Notes from Japan, essays  by Jim Hathaway

April 23, 2008  Help I am going to die!

That is what I heard this morning at about 7 am in my garden.  I was out feeding apple pals to the rabbits when I heard a terrible scream, followed by the words, "Help, Help, I am going to die!" in Japanese.  Was it a woman?  a Child?  it was coming from over there, in the direction of the grocery's kitchen.  Or was it an Echo, and from the other direction.  It did not sound like a joke.  It was horrible sincere scream, the kind my wife produces when she sees a rat.  What does one do in this situation?  Should I call the police?

I was in my underwear.  So I put on my pants, some shoes and walked quickly around the block, toward the grocery's kitchen.

It startled me how normal everything was.  A sunny, warm, morning kids in uniform walking off to school, a businessman walking one way, a business walking the other.  Nobody excited.  Nobody was running.  Normal looks on everyone's faces.  Was I the only person in the world to know a murder was underway?  Within a few meters of these normal folks starting their normal day a violent killing was being done, or was already completed.

And what should I do?  If it were a movie I could rally a crowd, "Spread out - search door to door."

Here I was barely dressed, 7 am on a normal day.  The kindergarten teacher setting out flowers.  Getting ready for the kids.  I said, "Good day," in Japanese.  She said the same back to me.

In back of the garden, on the other side of the grocery's kitchen the grocery store lady came red faced into the street.  We looked at each other and we both instantly knew.  "Sorry," she said.  "Maybe it was me.  I just met a rat.  Maybe I screamed."

April 8, 2008  Cherries End, rumors never

We had a long Hanami this year -two good weekends.  Now we are back to cold rain.  School begins.  Rumors run wild.  Last Tuesday my friends called me to say that two young women had been raped in Nezu Shrine.  The rapist was not yet caught.  "Watch out all!"

He got the story from another friend that runs a used Kimono shop in front of the jinja.  She no doubt got it from the talkers gathering together to figure out what all the cops were doing in the shrine.  Rumors seem to do better around here than other places I have lived.  There is come coherence to the neighborhood.  People here still speak to each other, though less so as the city grown taller with cement.  There is also a need for the rumors, as the cops are not going to tell us about the crimes.  And the newspapers are not going to report them.  A lot of people seem to be keeping up the front that nothing bad ever happens here. 

Although some sensational exceptions have broken that rule this season - a kid pushing strangers in front of trains, another stabbing commuters in the neck, a man killing his parents wife child and self.  It is that kind of season.  The cherries seem to make us wild.  Maybe things will calm down now that they are gone.

March 23, 2008 Happy Easter!

Our Egg Tree (I watch the tree, kids watch the TV)

March 18, 2008 Spring again

Plumbs getting old, Cherries on the way. 

Here is a thumbnail shot from Ueno Park,

 outside the National Museum

March 10, 2008 On the Run

Riding quickly toward the last hill between here and Miyogadani  I saw a high school girl.  I saw her from behind. From a dead stop she took off running as fast as she could up the hill.

              I had never seen anything like it, a solitary girl one second standing then running full speed up the hill.  I thought, "Good for her, training.  all alone but dedicated."  It is hard after all to run straight up a hill.  And it goes against the tide of cell phone zombies you usually encounter on the streets these days.

              She wore gray sweat pants, a sweat shirt of a darker color and a frilly little skirt, maybe it was pink, not out of place for a school girl here.

              All this happened fast.  I was riding fast because I was running late.

              As I pulled up almost close behind her I noticed the full camera crew on the other side of the street filming.   I noticed as I passed her plenty sized chest under the sweats.

              The good girl working out transformed into just another dull TV joke.

              I was surprised how fast things can change.

February 27, 2008

My sister wrapped herself in tape in her living room today. 

February 19, 2008   the great Cai Guo-Qiang

Has anyone seen Cai Guo-Qiang vdeo on the N Y Times site?   http://video.on.nytimes.com/index.jsp?auto_band=x&rf=sv&fr_story=f14f365dd2a

It starts out with the silent words, "Art is not about what you say.....  I want a work to speak for itself." 

Good words.  Sadly his work is pretty weak.  I mean the video is impressive and the pyrotechnics of making the picture is the same, but you may notice that they cut to and a way from the finished product pretty fast.  Apparently, thought it is speaking for its self, it is speaking very quickly.

 So much art now is about the show, the spectacle that the Situationists in France spoke of in the 60's.  A lot of dogs and pones and at the end of the day very little art.
　

February 17, 2008   How was your Valentine's Day?

The owner at the pub in Ueno was asking customers on Valentine's night as they came in alone,  "How, was your Valentine's Day?"   Was he being mean or just stupid?   

 "Here you are coming into my bar, alone, to drink on Valentines Day.  How was your day?" 

One guy said, "Well, I'm here aren't I?"

January 27, 2008 nearly done

So much for the show about Enma, the 5th judge of hell, guardian and judge of ancient Japanese mortality. The exhibition is a little new gallery on the main highway that runs under the Gotanda JR and up the hill to Takanawa is nearly done.  More pictures

January 16, 2008 Hatsu Enma      

Today is the day that Enma takes the lid off the bubbling cauldron of hell.  Long ago it was a great day of vacation.  Even the beings in hell got a rest.

