GYOKUSEN MOCHIZUKI: THE INKSTONE CAVE
The first in a three-part series on Japanese Suzuri
The stone is cold and wet to touch; a close grained and smooth slate. In the dark we feel for an end to the rock before a single light bulb turns on. Deep inside a forested Yamanashi mountain, this cave is the last place to mine for Amehata stone — one of Japan’s important ancient materials. When these stone walls collapse, or when Gyokusen Mochizuki mines the last piece of slate from the mountain’s geological guts, a living piece of Japanese cultural history will have become extinct.
SKATEBOARD FILE VII: BUCHI & THE RELIEF WHEEL
Hirotoshi Kawabuchi is a young amateur skater living in Japan and the United States. “Buchi’s” recent skating caught our attention with his involvement in relief efforts for the March 11th earthquake. Buchi and his sponsor, wheel maker Autobahn Wheels, have released a unique set of wheels, the profits of which go directly to the Red Cross. Now skateboarders from around the world have been able to contribute to the flow of donations through their purchase. The Papersky Skateboard File wanted to know more so we grabbed Buchi for a quick interview about this, yet another, unique relief project for Japan.
Tell us first, now that you’re skating with Autobahn Wheels, how did this charity project to help Japan after the March 11th earthquake come together? …»
ALL STORIES ABOUT TRAVEL: MOTOYUKI SHIBATA
I met Motoyuki Shibata several years ago in New York City at a reading by one of his friends—Haruki Murakami. I bowed, blurting out my clunky Japanese greetings, and Shibata replied in impeccable English. Since then we have met in Tokyo, New York and Sydney. In each city, Shibata seems perfectly at home. His specialty is American literature, but he is really a scholar of culture. He is also among Japan’s most revered, award-winning translators, having introduced Japanese readers to works by Paul Auster, Stuart Dybek and Thomas Pynchon, among others. We collaborated on two projects: A Japan portfolio for A Public Space, the NYC literary journal, and Monkey Business, an English language version of Shibata’s own magazine. Shibata’s translations also grace the pages of Paper Sky.
Roland Kelts: How has travel affected your work as a writer, translator and scholar?
Motoyuki Shibata: The first time I went abroad I was 20 years old. I had just entered my third year of university and I took one year off to go to England just …»
SKATEBOARD FILE VI: OTAKI AND T-19
“The idea for T-19 was always in my head. What I saw when I was living in Venice [California] was just the essence of a “local style.” I had seen Venice in all the magazines- the music, the punk rock, the skulls and thought, ‘whoah.’ I thought it was- “the real thing” so to speak. It just resonated with ‘local’ and didn’t seem concerned with making a ‘statement,’ rather it was just about doing things and living in a certain way and I can’t say I wasn’t inspired by that ethic. So I tried to make T-19 something local for Tokyo- for who we were.”
From its heyday as one of the initial start up skate companies in Tokyo, Otaki has remained at the helm of T-19 Skateboards and ensured the company and team remain no less creative, defiant and community-focused. When I spent time with Otaki at the T-19 house in Setagaya, what came to the fore of my mind as the history unravelled and our conversation progressed? …»
CHANGE AGAIN: ELEIN FLEISS
There comes a magazine that changes all the rules. In 1990 Elein Fleiss and Olivier Zahm created Purple, and over the last decade they have established it as a forum for some of the most innovative creators in the world to send their ideas out into the wild blue yonder. Purple is an intense, time-consuming affair; the enviable antithesis of “disposable.” In an industry where sloppy thinking and a never-ending show of nauseating hype reign supreme, Fleiss and her creation realize the great potential of alternative media.
What were the origins of Purple? …»
GATEMO TABUM: JAPANESE SOUL FOOD
Gatemo Tabum is the neighborhood joint we all wish we lived a short walk away from. On a recent blustery winter morning, I took my visiting friend from Boston to have lunch there, snuggled in a cozy spot along an outdoor shopping arcade in Yoyogi-Uehara. It was a bit of a challenge to describe what we were going to have, whereas most Japanese people would immediately have an instinctive understanding of what to expect from the term teishoku. Literally, teishoku means “fixed meal”, although it isn’t clear what the fixed parameters are. Is it the format – typically rice, soup, pickles, a main dish and a couple of sides? Or one of the roster of home-style …»
FROM A TO B:: SHENYANG TO THE HORQUIN DESERT
Japan-based NPO The Green Network and Timberland participate in an ambitious greening project – one million trees by 2010.
Wanderlust for exotic places around the globe may wane with every journalist’s footprint but every time I mention or think of Mongolia, it remains mystical, never failing to conjure up images as one of those fertile frontiers. While the winds from China’s pop-up cities have spread traces of modernity throughout the region, lowly-populated agricultural-based frontier villages continue to thrive on the fringes of the Horquin Desert, a 1,800 hectare area of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China. To this day, the region is a place where cultural life remains rooted tradition in an environment which is highly dynamic and increasingly threatening. On the Mongolian frontier the wind never seems to stop, persisting as one steady whisper. What few may know about the Horquin, a 1,800 hectare area, is that similar to other deserts, it is expanding with every gust of wind, grain by grain, over the plentiful patches of green. For centuries, these sands have found their way South and blanketed villages while taking over …»
