imnothinginparticular

[imnothinginparticular]

#finishedbooks The Fifty Principles of Sogetsu by Teshigahara Sofu. Picked this up at the Sogetsu kaikan while looking for a replacement flower bag. Had never actual been in their shop on the fourth floor so wandered a bit. I ended up finding this that I didn't know existed and another book that had been out of print in my wishlist for 12 years. This, the former, I really wish I had found 16 years ago when I first started studying ikebana. It is 50 principles, so essentially a page with the rule and a concise paragraph explanation. A lot of the rules pertain to the basic what we call kaikei styles going as far as giving pointers on the first 8 variations, so rather specific than possible universal axioms that these books can sometimes offer. This is the basic structural arrangement of ikebana conistsing of three lines called shin, soe and hikae that can either be done with a needle point holder for a flatter vase or a series of systems for a longer vase set. So ya it served as a good reminder of things that we do forget as your first half decade or so (roughly) of ikebana you only do these styles before you can begin actually free styling which is mostly what I share of my ikebana. With that there were a few tidbits, for example I constantly compare the mediums I work in and I never saw anywhere written that ikebana is essentially based on triangular compositions. I started getting it when I intuitively understood the compositions are in fact 3-D (easier said then done as simple as this would seem) and its subsequent layering...as with photography I always saw based on squares/rectangles since to begin it is about the frame line and within it learned to intuitively place objects on the golden ration, etc within. But ya pretty basic really, again wish this existed in print when I first started. But if you are ever near the kaikan, head up to the fourth and get it if you were ever curious about ikebana...although it is not as universal as a similar book like "101 Things I Learned in Architecture School" where although you may not be studying architecture you can take away a lot and relate it to other mediums for fresh ideas and perspectives.

[imnothinginparticular]

[imnothinginparticular]

+collage on paper, 2024

"containers for emotion" 210mm x 297mm.

[imnothinginparticular]

#finishedbooks John Ford: The Man and his Films by Tag Gallagher. Picked this up from Suichuu my favorite used book store near my ikebana school in Mitaka. I got into Ford after studying Renoir and Kurosawa back in 2007 and moved to Ford after reading some of those classical Cahier du Cinema reviews. What then struck me was that I had already seen all his best films with my grandfather when I was a kid: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, My Darling Clementine, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and my favorite in The Searchers. And I remember them specifically because of the pathos that my grandfather liked them for and would always impart on to me. Which that's one thing about American compared to spaghetti westerns was the exchange of pathos for violence that Peckinpah did eventually bring back to the US with his string of nihilistic "let's go to Mexico" westerns of the late 60s-70s that really were clever Vietnam war metaphors. But it was the pathos that brought about the Fordian heroes that after seeing them as a burgeoning cinephile that I noticed the long ASLs, deep focus staging, minimal but impactful camerawork, and beautiful spatial contrasts especially in his westerns between interior and exterior spaces (like that architectural cues of Wright of his Usonian houses etc). One of the style queues I didn't know before reading this book was how much he loved Murnau, especially "Tabu" (1931) that he periodically references throughout his career down to his third to last film in "Donovan's Reef." Beyond little tidbits like this the big takeaway was Ford as person. Traditionally I think many people saw him as a hard nose anti-intellectual who magically turned out good pictures...which to find was just a part of his complex character. There was another narrative to his character when looking at some of his 1930s films like say "Judge Priest" and his on screen persona that John Wayne essentially represented in his presumed bigotry (which was inherent in Wayne). Since his films deal obsessively with themes of race, ideology, and class it seems on surface understandable, yet what Ford sought so persistently was to uncloak society's noxious patterns and to sift out existential freedom. It was a questioning into the tensions and adhesions between an individual, their origins, and present situation and he did before it was commercially fashionable to do so. Also look for example his well known association with monument valley, was actually do to the fact he really just did it to give his Navajo friends much needed money for their reservation projects...he was anti-McCarthy at the time, etc etc. but ya he was just an individualist who made some of his best films in a genre that served as an ode to it.

