St. James's Gait

In the past, I've posted excerpts from my unedited 2005 Ireland journals in order to mark St. Patrick's Day.   Part One can be found here. 


  ...I eventually wound up at the Guinness brewery, having followed its scent for the previous few blocks.  It presented first as the smell of popcorn, then a block later shifted to that slightly sour smell I now find familiar.  For a brief moment, as I passed a fruit stand, all was sweet goodness.  

I turned up at the wrong gate, but an incredibly kind man set me straight.  His double around the back had the complete opposite demeanor, a slightly crooked and wretched-looking man standing beside a smaller version of a clydesdale.  I slipped past him to find an attractive Italian girl just inside.   Noticing the discounts given for student IDs, I slipped her my Japanese gaijin card, the only romanized characters being those for my name.  She noted that I could be showing her just about anything.  I replied that she'd just have to trust me, a hint of flirt in my voice.  She smiled and bid me pass. 

 I spent an hour or so working my way up through the multi-leveled displays.  It was an extremely industrial set-up, of huge girders, open spaces, and exposed elevators.  I felt like Charlie in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.  As a reminder of how indelibly linked the name Guinness is to stout in my own mind, I had honestly never realized until visiting here that it was the same people involved in the record keeping.   A true beer man, I am.

I finished with the brewing process stage, loving the smells and the immense wooden casks.  I was amazed that Guinness used oil tankers to ship its similarly-colored product.  There was certain level of hipness found in the multi-media "Craic" display, as well as in the video layout of old commercials.  On the 5th floor, we could post messages.  I wrote, ”クラックはどこ？”   

But the treasure lay at the top, in the form of a complimentary pint, served in a circular glass bar with a near 360 degree view of the city.  On the glass were written quotes by Joyce, facing the landmarks they described.  I was thrilled to have my first stout in Ireland, in all its creamy glory.  I nursed it while enjoying the view, then chatted with a guy from Chiba who I'd met downstairs.  

I set down Sráid Watling, which figures in Joyce, then turned the corner to find a house from "The Dead," facing the hideous James Joyce Bridge, obviously inspired by dental floss and ice cubes.  The Liffey itself was similarly uninspiring, but I followed it awhile before cutting directly across the city to an open shopping street of dull generic brand shops.  The streets running perpendicular had lively markets and various signs of immigrant life.  I began to notice more and more Chinese faces, no doubt preparing for  Lunar New Year the following day.  On one corner, a woman sold pears from a pram.  

The further east I walked, the more the local shops appeared.  I took a short break in order to share a coffee with Joyce, then set off for dinner and live music at O'Shea's, not far from my tourist ghetto bed.  The pub was busy, most disinterested in the football match showing on all the TV screens.  I alternated between writing, watching the game, and looking out the window.  Young beautiful women strode quickly home.  Many small groups of Chinese came from a single direction.  A guy dragged his bus pass along an iron fence.   Live music came on at 9:30, two guys playing trad tunes and really tearing it up.  Growing sleepy, I order a pint of Coca-Cola for €5, twice as much as my beer.  

 At my room once again, I talked awhile with my three Polish roommates, who had no trouble finding work in these days of the Celtic Tiger.  They all seemed quite intent on leaving their home country for good.  They had little money and had actually brought food over from Poland when they came.  I envied the fact that they could work in any EU country.  They thought my quest for family was brave, but it was they, giving up all that was familiar, who were the brave ones.  I taught them some Japanese numbers and basic phrases, then we all crashed out.  



On the turntable:  The Wolfgang Press, "The Burden of Mules" 

Raising Eire

In the past, I've posted excerpts from my Ireland journals in order to mark St. Patrick's Day.   Those previous two entries can be found here:  Day 2  &  Day 3.  The following post details my first day in country. 

At the gate for Air Lingus, I nearly laughed when I saw the open bar in one corner, despite ours being a 6:30 take-off.  At the exact moment they made the final boarding call, the gate over the bar slammed shut.  

The flight from Glasgow was short, around 40 minutes, and on my first view of the Irish coast I nearly wept.  I was amazed at the bright shade of green of the earth, and thought how the island deserves its reputation for being that color.  Then I realized that I was looking at a golf course. 

We touched down, and at the far end of the runway, I noticed a rainbow.  The flight attendants made their final announcements in both English and Gaelic.  It was one of those airports where you walk directly up to the plane, and the moment my feet hit the tarmac, I couldn't stop smiling.  The smile returned when my passport was stamped.  

I took the bus into town through a misty rain, which bled the scenery into a bland vision not unlike that found in most English suburbs, of long identical flats, and identical young mums in identical coats pushing identical prams.

Off the bus in Dublin proper, I set off toward Trinity College.   I found the Liffey, and beside it stood a man in African dress being interviewed by a variety of news cameras, probably about the iron statues of Ethiopean men behind him.   I followed the river a little while, cut over to Oscar Wilde's house, turned a corner, and entered the Trinity Gate.  I liked the idea of a walled island of knowledge purposely cut off from the rest of the world.  As I crossed the campus, that line of Van Morrison's, 'that smell of perfume comes drifting through' entered my ears the exact moment the scent of the sea entered my nose.  Beside the rugby field, the university's theatre building looked like it had been uprooted from Southeast Asia.  On the library steps was an orb built of steel bars, in the process of being pulled apart.  I took it for a metaphor for the earth, mechanized and on the brink of destruction. 

