The Ten Thousand Things (and More)

Mutual combinations of the eight trigrams result in the production of ten thousand things.  

-Shao Yong (1011-1077)

The ten thousand things are produced and reproduced, so that variation and transformation have no end.

-Zhou Dunyi (1017-1073)

In his magisterial book entitled Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art (Princeton University Press, 2000), Lothar Lederrose discusses how modules form the essence of Chinese art, whether in terms of the writing system, bronze casting, ceramic production, architecture, printing, or painting.  The quotes above are from his book, which also explores the ways in which the creation of the terracotta army of Emperor Qin reflects similar aspects of mass production.  Much like the composite sculptures made in Egypt during the reign of King Akhenaten (the Amarna period, ca. 1350-1335 BCE), the terracotta soldiers were fashioned with separate heads, hands, torsos, and arms, all made in a sort of assembly line.  Inscriptions found on the figures show that some of the people fashioning these parts were the same artisans responsible for creating clay drainpipes for the imperial palace.  Yet, unlike the complete standardization required for effective drainage, the modularity of the terracotta army  introduced the possibility of endless variation - mannequins with interchangeable heads and poses.  

That this kind of mass production should occur in the Qin Dynasty is hardly surprising, considering that this is also the period in Chinese history responsible for the first standardized system of weights, coinage, the creation of the Great Wall, the standardization of the Chinese script, the creation of the first monumental stelae, and so on.  Modularity was newly employed on a massive scale as a responsive strategy for creating and controlling an empire (both present and future). Yet, far from having the reputation as a peaceful period, tradition holds that the reign of Qin Shihuangdi witnessed much bloodshed and harshness.   Perhaps this is in part because, like the case of Pharaoh Khufu who constructed Egypt's Great Pyramid, Emperor Qin's grandiose concept of his own funerary monument required such sacrifice on the part of the people, leading to legends about the ruler's cruel and despotic character.  Even the creation of the terracotta "army" must have come at an enormous human and environmental cost (think of the forests of trees felled to fuel the kilns!).  

Most early civilizations, including Shang Dynasty China, Early Dynastic Egypt, the Classic Maya, and the Uruk Period in Mesopotamia, not to mention by name several other cultures of Central and South America,  engaged in the practice of human sacrifice as part of the commemoration of a paramount ruler.  In most cases, it seems as though the ruler wished to bring various servants and courtiers along with him into the next world.  As distant as this practice is to us, we can all too easily imagine Jonestown-like scenes of suicide or ritual murder (acts which we associate with cults rather than prevailing organized religions and polities, but familiar to us nonetheless).   Eventually, the difficulty of the situation seems to have led to its abandonment- imagine the difficulties encountered by the "transition team" when the "institutional memory" had been erased, together with the previous cabinet and office holders!  While such a scenario might have appealed to some of us following the last US administration, it is not hard to see why the bloody practice would have been abandoned in favor of a symbolic gesture.  What is interesting in the archaeological record is to observe what replaces the burial of  sacrificial victims.  In Egypt, once human sacrifice is abandoned, what seems to take the place of killing members of the royal court to accompany the dead ruler during the Old Kingdom (ca. 2649-2100 BCE)  is the construction of a city of the dead - streets and virtual neighborhoods of tombs of princes, princesses, aristocrats, architects, treasurers, craftsmen, and priests, all allotted tombs around the base of the king's pyramid (presumably only requiring the presence of their intended residents once their natural lifespans had played out). 

Only later, as of about 2000 BCE, does the practice begin of the creation of small wooden or wax figures of the deceased (variously called shabtis, shawabtis, or ushebtis), assigned with the task of taking on the duties of the dead person in the next world.  Here, however, instead of representing various members of a wealthy person's inner circle or his/her employees, the shawabti figures all bear aspects of the identity (and appearance) of the deceased, in some cases including a figure to represent every day of the year.  This has much to do with the avoidance of taxation in the next world (or its proxy, corvée or enforced labor),  and in that sense does not reflect the concerns of the royal sphere, which is quasi-divine and above such worries.  Royal proxies were likely not taxed with farm labor, but even so kings and queens adopt the use of these figurines by 1525 BCE, and the texts on them indicate that the royals were concerned to avoid any potential labor in the next world.  A curious case of the movement of a religious practice from the middle class to the royal sphere, but not one that can do much to explain why human sacrifice ceases, and what replaced it conceptually.  

A Review of "Washing the Book"!