[imnothinginparticular]

[imnothinginparticular]

#finishedbooks Tanaka Isson: Light and Soul by various. This is the exhibition catalog from Isson's first Tokyo retrospective after the artist's death in 1977. Relatively unknown throughout his life working odd jobs while painting (à la Rousseau), this exhibit comes full circle as he made it known in his lifetime how much he always wanted a Tokyo exhibition. Going through many career progressions, he ended up in Amami Oshima where his most known paintings were created. He also has a museum there, essentially where most of the works were borrowed from. Kinda funny as my friend went to the Amami museum during this time and didn't get to see the majority of his famous works because they were in Tokyo. With that though, the exhibition like the book spans his whole life starting with teenage works to his last Amami works. So you get his entire progression from his early Chinese styled paintings of traditional Japanese motifs through a mid-point that saw more space while retaining the traditional flattening effects of Ukiyoe that the impressionists adored so much (so should photographers really). But it is entirely the late paintings that will continue to grow his reputation long after his death. Curious for me was their format, where these style of paintings are typically horizontal as if opening a scroll, however Isson's were all vertical like the iPhone you perhaps are reading this on. This created for some avant-garde framing often with birds or any possible subjects placed at extremes within the composition. This format combined with the sudden depth, going away from the flattened backgrounds traditionally done; there suddenly are so many layers that they almost become surreal a lot like the aforementioned Rousseau who we know was simply making up these jungle settings from travel books. I personally really enjoyed his photographs that he took and then later painted an interpretation of. Both stood out and took on a character of their own with his photography being equally as impressive. Finally, at the exhibition itself I was surprised how packed it was midday during the week. For such an unknown artist the enthusiasm was unique and I this is what you want from an exhibition. A country highlighting work you never would see giving us something new. The gift shop line took 35 mins lol but I had to get this book.

[imnothinginparticular]

[imnothinginparticular]

#finishedbooks Hitchcock Truffaut by François Truffaut. This is a re-read, I had read this back in 2007 as one of my first film books. It was this book, then Donald Richie's 100 Years of Japanese film, and a random French New Wave book that kinda started my cinephile ...I don't know journey lol. Guess to explain Hitchcock, there was a great essay by André Bazin in his best work, "What is Cinema?" where he essentially cites two types of auteur directors. One that makes films with the audience in mind and one that makes films for themselves. Neither bad but the former he used Hitchcock as an example and think Godard was the latter...but that's what Hitchcock does and with this book you essentially are given a chance to sit in on one of the greatest conversations on film by two of the greatest minds in cinema representing these opposite motivations. It was well known that Cahiers du Cinema, who Truffaut wrote for before making films himself, loved Hitchcock at a time when he was seen as a camp director certainly not to be taken seriously. Reading the book back in '07 I remember my biggest takeaway that Truffaut highlighted was Hitchcock's lack of plausibility in his films, most notable being for example in say "Birds" where there happens to be a bird expert in the room right before the birds attack lol. The truth though is that he is rarely implausible. What he does is hinge a plot around a striking coincidence which provides him with a master situation where his treatment from there consists in feeding maximum tension and plausibility into the drama...building toward a paroxysm then boom he like lets go suddenly and allows the story to unwind swiftly. I never been much of a fan of plot in favor of what prefer in story for the possibilities and more realistic rhythms of reality it represents...but I love his plots because they are so absurd often utilizing what became none as a macguffin (an intentionally meaningless device to advance a plot). But more importantly is how he avoids being a simple storyteller nor an esthete...he is one of the greatest inventors of cinematic form like a Murnau to me or Eisenstein who I am always surprised doesn't draw more comparison when thinking of say the staircase scene in Potemkin. They share this mind in which the analytic and synthetic are simultaneously at work making its way out of the fragmentation of shooting, cutting, and the overall montage of film. Hitchcock then to me underlies this genuine artistry of anxiety that I can only relate to in literary terms a Kafka, Dostoevsky or Poe... as absurd as it would seen with Hitchcock. Another underrated point is his general economical approach that I always compare to Ozu. Take "Rear Window," opening scene is a slow pan of the apartment and through one shot it established the film's entire background. We see he is a photographer, he has done a lot, he shot a race and had an accident, he has a girlfriend we see in a photo, we see his room, and boom we end up on him on a wheel chair with his cast on and camera in hand looking out his rear window before his girlfriend enters the apartment. We get everything without a single word spoken...that is he showed instead of saying which is cinema...a purely visual language. I find these directors that came into silent films toward the end (late 20s) who all peaked post war especially because they truly understood the significance of this as silent films directors. A comparable Ozu scene would be from say "Late Spring" in the middle of the film where we realize the father might be marrying and leaving the daughter through precisely 20 scuts during a noh performance they are attending where a single word is never uttered. The cuts simply reveal her observing her father and his potential suitor watching the play, to cuts of her suddenly realizing, ensuing sadness, then a cut to the tree that is painted on noh stage wall, and finally a cut to a real tree blowing in the wind that in haiku symbolizes a permanent change. This is why I love cinema haha, I could ramble on but ya, this is a must have book.