 Not far away was the Book of Kells.  The displays leading to the book itself dealt with the history of print in Ireland. At first glance, the Book itself wasn't much.  But something made me lean in for a closer look, and it was then I noticed the color and intricacy of the letters.  It looked to me like body art, perhaps because I'd spent months trying to find the right Celtic symbol for a tattoo I never got.

Upstairs, the Long Room further blew me away.  Two levels of books extended the length of the room on both sides, every shelf packed with dusty old volumes which must number in the tens of thousands.  It reminded me of the storeroom of relics at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.  I linger long here (due to the name perhaps?), amidst the soft light and rolling ladders, pondering if any one person has ever read, let along owned, so many books.  I could picture Joyce or Shaw in here, planting seeds. 

As the bells tolled noon,  I stepped back out into a drizzly rain, so I ducked into the chapel, which was closed, though a small antechamber offered a dry place to sit.  I tucked into my paperback copy of "Dubliners," having long wanted to read it here. ( I was thankful for the short length of the stories, allowing me to sit for brief periods at various locales throughout the city.)  I read a few stories while an organist practiced on the other side of the wall.  

I began to grow hungry, so joined the outflow of students passing through the school's main arch.   Turning right, I entered the maze of narrow cobblestone streets of Temple Bar.  The area looked rightly old, but I knew that a good many bars were new and somewhat trendy.  I found the Porterhouse pub (circa 1989 --Jeez!) and escaped the rain with a Strove Tuesday special of Brie Pancake and Chips and a pint.  After lunch, I wound through the old Viking settlements (where no real trace remains) and down toward St. Patrick's Cathedral.  In Dublin, it seems that the churches require admission, so not wanting to feed the beast, I opted out. I sat in the park to read, after passing the wall that highlights the names of Dublin's famous writers.  A wild, punk-looking guys in his 40s, with long dreads, Docs, fatigues, and multiple piercings repeatedly took laps around the fountain, hands tucked deep into his pockets.

I wandered the smaller streets awhile, trying to turn my brain on to increase awareness.  I saw the same bicycle courier twice.  Gangs of schoolgirls in uniform, with their long, swirling pleated skirts; the boys in suits of blue and identical haircuts.  Double-decker buses in yellow.  Three guys on a corner acting shady, probably scoring.  Two others on the walls of the fort, using.  (As I approached, one guy had a suspicious look on, one hand in his pocket.  I took my own hands out of my pockets and opened them.  He visibly relaxed.)  Lot's of familiar features in the faces of those who passed, of Irish friends and family, and of course my own late son Ken.    

More tomorrow...


On the turntable:  Johnny Winter, "Second Winter"

Sunday Papers: Thomas Jefferson

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered."



On the turntable:  Jorma Kaukonan, "Quah"
On the nighttable: Ezra Pound,  "Ezra Pound and Japan"

Seasonal Dysfunction

Another from the archives:

April 30, 1995

Seasonal confusion in mountains.  The trees are an incredible array of colors now, a collage even more intense than that of last autumn.  It's as if time hit mid-winter, freaked out, then reversed seasons.  How odd it would be to begin the year with autumn.  Near Biwa, the trees are like orange and yellow freckles on a tanned girl's skin.  Amongst them, the ground is littered with leaves, not the obligatory pink and white of sakura petals, but actual leaves.  Higher up, new maples block the sky with tiny outstretched hands, casting a grainy hue over the ancient buildings, the bridges, the creek.  Like looking at the world of a mis-colored photograph a century old...


On the turntable:  Pearl Jam, "Unplugged and Undrugged"

Sunday Papers: Matt Taibbi

"Organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy."

 On the turntable:  John Coltrane, "Crescent"

 

Mise-en-scène

I recently came across my first journal entry written in Japan, penned on a train as I rode north toward the city that would be my home for the next 12 years...

Sept 10, 1994 

Train through the countryside toward Yonago.  Rice paddies give way to mountains.  Running along rivers, blue herons everywhere.  Villages nestled between hills.  Scarecrows with straw hats bent over rice.  A baseball game in a small city.  A VW beetle welded to a ramp appears ready to hurdle the stream.  A woman bends to pick rice while her husband sits on a tractor nearby scratching his forearm.  A trainload of sleeping Japanese pulls alongside.  Piles of rice dry in the sun.  Trees hide a small shinto shrine.  Fishermen wade in streams, casting a line from a rod over four times their height.


On the turntable:  The Rolling Stone, "Stripped"

    

Trinity

This piece was written in late 2011, not long after the trip itself.  I'd been holding off on putting it on the blog since it is intended to appear within a longer body of work.  But the time just feels right... 

The rooster and the owl were having a jam session. In their best syncopated call and response, they were playing a piece that recalled the epic battle between light and dark. Where the rooster summoned the sun, the owl was calling up death, at least according to the Navajo. The owl seemed to be winning for the moment, as the sun had yet to crest the Jicarilla range not far to the east. The owl called again. "I am become Death. I am the destroyer of worlds."

