Feels Like Spring

Dog life has me on the go these days leaving little time to sit around dreaming up topics that might make an interesting blog post. All the corralling, trips to the vet or Pet Supermarket and filling in holes dug in the driveway tend to take the mind far from blogspot.com. I mean, concentration is a touch-and-go kind of thing when a thirty-six pound puppy is dragging twenty-five feet of hose-pipe around the yard or chewing on old asbestos shingles she found in the shed. If I’m completely honest though, all of it—excepting the asbestos shingles—is a daily joy.

Moving on from dogs, I was looking back at an old Japan blog post this morning, one showing a sketch and a journal excerpt, and I got the idea to re-post the sketch from a different angle. That part of the earlier post which caught my attention was not so much the sketch of tomatoes and a can of sardines as the thoughts about that particular March day written in the margins around the sketch. 

The sketch and the words surrounding it are in my journal of the time, a Life Noble Note Plain notebook with cream paper. The sketch was done first in a 2B Mitsubishi pencil and then colored with Mitsubishi Uni Watercolor Pencils. The journal notes, as far as pen and ink go, are a little harder to discern because earlier and later pages in the journal leave no hint. Looking at it closely I am fairly certain that the ink is an old De Atramentis color called Jules Verne Deep Sea Blue and the pen used, a Sailor Profit with a 21k Naginata medium nib. As the handwriting might cause a problem for some, a cleaner version is below:

Friday, 5 March 2010 — Thinking of tomatoes and sardines for some reason. I have neither in my kitchen but wish I did. That and some saltine crackers. Feels like spring today, a change from the cold rain of yesterday, a day that typified everything about winter, the wet and the cold. Plum blossoms are in bloom in the garden below me, and the Japanese magnolia is full of buds.

Searching through my photographs of Kugayama I can find none of the ‘garden below me’ showing both the plum blossoms and the budding Japanese magnolia, but the one below is fairly close. At least the magnolia (tree with leaves of the lightest green) is budding though the plum tree is out of the picture. The red blooms at the far left are on a giant azalea at least ten feet in height. I was standing on my third-floor veranda when I took the picture; the house and garden belong to my landlord.

Fast Food, Fast Women

From an old Japan journal…

Kugayama soggy wet from a heavy early morning rainfall, a half hour of fat raindrops bashing houses and buildings. Hoping the plants on the veranda might enjoy a natural watering, I nudged them toward the front. Probably by now so accustomed to tap water out of plastic bottles, the sweetness of rain has become to them an alien drink.

Sat at the kitchen table with coffee, an English muffin, and a slightly damp Japan Times. According to one article, awareness of culture and art among the Japanese has stayed the same over four years, but morals and values are falling rapidly. The first part is a surprise and the second seems a little like someone informing me that cows can be found at a dairy farm. I wonder about this reported steadiness of interest in art and culture. Aren’t all these things—culture, art, values and morality—linked in a way that one informs and supports the other?

A Japanese businessman was not pleased about his transfer to Singapore from Tokyo, so decided to leave the company. He soon found a new job in research at a university, part of his work including occasional travel to the US. Before his first trip on behalf of the university his boss there gave him an insurance policy to cover his roundtrip flight and his time in the US. Looking closely at the insurance policy at home that night, the man noticed something odd in regard to the beneficiary listed on the policy. Should anything happen to him, anything including injury and death, neither he nor his family would receive a cent—all benefits from his death or injury to be paid to the university, his employer.

Some nutty Japanese-English in the paper this time. Throughout the years of my stay in this country the ongoing life of twisted English among the Japanese has never changed. It’s unkillable, immune to correction and by now almost as much a part of Japanese culture as chopsticks. Interesting examples from the morning paper…

The cover of a restaurant menu: ‘Fast Food, Fast Women’

Sign in after hours store windows across Japan: ‘Close’

Brand of children’s clothing: ‘Lusty’

A new model of Toyota: ‘Fun! Car! Go!’

