Clipped from a BBC radio program the other day:

TITLE: I'm Looking For A Guy Who Plays Alto ...
ARTIST: Ozzie Nelson Orchestra with Rose Ann Stevens

Click here to listen to the track ...

Posted by Dave Bull at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)

Around a year ago, I gave a presentation on my work at one in a series of monthly meetings sponsored by an old and famous o-sake making company. Roll ahead one year, and I get an invitation from them the other day to participate in a kind of ceremonial thing they have got going, to celebrate their 350th anniversary, or some such occasion.

Long story short, what they are doing is taking apart one of the old huge casks that they use to make sake, and passing out the 36 staves to 36 'famous' people, to do 'something' with. The staves will then all be returned to the company, where they will be re-assembled into a cask, and put on display.

List of participants includes the Prime Minister, sumo wrestler Konishiki, F1 driver Nagashima, movie producer Hayao Miyazaki (the guy who made the Totoro movie), and so on down down down the list until you get to me ...

So it arrived a couple of days ago, and I just finished chopping some calligraphy into it this morning.

I'll now send it back to them for re-assembly. I guess I'll be getting an invite to the grand party one day in early April ... Have to see if I can find some socks somewhere ...

But there's more! I can't do calligraphy like that by myself of course, so I called up one of my collectors to prepare a master copy for me. She did a few different versions, and I chose one and carved it. Down at the bottom of that picture, you can see the red 'seal' that I also carved. You can see an enlargement of it here.

It reads top to bottom, right to left. Right column reads "sho ta uchi". 'sho' means calligraphy, and 'ta uchi' is her name.

Left column is 'carver Bull', but in Japanese, that is pronounced ... (you won't believe this!) ...

'hori bu ru' ....

:-)

Posted by Dave Bull at 06:42 PM | Comments (0)