Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon

The Fukuoka sumo tournament drew to a close today with yokozuna Hakuho knocking off fellow-yokozuna Asashoryu to finish up at a tidy 15-0, nabbing his twelfth career title in the process. Moreover, Hakuho set a new modern sumo record with his 86th victory of the year–not bad at all, considering he wrestled a total of 90 times in 2009. Asashoryu started out strong, going undefeated the first week of the tournament, but collapsed in the closing days to finish 11-4.

Among the ozeki, Kotooshu in particular impressed, finishing at 10-5. He seems to be edging toward yokozuna candidacy. All the other ozeki managed to eke out winning records, with the notable exception of veteran Chiyotaikai, who pulled out of the tournament with a 2-9 record. Since he was already kadoban after a losing record in September, this means he forfeits his rank. If he can win ten or more in January he will be restored to ozeki, and he has vowed to give it his all then, but there are also plenty of voices calling for him to hang up his mawashi. He was a marvelous wrestler in his prime, but that is all far behind him now.

I played fantasy sumo, as usual. My bête noire this time around was 33-year-old Bushuyama, he of the thinning hair and fading strength. Ranked at Maegashira 3 West, he finished a reasonable 6-9. But I managed to pick his match wrong pretty much every day of the tournament. I’d given up on him as a wrestler and so usually predicted him to lose. But he’d string together two or three victories in a row, and so I’d switch and say he was going to win–whereupon he’d immediately revert to his losing ways. Given the tight scoring required to do well in fantasy sumo, this daily loss thanks to Bushuyama was fatal to me. I ended up with a 5-10 record overall and will no doubt drop far down in the banzuke rankings for the next tournament. Maegashira 1 West Aminishiki also finished at 5-10 and so I have a kind of warm and fuzzy feeling for him now.

(Aminishiki image from www.wikipedia.org)

I grew up in the Mac-Groveland neighborhood of St. Paul. We had our share of local sports heroes from the area–Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor, etc.–but the biggest celebrity our little corner of the world ever produced was Charles Schultz, the creator of Peanuts. In fact, Schultz’s father was a barber (as was Charlie Brown’s in the comic strip), and when I was growing up that barbershop was still in operation, though it had left the Schultz family’s hands decades earlier. I had my hair cut there many times.

I’ve learned this morning from this article in the Minneapolis Tribune that our neighborhood briefly played home to another famous figure: Amelia Earhart lived there in 1913-14. She played girls basketball at Central High School, less than a mile from the house where I grew up. I’ve always heard she was from Kansas, but her father worked for the railroads and apparently they moved around quite a bit.

Guess where they lived after they left St. Paul: Chicago, in fact Hyde Park. I see a pattern forming.

Last week, on his blog the great baseball writer Joe Posnanski coined a new word, “dumbley,” to describe a fact that everyone else seems to know, but that you have somehow managed to miss learning. His example: he’d met a well-educated man who’d never heard of Amelia Earhart.

Of course, the new movie based on her life premiered last month. Conclusion: Amelia Earhart is no longer missing. She can be found all over the Internet.

Man, my mind is just scattered today, and I can’t hold a coherent thought together long enough to complete a single

I’m a fan of Sound Opinions, the weekly rock discussion show on NPR hosted by Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis. A few weeks back, though, they said something on the program that bugged me. The guests that episode were French rockers Phoenix (you can listen to an MP3 stream of the show in question here), and in introducing the band Greg and Jim talked about the recent burst of celebrated bands from France (Air, Daft Punk, etc.). They claimed that prior to this recent boom there was little French rock worth listening to beyond Serge Gainsbourg

This assertion caught in my craw me because:

a). I pretty much dislike Serge Gainsbourg (although he does make me giggle), and

b). I really, really like 1960s rocker Jacques Dutronc.

Then there’s Johnny Hallyday, but that’s a whole ‘nuther story.

Anyhow, I was thinking about this again last night and began surfing across YouTube to see if there were any videos of Dutronc in action. Turns out, of course, that there are oodles. His most famous song in the States is probably the lovely chanson number “Il est cinq heures, Paris s’eveille” (video here), but I prefer his rave-up rocking numbers. Dutronc even sounds a bit like Ray Davies at times, and if you visit these pages regularly, you know that that is intended as high praise indeed.

