Saturday, December 14, 2013

End of Part I


So much has happened, and at the same time almost nothing has happened.  I've found my places and I've found my people in Kyoto.  The likes are many and the dislikes few.  I have discovered a pace and sensibility that agrees with me.  We get along, Kyoto and I.  It is not without struggle.  But the struggle is reasonable, grounded.  It is not egomaniacal or absurd, aggressive or cynical.  There is a beauty to Kyoto that is almost disquieting.  Not since my sojourn in Paris have I felt this kind of fondness for a city.

My relationship with my art has changed.  In New York it was somewhat combative, which really mirrored my relationship with the city.  New York was mostly a battle, the city always trying to defeat me.  In Kyoto the painting comes easier.  I do not labor over paintings and fight with them like I did in New York.  I think this is maybe because life here is less complicated.  That is not to say my life is easy, but the bullshit that runs so thick and deep in New York doesn't seem to exist here.

I have made some inroads into the Japanese art world, somehow accomplished more in three months than seventeen years in New York.  Strangely, despite my extreme difficulty with the language, I find myself a little more outgoing and willing to approach gallery managers and directors.  I also find that they are more receptive than their New York counterparts.  Hell, in New York you can't get the intern at the front desk to greet you, let alone get the owner to sit down and talk with you, hear what you have to say, look at your portfolio.  It comes down to respect, really.

But this is not an essay comparing and contrasting New York and Kyoto, the US and Japan.  It is rather my reflections on three incredible months.  I am grateful for the experience, to the Itos, to Mineko and Aki and the amazing people I met through them.  I feel terribly lucky.

I came to Japan because I wanted to go somewhere where I didn't know a thing.  I wanted to remove myself from everything that is comfortable and familiar.  To grow as an artist, or indeed as a person, one has to shake things up every now and again, break out of the routine.  I did that.  Oh man, did I do that.  But I learned that we quickly establish new routines.  And a new comfort zone is constructed.  This is human nature I suppose.


This is the last post until January.  I'm spending Christmas in Los Angeles.  So I will say arigato gozaimas and akemashte omedeto (happy new year).

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Santa Monica?


Tokyo is cool.  It is cool in the same way New York is cool.  It is cosmopolitan, exciting, sexy and forever changing.  But it is not beautiful or charming the way Kyoto or say, Paris is.  It is honestly a bit of a shock to be here after more than two months in Kyoto.  It is not just the pace of the two cities that is different.  It is the culture that is different.

Tokyo to me feels almost not Japanese.  It is rather some kind of strange Japano-Euro-American hybrid.  You can walk the length of some streets without seeing a single shop or restaurant sign written in Kanji or even Katakana (the Japanese characters reserved for foreign words adopted into the language).  They all have English names.  I saw shops called Santa Monica, Long Beach, Abbot Kinnney and even Brooklyn Museum (which was actually a very smart mens custom tailoring shop).  Of course you also see shops representing every major and minor retailer in America and Europe.  Sometimes companies that have ceased to exist in their country of origin still carry on in Tokyo.  This is all very strange to me.  We have our Little Tokyos and Chinatowns in America but the signs are all in English, or at least subtitled in English.

I feel Tokyo lacks the connection with history, nature and Buddhism that Kyoto has.  This has everything to do with it being totally destroyed by Allied bombing in the War, and Kyoto mercifully being spared.  Like Berlin, Tokyo was then occupied and in effect governed by American forces after the war ended.  So it is no surprise really that culturally it is so Western, and that its architectural history with a few exceptions dates from the mid 20th Century.  As "Edokko" (the proper term for people from Tokyo) adapted to and embraced Western ways it seems their spiritual (i.e. Buddhist) heritage was compromised.  So too was their bond with nature.  Tokyo is really the original concrete jungle, more so than New York.

This is not to say Kyoto is better or more authentic than Tokyo, or visa versa, but they really couldn't be more different.  It is really just a case of old Japan versus new Japan.  Both are completely Japanese without having anything in common.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

We're not in Uji anymore...


Tokyo is instantly another world.  You can feel it as soon as you get off the train.  Tokyo Station at rush hour is mad, people swarming, moving in every direction, fast, focused.  I'm lost almost immediately.

Somehow, after three trains and a long walk, I find my hotel - Claska.  Night has fallen so it is difficult to make out the neighborhood, but it seems to be in the middle of nowhere.  I'll see what impression daylight brings.  It is cool without trying too hard.  It is perhaps slightly past its prime, which for me, makes it better, like an old leather jacket or comfy sweater.  Hip hotels tend to age quickly and badly.  This is lived in without being shabby.  I suppose this is that mysterious Japanese characteristic with which I am obsessed: wabi-sabi.

