Oh, The Joy of it All
Strangely enough, because I had to leave Chicago for Japan last Thursday, I ended up missing the last three days of the September sumo tournament in Tokyo. I’ve just now managed to watch the final day’s matches on tape, including yokozuna Asashoryu’s brilliant win in a play-off match with fellow yokozuna Hakuho on Sunday after they both finished 14-1. I like Asashoryu a great deal, and now that he’s pulled off another one of his miracle championships in a tournament that began with speculation on his imminent demise, I like him even more.
What makes it all especially fun is that Asashoryu’s unexpected success nearly caused Yokozuna Deliberation Council member Uchidate Makiko’s head to explode. The television scriptwriter has been mercilessly on the Mongolian yokozuna’s case for years, basically because he isn’t Japanese. When Asashoryu showed a “guts” pose (two fists raised in the air in celebration) after clinching the title, Uchidate nearly had an apoplectic fit. MSN Sankei quotes her reaction as follows:
「心が充実せず、技も磨かれず、けいこ不足で体がぷよぷよ。優勝はまぐれだ。心技体を鍛えて出直していらっしゃい」
A rough translation: “He has no spiritual fiber, he has no technique, and his body is all flabby because he doesn’t practice enough. His victory was a fluke. He needs to go back and start over, steeling his heart, technique, and body.” Sure thing, Ms. Uchidate, except for one small detail: he basically wiped up the floor with all of your beloved, spiritually cultivated wrestlers. Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!
Komusubi Baruto (12-3) and maegashira 3 Kakuryu (11-4) also impressed. Their titanic match on Day 14 (Kakuryu won on a nifty sotogake outside leg trip) left me with the warm feeling that sumo will be in good hands for years to come. Whatever Ms. Uchidate thinks.
We’re No. 37!
Japan, incidentally, is #10.
Coincidence? You Decide
I’m back in Chicago now after a very intense, stimulating weekend at the “Rewriting Modern and Contemporary Japanese Intellectual History: Perspectives of Mobility and Border Crossing” conference at Tohoku University in Sendai. Lots of good papers, discussion, etc.
I had a ninety minute window this morning in Tokyo before I needed to head out to Narita Airport for my flight home. I ran across the street from Tokyo Station to the Yaesu Book Center. After picking up a few things for myself, I went up to the top floor, where they keep their foreign-language books. I always like to keep tabs on what Japan-related books they carry in stock.
They had one copy of the new translation of Azuma Hiroki’s Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals. It was sitting on the shelf right next to the English translation of Doi Takeo’s The Anatomy of Dependence. I dunno, it sort of seemed like one of those world historical constellations that Walter Benjamin liked to write about, chips of messianic time and all that. Or maybe it was all just the product of coincidence and sleep deprivation.
That Toddlin’ Town
The Wall Street Journal recently discovered that Tokyo is just about the best place on earth to be a jazz fan. John Kirch surveys the delights available there–the coffeeshops, the live houses, the bars– and concludes,
If jazz is America’s gift to the world, Japan is the place that knows how to unwrap it. While serious musicians and devotees fret that traditional, noncommercialized improvisation is becoming as esoteric a taste as it is in the land of its birth, jazz in all its forms still pulses through Tokyo. Sixty years after this vibrant U.S. export began to take hold, it’s piped into hotel lobbies as a marker of elegance and sophistication, blasted from dingy basement dives in unlikely neighborhoods, spun by club DJs and obsessional bar owners and hawked in innumerable specialty record shops. In Tokyo you can hear jazz of stunning, nearly offhand virtuosity played in clubs that range from among the world’s smallest to among its most expensive.
All true. Tokyo may be the best jazz city on earth, but Chicago isn’t far behind. Howard Mandel in his “Jazz Beyond Jazz” blog has anointed us America’s best jazz town.
Jazz is the lifeblood of Chicago in a way it ain’t in NYC, at least not right now. Jazz-soul-blues is Chicago’s street music. Chicago’s citizens — not just its visitors — seem to consider jazz this music their personal due. It’s what you hear at O’Hare going in and out of town.
He’s right, I think. If you want proof, just check out the amazing Hyde Park Jazz festival that will take place this coming weekend.