I started my exhibition of the same name today.  I made some serious ink paintings.  My buddy Sagae Ko was kind enough to add some words.  it is a small gallery but it looked pretty good.  As an after thought the gallery owners asked if I could include the mame man in the show.  Mame man?  why the heck not, the more the merrier.

Big opening day today.  Mame man's friends dropped by one at a time to view the mame.   Couldn't seem to make much sense of my paintings, most didn't actually look.

Funny beginning for a show.                                                                                                       Mame man

December 28, 2007 nearly done            

I had my first hibachi party of the season. Some students came in from the university. It is a very present thing to sit around a hibachi and talk, a primal appreciation of the warmth of fire perhaps, though now sadly misdirected in most homes to the dancing light of the TV.

With the hibachi you also get a faint aroma of smoke, and whatever your students bring to roast over the fire.

December 17, 2007 Not our snow

Tokyo winters are fine, but for the last 2 years, no snow.  Global warming and all I guess.  I miss it. I envy my family the snow they seem to not want.

December 3, 2007 Dr. Pepper

Do the American cans and bottles have these same designs? I got this one at the grocery store down the street.

  This gal is shooting a Dr. Pepper powered gun between her breasts.

November 23, 2007 Sculpture at Gaidai

If you are walking in or near Ueno park this week there is a nice little exhibition of sculpture in the old gallery at Tokyo Geidai, the national fine arts university.  It is free, and has some interesting new sculpture.  Open till Dec. 2. Information in Japanese: http://www.geidai.ac.jp/museum/exhibit/2007/chokoku/chokoku_ja.htm

This one is part of it, outside the old gate.

October 16, 2007 strange angel 

Or maybe it was a hungry ghost that visited my exhibition today and threw everything in an uproar when he escaped under the studio. But he was recovered and is save in a cage that once belonged to Ell the rabbit with a personality disorder.

October 2, 2007 In Ueno Park and 911

On the September 11th the World Trade Center was hit I was drinking in Ueno with a guy from Scotland. It was his first month in Japan. On the way home I said it is quicker to go through the park. He became afraid. "Is it safe to walk in the park at night?"  "People do," I said, then I remembered about New York and Central Park.  In New York I too would have been afraid.   I remembered that September 11th night again last night when I encountered the lights in the park. I came across undons in Ueno park - The lanterns were made of reproduced Ukiyoe prints of Ueno Park, many from before it was a Park.  It was a the temple before the emperor's boys had such a hard fought battle with the last of the shogun's boys here in the the civil war.  The new government took the land.  But I digress.  Those little lanterns were an unexpected and pretty sight. The little lights will be there until October 31 (Halloween) every night from 6 to 9.  It is, in a way a funny way a reply to those grotesque gates in Central Park a couple of years ago.

September 30, 2007 Cold rain again today, virtual art recommended

My exhibition rolls on.  Cold rainy weekend.  I had to teach Saturday but my wife said many kind souls stopped by.  I will go up there in an hour or two after kids are fed, and see if anyone braves this Sunday rain.  People should probably stay in bed, or do some virtual art looking..

One of my friends opened his homepage, tasteful and fine, fine art - http://www.rogerbarnard.com/art/Home.html

Which reminds me of another friend with a wonderful web site http://kenjikojima.com/

And a neighbor that stopped by my place told me about his blog.  It has lots of Yanaka on it, writing in Japanese.  But the photos are in English -  http://yanesen-urouro.bakyung.com/

September 22, 2007  My show opened today

My exhibition opened today. So  far so good, but a group of kids attacked my street with chalk.  I hate this sort of thing because they always do better art than I do.

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September18, 2007 Art Link, Geikoten       

We do this every year in Yanaka, sweep out the studio, hang new things on the wall, sit in front to welcome friends and strangers. Parts of my studio have not been touched by the broom since last year's sweep.

It is a good exercise to make a show.  It takes the whole year to do it  -  Sketching, thinking, talking,  painting, finally framing, and making the scrolls.  A full years work.  And next week I will sit, like a farmer bringing my crop to market, the best of what I did will be on display.

I like Geikoten.  I like Art Link.  I like these art groups because they are created geographically.  We are not united by a common style, material, or vision.  There are painters, sculptors, dancers, performers, shopkeepers, students and teachers, all go their own way, united only by geography.  We are neighbors.

art link - http://artlink.jp.org/

Geikoten - http://www.geikoten.net/about/

September 13, 2007 Black Tie

In Japan it is white tie for a wedding, and black for a funeral.  Today I wore my black tie.

My good friend died Sunday.  62 was all.  Today we all said good-by.  Friends I haven't seen in years, kids that used to be small, but now are having kids of their own, like a piece of a romantic play 100 years old.

A whole day without an electronic devise.  Just grief and friends and time.

September 8, 2007 Geisai!

Today and tomorrow, On the far side of Ueno Park. The most fun I have in Tokyo every year for the last 15 years.  Be there or be square.

September 6,  2007  Kurosawa selling coffee?

I was looking for typhoon information and found Akira Kurosawa selling coffee.  It made wonder what other dead creators will be selling?  Mori Ogai pitching Pepsi?  Jackson Pollock selling Bud?

If you miss Kurosawa and wish to see him back again, some kind soul has captured him on Youtube

ARCHIVES ( a rabbit on our street, ink painting in japan, etc.)