I recalled Robert Oppenheimer's famous words as I swung on the porch swing, awaiting the dawn. As I swung, I cradled my newborn daughter who was tucked into my fleece jacket as protection against the cold. She and my wife would stay here through the morning, while I drove southeast to Trinity Test Site. The radiation still present there wasn't recommended for an infant or for a nursing mother. As for myself, I hoped that I would receive a smaller dose than that now emanating from the first rays of a sun finally coaxed by the rooster into the eastern sky.

The road rises out of the valley of the Rio Grande that waters the Bosque del Apache not far to the south. The land flattens out eventually, with a few low hills standing as sentinels to the turnoff toward the Trinity Test Site. The true gate is at the Stallion Army Air Force Base, where my ID is checked, and I am handed information about today's event from two people who look like volunteers, definitely non-military. The road then heads south, through a landscape flat and featureless. Now and then an animal crossing sign looms up, bearing the silhouettes of elk, loping with head down, or the pronghorn, forelegs raised and curled, ready to spring into my path.

Besides the signs, the monotony of landscape here is at first broken only by the stands of spiky agave that rise above the dirt and rock. Then comes a nub of a man-made structure which mimics the low, squat shapes of the volcanoes to the east. Other buildings of unusual shape and unidentifiable purpose stand far away from the main roads. It is so vast and open here, the presence of any vehicle would be noticed for miles. The dust alone acts as a low-cost distant early warning system. I remember a friend who once herded sheep on the Navajo reservation over in Arizona telling me that he'd see the dust trail long before he saw the actual vehicle. He'd then go into the house and put on the kettle for the guests who would arrive twenty minutes later.

Today, however, we are all expected. The test site is only open on this, the first Saturday of October, as well as on the first Saturday of April. As I make the final turn off to the site, I can see the light reflecting off the windshields of a few hundred vehicles down in the parking area.   I wonder how early they got here, as it is still less than a half hour after the main gate opened. I opt for irony for my own final approach, letting Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner" fan out loudly into the desert.

I find a place for my car, then walk through a gate that funnels us down a chain link fence to the site itself, broad and circular with a single obelisk at the center. I'm not sure if there is any irony intended to the fact that this whole fenced in area is shaped like a mushroom. There must be a thousand people here, with more arriving by the carload. The majority are the tourist type, of shapes and sizes I rarely see in more health and fashion conscious Santa Fe. It is definitely a shorts and T-shirt kind of crowd, and many wear slogans that must be inside jokes for scientists. I can understand Trinity's draw for physicists. There are also science fans of a lesser sort here, and I overhear a fair amount of conversations about UFOs.

But I don't notice any of this until later. As I enter the test site proper, my attention is held only by the obelisk standing at the center. It is a short tower of black volcanic stone held together by concrete, and I smile at the irony of Vulcan being the Roman god of fire. I move along to the fence line, hung with signs and photos taken at random points of the blast. The time lapse photographs show the changing shape of the fire that for a few moments turned the pre-dawn darkness as light as midday. Oppenheimer's words return to me suddenly.

Turning back to the center, I notice that many people are hunched over and looking at the desert floor. Trinitite. Existing only here at Trinity, it is a glass-like substance composed of sand that had fused together during the blast. I hurry over to one man who turns a piece over in his hand. Then I laugh. I had long looked forward to seeing this, the newest of our planet's gems, but due to my being color blind, it looked nothing like I'd read. In fact, I'd been walking over pieces since I'd arrived, yet had seen only the dull gray of the usual sort found in the desert. My attention--all of our attention--was then suddenly pulled upward, by a sonic boom, then a jet streaking across the sky, barrel rolling as it passed.

I board the shuttle bus to McDonald Ranch, where scientists who'd worked on the Trinity Blast had been housed. I can imagine the silence that had surrounded them, at the open space filled only with their anxieties over whether or not the test bomb, dubbed "Jumbo," would work at all.  Some of their graffiti still remains on the walls and doors, the usual witticisms of a group of bright young people left in close quarters with little to occupy them but their work; of strangers thrown together in an extreme location and situation. I can imagine the permutations that their conversation took, as they drank beers and watched the desert at the end of a long day.

A similar scene had played out on a smaller scale last night at my B&B back in San Antonio, NM. There were two other couples there, and our talk took on new life out on the patio after dark, where the air's chill nearly matched that of the ice in the drinks. The other two men were ex-Air Force, both of the Vietnam generation, but with very different characters. One had been a pilot, stationed in Thailand, from where he'd taken off on his missions. He was a nice fellow, with the confident air of an officer. The other man had been an enlisted man, who'd never left the continental US.  He had a warmer, more gentle demeanor, and after the other man went off to bed, I heard more of his story. His job had been to guard the missile silos up in North Dakota, much of his time spent passing long nights in the brutal cold of the winters up there. There wasn't much to do but his job, and remember that this was a time when people didn't question, or even seem to think much about, the orders they'd been given.  Eventually, the health problems began, evolving into a more and more serious nature until the cancers began to develop. In the midst of all this his son had been born, a normal enough kid, but with a few health disorders of his own. As the man talked, he paused often for his tears, waiting out the catch in his voice. The military hadn't offered much, not even answers to what might be wrong. So he began to read, researching every single aspect of what had been birthed here on that July day in 1945. It was incredible the amount he'd read.  But he'd never been to Los Alamos, and this visit to the Trinity Site was a first.  It was a pilgrimage for him, a step toward the birthplace of the thing that threatens to destroy mankind's existence, yet at the same time defines his own.

