Welcome to NOTEBOOK, a cultural guide to art, design and architecture along with a resource of local news and information in English giving a realistic view of Tokyo and further afield.
Revisiting July
07/01
Some of Fukushima's Difficult-to-return zones reopened as daily COVID infections increased. Kogane-cho near Yokohama has experienced great change of its own, is home to Akira Kurosawa's film “High and Low” from 1963, the fictional detective Hama-Mike from 1994, and is now home to the Koganecho Art Center and a vibrant art community.
07/04
The Grand Kabuki Summer Festival and Funanorikomi descended upon Osaka’s Dotondori river. Live music also continued the traditions of Osaka's Minamihorie district where the Socore Factory live house has reimagined its warehouse roots by calling upon the latest in streaming culture to reach a cautious audience unable to visit in person.
07/05
Typhoon Aere approached Kyushu as a team of researchers in the Beppu Bay Project closed in on agreeing a definition for the current geological age otherwise known as the Anthroposcene. The film OLD DAYS, winner of the Fukuoka Independent Film Festival 'Grand Prix' was also released reliving the wild days of three fictional ex-bikers.
07/06
Typhoon Aere ripped through Kyushu, Shikoku and the Tokai region. The Tanabata festival, known for its Super Moon, started, while, Shinjuku's Thermae-Yu or Super Sento public bath opened 24 hours, 7 days a-week to avoid the strong winds and heavy rainfall.
07/07
Gangs used Air Tags in Aichi to track the whereabouts of Police and three early paintings by Taro Okamoto were unearthed in Paris by several collectors. Tokyo's infamous Kissaten coffee houses, like Nominoichi in Ikebukuro, the 'Jazz-kissa' DUG in Shinjuku and Rojina in Kunitachi, are places that avoid detection, by rediscovering odd ideas or inventing new ones.
07/08
Corona infections surged with the latest strain of Omicron, BA.5. A newly refurbished Fukushima Prefectural Library reopened just prior to an Upper House election. Elsewhere, Fumiaki Nagao at 4649 in Sugamo, and “ACCUMULATIONS” at Aoyama Meguro in Nakameguro both championed art on the fringe of daily goings on.
07/11
For a country where political upheaval is relatively unheard of, political violence is equally as rare. Following the death of former PM Shinzo Abe, the mind turned to politician Inejirō Asanuma, also killed on the campaign trail during a televised debate in 1960. And although unconnected, the experimental, avant-garde music found in the Ikejiri-ohashi record store Omega Point near Shibuya, stems from the same social, cultural period, serving as a reminder: music to learn from.
07/12
The LDP consolidated its place in Japanese politics following the previous Upper House election, gaining enough of a majority within parliament to aim for constitutional reform. Later in the month filmmaker Toshiaki Toyoda unveiled his latest short film “Ikiteiru” (Alive) starring Kiyohiko Shibukawa. It was the latest part of his Ōkami series dedicated, in this age of Corona, to the Japanese wolf, an animal extinct since 1905 and worshipped during outbreaks of Cholera and Typhoid in the late 19th century. A film Toyoda hopes “questions the meaning of life in this day and age, a film overflowing with power.”
07/13
Mt Fuji opened for the summer climbing season as Aomori schoolchildren prepared for the annual Nebuta festival, both happening for the first time in almost 3 years. And while Kisho Kurokawa's iconic metabolist building the Nakagin Capsule Tower was slowly removed from the city skyline, his other buildings in Tokyo suggested some of its spirit lived on.
07/14
Aomori’s Northwestern Regional Prefectural Citizens Bureau solicited ‘dreams’ from the general public with a promise: “we'll make your dreams come true!” Jazz pianist Yosuke Yamashita reenacted a performance with the Yosuke Yamashita Trio from 1969, an impromptu performance at Waseda University during the height of the student movement. The event was the brainchild of writer Haruki Murakami, who famously owned his own jazz bar. And in Shinjuku, far from jazz and even further from Aomori, the Eagle Suntory Lounge continued to service the hopes and dreams of customers from its basement bar, away from the falling yen and risk of increased infection.