[imnothinginparticular]

[imnothinginparticular]

#finishedbooks Silence and Image by Mariko Takeuchi. Picked this up from the amazing book selection at @sailobean. In my haste I did mistake the books subtitle, "Essays on Japanese Photographers" as "by" instead of "on." Really recalling this grail book I have been wanting for over decade "Setting Sun: Writing by Japanese Photographers" that I last saw for 70,000 yen when last available, so I thought I could get away with something analogous with this book here. Instead it is a writings from the photo critic Takeuchi Mariko on 11 Japanese photographers (if you squint you can see the list on the cover) and from @ian 's straightforwardness, "Oh cool, I never thought this one would sell" Haha kinda played in the back of my mind and I tore through each essay. The most notable photographer would be Ken Domon who spearheaded the Japanese realist movement and of course she focused on his Hiroshima project. Feel like Domon's Hiroshima is the equivalent of Avedon's American west as both are completely over written about so much to that point that they actually serve would be critics as classic case studies. I never took any University classes in this realm but from criminal law you get those proto precedent cases that really tick all the boxes for the would be professional and both of those projects go into issues of exploitation inherent to the medium, subjectivity v. objectivity, and essentially all of those basic topics. For me she says nothing new but does clarify a framework for its criticism but overwhelming I found that she wrote most passionately about these more obvious cause related photography then anything else including a photo portrait project on Rwanda women who had a child out of rape in '94. She does write in more everyday vernacular or transience works but the essays are remarkable short and airy in comparison. With that, it wasn't all bad. Aside from a small paragraph on comparing looking at photographs to stargazing in regard to each temporal preoccupations that made a lot of sense, was an essay on Ryo Suzuki. I like how she takes the spirit of a photographer as wanderer rather than hunter in some sort of forest. Citing a beautiful Walter Benjamin quote, "To Lose one's way in a city, as one loses one's way in a forest, requires some schooling" before going into Suzuki's aptly titled Odyssey and ending with his later Joyce inspired project "RyUlysses." Her point through is that of perspective that she wraps nicely correlating why the surrealists (myself as well) love Atget so much. Atget is the more fun classic study to me for the emptiness he offers, but overall outside of some photo books I am now curious to see that Ill check out next time I am at the Photo museum's library in Ebisu...not much else here if you have read a lot of photo criticism.

[imnothinginparticular]

[imnothinginparticular]

+collage on paper, 2020

"in the penal colony" 210mm x 297mm.

[imnothinginparticular]