The shinkansen from Kyoto was pleasant until the woman next to me decided to paint her nails.  Who does that?!  When she opens the bottle to begin a second coat I very politely say, "Onegai shimasu."  She either doesn't hear or is ignoring me.  I tap her gently on the shoulder and say it again.  She turns and stares at me blankly for a second.

I decide she cannot possibly be Japanese because: 1) She is a fat cow;  2) I cannot imagine a Japanese person even entertaining the idea of painting their nails in an enclosed public space; 3) There was no "sumimasen" or "gomennasai" when I asked her to stop, standard responses from any Japanese person when they feel they may have offended someone; 4) She was coughing like crazy the whole way to Tokyo, obviously ill.  A Japanese person would definitely have been wearing a germ mask.

Funny how you can recognize a nationality just by habits.

Monday, December 9, 2013

Matsunoo Taisha (松尾大社)




There are hundreds of shrines in Kyoto, each devoted to different deities.  People come from all over to petition these divinities to aid in their personal cause.  This might be someone praying to ease the suffering of an ailing loved-one, a woman hoping to get pregnant, a businessman desiring financial rewards, or a student wishing for academic success.  

Matsunoo Taisha, one of Kyoto's oldest shrines, is the favorite of sake brewers.  The reason for this is water.  The local spring water, considered some of the best in Japan, is believed to be blessed.  So the brewers come offering prayers and a large barrel of sake to Oyamakui-no-kami (the mountain deity responsible for the water that flows from Mount Matsuo) hoping their next batch of sake will be blessed.

This shrine is also where my friends filmmaker Clive Williams and musician Aki Kasuga were married.  So it is indeed an auspicious location.




Friday, December 6, 2013

One that got away

I happened upon Tofukuji Temple the same day I visited Fushimi-inari Taisha in late October.  Instead of going back through the gates I descended the mountain by a different route.  This brought me to Tofukuji.

It is always a little odd when you stumble on to a major temple or shrine in Kyoto.  This is pretty easy to do, by the way.  When you haven't actually planned to see something you are a bit taken aback.  Where am I?  What is this?  I had no idea Tofukuji contained one of the most highly regarded zen gardens in Japan.

It was late in the afternoon and I was rather tired from the hike up and down the mountain at Fushimi-inari, so to sit and contemplate the wonderful dry garden as the sun was beginning to set was splendid.  I've found this is actually a good time to visit most temples because you can be alone, the crowds having left much earlier.

Like so many of the really beautiful and meditative gardens I've seen, Tofukuji also needs a revisit.  Perhaps I'll even plan to see it next time.







Thursday, December 5, 2013

Low-profile



Kyoto is so densely packed with temples and shrines and gardens it is remarkably easy to just pass by beautiful, historic sights without even pausing.  Yasaka-no-To Pagoda, built in 1440, is one of those slightly over-looked landmarks.  I must have passed by this pagoda half a dozen times en route to other places.  It is on the way to or from some of the heavy-hitters on the Kyoto tourist map: Kiyomizu-dera, Kodai-ji, Chion-in, Ryozen Kannon.

You can't miss this striking five-story wooden structure; it shoots up 46 meters from a cozy neighborhood of traditional machiya tea houses and shops.  Still, somehow Yasaka-no-To blends in to the landscape when you are focused on its more famous neighbors.

Today I stopped and looked and gave it the respect it deserves.




Tuesday, December 3, 2013

A different view

I think it was in art school, a professor told me, to really see a painting you must visit it at different times of the day, different times of the year, in different weather, and even consider your own moods (happy, sad, angry, etc.)  Because you will see it differently each time.

This may hold true for visiting the temples and shrines in Kyoto.  I first went to Chion-in in mid-October (see my post "Chion-in: notes and impressions").  It was sunny, warm.  The gardens were green.  There was a breeze.  It was late in the afternoon, but the days were not so short, so the shadows were not stretched, the silhouettes were not crisp.  It was quiet, I was almost alone there.

I returned the other night to see a totally different place.  In the autumn, some of the more popular temples in Kyoto extend their visiting hours and host spectacular light shows after dark.  We are not talking Pink Floyd, Las Vegas or techno rave.  These are some really talented lighting designers highlighting the temple and the rich autumn colors in a dramatic, almost theatrical way.

It was dark, cold.  As is always the case, even on a chilly autumn night, visitors are required to remove their shoes when entering a temple.   I could feel the night air through my not-quite-thick-enough socks as I climbed the wooden stairs into the core of the enormous sanmon (main gate).  The gardens were not green, but black and orange, red and yellow, already stripped naked in some places, the bone gray of winter.  I was not alone.  I had come with a few artist friends, but we were joined by hundreds of others in a line that snaked slowly through the grounds of the temple.


