KABUKI FUN FACTS (With a little help from Catman and his friends)

KABUKI FUN FACTS from the Ichikawa Nekojin Kabuki Players and Aoi Tokugawa

Kabuki and cartoons have something in common.

For one thing, both project the nature of a character by their face - its color and expression. A bad guy has a terrible face, and a guy who is good or "cool" has a cool face. In Kabuki, a nice guy like Sukeroku has white makeup and red kumadori; that is, a particular style of makeup used in kabuki in which red, blue, brown, and black cosmetics are painted on an actor’s face to emphasize the nature of the character he portrays.

In the case of a female role, for example, a sexy or desirable unmarried lady wears a red kimono. In comics you are likely to see such a woman, perhaps a femme fatale, in a tight-fitting red dress.

The etymology of kabuki is “kabuku”; that is, inclined toward an imbalance or abnormality. Kabuki players like to wear strange fashions; so one might say then, that kabuki is the father of cosplay (costume play).

And there it is and there you have it.

STORMS OVER JAPAN

Rain, thunderstorms, heat, and humidity continue to beleaguer Japan, bring death and destruction.

Storm clouds over Ichinokura, Gifu Prefecture.

Storm rising at Ichinokura

After the storm.

Copyright 2014 by Hayato Tokugawa and Aoi Tokugawa.  All rights reserved.

MUSEUM OF MODERN CERAMIC ART (岐阜県現代陶芸美術館)

Museum of Modern Ceramic Art (岐阜県現代陶芸美術館) ~ Higashi-machi, Tajimi City, Gifu Prefecture. It's a great place to visit. You can just sit, have a picnic, think, enjoy nature and the peace and quiet if you like. It's never crowded. And it's not far from our house! 

Copyright 2014 by Hayato Tokugawa.  All Rights reserved.

ONE OF NATURE’S LITTLE DRAMAS WE HAVE NO TIME FOR

ONE OF NATURE’S LITTLE DRAMAS WE HAVE NO TIME FOR

This morning, oh about 7:30 am, I was on my way to the morning market when I heard a “murder” of crows, chattering and cawing away up in the trees across the street. Now, crows are not unusual here in Midtown at all, and I find them cheery, funny birds to have around. I looked up, expecting to see some sort of “crow antics,” always entertaining, but that is not what I saw. I looked up and there was a large, beautiful red-tailed hawk sitting atop a pine tree, with a dozen or so crows diving at him, all the while cawing frantically. I stood there for a few minutes watching this little drama of nature; the hawk sitting there in the treetop, unperturbed by the angry crows. Eventually he shook himself, fluffed his feathers and then took off casually to the south, the crows in hot pursuit.

 I noticed, as I stood there watching, that no one else passing by looked up. No one took notice of what was going on above the street as they walked here and there to whatever destination required their presence immediately. Some were absorbed in their smart phones, oblivious to all around them, and those that were not so engaged, still seemed unmindful to the spectacle.

Then I thought that this was perhaps not so remarkable any longer to anyone but me. We have intruded into and destroyed the habitats of some many creatures in the last thirty years — where else have we left them to go but into the urban environment. I remembered that there had been a time, when I was much younger, when we became aware that our expansion outward from urban centers, with the explosion of the suburbs destroying the wild lands; that to have one’s own expensive though cheaply made home was central to the so called “American Dream,” We also knew then that we could make a collective choice to restrain our careless expansion, intrusion, and destruction; but as a society, we largely chose to either ignore that choice or to act only in our own immediate interests.

True, peregrines for example, nest and hunt even in the big cities like New York or San Francisco, but also the coyote, the bobcat, the mountain lion, and even the bear now intrude into our towns and cities — where else can they go when we have pressed them so hard and taken away their homes.

I was just thinking these things as I watched the crows on my way to the morning market.

PAINTING OF A PAINTED WALL: Tajimi, Japan

A watercolor of a window featuring local cermaics, that was itself painted on the wall of a brick building in the village of Ichinokura, in the city of Tajimi, Gifu Prefecture. By Hayato Tokugawa

SAKURA FOG; By Hayato Tokugawa 03 March 2013

OSHIDORI: By Lafcadio Hearn

There was a falconer and hunter, named Sonjo, who lived in the district called Tamura-no-Go, of the province of Mutsu. One day he went out hunting, and could not find any game. But on his way home, at a place called Akanuma, he spotted a pair of oshidori[1] (mandarin ducks), swimming together in a river that he was about to cross.  To kill oshidori is not good; but Sonjo happened to be very hungry, and he shot at the pair. His arrow pierced the male: the female escaped into the rushes of the further shore, and disappeared. Sonjo took the dead bird home, and cooked it.

That night he dreamed a dismal dream. It seemed to him that a beautiful woman came into his room, stood by his pillow, and began to weep. So bitterly she wept that Sonjo felt as if his heart were being torn out as he listened.

The woman cried to him, "Why…oh!  Why did you kill him?  Of what wrong was he guilty?  At Akanuma we were so happy together…and you killed him!  What harm did he ever do you? Do you even know what you have done?  Oh!  Do you know what a cruel, what a wicked thing you have done?  Me too you have killed, for I will not live without my husband!  Only to tell you this I came."  Then again she wept aloud, so bitterly that the voice of her crying pierced into the marrow of the listener's bones.  And she sobbed out the words of this poem:

Hi kurureba

Sasoeshi mono wo

Akanuma no

Makomo no kure no

Hitori-ne zo uki!

("At the coming of twilight

I invited him to return with me!

Now to sleep alone

In the shadow of the rushes of Akanuma –

Ah!  What misery unspeakable!")[2]

      After having spoken these verses she exclaimed, "Ah, you do not know!  You cannot know what you have done!  But tomorrow, when you go to Akanuma, you will see, you will see..." So saying, and weeping very heartbreakingly, she went away.

      When Sonjo awoke in the morning, the dream remained so vivid in his mind that he was greatly troubled. He remembered the words:  "But tomorrow, when you go to Akanuma, you will see.  You will see!"  And he decided to go there immediately, so that he could learn whether his dream was anything more than a dream.

      He went to Akanuma; and there, when he came to the riverbank, he saw the female oshidori swimming alone. In the same moment, the bird saw Sonjo, but instead of trying to escape, she swam straight towards him, looking at him all the while in a strange fixed way. Then, with her beak, she suddenly tore open her own body, and died before the hunter's eyes.        

      Sonjo shaved his head, and became a priest.

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[1] Author’s Footnote:  From ancient time, in the Far East, these birds have been regarded as emblems of conjugal affection.

[2] Author’s Footnote:  There is a pathetic double meaning in the third verse; for the syllables composing the proper name Akanuma ("Red Marsh") may also be read as akanu-ma, signifying "the time of our inseparable (or delightful) relation." So the poem can also be thus rendered:   "When the day began to fail, I had invited him to accompany me! Now, after the time of that happy relation, what misery for the one who must slumber alone in the shadow of the rushes!"  The makomo is a short of large rush, used for making baskets.

From The Annotated Kwaidan By Lafcadio Hearn, Edited and Illustrated By Hayato Tokugawa, Copyright 2009 by Shisdei-Do Publications. All rights reserved.