Written on January 23, 1992 [Permalink]

January 21

Off to Tokyo with a handful of things to do: try and get some good copies for next month's hanshita, 'interview' with Kaneko-san the bamboo skin supplier, and the Kumiai 'Shinnenkai'.

The copies were a bust. A few years ago I had been to a copy center run by the Maruzen bookstore in Ochanomizu, and I stopped there today to see if their 'super-deluxe' machines could do a good job on the hanshita - thin lines, etc. No go. It seems that most of the customers are simply students running off study materials, and the machines are quite run down. The copies were worse than I get at the local convenience store.

I wandered down to Jimbocho, half looking for reproduction centers, and ended up at the used book street. I dropped into Ohya Shobo, the first store you meet on the row, and guess what they had on the shelf - two copies of Shunsho's book. One is in the same condition as the one I saw in Kyoto last week, with 'burned' faces, but the other is very fine. The colours are clear, the printing is smooth, and there are very few worm holes, etc. The price - 780,000. The store owner was out, so there was no chance to talk about how serious he is on the price, although I'm sure he is... (One of the women behind the counter recognized me from the newspaper last week!) This is getting ridiculous - no copies in years, and then three in a week, each one more expensive than the last.

The talk with Kaneko-san was interesting. I got a bunch of stuff for the newsletter story, and basically just chatted with them until it was time to head off to the shinnenkai. The two brothers who run the place are taking care of their 97 year-old mother, and she wasn't in very good condition today. One of the other of them was in or out constantly, tending to her (funny, but there don't ever seem to be any wives around the place...)

The talk of course turned to baren making, and they dragged out a copy of a book written by one Murata-san, who they said had been a printer for Adachi decades ago. It covers pretty well everything there is to know about baren making, and they kindly lent it to me so that I could copy it.

The shinnenkai was pretty much the same as always. It was disturbing to find out that Okura-san was sick, and Kajikawa-san had been hospitalized. Every year ... The kids stayed by themselves for most of today. Himi picked up her sister at the day care center, and they got their own dinner (I had prepared 'easy-to-make' materials). They gave me a phone call (to the restaurant) during the shinnenkai, and I got paged there twice, with another call coming from the reporter from the Sankei Shimbun wanting some details for the story next Monday. One of the local women came round to sit with them from about seven until I got home at ten...

January 22

Copied the 'baren' book and sent it back to Kaneko-san. Made two copies, one for David Stones ...

The morning was taken up with the Mainichi filming (I had to miss my swim ...). It's for some kind of short program to be aired on the Kanagawa UHF channel on the 31st, and thus might bring in a few people for the last weekend of the exhibition. It was interesting that they were using real film instead of tape, and actually their gear was all emblazoned with 'Mainichi Movie Company'. After they left here, they headed for Kotobukiya bakery, where they did some kind of short interview with Cho-san, our first customer. They read about him in my newsletter ...

A call came in the late afternoon from the Shin Bijutsu Shimbun, asking if they could do an interview and photos during the exhibition next week. I sent them a P/R blurb before last year's exhibition to no avail, and tried again this year, hoping for a mention in the 'upcoming events' section. This could be good, as their readership is presumably made up of people interested in collecting 'art'.

Package of washi from Yamaguchi-san, via Misawa-san. This one looks very good. During the summer trip, I had asked them to make the paper a bit thinner, and they've done so. All the sheets seem very even and smooth, quite a bit better than other recent shipments. ('recent' being a relative term). I haven't had a shipment from them in nearly half a year. Now all I have to do is find the money ...

Checked in with Toda-san at Kogado about the blue cases. I had asked him to have them ready by the end of January, and don't want to wait until then to find out if there is a problem. He says OK. He hasn't started yet, but has the materials ready, and will be shipping soon.

January 23

Did some carving on Akahito's kimono [4-1]. Actually started it yesterday during the filming. This one shouldn't take too long ...

A call from Hirano-san at the Yomiuri office, saying that the little article is appearing on today's Tama page ...