched the last full moon of the year rise over the eastern hills.  

 

But ever the completist, I felt compelled to walk the remainder of the road.  It was a cold dark day threatening rain, but I only had an hour worth of walk ahead.  Joel wisely opted out of sucking exhaust, and after winding through a few quieter neighborhoods, most of that hour was indeed spent moving along a busy boulevard.  But it was Shichijō rather than the Gojō of 2008.  

I thus carried on through the usual monotony of west Kyoto, rewarded from time to time with an old house, or a stone marker etched by a chisel that had centuries ago grow rust.   This close to the end of the year I'd expected much activity about, but there was little to capture my eye, save the sight of a boy trying to shyly take the hand of the girl beside him, but she was having none of it.  Then Kyoto Station loomed up with its promised of food, beer, and a warm train home.  

On the turntable:  Charlie Poole, "You Ain't Talkin' to Me"

On the nighttable:  Terry Gilliam, Gilliamesque"

What's in a Name

 

 

In the twelve years since I began walking the Hōkkoku Kaidō, I was never really sure of the name.  I similarly saw it referred to as the Hokuriku-dō, but was unable to definitively distinguish between the two.  To complicate matters, there is another Hōkkoku Kaidō far to the east in Shinshū, and most books and websites deal with that one, no doubt due to its proximity to the capital.  But the internet finally caught up with me, and I recently learned that the name Hōkkoku refers only to the section that leaves the Nakasendō at Toriimoto, to cross the Tochinoki Pass before terminating at Imajō.  From there it takes the sole moniker, Hokuriku-dō.

And there was a second clue.  Somewhere in north Shiga I picked up an map of old battlefields and ruined castles.  It was my guide through the summer of '21, as I did a dozen day trips exploring a variety of sites before a cooling dip in Lake Biwa.  The map clearly reiterated the Hōkkoku as passing through Kinomoto and continuing north.  All along I had thought it led south from Tsuruga, a route I walked back in 2013.  But apparently I was wrong.  

So it was that I boarded a train in the winter-dawn darkness of Kyoto station.  A waiting taxi drove the dull concrete highway from Imajō to the cobblestone entrance to Itadori-juku, whose thatch roofed houses impressed me as much on this frigid morning as they had when I'd passed through in 2009.   Most of the previous week's snowfall had melted off, but everything still hung cold and wet.  Unlike my previous visit, I turned left to return to Route 365, before following a smaller road that paralleled the highway.

Route 365 continued on above me, though apparently not much traveled here, to judge from all the broken rubbish that had been launched from it.  There was a preponderance of pre-2011 television sets, and weirdly, a bag of unopened bread.  A road-closed sign had me slightly worried, a worry which was quickly amplified when I saw the barricade that had been built midway along.  I scrambled up and over, through thick weeds that sometimes sprang back to slap me in the face.  I suppose that's one way to wake up on a crisp winter morn.  

Where I rejoined the main road I found another barricade, the twisting route beyond now closed.  There was massive construction going on, the concreting of what had been a beautiful, fast-moving river further down.  Much equipment lay about, heavy and light, and the sign here told me that it was to help deal with the snows of future years.  Luckily it was just before working hours, no flag-wavers around to tell me I couldn't carry on.  So I pushed toward the pass, the black ice of the previous night now aglow with the coming rays of the sun.  

This old route continued on awhile, until reaching a set of switchbacks that folded the road near completely back on itself.  I knew that the old Hōkkoku would not have done this, and would have continued along the riverbank.  At the first bend, I sought what could have been part of the ancient highway, then pushed myself up a slick ridge along what was little more than animal trail now.  After a few days of rain, the earth was beginning to give way beneath my feet, forcing me to clutch clumps of grass near ground level where it was stronger.  

