Blinking Through: Japan (1993) John, Held, Jr. (A Note on the Title: One of the main sources of amusement Byron Black and I shared during our two week performance schedule in Japan was reading the sweatshirt copy of teenagers. As travelers in Japan discover, English is widespread but often fractured. My favorite phrase, and one that instantly struck me as a summation of my experiences in the country was: American Highlander/Blinking Through. One captures only fleeting impressions of Japan, too much is hid by language, arcane social custom, and downright unfamiliarity with the lay of the land. Following then are some fleeting moments, my blinking through, of Japan) Thursday, April 22, 1993 (Dallas, Texas, USA): Leave the house at 7:00 am to take the bus to the airport. Depart Dallas at 11:15 am for Narita Airport, Tokyo. Friday, April 23, 1993 (Tokyo and Osaka, Japan): Plane late two hours after being diverted around an active volcano. As a result I miss my connection to Osaka. Call Shozo Shimamoto in Nishinomiya and explain the situation. Take alternate Japan Airlines flight and arrive at Itami Airport at 7:30 pm. Shozo is there with Mayumi Handa, Byron Black, and officials from the Cultural Affairs Office of the City of Itami. They greet me with a Welcome John Held Jr. poster with a design from a buZ blurr artistamp. Drive to the Itami International Center, which will remain my home for the next two weeks. Off to eat at a ramen restaurant with Shozo, Mayumi, Y. Yoshitome (editor of AU Newsletter), and Byron. Back to hotel by 10:30 pm. Saturday, April 24, 1993 (Osaka): Breakfast with Byron. Walk over to the Itami City Peace Monument Underground Meditation Center and plan performances with Mayumi and Shozo for the next day. The Underground Meditation Center is a new structure very sleek and Bauhaus Modern. This is the first time it has been used in connection with the performing arts (it opened two years ago). After the planning session Shozo, Mayumi, Byron, and I go into Osaka and visit three galleries. At La Fenice we meet with students of Shozo and discuss the street performances that will occur later in the week at the Teens Music Festival. Byron and I get asked for autographs by the students and sign book bags, jackets, and caps. At another gallery I am reunited with photographer Keizo Kobashi, who was such a good friend on my last trip to Japan in 1988. Buy rubber stamps. Shozo treats Mayumi, Byron and myself to sushi. Mayumi drives us back to the International Center in Itami. Sunday, April 25, 1993 (Osaka): Breakfast with Byron at the International Center. At 10:00 am we walk to the Meditation Center. Fine tune the performance schedule and get the video working. Performance is at 2:00 pm. Blue Boy, Mr. Barefields, and a classical singer perform first. Byron does a video/live monologue on reclaiming the swastika as a universal symbol. I begin the "Last Shadow Performance" by first setting out some Russian nesting dolls in homage to Shozo. Then I have the audience draw on the wetsuit. Next Shozo draws the last shadow on a pillar. Afterwards the audience cuts off the wetsuit with a scissors and Mayumi cuts off my mask. Kazehime (Transformer Laboratory) dances. Interviewed about the performance. A short notice gets published several days later expressing confusion. Back to International Center. At 6:30 pm we go to a reception with officials of Itami City and especially the Cultural department. I'm introduced, and I give the mayor my Mail Art Bibliography as a present to the City for inviting me. Sushi and karaoke. Go to public bath with Kazehime (Wind Princess) and her friend Puff. Monday, April 26, 1993 (Itami City): Walk around before breakfast and buy post cards. Breakfast with Byron at the International Center. Walk over to the Meditation Center for a performance before an audience of Mayumi's beauty school culture group and the general public. Byron performs a monologue with video about his monkeys. I do a performance called "Hair Art for Yugoslavia," where I first get taped by the audience and then Mayumi fits me with a wig. Back to the International Center for a brief rest. Then go to a "revolving sushi bar" with Shozo, Mayumi, Byron and Shozo's son, who is an opera singer in training. I eat 16 plates of