I lived almost 17 years in New York.  The change of seasons is usually very pretty and always enthusiastically welcomed.  But I have never seen such a celebration for the annual pilgrimage of the Earth around the Sun like I have seen here in Kyoto.  It is observed and honored as if it were a once-in-a-lifetime event, like Halley's Comet.  I suppose that is the way all of life's events should be appreciated.








Welcome to "Cooking in Kyoto", with your hostess...

There are cafes and bars in Kyoto that don't feel like cafes or bars at all.  They feel like you've entered someones house.  And oftentimes you have.  The laws governing business zoning are not as strict as in the US.  From what I understand, if you happen to have a street front property, you can turn over a portion of that to a business regardless if it is otherwise a totally residential neighborhood.  So the places that appear to be someones home, probably are.  Behind a sliding door or curtain is where the proprietor actually lives.

Tonight I stopped at a cafe off of Kawaramachi Dori with the Itos that was the epitome of this special cafe/home hybrid.  We walked down a long narrow corridor, slid open a door and there we were in what looked and felt like the kitchen and dining room of a private home.  There was no attempt to hide or disguise anything: a case of sake stacked against the wall was a case of sake stacked against the wall; the refrigerators were not the industrial restaurant variety, they were the same as you or I would have in our home; the television was set at an angle for the proprietress to watch, not the customers.  Everything seemed to be organized in a pure utilitarian manner for the matriarch of some family to feed her kin, not a chef or restaurant manager trying to impress clients.  There was nothing orthodox or professional about the place at all, which is why it was so charming.

There was enough seating at the bar for about 7 or 8 people max.  There were no other tables or chairs.  The proprietress/cook, an animated, but elegant woman, stood behind a bar facing us, as if she were the hostess of a cooking show.  In fact, if there were cameras rolling that's exactly what I would have guessed this was, a television set.  She chatted with the customers while she washed dishes, poured beers, and served food, the same way your mother would simultaneously entertain guests and prepare a meal.

I had to smile.  I couldn't stop smiling.  The conversation, the little I could understand, was warm and casual, just old friends catching up.  That official politesse between customer and maître d' that one usually finds in a restaurant did not exist.  I was almost surprised when the bill arrived.

Even though I understood almost nothing of the conversation, I was so totally entertained it just didn't matter.


Saturday, November 30, 2013

Musing


Jazz and whiskey
        a Manhattan
                           in Kyoto
     understanding
              we understand
rhythms, tones
                       cadence
     shades of brown
                 of red
     autumn night
     autumn in Kyoto
            I'm in Kyo - to
                  in the jazz
                      the whiskey
     autumn colors
Listen

Ephemera




Friday, November 29, 2013

Chushoku


Lunch out is still usually a source of aggravation for me.  

First, there are the hours.  Many restaurants and cafes are open only for dinner.  You may see activity inside, but they are really just preparing for the dinner hours.  Those that are open for lunch typically have extremely limited hours: 11A - 2P.  A late lunch is pretty much out of the question.  Oftentimes you can only order the two or three items from the fixed "lunch set".  The rest of the multi-paged menu is available only after 2P and should thus be considered merely titillating diversions.

I get frustrated with myself because nine-times-out-of-ten I end up in a Western-style cafe because I know I can navigate the menu.  When you are hungry your primal, not cerebral instincts take over.  I will walk for hours looking for that perfect dining combination: friendly/inviting, cool or interesting design/ambiance, not too touristy, not too fancy, not too Japanese (language, not cuisine).  This usually adds up to Western.

I wish I could read a Japanese menu.  Even if I can sound out the Hiragana, I still don't know what I'm reading.  Think about the subtle, almost poetic, descriptions of food on an English menu.  You never see: beef and noodles.  It will read more like: lightly seared grass-fed Texas sirloin strips over tagliatelle in a crème fraîche sauce.  Nowhere in that description do you see the words beef or noodles.  So translate that into Japanese, throw in some Kanji characters….you see the trouble.

Sometimes I pick a proper Japanese restaurant and sit down knowing full well I won't be able to read the menu, there will be no pictures, and probably no English-speaking waiters.  This is simultaneously an act of defiance and punishment.  Basically I am saying to myself: Robert, you can do this, you f*%#ing idiot.

Maybe I ask the server (in Japanese) what he or she recommends.  Or.  Maybe I select something because it is printed in red, instead of black ink (hmm, must be a special).  Or.  If those methods fail, maybe I order by price.  The Robert Wallace Empirical System for ordering food in a foreign country.

