Sunday and Gambarimas

They invited me to a picnic on Sunday. The park was in the middle of Shinjuku, cost Y200 to enter (about $2), and it was filled with gardens -- French, Japanese bonsai, Japanese forest, with a 'central park'. We spread out our feast of sandwiches, fruit, cheese, and potato chips. The boys played frisbee, the girls went to sleep. A perfect way to spend four hours on a Sunday afternoon. Thank you very much for the invitation.

Bahag was talking about his job as a professional gardener. A craft akin to bonsai but on large scale gardens like the one we were in. Attention to detail, efficiency on the job, and 'Gambarimas'.

My new favorite word: Gambarimas. What Bahag and company exclaim every morning at 8 am and every afternoon at 12:58 pm as work starts. It is a samurai term that means ''let's go / work hard". I like it.

Speaking of working hard, doing a lot of groundbreaking work here. Meeting many artists and curators, doors are opening. Big doors are opening. First time I feel that the hard work we've been doing in Manila with photography is finally allowing us to enter them.

Gambarimas.

Image: Bahaghari, 2009

Open Studio

I am living in this building, everything is really monochromatic and sterile-- napaka-creative ang space no?.

We had an open studio over the weekend. The artists set up their work and people come by to look and talk / ask questions. Some people put up drawings, photographs, other installations. I put up a table and chair and made kwento to people coming in. With samples of my work running on a slideshow.



Met Jeremy who is Chinese, married to a Japanese, living in Boston and he runs an inititiative called the Ampalaya Council. They promote the ampalaya (bitter melon in English).

Met artist Mitsunori who was a speaker at the day's art talk who was thrilled to hear I was from the RP. I braced myself for the reason but relaxed soon after. In his fishing village in northern Japan, the only foreigner living there was an apprentice to a wood carver and he was Pinoy, he taught Mitsunori how to play basketball.

There was also this girl who kept talking to me, asking walang connection questions in baluktot English, ang kulit niya. Yum pala nag-prapractice lang siya. Ignore.



The highlight of the afternoon though was the two Cambodian artists who managed a performance using rubbish, paint, old receipts and a video projection of pollution. It was amazing that the creative sensibilities come out spontaneously in a place where art as a creative expression is not allowed. In Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar, creative self-expression is frowned on, is considered taboo. So artists in Laos and Cambodia are usually painters who do temple (Buddhist) murals. And well Myanmar...

That these two guys are here in Japan doing this is pretty amazing.

Teien's Ghosts

Teien Museum used to belong to the Japanese Royal Family till they gave it to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Old house, nice garden. Went on Friday to an opening Stitch by Stitch, artists who use embroidery and beading. Home Economics gone wild. Pero wala pa rin silang sinabi kay BV and her animals :).

Last three rooms hit me headache-hard with elaborate compact embroidery of family crests and sort of medieval looking feudal shields. Tried to look at them, but ended up running out of there. Etsuko my guide then tells me they are by a 'mentally disabled' artist, a patient institutionalized for life. Sabi ko na nga ba eh. So I spent some time in the garden to ground and breathe.

Thank You

A Belated One to all Tiger's friends who made it to his 3rd birthday!

Curiosities

The Metro system here has upwards of 18 lines (compared to Manila's measly 2.5). They stations are immaculately clean and the trains, no matter how crowded, are very quiet. I like. I also like looking at the bags of my carmates. I like this olive croc skin work bag.


The men and office ladies are very well dressed. The men especially in their man bags and shoes and very nice suits. Why can't men dress this way in the RP?

A few years ago, there was a tv show on NHK Manila called Oh Tokyo. A Pinay who spoke Japanese would go around Tokyo's stores and streets interviewing different people, it was made very entertaining by she being her own translator. I loved that show. I get it now, the curiosity for this place... such as this shop girl watering the sidewalk plants in the middle of Ginza.



And a few blocks away from the watering lady, I found a Bonsai shop. It was a gallery for bonsai and Wabi (Wabi-sabi (侘寂?) represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience, thank you Wikipedia). It was a sweet little shop, that sold the bonsai at very affordable prices, with a bonsai-caring service if you went away for months at a time.



It is growing on me.

Ramen Non

Last night I had dinner at Chateau Joel Robuchon, spent a minor fortune by grantee-on-a-budget standards. But the escargot curry was delicious and the lamb with asparagus was melt in my mouth good. Plus Eric the maitre d' made sure I had good wine to go with it, a selection called Madiran from the French-Spain border. Topped it off with three cheeses, a goat, a blue, and an old gouda. Yum yum yum. I was eating with my eyes closed most of the time, isolating senses makes it better.

So in the spirit of reactionary frugality, today I stayed in and had ramen in a cup. And now I have a huge migraine.

