MOVE OVER, JIMI

We all remember that summer morning sunrise at Woodstock when Jimi wailed away at his guitar and polished a fresh facet on the new age with the first explosive chords of The Star-Spangled Banner, in a musical performance that has become an icon of national change; well move over, Jimi. Make room for Miasa, who took it to an international level.

Miasa, who with her sisters has for some time now been studying the traditional 3-stringed Japanese instrument known as the shamisen, for some reason selected as her solo recital song a piece titled: Amerika Gasshukoku no Kokka, which translates as "The National Anthem of the United States of America," an anthem that, needless to say, is familiar to all the world but new to 9-year-old Japan resident Miasa. In fact, I'd say that, when she took to the stage at the recital and began to play Amerika Gasshukoku no Kokka on her shamisen, she hadn't heard that uplifting melody in well over 9 years.

As she plucked out each of the song's single individual and separately notated notes in her spritely manner, it came to me that never before in their long history had the international relations of Japan and the United States been deconstructed in such a youthful way in a public arena, particularly in the plangent musical vernacular unique to the shamisen.

The liberty of tempo, the individualistic bending of traditional notes and chords into modern cultural commentary, with implicit political overtones, had every member of the Japanese audience - all thoroughly familiar with the noble song - on the edges of their seats, somewhat as the folks at Woodstock were, even without seats, when Jimi cranked it to the limits in his inimitable way, transforming that staid anthem we all know into an icon of neorevolutionary aspiration that lives on today in cultures around the world, and that found even newer resonance at the shamisen recital on Sunday.

Miasa's own unique 2nd-generation American-Japanese interpretation of The Star-Spangled Banner on the shamisen before a fully Japanese audience set a new standard for interpretive listening, one that will live on in all those hearts, and thence into the ages.

Well done Miasa. Two nations, now much closer, salute you. 

Jimi, thanks for the precedent, and for moving over.

SILK COUNTRY

Today a blustery cold rainy day, perfect for a long leisurely trip up beauteous stormy narrow coastal roads to the northwest of the Lake and the thousand-year-old silk-producing region where, as we saw in a long 'factory' tucked among the houses, they still produce by hand the finest master-preferred silk strings for koto, shamisen and the Chinese kokyu, silk strings being prized by the masters of those instruments for the feeling and nuance that silk affords, in contrast to nylon and other synthetics (production involves women running far back and forth wetting twisting corded silken strings that are then boiled in mochi (a special 'sticky' rice) paste, then in turmeric!); there is a cosmic lesson here about the natural being far more precious than the synthetic, ask any old master...thence to nearby Kogenji to visit again my favorite juichi-men kannon (11-headed Kannon) with the crazily smiling 11th head (Shiga Prefecture seems to have cornered most of the great juichi-men kannons as a result of the ancient wars, whence such treasures were sent here for safekeeping and here remained, lucky us)...But every bit as interesting to me was the nearby farmstand, where a genuinely smiling and goodwill-emanating farm woman stood selling mountainblossom honey, red peppers, persimmons, large adzuki beans (very unusual), home-roasted peanuts in the shell, yams, pickles, charcoal and some of the very nicest baskets I have seen in these parts. Bought adzukis and a basket woven of akebi vine, and the lady filled it with persimmons as a gift. As we stood there looking at the various goods, persimmons were raining about us from an old man up in the persimmon tree, who was laughing as he knocked down the bright orange fruits with a long bamboo pole as his wife ran around gathering them up. I helped her save a few from rolling into the roadside stream. Later a moment among the old buildings near the temple presented this haiku:

red-painted roof beam
smoke-blackened kitchen walls
peeling potatoes