#finishedbooks Dairies by Franz Kafka. Ordered this when I was in Baltimore over the summer. Kafka is top 5 for me and I thought I had read everything by him until I stumbled on his dairies. This is a recent translation after much criticism of the heavily altered original translation where if anything deemed unfavorable i.e. homosexual connotations, etc was omitted. Believe it was Andre Gide who was the first literary giant to release their journals (man those were hard to find) in a critical manner and right away one could tell he wrote them with an intention of them being published and widely read. Kafka dying quite young of tuberculosis notoriously made it his wish to have his novels burned so he definitely had zero intention of having his dairies see the light of the day. And right away you can see why as this book isn't for everybody. There is no narrative or continuity in its structure making for a janky read. It simply serves to give insight to any real fan of his work: early sections of what would become America, you see the process of In the Penal Colony, his anxiety about marriage, his thoughts about other writers, and his writing struggles in general all sandwiched between shopping lists and half completed sentences. Through it, I kept recalling a really interesting essay by Jorge Luis Borges titled, “Kafka and his Precursors” that sees the Argentinian searching through literary history for anything that could have been considered Kafka-esque before Kafka. He like myself views him too singular, too unique to have had any true precursors. Borges eventually finds really random minuscule coincidences like a 9th century chinese writer who shares a similar tone and other loose things like this…but main take away was that even Borges was convinced of Kafka’s unworldly orginaility. So reading his unabridged/altered dairies became interesting to me for this to search to find anything really. He references Goethe and Tolstoy a lot (obviously easy) but as much appreciation as he gives, it just isn’t there. Certainly Goethe’s character Young Werther could describe Kafka's life in actuality and as far as thought one would think he would be closer to his Russian contemporary Dostoevsky just if anything out of their sheer anxiety they express more than Tolstoy. But like all of these authors and to quote Kafka, "their works serve as an axe for the frozen sea within us."

[imnothinginparticular]

[imnothinginparticular]

#finishedbooks The Famished Road by Ben Okri. Ordered this when I was in Baltimore last summer as it had been on my list for a minute. Think I added it after reading Amos Tutuola's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts as they share in common what would be falling within the genre of magical surrealism unique to African literature, animist realism. It specifies the genres by incorporating correlating tribal tradition (specifically Yoruba here) into its aesthetics and philosophy. The year I read Tutuola it instantly became my favorite book that year and think this might be my favorite of 2024. The first in a trilogy, it follows a spirit child in a Nigerian ghetto simultaneously mixing both the real and spiritual worlds. It plays on the belief in the coexistence of the spiritual and material worlds that is fairly central African life if one could venture into generalizing. I like whenever these stories can inject mythology as it became an underlying infatuation for me during COVID...that is getting to the basis of cultures and building directly from them instead of the surface of things as we do now. Not only for general understanding using a sort of structuralist Claude Lévi-Strauss approach ala Tristes Tropiques but for my art in general (exhausted with the material pop culture "street" art shit). So during that time I jumped around everything from greek mythology to the bible and Quran, Arabian Nights and Shakespeare, and native American and various tribal mythologies from west Africa which was where I was at before coming back to Japan and just not having the time to indulge like before. But I guess with this brand of magical surrealism, it has just really captured my literary imagination as it (aside from anything Arabic) hasn't been shoved down my throat throat like the majority of western culture. And with everything going on, I am just exhausted with it because we see the wars, the politics, etc and it has just led us to decay with same material based themes remade over and over. So it represents not only an escape which would be a bit easy, but instead a new if not forgotten/ never learned means of moving forward...which is precisely what modern art was predicted on in moving western art forward when the cubist went back to Africa. Course I am watching football highlights as I type this~

[imnothinginparticular]

[imnothinginparticular]

#finishedbooks Romance in Marseille by Claude McKay. Another book I had saw Mekel read during the pandemic and not having any money just left it on my wishlist. This is a recently re-discovered novel from the Harlem Renaissance writer that was too transgressive at the time going into the legacy of the black diaspora, queer identity, and the black body & historic mutilation of it...cleverly combining it all thru its symbolism. The story is about a black sailor who has to stowaway and is caught and locked in a freezer causing frostbite leading to a complete amputation of both of his legs. He meets a lawyer while in the hospital who wins him an unprecedented lawsuit. In it, already you can see the metaphor of the transatlantic slave trade and mistreatment of the black body. He is apperently made whole through the money but is left questioning whether it cannot ever trying compensate what was done to him. He returns to his old town in Marseille where his old friends treat him differently before falling in love again with a prostitute wishing for them to return to Africa before tragedy befalls the affair. In Marseille a lot of the characters are openly queer while the dynamics of the town is explored through race and history. A really tight concise package in under 130 pages.