Cover of a photo album: ‘For enjoy natural color and your best scene own’

Another photo album: ‘Come join the Rapid Party’

Poster at the dry cleaners: ‘Let’s go to my bag’

A birthday card greeting: ‘I wish to fall in happy drops on your head’

Language school ad: ‘For your heartful life’

And their mission statement: ‘To fulfill heartful English lives so people can gentle mind and more very enjoy Japanese English. Also pets.’

In class yesterday…

For some Japanese university students classes seems little more than an interlude in a busy life of complete vacuity. One young lady arrived late to class, entering the room in mid-conversation on her rhinestone encrusted cell phone. Not far inside the door, I halted her in mid-stride, backing her out of the door and closing it in her face. I should have asked, “What were you thinking?” But of course, she wasn’t.

Life Goes On

Look around and you will find a few well-known writers who are, or were attached to their pencils and notebooks for early drafts. John Steinbeck was single-minded about his use of pencils, as was Patrick O’Brian with his fountain pen. In much the same way many of us ordinary folk are particular about what kind of paper and notebooks we use for journals, letters, sketching and sometimes rough drafts of articles and stories. Probably much more than the average Joe I spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about the right paper, pen or pencil, taking it as far even as searching out the ‘right’ eraser.

Ask most people and they would tell you that a throwaway plastic ballpoint and a hotel scratch pad serve just fine. But for some of us ballpoint pens freeze up and scratch pads bring on the hives. Not the first time saying it, but for me a day without a Life Noble Note Plain A5 (5.83 x 8.26in) unlined notebook of 100 pages is a day without sunshine. One of the first actions each morning is jotting down some quick notes in a Life notebook. It rests beside the reading chair, handy for scribbling out phrase or passage from a book; it’s full of lists, quotations, excerpts, passing thoughts and phrases, the frequent doodle, the now and then sketch.

Back in November 2009 I posted a short introduction to the Life Noble Note series of notebooks. Some of the same information may follow here but a notebook this fine deserves a recap. Life is a high quality line of notebooks made in Japan in three sizes. I’ve already mentioned the A5 size; in addition there is an A4 (8.26 x 11.69in) notebook and a B5 (6.93 x 9.85in) size. A newer series by Life called Premium also includes a small pocket sized notebook. The paper in all of the notebooks is heavy gauge and is either blank, ruled or graphed. Little hesitation in calling the paper fountain pen friendly. Nine out of ten times the ink and paper work together in perfect harmony. There is the occasional ink that comes out messy and unfriendly, but time and experience will reveal those few inks that are problematic in Life notebooks. I fiddle with altogether too many different inks and sometimes write sloppy pages, but in the end, Life loves most inks.

Most of the past year’s writing has been in pencil, and for that there is absolutely nothing better than a Life Noble Note Plain notebook. Many times pages end up with a mix of pencil and ink, a combination that works well on the cream colored paper. Pencil or ink, Life paper is agreeable.

For years these notebooks were a neighborhood item, resting in stacks at my local stationery store in Kugayama, a little town in western Tokyo. They are still there I’m sure, though I’m not. For a fact they continue to be stock items in many stationery stores in Japan, but are unheard of in American stores and very difficult to get in the US. The Japanese online shopping site Rakuten offers Life notebooks, but shipment to the US would make a $10.00 (A5 size) notebook ridiculous in cost. I keep hoping that someone like Art Brown or JetPens will one day begin stocking these Japanese notebooks. Meanwhile, if you have a friend in Japan have him or her send you a couple. You won’t be disappointed.

Fragments of a Divided Self

There was a time in my young years when most of my reading was in the form of play scripts. In those days I was besotted with the theatre and names like Jessica Tandy, Marlon Brando, the Barrymore Theatre, Eugene O’Neill, Broadway and of course, Tennessee Williams. In speech class when the assignment came to memorize and perform a scene from a play, there were several of us who wouldn’t consider anything but Tennessee Williams, arguing over who would get to play which part. And how passionate we were, certain that our interpretations would bring tears to the famous playwright’s eyes.

