March of the Swivelheads

What the hell happened to March?  And why is it winter again in Kyoto?

On the turntable:  Ute Lemper, "Punishing Kiss"

On the reel table:  "My Blueberry Nights" (Wong Kar-wai, 2007)

My favorite joke

Descartes is on an airplane.  A flight attendant asks him, "Would you like a drink?"

Descartes says, "I think not."

And disappears.

Happy birthday, Rene, you silly deluded fou!

On the turntable:  Bill Laswell, "ROIR Dub Sessions"

On the reel table:  "Raiders of the Lost Ark"  (Spielberg, 1981)

This week in Kyoto...

Terra Gallery, Nijo/Teramachi.




On the turntable: The Beatles, "Rubber Soul"
On the reel table: "I am my Films" (Herzog, 1978)

Trainline Hiking

Sunday came around once again. The word Sunday most often serves as a synonym for hiking, yet today I didn't like the look of the sky. It wasn't raining, but the clouds were just daring me to make plans. So I did that other synonym for Sunday, which is sit on the sofa with tea and book. Somewhere along the way, an idea nudged it's way between sentences.

So Miki and I biked down the hill to the train station. This being March 23, or 3-23, we bought a ticket for close to that sum, which was 320 yen, and got off at the corresponding station for a day of unadulterated ambulation.

Now it's your turn. Go forth and roll, wander, swan, stray, tramp, roam, cast, ramble, rove, range, drift, vagabond! Just do me one better by not forgetting your camera...

On the turntable: "The Complete Stax-Volt Singles 1959-1968"

On the reel table: "The Scarlet Letter" (Wenders, 1973)

Ghosts on the Road

The weather gods bestowed on us a perfect day of 19°C, so Miki and I put on our best shoes and set off for the San-in do. It starts from the old pleasure quarter of Shimabara, where a small gate poked a hole through Hideyoshi's protective Odoi wall. We followed Shichijo-dori west through Katsura and beyond. It was a long 14km slog along busy roads and the only time our feet left concrete was when we'd duck into a shrine, those rest areas of the gods. The worst part was over a pass into Kameoka, walking on Route 9, with it's busy Sunday traffic. We moved quickly and nervously along a shoulder so narrow that it hardly deserves the name, my own being far broader. Walking into a rapidly setting sun, which blinded drivers who'd barely see us as centrifugal force pulled them toward us on curves. Atop the pass, we sat at a shrine and ate dried coconut, our nerves shot. Besides the shrine, there was nothing around but a dead decaying village, a few moldy love hotels, and two new cemeteries, most likely filled with people foolish enough to have attempted this same walk.

But I'm not here today to tell you about that. On the far western outskirts of Katsura, where the city meets the hills, we saw a mentally handicapped teenager driving a train. In his mind anyway. He had the hand gestures down and was creating his own sound effects. It was right out of Do'des'ka'den. Seeing me, he came to chat about the trees, forecasting the buds soon to come. He followed us, but Miki and I, fearful of him being in traffic, sped up a bit. We soon came up to a sign telling us that 150 years back, three rebellious Choshu samurai had been overtaken and killed on this spot. We moved into the forest to where their graves quietly lay. There were no flowers, but the stain of candle wax on the stones told of how the villagers, whose ancestors had killed these same men, had since adopted them. And as we pondered this, and the large black crow lurking about, our friend rode up in his train. He kept saying, "O-Samurai-san," his hands taking the hilt of a sword that only he could see. As Miki and I looked at some of the other ancient stones on this small hill, he began to clean the graves, and this was where we left him.

On the turntable: Krishna Das, "Breath of the Heart"

On the reel table: "The Darjeeling Limited" (Anderson, 2007)

 

Opening Day

Now, I've been a Yankees fan from way back.  That '78 one game playoff against the Sox was one of the best parts of the highlight reel that is my childhood.  But imagine my shock when I was in New York last fall, being told how Yankee Stadium was to be torn down to make way for a new ballpark in 2009. Then I hear the rumor that Steinbrenner is planning to sell the team.    He finally went too far this time, selling tradition to pad his retirement.  So, I decided to burn my own tradition to the ground.

Most of my family is from New England, and are die-hard Red Sox fans.  I found great joy in being up there last autumn, watching Boston go through their pennant drive and World Series win.  It's time to change sides.  To make it official, I've already given my Yankees cap and T-shirt to the homeless.

"Judas,"  you say?

"Go Sox!"  I say.

On the turntable:  Kronos Quartet and Asha Bhosle, "You've Stolen My Heart"

On the reel table:  "Kagemusha"  (Kurosawa, 1980)

Sunday papers: Graham Greene

"Any word one uses from habit means nothing at all"

--The Honorary Consul

On the turntable: Vangelis,"China"

How was your Friday?

My Friday was Good, not great.