With a bit of labor, I made it back up to the road.  The absence of cars made for easy walking, down the center strip.  The iconic Heart Rock I mistook for concrete.  From this height, I could see a lovely open patch beside the creek down in the valley.  This creek fed the dam which I had determined impassible.  That was probably the old road.  I carried on up the tarmac with my eyes aimed down into that valley, trying to maintain sight of that old path, or what I took for old path.  I hate moments like these, when I find my quest for authenticity has been diluted by the modern world. I knew that trail would continue to haunt me over the coming months and years, until in a wild spur of the moment I'd return to walk it. 

Patches of snow colonized the shady northwest corners of the road where it curled to hug the mountain face. This culminated in a small ski resort at the pass, still devoid of snow but with the lifts rotating beneath blue skies.  A few workmen were around, tinkering with this and that, one of them painting his truck with a paintbrush.  As I knew this place was meant to open in about a week, they'd soon begin to turn the green hillsides white with artificial snow.      

I walked over to where the old road would have met the pass, and the faint trail was camouflaged by wave upon wave of high, dense grass.  I'd thought about descending a bit to see how it all connected, but it was damn near impenetrable.  So I instead turned and continued down the other side of the pass, along a road now open.  Here and there the road broadened into overflow parking, but I couldn't imagine the resort got much traffic anymore.  As if to validate this, an old snowboard shop stood shuttered and collapsing into itself.  In fact there was little else here but hills on one side and a strip of open grassland on the other.  A BMW streaked past up to the resort and then back again.  As I knew I'd come to no other structures or hamlets for at least an hour, I thought I'd try to hitch.  But nothing else came.  So I pushed on, popping my earbuds in to distract myself from the monotony with a recording of an old Lenny Bruce performance.     

I finally arrived at a small settlement, at the heart of which was the towering trees of Hiromine Shrine.  The water gods too were active here, in the form of a spring that left the hillside to fill my bottle.  I found myself climbing again, and just before the road entered tunnel I diverted down the old highway, it too closed and traffic-free.  It was lovely, gentle climb beside a small stream before reaching a pair of small Jizo statues and a trio of A-frame cabins that marked the pass.  Down the other side the views opened up for the first time, and I sat awhile against a now useless guardrail, enjoying lunch and Lake Biwa far off in the distance.   

 

A scattering of deer bones in one of those old snow tunnels was a hint of what was to come.  Rounding a bend, I saw a buck thrashing beside the roadside.  He'd caught his foreleg in a tangle of cable that had peeled off the concreted hillside behind him.  The violence in his movements indicated it had just happened, and when he eventually saw me he went into a frenzy, somersaulting numerous times as he tried to escape. 

I put down my pack and pulled out the wire-cutters of my multi-tool, talking softly and gently to him as I approached.  He continued to pitch and buck as I got up behind him.  As I attempted to cut the wire a meter or so from his leg, he kept trying to gut me with his antlers, lowering his head again and again. The candelabra of sharp points on his head would have gone right through me had he made contact.  I could only imagine both of us dying there that night, side by side on the road.  

I moved a few steps uphill, just out of range and began to cut.  I don't imagine he could understand what I was doing, but seemed to calm some.  Once I'd finished the cutting, he dropped to lay in the mud of the roadside.  I returned to my pack and shouted a few times to get him to run off. But he simply lay there, breathing heavily, and watching me. Probably exhausted from adrenaline, and the struggle.  I'm sure I am anthropomorphizing when I say that I saw almost understanding in his eyes.  

A hamlet stood where I rejoined the main road.  I knew it was some distance to the next one so tried to hitch.  It wasn't long before a car came by, which slowed, then seeing my masked but foreign face, sped off again.  I swore and gestured as he did, thrashing about just as much as the deer had a little earlier. 

The road crossed the Hokuriku expressway, and just below, an older tunnel of stone cut beneath both.  It was here that I finally thumbed my ride. They were an ancient couple, the husband more so than the wife.  He was hard of hearing, forcing me to repeat myself numerous times, and finally leaning forward a bit, which I'd wanted to avoid so as not to create any Covid-related anxiety.  In doing so, I completely missed where I wanted to be dropped off. I laughed as I backtracked about half the distance of my five minute ride. I suppose I was destined to walk the whole thing today.  

