"I don't know of any magazine where the design and content so seamlessly
blend as Kyoto Journal. The English-language quarterly's circumspect
cultural critique is never compromised but is in fact strengthened by
the graphic design. The peaceful, stylish design is just as original and
scintillating as the magazine's approach to the ideas, interviews, poems
and discussions it contains... Kyoto Journal is forever looking
for original ways of depicting people and life... We recommend it highly."
– Marco Visscher
Ode, Jan/Feb 2005
"Kyoto
Journal, or "KJ" as it is affectionately known, provides a unique
forum for literature, poetry, art, translation, and social and cultural
commentary, not just from Kyoto, but from all of Asia..."
"Kyoto Journal Inspired"
Society
of Writers, Editors and Translators, Tokyo (SWET)
In October 2007, KJ was short-listed again, for the 11th
consecutive year, in the
Utne
Independent Press Awards, once again under
the category of General
Excellence.
In 2004 KJ was nominated for General Excellence,
Design, and Cultural/Social Coverage.
Previous nominations include Art & Design
Excellence (award winner, 1998), Local/Regional
Coverage, Writing Excellence, Design,
General Excellence,
and Best Essays.
Many thanks (again!) to all our volunteer staff and contributors!
|
 |
|
Tomas
Svab put together a unique Kyoto cityscape (or 'peoplescape'?)
consisting of 150 images in 70 layers for the cover and introductory pages
of KJ #70. This
is his view of Sanjo-dori, Kyoto. Click here
for the hyper-detailed "zoomified" version...
Thought-provoking
perspectives from Asia...
A
non-profit volunteer-based quarterly magazine established in 1986, Kyoto
Journal offers interviews, essays, translations, humor, fiction, poetry
and reviews, accompanied by memorable photo-essays, original illustrations
and award-winning design. No hype, minimal advertising, maximum reading
value.
Launching
KJ#71, a special issue on Tea,
Jan 17, at Kampo Museum, Kyoto
details here
Ryuta
& Chieko Kobayashi:
'Open' Homeless
interviewed by John Einarsen
(from KJ #70, a special issue of interviews with 41 Kyoto
residents)
Kojinguchi was one of eight gates that
led inside the ancient walled city of Kyoto. Today its location is marked
by a bridge that crosses the Kamo River — a concrete span that
also serves as a roof overhead for Ryuta and Chieko Kobayashi.
Over the past eight years, this married couple has resided in shelters
made of cardboard and wood, crafted with their own hands. Wrapped in
bright blue tarp to protect against wind and rain, their structures
are tucked between the stone river embankment and the underside of the
bridge. A picture hangs on the wall of one of the shelters: a reproduction
of a dragon painted in sumi ink.
Two pairs of sandals rest side by side at the foot of a small ladder
that leads to their front door. An opening about the same size as the
humble entrance to a traditional Japanese teahouse, this is where Ryuta
often perches to survey the goings-on along the river. Daisuke, the
couple’s big and friendly white mutt, is familiar to passersby.
The Kamo, flowing below, drains the mountain ranges north of Kyoto,
rolls through the heart of the city and empties into the Inland Sea.
From its banks, the Kobayashis talked about their life.
continued
The Honky-Tonk, the Gokiburi & the Yakuza
by Shane Dickey
graphics by Sam
Mooney
I had been living for three months in a rooming house in the rural
Kyoto suburb of Iwakura when I met Jo Nishitani. He was the proprietor
of a bona-fide honky-tonk restaurant just outside of town. At twenty-one,
Nishitani had changed his given name to Jo and decided to embrace
his love of Hank Williams instead of becoming a policeman as his father
and grandfather had done. Not surprisingly, his family disowned him
and cast him out, a lone cowboy on an inhospitable Japanese landscape.
After a brief tour of the American Southwest with his band, Cheyenne,
during which the aspiring country music stars were mocked and ridiculed,
a jaded Jo Nishitani returned to his homeland and opened his own honky-tonk.
It was indeed a “Western-style” establishment, with a
dozen bourbons behind the bar, a Dolly Parton pinball machine in the
corner, a Confederate flag over the worn pine dance floor, and live
country music three nights a week.
...continued
Shane Dickey, an inveterate teller
of tall tales, teaches in Dayton Ohio and reminisces about wowing
the crowd at the Kyoto Connection back in 1993 – a good
year for archetypal Kyoto myths.
|
Current
Issue:
KJ#70
- KYOTO LIVES
Interviews, memoirs, essays
FULL CONTENTS HERE
Subcriptions
In Japan: 3,200 yen
In Asia: US$39
Elsewhere: US$50
(4 issues, postage included)
more details here.
Subscribe at Redwing.com
Contact
KJ at
feedback[at]kyotojournal.org
Poems by Edith Shiffert
(featured
in KJ #70)
In all directions
small mountains hiding the view
while being the view
GUEST
I bow
to
imaginary buddhas
focusing
on
mercy and wisdom
Conceptually
we
long to know them.
But east or west?
Up
or down?
Turning finds
no other directions
but outside and inside.
So where might they dwell?
What has no site
can only be abstract;
unless
it be everywhere,
always, unavoidable.
(from
When At the Edge
White Pine Press)
|