I am pleased that the Hong Kong Blogs Review site has recommended this blog.  I also appreciate their comment about colonialist attitudes among foreigners here, which are far too prevalent in this former colony.  Cantonese has idioms for speaking only praises of Hong Kong (cheung ho Heung Gong, or "singing Hong Kong well"), or speaking ill of it (cheung seui Heung Gong).  When I sing of it, I hope to sing well, or at least in key- though I have lots of other songs to sing as well!

I don't want to neglect the important and highly relevant discovery described in this recent article.

Enjoy!

The Han Emperor's Pig Army

XI'AN   西安  (ancient Chang'an, meaning "Perpetual Peace") is an extraordinary reflection of human endeavor.  By now, we are all familiar with the seemingly endless ranks of terracotta soldiers in the pits surrounding the tomb of Qin Shihuangdi, the "First Emperor."  But how about the smaller-scale Han Dynasty "army" of Emperor Jing Di (ca 188-141 BCE), featuring not only male soldiers, but female courtiers, foreign horsemen, and legions of pigs, sheep, goats, dogs, horses, and the occasional chicken or rooster?!  This was for me one of the most extraordinary archaeological sites I have ever visited,  presented in a spectacular manner unmatched elsewhere.  Located to the west of Emperor Qin's complex, and discovered in 199o during construction of the new highway running to the Xi'an airport, this monumental burial site dating from the Western Han dynasty is in many ways even more interesting to me than its more famous (and bigger) Qin predecessor.  Yet, in order to put the Han Yangling site (as it is called) into context, I need to explain a bit about my visit this April to the "terracotta army" of Emperor Qin.  

Looking at the archaeological heritage of Xi'an provides a lot of opportunity for introspection and reflection.  I've already mentioned my visit to the Banpo Neolithic village, which was a project of the 1950s, and which reveals as much about that era in terms of the interpretive materials and site museum as it does about this important ancient place.  Emperor Qin's army, however, takes up where Banpo leaves off, in more ways than one.  Discovered in 1974, the pits containing the life-sized terracotta soldiers and horses have been under excavation ever since, and thus the site provides a kind of museum of Chinese archaeology and official attitudes over the past 35 years.  Pit 1 (above), expanded from the location of the first finds of the broken soldiers, has been open to the public since 1979, and is covered with a structure resembling in scale and construction a massive airplane hangar.  Here the lighting is bright and powerful, and one is confronted with the reconstructed ranks of the infantry and chariotry.  For most people, this is the "photo op" zone, a place to drink in the massive scale of this ancient project.  

I was intrigued not  only by the soldiers themselves, but by the massive rammed-earth partitions between the individual rectangular zones, which still bear impressions of the logs that were intended to protect the army.  Since, however, these have all caved in with the decay of the ancient wood, all of the terracotta figures (and the other ceramic items that accompanied them) have been smashed.  Just beyond the excavated area is a large portion of Pit 1 that is awaiting future work, as well as an open area where figures under reconstruction may be examined at eye-level (there is also the inevitable red carpeted "VIP" area for those special few!) It was while examining the conservation area that my suspicions were first aroused about the nature of what we see down in Pit 1.  Since all of the figures had been smashed, and were being restored with multiple struts, supports, and a massive amount of plaster, how could the perfect figures aligned in rows down in the pit itself be in such apparently perfect states of preservation?

Moving onto Pit 2, only 20 meters away, a slightly different state of affairs was apparent.  The lighting is low, adjusted to protect the fugitive pigments that began to be revealed in this area. Here, the archaeologists (who have been digging here since 1994) have left much of the broken material in place, and have only "cleaned up" portions of the more than 900 soldiers and 89 chariots.  

At this point, I became quite sure that the reconstructed figures placed back in the pits were modern replicas, although no signage anywhere might indicate this possibility.  Twenty years of observation and the developing techniques of the archaeologists and conservators responsible for Emperor Qin's burial place clearly have made an impact on the way that Pit 2 had been approached, for here figures were revealed with much of their original polychrome paint, which once covered not only their armored bodies, but also their faces, eyes, and even patterns on their clothing (the photo to the left is my poor-quality image of a photograph on display, taken at the moment of discovery).

