A year in reads: 2020

 

 

On the turntable:  Grateful Dead, "1976-07-18, Orpheum Theater" 

 

Journal of the Plague Year

 

It begins during a hike on January 23, with a call from my wife.  She mentions that something seems to be brewing in Wuhan, and that we ought to call off our late spring trip to Shanghai.  I of course suggest we wait a bit, as it is still months before the trip.  But she, having lived in exile in Europe during the SARS spring of 2003, wants to emotionally commit to postponing, as it is a DIY trip that we can take anytime.  Moments after hanging up, she begins to cancel our bookings.

Two days later I fly to join my wife for Chinese New Year.  Before I leave Kyoto, Lai Yong asks me to buy masks for her and her parents, as they have already run out in Singapore.  At the local shop, all the pegs and shelves are full.  By the time I return in two weeks, there isn't a mask to be found, and won't be for months. 

Singaporeans are going about their business for the holiday.  But each morning brings worse and worse news out of China.   I go for a walk along the river one morning, and the Merlion is teeming with tourists.  These will be among the last selfies taken of a bare face.  In a shop a day later, the newspaper is calling on people to mask up, and the government will send two to each citizen.    

We fly to Taipei to stay a night at the airport hotel, before flying on to Palau.  Hardly anyone wears masks on this journey, but on the return a week later, everyone is.  Taipei airport is near deserted, and my flight back to Osaka is only 10 percent full.  Mine is the only caucasian face, and the only one, predictably, unmasked. 

 

As the stores have run out, Lai Yong orders 100 masks online, just to keep around to be safe.  I laugh how I actually have to sign for the package with a trace of my finger across the thing.  And I joke with her later, what if I get sick from that act despite her best efforts?  Or to get infected from handling books delivered from the US or UK, the virus passed through the post. 

 

 Japan as we now remember didn't move on things for a couple more months, and things carried on nearly as normal, but a heightened normal.  I had hoped to finish the last couple of neighborhood walks for a intended book on Kyoto, but after the first one in mid-March, I gave up.  The intention was to write as things are at the current time, but to write about the virus would ground it too firmly in the specific  present.  Plus it just felt scary out there.  Even masked, I held my breathe anytime I passed anyone on the street.   Kyoto Station shops were all shuttered, the public toilets closed, with only a handful of people walking about.  The trains too, fewer, and with no more than 10 people per carriage, everyone sitting comfortably far apart.  Convenience stores seemed unbelievably tidy;  fewer customers meant the staff had nothing else to do.  JTB was of course shuttered.  Pedestrians would stop to allow others to pass, with enhanced sensory awareness.  And there was good spacing in the queue in front of a pachinko parlor.  But how about when it opened?

 

Things were still new then, and uncertain.  I have memories of the air of spring being dim and smoky. though I know that was not the case.

On social media. instead of food photos in restaurants, people shot things that they were cooking.  It was nice to see that with the free time, people could take more care and time with things.  Even in my neighborhood, once the windows were thrown open with the warm weather of May, in would waft wonderful scents I'd never smelt around here before.  On one day the scent of Indian curry caused me to order takeout. 

 

But more than the cooking on social media, was the mix of angry politics and fear.  And half-baked theories and misinformation. I could sense which friends were having a hard time with it all, as their posts were always dark and fear-inducing.  I tended not to get too emotionally invested in what I read, as the following morning the world would be new all over again.  And in those early days, I awake thinking, "it" is still here.  Reading the news about the new world reminded me of Kirk on Star Trek:  "Mr. Sulu,  damage report."   

 

My guide work went flat-line,and my usual writing gigs were on hold, as no one really wanted to publish travel pieces at this time, some feeling that to do so was irresponsible.  Grounded in Kyoto as I was, I took up the hikes I'd long hoped to do.  In recent years, my walks gravitated to old roads and little towns, but with so much off-limits and closed down, the mountains made better sense. I'd long been after mountains on the Kansai Hyakumeizan  and Kinki Hyakumeizan, which do to the overlap on the two lists, a couple of friends had dubbed the Kinkan 132.   Over the course of the year, I knocked off 27 peaks.  