sushi. Shozo's son eats 26. I write postcards back at the International Center before turning in early. Tuesday, April 27, 1993 (Itami City and Kyoto): Take a train to Kyoto with Byron. Visit his friend at a store specializing in items from Tibet. Shop for rubber stamps at a department store before heading back to Osaka. At 5:00 pm we meet Mayumi and Mr. Barefields at the JBS radio studio. Mayumi has a monthly radio program, and this month Byron and I are the featured guests. Arrive back at the International Center at 11:00 pm. Wednesday, April 28, 1993 (Itami, Ishihara, and Nara): Leave at 9:00 am with Byron to meet Y. Yoshitome (YY) at the Osaka train station. This is a day free of performances and official duties so Shozo has provided us with the opportunity to see some of the surrounding countryside. We go with YY first to the Ishikiri market in Nara Prefecture. This is an old-fashioned Japanese street market and has much of charm. There are shrines throughout so that the inform can pray for remedies. My favorite is the bronze shrine of an old man with long earlobes. One prays to him for better hearing. We board the train again and proceed to Nara and visit the shrine of the Great Buddha. This is one of the great symbols of Japanese culture and a real treat to witness first-hand. It is a cloudy and rainy day but a delight to wander the grounds with YY and the deer that are the pets of the temple. Train back to Osaka Station. Byron and I return to Itami International Center at 9:00 pm. Thursday, April 29, 1993 (Itami and Nishinomiya): Emperor's Day. Wrote Postcards. Mayumi comes at 10:00 am, and Byron and I go with her by car to the Itami Insect Museum. This is most notable for a gigantic Butterfly Greenhouse. There are hundreds of large butterflies floating around the exotic flowers, many of them landing on people's heads and hands for closer inspection. It's quite a sight! Then we set of for AU artspace for a reception. Mail artist Ryosuke Cohen comes as does Shigeru Tamaru and Kazunori Murakami. Fumiko Tatamatsu is also there. Shozo gives me a pair of shoes sent by Charles Francois of Liege, Belgium, as an homage to Shozo. There are also some Gutai members like Yasuo Sumi who are present. I set up a table to rubberstamp some perforated papers I've brought along. Afterwards Shozo, Mayumi, Byron, YY and myself go for an elegant Japanese multi-course meal. Friday, April 30, 1993 (Itami and Sasajama Village): Mayumi and Shozo pick us up in Mayumi's car at 9:00 am. We first go high up in the mountains north of Osaka to a national forest that is inhabited by monkeys. Byron is in heaven and jumps out to feed them crackers. We then continue on for about an hour to Sasayama, where we go to a "Dynamic Green Resort," which can best be described as a combination botanical garden, spa, and amusement park. We spend an enjoyable time walking around the grounds, paddling a tram around a monorail track, taking a bath, and drinking tea for refreshment. Afterwards we go into the town of Sasajama and shop in the market area. This is a famous tea producing area and still very much in the country. So the shops yield a great many old Japanese traditional items not found in modern Osaka. It's a treat just walking around. After dinner we depart for Itami. Saturday, May 1, 1993 (Itami and Osaka): Washed clothes. Went to Osaka by myself and met Byron at Osaka Station. Took the subway to La Fenice Gallery. This is a very elegant gallery in the middle of Osaka and tonight is a reception for Shozo's new work. They are long scroll like paintings that have been splashed with paint thrown by Shozo and still have some of the glass containers imbedded in them. Some are framed and others are constructed as screens. They are green, red, yellow, black, and their large scale makes them look like a forest with spectators wandering among autumn trees. Shozo has constructed a performance space in the basement of the gallery composed of three crosses and a space for eight buried heads. That is, one crawls under a platform bearing the crosses and pokes one's head up through a hole, thereby appearing to be buried up to one's head. On this occasion, Shozo, Byron Black and a local museum curator are put on the crosses and give a lecture. Later during the next