Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon

On the dark side, tomorrow we take our first step into that gray new world known as post-Asashoryu sumo. Yokozuna Hakuho is the prohibitive favorite to take home the title in Osaka (has it really been a year since I was there in person for Day 8 last March, watching Asashoryu knock off Baruto in a fierce match?). Ozeki Kotooshu seems the only possible threat to Hakuho’s championship, and if there’s one thing we’ve learned about Kotooshu over the years, it’s that he shrinks like a banana souffle anytime he gets close to something good. Perhaps his recent marriage will change things, but my money’s on Hakuho (ho-hum: the subtle sound of a middle-aged man yawning).

Even darker, this is the week we learned the Minnesota Twins may have to live without relief ace, Joe Nathan. There are some viable replacement candidates already on the roster, including the marvelous Pat Neshek, back after an injury-related break of nearly two years, and Francisco Liriano has been tantalizingly good so far. But the loss of Nathan has Twins’ fans literally offering up parts of their own bodies in hopes of resuscitating Nathan’s pitching arm.

On the bright side, I’m taking Satoko to see Ray Davies in concert tonight at the Riviera. The last show we saw by him here in Chicago, a little more than a year ago, was transcendent, and reports from previous gigs on the current tour are quite positive. Here’s a little taste of what’s in store for me:

Former yokozuna Akebono performs Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” in this commercial for the Japanese re-broadcast of the “Glee” television series. I don’t know about you, but I stopped believing about ten seconds into the thing….

The great Monogolian yokozuna Asashoryu has announced his retirement. Just a week after his victory in the New Years tournament gave him his 25th title and third place on the career championship record list, he stepped down to take responsibility for an ugly, but still murky, incident that took place on the sixth day of the tournament, when he got into a late-night drunken brawl that is the subject of an ongoing police investigation.

It’s an incredibly sad moment for this sumo fan. Asashoryu at his prime was one of the two or three greatest sumo wrestlers ever, combining astonishing technique with a terrifying determination to win. The look in his eyes just before a match, especially a match against a difficult opponent, was something fierce. He was also, however, always daunted by internal demons and seems to have been battling depression for the last few years, though it has never been announced as such. On top of that was the extra pressures he faced as a foreign sumo wrestler: he became the sumo wrestler the tabloids loved to hate. Early on in his career, he was able to transform that hostility into a source of energy, but lately it seems only to have worn him down.

He was clearly past his peak, and yet he is only 29 and his victory in the most recent tournament demonstrated that he still had some terrific sumo left in him. It’s an awful waste. Moreover, do you know how boring sumo is going to be without him? In terms of talent, personality, and charisma, none of the other wrestlers can touch him. So long, Asashoryu, and thanks for a truly thrilling ride over the past decade.

The weekend began Friday afternoon at Symphony Center for a matinee performance, Pierre Boulez leading the Chicago Symphony as part of the celebrations for his 85th birthday. I’d never seen the great man conduct before and was struck with his economy of motion: no over-emoting for him. Whatever the style, it worked: the orchestra played as well as I have heard it. The program opened with the latest incarnation of Boulez’ own Livre pour cordes, a particularly warm instance of serialism. They moved on from there to take on the tricky twists and turns of Bartok’s Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion and Orchestra, played brilliantly by Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich as the keyboard soloists. It’s a work in which Bartok explores the percussive nature of the piano, setting the keyboards in complex dialogues with drums, xylophones, and other struck instruments. The program closed with a thrilling rendition of Stravinsky’s The Firebird played in the full ballet version. John von Rhein, the Chicago Tribune’s classical music critic, was similarly enthusiastic in his review of the Thursday evening performance.

In the meanwhile, on the other side of the world, yokozuna Asashoryu, the bad boy from Mongolia, took charge of the New Year Sumo tournament. He wrapped up the title on Day 14. It was his 25th career championship, putting him in third place in the record book. The victory came in the final tournament for Uchidate Makiko, Asashoryu’s long-time nemesis on the Yokozuna Deliberation Council, making it all the more satisfying. Moreover, Asashoryu gave us yet another spectacular example of his trademark misbehavior during the tournament, coming close to getting himself arrested in a drunken brawl late at night after Day 6. The tournament, as expected, also saw the retirement of the great ozeki Chiyotaikai. Yokozuna Hakuho managed to defeat Asashoryu in their direct meeting on the final day, but that victory was purely moral, as Asashoryu was simply killing time until the trophy ceremony.

Friday night ended with another classical concert: Europa Galante led by violinist Fabio Biondi at Mandel Hall. A period instruments ensemble, they opened with two lovely pieces by Telemann. Guest flutist Frank Theuns could easily be the model for a new muppet character. They closed with an edgy version of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, the schmaltz factor reduced to almost zero, reminding us in the process that a terrific piece of music lies buried beneath all the abuse that mass culture has heaped on to it. Two short encore pieces by Corelli and Gluck (the latter had the violinists plucking their way through) brought the evening to an airy close. The Chicago Classical Review website liked the performance, as the did the critic for the New York Times, who caught much of the same program last week at Carnegie Hall (where, no doubt, the acoustics were better….).