Energy flagging, I pushed on through a chain of little hamlets, each increasing in size the closer we got to Kinomoto.  There was the odd explanatory sign, the occasional old Meiji-era building, as we all marched into the future.  And with my arrival at Kinomoto station, the Hōkkoku Kaidō was finally, and definitively, walked.   

 

https://www.yamareco.com/modules/yamareco/detail-1725166.html

https://www.yamareco.com/modules/yamareco/detail-1724002.html

On the turntable:  Badfinger, "No Dice" 

On the nighttable: Mitch Cullin, Tideland"

Sunday Papers: Michael Reynolds

 

"What old men remember is not what young men taste and touch."   

On the turntable:  Phish, "Farmhouse"

 

Poetry and Jazz revisited, set two

With the Joshua Breakstone group, Bonds Rosary, Dec. 10, 2021

 

On the turntable: Low, "Hey What"

 

Poetry and Jazz revisited, set one

With the Joshua Breakstone group, Bonds Rosary, Dec. 10, 2021

 

On the turntable: George Shearing Quintet - "When Lights Are Low" 

 

Poetry and Jazz...

  

This Friday...

 

 

On the turntable:  Paul Winter Consort, Crestone"

 

Sunday Papers: Ai Weiwei

 

"The United States likes to think of itself as a melting pot, but it’s more like a vat of sulfuric acid, dissolving variety without a qualm."  

 

On the turntable:  "The Complete Stax Singles"

 

As Autumn Wanes and Fades...

 

  

The soft light of the low hanging sun penetrates more deeply into the usually dark corners of the house.

On the turntable:  "The Complete Motown Singles"

 

Sunday Papers: Donny O'Neill

 

"Why wake up early for the sunrise when I can simply catch the sunset later?  The striking blend of orange, yellow, pink, purple, and red isn't so different, after all.  But the sunset is a social phenomenon. Anyone can venture outside as the sun finishes its daylong journey across the sky.  Seeing the sunrise takes effort and commitment.  It's an intimate moment, one where I recognize that I'm in the minority of people on earth witnessing a grand spectacle at a given moment in time.  At sunset, I'm promised the blanket of darkness. At sunrise, I'm promised revelation."

 

On the turntable: Penguin Cafe Orchestra,  "Music from the Penguin Cafe"

 

We are Made of Water

 

 

During the Covid summer of 2020, my daughter was enrolled by her mother in a class of traditional Japanese swimming.  I often accompany her, to sit and alternate between watching her instruction, and simply enjoying a book read beside the lake.  It was a beautiful setting, the hills rolling down to the far green shore, the shakkei immaculately groomed as part of a golf course built for the GIs after the war.  

I realized from her very first lesson that I was watching Nihon Eihō, which in actuality was traditional Japanese combat swimming.  I'd had an opportunity to do a one-off workshop in the art about 20 years before at the Budō Seminar that used to be held in Chiba every March.  I'd thought ever since that if the opportunity for further study ever presented itself, I'd jump in with both feet.    

Throughout the subsequent winter, I repeatedly kicked myself for staying on shore with my books and not taking part in the lesson myself.  So it was in the summer of 2021 that I enrolled, despite my daughter's lack of interest in continuing. Back during my summers in the 'Nog, I was blessed that the beach was a mere 15-minute bike ride away.  I envisioned a similar thing here, but this time the cooling relief of water would be enhanced by learning something unique.  Thus, these lessons set the framework for the summer, not only the swimming, but the trip up and back as well.  It formed a triathlon of sorts, as I would bike the 20 minutes to the northern reaches of the city, then hike up and over a small steep hill to the lake itself.  The return journey would be inevitably marked by exhaustion, accompanied by a great hunger. 

While I am glad I had the opportunity, I found the experience somewhat of a mixed bag, as the teacher's primary focus was on teaching the kids.  We adults were more often than not left to ourselves.  All the others had been practicing for 20 years or more, and admitted to rarely getting much instruction.  Every few sessions, Sensei would throw me a bone, and I would work on these new techniques over the following weeks.