The much smaller Pit 3, still under excavation, revealed a similarly advanced state of affairs: archaeologists are clearly now working at a much slower rate, and are not attempting to reveal the extent of the army at the expense of the data retrieved, but instead are doing their best to squeeze the maximum amount of information out of every area encountered.  This is as it should be - and it is a very familiar progression to me. After 16 years working on my own excavation, I am more and more eager to derive the maximum data out of each small area, and less willing to sacrifice detail for broad areal coverage.  These are the stresses and conflicts of archaeologists worldwide, and I am very pleased that our Chinese colleagues are making enormous strides forward in the approach to Emperor Qin's army.  That having been said, I am still confused about the apparent policy of placing replicas on site.  

 As I looked closely at examples of actual reconstructed soldiers and horses on display in cases alongside Pit 2, it was very clear that the perfect examples down in the pits were modern.  

Reconstructed soldiers and horses (below)?  Or replicas to increase "visitor experience"?

Even more surprising to me was the huge crowd surrounding the reconstructed half-size bronze chariots found in 1980 (not my photo):

Since these had also been smashed to tiny pieces, the perfect chariots on display seemed to me either to be the most over-restored examples of ancient bronze I have ever seen, or (more likely) replicas intended for public view.  Debates have raged in the course of international loan exhibitions of the terracotta army regarding the potential inauthenticity of the examples sent abroad, and I now believe that the doubt is well-founded.  Conservators can indeed do much to hide joins in reconstructing ceramic vessels and sculpture, but I just don't think that most of what was re-erected and put on display down in the pits was given that kind of attention. More likely, over-cautious attitudes prevailed, and full-size replicas were made on commission for use in display (and, I might add, for sale in the museum shop!) The actual, reconstructed figures are probably those displayed here in glass cases, as well as in the Shaanxi History Museum.  A strange approach, if I am correct, but not one that matters to most visitors, I suspect.  Still, this irregularity (if it is correct) does not and should not take away from the spectacle of one of the most massive ongoing excavations anyone can imagine.  

Why We Keep Searching...

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka

hope the voyage is a long one, 

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians and Cyclops, 

angry Poseidon - don't be afraid of them: 

you'll never find things like that on your way

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement

stirs your spirit and your body. 

Laistrygonians and Cyclops, 

angry Poseidon - you won't encounter them

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.  

May there be many a summer morning when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you come into harbors seen for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations

to buy fine things,

mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

sensual perfume of every kind -

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

and may you visit many Egyptian cities 

to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you are destined for.

But do not hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you are old by the time you reach the island, 

wealthy with all you have gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you would not have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, 

you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

Constantine P. Cavafy 

From Collected Poems.  Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard.  Edited by George Savidis.  Revised Edition.  Princeton University Press, 1992.  

Ιθάκη

Σα βγεις στον πηγαιμό για την Ιθάκη,
να εύχεσαι νάναι μακρύς ο δρόμος,
γεμάτος περιπέτειες, γεμάτος γνώσεις.
Τους Λαιστρυγόνας και τους Κύκλωπας,
τον θυμωμένο Ποσειδώνα μη φοβάσαι,
τέτοια στον δρόμο σου ποτέ σου δεν θα βρεις,
αν μεν' η σκέψις σου υψηλή, αν εκλεκτή
συγκίνησις το πνεύμα και το σώμα σου αγγίζει.
Τους Λαιστρυγόνας και τους Κύκλωπας,
τον άγριο Ποσειδώνα δεν θα συναντήσεις,
αν δεν τους κουβανείς μες στην ψυχή σου,
αν η ψυχή σου δεν τους στήνει εμπρός σου.

Να εύχεσαι νάναι μακρύς ο δρόμος.
Πολλά τα καλοκαιρινά πρωϊά να είναι
που με τι ευχαρίστησι, με τι χαρά
θα μπαίνεις σε λιμένας πρωτοειδωμένους,
να σταματήσεις σ' εμπορεία Φοινικικά,
και τες καλές πραγμάτειες ν' αποκτήσεις,
σεντέφια και κοράλλια, κεχριμπάρια κ' έβενους,
και ηδονικά μυρωδικά κάθε λογής,
όσο μπορείς πιο άφθονα ηδονικά μυρωδικά,
σε πόλεις Αιγυπτιακές πολλές να πας,
να μάθεις και να μάθεις απ' τους σπουδασμένους.

Πάντα στον νου σου νάχεις την Ιθάκη.
Το φθάσιμον εκεί ειν' ο προορισμός σου.
Αλλά μη βιάζεις το ταξείδι διόλου.
Καλλίτερα χρόνια πολλά να διαρκέσει
και γέρος πια ν' αράξεις στο νησί,
πλούσιος με όσα κέρδισες στο δρόμο,
μη προσδοκώντας πλούτη να σε δώσει η Ιθάκη.

