Written on June 22, 1992 [Permalink]

June 15

Yesterday at the kid's 'rice planting festival' met up with Furuya-san again. He's the man who had talked about the telephone card idea a while ago. Nothing on that yet, but he seems quite interested in 'helping' in some way. He suggested that perhaps next week he could introduce me to 'this place in Tokyo where they are using some old blocks from Boston ... etc. etc.'. Of course, he means Adachi's place, and when I told him that I was familiar with them he seemed a bit crestfallen. I was surprised when he called back again today, with the news that he has collected five people at his bank who want to become subscribers. He's going to come around later with the details, but I feel a bit funny about it all. I hope he hasn't gone around his office twisting subordinates' arms just before bonus time! He works at the head office of Seibu bank, and I guess there's plenty of bigwigs there, but are they really interested in Hyakunin Isshu ...?

June 21

'Speech' today for the Rotary Club in Hino City. I say ' ' because I didn't really give a very effective presentation. They seemed happy, but I was quite disorganized, and never got a good thread going. (It was their first time to invite a foreigner to speak, and I think they were just too glad to get through it without disasters, to worry about how good it was.) Everybody took a pamphlet, but I doubt there'll be any follow ups. (Bill would be angry at me for not putting on more of a sales oriented presentation, but I really have no taste for that kind of thing any more ...)

Carving continued through the week, and the sumi block was finished Friday night. Did the transfers the next morning, and by noon today it was all done.

The next blocks showed up from Shimano-san on the 18th, nearly three weeks after the order. (I guess he's making up for last months 'overnight' service). I'm sure glad to be one month ahead on the sumi blocks, because there's no way I could have waited that long and still got the print out on schedule ...

Got a call from Yamaguchi san earlier in the week thanking me for the prints and newsletter, and when I mentioned that I had had contact with Suezan Aikins in Canada, she asked if I could help with some communication. It seems that she is going to be late with 150 sheets from Suezan's recent order, and was worried that it might cause them big problems. I offered to phone and find out, and called over to Canada one evening. Suezan seemed like a friendly person, and we had a half-hour chat (mostly me listening - she likes to talk!). Of course it would be very interesting spending time with her and her printer husband, and that might be possible next spring, when they may be coming over for an exhibition of her watercolours. It seems that they make their living by having as many exhibitions as they can organize, as well as having a network of dealers who carry their stuff. I guess she ends up spending more time on sales than on production, and I'm sure glad I've got mine organized differently ...

June 22

Fukayabu done. Paper wet, evening of the 20th. Sumi, evening of the 21st. Colours, 22nd. Looking back, I see that I started the carving on the 7th. That's got to be a new record - two weeks start to finish. (And that includes speeches, wrapping prints, rice planting, mailing newsletters, home and school events, and printing 60 copies of Dainagon Kinto ...)

Had some indecision on the colours. Wanted to use a solid vermillion for the kimono, but as that would be a repetition of the Ise print, tried to find something else. It wouldn't come together, so went with the 'shu', mixed with a bit of bengara. Seems OK.

Got a little flyer in my package of granola from the natural food store in Hanno today, advertising video services by a guy living in Hanno. I contacted him about getting some of my TV cassettes edited down for use at the exhibition next year, and it seems like he can do it. I'll head over there in a couple of weeks when I get a bit of time (and when it's not raining - he lives way off the beaten track up in the mountains, and it'll be good exercise for my mountain bike ...).