Written on December 23, 1989 [Permalink]

December 22

Well, they're gone... Was it fun? I guess so, but at the moment I'm not sure! I had kind of expected the same sort of approach that the newspaper people have taken: they come in, relax a minute, ask some general questions, move into an interview, take some pictures, and leave. Not these guys! The three of them came in the door, shoved a meishi in my hand, and asked, "Where is the workshop?" I showed them, and they totally turned their backs on us, and had a private 15-minute conference about angles and stuff. I got the definite impression that I was a 'thing', to be manipulated as necessary to reach the desired end product, whatever it might be. This was the approach for the whole of the session, which wrapped up about 7:00. I guess I can't complain, as this is presumably what I 'asked for' when I approached them about getting coverage, but it seems to me that they should have been a bit more personal about things.

Anyway, not to complain. It was a very interesting day, especially the 'interview' - a half dozen vague questions tossed at me. Tanaka-san turned out to be quite a greenhorn at this (the cameraman and soundman were obviously seasoned pros), and I found it very difficult to come up with comprehensible replies to his queries. This was especially frustrating, as most of my previous interviews (with the newspaper people) have gone very smoothly, with a great deal of 'good communication' going on. It's going to be very interesting to see what they splice together for the three minute spot, which incidentally, will be part of a Kanto area program, not a national one. I guess they shot a good hour of stuff while they were here, carving work, interview, close ups of prints, close ups of prints, kids arriving from the hoikuen, a chunk of Mayuko-san's English class, etc. etc.

As to what will come of it all ... stay tuned and find out!

Oh, and did I forget to mention ... with the finish of the last class tonight (Tomomi and Kaoru), I start my winter vacation. No classes for 18 days! There's a bunch of translation coming down the pipe from Michiyo, but I should be able to get Sarumaru Dayu [1-9] finished (I did the first carving on him today, under the lights), and hopefully get a good start on Dainagon Kinto [1-10], the last in the first set of 10. Mentioning this reminds me that in a couple of months, when the set is complete and I start the next one, we'll probably be dropping a whole bunch of customers. I'm sure that many (most?) of them will feel quite content with one set of ten, and will have no desire to continue to 20 ... 30 ... 100. Will we have to start all over again, trying to build up to that magic number of 40?

December 23

The other day I prepared 10 sheets for a sample printing of Ono no Komachi [1-2] during the TV shooting. It turned out that they only wanted to see carving, so the paper sat there unused. As I only have 6 copies of that print left, I prepared 40 more sheets, and added them to the pile, ready for making a proper run of prints this weekend.

The rest of the day was spent writing out the New Year's cards and envelopes (97 of them!), and shopping around for Himi's roller skates and Fumi's rabbit (requests to Santa).