Η Ιθάκη σ'έδωσε τ' ωραίο ταξείδι.
Χωρίς αυτήν δεν θάβγαινες στον δρόμο.
Άλλα δεν έχει να σε δώσει πια.

Κι αν πτωχική την βρεις, η Ιθάκη δε σε γέλασε.
Έτσι σοφός που έγινες, με τόση πείρα,
ήδη θα το κατάλαβες οι Ιθάκες τι σημαίνουν.

Lost Worlds- Emperor Qin's Hidden City

There is no greater temptation for an archaeologist than ancient places which seem offer a window into the inner workings of the ancient machine.  Imagine peering into a tomb mound containing a miniature city of palaces and offices, with rivers of mercury running into an ocean, and the starry firmament shining above!  Such is the description,  by the Grand Historian Sima Qian (born 145 BCE), of the sight which might one day face those who enter the tomb of Qin Shihuangdi, China's "First Emperor."  

Herbert Eustis Winlock, the great curator and archaeologist associated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, had the fortune in 1920 to experience something like this thrill.  As he recall, when he moved the blocking to the tomb of Meket-Ra:

"My beam of light shot in to a little world of four thousand years ago, and I was gazing down into the midst of brightly painted little men going this way and that.  A tall, slender girl gazed across at me, perfectly composed; a gang of little men with sticks in their upraised hands drove spotted oxen; rowers tugged at their oars on a fleet of boats, while one ship seemed floundering right in front of me with its bow balanced precariously in the air.  And all of this busy coming and going was in uncanny silence, as though the distance back over the forty centuries I looked across was too great for even an echo to reach my ears..."

The great University of Pennsylvania anthropologist Loren Eiseley's essay "The Innocent Fox" describes an experience of nature that is also in essence the recovery of a lost world.  Part of his book entitled _The Unexpected Universe_ (1969),  Eiseley here recalls a transcendent encounter with a young fox in its lair:

"It has been repeatedly said that one can never, try as he will, get around to the front of the universe.  Man is destined only to see its far side, to realize nature only in retreat.  Yet here was the thing in the midst of the bones, the wide-eyed innocent fox inviting me to play.  The universe was swinging in some fantastic fashion around to present its face and the face was so small that the universe itself was laughing.  It was not a time for human dignity.  For just a moment I held the universe at bay by the simple expedient of sitting on my haunches before a fox den and tumbling about with a chicken bone...It was, in reality, a child's universe, a tiny and laughing universe."  

Getting That Neolithic Feeling

Like many others, I have been fascinated by Chinese archaeology since childhood- oracle bones, bronzes, silk banners, jade burial suits, terracotta soldiers.  My first exposure to this world was the ground-breaking "Exhibition of Archaeological Finds of the People's Republic of China", which I saw in 1974 in San Francisco with my family.  My mother likes to remind me how my father and brother went through the exhibition in under an hour, while she stayed behind with me, transfixed for hours by the fantastic items (I was 8 years old).  

35 years later, this April, I was able to  visit Xi'an (ancient Chang'an), together with Perry, my mother Joy, and my sister Kathy.  In preparing for the trip, I used the excellent guide entitled China: Museums (M. Clifford, C. Giangrande, and A. White, Scala, 2009) - and I was pleasantly surprised to find that, aside from the famous "terracotta army" of  Emperor Qin Shihuangdi's tomb complex, there were several other major archaeological sites worth visiting.  I think it's worth mentioning these, not only in case others try to make the trip to Xi'an, but because the Chinese deserve credit for some very innovative ways of displaying and preserving ancient places.

Our first stop was Banpo Neolithic Village, the most famous site of the Yangshao Culture (ca.  5000-4000 BCE).  Now enclosed entirely within a roofed museum, the man-made moat surrounding the village is visible (above), as are the many circular pit houses with the impressions of the wood posts that once supported their ceilings.  Kilns, ritual areas, and tombs of various sizes were excavated during the main period of research (the 1950s), and I was quite excited to see such a large and well-preserved site of this early date.  A fascinating (and quite chilling) element was the skeleton of a man interred entirely face-down, one of the only examples of such a burial position I can think of worldwide.  I couldn't help but imagine that this was someone who broke cultural norms, and was not granted the right to a proper burial (talk about losing face!).  A curious aspect of the antiquated display were the modern clay figures meant to illustrate life in Banpo.  Strangely, these were conceived as hairy,  knuckle-dragging Neanderthals, rather than as the anatomically modern humans they surely were! 

