saddle of oak and mulberry covered with deerskin

The Shōsōin treasure house is part of the Great Eastern Temple (Tōdai-ji) complex at Nara, the Imperial capital of Japan from 710-794 A.D. The treasure house came into as the result of the donation of some 600 precious objects to the Tōdai-ji Temple by the Empress Kōmyō in 756 A.D. in memory of her recently deceased husband the retired Emperor Shōmu.

Over the centuries, further donations were made, and today the Shōsōin contains 9000 objects.

The public is not admitted to the treasure house, but an annual exhibition takes place at the Nara National Museum. This year’s exhibition will be held October 24 — November 12, and some of the items to be displayed have already been announced.

The Yoshida Kyōdai (aka the Yoshido Brothers) perform Kodo on the shamisen, used by Nintendo as the theme music for its Wii game console.

Their style of music is called Tsugaru-jamisen, a shamisen style originating in Aomori prefecture in the northern end of the island of Honshū.　

3:46 video

In this month’s Vanity Fair, Nick Tosches serves up a tour d’horizon of the world of sushi from Tokyo’s Tuskiji fish-market where fish merchants use out-sized samurai swords to slice 300 lb. (136.36 kg.) tuna into quarters, to the locally famous Daiwa hidden in nondescript Tokyo streets in search of sea pineapple, to super high end restaurants like Sugiyama and Masa in New York where dinner for one can cost $480.

Sample excerpt:

My companion, the Japanese translator Eva Yagino, speaks to the chef, Hiroyoshi Gota, who tells her that, among the many sakes sold here, there’s a special sake, made by the Miyagi brewer Uragasumi, that’s rarely available. The waitress pours us some, letting the cold sake overflow to the ceramic saucer beneath the masu, the sake box, made of the same pale wood, hinoki—a cypress that grows only in Japan—from which the best sushi-bar counters are crafted. A ceramic dish of sea salt is placed on the table, and Eva-san sets me straight: I’m to put a pinch of the salt on a corner of the masu, drink from that corner, raising the masu and ceramic saucer together, replenish the salt in the corner whenever I want, and in the end drink all the spillage in the saucer; then order more sake and do it again. As we sip our salted spillage, Eva-san translates the menu for me.

“Nodo-kuro,” she says. “A white fish with a black throat from the Sea of Japan. It is rarely caught.”

As she continues, I recall the way Tom Asakawa smiled when he said, ” … and other things.”

“Anglerfish liver. Ayu-fish guts. Sea-cucumber guts. Oh, and look at all these whale dishes: whale sushi; hari-hari nabe—that’s whale meat with mizuna, a sort of Japanese mustard green that looks like a dandelion green; whale bacon; whale skin; whale tongue; whale brain; shinzo (that’s whale heart); whale ovary—and, oh, here’s your hoya sashi, your raw sea pineapple. Sashi is what the restaurant people call sashimi.”

As I ponder my choices, Eva-san tells me about mamushi-zake. It’s a sake to which, during fermentation, a mamushi is added. The mamushi, a type of pit viper, is one of the two species of poisonous snakes indigenous to Japan. Introduced live into the fermenting sake, it releases its poison into the brew as it leaves this vale of tears. Unlike the Chinese, the Japanese are not big on snake eating, but there is this sake.

“I need to drink that,” I say.

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

Manichi Daily News reports that 11 Japanese kids were hospitalized by ghost stories.

UJI, Kyoto — Eleven junior high school students suffered hyperventilation and were rushed to hospital after talking about ghosts on a bus during a school trip Saturday afternoon, school officials said.

They are fully conscious and their conditions are not serious. Doctors said they suspect that the students suffered hyperventilation as a result of anxiety caused by the tales about ghosts.

PJM has a valuable essay by Nancy Rommelmann, accompanied by this 8:10 video.

In Germany, trompe d’oiel advertising on delivery trucks is used to atttract the attention of consumers.

But Japanese girls attract other kinds of attention with skirts silkscreened with trompe d’oeil images of lady’s undergarments.

Hat tips to Karen Myers and Frank Dobbs.

Japanese television shows can be very amusing. Here is an excerpt from a game show in which contestants compete in contests simulating the supposed athletic and acrobatic of Ninja Warriors. Makoto Nagano, a 34 year old fisherman, turns in a spectacular performance.

9:03 video

Japan has absolutely appalling gun control. Basically, you can’t have one. Wealthy Japanese collect non-firing replica firearms. And apparently frustrated Japanese enthusiasts make guns out of paper.

Original Japanese language page link

Translated (sort of) by Google’s Beta Japanese translatorlink

If you collect tsuba, you’ll love these.

Another of those totally demented Japanese television shows. This one features a contest of just how heavy a fish Japanese cats will carry away. They start small, and slowly increase the size of those fish a few grams at a time, and the obliging Japanese tabbies keep rising to the occasion right up to the 2 kg. (4.4 lb) mark.

Long (10:42 minutes), but amusing.

video

There is an an excellent introduction to the films of Yasujiro Ozu posted today on YARGB by the Boulder mathematician who signs himself MeaninglessHotAir, which is also described as “posted by Loner.”

the camera is usually stationary and positioned to capture the point-of-view of a person sitting on the floor. Most of the edits are straight cuts. There are no special lenses. There is no cross-cutting. There are no flashbacks. There are no dream sequences. There are no ghosts. There are no Samurai. From 1935 on there is sound and from 1958 on there is color. In that final movie the camera never moves within a shot and there is not one edit that isn’t a straight cut.

For Ozu, like Hitchcock, a movie was largely done when the shooting script was finished. He generally had a collaborator and for the final thirteen movies that collaborator was Kogo Noda. The scripts are all about character. What plot there is is in the service of the characters and the characters were generally created with specific actors in mind. When it came to shooting the script, Ozu told the actors exactly how he wanted everything done (though not generally why) and they did it and did it and did it until he was satisfied. What are his movies about? Donald Richie suggests in his Introduction to Ozu, that Ozu “had but one major subject, the Japanese family, and but one major theme, its dissolution.”

Those interested in this director will also find this essay of interest.

Le Monde publishes eleven photos taken over a period of two decades.

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Hat tip to Erik.