It hasn't happened often, but occasionally I am reprimanded for approaching my meal in the wrong manner.  Sometimes it is a polite upturned hand gesturing how I should be doing things.  Sometimes it is put more strongly, "No, no" (in English).

A large Japanese beer is the recommended beverage when using the RWES.  Alcohol goes a long way to relieving dining stress.


Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Sentō-gosho (仙洞御所)


Sentō-gosho (Sentō Imperial Palace) was built for retired emperors in 1630, sort of an old folks home for royalty.  It burned down and was rebuilt several times and then more or less abandoned when the imperial court split for Tokyo in 1868.  Only two of the original structures remain, but the vast garden is magnificent.

It is not as meditative as some of the temple gardens, but it was designed for an emperor in his golden years to stroll and admire, not for a buddhist monk to contemplate.  Apparently it still hosts foreign dignitaries, which would account for the high security - tours are by reservation only and a valid passport must be presented.  There was also the Japanese equivalent of the secret service trailing our group to make sure no one wandered off.





I was not really prepared for the intense autumn hues I saw once inside the garden.  The trees all seem to be at the peak of their color, and the cool breeze was pulling a lot of the leaves down.  In another week or two perhaps most of them will be on the gravel paths or in the ponds.

The tour was conducted entirely in Japanese so those, like myself, who couldn't understand trailed behind taking unobstructed photos.  As the tour pressed on, the shutterbugs lingered to get the best shots, cameras clicking away like paparazzi trying to capture the Beckhams leaving their favorite restaurant in Hollywood.  I found myself strangely pressured to take more photos than I normally do because the others around me with their big, expensive cameras were shooting like mad.  It bordered on competitive sport, with the anglo-gaijin, of course, being the more aggressive photographers in the group of stragglers.  At one point I actually heard one guy say, "Oh, this is the money shot", which couldn't be a more vulgar way to describe such natural beauty.  I decided to rejoin the main tour group after that.




Saturday, November 23, 2013

I went for a walk and...








You may be thinking these photos are manipulated or enhanced.  Uh-unh.  This is Kyoto in all its autumnal glory.

I decided to revisit the Amagase Forest along the banks of the Uji River.  This is almost my backyard, one stop from Obaku on the train.  I had been here in September shortly after I arrived when it still felt like summer.  It was beautiful then, a warm green beauty.  I was hoping for, but not expecting this kind of rich color.

After crossing the Amagase Suspension Bridge, I happened upon a trail leading into the forest of Shirakawa.  I heard a waterfall and saw a mysterious path and headed in.  I can't quite describe what it was like to leave the main road and enter this almost otherworldly environment, dense, lush, alive.  Suddenly there was no noise except for the rushing water of a brook and the air passing my eardrum.  The temperature dropped as the sun was almost blotted out by the thick canopy of trees.  I was completely alone.

There was something eerie and at the same time thrilling about it.  It was like stepping through a portal to another planet or dimension in time.  The call of the loon was co-opted by Hollywood long ago as a background sound for spooky forests.  This migratory aquatic bird likes the forests around Kyoto; I've heard it on more than one occasion.  It too was part of the soundtrack as I walked along the narrow leaf-covered path damp with rain.

The deeper I went into the forest the more I felt I had left the world in a real metaphysical sense.  It's one thing to wander a city without knowing where you're going.  It is quite another to do the same in a forest.  But something compelled me to keep going.  If I was going to end up in China or heaven or Detroit, I wanted to go.  It's always funny when you reach that no-turning-back point.  "Okay, if I turn back now…"  It's more funny when you don't know if that point is midway to your destination or if you've only just begun your journey, or indeed if you even have a destination.

The path twisted along the bank of the creek, climbed the hillside, crossed over tributary streams, passed around fallen trees cum bridges.  Eventually I came to daylight.  An exit.  And I was in another world.  The trail ended in the countryside somewhere.  There were farms and the air smelt of fresh vegetables and hay.  Where the hell am I?  I wandered down a little lane and passed through what appeared to be a sōmon, the wooden gate at the entrance of a temple.  I arrived at an intersection.  I looked one way, then the other.  I had no idea which way to go, no idea if either direction would take me back to Uji.  I decided to re-enter the magic forest and travel back the way I'd come.

It was dusk when I arrived back at the Uji River.  The old-fashioned street lamps were just coming on and their reflection trembled in the water of the river.  I had to smile.  Where am I indeed.