This guy was having a pretty good day too...

More fishsticks?

On the turntable: "Ska Wars"

On the nighttable: Eric Schlosser, "Fast Food Nation"

On the reel table: "Early Spring" (Ozu, 1956)

Busy

Neglected emails,

Drift up my inbox

Like ghost ships

On the turntable: Kodo, "Mono-Prism"

On the reel table: "Sweeney Todd" (Burton, 2007)

Optimism

kerosene seller

makes his rounds

under 18 degree skies

On the turntable: Kimie, "Dragon Scales"

On the nighttable: Michael Hoffman, "The Coat that Covers Him"

Gumshoeing in Eire

Today is St. Pat's. If you say the title of this blog with a bad Irish accent, the last word sounds like "Nag." Which is horse. So, at the risk of beating a dead one, I thought I'd post an excerpt from my travel journals written while in Ireland in February 2005. I had gone out into the country in search of relatives who'd married in Maryborough in 1874. Maryborough now goes by the name Portlaois, a town best known for its insane asylum and prison...

Early the next morning, I headed for Portlaois. On the bus, the young couple who sat behind me looked pretty rough. I sat and looked out at the drab outer rings of Dublin lined with houses made of soda bread. Perhaps it was the heavy sky, or my sleepy eyes, but all looked desolate and lonely and I felt sick of travel. I should have been thrilled at my first sight of the Irish landscape, but instead I was unimpressed with the highway busy with trucks, and the bogs devoid of all but bare trees. Essentially, it looked like northern Indiana. Once off the highway, subtle aspects of the country's beauty began to appear, in the form of huge clovers lining a road at the edge of the forest. In Kildare, I giggled at the sign for the National Stud, picturing a suave guy with a nice pad. Beyond this, a couple open fields contained a surprising number of lambs. Two of them seemed betaken with a pig.

Minutes off the bus in Portlaois, I found myself at the Catholic Church where an Ash Wednesday mass was just beginning. I was hoping that this was where Brigid Comerford and Michael Dunne( my ancestors) had been married, therefore sharing a spiritual and temporal link. I queued for my ashes, then lingered around. For a 10a.m. mass on a weekday, it was pretty packed, including many students in uniform. I wondered how many people in here might be family. I lit a votive candle for Ken (my late son), then went to the sacristy to talk to the priest. I was worried he'd be too busy to talk and I kicked myself for forgetting that it was a church holiday. He seemed a nice guy, but rushed. He answered my questions in a three minute monologue, then brushed me off with a "Best of luck to you, Ted," Dougal-style. It wasn't rude. On the contrary, he dealt with my needs efficiently, yet lacking the time to ponder properly, he moved on. I liked the way he'd say something like, "Now go to the parish office, where Mary and Polly will look it all up on the computer." Personalized.

Back on the Street, I moved from the tourist office to library to court house to art center. I was looking for someone who knew local history, but everyone modestly recommended everyone else. I decided to stroll. At first, I didn't like the town much, a series of busy roads and shopping malls. (Including a health food store next to a butcher's, and a place called Abra-Kebab-ra.) Then behind this modern facade, I found the older center of town. Main Street was a cobblestone street of narrow sidewalks, shops, and pubs. Compared to England's rows of controlled uniformity, Ireland seems more organic, with varied structures of differing sizes. Smaller sized roads formed zigsaw puzzle shapes at the town center. I must've walked all the roads at least twice, past the ruins of two churches, past the beautiful stone train station, past the new Heritage Hotel (which had no heritage to speak of, but served as a nice metaphor for my day), past a WWI monument with a Private Dunne, past M. Dunnes' Grocery. There was a strong Chinese Connection here, with three restaurants all closed for the holiday. I'd seen a Chinese guy at mass this morning. Being both Ash Wednesday and Chinese New Year, he was having a busy day. I also saw many of the same faces and they no doubt noticed me, again and again, ambling without apparent purpose. In others, I saw my own face, and in many boys, I saw Ken's. Many schoolgirls seemed to be speaking what at first sounded French, but must be the local dialect. I also heard my Nana's vocal inflections in the conversation of three old women. It's amazing how that was passed to her in the new country.

I thought that the church ruins on Church Street were where Brigid and Micheal had been married, but in the records at the library I found an article saying it'd been abandoned in 1804, after having first converted to Protestant. It turned out to instead be the ruins on Church Avenue, a fact explained by the gals in the parish office. I had almost not gone in, but it was there that I found the most concise information, such as the villages where Brigid and Michael had come from. It left a small mystery since Comerfords are traditionally from around Mountmellick in the north, yet her town was south of here. Plus, the Dunnes are from here in Portlaois, but Michael's village is even further north than Mountmellick. The clan has a massive gathering near there in the summer. In any case, it was amazing to handle their wedding register from 1874.