The New Year sumo tournament is heading into its final days now with yokozuna Asashoryu holding the lead at 11-1 and fellow yokozuna Hakuho lingering one step behind at 10-2. Hakuho just lost today to ozeki Harumafuji, but perhaps the most exciting match so far was yesterday’s face off between Asashoryu and sekiwake Baruto. See if you can tell who won from this photograph (link courtesy of Moti’s sumo news mailing list). Meanwhile, the sport’s backstage politics have hit the front pages, as former yokozuna Takanohana pursues his reform effort by seeking a spot on the Sumo Association’s board of directors.

Meanwhile, in another fine old Japanese cultural institution, the Emperor’s New Year waka poem for 2010 (source):

Where rays of sunlight
Filter through the trees I see
In the middle of the path
Carpeted with fallen leaves
A clump of green grass growing.

The assigned theme this year was “light.” Back in the old days, this would have been by definition the best poem of the year.

Although I have my doubts about the accuracy of the crowd count figure given, this article shows that legendary J-Rock band X-Japan can still pack them in, even in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, the Tokyo Shinbun newspaper is reporting (Japanese-language only) on the hit chart bounce enjoyed by artists featured on the NHK Kohakau Utagassen New Year’s Eve television spectacular. Ikimono Gakari’s “YELL/Joyful” (performed to great effect in the NHK broadcast with the backing of a choir of junior high school students) jumped from #23 to #12 on the Oricon charts the week after the show, while Kimura Kaera’s “Butterfly” moved up from the teens to the #1 slot on several music download sites, including I-Tunes Japan.

This has nothing to do with any of the above, but recently while wading through the Internet, I came across some amazing live performance of Iggy & The Stooges from 1970. Let’s call it “The Sweet Bloom of Youth.” Subtitle: “A Boy and his Peanut Butter.”

The New Year sumo tournament gets underway in Tokyo tomorrow. Yokozuna Hakuho is the hands down favorite to take home the big trophy. His closest rival, fellow yokozuna Asashoryu, has provided the usual quota of pre-tournament bizarre behavior, although he apparently looked pretty good at the public Yokozuna Deliberation Council exhibition a week or so ago (he also is said to have tired quickly, though). But on that day Hakuho won 27 of 29 matches, including both of his direct face-offs against Asashoryu.

Probably the biggest story going in to the basho is that, barring a miracle, this is almost certainly the last hurrah for the great Chiyotaikai. After two losing records in a row, he has lost his rank of ozeki. He can regain it with at least ten wins this time around, but that seems highly unlikely, and he’s promised to retire if he falls short. He’s always been a tsuppari-style fighter, battering his opponents with powerful arm thrusts, but in the last year or so his blows have lost their sting. According to reports from Japan, his training was going pretty well until about a week ago, when he injured his arm. It will also be interesting to see if ozeki Kotooshu or sekiwake Baruto are able to make their move up to the next level, but in both cases we’ve been waiting for that moment for some time now. I’m not holding my breath.

In the “think spring” category, the recent retirement of pitching great Randy Johnson has led to an interesting tribute over at The Hardball Times: a word cloud of the names of all the batters Johnson struck out over the years, with font size reflecting the number of times each batter has whiffed at Johnson’s pitches. And I leave with you some nice old video of Chiyotaikai in better days, knocking off Asashoryu in an exciting match to clinch the March 2003 tournament championship.

We are back in Chicago now after running up to Minnesota to spend Christmas (and the snowstorm) with family. If you’ve ever wondered how sumo wrestlers celebrate Christmas, the Tamanoi beya blog has an update (Japanese-language only), complete with photos of a truly massive Christmas cake. We had no Christmas cake in St. Paul, but made up for it with cookies, chocolates, &c.

Only a few days left in the year now–and the decade, as well. Can ten years have already passed since we were all obsessed with fears of Y2K and the impending doom of the Internet? The Minneapolis Star/Tribune in its review of the best and worst moments of Twin Cities culture over the past ten years notes the very untimely death last February of poet and essayist Bill Holm as one of the lowest points. I wrote about it at the time here; Holm was a remarkable writer and human being, and a family friend as well. For Christmas, I received his posthumous poetry collection, The Chain Letter of the Soul. I am now savoring every word, melancholic in the knowledge that there will be no more of his witty, angry, loving poems after this.

Jonathan Raban has a terrific review essay on Sarah Palin up at New York Review of Books. He provides a keen analysis of not only what makes Sarah tick, but also what provides her appeal to a certain segment of the electorate.

The rage for Palin’s pert simplicities reflects in part the failure of the Obama administration to persuade people of the wisdom and benefits of its far more sophisticated policies. Recently, I came across FDR’s fireside chat of April 14, 1938, when, speaking from the bottom of the second trough of the double-dip recession, he delivered a plain and passionate defense of deficit spending; Keynes for the family, and as resonant and topical now as it was seventy years ago. Nothing I’ve heard from the present administration matches its clarity, and where puzzlement and incomprehension exist, Palin leaps to fill the gap with facile and völkisch answers.

Finally, I’m very much enjoying Haih or Amortecedor, the recent studio comeback by Os Mutantes, the legendary Brazilian band. I’ve discovered this very helpful pronunciation key for how to say the group’s name aloud. I’ve also discovered this terrific interview at The Daily Swarm with band leader Sérgio Dias. It includes several classic videos of Os Mutantes from the 1960s and 70s, including the day Brazilian folk music went electric (the audience didn’t like it any more than the Newport Folk Festival liked it when Dylan showed up with his electric guitar):

I have tickets to see their co-conspirator Gilberto Gil here in Chicago on April 2. 2010 is looking up….

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)

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.