define beauty // Yamanashi June 2019 (Fujifilm 16mm f/2.8)

[you can click to see larger]

In these digital pics I tried to capture the sublime feeling of an ineffable otherworldly day at Hosokawa sensei and Takami san’s house, two hours southwest of Tokyo. I didn’t have a tripod, so I used any flat surface I could find.

(Unfortunately, I couldn’t capture the fragrant smells: after-rain pine, cedar, tatami (straw), raw wood and some kind of sweet grass.)

Hosokawa sensei and Takami san helped design their house–the most sublime and original house I’ve ever been in–I call it the “ki no ie” (tree house). The design is simple, light, and vertical. It consists of 4 raw wood floors with two hollow square centers, like wood lofts on top of one another, each floor and each room are visibly connected to the others. There are NO interior walls between the rooms or floors! (A little bit as if an American backyard deck was in the shape of the number 8 and was replicated and stacked on top of one another, but more solid). 

Then there was the generous vegetarian meal they made for us. Most of the ingredients (bamboo shoots, mushrooms, “amasake” = a hot sweet rice drink) came from their garden or the nearby mountains, and, of course, so beautifully presented.

Then there was the study or seminar space as one of Hosokawa sensei’s retirement projects. (This will be a dream for many professors.) He created the “seminar no ie” (seminar house) an independent retreat space for linguistics/pedagogy grad students to come and study and hold seminars or “tertulias”! Again, the same warm bright wood, tatami architecture, and fresh wood smell.

The overcast weather saturated the color and made everything rich and quiet like a novel.

If that wasn’t enough!… another retirement project (and another professorial dream): with their students and artist friend, Ryu Motosugi, they built a cafe gallery, シュマン・デュ・ボヌール（chemin du bonheur）!

Lastly, gentle company and conversation amongst 5 people who didn’t share a common language but who spent their lives studying how to communicate with those whom we don’t share a common language!

Here’s to creativity and kindness! ありがとうございます！

aaah calm everyday rhythms in Tokyo, .gifs

From http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2015/08/03/nostalgic-gifs-of-everyday-life-in-japan-animated-by-yuuta-toyoi/

to be there

"While it is true that people leave home for a rational reason, in many situations the real reason for choosing public space is simply to be there..."
J. Gehl, 1966

matcha series

ↄ M Saltzman

Baba

Waseda Dori from Baba subway station (click to enlarge)

This photo probably doesn't convey the
shuffling doors,
fat cats,
hot soups,
new shoes,
whining babies,
crooked walks,
long-gone conversations,
uncertainties,
daydreams...
at the base of those buildings, on top of those roofs, and within each of those multicolored squares.

work, non-work, and numerical time

X is disappointing, discouraging, and sometimes restraining. I don´t know what to think about it because there´s not much I can do about it at the moment. Many people at X impose what Jameson calls the "machine logic of time" and Lefebvre "linear time," which quantifies the time an individual spends producing "work." But what the heck is "work"? The general idea and definition come from the factory or office job--individuals as part of mass production of things-that-can-sell; the agents of mass production carve out the mass work day as: 9:00:00 am to 5:00:00 pm, Monday through Friday. Although I do produce things-that-sell (I do "work" according to that 19th century defintion), I don´t think much about what day or time it is. And since I pursued a career that I enjoy--one that is being done always, at all times--I can´t comprehend how people divide work from non-work, and give a numerical value to each. (And much less when they impose this logic on others.) Of course, when I´m tired, doing something can seem like "work" but, unless I´m tired most of the time, then the awareness of "I´m doing work now" doesn´t dawn often.

Well, I shouldn´t say that I can´t comprehend it. I understand obviously that those who reinforce this (what EP Thompson calls "a new Puritan discipline and bourgeois exactitude") have their reasons. They may need lots of structure or control in their life; or they might run a factory where they want to squeeze out maximum profits; they might do work that they don´t enjoy; or they may be paid by the hour or minute. I guess what I meant by not comprehending is that I find people of the machine-logic nature unpleasant to... work with! Perhaps they make work feel like "work" in the tick-tock sense?

Of course, to survive, time nowadays = money, but what good does it do to be constantly reminded? Well, the reminder does remind us to think of better alternatives.

Speaking of which, is my belief "better" or "different" from other beliefs on work and time? If one believes in normative relativism, it's simply different. However, if one´s objective is a more quality and social oriented life (as opposed to quantity and less-social oriented life), I think it can be "better." What does my imaginary audience think?

I remember now when I was a teenager and worked an hourly-paid job at a calendar store at a suburban mall in the US, a coworker and I used to mess around with the wallclock near the sign-in sign-out sheet...We found it pretty funny to see our coworkers faces when they went to jot down their sign-out time.

(I made that last paragraph up.)