 Traces of old ideological interpretations were also very evident in the labels and texts, which tried to make the case that the Banpo people were matrilineal.  Possible, but not something very easily retrieved from the pre-literate record.  As strange as the clay "knuckle-dragger" figurines were the modern (and somewhat erotic!) bas-reliefs adorning the roofs of the reconstructed village.  As much as I applaud the Chinese authorities for acknowledging the sex lives of Neolithic folks, none of us could work out why this was particularly germane to Banpo! 

Next time, I will post about one of the most exciting archaeological experiences of my life (other than my own excavations, of course!):  visiting the Han Yanling Museum in Xi'an, site of the shorter, but infinitely more diverse terracotta army of men, women, pigs, dogs, and chickens!  

The Jasmine Hour

ONE of the treasures of Hong Kong is Honeychurch Antiques, on Hollywood Road, the "Antiques Row" of this city.  Opened by former New Yorkers Glen and Lucille Vessa more than 45 years ago, Honeychurch sets the standard for taste and quality of all things Asian, especially Japanese decorative arts, and Chinese Export silver (which I have come to love).  I've just come back from a wonderful part of an afternoon spent there, talking to the Vessas about our trip to Tokyo, and also looking at the items in their gallery with their manager, Philip, who is also a wonderful raconteur and extremely knowledgeable about art and antiques.  The Vessas lived in Japan for years, and Glen is one of the best-known appraisers in the field of Asian antiques.  I love the way that you immediately get wrapped up in conversation with Lucille, who has a vivid and crackling  New York manner about her (even after decades away from the US), which makes me feel right at home.  Glen usually stays up in his office in the adjoining building, which is part showroom for larger pieces and rugs, and part workshop where furniture is restored and repaired for sale.  When I'm lucky, I'm taken in to say hello to Glen, who never remembers me, but I love talking to him anyway, whether it be about the way he met the actor Dennis Hopper, or Japanese wakasa lacquer, an amazing technique that requires 8 coats of lacquer and is often sprinkled with bits of mother-of-pearl.  Above is an example of  wakasa that looks very much like one of the low tables in the gallery right now.

The object that fascinated me today was a Chinese incense clock, a large rectangular steel box.  Certainly I am aware of sundials and waterclocks - waterclocks (or clepsydrae) were independently invented by the ancient Egyptians around 1500 B.C., and many examples survive in museums all over the world.  But an incense clock?  How would this work?  Philip, font of all fascinating infomation, explained to us that the openwork metal stencil inside the box was laid down over a bed of ash.  Then, laying incense powder above the ash, the incense would burn in intricate maze-like lines.  Divided into two main halves (for 6 or 12 hours each), the hours would have been subdivided by the use of various scents of incense.  Imagine the experience of this as time goes along!  The jasmine hour, followed by a sandalwood hour, followed perhaps by a tuberose hour as the afternoon wears on.  I love the idea of time progressing not with numbers of chimes, or buzzing alarms, but with a subtly changing scent that does not announce itself, but has to be noticed in order to take account of the time.  There is something fundamentally Buddhist about this level of awareness.  And I couldn't help but think that the maze of the incense trail is almost a precursor to the maze-like ways in which information makes its way through a computer circuit.  Ancient technology, to be sure, but somehow fresh.  

Contemporary Art in Hong Kong

During the past year, I've tried to get a handle on the cultural scene in Hong Kong.  This city is so overwhelmingly about business and money-making, and not very evidently a creative center (at first glance).  A major eye-opener for me was last year's exhibition of "New Ink Art: Innovation and Beyond" at the Hong Kong Art Museum.  Curated by Alice King, the show demonstrated in a spectacular way that the traditional medium in this region is not the kind of Socialist realism and its linear descendants that we associate with new Chinese art from Beijing and Shanghai.  Instead, Hong Kong seems to have become a center for the far more traditionalist (and to me, more vital) medium of ink painting, whether figurative, abstract, or calligraphic.  Her exhibition catalogue of the same name is very worthwhile, and I have used it as a guide to understanding the various strands of this tradition.  Yesterday I stopped by her gallery, Alisan Fine Arts http://alisan.com.hk/, and had a chance to talk to Alice King a little bit about her current show (yes, more ink art!), and her desire to create a museum for ink painting in Hong Kong.  Amazingly, despite lots of recent discussion about how to develop the area called West Kowloon as an arts district, she told me that she has had little luck getting people interested in this notion.  It seems like such an obvious and good idea.  