 

One of these was just north of the city, and on the hike I was shocked at the state of Kitayama in general.  Huge swathes of forest had come down in the September 2018 typhoon, and in the act of prevention, other sections had been badly mismanaged by the forestry industry, large sections completely denuded in what can only be called ecocide.  I hiked a dozen more peaks up there, wanting to do it before typhoon season hit.  Bizarrely, we had none, something I haven't experienced in 26 summers in Japan.  But rainy season dragged on and on, closing off the wilderness which created in me almost a sense of claustrophobia.  And as predicted, more forest fell, including over the popular rail line up to Kurama.

At the beginning of the year, my daughter mentioned that she hoped to climb Fuji during the summer.  To prepare, I took her on weekly hikes, increasing that once her school was shut down.  On one of these, I was amused at at the trail runner at Gorogoro who covered his mouth as he came running past.  And once it was announced that Fuji wouldn;t open for the season, my daughter disappeared into playing with friends. 

With all the hiking, weather becoming an obsession. Having no work, I had the luxury of choosing the finest and warmest days.  On other days, I found comfort in food and films.  When this all begin, I was already in the middle of a marathon deep dive into the works of Godard, but his sledge hammer Marxist pessimism  added to the claustrophobia.  I began to gravitate to road movies set in the American west, and to films I'd loved while in high school and university.  Despite the fact I had no work, and no way to see my Singaporean wife, I felt that life wasn't all that bad.  Yet my choice of films hinted at a deeper psychological stress, trying to escape into wide open spaces, or to a time of life that was relatively carefree.

Most of my days were spent reading in my usual spot, with the view of the street below.  Day after day, I see the same few dozen neighbors, but now there were many new faces out on the street, probably people out for a meandering walk as that felt the safest thing to do. Life felt very European. lived outdoors. And freed from the confines of school, kids running literally everywhere.  It truly was like the world of Logan's Run, as I saw relatively few adults for awhile. 

 

In the beginning I too thought that this was little more than the flu.  I tempered my skepticism with prudence.  At first I avoided masks for awhile (except in shops or trains), but then I ran into a conflict with one of my dogmas.  I can't understand those who doubt climate change, and often think that if your neighbor called you at work to say that there might be smoke coming out of your house, you wouldn't dismiss it, but would rush to be certain.  Yet I was doing this same kind of denial with the virus;  I was not all that sure if it was serious, but I should at least take precautions.  It didn't take me but a few weeks to take it far more seriously, and anyway, I'd been holed up alone at home since the beginning anyway, only heading out for hikes by car, or a weekly trip to the supermarket.  Most food I ordered online.       

 

 

And the year wore on.  And many impressions were born;

-As my life revolves around travel I was relishing the time at home.  For months I didn't want to meet, or even chat online with friends.  The spring and summer felt like an personal retreat.  One benefit of being in the house so much is that I finally learned what all the light switches are. 

-The metaphor that we’re at the end of an age and some people accept it, but those who stand to lose the most are pushing back the hardest.  The virus is a microcosm of this.
 

-The few times I dashed out to the store to buy something and realized I'd forgotten my mask; while out in public felt like I would if I'd forgotten my trousers.   

-The Japanese were ridiculed for their exclusionist immigration policy.  But this extended domestically as well, as there were reports of people in the countryside throwing rocks at cars with out of prefecture license plates.  Maybe this is not racist after all but simply a case of circling the wagons.  

 

-Smell are amplified in a mask. The scent of coffee on my fingers long lingers. No sense worrying about the garlic you ate for lunch. 

