The Kimono Queen

Perhaps I've written this before in these pages.  Things happen to me here in Japan that wouldn't happen anywhere else.  I don't think there is an American equivalent to the "Kimono Queen", but if there were, I'm sure I would not be asked to do a photo shoot with her.

My friends Okamoto-san and Uchiyama-san at be-kyoto gallery needed someone to play a Western tourist for a PR project they were working on.  Of course they called me.

I sat in the serene washitsu of this machiya-turned-gallery with the lovely current "Kyoto Hospitality Ambassador" and former "Kimono Queen", Noriko Zugawa dressed in a gorgeous pearl-colored kimono.  For the shoot she was to serve me tea, point out the highlights in a Kyoto tourist brochure and show me the fine art of ikebana flower arrangement.

She arrived terribly late so the perfect afternoon light was rapidly slipping away.  This meant there was no time for small talk or getting acquainted.  Uchiyama-san sat me uncomfortably close to this immaculately dressed stranger with piercing black eyes and quickly began shooting.  Her close proximity and self-possessed gaze made me rather nervous.  Uchiyama-san, like any good photographer, helped us, or rather me, relax by making us laugh.

Zugawa-san asked me things in Japanese that I sometimes understood and sometimes didn't.  Thankfully Okamoto-san was just off camera to translate when I stumbled.  There was something about her that reminded me of someone I knew, but I couldn't think of who it was.

The shoot was over almost as quickly as it had begun.  There was a long series of bows and "arigato gozaimasu".  Then Zugawa-san was whisked away with her stylist in a big, black, luxury sedan.

Analogue

Analogue.  Sometimes, oh to just sit and listen to records.  A vinyl LP, a turntable, an amplifier and some speakers.  Just sit and listen.  Don't talk.  Don't look at your computer.  Don't eat dinner or do the dishes.  Just listen.

About a year ago I found a postcard-sized flyer with a black and white photo of a young Paul Weller.  In red and black letters it read "KYOTO 6T'S CLUB".  It was an announcement for a Soul party at a little nightclub here called "The Weller's Club".  Of course I had to investigate.  

When I'm missing my records and I want to hear some good 60s Soul I come here.  I've since become friends with the owner and a couple of the DJs and regulars.

You have to give it up to Japanese DJs spinning this music on vinyl in 2015.  It was never easy, even in 1965 when these records were new.  They were fairly obscure 45rpm discs in the States where they were made.  In Japan?  Forget it.  That is a serious record digger that has these gems in their collection.

There is a reason it is called Soul.  Because it makes you feel good; it is good for you.  This music, perhaps more than any other, moves me - literally!

Roots are deep.  And the older you get the deeper they go, the stronger they get.

Keeps On Burning.

Nice work if you can get it

I have friends in France that do seasonal work.  In the winter they are in the Alps; in the summer they are on the Côte d'Azur; in between they travel.  I always sort of envied their lifestyle.  It seemed so simple and pleasant.  I wondered why more people, myself included, didn't live like this.

There is a wonderfully shambolic biergarten in Carroll Gardens (Brooklyn) called the Gowanus Yacht Club.  This to me is the perfect business model.  Get some German-style picnic benches, some patio umbrellas and a couple strings of Christmas lights.  Grill burgers and hotdogs, serve keg beer and crank the Stones and Van Morrison on a ghetto-blaster from April to September.  Then take it easy for six months.

I've found my Gowanus Yacht Club in Arashiyama, the beautiful, mountainous district on the outskirts of Kyoto not far from where I live.  It's called Kotogase Chaya.  Unlike the Carroll Gardens bar/café, this is actually on the water, on the south bank of the Hozu River.  There is a long, corrugated metal awning strung up with colorful paper lanterns.  This covers half a dozen tatami mat platforms with chabudai (short-legged tables) and zabuton (cushions).  They serve bottled beer, grilled squid, noodles and dumplings.  There isn't a ghetto-blaster playing classic rock, but the small waterfall that runs right through the café is a soft and most agreeable substitute.

I was there over the holiday weekend ("Silver Week").  I drank a beer and watched the people in rented rowboats paddle up and down the river.  I imagine soon this charming, slightly ramshackle café will close for the winter.  Maybe, like my friends in France do, they will head to the mountains for the ski season.

Ahead of the harvest

10-minute walk to the Katsura River.  There is rural Japan.  Japan from 100 years ago.  And I imagine, Japan 100 years from now.  Farming is labor and the coming and going seasons.  That's it.  The knowledge, part instinct, part technique passed down from generation to generation.  This is mom-and-pop agriculture.  By hand.  It is brilliant colors, contrasts.  Beginnings and ends, life and death.  A wonderful mélange of organization and chaos.  Neat rows and impossible tangles.  The farmer is a master of reusing and repurposing materials.  Nothing is wasted.  Small fires burn what can't be used over.  The air is pleasantly scented with this smoke.  It lingers in the fading afternoon light.

Musing

I woke with a real sense of possibility.  It was the morning sun spilling over the mountain touching the drops of night rain still clinging to everything.  It was an incredible light.  I was filled with joy.  For five or ten minutes it felt like everything would work out.

One can't hope for anything more.  Those minutes are a treasure.

Atsui desu, ne

It has been so hot for so long, without pause, I wonder if it will ever be cool again.  I've even forgotten the sensation of feeling cold.  Winter is a distant memory, and seems like a dream or maybe a voyage to another country.  I looked at my wool scarves in the closet and couldn't ever imagine needing those here in Kyoto.

It is a heat that makes you a little dizzy, a heat that makes you feel slightly sick.  It touches not only your body, but your mind.  It controls your every action, like a disease.  You can think of nothing else but the temperature.  It dominates conversation: atsui desu ne (it's hot, isn't it).  You hear this phrase over and over and over.  It is a reflex, like blinking.

The world even sounds different in the summer heat, a low, dull, mumble.  The science fiction soundtrack (circa 1955) provided by the hundreds of cicada in the trees makes you think the apocalypse is nigh.  You are sure the Earth is on a collision course with the sun.  It is only a matter of time before things begin to spontaneously combust, the city around you engulfed in flames.

There is always a note in the information pamphlets you get at temples and shrines about the structures burning down.  They are never specific as to the cause of the fires.  I'm sure now it is spontaneous combustion caused by summer heat.  I believe this may be the real reason the emperor moved the capital to Tokyo after more than a thousand years.  The royal family just couldn't take the summers anymore; they wanted a home in a slightly cooler locale.

Sweating while engaged in vigorous physical activity - sport, labor, etc. - is normal.  This heat is such that even perfectly static positions like sleeping somehow produce perspiration.  Eating, sitting, standing, reading, talking are all sweaty activities in Kyoto during the summer.

I now understand the semi-obsessive placement of vending machines dispensing beverages around the city.  It is not so much competition among beverage giants like Asahi and Suntory; it is something more noble - an attempt to save the population from fatalities like sun stroke and heat exhaustion.  The vending machines placed every 50 meters or so are aligned with the distance a human can walk in temperatures near 40°C (104°F) before needing to slake one's thirst.

I said something similar about the Kyoto winter last year: 17 summers in New York could not prepare me for summer in Kyoto.

Under the Influence: exhibition views