Notes from the 'Nog

As the Three Wise Men were led by a light, I too followed light through the latter part of December. The bridge and bamboo forests of Ara...

Mid-month was kabuki.  The Kaomise event brings some of the top names to Kyoto for a month of shows.  The afternoon program had four plays a...

Miki's Tai Chi group is an amazing bunch. They have a very full schedule, including aikido, hiking, social dance, and a plethora of Chi...

The Origin arts foundation has a new machiya down in Gion , and we were invited to the opening party.  We sipped wine as Bodhi , the manage...

Any warm sunny day this time of year should be considered a gift, even if that gift will eventually come with a heavy pricetag. And Decembe...

"One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time." On the turntable: Va...

Hateful Things in Autumn: Lazy monks with leaf blowers (Surely there's a koan here somewhere, relating, no doubt, to dust alighting). On...

I realize that didn't post much in November. When I returned to the Kyo in late October, I'd made a pact with myself not to leave t...

Your friends back in the States are jaded.  They tell you how lucky you are to be far overseas, away from the madness.  You laugh and tell t...

I don't write about it much, but the main reason I moved to the Kyo was so that I could study Takeuchi Bujutsu , the oldest extant jujut...

“Translations are like mistresses: the beautiful ones aren’t faithful, and the faithful ones aren’t beautiful.” On the turntable: Timbuk 3,...

From Campbell, "It is the predicament of the neurotic that he translates everything into the terms of infantile sexuality; but if the d...

A mere two days after coming back to Kyoto, I was on the move again. Ezaki Mitsuru was again in need of people to help fire his kiln. Figuri...

I can't finish writing on my US trip without mentioning the music. Road trips require good tunes, a tradition dating back to those settl...

After I left Montreal, it was if someone hit the Fast Forward button, and the next two weeks passed at great speed. Montreal is only a coupl...

"It isn't the oceans which cut us off from the world--it's the American way of looking at things" On the turntable: Joe Ja...

"Religion is a travel guide for settlers." On the turntable: Yo Yo Ma, "Classic Yo Yo" On the nighttable: Elizabeth Gil...

Friday morning, I pointed the nose of my car north and followed it. It was a dreary day, less like rain and more like driving thru slow mov...

Halifax. My friend Marcin, (who you may remember from our Kyoto adventures) was living here now, teaching at the local university. The morn...