 

-In one of the only paid writing gigs I got, I was sent by the city of Obama to to a promotional travel piece for them.  This was the first I'd been spent time with people other my daughter or a few close friends. and a day after returning home, I received word that the guy who'd led me around for two days had been in close contact with three people who'd tested positive for the virus.  He was negative, and of course I was, but I was a little shaken by this close encounter.  It was like the character in a war film who comes unscathed out of intense combat to find to find a bullet hole in his helmet. 

-Waiting for an attractive girl to pull down here mask is like The Dance of the Seven Veils.

-The first time I go out with a group of masked Japanese, it dawns on me just how much of Japanese expression involves the mouth.  The eyes reveal little.

-The new Japanese bow, bending forward to lower the forehead to thermometer guns. 

 

-These days feel a bit like the early days of AIDS.  Meeting a friend is like doing a pick-up at a singles bar: you don't know where that person has been.

 

-Feeling like Roberto Benigni in Life is Beautiful, trying to make sure my daughter is happy and maintains a decent quality of life.   Obviously this is of a completely different scale, and let's hope I don't get shot at the end.    

-The Go To Travel campaign may as well be called CoVid Kizuna, harmoniously spreading the virus throughout the entire nation.

-We refer to hindsight as 2020, but I can't think of a year when I've lived so much in the present, unable as we are were to make any solid plans.

 

 

And at year's end, I still haven't seen my wife since February 7, though we've made a few attempts.  And with the rapid rise in cases, guide work in the spring seems less and less likely...

 

 

On the turntable:  Grateful Dead, "1976-07-12, Orpheum Theater" 

 

Sunday Papers: Yi Sang

 

"The few who force themselves to walk in this city are the holy philosophers, contemptuously glaring at capitalism and the ending of a century."

 --(on Tokyo, 1936)

 

On the turntable: Grateful Dead, "1971-11-07, Harding Theater, SF"

(untitled)

 

 

Double-helix of steam

Rises from my coffee,

DNA of the day ahead.

 

 

 

On the turntable: Grateful Dead, "1973-06-24 Portland Memorial Coliseum"

(untitled)

 

Upon an arboreal carpet

Drops listlessly drift.

Can it be snow?

 

 

On the turntable:  Grateful Dead, "1973-09-08 Nassau Coliseum"

Sunday Papers: Steven Soderbergh

"I always speak French around the end of the year because it makes being rude sound so cool!"


On the turntable:  Muddy waters, "28 Great Blues Songs"

(untitled)

 

                                   Shinadani’s Treasures

                             Lay scattered on the ground

                                      Crimson and gold.

On the turntable: Mudcrutch, "Mudcrutch " 

Die Shizen

Anti-litter signs litter the path...


On the turntable:  Can, "Tago Mago"
 

(untitled)

 

 

Crumbling forest canopy

Softens my footfalls;

 All under the Buddha’s stone gaze.

 

 

On the turntable:  Capsule, "Player" 

 

Sunday Papers: Matsumoto Toshio

 

Kyoto. A city drenched in the rain of old memories.

  

On the turntable:  Grateful Dead, "1972-03-26 Academy of Music, New York, NY"

 

Deep Kyoto Video Walks

 

 

 

Strolling on the Path of Philosophy with Robert Yellin. An excerpt from the Deep Kyoto Walks anthology.

 

Robert's gallery has since moved to a new location. Details at:

https://www.facebook.com/japanesepotterykyoto

http://www.deepkyoto.com/deep-kyoto-walks-paperback.../

 

 

 

On the turntable:  The Springfields, "Folk Songs from the Hills" 

Sunday Papers: Woody Allen

"Real life is fine for those who can't do any better."