Unfortunately he only offered the lessons during the summer, so there would be no chance to continue in smaller groups over the rest of the year.  As these summer sessions dwindled, I did something I'd usually never do in Japan, which was to pester him for a little bit more.  It wasn't that I was chasing a rank or trying to acquire a grade, but simply wanted to learn as much technique as possible in the limited time available. Luckily he wasn't offended by this stereotypical, pushy gaijin behavior, and gave me a number of exercises in the waning few days.  

But how lucky I was to be learning this in a lake rather than in the chlorinated sterility of a pool somewhere.  It was wonderful to feel the variability of water:  the tepidity of the hot August afternoon, or the frigid shock of entry during summer's bookends.  Since most of the strokes were of the sidestroke variety, I loved to face the far shore, and glide past all that rolling green.  And as I do every year, I immerse myself in films and books about the Pacific Theater, over the days leading up to the anniversary of that war's end.  As I swam, I thought that many of those sailors who entered the water as their ship went down under them prolonged survival with these very same strokes.  A funny thing to reflect on, as the clouds drifted peacefully above.         

Sadly the summer of '21 proved to be the rainiest I can remember.  Many days, I found myself obsessed with the weather forecast and the look of the sky.  It seemed a cruel joke that about 15 minutes before I would set off, the skies would open and pour until just after lesson's end.  This happened more often that not.  I found myself getting more and more angry, more and more depressed, being held in check in my own house rather than be allowed the freedom of the water.  As a result, my spirit was as a low as it ever was during the entire pandemic.  Finally I said screw it and made my peace with it, heading up to the lake regardless of the weather.  The spirit of the art is to essentially harmonize and not resist the water.  How ironic then the strength of my resistance to the rain, which of course is simply water in another form. 

On days without personal instruction, I would basically lap swim, maybe 100 meters each way, building to one kilometers, one mile, two kilometers, resting after every couple of lengths in the chest deep water along the muddy bank.  I would be immersed for two hours or more and in time forgot about the water altogether.  It was a reminder I suppose of our amphibious tendencies, for we all spent the earliest days of our lives in the water, and most of us find great delight and comfort when we are able to return.  

On the turntable:  Andreas Vollenweider, "Live" 

On the nighttable:  Gene D. Phillips & Rodney Hall, ed.  "Francis Ford Coppola Interviews"  

 

Sunday Papers: Hunter S. Thompson

 

"America... just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable."

 

On the turntable:  Old Crow Medicine Show, "Big Iron World" 

October 14 Elegy

 

 

 

Sunday Papers: Robert Twigger

 

"The wrong map in the right hands is better than the right map in the wrong hands."

 

On the turntable:  Paul Chambers, "Whims of Chambers"

KJ at 100

 

 

I began my relationship with Kyoto Journal back in 2003 with Streets, issue 55, though I'd been reading them long before that.  The magazine has recently released its 100th issue, bound by the writing and photography of many colleagues and friends.   I am proud to stand among them.  

On the turntable: Peter Murphy, "Dust"

Sunday Papers: Martha Gellhorn

 

"Amateur travel always used to be a pastime for the privileged; now it is a pastime for everyone.  Perhaps the greatest social change since the Second World War is the way citizens of the free nations travel as never before in history.   We have become a vast floating population and an industry; we are essential to many national economies not that we are therefore treated with loving gratitude, more as if we were gold-bearing locusts."

 

On the turntable:  Johnny Cash, "American Recordings"

Sunday Papers: Jeff Fuchs

 

"Morning is the time when all is possible again, and when the mind is pliant and vulnerable and has a touch of amnesia of all that came before."

On the turntable:  Guy Clark, Joe Ely, John Hiatt & Lyle Lovett, "2005-11-18"

 

Sunday Papers: William Goldman

 

"Shooting is just the factory putting together the car."  

--On film production

On the turntable:  Emmylou Harris, "Songbird"

Structures of Kyoto

 

  

Quite happy to have been a part of this project, amongst a bevy of very talented people.

