Kyoto Journal Digital Issue 84

KJ 84 opens with Douglas Brooks’ glimpses of a practice once ubiquitously vital to all Japan’s coastal, lake and river communities, now almost lost: the art of wooden boat building; Donna James meditates on another ancient conjunction of ingenuity, respect, and natural materials – in Sogetsu flower arrangement. Douglas J. Penick explores mythic and haunting sarugaku origins of Noh theater.

Kyoto photographer Naoyuki Ogino opens our eyes to see into the shadows of traditional Buddhist O-bon dance, Clark Lunberry reads the fiery calligraphy of Kyoto’s mountainside Daimonji festival, and Victoria Knobloch’s photos reveal the devotion of world’s most populous (yet virtually unknown) Buddhist learning community – in Larung Gar, Tibetan China. Winifred Bird interviews the artist Inoue Yoko, who engages with present-day economics, consumer culture and the TPP; Aaron Gilbreath profiles a devotee dealer in vintage American records in Tokyo.

Our In Translation section features ‘The Sacred Horse,’ a story by Hiroshima writer Hiroko Takenishi, translated by Lawrence Rogers. In Fiction, ‘How to Build a House’ by Holly Thompson and ‘Distant and Far Apart’ by Joe Milan Jr.; in Poetry, musings by Paula Bohince, Angela Narciso Torres, Andrew M. Crabtree, Jerrold Yam, and Gail Gutradt. As always, we include an informative Reviews section. And in an excerpt from his recent book The Big Elsewhere, Robert Brady observes the bigger picture in ‘Leonid Time.’

Contents:

Features:
An Apprentice Boatbuilder in Japan – Douglas Brooks
Sogetsu Power – Donna James
Kham and Larung Gar: A Photographic Meditation – Victoria Knobloch
Trick or Treat? – Questioning Consumption with Inoue Yoko – Winifred Bird

Kyoto Notebook:
Picturing the Flames of Kyoto’s Daimonji – Clark Lunberry

Conversation:
Re-opening our Eyes – Sarah Brook interviews Kyoto Photographer Naoyuki Ogino

In Translation:
The Sacred Horse – Hiroko Takenishi; translated by Lawrence Rogers

Encounters:
Koya Abe: Selling Vintage Records in Tokyo – Aaron Gilbreath

Poetry:
Cranes and Pines, Frog and Snail, Plum Blossoms and Poem Papers – Paula Bohince
Aratiles – Angela Narciso Torres
茶室 Tearoom – Jerrold Yam
Miyajima – Andrew M. Crabtree
Better Would be Ume – Gail Gutradt
Foot Extending Whispers on the Bridge of Transformation – Douglas J. Penick

Fiction
How to Build a House – Holly Thompson
Distant and Far Apart – Joe Milan Jr.

Ramble
Leonid Time – Robert Brady

Reviews

Published December 14th, 2015 | 168 pages