To start your weekend off with a rock-in-French vibe, light up a Gauloises and enjoy some of my favorite Dutronc numbers. The man had swing, and boy did he have style.

Have you ever visited a patch of woods a few months after a forest fire? You see little clusters of healthy trees surrounded by wide swaths of empty field. That, folks, is what the audience at the ongoing Fukuoka sumo tournament has looked like: sprawling vistas of dead, empty seats.

The folks staying away haven’t missed much in the way of quality bouts. Yesterday, Day 4, featured:

- a blatant surrender by Yamatoyama, who basically walked out of the ring under his own volition when he found himself pinned by Mokonami.

- a hansoku (violation) loss by Toyonoshima for pulling on Tochinoshin’s hair. (There was another one on Day 5, this time by Aran).

- Chiyotaikai taking the gyoji (referee) down with him when he was shoved into the front row by Goeido.

- Harumafuji taking a cheapshot against Kakuryu, applying an extra shoulder butt outside the ring, several seconds after the match was over.

Then again, who am I to complain? So far in fantasy sumo my record is 1-4, and I’ve been losing with very little in the way of style. Unlike Chiyotaikai, I at least haven’t sent anyone to the hospital. Yet.

It’s been a hectic week since last I posted here, which in large measure is why it’s been a week since last I posted here.

The week began on a high note (and on some low notes and some sweet in-between notes): we took in Dee Alexander’s terrific concert at the Chicago Cultural Center last Thursday night. She appeared with her all-string Evolution group (violin, cello, bass and special guest sitar) and was as usual resplendent. Her summoning up of the “ancestors” on “C U On the Other Side” was particularly memorable, as was a sing-like-talking number I hadn’t heard before, a biting revenge song that I’m guess is titled “It’s Over, Supernova.”

Over the weekend, I managed to score me a swine flu vaccine: I know a man who knows a man who…. I also started watching “Hissatsu Shigonin 2009,” the latest incarnation of the cheesy samurai tv drama I’ve loved since 1985. It features Fujita Makoto as the hen-pecked Nakamura-san, a low-ranking samurai who leads a secret band of superhero ninjas who defend justice in a corrupt world. Fujita’s getting on in years, though, so he is mostly reduced to cameo appearances this time around. The central role goes now to Higashiyama Noriyuki as Watanabe-san, another low-ranking samurai who gets no respect at home. Most excellent fun, and I’ve enjoyed introducing my 13-year-old to one of J-Drama’s guiltier pleasures.

I’ve also been watching the on-going sumo tournament in Fukouka, where the biggest scandal has been the banks of empty seats — even on the opening day.

The week will end on a high note: Ray Davies appears on the Letterman Show tonight. His West Coast concerts last weekend were greeted with ecstatic reviews. The show opens with an acoustic set, and then Ray is joined by full band. After intermission, a 29-piece choir comes on stage and they proceed to turn out stunning versions of some of Ray’s best compositions, including a suite of songs from the 1968 masterpiece, The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society.

In other words, Ray’s been having a good week. Hope you have, too. Let me leave you with video of Ray from San Francisco last week.

There are a few things I miss about Los Angeles, where I lived from 1996-2005 — for example, this.

Lots of Kinks news in recent days. Ray Davies is in the U.S. for a brief concert tour in promotion of Kinks Choral Collection, which was officially released here yesterday. This means that we’ll “enjoy” a series of cringe-inspiring collisions between Ray’s quirky sensibility and contemporary American mass media sludge. For starters, you can watch video of Ray’s appearance on the MSNBC “Morning Joe” program yesterday on here. November 18 he’ll be on the Letterman show, where he usually seems a little more at ease with his surroundings.

In a recent interview, Ray reveals that he has been recording tracks with former members of the Kinks, albeit not younger brother Dave. Even more intriguing: Ray has recorded a new Christmas song, “Postcard from London.” It’s a duet with, of all people, Chrissie Hynde, the woman who broke his heart a couple of decades back. Time heals all wounds, I suppose. Julien Temple has done a video for the new song, which will be released later this month in the UK. Stay tuned.

The Fukuoka sumo tournament gets underway Sunday. Despite the usual quota of bizarre behavior in the weeks leading up to the basho (including showing up apparently dead drunk one morning for a public workout), yokozuna Asashoryu seems the favorite to take the title. The other yokozuna Hakuho has been nursing various injuries, limiting his ability to prepare.