Details here:
https://www.writersinkyoto.com/.../structures-of-kyoto.../

 

On the turntable:  Flatt & Scruggs, "The Foggy Mountain Boys, 1959-1963"  

Sunday Papers: Peter DeVries

 

"If we can think of this great country of ours as polarized between two sets of James Brothers, Frank and Jesse at one end and Henry and William at the other, why, we begin to get some sense of the enormous spectrum in between."

 

On the turntable: Norah Jones, "The Fall"

Sunday Papers: Hunter S. Thompson

 

“The Edge...There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others-the living-are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later. But the edge is still Out there.” 

 

On the turntable: Nick Cave, "B-Sides & Rarities"

 

Exploring Osaka’s Museums

  

Last autumn, I was given a private tour of Osaka's five major museums, in order to write up a guidebook of sorts, as part of the preparations for 2025's World Expo. View it here: 

 

https://www.osaka-art-museum.jp/zh-tw/wp-content/themes/museum-v2016/build/pdf/page/toppage/exploring-osakas-museums.pdf

 

On the turntable:  Of Monsters and Men, "My Head is an Animal"

 

Sunday Papers: Tony Vagneur

 

"The grief of a mother who loses a child is never gone, its dilution measured in minuscule drops."

 

On the turntable:  New Model Army,  "Live@Maxwells" 

 

Sunday Papers: Rory MacLean

 

"In this serene space, unspoiled by the modern age, I consider the legacy of the 1960s travellers. Only a generation ago, English girls hitch-hiked alone across Iran. Free-spirited teenagers from Berlin and Boston were welcomed as honoured guests in Baghdad. The hundreds of thousands of footloose westerners, in flares and open-toe sandals, may have been the first movement of people in history who travelled to be colonised rather than to colonise. But their values and comparative wealth did change the places they visited. The host societies, especially those of rural Iran and Afghanistan, were for the most part defiantly conservative. I begin to wonder if the casual morality and humanism of those first independent travellers could have further polarised these countries, encouraging urban liberal minorities while insulting - even enraging - traditionalists and zealots. Might this not even have helped to stir the stern Islamic reawakening?"

 

On the turntable:  Chick Corea, "Now He Sings, Now He Sobs"

 

Sunday Papers: Tony Russo

 

"A secret is a fact that's held prisoner."

 

On the turntable:  The Monkees, "The Birds, the Bees, and the Monkees"

 

Sunday Papers: Ernest Hemingway

 

"The more I'm let alone and not worried the better I can function."

  

On the turntable:  Herbie Mann & Chick Corea, "The Complete Latin Band Sessions"

 

(untitled)

 

Wind on my cheeks,

Filling in spaces

On maps I once thought done.

 

 

On the turntable: Nick Drake, "Five Leaves Left"

 

Sunday Papers: Charlie Chaplin

 

"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot."

 

On the turntable: Chick Corea/Bela Fleck, "Two"

Thoughts on Earth Day

 

 

On the turntable:  Don Ellis, "Connections"

 

Sunday Papers: W. Somerset Maugham

“Irony is a gift of the gods, the most subtle of all the modes of speech. It is an armour and a weapon; it is a philosophy and a perpetual entertainment; it is food for the hungry of wit and drink to those thirsting for laughter. How much more elegant is it to slay your foe with the roses of irony than to massacre him with the axes of sarcasm or to belabour him with the bludgeons of invective.  And the adept in irony enjoys its use when he alone is aware of his meaning, and he sniggers up his sleeve to see all and sundry, chained to their obtuseness, take him seriously.  In a strenuous world it is the only safeguard of the flippant."


On the turntable:  Madness, "Nutty Sounds"

(untitled)

Nothing growing  
In winter paddies 
But the shadows of running boys

  

On the turntable:  Nick Cave & Warren Ellis,  "White Lunar" 

Sunday papers: Jim Whittaker

 

"If you're not living on the edge when you're young, you're taking up too much space."

