Friday Saturday Sunday

Last year I wrote about the Matsuage Festival we attended. We learned that there was another one closer to town in Kumogahata, so it was last week that we biked for over an hour into the mountains north of the Kyo, into the fading light of day. On rubber legs we peddled, often wondering if we'd missed the village, until we saw a group of men, the older ones dressed as firemen, the younger ones in yukata. Our already weary calves nearly gave as we climbed the steep stone steps of Kounji to find....4 people. The temple was small, about the size of my old house up in the Nog. We sat awhile in the engawa, dangling our legs into the garden and looking up at the Moon swelling toward its full shape. Suddenly it hit me how much I miss the 'Nog. Not my life there so much as the size and the speed and the ease with which people smile and share. I'd been in the Kyo a year (give or take a few trips away) and found the kindness in the locals quite frosty. I didn't have moments like this one anymore, just sitting and sipping tea and talking to strangers. But strangers often don't stay strangers long and just before 8 o'clock, their numbers increased to a couple dozen, perhaps the whole village. Absent were the young men, now climbing the hillside beyond to set the festival fires alight. Miki and I were apparently the only outsiders here, the locals impressed that we'd biked all the way up from Kyoto for their tiny festival. The two of us sat in suspense of what would happen, not a Wicker Man-type suspense , but the delightful suspense of spending time with distant relatives who you don't know well , and one of them about to pull a coin or something from your ear. And just after eight, there was a glow from the trees across the valley, and a flaming kanji character was raised. Unlike Hanase's matsuage, this was more like the Kyo's okuribi, the difference being that no one knew what this year's kanji would be. And it was... 寸. Sun? None of the locals knew why, and as Miki and I later headed down the steep steps we were both silent in trying to find the answer to this koan. But our mindfulness tuned once again into present matters on the ride home, down a looooong descent on a road covered by shadows. On the especially dark bits we slowed way down, having no idea what the road surface was like, or whether stones lay there. Twice we were started by the movement of something huge: a big animal splashed loudly in the river in one place, and a few kilometers later something even bigger tore down the hillside at us. The Wicker Man, after all?


After a good nights sleep we went down to Osaka for the Kansai International Film Festival. This was a collection of works by film makers who'd spent some time in Japan. Miki I sat through four films, two by Darryl Knickrehm, the festival's organizer. One of these was a brief history of Kansai Time Out magazine. The second film I had been wanting to see for almost a decade, since the about time my son was born. "Doubles" by Regge Life was a fascinating documentary about children of mixed Japanese and American ancestry. A bonus to today's screening was an impromptu short talk by an elderly man who had been in the film and just happened to be in the audience. This former resident of Manzanar was now living in a Kyoto temple as a monk. His story could be a film of its own.
The last film we saw was Bondi Tsunami, which I had missed in the States and so was happy to see for free here. Boy, was I happy to have paid nothing. This film was billed as a "road/surf" movie but came across as a 90 minute music video (albeit for smokin' good music.) It had no real story to speak of, but what little there was could've been told in 5 minutes instead of the 1 1/2 hours (of my life) it took to unfold. It tried to land this big profound spiritual message but instead fell miserably into the trough of cliche. (Ahem.) Unfortunately this was actually one of the highlights, these recycled quotes from Dogen or Aldous Huxley, yet they had no thread or concise message. Another high point was the clever camerawork, but it took sometimes strayed into the "Hey! Check out what I can do in the editing room!" dangerzone. Afterward, Miki was nauseous from the film's 6,599,887 cuts. Nothing that some Osaka street vendor curry and ice cream couldn't fix.

Sunday, some Osaka friends came up to visit, and we all went to Maruyama Park for a music festival. There we spent a mellow day listening to an unbelievable variety of musical styles, browsing the mini-flea market (strangely, each stall hawking only a couple dozen things), and eating tasty food. There were even two women offering Thai massage. The crowd was somewhat small, maybe a few more than those who saw Spinal Tap play their first jazz fest. But the music was great. It was a delight to hear "Caravan", Ellington's jazz classic inspired by North African nomads, played on an oud. It was also the first time I've seen Seiichi, my friend and local hero, play straight percussion away from his Steel Drum Orchestra. (One of the funnest shows I've seen and playing again in Kyoto this Tuesday, September 4. Mail me if interested.) He was backing up Tanikawa Kensaku, son of famous poet Tanikawa Shuntaro. In addition to all the great music, there were the usual surreal and bizarre scenes which reaffirm my opinion that drugs aren't necessary here in Japan. (Children's TV is trippy enough.) For instance: a 40-something emcee wearing a dress made of colored newspaper adverts and giggling alot. Two guys in superhero drag, dancing and 'fighting' in front of the stage. An elderly German man in lederhosen singing one of his country's children's songs to the accompaniment of young Japanese musicians on ukuleles. Japan's best known 'saw' player. Plus Dylan's "I Shall Be Released" played on a thumb piano. Crazy, man. (What is the sound of two fingers snapping?)
Looking forward to see what they come up with next year.


On the turntable: Les Claypool, "Highball with the Devil"
On the nighttable: Mark Haddon, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time"