The traveler versus the tourist

I've never been fond of the word tourist.  For me it conjures images of overweight Americans in shorts, big, white, Seinfeld-style sneakers and fanny-packs, eating in the local McDonalds.  I prefer the term traveler.  This word has romance and adventure.  A traveler is someone more deeply committed to the journey.  It is someone that injects themselves into the bloodstream of another nation-state, its traditions, its routines, from the extraordinary to the mundane, and loses themselves there.  Traveling really is an exchange where a piece of the traveler is left in a country, and that gap is filled with something taken away from that land.  The tourist simply brings themselves and their habits to a new place, seeks out the familiar and returns to their homeland unchanged.

I realized that after more than two months in Japan I am neither traveler nor tourist.  I live here.  And if I am successful in changing my visa status I will continue to live here.  The difference between my sojourn in Kyoto and your average tourist is not the length of stay, it is the responsibilities that come with residency, even a three-month stay like mine.  A tourist is most likely staying in a hotel.  They do not have to make the bed in the morning.  They do not have to make coffee and breakfast.  They do not have to do the dishes or laundry.  They do not have to go to the market to buy onions and milk, udon and eggs.  They have no housekeeping responsibilities.  They are not studying Japanese.  They are not looking for a job.  They are not researching visas and Japanese immigration.  They are not creating a new body of work in an upstairs atelier and hustling their art at galleries.  They are not planning exhibitions for the New Year.  They are not applying to foundations for grants.  They are not going to acupuncture for a sore neck.  They are not getting their hair cut.  They might be meeting new people, but there probably aren't any subsequent render-vous with these new acquaintances.

I enjoy all of this (well, maybe not Japanese immigration law) because it is part of the experience.  It means I'm here, living in Japan not just visiting.  I like knowing which streets connect, and when the last train is (23:58).  I like having a local cafe where they know me, if not by name, at least by face.  I like saying "Ohayo gozaimas" to the neighbors in the morning instead of a hotel staff.   It's cool.  

It's cool living in Japan.


Thursday, November 21, 2013

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Errant paths


Rule no. 1
Do not set out to find something on an empty stomach.  Your patience will be greatly diminished, and your frustration significantly amplified.

Rule no. 2
Know the distance between your point of origin and your destination.  Failure to obtain this information in advance may result in extreme fatigue.

There was a gallery on my list of important/interesting Kyoto art spaces that I had yet to visit - Foil.  Strangely, it was at the top of that list, and almost 8 weeks had slipped by without attempting to locate it.

I began my journey to Foil at Karasuma-Shijo.  I headed in a north-west direction, passing Nijo Castle.  I was fairly certain the gallery lay in the neighborhood bound by Sanjo to the south, Oike to the north, Horikawa to the east and Senbon to the west.  I had an address; I even had cross streets.  The only problem (it's really always the same problem) is that the streets in my notebook were written by me in Romaji and the street signs are of course written in Kanji.  I wandered up and down the streets believing not only that I was in the right area, but that the gallery would simply show itself, like a pervert in a trench coat flashing his privates.  Well, I was not in the right neighborhood.  That was never going to happen.  I inquired at another gallery I chanced on, "Foil Gallery wa doko desu ka?" 

They showed me on a map.  It was far.  I didn't want to trek back to the subway, and I'm still a little uncertain about bus routes so I walked.  And walked.  The gallery was off Imadegawa Dori between Horikawa and Senbon.  I had the east-west part of the grid correct, but the north-south coordinates were way off.  It was about 3 miles I walked from point A to point B, not including the errant search.  That is a lot of burnt shoe leather.

So what I discovered from this navigational error is this:  I still don't know where I am or where I am going in Kyoto.  Omit the word Kyoto and that statement may also apply to my life.

Monday, November 18, 2013

生け花 (Ikebana)


Flower arrangement (Ikebana), as with most everything in Japan it seems, is a disciplined art form.  And like so many art forms here its roots (no pun intended) can be traced back hundreds of years to a buddhist priest.  In Kyoto, of course.  

FTD this is not.  Stuffing a vase full of posies is not ikebana.  In fact, there are actually very few flowers in ikebana.  There are plenty of branches and twigs and stems and leaves and roots, but flowers…no.  Styles have changed and evolved over the centuries and different schools have come into and fallen out of fashion, but what defines ikebana really is elegant minimalist compositions.

I was given a ticket by Ito-san to an ikebana exhibition at the Takashimaya department store.  To be honest, I had no idea it was a floral design exhibition.  I don't remember her explaining anything.  She simply gave me the ticket and told me it was at Takashimaya.  So I went.  And I was rather impressed.  I've never seen anything like it.  (I've said that a lot since I arrived in Kyoto, haven't I?)

My list of things I'd like to learn more about seems to grow every week I'm here.  I can add ikebana to that list.