ぐでたま (Gudetama)

"tired"

Japan loves its manga (comics) and anime (animation).  It will create characters from and for anything.  While in the States our cartoon characters tend to be of the biped and quadruped variety (humans, dogs, cats, mice), the Japanese will anthropomorphize any number of inanimate objects or otherwise non-sentient beings.

Gudetama is a cartoon egg with a deep malaise and a predisposition toward existential thought.  He is the ultimate slacker, completely lacking in motivation (gude = lethargic, tama, from tamago = egg).  He is not interested in becoming a chick.  In fact, he'd rather return to his shell than face the day let alone the future.  Mostly what he wants to do is sleep.  His snooze button is always on.

Gudetama was created by artist Nagashima Emi for the kawaii (cute) product giant Sanrio in 2013.  His absurd character profile on the Sanrio website only confirms the inherent laziness of eggs.  His likeness appears on hundreds of Sanrio products, from tote bags and coffee mugs to chopsticks and bento boxes.  He has also appeared in some 500 one-minute animated shorts with a forlorn, squeaky, little voice muttering things like:

"Cold world" (せちがらい) while lying in an egg slicer; and
"What can we do about it?" (スッパリあきらめよう) after being sliced into pieces by said device.

While Gudetama's laziness may run contrary to the industrious national character, his ennui is perhaps not so far removed from Buddhist thought and the concept of transience.  A cute sakura blossom would have been a more obvious embodiment of this melancholia, but the perfect beauty of an egg is also fleeting.  And it is more funny.

何かと大変な世の中だけど (What a tough world it is)

- ぐでたま (Gudetama)

A villa in Japan

Where I grew up, outside of Los Angeles, there are myriad residential architectural styles - Spanish Colonial Revival, Bungalow, Tudor Revival, Mid-century Modern, etc.  That is California.  The architecture reflects the free-to-be lifestyle.

Japan is different.  A little less free-to-be.  There is classic minka (traditional residential) architecture including machiya (townhouse), nōka (farmhouses), gyoka (maritime houses) and sanka (mountain houses).  And that is about it.  While there is of course some variation among these building styles they are all quintessentially Japanese.  Following the War bland Western-style architecture was almost unanimously adopted.  Contemporary residential architecture is generally of the humdrum, cookie-cutter variety.

It is rare and surprising to see a house here built in a pre-War American or European style.  South-west of Kyoto, perched in the hills above where the Katsura, the Uji and the Kizu Rivers meet is such a house.  The Oyamazaki Villa is a British-style residence built by wealthy businessman Shotaro Kaga over a 20 year period beginning in 1912.  I can only guess he must have been a bit eccentric to shun convention and design a house like this.  If you block out some of the indigenous flora you would swear you were in the English country.

The villa was rescued from demolition in 1990 by Asahi Brewery and following an extensive renovation was reborn as an art museum complete with a stylish new wing by internationally renowned architect Tadao Ando.  In 2004 it achieved "Tangible Cultural Property" status, which is impressive for a piece of 20th Century Western-style architecture.

There are thousands of little towns across Japan, station stops on a local train that you pass on your way to somewhere else.  They all have some claim to fame - a shrine, a temple.  Some, like Oyamazaki, have the first Japanese whiskey distillery (Yamazaki, est. 1929) and perhaps the only Tudor-style villa in the country that is a historical landmark.

be-kyoto

In the winter of 2007 Junichi Uchiyama and his new wife Mayu Okamoto opened their multipurpose gallery/event space on a quiet street near Doshisha University in the Kamigyo ward of Kyoto.

They chose a wonderfully creative name for the space: be-kyoto.  The Japanese word 美, meaning beauty, is pronounced “bi” the same as the English word “be”.  Playing with meaning and phonetics in two languages the name is a simple affirmation of the existence of this beautiful city, and at the same time it is a gentle nudge to the artist to take on the spirit of Kyoto, become Kyoto.

The building the gallery came to inhabit was also carefully selected.  Rather than a New York-style "white cube" they decided to renovate a 200-year-old machiya (townhouse) in the shadow of Kosho-in Temple.  This decision would unwittingly place them at the heart of the burgeoning historical architecture preservation movement in Kyoto.

Uchiyama-san and Okamoto-san have quietly woven themselves into the cultural fabric of Kyoto over the last 10 years as the hosts of countless exhibitions, performances and workshops.  Yesterday they celebrated that accomplishment with a lovely party.  The international be-kyoto family, young and old, gathered in the washitsu (traditional Japanese room) to sip sake and listen to legendary shamisen musician Gensen Tokuyama.  Floral designer Kuniko Tsuji transformed the gallery into a pre-season hanami (cherry blossom viewing party).

Here's to another 10 years!  Long live be-kyoto!