His story began to trail off, blown by the soft stirring in the desert night.  He was off somewhere else, away from his wife, away from me.  Honoring his silence, I moved off toward bed.

As I now walk amongst the sites of Trinity, he is still with me, entwined now with my own experience here.  I'm happy when I later see him making his way in, and return the smile that radiates beneath the shade of his cap.  We quickly exchange addresses, then I leave him to face what is his alone. 

The final thing I do before leaving is to take a lap around the parking lot, looking at the tables and the food stands. One of them is manned by two scientists, who answer questions more technical than historic. One of the scientists has a question for us. "Of all the things here, what is the most radioactive?" The answer of course being, "We are." Being close to White Sands, the Park Rangers have a table selling books and things educational. This is in sharp contrast to another souvenir stand standing beside it, expressing the height of poor taste. In neat rows are T-shirts and coffee mugs, adorned with pithy sayings which flank that familiar pillar of fire imprinted upon our common memory. I'd seen similar items up in Los Alamos and had been similarly offended. I can assure you that nowhere in Japan is there a coffee mug or T-shirt emblazoned with a picture the USS Arizona ablaze.

My car is the sole Subaru out in the parking lot. I walk toward it, past all the trucks and Texas plates and Christian bumper stickers. The crowd here today is definitively pro-nuke. And as I climb into my car, I turn and look in the direction of Three Rivers, out beyond the mountains to the east. I wonder how many of those at Trinity today are familiar with the thousands of petroglyphs there, reminders of a time when man looked to the sky with wonder rather than fear.



On the turntable:  Yonder Mountain String Band, "Mountain tracks, Vol. 1"
On the nighttable: Legs McNeil, "Please Kill Me"

Sunday Papers: Mark Walsh

"Speaking is just a out-breath with stuff in the way."


On the turntable:  Tortoise, "Standards"

Recollections of Shikoku

The villages in the area had buried their dead under the pines by the beach, facing the water, as if connecting the eternal flow of the sea with that of death.  Then the rails lines had been built, severing that link, a manifestation of man's delusion that he can control space and time.


On the turntable:  Garcia and Grisman, "Squaw Valley, August 25, 1991"

Sunday Papers: Nicolson Baker

"Footnotes are the finer-suckered surfaces that allow tentacular paragraphs to hold fast to the wider reality of the library."


On the turntable:  Santana" "Abraxas"
On the nighttable:  Blaise Cendrars, "The Confessions of Dan Yack"

Sunday Papers: Audie Bock

“There are no happy endings for Naruse, but there are incredibly enlightened defeats.”


On the turntable:  The Rolling Stones, "12x4"

(untitled)

Born in northern hills,
The icy wind claws my face.
More snow on the way.

 

 

On the turntable:  Aerosmith, Get Your Wings" 

Renku three

  

Shrine Tourists Renku

(May 2005 - August 2006)
Shrine tourists
Pass by history
Stopped by cake

MB (1)



on Amida's palm
rests a mosquito

EL (2)


pray for the meek ones,
pray for love;
clap hands for mercy

RP (3)


Gion summer night
rose colour yukata

EL (4)


sun's last rays
music is ended --
old friend dies

RP (5)


through Iowa clouds
think of Buddy Holly

TT (6)


ice cubed thoughts melt -
puddles of watermelon dreams

CC (7)


garden still as stone
green leaf falls to ground

dm (8)


foolish man
picks up fallen leaf,
rolls a fag

RP (9)


typhoon winds cool brain--
still no haiku comes

TT (10)


Giant green
Azalea marks
rainy season

EL (11)


orange, orange: the
full-throated day lilies

EA (12)


On the roof,
gargling magpies:
it's morning!

RP (13)

snail descending wall
hoikuen awaits

DL (14)


Kamogawa swells
Refresh the faces
Of stone turtles

TT (15)


Alone they endure
while waters flow by

SH (16)


On the turntable:  Crosby Stills & Nash,  "Crosby Stills & Nash"

Renku two

 

Firefly Tears Renku (March - May 2005) 

 

Chiran's rain
layers on tears of
fireflies

EL (1)

Australia has no
fireflies -- only sun

RP (2)

For Eli
fireflies, flowers shine--
sing: faa-faa!

ZS (3)

In the bath singing
Fly Me to the Moon

EL (4)

Rabbits in the moon
know the beautiful star
-our earth

MK(5)

Brightest stars tonight
Autumn trees ghost red

RP (6)

nightime pond--
drunken pink blossoms,
kids--fall in.

