As soon as I arrived at the Triplet cryptomerias, I noticed a green face emerging out of a fork of the trees. I couldn’t help recalling the ukiyoye faces by Sharaku, a famous and mysterious woodprint artist in the Edo period. 三本杉についたとたん、木の叉から緑の顔がのぞいているのに気がついた。江戸時代の謎の浮世絵師写楽が描いた顔を思い出さずにはいられなかった。
When I was driving my Fiat 500 on a mountain road some years ago, I noticed an unusual object in the roadside bush. I pulled it out of the grass and it was a basketball ring.
何年か前、フィアット５００で山の中をドライブしていたら何か変なものが道端のヤブの中に顔をのぞかせていた。草から引っ張りだしたらバスケットボールのゴールリングだった。
A basketball ring? But why in the mountain? Well, I thought it was illegally dumped, and decided to bring it back home, because I always dreamed of having a basketball goal above the garage like ones I saw in the States.
へ？バスケの輪っか？でも何で山ん中に？まあ不法投棄だろうなと思って、持って帰ることにした。アメリカでよく見かけたガレージの上に付いているやつみたいなのを欲しいなあと常々思ってたから。
However, the ring was much much heavier than I thought and I kinda regretted as soon as I picked it up– not just heavy, it looked huge on the rear seat of the miniature-sized Cinquecento, Ever since then, the hoop had been sleeping in the garage until yesterday morning, when I started to build the supporting beams and the board.
ところが、リングは思っていたよりめっちゃ重くて、拾い上げたとたんにちょっと 後悔した。重いだけじゃなく、ちっこいチンク号の後席でリングは巨大に見えた。それ以来ずっと輪っかはうちのガレージで眠っていた、、、支持梁とボードを作り始めた昨日の朝までは。
The job’s done! Whoops! I realized I hadn’t order a net and a basketball, yet! Gotta buy ‘em from Amazon or somewhere, now.
完成っ！、、、わっ！ネットとボールを持ってなかったんだった。すぐアマゾンかどっかで買わなきゃ。
It’s been a while since my son Kenji went back to Morioka, Iwate pref., and having done with refurbishing the Hanase house, I am idling these days, just sitting in front of a computer all day long. Just now, I stumbled on a Youtube movie that showed my name, and it turned out to be a promotion video Kenji made for a comic artist.
息子の賢治が岩手の盛岡に帰ってしばらく経つが、花背の家の直しも済んで僕は日がな一日コンピューターの前に座ってだらけている今日このごろ、、、。した らついさっき僕の名前が出てくるYoutube動画に出くわした。そんでそれはある漫画家のために賢治が制作したPVだった。
I provided Kenji with a piece of music that I played with a morin khuur and a karimba couple of months ago so as for him to use it in the background of the video. When he phoned me, he explained that the video would be used in a local manga event in Morioka. If I knew the video would be uploaded to Youtube, I should have played it better (or at least edited it to make the sound better)… Uh… I wasn’t able to in anyway, was I?
何ヶ月か前に、盛岡で開かれるローカルな漫画イベントで馬頭琴の音楽を使いたいと賢治に頼まれ、カリンバも添えて録音して送ったことがある。まさかYoutubeにアップされると知っていたら、もうちょっと上手に演奏（少なくとも良く聞こえるように編集）したのに、、、あ、そんなのハナから無理か。。。
A music-story-telling unit called “Nocanan” (my friend Haruhiko Saga and his wife Takako) will perform at the former Tea House in the Nishijin district, Kyoto, on April 21.
日本語？⇒Click Here
To compensate the audience for the expensive ticket, I am going to give away everyone of the audience a music CD containing Saga’s Morin Khuur tunes.
He played the “Oshirasama Morin Khuur” I made while traveling in the Tohoku and Hokkaido regions one and a half years ago. I was so happy that he liked my work and its sound. I almost cried out when he played the rough and rustic instrument just for me in a dark midnight park where no one else is around.
“Making of Oshirasama Morin Khuur”
In the morning of my departure to complete the last leg of my Tohoku-Hokkaido jurney, Saga kindly recorded five pieces of music, which are in the CD above-mentioned. The CDs have been burned with the labels and jackets printed, and packaged already.
Aside from the CD, I have set up the stage in the former Tea House. It is so small and can accommodate only 15 people as the audience. That was the reason for the high entrance fee. Although small, the stage has the wooden floor made of hinoki planks that are considered to be the best material for the stage board. thus the term “hinoki butai (hinoki stage)” = on the first-class stage, or more metaphorically, be in the limelight.
Now that the show biz stuff is ready, only thing yet to be done is to tidy my place. The house is now full of mess! (and of course no photo of it here). I have been busy fixing my another house in Hanase and neglected the house in Haradani, which the Sagas are going to stay in. However, I am not necessarily good at putting things away… and the time is running out…
phew!
野花南の入場料を高く設定したので、お詫びにおみやげCD作成し、ライブに来た人に無料であげちゃう。
札幌を発つ日の朝、嵯峨さんが演奏、録音し、自ら調整までしてくれた５曲入。
西陣茶店跡のステージ設営完了。台所の板襖取っ払って板の間が舞台になる。床はヒノキ張りなので当に「檜舞台」。
客席は何とか１５人のキャパを確保した。極小のハコであるために高額入場料となってしまった。（3,000円を高額というと嵯峨さんに失礼だけど。。。僕の財布感覚ではそういうことになる）
まあ、ショー売の話はさておき、まだやることがある。花背の家の修理にかまけて、原谷の家が放ったらかしになり、物やゴミの散らかり具合のエゲツナイこと！（当然、写真はナシ）。嵯峨さん一家が泊まりにくる前に何とかしないと。。。（でも僕は掃除、嫌いなんだよねえ、、、と言ってるうちに時間が迫る！ ふう〜）
“Buttan”, the mascot of Bukkyo Univ (Butsudai), is seen everywhere on campus of the school but rarely recognized by public except for the students. Even the neighbors don’t know of him. I live in the vicinity of Butsudai and only Buttan I meet is behind bars… Sad.
(I used to be a student of the UW-Madison, whose mascot was Bucky Badger. His images were flooding in Madison and everybody knew him– appearing on the milk bottles in supermarkets and printed even on the condom packets on a shelf by the checkout counter of a convenience store.)