On the turntable: China Crisis, "Diary of a Hollow Horse"

Deep Kyoto Paperback Release

 

  

I'm very pleased to announce that the paperbook version of Deep Kyoto Walks has been released. As Michael Lambe writes:

"I am delighted to announce the release of Deep Kyoto: Walks as a paperback edition. This is a print on demand (POD) edition and has been independently produced via Amazon’s Direct Publishing service. Here are the details:

Deep Kyoto: Walks

Publisher: Deep Kyoto

ISBN: 979-8561499616

Price: $15.99 / ¥1,840

Available from: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.jp, and Amazon.co.uk

Editors: Michael Lambe & Ted Taylor

Authors: Jennifer Louise Teeter, Bridget Scott, Miki Matsumoto, Robert Yellin, Pico Iyer, Chris Rowthorn, John Dougill, John Ashburne, Stephen Henry Gill, Sanborn Brown, Joel Stewart, Izumi Texidor-Hirai, Perrin Lindelauf and Judith Clancy.

Here’s the official blurb:

An anthology of 18 meditative strolls in Japan’s ancient capital, Deep Kyoto: Walks is both a tribute to life in the city of “Purple Hills and Crystal Streams”, and a testament to the art of contemplative city walking. In a series of rambles that express each writer’s intimate relationship with the city, they take you not only to the most famous shrines and temples, but also to those backstreets of memory where personal history and the greater story of the city intersect. Join Pico Iyer, Judith Clancy, Chris Rowthorn, John Dougill, Robert Yellin, John Ashburne and more as they explore markets and mountains, bars and gardens, palaces and pagodas and show us Kyoto afresh through the eyes of those who call it “home”. Included are:

18 walks

17 photographic illustrations

A specially commissioned woodblock print by Richard Steiner

12 detailed maps

Cover Art by internationally acclaimed artist Sarah Brayer

The e-book edition of Deep Kyoto: Walks has been available since 2014 and has received many fine reviews. The text of the new paperback is essentially the same as that of the e-book, but some typos and errors present in the digital text have now been corrected for the print edition. In addition, while the text of the e-book includes color photographs, this was not possible for the paperback which is in black and white. Happily, all the photographs have turned out very well in black and white and the paperback also has one extra image (courtesy of Ted Taylor). Moreover, the glorious cover by Yutaka Nakayama is still in color, and Richard Steiner’s “Abiding” print is also reproduced in color on the back cover.

The completion of this project is due in large part to the tireless work of our designer and technical maestro Rick Elizaga to whom I offer my eternal gratitude. Many thanks also to all the contributors for taking part in this project and making this a very splendid book! Order now to get it on time for Christmas!"

 

 

On the turntable:  Grateful Dead, "1971-04-06 Fillmore East"

 

Sunday Papers: Franz Kafka

“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."


On the turntable:  McCoy Tyner, "Atlantis"

Oh, the Places You Won't Go!

I do not miss the tourist hordes,

Don't miss the way their voices roar

I do miss them with their cases

I do not miss them filling spaces

Things are so much quieter today

I do not miss them at all I say!

On the turntable:  Grateful Dead, "Trouper’s Club, Los Angeles, 3/25/66 "

Sunday Papers: Ernest Hemingway

"A continent ages quickly once we come. The natives live in harmony with it. But the foreigner destroys, cuts down the trees, drains the water, so that the water supply is altered, and in a short time the soil, once the sod is turned under, is cropped out and, next, it starts to blow away as it has blown away in every old country. [...] The earth gets tired of being exploited."

On the turntable:  Miles Davis, "Live in New York"

(untitled)

 

 

Beneath a slate gray sky,

Trees flaunt their colors 

As if in defiance.

Heaven. Earth. Man.

Towering ikebana,

In a trio of cedars

 

 

On the turntable: Grateful Dead, "1973-11-11Winterland"

 

The Imbibing Bibliophile

 

 

The Imbibing Bibliophile has been a feature here for the past four years, where I have paired drinks with the books I was reading at the time.  Upon reaching the 100th post, I decided to give the series its own home.  All the old posts have been copied over, and the count has continued (albeit slowly in this year of the virus.)

 

Please follow the link here at The Imbibing Bibliophile.

On the turntable:  Jimi Hendrix, "Baggy's Rehearsal Sessions"

Sunday Papers: P.L (?)