ZS (7)

Boy with Hayfever --
mountain of tissues

EL (8)


Trees exhale--
Cedars sneeze dust as
Cherries pop corn

TT (9)

In the dark this film
Lights across her face

EL (10)


Bees emerge
from behind ivy --
morning sun

RP (11)

From Peace Dome ruins,
a sudden sadness

EL (12)


Skies darken,
Deep distant rumble --
A loon cries

RP (13)

crow combat--careens
black tears streaking blue

ZS (14)


under bridge
duck shadows sleeping --
north white stream

EL (15)


chorus of May frogs
croak, "It's cold! Where's Spring?"

TT (16)

On the turntable:  The Beatles, "Anthology 1"

Renku one

  

Slipping back in time a bit, I wanted to post some Renku from the mid-aughts.  Over the next few days, I'll post the three poems that I was involved in, posting as "TT."   

Spring Poets Renku (2004-05)

poets wait for spring--
snow fills each leaf scar.

RP (1)


left alone
the grease falls from the
kitchen fan

EL (2)

sweet potatoes sold
in white paper cups

JH (3)


Overlooking
the nearest only seeing
far surface

MK(4)

shadows grow, sun sets --
Gion plum blooming

EL (5)


first crow caw
splits morning silence --
cold and black

RP (6)

living kyoto life
with a thousand ghosts

EL (7)


Inhaling
spirits: her plum wine,
all fragrance.

EA (8)

exhaling mountain
sighs, cedars steaming

ZS (9)

rain all night
and fierce howling wind
split peach tree

RP (10)

in bed two of us
hiding from winter

EL (11)


shadows thrown
by castle walls
hide ice

TT (12)

charging blue school skirts
clicking cameras

EL (13)

Donut King
teeny-bopper stands,
pulls wedgie

RP (14)

Burger wrappers litter
Guinness-colored Irish bogs

TT (15)

Setsubun,
burning rosary:
each bead glows.

EA (16)

On the turntable:  John Cale/Lou Reed, "Songs for Drella"
 

Sunday Papers: Ken Nordine

"I always admire when someone can use the language, which is so inexact in many ways, and torture it into some beautiful statement, so you can say,  'Gee, I wish I'd written that.'"


On the turntable:  The Ramones,  "Pleasant Dreams"
On the nighttable:  John Ruskin, "Modern Painters"
 

The Fire this Time...

My performance last week at The Flame...



On the turntable:  Thelonious Monk, "The London Collection"

Oni Apartheid

The news reported that tens of thousands of hate crimes against oni were carried out across the nation yesterday. This divisive issue doesn't appear to be going away any time soon.


On the turntable:  Fleetwood Mac,  "Carousel SF, June 1968" 

Divisive issues...

 

福は内。鬼も内！

Sunday Papers: Alan Watts

"I can only say that a universe which has manifested Gary Snyder could never be called a failure."  


On the turntable:  Drive-by Truckers, "Pizza Deliverance"
On the nighttable:  Sean Murphy, "One Bird, One Stone"

Backdoor to the Bakumatsu

There's a common misconception that the Meiji Restoration was bloodless. In fact, there was a great deal of blood shed, most of it spilled upon the streets of Kyoto.  There was a walk that I wanted to do that took me through the heart of the city, hitting sites bearing scars 150 years old.  My route would miss the most famous site, Ikedaya, perhaps better visited at night as it is now an izakaya.  A few dozen meters up the street, beams on the south side of Sanjo Bridge still bear scars from the battle.   As it was, I was joined by Joel Stewart and Deep Michael to stroll the back streets of town, on a day so warm and sunny it may as well have been April. 

We set off from Kyoto station, and after a few ill-advised detours turned north on Aburakoji Street, with its weathered lanterns signifying the old shops of oil merchants.  One appears to still be in business.  Along the way, we passed Honkōji, where Itō Kashitarō was assassinated by the Shisengumi for being an Imperial turncoat.  This action proved to be in vain, for Japan's last Shogun was stripped of his power literally weeks later.  The rapid westernization which followed is exemplified a few blocks later in the tall, cathedral-like building made of brick and tiled dome, constructed in 1912 and now utilized by the Jodo Shinshu. 

We'll stay under that sects influence as we head along the north wall of Nishi Honganji,which itself is bordered to the south by Ryukoku University, whose campus still maintains its beautiful Meiji period form. 

We arrive soon at the gate to Shimabara, the old red light district.  It's been said that when the old district was moved from across town to its current location, the uproar was so great that it rivalled the Shimabara Rebellion in Kyushu just a few years before.  Only two former tea houses remain, though it is rumored that a few oiran still exist.  At the district's far end, the road suddenly becomes an abrupt right angle, a defensive demarcation of what in feudal times had been Kyoto's western limit. Michael quips that if  this bend in the road didn't slow an invading army,  the services rendered a dozen meters further on certainly would.   

We follow Senbondori for a kilometer or so.  The section that I'd walked a month ago as the Toba Kaidō led directly to the site of the old Rashomon Gate, beyond which the road is immediately disrupted by Umekoji Park.  Here at the park's northern edge, we've picked it up again.  In Heian times, Senbon was known as Suzaku Dori, the broad avenue leading to the site of the old Imperial Palace.  The road's current incarnation got its name from the tall trees that once offered shade to those visiting the palace.  