07/15
Amid swelling cases of infection in Tokyo and the yen falling even further to a 24-year low, Kyoto's Gion Matsuri Festival rolled into town. Meanwhile, “Frame,” Reina Sugihara's solo exhibition of paintings at Misako & Rosen relayed the painter's haptic sense of touch, while Ryan Gander's "Killing Time" at Taro Nasu Gallery embraced his own uncertainty by hugging the life out of it.
07/18
Saxophonist Akira Sakata (76) performed at his old school in Hiroshima, the city of his birth and where he first saw John Coltrane play in 1966. The encounter inspired him to study marine biology at University before moving to Tokyo, playing for the likes of Shuji Terayama, and much later Chris Cosey from Throbbing Gristle. His latest record is a recording from 1986 of him playing with legendary drummer Takeo Moriyama released earlier in the year. It was mixed by Jim O’Rourke and mastered by Martin Siewert of Austrian band Radian.
07/19
Sumo suffered a wardrobe malfunction, while 23 year-old Abdul Hakim Sani Brown became the first Japanese athlete to reach the Men's 100m sprint final at the World Athletics Championships. With the release of Hong Kong documentary “Blue Island” by Chan Tze Woon at Shibuya's Eurospace exploring protests past and present, the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival which awarded Chan's first film the Shinsuke Ogawa Prize in 2017 screened a selection of documentaries on rural Japan in readiness for the film festival in 2023.
07/20
Tokyo announced that it will host the 2025 World Athletics Championships as Yuzuru Hanyu announced his retirement from competitive figure skating to turn professional. Intermediatheque in KITTE Marunouchi showcased a permanent exhibition of scientific & cultural heritage from the University of Tokyo alongside collections from around the country: collections of flora, fauna, archeological finds, and a skeleton of the world's largest crocodile.
07/21
Osaka experienced a record high of infections and Tokyo looked set to follow suit. The izakaya Bacchus in Ikebukuro takes refuge below ground, surrounding itself in English football memorabilia and local baseball.
07/22
Consumer prices went up once again as Chinese naval vessels straying into Japanese waters by sailing around the Amami Archipelago, just south of Kagoshima. The exhibition “Everywhere Gather Yourself Stand” at SCAI PIRAMIDE in Roppongi, one part of a wider exhibition, presented differing personal histories through found objects, heirlooms, paintings and short film.
07/25
Japanese composer and musician Seigen Ono engineered early records by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yasuaki Shimizu. His first album 'Seigen' was released on the ambient label Music Interior in 1984 and has since worked with theatre and ballet companies around the world. Moving from Fukushima to Tokyo he was introduced to film and cinema and the Japanese box set BOX III contains remastered films by film director Wim Wenders: “Notebook on Cities and Clothes” (1989), “Until the End of the World” (1992), “Faraway, So Close!” (1993), and “Buena Vista Social Club” (1999). The man responsible for mixing each film: Seigen Ono!
07/26
Sakurajima volcano erupted on the island of Kyushu as independent cinema Iwanami Hall in Tokyo screened its final film. The National Film Archive of Japan celebrated 90 years of Toho Studios with “Yowa mushi chin-sen-gumi” (1938), “Kimi no namae wa” (2016), Ishirō Honda’s “Gojira” (1954) and Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” (1954) as well as “Nihon chin-botsu” (1973) based on Sakyo Komatsu's disaster novel Japan Sinks which pictured the country as it fell into the sea … beginning with an erupting volcano!
07/27
As monkeypox reached Japan and a rouge band of wild Japanese macaque, nihon-zaru, patrolled the streets of Yamagata, the Tō-ji Buddhist Temple in Kyoto, built in the late 700s, marked its 1,200 year anniversary with a mandala painted by the artist Miwa Komatsu, currently on display at the Taro Okamoto Museum of Art, Kawasaki.
07/28
Mie Prefecture was hit by lightning that set one house ablaze. Economic trade with Indonesia reconvened. Meanwhile, Lavender Opener Chair and the co-run diner Tohmei, both in Tokyo's Arakawa, showcased the latest produce farmed north of Tokyo in Yamagata, riding out both economic and atmospheric storms.
07/29
A massive earthquake struck the Philippines and Typhoon Songda blew itself out in the Philippine sea near Amami, Kyushu, and Okinawa, while the second part of exhibition “Everywhere Gather Yourself Stand” continued at Yutaka Kikutake Gallery in Roppongi.
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