 

On the turntable: Squeeze, "Cool for Cats"

Mitsuhide's Road to Infamy, Part IV

 

  

They reached the temple at dawn.  The clamor would have awakened Nobunaga, followed by the scent of the wood ablaze, then the inevitable knife thrust to the belly.  Mitsuhide continued to move, first to kill Nobunaga's son at Nijō, then further east to Azuchi castle, where he tried to vain to recruit other warlords to his cause.  Upon hearing that Hideyoshi's forces were bearing down on him, he decided to cut him off at his stronghold of Shōryūji Castle, and once again marched west.

I do the same, but begin my own march again at the marker for Honno-ji, on a cold but sunny February morning.  I can imagine the victorious troops marching proudly down the broad Horikawa, though not as broad as the road would eventually become during Hideyoshi's redevelopment of the city in the subsequent decade.  I too stick to the big road awhile, trying to stay in the warm sunshine.  But it proves quicker to zig-zag down the smaller lanes, which I do despite the chill.  

I settle once again on sunnier Omiya.  Two police cars have pulled over an Uber delivery driver.  I'm not sure if it is a moving violation or an accident, but the bike faces the wrong direction.  Still, the panda atop the delivery box keeps its smile.  This section of the city isn't terribly attractive, the bright sky being the only color.  Near Ryokoku University, a woman runs for a bus.  It doesn't look like she's going to make it.  I don't have the best opinion of bus drivers in this city, but this one proves to be nice and comes to a halt again, allowing her to board.  I return a smile to a nearby toothpaste vending machine.

I pass three more dentists before cutting through Umekōji Park, most certainly not here in Mitsuhide's time.  Bundled up young mothers push their prams around in the sun, and a small queue is beginning to form at the railway museum.  I'm led down a diagonal path through the Kyoto Freight Station, as every few minutes a large truck rolls past, bringing cold wind in its wake.  The opposite side is lined with a long row of flats that look like the flank of a luxury liner.  At street level are the twin rows of cherry trees, a month shy of their full glory, a glory that lasts about as long as Mitsuhide's thirteen days.

 

 

I'd led beneath the rail lines through a tunnel whose water-damaged walls resemble graffiti.  The hanging vines sprout leaves that I first take to be Christmas lights.  Coming out the other side, I note that the contours of the city probably haven't changed very much, as tendrils of nagaya extend off in both directions.  The row houses here are probably of a size and alignment as they always have been.  An old man sprays chemicals from a cylindrical backpack, over an empty plot of land.  There is little wind but I stutter-step for a moment, before passing by.    

There's an immense construction project going on, taking up an entire city block.  The fence has a gap, the machines still and quiet, so I duck inside, craning my head every few seconds in anticipation of being hollered at.  I spy some historical memorials with feet bound in concrete.  They've been dug up and moved here from where they had long stood.  One marker tells me that this had been the site of the Kyoto Municipal Rakuyo Technical High School, Japan's first, which stood here from 1886 until graduating its final class in 2018.  Beside this is a time capsule, the sight of which suddenly saddens me, thinking how it had been left here accompanied by the hopes and anticipations of students looking a century into the future.  I notice that the steel compartment on the back is no longer held fast by its padlock, which lies dark and rusting to one side.  I slide back the bolt and peer inside.  Nothing remains, except perhaps the dreams of those long-dead students.      

I am funneled down a narrow lane running diagonally off the busier Kujō.  It suddenly dawns on me that I've done this walk before, years ago with Joel, as we followed the Sangoku Kaidō out to its terminus in Yamazaki.  This discovery helps me determine the remainder of my route.  Overhead a helicopter buzzes and buzzes.  I will later hear the whir of its rotors in the background about a dozen of the voice memos that I use for my notes. 

At the Katsura River, uniformed boys play baseball on purpose-built fields.  Old-timers play gateball on an adjacent field. Tennis courts stand netless and empty.   Kindergardeners chase their teacher around, and at the water's edge, Himukai Jizo faces east.  Near the bridge, a long white guardrail sways like a drunk, the soil beneath repeatedly besotted by the now annual floods of increasingly stronger storms.  