Below are some examples of work in the "New Ink Art" exhibition and catalogue, to give you an idea of the special flavor of this regional art form.  The founder of the school is held to be Lui Shou-Kwan (1919-1975).  This work is a Chan (Zen) painting, with clear roots in traditional Chinese and Japanese Buddhist ink painting:

Working in a more explicitly calligraphic vein, Fung Ming-Chip (b. 1951) explores narrative and time in the laying down of the strokes of characters:

In a different, and more explicitly contemporary vein, Wang Tiende (b. Shanghai 1960), removes ink painting from its traditional scroll-based medium and places it on furniture, objects, and clothing.  I particularly like the way he uses burn marks (actually, cigarette burns) to create ghostly negative-space characters.  

Wilson Shieh (b. 1970 Hong Kong), whom I've had the chance to meet, is an astounding illustrator and painter who works out of a different tradition: the gongbi fine-line silk painting style.  His take on contemporary society is laced with a lot of sexual humor and innuendo:

Some (including Alice King) might also place the internationally-known artist Cai Guo-Qiang (b. Fujian Province, 1957) among the "New Ink Artists."  Cai's use of gunpowder ( a Chinese invention) is literally explosive, and what I like is that they form an almost archaeological record of the event on paper.  He's shown a lot in the West, so he is likely to be familiar to many who follow contemporary art.  Personally, I think that the opaque Pinyin system of transliteration of Chinese names makes the artists' names almost immediately forgettable for most Western art fans (for example, this one would better be represented as Tsai Guo-Chang).  Here's a gunpowder piece he did for the Guggenheim:

In the future, I plan to post some examples of Ink Art we have purchased for ourselves, which now are hanging in the Hong Kong apartment.  It is really the greatest advantage of being here to witness change in China as it occurs.  

The Last Lecture

I've just finished reading The Last Lecture, the book written by the late Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch.  I'm sure everyone has seen (or heard of) the video of his actual "last lecture", but the book is worthwhile because it expands on many of the thoughts contained in the talk.  Pausch conveys in a powerful way the value of childhood dreams, of humility and selflessness, and he manages to make teaching seem like a sacred act.  There's a lot here for everyone, especially for anyone who has been or is interested in becoming a teacher.  It's a bittersweet book,  since he so obviously was unable to live the remainder of his extraordinary life, but ultimately it's a fantastic wake-up call about time, reality (virtual and otherwise), and the importance of extending yourself beyond the moment, beyond your own physical space, and beyond your immediate circle.   It reminds me that it's never too late to apologize, never too late to send a handwritten thank-you note, and never too late to get back to the business of living the real life.

Bando Mitsuguro X, the star of the kabuki play I saw

Although photos aren't permitted in the Kabuki-za, I was able to find a picture online of Bando Mitsuguro X, the actor who played the lead roles in "The Six Poetic Geniuses."  I love the fact that these actors take lineage names which stress their inheritance of the mantle of past masters, in this case the Bando school.  Audience members enraptured with his performance kept yelling out his stage name, "Yamatoya"!  

Komachi Washes the Book, by Morotsugi Furuyama.

Washing the Book, an explanation

For a long time, I've been thinking about creating a blog that can serve several functions at one go: an outlet for whatever is on my mind, a place to write freely, and a way for those who might be interested in similar diverse topics to indulge with me.  The title, "Washing the Book,"  comes from a Japanese kabuki play I saw last week in Tokyo at the world-famous Kabukiza theater.  The play was called "Six Poetic Geniuses" (Rokkasen Sugata no Irodori), and featured in particular the character of the legendary beauty, Ono no Komachi.   Komachi was a famous poet who lived during the Heian period (ca. 825-900 AD).  In the final act, Komachi is overheard reciting one of her own compositions (a waka-poem) prior to a competition.  Her evil competitor attempts to disqualify her by writing Komachi's new composition into a book of the classical poems of the past.  When confronted with this false evidence, Komachi "washes the book" and the fresh ink swirls off the page, and she is vindicated.  The image and its implications had powerful meaning for me as I struggle with writing, with creating something new and indelible, and as I struggle with other peoples' perceptions of me and my work.  So this blog in a way is my own attempt to "wash the book,"  a form of inscription and a form of cleansing. 

Some amazing ukiyo-e (woodblock) prints depict Komachi in the act of "Washing the Book"- I've posted one above.