"Art is a transfer of intimacy."


On the turntable:  Mount Eerie, "Singers" 

Twenty-four shames a Second

 

I used this idle year to enroll myself in autodidactic film school.  As I cycle chronologically through films and directors, it dawns on me that the history of cinema is like childhood.  First you see, then you speak. 

It is obvious too why (with a few notable exceptions), the Hollywood film is a dead medium.  I've often felt that film as art began to spiral in the late 1970s.  Jaws created the blockbuster, and Star Wars was an exercise in developing tie-in merchandise rather than in writing good dialogue.  Then Heaven's Gate destroyed forever the director as auteur.  The freedom that filmmakers had been given in the late '60s was taken away, with the money men now making creative decisions sans any sort of creativity.  

The history of film is one of generational innovation.  First was film itself, then in the 1930s came sound.  Color followed in the '50s, then the freewheeling storytelling and technique of the '70s.  Digital animation in the 1990s revolutionized (and in my opinion dumbed down) the presentation of image.  

And since then?  Nothing.  We skipped a cycle about a decade ago, and are meant to be satisfied with a rehash of anniversary reissues (with the usual cosmetic surgery of improved definition and sound),  as a palate cleanse after the junk food violence that is supposed to entertain us. 

Roll credits.

 

On the turntable:  Ennio Morricone, "The Best of Ennio Morricone"      

 

Sunday Papers: Oscar Wilde

"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."

 

 

On the turntable:  The Mountain Goats, "Heretic Pride"

 

Faster than the Speed of Thought

 

Technology is moving to quickly for the inevitable changes in human ethics.  Historically large technological changes brought about an accompanying shift in human consciousness.  Technology is accelerating the rate of information to the point that we are now choking on it.  Forget about ethics then, we no longer have the time in which to process things, to just take an idea and sit and think about it.  Before you can make an informed decision, you're being led to the next, and the next. No wonder the world is so shallow.  Nothing seems fully thought out anymore.      

 

On the turntable:  Laibach, "The Satanic Rock Opera"

 

Sunday Papers: Norman Mailer

"Politics quarantines one from history; most of the people who nourish themselves in the political life are in the game not to make history but to be diverted from the history which is being made."


On the turntable: Jimi Hendrix, "1969-06-22 Newport Pop Festival"

Sunday Papers: Ethan Hawke

 

"Human creativity is nature manifest in us."

 

On the turntable:  Ennio Morricone, "Complete Sergio Leone Movies"

 

Mitsuhide's Wild Ride

 

Shōryūji Castle stands near the confluence of three rivers, which run through a narrow gap in low mountains between Kyoto and Osaka.  For two centuries this castle guarded this gap, but it could do nothing to withstand the encroach of suburbia.  Little surprise, as it fell in the Battle of Yamazaki in less than two hours.  Its defender, Akechi Mitsuhide could do little to hold

back the forces of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who sought Mitsuhide's's head for the murder of Oda Nobunaga less than two weeks before.  In panic, the thirteen-day shogun ran.

As I stand atop the rebuilt ramparts I too think about attackers, though in 2020 this means coronavirus.  I'd wanted to follow Mitsuhide's path when I first read an article about it back in the winter, but then, like most people, I sought refuge rather than flight.  By October the situation in Japan seemed to be calming a little (or the lack of transparency deluded us into believing so), and it felt I could brave the short train ride to do the walk.  

I have a quick look at the exhibit inside the rebuilt castle keep, which in a PC-style sleight of hand veers away from Mitsuhide's historic betrayal and focuses more on his Hosokawa family relatives, whose tutelary temple now houses the world-famous rock garden of Ryozan-ji.  Yet the Hosogawa too aren't above criticism since it was their family feud that started the Onin Wars, abetting in the complete destruction of Kyoto and 150 years of civil war that followed.  Those wars were coming to an end in 1582 when Mitsuhide did his runner.  I'd forgotten though that his wife was a Hosokawa daughter, Gracia, Japan's most beloved Christian convert.  Many times I'd noticed her grave in Kōtō-in, but what I never realized was that her "assisted suicide" on the eve of the Battle of Sekigahara had turned the tide of sentiment in favor of Tokugawa Ieyasu and had perhaps contributed to his clan becoming the Shogunate.     

