Great Big Kiss

 

Rock-n-roll is an American invention.  Along with jazz it is one of our great cultural contributions to the world.  Sure, other nation-states have given us useful things like paper (China), democracy (Greece) and the calendar (Italy).  But the United States of America...rock-n-roll.  That is not to say, we do it the best (see Rolling Stones, Sex Pistols, etc.)  But anyway this blog is not about the US.

Not long ago a friend of mine here invited me out to an event she was working.  It was in a dingy Kyoto nightclub called Metro that is literally in the subway.  There was a band playing that night called Great Big Kiss.  And they rocked.  The Japanese have a way of taking things that are not their own, things like rock-n-roll or whiskey and doing it so well you think they might have invented it.  It feels somehow more authentic than the original.  They study it, dismantle it, rebuild it and then give it back to you with a new intensity and cool.  You see it or hear it, taste it or feel it and think, wait a minute, I know this, but...  It is not just imitation because there is always something slightly different, something Japanese.

Great Big Kiss were a tough, four-piece Ramones-ey outfit with musical duties split evenly between the sexes.  They were tight, loud and all-out.  The leather-clad guitarist had his kicks and leaps and wide-legged Billy Zoom stance down; the singer, a little blonde firecracker had her punk strut, her girly pout and Roger Daltrey microphone grip down; the drummer and bass player held the unit together, banging out the mostly ferocious rhythms to their songs.

Besides all the rock-n-roll swagger, they played with heart, like it meant something.  And that is probably what I liked most about them.  I remember listening to Henry Rollins on the radio in Los Angeles talk about how he hated bands that played like they were bored, like they didn't care, like they were doing you a favor.  No.  F%@# that!  I paid money; I want to be entertained!  Smash your guitar!

It's been a while since I saw a live show.  And I'd been wanting to see some Japanese rock.  It's always a treat when you go to some venue without any expectations and are blown away.  Yeah, a Great Big Kiss indeed.

米 Kome

For the Japanese, rice is not a side dish (okazu).  It is not a question of, should we have potatoes or rice with our fish?  It is really the other way around.  What will accompany the rice?  In fact it is something so important, so essential to the Japanese diet that the Kanji character for rice 御飯 (gohan) literally means "food" or "livelihood".

Katsura, where I am living, in the southwest corner of Kyoto is dotted with rice paddies and little farms.  It is an interesting patchwork of rural and suburban living.  When I arrived in the middle of September the perfect rows of rice waving in the late summer sun were a brilliant yellow-green.

A couple of weeks later I noticed a farmer with a short curved machete cutting the stalks.  I thought, ah-ha, the harvest has begun.  But no.  He cut just nine plants, tied them neatly in bundles and hung them upside down on the rail encircling the farm.  A few days passed.  Still just this one corner of the farm cut down and these lonely bundles hanging like hula skirts without a dancer.  What is happening?  What's wrong?  Is it bad?  Is he praying for guidance at a local shrine?  Has he gone on vacation?

Then it began.  The farmer mowed it all down by hand in a day.  He erected a series of bamboo trestles running the length of the farm.  The fresh-cut rice bundles were slung over these.  I have to admit, this was an impressive display and made me think of some ancient agrarian custom somewhere like Hawaii.

On another day he took a small mechanical thresher and separated the rice from the stalk leaving the paddy littered with rice hay.  That was later removed and all that remained were thousands of sad little tufts in a barren field.  Just like that it was over.

In the spring, I imagine, it will all begin again.

運 (Luck)

I always feel lucky when I'm in Japan (or Kyoto).  Things happen to me here that don't happen to me elsewhere.  There is a different energy in Japan.  Or perhaps I have a different energy.  I'm not sure.

For Westerners, for the world really, the geisha is an iconic image of Japan.  We are drawn to their beauty, their grace and their mystery.  Like a rare bird, you don't see them very often.  The uninformed tourist often mistakes any women dressed in a kimono for a geisha.  The geisha live and work in specific districts called hanamachi and it is unlikely you will see them outside of these areas.  Kyoto has five such districts.  I happened to stop for lunch in one - Gion-Higashi.

There is an odd little cafe there called Rinken with as many doors as seats.  The place is so small that passage behind the barstools is impossible.  Their rather clever solution to this problem is to have a separate door for each of the six seats.  There is something kind of regal about Rinken, like it's from another era, another place, maybe London in the early 20th Century - the royal blue lacquer doors, the cherry red upholstery and curtains, the gold patterned wallpaper, the delicate hanging milk-glass lamps.  They have a fine selection of beers and coffee here is a wondrous, almost scientific performance involving a bulbous glass apparatus and Bunsen burner.

I knew it was a class joint because the only two other customers were women dressed in gorgeous kimonos.  The younger of the two I learned from the barman was a maiko, a geisha apprentice.  Without the white makeup I wondered how one could tell.  Apparently there are many tell-tale signs including their kimono sleeve length, the knot and position of their obi, their application of lipstick and color of eyeliner.

I was fascinated by this lovely creature sitting at the opposite end of the counter.  I had struck up a conversation with the charming barmaid, who as it turned out was also a painter.  I was showing her photos of my work when the maiko left her seat and joined us.  This was a thrill.  Tourists or gaijin do not meet maiko or geisha.  They foolishly insist on taking photos with them on the street, but they do not sit in cafes and have conversations about art.  She looked through the photos and told me she liked my paintings.

She left a little while later.  I finished my beer.  Before I settled my bill the barman told me he had a present for me.  Huh?  The maiko had left for me a personalized uchiwa, a hand-made flat fan.  There is a tradition in the hanamachi where special patrons as well as shops and restaurants frequented by maiko are given these fans with the crest of the geisha house on one side and their name on the back.

This is my luck in Kyoto.  

ロバートの 内 (Robert's home)

The new digs in Katsura...

Part III

Part III begins.  I've circled back.  Same country, same city.  But everything is somehow different.  I'm official now.  I have a proper visa.  I have a "resident card".  I have a bank account.  I even have health insurance.  The lease on my new apartment in Katsura as well as the utilities are all in my name.  I am in the Japanese system.  I exist here.  I'm no longer a tourist stretching the limits of my stay.  Strange.

I hesitated for some time to restart the blog (I've been back in Japan 3 weeks already).  I feared (and still do fear) it might be vapid and humdrum.  I have responsibilities now, like work.  With work comes fatigue, and diminished inspiration often follows that.  The days of la dérive and tyro zazen in temple gardens, the source for so many posts here, are over.  Or are they?

To be honest, I still don't quite believe this is happening.  Am I really back in Kyoto?  Despite the great effort I put into finding a way back and the tremendous luck (aka help) I've had, I don't trust that this won't evaporate like rain on the sidewalk after a storm.  It would follow then that blogging about something that is so illusory is pointless.

Still, all that aside, I feel there is something yet to be said, there are photos yet to be taken.  But I warn you, dear reader, the frequency and quality of the new posts cannot be guaranteed (Hmm, I think I've said this before).  When the lustre has completely disappeared and the mundane takes over I promise you I will bow gracefully out.  Until then...watch this space.

The last from 12-19 Shinkai Gokanosho...?

Sakura 1

Sakura 2

Sakura 3

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.