Ultimately, the most amazing info came at a pub, which I'd chosen because it looked the oldest in town. I had a beautiful plate of chicken and potatoes, plus a pint of Smithwicks, over next to the hearth. The bartendress herself was from Mountmellick, and knew many Comerfords. When she'd asked me what I was doing there in town, I was embarrassed to be a cliche'd American looking for his ancestry. In fact, had I been asked directly if I were looking for family, I was prepared to answer with, "Yeah, they stepped out for smokes 130 years ago and I haven't seen 'em since." But this woman was quite friendly and told me that one of the older Comerford matriarchs had died last November, having had 15 children. She also said she saw a resemblance in me, especially around the eyes. I was thrilled to hear this. She took my contact info and said she'd pass it on. (Days later, I'd find an email from one of the clan.)

All in all, I'd had a great day, walking in the steps of my ancestry and playing detective. And the moral of my Irish parable is...

If the Church can't help you out, the pub certainly will.

On the turntable: Masabumi Kikuchi, "All Night, All Right, Off White Boogie Band"

On the nighttable: Ken Wilber, "A Brief History of Everything"

On the reel table: "Stroszek" (Herzog, 1976)

Sunday Papers: Kenneth Rexroth

"Life is a tragedy to those who feel, a comedy to those who think."

On the turntable: Fumio Karashima, "Great Time"

Greenaway

Watching

Nightwatching

on an art house screen

nearly as small as my TV.

Sitting in the back row,

crane my neck,

watching

Nightwatching,

image reversed

on the dusty projector room window.

On the turntable: Hoppy Kamiyama & Bill Laswell, "A Navel City"

White Day in Hammersmith Palais

"Lovers in Japan
They won't notice anyway
They're all too busy fighting
For a good place under neon lighting

The new couples are not concerned
With what there is to be learned
They got birthday suits, ha you think it's funny
Turning chocolate into money"

(Apologies to Mr. Jones & Mr. Strummer)

On the turntable: Stonium 90, "Police Academy"

On the nighttable: Shuhei Fujisawa, "The Bamboo Sword"

On the reel table: "Yuwaku 3" (Walch, 2006)

Chinese Imports

Fuzzy Kyoto,

Yellow sky

On the turntable: Sting, "Demolition Man"

On the nighttable: Rory MacClean, "Magic Bus"

On the reel table: "Il Postino" (Radford, 1994)

Sunday Papers: Joseph Campbell

"Hinduism, like Judaism, is basically a racial religion: one is born a Jew, born a Hindu. Buddhism, on the other hand, is, like Christianity, a religion founded on belief: a creedal religion, hence a world religion, open to all equally, no matter of what mother born. And that, finally, is the meaning of the symbol of the virgin birth. It is neither of race, nor of caste, but absolutely of the spirit."

--The Mythic Image

On the turntable: Coldplay, "X&Y"

On the nighttable: Bruce Chatwin, "On the Black Hill"

On the reel table: "Stagecoach" (Ford, 1939)

Plus One

february already come and gone,

tracing its shortcut thru the year

On the turntable: Groove Armada, "Back to Mine"

On the nighttable: Nicolas Bouvier "The way of the World"

On the reel table: "M. Hulot's Holiday" (Tati, 1953)

A-Going, A-Going...

Last week was Agon-shu's huge Hoshi Matsuri event in the hills above Kiyomizu-dera. I'd been wanting to go for years, but always seemed to hear about it afterward, usually in that half-page ad in the Japan Times that the sect shells out big money for.

A small group of us met at Keage station and began the walk up to the site. It was a mobile Oz Fest, with most of our number either being from Melbourne, or having previously lived there. Along the way, we passed many Agon-shu acolytes in their yamabushi clothes, hands together in gassho. The ones at the top greeted us with a simple, "Welcome home." There were thousands of people up here (half a million I later heard), funneled down a narrow dirt road gone grey and muddy from the weekend's snow. At the far end of the bottleneck was an open space with a small stage and many tables selling food and the wooden gomaki tablets on which people would write their prayers. We all got rice balls and complimentary black tea, nervously joking whether the latter was safe to drink. It was a beautiful day, pleasant to stand in the sunshine and look around at the bizarre carnival aspect of it all. I hadn't expected this. Men and women dressed somewhat like leprechans worked the crowd, greeting and smiling, while an old man and a group of young women, all dressed as Daikokuten, danced on stage to traditional Japanese flutes and strings, singing a song with religious lyrics. It was like a psychedelic church camp. We found it fun to rubberneck and poke fun, but when I left our circle of mirth to find a bathroom, I began to notice something else. Walking among the crowd was a first hand encounter with hive mind. I noticed how damaged many of these people looked. Japanese society is built with the mortar of fitting in, and walking the streets of any city is like strolling around Disneyland. Things are just too pristine. Up here, we could see 'other.' A few of them had blank, lifeless eyes.