I am not thinking of any of this as I walk toward Shōryū-ji temple, along a tarmac colored differently than the others that cut through this otherwise nondescript suburb.  And located in suburb, the temple itself is equally non-distinct, but for a worn statue of indiscriminate age.  It is a short walk from here to the the 1600 year-old Igenoyama burial mound, its unknown occupant no doubt a powerful ruler during a time when Japan was just beginning to settle into a sedentary society. 

And suburbs are the ultimate sedentary legacy.  The mound too has been hemmed in, so I descend to follow the rivers northeast.  I am not sure the exact path Mitsuhide took, but I am sure he was spared the bland chain stores bisected by Sunday traffic, spared the towering concrete migratory path of the Shinkansen, spared the factories whose commonality was concrete, sheet metal, and bizarre smells.  We may have shared the view of weekend farmers busy with a late rice harvest.  One massive field has been sheared at the edges, with the middle left to resemble a bright green mohawk.  

Fushimi brings a bit of traditional respite.  I've both visited and guided here many times, and inevitably seem to come across something new.  My path today is deliberate, in order to visit Yamorido, a new craft beer brewery I'd heard about.  I sit safely at a table that is as much outdoors as in, taking a long break over lunch and a flight of beer.  Tokyo has just been added to the infamous Go To Travel campaign, and the street outside feels somewhat busy.  I haven't been out in public at all over the last eight months, and it reminds me of the old days of domestic tourism, with nary a language besides Japanese heard anywhere.

Following the narrow lanes out of town, I am nearly run down by a guy who has obviously not been looking out the windshield of his car, his eyes probably pointed down at his phone.  I give him a burst of Japanese of my own, all blunt verb endings mixed with some colorful English thrown in for good measure. 

I crest the hill that bisects the tombs of the Meiji Emperor and Russo-Japanese hero Nogi Maresuke, then descend into suburb again.  It is dull going for the next hour until arriving at Honkyo-ji.  The temple is of a modern construction, the oldest thing about it being the memorial stone to Mitsuhide beside the main hall.  The famed bamboo thicket behind has been severely shorn, cut back at least a hundred meters from the hall.  A broad earthen avenue remains, for the convenience of the machinery to harvest more in the future.  I see a handful of blue flags waving above a sparse patch of thicket down the hill.  This is Mitsuhide Yabu, the site were Akechi was speared to death, allegedly by bandits in Hideyoshi's employ.  It is truly hard to find much romance of the old here, with the dearth of forest and suburbs ringing all.  There are no bandits today either, but one old farmer working nearby directs me down a narrow path that drops me into the midst of the housing below.   

I walk more north than east now, angling toward a gap in the mountains to my right.  I remember that Daigo-ji's impressive Kami-Daigo temple hall is up there somewhere, and I feel happy that I'd visited before the 2008 fire that damaged a number of its structures.  For the next hour I move through a comparatively bland landscape of suburban sameness.  

My own fire of enthusiasm is beginning to die down.  I'd planned to walk all the way to Mitsuhide's Sakamoto Castle, the intended destination of his flight, but I'm fast losing interest.  I'm meant to veer east again soon, but I have an escape route in Yamashina station not far ahead.  On long walks such as these, I never look at how many kilometers I've done until I finish.  Otherwise, to realize you've done more than expected leads to a psychological fatigue.  But today I check the mileage, and am surprised that I've done 23 km already.  With 12 more to go.  I'd estimated the total walk at 27 kilometers, which I am prepared to do, but I'm not at all prepared to do 35.  Minutes later I'm sitting out front of the station, iced coffee in hand, killing time until the train.