Many years later the words of the playwright continue to send chills down my arms. From the beginning I have loved his plays, but then came the discovery of his stories which turned out to be another treasure trove totaling almost 600 pages. One day in 2006 while browsing the shelves of Kinokuniya’s American literature, I nearly shouted for joy upon finding a big, heavy, just published book titled, Tennessee Williams Notebooks.

The journals were not previously known to me, but beginning around the time of his twenty-fifth birthday and continuing until two years before his death in 1983, the writer kept journals recording his daily thoughts and emotions. There are thirty of these journals, all a collection of ordinary notebooks, most stitched or spiral bound and largely written in pencil. As editor Margaret Bradham Thornton tells us, ‘…the journals reveal Williams’ authentic voice—genuine and unadorned…where Williams talks “to myself about myself.”’

In the first pages of these journals the author writes…

‘Keeping a journal is a lonely man’s habit, it betrays the vices of introspection and social withdrawal, even a kind of Narcissism,…it has certain things to recommend it, it keeps a recorded continuity between his past and present selves, it gives him the comforting reassurance that shocks, defeats, disappointments are all snowed under by the pages and pages of new experience that still keep flaking down over him as he continues through time, and promises that this comforting snowfall of obliteration will go right on as long as he himself keeps going.

I have a sort of vertical five-foot-shelf of these journals…I keep them locked in a closet, and now and then I go to them for that comfort and reassurance I spoke of above, a sense of continuity as a person, and though they were certainly never written for publication and have no literary value, I suspect that some passages from them may bore you less than the sort of formal essay that I could produce in my immediate condition, which is fairly close to exhaustion.

And of course, as usual, I am doing only what I feel like doing.’

To preserve the rhythm and pace of the writer’s voice, the text has been printed faithful to the original spelling, capitalization, punctuation and underlining.

Here is an entry for Sunday, 21 March 1943:

‘Sunday Night. Very lately.

It seems funny at this particular time to think of the future. I have most surely come to the very near end of something but not to any beginning. I feel as though a gentle but wasting illness were in me most of the time lately. Weak, enervated. Even my legs strengthless. Always, nearly, tired and wanting to sit or lie down. The energy to write only whipped up for a few pages and none of it the old fire.

Still I feel it is all there and I need only a good, complete rest to restore me. And that there is a future and some kind of a new beginning.

Fidelma’s for supper with Donnie and Paul Cadmus.

Charming as usual, those evenings with her, a little sadly.

It is not arranged, my leaving N.Y., but I believe it will happen. The only way to rest.

Reading Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin. He interests me profoundly. Sally Bowles a brilliant study. A new something in it. How can they be lost and found again. And even their treachery isn’t true, anymore than their apparent faith.

Isherwood seems strangely like me—his mind, his attitude. Only clearer, quieter, firmer, A better integrated man.

What is out purpose? To understand our lives and to communicate our understanding. Let’s all join hands in the dark!

Those unfamiliar with the stories of Tennessee Williams, might give some thought to his Collected Stories. Don’t skip the introduction by Gore Vidal.

Seidensticker

Between books and in those times when a wistfulness for Japan wells up turning my thoughts sentimental, more often than not I feed the nostalgia with a few pages from one of the several old ‘living and working in Japan’ books tucked into my shelves. This time it was the late Edward Seidensticker’s journal of his time working on the translation of the tenth century Japanese classic, The Tale of Genji.

For specialists, Seidensticker’s commentary on the translation process is of some interest, but his journal of this time, Genji Days, published in 1977 is much, much more than a record of his putting the classical Japanese of a long and complex novel into English. For most of us the tidbits and items of daily life sandwiched between his record of translation is the delicious nugget at the journal’s heart.