We follow it to Mibu-dera, the former headquarters of the Shinsengumi.   Now a quiet neighborhood, it's hard to imagine that they had once used these grounds for practicing with the new western import of cannon.   In one corner is a tall pyramid covered with Jizo statues transplanted from elsewhere.   Dozens of pigeons warm themselves on the tiled roof of the main hall beside it.  As the three of us stand between the Benten Hall and  hexagonal Jizo Hall, these birds suddenly fly toward us on masse.  Bizarrely, at that very moment we had been discussing Benten as the muse of artists, and thus the action of the unbeckoned birds creates an impetus for me to write this very line.  

Beside these two halls is a newer structure built of criss-crossed wooden beams.  Beneath lies small museum, the floor of which is an incongruous mishmash of tile.  This is one of the most unorthodox temple buildings I've ever seen, yet not at all unattractive.  Amongst the treasures is a Heian period statue that somehow survived a millennium of fire and warfare. There is also a pair of photos of two Shinsengumi leaders, one in western garb and a strikingly contemporary haircut.   The main statue of this structure is the medicine Buddha, though this one specializes in teeth.  A reminder that it's almost lunchtime.

Out on the street again, Joel is suddenly called away on an errand, but Michael and I continue to zigzag north, on and off Omiya-dori.  Crossing the grounds of Shinsen-en, the sight of a wheelbarrow standing behind the main shrine building launches a long conversation about William Carlos Williams, which stays with us as we wrap ourselves around Nijo-jo and into the arms of La Jolla restaurant.  Burritos and beers help to change the subject.  

This visit to a little slice of California has also created a type of time warp, as we suddenly leave the late Edo Period for the Heian.  We continue sleepily up to the corner of Marutamachi and Senbon where we find the site of the old palace.  In the vicinity are dozens of stones and signs marking where the structures had once stood.   We spend a long time at the Heian Museum, time mostly spent looking down at the 3-D map of a city long gone.  A reminder that the sense of wonder is timeless...

EPILOGUE:
Perhaps due to the fact that Michael and I made that detour to the Heian Period, the Meiji wouldn't leave me alone.  The upper right corner of my map scolded me for my neglect.  So on another sunny afternoon a few days later, I decided to complete the walk with my daughter, hitting those final sites all lying within the confines of the current grounds of the Imperial Palace.  

We entered through the Hamaguri gate, on the palace's west side.  A century and half of rubbing fingers have smoothed the bullet holes in the gate's wooden door, where Tokugawa-backed samurai from the Aizu domain were held off by the men from Choshu who were protecting the Emperor.  In times of fire, his particular gate was the only one open to the citizens of Kyoto who sought shelter from the conflagration.  Otherwise it was close as tight as a calm, hence the name hamaguri.  Just this month I read that in the case of major disaster, the city had designated this place as an evacuation shelter .  Looking around, I wondered if there was enough room here for 1.5 million people to pitch their tents.

Just to the south is Munagata Shrine, serving as an oasis within an oasis.  Towering above it all is a 600 year old camphor tree, on whose leaves the imperials once wrote sutras, mimicking those ancient Indians who once did (and continue to do) the same in sanskrit.  This writing (書) on leaves (葉) is the origin of the word for postcard (葉書).  Looking for history and spirit, I get a lesson in linguistics.

My daughter and I walk back to our bicycle along the Demizu Stream (which was once connected by canal to Lake Biwa).  Along the way, we note that the plum blossoms are already coming into their bloom, despite it being only the first day of the second month.  Each little burst of yellow is another reminder of time continuing to cycle us forward.  


On the turntable:  Steely Dan, "Alive in America"
On the nighttable:  Yoshiro Tamura, "Japanese Buddhism: A Cultural History"

Under Crooked Pine

My stripped down interview with Mark Dodds is up and running.
(Super-sized version coming out in book form sometime in the future...)

http://kyotojournal.org/kyoto-interview/under-crooked-pine/


On the turntable:  Harold Budd & hector Zazou, "Glyph Remixes"
On the nighttable:  Yoshiro Tamura, "Japanese Buddhism"
 

Sunday Papers: Joel Weishaus

"Odysseus of the Open Road has morphed into Polyphemus of the Rush Hour. Now even poets usually stay home and phone, text, or Skype a distant friend."


On the turntable:  The Band, "Rock of Ages"
On the nighttable:  John Einarsen, "Zen and Kyoto' 

Sentimental Journey

I've spent far too many of these January days at my desk, clearing out over six months of writing projects.  The weather has been another factor, being wetter than on most years, albeit warmer.  Today we were rewarded with sunny skies and a high of 12 degrees.  Mishima proved the clincher, as I came across a quote of his saying something about needing to leave his study in order to feel the sun on his body.  Thus I followed suit, though not quite to extreme that Mishima himself took it.

I bike southwest, through the warren-like streets of Nishijin.  I pass the house that we nearly moved into in December, before we vetoed the west side altogether.  I round the south of Myoshinji, and leave my bicycle at an Imamiya Jinja under the wraps of construction.

