Late Spring

A cool green breeze

late spring

cut down the river

bending over the bridge

Sayōnara 12-19 Shinkai Gokanosho!

I still go to Uji once a month for acupuncture.  There is an amazing bakery there called Tamakitei around the corner from where I used to live.  Today I decided to pick up something for lunch following my appointment.  I was happy to discover they had moved to a larger space down the street.  Their popularity is undiminished.

On my way to the train I had a look down my old street.  I was surprised and saddened to see the house at 12-19 Shinkai Gokanosho had disappeared.  Not a trace.  Even the beautiful old pine that had been so carefully groomed over the decades was gone.  The foundation for a new house had been laid.

This was never my house, but for six months in the autumn and winter of 2013/14 it felt like it.  I made it my home.  My life in Japan began here.  I was an absolute beginner when I alighted from the train at Obaku Station that September.  I knew nothing.  My self-guided education in Japanese culture was centered here at this address.

One of my greatest paintings was completed on the second floor of that house - my atelier.  The wrecking crew would never know this.  They would never know an American artist lived here, that they were dismantling a brief but significant part of his life.  To them it was just an old house.

I live in Katsura now.  I've lived here much longer than I ever lived in Uji.  But Uji is special and always will be because it is a marker, a watershed for me.  My life took a different direction when I arrived there.  One I wasn't expecting.  That shift is (or was) inextricably tied to that wonderful mid-century modern house.

Wabi-sabi is something I was introduced to while living in Uji.  At the core of this concept is the impermanence of things.  Everything disappears eventually.  What we are left with is memories, a vague outline of what used to be.  And memories too fade.

Hello My Name Is Paul Smith

Western-style glamour is Tokyo, not Kyoto.  Kyoto has an elegant sophistication, but red carpet Hollywood glitz?  Not so much.  But last night Kyoto felt very chic indeed at the opening of the new exhibition "Hello My Name Is Paul Smith" at the National Museum of Modern Art Kyoto (MoMAK) .  

I worked for Paul Smith for 10 years and saw half a dozen runway shows in Paris during my time with the company.  There is something wonderful about seeing the Paul Smith tribe gather for big events.  There is no mistaking the invited guests and employees of a Paul Smith party.  There is a distinct Paul Smith look.  But it is the individual interpretation of the clothes that creates that look.  And this is always as interesting and entertaining as the new collection.

Paul is something like a rock star in Japan.  He is politely mobbed by the Japanese.  He couldn't take two steps without someone stopping him for a photograph and/or autograph.  It is funny to see, really.  A soon-to-be 70-year-old man who has never played the electric guitar or acted in a feature film swarmed by adoring fans.

For me, fashion exhibitions, like architecture exhibitions tend to be very dry and one-dimensional.  There are the mannequins dressed in the designer's clothes; there are videos of the runway shows; there are photos from the ad campaigns.  Perhaps because Paul Smith is not that kind of designer and it is not that kind of fashion company, this exhibition is engaging, and more notably, it is fun (full credit to the curatorial team at the Design Museum).  I don't think Paul has ever taken what he does too seriously.  This combined with his delightful sense of humor shines through in this show.

Of course this exhibition is peppered with a fair amount of nostalgia for me.  "Ah yes, I remember that."  Wistful?  No.  I am grateful for the experience, but I am happy with the path I have chosen.  Ironically I would never have attended this opening party if I were still an employee of the Paul Smith company.  Anyway, it's cooler to be on the guest list.  (Hisashi Morikawa どうも ありがとう!)

Japanese roots

I generally credit my childhood friend Hiroki Shimamura with introducing me to Japanese culture.  We met around 1980.

But before Hiroki there was Speed Racer (Mach GoGoGo in Japanese).  This debuted on American television in September of 1967 and ran for 52 episodes until March of 1968 - before I was born.  But its immense popularity meant that by the time I was of the cartoon-watching age it was still being aired in syndicated re-runs weekday afternoons.

The animated cartoons I was watching at the time were Looney Tunes, the Flintstones, Tom & Jerry, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You and the Pink Panther Show.  While all very different in terms of style and story, these were all American productions.  Speed Racer was something new, something unusual.  It was strange.  But it was cool.  It was this strange-but-cool factor that drew me in.

It didn't look or sound like anything else I was watching.  First of all, it wasn't funny.  A cartoon that wasn't funny.  That was peculiar.  There was an excitement and a danger in the stories more real than an anvil falling on a coyote's head.  

I don't think I knew it was a Japanese cartoon, but I did recognize the odd way the characters spoke, how the voices and the movement of their mouths didn't synch as they did in other cartoons.  Speed and his pals had a different look with their big, bright eyes and fierce determined expressions.  The animation was also curious - flat, jerky, more like a moving comic book than the fluid motion of a Warner Brothers cartoon.

And that theme song! "Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer Go-o!"  This sounded like something on FM radio, not a theme song for a kids show.

Mach GoGoGo was the creation of Kyoto-born Tatsuo Yoshida.  He and his two brothers founded their comic/animation studio Tatsunoko Productions in 1962.  Following on the success of their early race car themed comic books like Pilot Ace and Hayabusa Q they launched the comic book version of Mach GoGoGo in 1966.  The animated series premiered on Fuji Television in Japan in April of 1967.

A couple of weeks ago I happened upon an original Hayabusa Q comic book at the Kyoto City Hall Flea Market.  The copy was a bit tatty but for ¥300 I couldn't resist.  The roots of Speed Racer and my Japanese experience were in this thin book. 

Mach GoGoGo