If a tie-breaker is needed, let me offer up this recent article from the Telegraph newspaper (UK), reaffirming the Chicago Symphony’s status as America’s best orchestra.
And did I mention the blues?
Just Because.
And, on top of that, it’s the weekend.
Someone Who Hangs Out with Musicians
Given the generally chaotic state of my life, I have one good twenty minute window for listening to music each day: my morning walk to the office. (By the time of my afternoon walk home, I’m usually so fried that I just want quiet). This morning, for the first time in several years I revisited SAPPUKEI (2000), the brilliant album by the great Japanese postpunk band, Number Girl.
As usually happens when I listen to Number Girl, I became fixated on Inazawa Ahito’s drumming. He’s just astonishing, unleashing a complex array of beats, rhythms, and flourishes. A typical number has him playing a rock back beat with stress on the second and fourth beats in the main section, only to switch over to an anthemic on-the-one pounding for the middle bridge, and spicing it all up with tasty accents and fills. Check out, for example, “Urban Guitar Sayonara”:
On another song, he’ll do a semi-reggae thing, highlighting the third beat, then switch over to a funky rhythm where the upbeat is everything. Just amazing. The producers knew enough to move him forward in the mix.
I think I have drummers on the mind lately. Bobby Graham just passed away. You’ve probably never heard of him, but he’s proof that a single drum stroke can change the world, or at least your mind. Graham was the session musician brought in for the Kinks’ original studio recording of “You Really Got Me” in 1964. Mick Avory, the Kinks’ regular drummer, was a terrific player with strong jazz chops, but the producer lacked confidence in him and so brought in the ringer. It is Graham who played that wonderful offbeat snap on the snare drum at the opening, just after the second repetition of the guitar riff, that catches your attention in the song (Mick supposedly plays the tambourine on the recording).
In the Western music tradition, we’re predisposed to disrespect drummers.
Q: What do you call a drummer?
A: (See the title of this blog post)
But a good drummer can make or break a song, as Number Girl and the Kinks both knew. Even the composer Hector Berlioz knew it–I was just listening to “Symphonie Fantastique” on the radio last night, and as always those damn chimes from hell in the last movement brought goosebumps to my flesh.
Rest in peace, Bobby Graham. And keep rockin’ on, Inazawa Ahito and Mick Avory. You should be aware that I’m typing these words on my laptop with a dandy little touch of syncopation.
Something Better Beginning?
I got up early this morning to watch the matches from Day 4 of the Autumn Sumo tournament that I’d taped overnight. It turns out, however, that some guy named Hatoyama became Prime Minister today and apparently it’s a big deal or something, because NHK pre-empted the first hour of its sumo coverage to cover the story. What the?
Well, anyhow, eventually they went back to their coverage from the Kokugikan arena in Tokyo and I was able to catch the last hour of matches. Both yokozuna are 4-0 and performing well. Hakuho came in as the tournament favorite and so far has done nothing to lose that status. Asashoryu has been a pleasant surprise: once again, the days leading up to the tournament were filled with press complaints about his attitude and lack of training, as well as rumors about his physical condition. But he’s won all four matches so far handily, often using wily craft rather than brute strength. He’s also managed to lift two of his opponents completely off the ground.
Other strong performances have come from ozeki Kotooshu, sekiwake Baruto, and maegashira 3 Kakuryu. Kotooshu (4-0) has been showing uncharacteristic aggressiveness and even a little technique. Baruto (3-1) has knocked off three ozeki so far and looks quite healthy. Kakuryu (4-0) is looking like a future ozeki already. It is not a good sign for Japanese purists that all three are foreigners.
Disappointments include ozeki Harumafuji (2-2) and maegashira 5 Goeido, who not too long ago was ballyhooed as the great Japanese hope but is off to a dismal 1-3 start. We may be seeing the last of veteran ozeki Chiyotaikai (2-2), whose trademark stiff arm thrusts seem to have lost their power. The feel-good human interest story of the tournament is maegashira 13 Tamaasuka, who is returning to the top division after an absence of five years. He was hurt, then developed diabetes, and eventually dropped all the way down to the unsalaried mid makushita ranks. But now he’s back up with the big boys. At 1-3, though, he’d better start winning soon if he wants to stick around.