Image: back to the Midtown Tokyo Mall, this is the basement, a MUJI wonderland!!! Billlie, Tish, Rach, come see :)

Remembering Grace

This is the best frozen yoghurt I've tried. I mixed the strawberry and old fashioned vanilla and was transported back some twenty something years to South Supermarket Magallanes and the soft serve ice cream I used to treat myself to. Speaking of that soft serve ice cream, the salesperson was a tranny in her/his mid forties, otherwise a middle aged man but was always impeccably dressed--a lady with matching neck scarves and low heels. Think Tootsie but more. The stand was no more than a machine and a stool beside it to sit on, but looking at her, you would think she was the chief purser at TWA or something. She carried herself with so much grace. She was beautiful.

How can it not be genetic?

Better Day

What a difference a day makes. I finally met with my hosts today, so happy about that. There is now a plan to being here.


Went to Tadao Ando's 21_21 Design and to the National Art Center both in Roponggi. Shows were pretty good. But made better because no one else was there! Museums are usually closed on Mondays but these two remain open, to no crowds. Hung out at the Art Center library (I Love Libraries) and took in the latest Aperture and Blind Spot. Aperture had a mention of Charles Harbutt who we showed in SL last year, yippee.

View from the library with hat --



Done with the art boost, so I headed on over to Tokyo Midtown... sorry Tin it beats Rockwell by a gazillion miles. It is absolutely a beautiful mall. I want to buy something from there so badly, anything.. (when does that ever happen?).



And they have a dog salon so I went to visit dogs at DogStation (ImisstheTiger)...



And matching beautiful gas station on the corner (sorry no relation to anything but I thought it was the cleanest gas station I've ever seen).



Ok enough of the superlatives.

What to do when you don't have a TV

Thank God for the internet and..
1. Look for photographs of yourself on facebook (thank you Marti Davila).
2. Read all the chismis blogs (perez hilton, tmz, pep).
3. Watch all the new Beyonce videos.
4. Answer emails. But no one has been writing me! It's the out-of-office autoreply I've got going, telling people to pretty much expect to be ignored for a couple of months. Plus my personal email is in the ICU, can't send out, can barely receive. Does not help that R put a block on the gallery gang sending me daily updates.

Make to do lists..
1. People to email in the morning
2. Stuff I have to finish this week
3. Trips I need to book out of Tokyo

Read a book..
1. am reading Machiavelli's THE PRINCE. Fun stuff especially when his solution to gaining control of situations is killing all your enemies and their children and children's children. Not very different from a brother telling me on my first day of first grade, 'hit them first, then they'll know who's boss'. Sorry for hitting you Nuki. I am a much gentler person these days. And that brother is somewhere I'd rather not be :)
2. next book is Collins' HUNGER GAMES

Do laundry + clean the room cubicle and bathroom...

Think of shows to put together...

I've walked about three to five kilometers a day since I've gotten here. Thank you sister B for getting me the Blundstones that are hands down the most comfortable shoes. Arigato gozaimasu. I've also expanded my experience of the very dense public transportation system. Today I went to the following stations: Harajuku, Yoyogi, Meguro, Shibuya, and my home Omotesando.

The Luxe guide we got a couple of years ago insisted that we go see the Meiji Shrine. Which we didn't then. So went today, well worth it. Being a Sunday and all. With the harajuku girls and the bo-peep boys (they seem to have replaced the hello kitty folk) at the entrance of the shrine, the contrast was complete.

Huge TV withdrawal going on, I'm trying to replace it with the internet but it's not working. Add to that that the feeling of being completely physically alone living in an office building. And when you do get out, no one speaks your language. It's a very very alienating experience.

I'm supposed to make art at the end of all of this. Did a roll today. Then went to Bic Camera in Shibuya. The camera store has a liquor section bigger than the film section. That was art.

Wakarimasen

Tamago Issey

I've been trying to get my bearings for the last few days.
Everything is on sale. A summer sale hits mid-year for three weeks, and at 30-70% off. Paul Smith building.

I've visited Tokyu Hands, Loft, Itoya, and Muji. The Moleskin Collection.

Drip coffee sets.

Parking lots.

Had sushi yesterday below Koyanagi-san's gallery. It was very good: the ika and the uni especially. Tomoko grates the wasabi root with shark skin.

Disjointed and incomplete but getting somewhere. Tokyo is busy but quiet. The quiet to me specially as I don't understand Japanese. Wakarimasen. So the usual ambient sound of picked up conversations is only sound without meaning.

My room has a window. A window in a block of office buildings. I cannot open it. I look out onto a concrete plaza. The window building creaks a lot. My aircondition hums constantly, I can't shut if off.

Outsider art seems headed my way. Chris Marker's San Soleil, the first ten minutes. Sophia Coppola's Lost in Translation, the whole movie.