week, this will be one of the sites for the Teen Music Festival performances. The crosses are Shozo's homage to Cavellini, who used the cross in his later artworks as a symbol for his crucifixion by the mainstream art establishment. Shozo's wife and son as well as others from their choral group are "buried" up to their heads and sing lovely classical music as part of the performance. Dinner afterwards with Mayumi, Mrs. Shimamoto, YY, Shozo, his son, Byron, Mayumi's assistant, and myself. Train back to Itami International Center. Sunday, May 2, 1993 (Itami and Osaka): Take bus and train from the International Center in Itami to Osaka Station. By subway, Byron and I go to La Fenice Gallery. Lots of Shozo's students getting makeup applied by beauty school students, some of them Mayumi's and others from different schools. A rainy day, so the outside performances are cancelled. In the basement of the Gallery, living tableaus are created by the students who perch on the crosses and are buried up to their necks, as previously described. Mrs. Shimamoto is back again to sing with her choral group. I get taped to the cross with one of the Japanese students by Kazehime, who has returned from Tokyo for the day. Leave at 6:00 pm to return to Itami International Center. Monday, May 3, 1993 (Itami and Osaka): Bus and train to Osaka Station. Subway to La Fenice Gallery with Byron. Performances at both the Gallery basement and around the corner in the American Village Plaza where a Teens Music Festival is taking place. Crosses are set up in the Plaza and the living tableaus continue. Shozo has his head written on. I tape myself to one of the art students. We are introduced by a DJ who has organized the festival. He seems as mystified as I am. Back to Itami City with Sumi-san. Tuesday, May 4, 1993 (Itami and Osaka): Make prints on washi by a transfer process. Bus and train to Osaka Station, and subway to the Gallery. More performances at the Plaza and in the basement. A dancer with one breast bared dances among the buried heads in a Salome-like tableau. Ryosuke Cohen comes to pick me up for a night on the town. We walk around, eat sushi, go to a small eight-seat karaoke bar, a night club, and back for more karaoke with mama-san. Ryosuke sings like a bird. I manage to warble out "Love Letters in the Sand" and "The Shadow of Your Smile." Back to the International Center. Wednesday, May 5, 1993 (Itami, Nakahame, Osaka): Byron and I take the bus and train to Osaka Station. There we meet Shozo and Mayumi and board another train to Nagahama, which is Northeast of Kyoto on Lake Biwa. There we view "The Italian Report," a show curated by Ruggero Maggi and circulating to five art centers in Japan. We meet with two of the directors where it will be shown. We then have a fantastic elegant multi-course lunch in a private room in a hotel overlooking the lake. An experience not to be missed. On the train back to Osaka I talk to an American girl who has been working in the South of Japan on a two-year contract. She has tales to tell. All in all I can count on one hand the number of Westerners I've seen on this trip. Japan is just too expensive for a vacation. And even though my new friend is making alot of money, it's hard for her to save anything with the food and rent so high. At Osaka Station Shozo, Byron and I take the train back to AU, while Mayumi takes a different train to pick up her car. At AU, a student wanders in and Shozo teaches her the joys of mail art. He is one of those rare people that when you are with them give 100% of themselves. In Japan he's called Sensei-Wise Teacher. Thank you for two weeks of free lessons. Mayumi picks us up, and Byron and I pack up our bags at the Itami City International Center. After packing, Mayumi drives us to the Osaka Bus Station, where we catch a 10:00 pm overnight bus to Tokyo. Thursday, May 6, 1993 (Tokyo, Narita, and Dallas): Arrive at Tokyo Station at 6:30. Byron and I are met by Puff and Kazehime. We go by car to the Tokyo Fish Market, which is a bustling pool of energy. Then we ride to the Ginza for breakfast and talk. Byron and I catch a train to Narita airport at noon. I take a flight from Narita at 5:50 pm direct for Dallas. Arrive in Dallas at 3:30 pm the same day. We race the sun and win. |