I'm angling to get to Muko's Spice Arcade by lunch.  As I'm a little bit early, I decide to sit awhile beside the river, reading from a book of short essays by Hemingway.  A cormorant pops up close to my feet, and startled, takes wing far away.  It's a reminder to move.  I climb the embankment, beside a man with a trowel, who works a plot no bigger than 2 1/2 tatami.  

My lunch stop rests my legs for the slight and steady climb toward Nagaoka.  There are quite a number of Jizo clusters, for this road had once been the main pilgrimage path toward Atago.  This final hour is a treat, along a nicely preserved fuedal road, with ample informative signs and lined with numerous old buildings and temples. A Showa period candy shop remains, quiet for the moment but sure to fill once the locals school lets out.  

I come to the edge of the arcade, beneath an wrought iron arch emblazoned with the calligraphy Kotari, a now common Japanese name which once had the esoteric meaning of unimpeded function of the body.  This holds true in the case of my feet, feeling no fatigue despite the thirteen kilometers trod.  A few blocks to the left is Shōryūji Castle.  Only five months since my previous visit, there is no need to visit again.  The Saikoku Kaido leads off diagonally to my right, but I've walked this already, at least as far as Yamazaki.  Part of me is tempted to carry on from there, all the way to Osaka, where it meets the Sanyō-dō. But another part of me thinks it a bad idea, with the potential for unnecessary hardship.  Though not as bad an idea as assassinating my boss...

To follow Mitsuhide as he flees Hideyoshi's troops, click here. 

To follow me as I continue westward toward Kobe, click here.

 

On the turntable: Neu, "Neu!"

Sunday Papers: Woody Guthrie

 

"Find out who is causing the Trouble here in this old World—remove the Power from their hands--place it in the hands of those who ain't Greedy--and you can roll over and go to sleep."

 

On the turntable: Grateful Dead, "1967-07-23  Straight Theater, Haight Street " 

Mitsuhide's Road to Infamy, Part III

 

 

Not far beyond Kami-Katsura station is Goryo-Jinja.  There are a number of these shrines around Japan, usually dedicated to appeasing restless spirits.  The most famous of course is in the north of Kyoto, where the Onin War broke out.  There is no telling if Mitsuhide stopped here to pray to his ancestors for guidance, as he was now only about 90 minutes away from his target.  And perhaps his spirit too has now been added to the pantheon of those who died in misery in this world.  

This little spur of road was lined with old houses dating back to the Edō Period, low and squat and with the tell-tale false second floor.  I hit Gōjō Boulevard at an angle, which outside the city takes another form as the Sanin-dō, stretching along the Sea of Japan to the grand Izumo Shrine, and beyond. 

Before long I cross the Katsura river.  There had probably been a bridge here in Mitsuhide's day, for ferry crossings would have very time consuming, if not impossible in the pre-dawn hour. The river now is a shadow of what it must've once been.  Dozens of old farmers have staked out grids on which to grow vegetables, at the moment winter grow: Chinese cabbage, daikon.  The snowy head of Mt. Atago promises a steady supply of water.     

My own passage across is accompanied by the consistant hiss of traffic. One landmark Mitsuhide certainly didn't have was the rail line, which allowed me to cut diagonally across the city on a small lane that shadowed it.  That begs the question:  How did Nobunaga's guard not notice an army marching into the city?  These troops had been ordered to assist Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the siege of Takamatsu, but Mitsuhide's men were marching the wrong direction.  Did they enter in dribs and drabs so as to avoid suspicion? Knowing the mindset of the day, they probably came in as a single body, with all the accompanying pomp and circumstance.  This would have been spurred on by Mitsuhide's pronouncement while crossing the Katsura, "The enemy awaits at Honnō-ji!"

 

(TO BE CONTINUED) 

 

On the turntable:  Ahmad Jamal, "The Best of Ahmad Jamal"

Sunday Papers: Richard Holmes

"What's it all about then?  Is man merely what he appears to be to the astronomer, a puny piece of impure carbon and water, an impotent insect inhabiting an insignificant planet?  Or is he what he appears to be to Hamlet: noble in reason, infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god, the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals?  Or is he both? Is there really a way of life that is noble and another that is vile, or are all ways of living merely futile?  And must what is good also be eternal in order to be considered worthwhile, or is it worth striving for even if the universe is expanding inexorably towards its own extinction?"


