Saturday, April 12, 2014

End of Part II



It's simply a feeling.  When I'm outside of the States I feel better - mentally, emotionally, maybe even physically.  I feel alive when I am in a foreign land.  All my senses are heightened.  It is discovery.  It is an education I could never get from a university.  I find it all, even the most ordinary things, inspiring.  I am fascinated by how people live.  Not in a scientific anthropological way.  That is for the academics.  It is the details of life.  That is what interests me.

It is not that I dislike my country.  But the US just doesn't move me anymore.  It's an old story, I know it.  I've spent at least 43 of my 45 years there.  It's not going to surprise or excite me at this point.  It is safe to assume, statistically, that I have lived more than half of my life.  Do I want to spend the next 30 or 40 years digging deeper into America?  The answer is no.  I've barely scuffed the rest of this great, blue marble called Earth.  There is a lot more out there.

So why Kyoto?  Like so many Japanese things it is difficult to explain.  But I feel a connection.  Week after week, month after month in Kyoto I found more and more in common with the Japanese.  Habits, a certain aesthetic, an approach to life.  The way I do things, things I've done since I was an adolescent, I discovered were the same as the Japanese.  I would have regular "ah-yes-of-course" moments, when I would suddenly understand, and realize at the same time that I always knew.  My short answer to that question is: I simply like the Japanese way.  I smile a lot in Kyoto.

I'm not trying to be Japanese.  As anyone that knows me can attest, I've always been more oriented towards Europe.  Since my first trip to Germany when I was 12-years-old I've been  captivated by European culture.  Japan was certainly on my radar of places I wanted to go, but I visited London, Paris, Berlin and Milan dozens of times before I ever thought to go to the Land of the Rising Sun.

Is it possible to face the wrong direction for 30 years?  To look for oneself in the wrong place?  I've always maintained that you can't know the place you grew up in, or the place where you are currently living is the best until you have lived elsewhere.  How can you say, "New York is the best city in the world"?  Or Boise or Gstaad or Johannesburg or Buenos Aires or Shanghai?  Without traveling, without living somewhere else it is empty, jingoist braggadocio.  There is a whole giant world beyond your backyard.

I do believe when you find your place you know it.  There is a feeling you've lived there your whole life.  That is Kyoto for me.  I never thought I'd fall in love with another city after Paris.  But I have.  Of course New York inspired me for a time and I'll always love New York.  But I don't need New York anymore, I've outgrown it.

So my adventures in Japan have come to an end - for now.  Zen Buddhism teaches not to cling.  So while I am sad about leaving Kyoto I am trying to let go of this wonderful city.  As one friend told me, life is a spiral, so Japan and Kyoto will come back into my life.  I'm looking forward to it.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

April snow



The sakura blossom does not last long, typically only a week.  Its departure is as dramatic and exciting as its arrival.  Where there are scores of sakura grouped together a gentle breeze will create a snow storm of petals.  These then dot the streets and rivers creating a moving abstract pointillist painting.

The shower of cherry blossoms has appeared in dozens of Japanese films, the metaphor ripe for interpretation.  We know this scene well.  But to experience it firsthand is something magical.  One can't help but smile and gasp when caught in such a storm.



Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Catching up with the past (or vice versa)


I first met Sir Paul Smith in Milan in the winter of 2001.  I had a couple of months earlier completed my very first set of windows for his shop on 5th Ave. in New York City.  I happened to be in Milan with another company for Fashion Week.  Paul was there celebrating the opening of his then new shop.

Tonight I saw him again.  This time in Tokyo at his shop Space.  He was in town for the opening reception of an artistic collaboration with Spanish porcelain company Lladro.  I was in town en route to Los Angeles.

I have now had the pleasure to greet Paul in Tokyo, London, Paris, Milan, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.  He is the same down-to-earth, gracious and humorous gentleman no matter where he is.  I'm happy our paths could cross once again.


Sunday, April 6, 2014

The studio after 6 months




Okonomiyaki


Several weeks ago I went to Osaka for the first time.  My friend Keiko had invited me for the Hinamatsuri Festival.  While there I was introduced to an Osaka culinary specialty - Okonomiyaki.

Okonomiyaki translates as "what you like, cooked".  It is a sort of reinterpretation of the European crêpe that came about after the War when times were tough.

It sounds a bit odd: shredded cabbage in a pancake batter with a layer of thinly sliced pork belly smothered in otafuku (a sort of Worcestershire sauce) and Kewpie mayonnaise.

This is not Japanese haute cuisine.  You will not find okonomiyake included in an elaborate kaiseki meal.  Emperors, shogunate and geishas do not eat okonomiyaki.  But it is nonetheless distinctly Japanese and sooo tasty.  It has become a staple at Robert no Uchi .

Part of the joy of eating in Japan is the unique cooking apparatuses that are brought to your table or built right in.  Dining here hovers somewhere between performance and self-catering depending on what you're eating and where.  Okonomiyaki is made on a teppan or griddle.  Where I had the good fortune to eat it for the first time this was part of the table.  This extremely hot iron surface and my meal sat between Keiko and I.

The server brought a bowl of batter-covered cabbage to the table, cracked an egg into it, mixed it up and poured it onto the teppan.  Then she left.  She returned with some more ingredients: pork belly, noodles, cheese, etc.  Then she left again.  I'm watching this funny pancake cook.  I'm smelling it.  I'm feeling the heat from the griddle.  I want to dig in.  But there is more.  She flips it once (twice?) then brings the toppings: otafuku, Kewpie mayonnaise, shaved "dancing" bonita flakes.  Finally we are instructed it is okay to eat.  There are no plates.  We eat right from the teppan.

Only in Japan.