I'm not going to call this New Religion a cult. And it's hardly a new idea that religion offers refuge for those who are most desperate for it. Which is great. But too many confuse the finger for the moon, and history is rife with examples of those who do happen to find the moon on their own, later having their eyes poked out with those same fingers. I realize I'm biased. My own spirituality is based on compassion, but I have very little for religion itself. I'm working on transcending that irony.

We moved down the hill to the center of the hive itself. A large square stadium had been built to house this event. People stood and leaned on the rails ringing the site. The earthen floor below looked like the setting where bulls - or Christians - delight spectators with their violent deaths. Two massive bonfires were going, one in honor of the dead, the other for the living, both the size of a modest house. More acolytes in yamabushi garb scurried around the latter, tossing in those wooden tablets on which people had written their prayers. Others splashed laddles of water over the whole thing, creating more smoke to ensure the delivery of said prayers. Apparently smoke is the snail mail of the gods. A taiko group kept the beat, very tight. Their high level of skill attests to how much they must practice. We leaned into the rail, breathless partly by all the smoke, mostly by the spectacle. At one point the crowd was hushed and asked to place our hands together in gassho. From below, the Heart Sutra began in a low drone, quickly spreading throughout the crowd. The sect's head, Kiriyama Seiyu stood up and began to make esoteric mikkyo hand gestures toward the flame. His assistant stood beside him, holding a huge paper umbrella about two meters in diameter over his master, following his every movement. The effect was like watching a sahib on safari, aiming at human souls. When he was finished, we all bowed our heads in silent prayer. The only sounds to be heard were the occasional pop! of exploding wood, and the far off sound of a politician-to-be pandering from the valley below. The thought of this candidate being Komeito nearly made me squeal with ironic-satori delight. Then suddenly, the chanting resumed and more gomaki tablets were thrown into the flames. The wood itself was scrap, recycled. What of the prayers themselves?

We tore ourselves away from this and wandered over to the temple itself. Along the way, three of us stopped to try to make sense of a sign describing planetary-based fortune telling of some kind. We were only there for a few minutes, but when we looked up, we found that we were part of another massive queue. Somebody joked that in Japan, if you stand still long enough, a line is sure to develop. We eventually made it up to the main temple. Miki and I had been here nearly a year ago, which I recounted here. The massive open courtyard then was today covered by a few new structures. One had a stage for kagura, and another seemed to have an foundation of solid concrete. When I later tapped it with my foot, it resounded with a hollow sounding thud. (I'll let you supply your own metaphor here.)

We descended, following a trail beside which an old marker had the words, "Maruyama" carved in stone. Somehow we got turned round and became lost. Our karma no doubt for the giggles up above. Finally we wound up having to hop a small wall into the towering Okudani Cemetery. The sheer number of graves in here was staggering, evenly laid rows leading down the slope toward the borrowed scenery of downtown. One of our group said, "I can't tell you how many times this happens. We're walking along, get lost in the forest, and wind up in the cemetery." I said nothing. Again, some metaphors are just too obvious.

On the turntable: RL Burnside, "A Ass pocket of Whiskey"

On the nighttable: Donald Richie, "Travels in the East"

On the reel table: "Blade Runner" (Scott, 1982/2007)

Death Imitates Art

Last  fall, while traipsing around North America, I entertained myself with DVDs of "Absolutely Fabulous."  On one of the special features, Jennifer Saunders mentioned that out of their many controversial gags, the one they were most worried about was jokingly refering to 9/11 as 7/11.  I know that I  laughed.

And I laughed again when a friend of mine accidently made the same slip.  Granted, she isn't a native speaker and had a bit of wine in her.  The nonsense aspect of it is just what this "9/11" deserves.  The fact that the media and the populace turned a tragedy that touched (and with the Iraq debacle continues to touch) the lives of millions into a slogan, a brand, is pathetic.  I guess it makes the whole thing more palatable to the little minds more attuned to Reality TV than to reality. (Note the lower case.)  

A few years ago I met a woman who lost her young son to cancer.  His birthday happened to share the date on which my own son died. She and I were at a Zen center on that day, so we had the monks perform a short ceremony.  Later this woman wrote to thank me for observing with her, "10/14."

I like this woman, a woman of immense intelligence and kindness. But when I read that, I wanted to absolutely fucking throttle her. 

On the turntable:  The Stooges, "1970: The Complete Funhouse Sessions"

On the reel table:  "Record of a Tenement Gentleman"  (Ozu, 1947)

Re-RAN

Snow flurries blowing sideways,

Like a rushing river of

Kurosawa celluloid samurai

On the turntable: "Rough Guide to Tito Puente"

On the reel table: "Amelie" (Jeunet, 2001)