I pass one of my favorite temples in the city, Hōkongō-in, the one with the beautiful lotus garden that blooms in August.  One summer a decade ago, I spent a long period cooling off in the museum here, staring at statuary which kept me as rooted in place as the air-con did. 

Just beyond the temple, I begin to trace the base of Narabi-ga-oka burial mounds.  Miki and I walked this many years ago, in the days before she was my wife.  In the forest we had found a ninja throwing star made from tin foil, and I shot a photo of Miki pretending to throw it at me, a photo that for years stood as her profile pic on my mobile phone.   Sometimes in marriage's darker moments, I think of that throwing star as a harbinger. 

I keep moving along a shaded path that follows the canal below.  Somewhere near here was a house that used to belong to the mistress of a famous film actor back in the 1920s.  I attended a party here one spring afternoon when the sakura were in bloom, their petals blowing like confetti through the bamboo trees outside the house's upper deck.  As we sipped our wine, we listened to William Burroughs singing The Egyptian Book of the Dead,  with Bill Laswell on bass behind him.  I heard recently that the house is gone, despite being one of the most beautiful I've seen in this city.

The hill drops away and I come to the main gate of Ninna-ji, framing as it does a mountainscape of subdued green.  A mounted guide map shows a cluster of temples just to the west.  I'm tempted, but they can wait until another sunny day.  Instead, I follow a diagonal street toward Myoshin-ji.  

Along the way I find the "Wonder Cafe" and step inside, to be led to a table in the front window.  The layout of this place is extraordinary, as each table is separated into its own nook which is shaped by high book shelves. Knick-knacks fill every available space.   I look at an old copy of one of my favorite Japanese mags, "Taiyo,"  this one in particular dedicated to walking in Kyoto.  On one page, I see an article on my friend Jack, looking far svelter back in 1999.  Over my left shoulder is an action figure of Taylor from Planet of the Apes.  Over my right is a CD of James Taylor.  The combination of we three Taylors must account for something in the universe.  I am half expecting Duran Duran to come over the sound systems, but instead I get Jane Birkin proving her "Je t'aime" for Serge Gainsbourg.  A far better choice.

I make it to Myoshin-ji eventually.  The layout of low temple walls and stone walks is reminiscent of Daitoku-ji in my own neighborhood, but the abundant green here, along with the accessibility of the sky, makes it appear far less fortified than its slightly older cousin to the east.   As I walk, I realize how many memories I have of Myoshin-ji, despite never having lived nearby.  I remember in particular a KJ release party here one night,  where the art and the music nearly won out against the beauty of the moon rising above a September garden.

The weather today too remains glorious.  The only grey to be seen is in the robes of a group of Korean nuns, wandering around the temple grounds, snapping photographs as if testing the theory of impermanence.  When the descending sun brings the coolness of evening,  I too am gone.


On the turntable:  The Moody Blues, "This Is..."
On the nighttable:  Nicholson Baker, "Room Temperature"

Bob Dylan & Allen Ginsberg Poetry & Song Celebration

Thanks to Deep Kyoto for posting about last Friday's musician/poet night at Tadgs.  I like how my own performance came off though I'm not altogether happy with my voice.  It sounds weak and thin, a testament to not having sung live for about eight years.  Plus I'm not in a comfortable key.  Max however needs no excuses, with his usual subdued wonderfulness...

The videos can be found here.


On the turntable:  The Beatles, "Strawberry Fields Forever"

Sunday Papers: Susan Estep

"The industrialization of any wild and scenic place goes against the aesthetic of the West."


On the turntable:  Pete Townsend, "Empty Glass"

Sunday Papers: Fred Lowery

"People don't whistle much anymore.  I guess it's a sign of the times.  Whistling is a carefree, happy thing, and these aren't carefree, happy times.  Everybody's uptight about something."


On the turntable:  Joy Division, "Unknown Pleasures"

 

Sunday Papers: Ken Nordine

"The truth is right in front of you when your back is turned."


On the turntable:  The Kinks, "Face to Face"

Moving to Stand Still. (Western Front II)

There was a slowness to the morning.  Something about its nature, as everyone about seemed unhurried.  Many of the people I saw appeared to be heading home after passing the wee hours bringing in the new year.  There is a refreshingly languid feel to Japan at rest.

The train too felt unhurried, as I rode for over an hour to the northern reaches of Lake Biwa.  I made certain to get a seat on the right side, and await the first sunrise of 2014.  It too tarried a bit in arriving, needing a little more time to clear the bank of clouds nestling against the water's surface.

I'd certainly picked the wrong shoes for the day's walk.  There was a good 10 centimeters of snow on the ground.  And even it looked like it was in no hurry to get anywhere. 

The village of Makino was quiet, though occasionally a besuited man or two would cross the road ahead of me, moving toward the local shine with a wooden stick in hand.  One man smiled broadly and wished me a happy new year in my native language. 

On the outskirts of the village, a thatched roof house was working out the pace of its own state of decay.  As the main highway through here was flanked by snow, I walked down the middle, unmolested by cars which seemed to pass by only every ten minutes or so.  Beside the road, one car had a freshly torn left front fender, perhaps skidding on this very road last night.  Its driver may have been amidst the dozen or so people lined up at a small shrine in order to welcome the local deities into 2014.  I looked past them to the mountains on the horizon, a range on which I nearly lost my life in a snowstorm nearly a year ago.  I'd have to do my own praying later on.