30 minute break

She was hungry this evening but her stomach was bloated
in the grey-tan old quarter
She walked down one street
and another
short breaths
(faint pee-garbage smell)
looking for something cheap to eat, not sweet, not another bocadillo
She came across a free exhibit
She went in, it was dark, empty, damp, old vaulted ceilings, large squared rocks
She looked at some video exhibits
probably done by young artists
She didn’t really understand the messages
She picked up their corresponding pamphlets
and walked back outside
LIGHT
across the street she spotted the Islamic pastisseria
She didn’t know if they would have non-sweet stuff or not
rows of honey-dripping baklava filled the shop-front window
It looked like inside they had some non-sweet stuff
so she went in and purchased a frosted custard cream something
and a pack of Lebanese pita bread
and a large curry chicken fritter.
3,50€
She gave the smiley curly-beard man a 5€ bill, forgetting that she had coins
“shukaran” she said, and he smiled
She wondered if he understood her Arabic
and she wondered if his long beard meant he was extra religious
like “jamón extra” (supposedly a superior type of pre-packaged ham)
She walked out
headed back to her study place
on the narrow sidewalk
opened up the plastic bag of pita bread
opened up the oil-stained paper bag of the large curry chicken fritter
and wrapped the bread around it.
Yummm it was good,
it was white meat
not too spicy
She stopped.


and thought…


I could eat this for dinner too…


...
She turned around
headed back to the Islamic pastesseria.
“¿me puede poner uno más de esos de pollo?”
it was a different guy (also with a long curly beard)
he gave her another chicken fritter
She put it in her plastic bag
She said “shukaran” and gave him 1€
No response
She left and headed back toward her study place
then on, on a façade, she saw something that might be worth sharing with academia
there was some graffiti, and among it a Nike symbol
but instead of Nike it said “BCN” (Barcelona)
with the non-fritter hand
she got out her digital camera
took a picture
put the camera back in its case
back in the plastic bag
and headed back to the study place
thinking about graffiti and why it was that her stomach was always bloated.


Update: She returned to the ¨Pastisseria Islámica¨ the other day and learned that the shopowners are not Arabic but Pakistani and that thank you in Pakistani is ¨shukria.¨

things i saw in the city today

Today I saw so many different things I have to write them down..
A man who had peed his khaki pants.
A man on the street stopped me to ask who I lived with, I answered "I have a housemate," and then he asked me if my housemate had buenos aparatos.

From the privileged high-up view from the 5th floor long window of the biblioteca arxiu historic in the historic quarter of barcelona, looking down over the large Plaça Nova (see photo above), I saw:

grey heavy clouds and a sudden DOWNPOUR. I had never seen it rain so hard before in Barcelona. it hardly ever rains. the gargoyles from the building next-door were vomiting water.

the busy plaza was suddenly abandoned. the pigeons took refuge in the niches between the large facade stones, and the tourists ran to the nearest wall to put their backs against it. i don't know where the locals went, but they disappeared too.

there was just one person that didn't abandon the plaza. she remained right in the middle of it. she was a street performer dressed as an angel. her face and hands were painted white. she lifted her white dress so it wouldn’t get dirty and wet, and then took out a plaid umbrella that didn’t match her attire. she stayed there, slowing walking back and forth with her umbrella.

then from the left appeared a Pakistani immigrant selling umbrellas.

Later in the gothic neighborhood I saw a pigeon dying on the side of a pedestrian street. its head was sunk into its pigeon shoulders and its feathers were matted. i thought of a vet.

And when I looked up I unexpectedly saw Joan! (in a city of 3 million, one of my former housemates and friends.) (he treated me to a piece of chocolate cake.)

I also saw a very large middle-aged African woman sleeping on top of a green sleeping bag on the marble storefront of a closed store. her back was turned away from the street. i thought she might be an immigrant that didn't speak spanish. i thought "shouldn't it be common knowledge to know where the shelters are in case you find someone who is homeless?" i don't know where the shelters are.

update: since that day i have passed the storefront several times and haven't seen her, but folded up neatly to one side of the hearth is her green sleeping bag.

update 1 year later. I spotted this woman laying on a bench in Plaza Urquioana.

from the biblioteca

I’m sitting at the library (Biblioteca d’Arxiu Historic). A beautiful library,
on the 5^th floor, on my left, through a very tall window, I can see over the crumbling Romanesque monastery, where pigeons have made their little homes within the cracks of the large grey millennia-old stones.
Anyhow, I really dislike the silence in libraries and museums, but today I heard music.
And it got louder.
I hear it nice and clearly now.
While the others continued reading and taking notes, I got up and went to over to look out one of those long library windows that face the Plaza Nova, I could hear the music even better now. And I saw where it was coming from. There below was a 60 person orchestra playing. About the same amount of people had gathered around the orchestra to listen.
The pigeons, who are viewing and listening from above, are flapping around like crazy. I think they´re happy with the music!
It is 70 degrees today, not humid, and clear blue skies with some soft clouds. It is 3:30pm, siesta time, and the streets are calm. This morning the streets smelled like spring, not like a sewage. Now it’s started to lightly rain, it's a spring rain. It hasn't rained in months!
Back on my left, the pigeons are fighting over who gets into the facade's niches first.
The gargoyles guarding the monastery begin to drool.
The orchestra has disappeared. The plaza is deserted.
On days like this I'm grateful to be able to enjoy the bit spontaneity that´s left in this city.