For those unfamiliar with the preeminent scholar of Japanese studies, Edward Seidensticker translated most of the great names in modern Japanese literature, including Mishima, Kawabata and Tanizaki. He has been called the best translator of Japanese that has ever lived. Apart from that, he was also an extremely witty man with a sharp eye for all around him, and a remarkable fluency in describing it. Mr Seidensticker died in 2007 following a fall near his Tokyo home.

Genji Days is full of interesting (fascinating, unusual, racy) observations or commentary on personal experience. Seidensticker first went to Japan in 1948 as a diplomat. He lived there on and off for the next fifty-nine years, dividing his time between Tokyo, Honolulu and mainland US. During his years in Tokyo he moved fluidly between levels of society, having drinks with the rich and famous one night, and trading jokes with laborers in a lower class dive the next. His writing is full of that color and range.

TUESDAY, JULY 7, 1970: In the late afternoon I ventured timidly into a barbershop and my!—such treatment as I did get, such an assortment of wetters and driers and steamers and perfumers, all for a thousand yen. I felt alternately as if I were enthroned and as if I were being guillotined. With such attention to look forward to, how could one possibly become a long-hair?

WEDNESDAY, JULY 26: Kaoru took me to a most extraordinary place, a “host club.” The clientele is female, and its needs are seen to by boys. The clientele, this particular evening, consisted of rather frowsy ladies of a certain age. The boys were all excessively pretty, and their masochism seemed quite open—and I suspected many of them of being boys from the band. I was fascinated, and at the same time repelled, and I suppose the most curious thing is that I felt nothing in the least erotic about the scene before me.

MONDAY, JUNE 26, 1971: Speaking of scents, in the new instructions on how we should comport ourselves in this our Shûwa Residence is an admonition that we refrain from farting in the elevator.

Down to the spicy lotus breezes to await Bill Sibley. He arrived just as I was about to be propositioned by a tart. We (Bill and I, not the tart) went and had a beer nearby.

THURSDAY, JULY 5: Having an evening to myself, I spent it wandering around Ueno. The lotuses, most powerful symbol of high summer, are coming into bloom. In a month I will be gone. I sometimes seem to tire of Tokyo and its frantic stir; but I regret the passing of each Tokyo day, the dwindling supply of Tokyo days, all the same.

Exacompta Journal

Back in May, when I got a bottle of J Herbin 1670 Anniversaire ink from WritersBloc, I also got one of the Exacompta Club Leatherette journals, the ones that come in nine different colors, each an unusual and eye-catching shade. In writing a review of the Herbin ink, I mentioned the journal and promised to write more about it after having the time to give it a good trial, a good testing. Not really fair to say a whole lot about a journal before having the occasion to see how it reacts to, or interacts with your pens, inks and personal style of journal keeping.

The Exacompta journal measures 5x7 inches, with 192 pages of premium Clairefontaine 64 gr paper. Many of us are already familiar with Clairefontaine paper, but let me quote from the insert that came with the journal: ‘…the best paper in the world for writing. Our paper is chlorine-free. A gift of nature, a mineral called calcium carbonate, gives Clairefontaine paper its famous qualities of extra white paper and ultra smooth…We manufacture our own paper from sustainable forests with minimal environmental impact.’ I am unable to say much about calcium carbonate and sustainable forests, but the whiteness and smoothness are unmistakeable and make an immediate impression. I chose the mandarin orange leatherette cover, but the choice was not easy with the impressive collection of colors to choose from. While Exacompta and Clairefontaine are both French, these journals are labeled ‘Made in the USA’ and interesting to me, the leatherette cover has a large sticker inside saying, ‘Made in Poland.’

I mentioned back in May that the journal is a wee bit smaller than the A5 (5.8 x 8.3 inches) size I prefer. That doesn’t seem like a big difference from the non-standard 5x7 inches of the Exacompta, but the difference is immediately noticeable to one accustomed to the larger A5 standard. Unluckily for me, the Exacompta size will weigh heavily when time comes for a refill. But I realize the size issue may not be as critical to other journal keepers, and this is the only point I can find to grumble about.