On the turntable:  Miles Davis, " Theater Street St. Denis 1983-07-07"

Mitsuhide's Road to Infamy, Part II

 

However...

A later look at the map shows something called the Akechi-goe passing through the hills north of the Hozo-kyo gorge.  Could this have been Akechi Mitsuhide's route?  It makes some sense, as it travels along the foothills of Atago-san, and Mitsuhide may have detoured to the summit in order to pray at the shrine there. I decide to follow this route to see if I can find any other clues.     

It is a month after my previous hike, the snows long gone, but the wind still blowing cold.  I'd allowed myself to get distracted by a few things as I left the house, and thus forgot to bring a jacket.  But I was wearing a few layers, the forecast was for warmth, and I figured that I'd heat up on the climb anyway.  What I hadn't counted on are the icy blasts that are my sole focus as I shiver across the wide flyover crossing the Hozugawa. The eastern skies have a long thick duvet of cirrocumulus clouds.  Early warning of the rain to come tomorrow. 

I find some relief in the old village on the opposite side whose narrow lanes acted as a windbreak. It is a beautiful morning, the sky completely clear, and the sakura buds mere days from opening. Some of the larger homes have rather expansive grounds, framed by earthen walls.  A handful of thatched roofs stand steadfast, towering above the rest. 

I begin to climb.  The trail is well trod, carved from the forest floor by centuries of sandals, be they worn by pilgrim or samurai. I come across a number of information signs, which when scanned by QR reader, offer some of the very hints I've been looking for.  A low stone wall is all that remains of the Mine-no-dō hermitage, where the 9th century Emperor Seiwa spent the remainder of his short life, taking tonsure after ceding the throne to his 5 year-old son.  In later years this hall took on the moniker, "The Hall of Remorse," as it was a popular spot for Mitsuhide to survey his domain, and perhaps his spirit lingers, in atonement for his lofty ambitions.   Further on, the Doyō no Reisen spring is said to provide cold water in even the hottest months. 

It is sunny along the ridge.  I have an odd moment when I think I hear voices.  Ghosts of Mitsuhide's fallen warriors? A few moments later I overtake another hiker, and ask him if he is with a companion.  He is solo, but when I mention the voices, he says that it was indeed him, talking to himself as is common with his age group.  

Fine views of Atago open to my left.  As I begin the steep descent, a lizard and I startle each other.  Even this early in March, the reptiles are awake.  I bring my eyeline more toward my footing, which shuffle down the V-shaped gully that serves as trail, through the leaves of autumn that never got the snows necessary to decompose.  

The trail finally levels out, first as a logging road, then joins the surfaced tarmac that leads to the valleys and villages just coming alive with spring.  A quick moving stream is my companion all the way to the Hozōkyo.  Minutes after climbing atop the bridge that multitasks as the rail platform, my train pulls in. I'm soon whisked away, as flat bottomed tourist boats trace the S-curves of water below.  

Equally less than straight-forward are any conclusions about Mitsuhide's actual path that May day in 1577.  I'll stick to assumptions that he did indeed visit Atago, but this leads to the bigger question of where did he go from there?  There is a trail climbing into the mountains that eventually meets the Karato-goe, which would in fact connect both routes, proving both theories correct. Or perhaps in the interest of speed he split his forces, sending some along the Karato-goe.   Most likely he would have followed an old trail down at the Hozō river's edge, or perhaps just followed the valley that leads past Saihō-ji, the famous moss temple.  

Japan usually makes things easy for the historically minded, with their copious approach to documentation.  It is somewhat surprising that mystery lingers in such an important event.  Yet another cultural trait is to cover up a bad smell, so the records have probably long ago been destroyed.  

But we do know what happened next...  

(CONTINUED)

 

On the turntable: Neil Young, "Decade"