An Afternoon with my Daughter
Sonia and I took the Metra downtown today for her orthodontist appointment. We arrived early and so killed some time at the coffee shop in the Chicago Cultural Center, my favorite building in the whole city. We checked out a few of the temporary art installations there, as well, then walked down the street to Daley Plaza where we watched pigeons engage in remarkably complex bathing rituals in the fountain by the Picasso statue. Finally, it was time to make our way to the clinic office.
After getting her braces adjusted, we headed over to the Art Institute. I used a trick I learned on our recent London trip: when touring an art gallery with a teenager, pick out in advance a handful of paintings you want to see, spend a few minutes in front of each, and then cash in your chips while you are still ahead. Since you haven’t burned out the kid’s short attention span, you might even be able to look at a few more works on your way to the exit. It worked like a charm again today. We saw three or four of my favorite pieces from the special exhibit on Japanese screens that I wrote about here earlier, then checked out “American Gothic” and “Nighthawks.” Sonia was still into it, so we headed for the Impressionism rooms and then strolled through some of the earlier European collection. We spent a good deal of time looking at a fifteenth century painting of St. George killing the dragon as well as at several striking El Grecos before we made our way out.
Outside, as we waited for the traffic light to turn green, a homeless man tried to sell us a copy of Streetwise. When we didn’t bite, he offered us instead a couple of jokes.
1). What’s the difference between a school teacher and a train? When you’ve got a piece of gum in your mouth, the teacher says “Spit it out,” but the train says “Chew chew.”
2). What do you call a school teacher who won’t fart in public? A private tooter.
Not bad, I thought.
We ate pizza for lunch and took the train home to Hyde Park. On board, Sonia told me about the funny look the lady at Borders gave her recently when she asked where their Lou Reed CDs were. (I’d asked for a couple of titles for my birthday). Apparently, thirteen-year-old girls aren’t part of the expected audience for Uncle Lou.
Later, back at home, when we were supposed to be doing our work, I instead used the wonders of YouTube to introduce Sonia to a new art form: ventriloquism. We watched footage of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Jay Marshall and Leno, and Dan Horn and Orsen.
There are worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon.
Back at my Desk, Feeling the Jet Lag Wash Over Me
I arrived back home in Chicago this afternoon after attending the British Association for Japanese Studies annual meeting (which was combined with the British Associations for Korean and Chinese Studies meetings) at the University of Sheffield. I delivered the opening lecture, a talk on Natsume Soseki’s 1908 novel Sanshiro, following which Mr. Koshi Noguchi (Toshiba) presented me with the 2008-09 Toshiba International Foundation Prize, awarded annually by the BAJS for the best article appearing in their journal, Japan Forum. The essay in question was “Property and Sociological Knowledge: Natsume Soseki and the Gift of Narrative,” included in a special issue on Soseki’s Theory of Literature that I guest co-edited with Joseph Murphy and Atsuko Ueda (Vol. 20, No. 2). As you can imagine, it feels wonderful to have your work recognized by colleagues in the field.
Because of my flight schedule, I could only stay for the first 24 hours of the BAJS conference. I still managed to catch a number of interesting papers and plenary lectures. I also had the chance to meet dozens of scholars from around the world who are doing interesting work.
Before heading to Sheffield, I took in the spectacular West End production of the musical Oliver!, as well as Pedro Aldomodovar’s terrific new film, Broken Embraces, which won’t open here in the States for a few more months. I also visited Denmark Street in London, a short block-long road lined with music shops that was immortalized in a 1970 Kinks’ song called (see if you can guess it!), “Denmark Street.”
All in all, it was a lively and fun 12 days in the UK. But I am very pleased to be back home, even knowing the mountain of work that is waiting for me in my office.
Change is Bad, #1376
Greetings from York, England. I was last here in 1982 as an American college student, lugging his backpack across the UK and Europe. I fell in love with this place, the only walled city in England. It was full of winding cobblestone streets that were lined with quirky used bookstores and other similarly sleepy shops. When I realized I would have a few days to kill on my present trip to England, I decided to spend them here.
It’s still a lovely city: the York Minster cathedral, the ancient marketplace, and the city walls are all intact. But the stores are new: Starbucks, Gap, the Disney Store, &c. I managed to scrounge up only a couple of used bookstores on my first sweep through the city this afternoon.
Change is bad.