The paper is everything and more that Exacompta says about it. Looking at the bottom photo showing the open journal, some might see smeared, sloppy pages, but that’s just my style of writing in a journal—usually smeared, crossed-out, tilted, stamped and multi-colored. For those who like neater pages, the Exacompta will serve beautifully.

A product I can happily give high marks to. Check it out at WritersBloc.

Work in Progress

In retrospect, whether from a sense of nostalgia, or from the desire to have a hardbound copy, I decided a while back to transfer to journal my record of the final days that closed out the many years in Japan. Sure, it’s all recorded in the daily posts on this blog, but somehow I have more faith in the preservation of a handwritten copy. I also believe, as I’ve said before, that handwriting is a supremely individual mark, and in many ways more resonant than Lucida Grande, or Times New Roman. And so, for the past three weeks I have been slowly copying those blogged thoughts and preparations into a linen covered Faber-Castell journal (here) using a different fountain pen and different ink for each entry.

The nineteen-day span begins on March 31 and runs until April 18, the last day I had the iMac and Internet access before shipping. In total, there are twenty-two blogged pages. A good workout for my pens and ink.

Up to now I have copied eleven of the nineteen days, which runs to about forty handwritten pages, written with eleven fountain pens and eleven colors of ink. The Faber-Castell paper is a dream to write on, better even than Clairefontaine. Problem is, I don’t have an idea of what the paper is, or if it is Faber-Castell paper.

In these first days of transcribing, I have used the following pens and inks:

Sailor Naginata — J. Herbin Rouge Hematite

Lamy 2000 — Sailor O-cha green

Sailor Professional Gear — Waterman Florida Blue

Pelikan Souverän 1000 — Pelikan Violet

Pilot Custom 823 — Pilot Iroshizuku, Fuyu-syogun

Pelikano Junior — Pilot Iroshizuku, Tsutsuji

Pelikan Souverän 600 — Athena Sepia

Aurora (details a question mark) — Montblanc Turquoise

Montblanc 146 — Sailor Blue Black

Pelikan 100N — Montblanc Violet

Sailor Realo — Sailor Blood Orange

For now, it is a work in progress, and one that brings me a measure of satisfaction with each entry, each fountain pen, each ink.

Paper Like Cream

Several days before leaving Tokyo I had lunch with a friend at Tokyo Midtown, one of Tokyo’s more posh developments in the Roppongi district, and later wandered into the Faber Castell store. This is not a place to shop when economizing is on your mind, since it is loaded with very expensive pens, pencils and other high quality stationery goods.

I tried one of the fountain pens and liked everything but the price, sampled the two available inks, black and blue, then came across a small selection of blank journals in three different sizes. These journals were right up my alley and I didn’t hesitate to buy one in the A6 size (8.27 inches x 5.83). Such an elegant looking book!

It is covered in a creamy beige linen, with GRAF VON FABER-CASTELL and a small Faber-Castell coat of arms in dark gray. The pages are blank, cream-colored and of thick, smooth paper, perhaps a degree or two shy of Clairefontaine. The touch or feel is like the color, creamy. I tried four different fountain pens and inks, each one gliding across the page with the smoothness of half-melted butter. Anyone who has read a few pages of the Scriblets blog will likely know how much I like the Japanese Life Noble Note journals, but I will quickly concede that the Faber-Castell paper is superior. Zero feathering, and because the paper is so thick, bleed through is very slight, even with a hefty medium nib and a particularly wet ink (Athena Sepia).

I spent close to an hour online trying to find a place other than Tokyo Midtown that carries these notebook-journals. Sort of like looking for a needle in a haystack. No luck, I’m afraid.

Today was my first full day in Florida, and both productive and pleasant. If nothing else, the warm and dry weather was a welcome change from this year’s odd spring in Tokyo. But I was yearning for my sunglasses most of the time. Enjoyed some time browsing in Borders; bought a 2010 reprinting of Natalie Goldberg’s 1986 book, Writing Down the Bones.