I walk only a hour and a half, and come to Omi Imazu Station.  As I'd already walked the next section, I needed to leapfrog ahead 15km.  Hitching would be impossible due to the dearth of cars on the road.  But there was a taxi waiting at the station, so I hopped in.  I asked him to take the road along the water, retracing my steps on a hot August day just before I moved from Kyoto.   The driver moonlighted as the owner of a local inn, and seemed keen on talking me into buying a holiday home up this way.  We had a pleasant chat as my eyes stayed upon the ground over which I had previously trodden.

Today was a far more pleasant day for walking, the sun indifferent about keeping a consistent temperature as it popped in and out of the clouds.  It shone miraculous beams down upon the lake, the water gently lapped the snowy shore as if tasting ice cream.  I wandered into an neighborhood of beach homes with their free-form approach to architecture.   I left the road to walk atop the carpet of pine needles that coated the beach,  and followed it all the way into town.

Takashima had yet to awake this morning, which felt about right.  I moved past the shuttered galleries and cafes to the station, catching a train that got me home before lunch.  Over five days, I'd finished all the unfinished walks in my guidebooks, and looked forward to just sitting still awhile, easing myself into the laconic canter of this New Year of the Horse


On the turntable:  Yonder Mountain String Band, "Old Hands"
On the nighttable:  Richard Russell, "Dancing over Kyoto"

Beyond Spiders and Wizards

I'm on a very early train, trying to catch glimpses of the final sunrise of the year, as it rises between the edifices of south Kyoto.  After a number of failed attempts, I had finally been able to find a coffee at a shop near the Kintetsu line, a line I rarely use.  Why, oh why is it so hard to find an open coffee place before 7:30?  I sip and I ponder and look out the window at the mist rising off the shorn rice fields.  The view from these trains as they edge past the suburbs is like looking at the back of a film set. 

On this last day of the year, the trains are pretty empty.  The few passengers all have their eyes closed, and I envy yet again the ability of the Japanese to fall comatose on a train lurching through morning. 

It is raining slightly as I disembark and hail a taxi.  But luck is with me and the skies clear by the time I get dropped off at Kuhonji, where Ojisan Jake and I finished the southern half of the Katsuragi Kaidō five summers ago.   As we did last time, I follow the path as it zigs and zags up and down Mount Katsuragi's lower slopes, leading to small shrines that sit quietly at the edge of the forest.  None of the shrines share the patina of age of those ancient shrines a few kilometers to the south.  Perhaps these arose as the spiritual hearts for the hamlets that developed over the next millennium.  One of the bigger shrines has a large cannon in the courtyard, a self-congratulatory relic from the Russo-Japanese war over a century ago.  Here and there I've seen at shrines the tall stones that commemorate the dead of this particular war, but I've never seen something so blatantly militaristic. Perhaps the name of this shrine,  Fuefuki Jinja, or "Shrine of the Whistling Flute," is referring to the sounds that shells made as they were fired at Russian positions in 1905.  The ema here are similarly decorated with this cannon, and when I ask if I could purchase one, I'm told that they are only sold to 'special persons.'  So I go back and have a look at some of those hanging on the rack, and see nothing special whatsoever.  I'm tempted to play the race card here, but I'm in the holiday spirit.  

As I continue north, I connect the dots with small hamlets.  One of them has a tall, three story tower where you can swing in a hammock as you admire the view.  In the next village, I count at least five labrador retrievers tied up in front of four different houses, and wonder if they are from the same litter.  There are the ubiquitous jokey signs about these pets, "Labrador Crossing."  The children however, don't seem to get the same pampered treatment, for a massive pile of earth has been piled up beside an elementary school.  That said, I remember the fun we used to have playing boyhood games amidst similar construction sites. 

The day has turned warm, and I pass a wonderful morning being a part of the rural landscape.  There are few people about, everyone probably enjoying family as they wait out the old year.  I do spy an incredibly old woman walking away after making a flower offering at a small graveyard beside a pond.  Near another pond, a farmer comes out to chat with me, mainly about his village's history as traditional dyers.  Similar ponds line the path as it moves along.  I'm intrigued by this man-made landscape.  The ancient kings of this region must've held incredible power as they could command not only these massive aqueduct projects but also the construction of the mounds under which they were eventually buried.    

Mount Nijo looms above me now, the villages below housing some large and ornate temples.  Most are closed in order to prepare for the midnight ringing of the bells.  I feel the need for yet another journey down here in the future.   It's just as well, as I hope to get back up to Kyoto before the day gets late, and the trains begin to fill with those intending to revel in the new year.  But as usual, I am far more interested in the past, and the only countdown I take part in will be measured in the number of steps I'll take in order to seek it out...


On the turntable:  Curtis Mayfield, "The Anthology"
On the nighttable: Dan K. Charkoski, "The Drop"

Happy New Year!

Candor, gallop, or trot.

Saddle up...