 

It is at that same station that I detrain a week later, the chill in the air a far cry from the muggy heat that accompanied what's written above.  Cars pass too closely and too frequently as I walk the Tokaidō awhile.  Eventually I enter suburb again, accompanied by the feeling that I've seen all this before.  Beyond an expressway-shaded temple, a narrow trail leads me to Kozeki-koe, which I know I passed when doing a parallel journey in reverse 7 years ago.  And rereading that particular post I find the same sentiment I feel today: the highs of the quiet shaded neighborhood around Mii-dera; the annoyance at being denied views of Lake Biwa by the military base, the chain stores, and the towering apartment blocks that colonize the shoreline.  

Isn't until I'm Karasaki that I can truly enjoy the waterfront, beneath the trees that shade narrow patches of park. I get a surprise in the signs warning of vipers.  A trio of men fish from beneath an unusual torii with pitched cross-beams, and families enjoy the fading of light beside the gently lapping waters.  

Akechi is here too, standing bronzed and proud, looking in the direction where he lost his life.  This was all part of his castle, and I spend the next half-hour playing connect the dots with the historical markers that denote it perimeters.  Under the final fading light of the day, I find his grave (or perhaps one of many, as the bodies of warlords tend to be spread around a bit).  It is a nondescript site, just a small grassy mound tucked between houses, a resting place cramped for a man of vision vast.

On the turntable: Jacques Brel, "L'intégrale-- La boite à bonbons : 25ème anniversaire"     

 

Sunday Papers: Sebastiao Salgado

"With each dying person a piece of everyone else dies."


On the turntable: The Groundhogs, "Hog's in Wolf's Clothing"

October 14 Elegy

 

Sunday Papers: Paul Salopek

"Why is impatience signaled by the tapping of a toe: a gesture that telegraphs walking away— hoofing it, laying tracks, leaving, shoving off lickety-split?  Why is movement the default solution of our species? What’s wrong with standing still? Why even ask such questions? Because we are restless. Because we always ask."


On the turntable: The McCrells, "The McCrells Live"

(untitled)

Drinking beer

Alone on the grass

Is the highest barometer of freedom

On the turntable:  Mount Eerie, "Live in Copenhagen"

Sunday Papers: Fisher Unwin

"It's very hard to earn a living by writing.  Writing is a very good staff, but a very bad crutch."
       
       --(Quoted by W. Somerset Maugham in introduction to Liza of Lambeth)


On the turntable:  Miles Davis, "Milestones"

The Moon in a Sake Cup

 

My piece on the autumn moon...


https://www.kansaiscene.com/2020/09/the-moon-in-a-sake-cup/


On the turntable:  Jimi Hendrix, "Blue Wild Angel"
  

Sunday Papers: John M. Barry

"Emotion is not the absence of reason; emotion corrupts reason."


On the turntable:   Miles Davis, "Unreachable Station"

Further Down the Spiral

Twentieth Century terrorism was political, therefore, intellectual.  Twenty-first Century terrorism is predominantly religious, and therefore, anti-intellectual.  


On the turntable:  Miles Davis, "Portrait"

Sunday Papers: William Wordsworth

“A mind forever Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.”

On the turntable: Bee Gees, "Mythology"

The Journey to Mt. Koya

My piece on climbing a pair of pilgrimage paths up Koya-san:

 https://www.kansaiscene.com/2020/09/the-journey-to-koya-san/


On the turntable:  "Palermo Shooting OST"

Sunday Papers: Christopher Rush

"[T]he most interesting people I'd ever met were those who had never travelled but had stayed in one place, and by coming to understand it had come to understand the universe; [...] this was because travel narrows the mind and is for those who constantly require external stimuli, lacking sufficient inner resources of their own. Travel, in a word, is for people who have nothing better to do."


On the turntable:  Miles Davis, "Bluing"