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The Prince of Spring. A video poem about the cruellest month.

#coronavirus #covid19 #april #ts eliot #lilacs

Beauty in the Tokyo National Museum

These are some of the beautiful objects that caught my eye in the Tokyo National Museum. Its spacious, easy-to-navigate galleries offer a well-displayed range of objects documenting Japan’s history from earliest times.

Kumogami ‘cloud paper version’. Attributed to Jakuren (?-1202). Transcribed on this fragment is a section from The Collection of Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing. The paper is characterised by its cloud like patterns dyed in indigo on the top and bottom.

Segment of ‘Japanese Poems Ancient and Modern’, attributed to Fujiwara no Sari (944–98). This fragment contains poems about the first day of autumn.

Draft of a Japanese poem (Waka) starting with ‘The Moon above The Plains of Musashino’ by Karasumaru Mitsuhiro (1579-1638). Ink on paper.

The poem describes the beautiful autumn moon sinking into the plains of Musashino. The area has been renowned for magnificent autumn scenery since ancient times.

A high-ranking woman of the samurai class owned this robe. It’s design consists of scenery and objects alluding to ‘The Tale of Genji’ and Noh plays.

‘Chinese Poems’ by Mitsui Shin’na (1700-82).

Mitsui inscribed these screens with phrases from various Ming dynasty (1368-1644) poems. The panels alternate between cursive, seal and clerical scripts.

‘Clear Moon in Autumn’ Nagano Sofu 1885–1949.

#nationalmuseum #beauty #poetry #tokyojapan

This teahouse was built by the feudal lord and tea practitioner Kobori Enshu (1579-1647). It was moved from its original location in Koyoto to the garden behind the National Museum in Tokyo.

#teahouse #Tengoan #tokyojapan

‘The sound of the water

is my companion

in this lonely hut…’

A scroll in the National Museum in Tokyo describes the life of the 12th century poet Saigyo. He abandoned his life as a noble—and his family—to become a wandering monk. We don’t know what his wife had to say about this.

Here we see him outside his writing shed wondering what to do with his day. “Cherry blossom,” he thinks. “I’ll write a poem about cherry blossom.”

‘I'll forget the trail I marked out on Mount Yoshino last year, go searching for blossoms in directions I've never been before.’

He lived alone for long periods but he is better known for the many poetic journeys he took to Northern Honshū that would later inspire Bashō in his ‘Narrow Road to the Interior’.

Due to the turbulent times (like now) Saigyō focuses not just on mono no aware (sorrow from change) but also on sabi (loneliness) and kanashi (sadness).

‘Even a person free of passion

would be moved

to sadness:

autumn evening

in a marsh where snipes fly up.’

He died at the Hirokawa Temple in Kawachi Province (present-day Osaka Prefecture) aged72.

#poets #japan #rwc2019

‘To understand the world of today, hold it up to the world of long ago.’ From ‘Hojoki’ translated as ‘An Account of My Hut’ or ‘The Ten Foot Square Hut’ written by Kami no Chōmei in 1212. It seems appropriate to read it, and Basho’s ‘Narrow Road to the Interior’, on the Shinkansen (which means New Trunk Line rather than bullet train) on the way to Sapporo from Tokyo, to watch a couple of Rugby World Cup games.

#hut #japan #rwc2019

cabinporn

Get dad a Cabin Porn book for Father’s Day.

Robert Garlow (@SHED_tinyhouse) enjoying the Cabin Porn book and making s’mores in front of the sauna the Crystal Peak Lookout (@crystalpeaklookout) in Northern Idaho.

More to see of the Lookout in the upcoming Cabin Porn: Inside book as well. Pre-order to reserve a copy: cabinporn.com/inside

#fathers day #cabinporn