Finally, I’ve been listening to the wonderful Gilberto Gil the last few days, including this infectious track from 1991. Care to join me for a few minutes down Brazil way?

If you spend any length of time in Sendai, sooner or later you will hear the story: that there used to be a baseball stadium on Yagiyama where the city zoo now stands and that in the 1930s Babe Ruth hit a home run there. That all took place exactly 75 years ago this month, and baseball historian Robert Fitts has launched a terrific new blog allowing you to follow the travels of the major league all-star team that barnstormed across Japan in 1934. In fact, as of this morning’s entry, the team has just arrived in Sendai to thaw out after a frigid day game in Hakodate, Hokkaido.

Assuming all of my friends in Sendai over the years were telling the truth, tomorrow’s entry should include news of a home run belted by a certain member of the New York Yankees. And next week we’ll encounter one of the legendary moments of Japanese baseball history: 17-year-old Sawamura Eiji striking out Charlie Gehringer, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Jimmy Foxx consecutively.

Apologies for the dearth of postings here recently. I’ve been, uhm, busy. Looking back over the past several days now, on a lovely autumn Saturday morning, I see that it was a week in which evil flared up, but in which the power of music to tame wild demons again came to the rescue.

Evil: is there any other word for a World Series championship by the New York Yankees? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I’m supposed to be happy for Matsui Hideki being named series’ MVP title in what may be his last appearance with the team. That changes nothing: a Yankees’ championship is satanic, demonic, evil. If anyone doubted that the dark forces were at work, a mere twelve hours after New York knocked off the Phillies in the decisive game, their Asian counterparts on the nether side of the veil, the Tokyo Giants, hit two home runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to come back from a 2-1 deficit and defeat the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters in Game 5 of the Japan Series. These are the final days, I was sure. What more proof was required?

But music conquers all. It’s called catharsis, purification. It can handle even the Yankees. Thursday night, we went to our youngest’s eighth grade Fall Concert. She sang in the choir, which gave a lovely performance, including a terrific piece I’d not heard before, “Grumble Too Much” by Ruth Elaine Schram. The school band and school orchestra played as well. The highlight of the latter was Richard Meyer’s “Rosin Eating Zombies from Outer Space.” It’s a wonderful piece for a middle-school orchestra: watching the players grin in anticipation of what was coming next made my night. Here’s video of another middle-school ensemble playing the piece.

The next night we returned to the same venue (Mandel Hall) to witness a transcendent concert by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra with soprano Dawn Upshaw. All of the pieces performed had roots in folk musics from around the world. The evening opened with an eye-opening rendition of Gonzales Piazzola’s tango-inspired Fuga y Misterio. Upshaw then joined the ensemble for the world premiere of Alberto Iglesia In the Land of the Lemon Trees, a cycle of three songs. Upshaw was in marvelous voice for the piece, which featured striking interplay between guitar and orchestra. Iglesias came on stage at the conclusion to accept an enthusiastic ovation.

The second half of the evening was even better. Upshaw sang Osvaldo Golijov’s “Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra” like an angel, able to fill the darkness with light. The lullaby of the opening “Night of the Flying Horses,” with touches of klezmer music throughout, and Upshaw’s incredible voice on the closing piece, “How Slow the Wind,” left me with goosebumps. Then it was the orchestra’s turn to take over, with Steven Copes as the soloist for Prokofiev’s grand old (1935: the oldest work on the program) Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor. It’s one of my favorite works. The concerto dips its toes, then its foot, then its whole leg, into lively Russian folk music. Copes sawed away at his fiddle in the dramatic moments, and the orchestra played with a disciplined energy: astonishing.

And so once again light replaces darkness, music conquers noise, order tames chaos. Thanks to the ritual cleansing performed by the two concerts, no doubt, the Minnesota Twins have acquired a new shortstop, giving unexpected hope for 2010. Evil has been contained. To hell with the Yankees. Literally.

[UPDATE: John von Rhein, the Chicago Tribune's classical music critic, sings similar praises of last Friday's concert, calling Upshaw "a wonder at evoking moods and expressive nuances" and "absolutely compelling" and describing the Prokofiev as "dashing." Dashing, it certainly was. In the meanwhile, all hail Satan: in Japan, the Giants knocked off the Fighters in Game 6 of the Japan Series on Saturday night, delivering their 21st championship to the lord of darkness. All is vanity.]