August 2006

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A Train to Toyo

Toyo recliningThere’s nothing quite like a train to see the country. And, when you travel from Tokyo to a small island off the coast of Shikoku, you can see pretty much the whole country. For a large part of the trip, my wife and I tried to guess where a good place to live would be, if we ever tired of being in one of the biggest cities in the world. We’re both from the country, so it may very well happen. The rest of the trip I spent scribbling away at mythological beasties which I can’t show all y’all just yet.

Above, you can see Toyo, my wife’s cat. Toyo is currently rooming with my in-laws until such time as we move into a pet-friendlier place and I am magically cured of my allergies. Like all cats, Toyo can sense people with severe dander problems, so she spent most of the time crawling into my lap. Or maybe she just likes the sound of sneezing. Good thing I like cats.

Typically I’m not one for the ocean (or inland sea), but I completely enjoyed the island, with its salty air and its jaggy mountains climbing right out of the narrow beaches. After such a nice break, it’s good to get the nose back to the grindstone. And what a grindstone it is. Big and rough. Posts may be scarce for the next few weeks until I get some of these deadlines behind me.

Wave Stirrer imageAn older image that I still haven’t come up with a good title for. It’s all about inertia and creating it for yourself as opposed to being moved by it. Capturing chance and change, fate and fortune and bending them to your own needs. I’ve always liked water, as both metaphor and design element – just not so much when I’m in it. This seemed like an appropriate piece for this Illustration Friday, seeing as I’ll be riding on a ferry over the Inland Sea, trying to seem totally cool with the lack of solid ground under me.

The O-Bon Holidays are beginning, so my wife and I will be heading down south to visit her relatives, both corporeal and not. I’ve enjoyed the festival as an observer before, but never as a participant, so this should be an interesting week. After a little grave cleaning and conversation with the dead, it will be nice to wander around a place that is pretty much as different from Tokyo as a person could go without leaving the country.

A big thank you to everyone who commented last week! You’re all appreciated! See everyone when I get back.

Shoe sculptureI walk the streets of Tokyo with my keitai always at the ready, my fingers twitching for it like a gunfighter for his side-iron. Keitai, by the by, is the Japanese word for mobile phone. Mine cost ¥1. About a penny. It’s not the snazziest available model, but the built in camera is pretty spiffy.

One of the great oddities here in Tokyo are the wildly inappropriate shop signs. Not “inappropriate” as in “naughty”, but rather “why does such a tiny shop have such a huge sculpture, and what does an octopus have to do with bicycles anyway?”.

I snapped this one in Asakusa a while back. It was out front of a shoe store – so there is some connection. A run-of-the-mill, everyday, nothing fancy shoe store on a back street. You may not be able to see it in this shot, but there is a wicked barb on the back of this flying boot. The ultra-modern sci-fi chrome stand in front of an old wooden shop only adds to the mystique.

Monkeys Cleaning imageI’m a little embarrassed to admit that the first thing that came to mind with this week’s topic, “Clean”, on Illustration Friday was to submit a blank sheet of paper. Dada isn’t really my shtick, though, so back I went to the drawing board.

And monkeys crawled out! They’re cleaning each other, like all good families do. It’s a bit of a deeper cleaning than just loose bits of banana or bugs. I just wish the photo was a bit clearer. I hope to pick up that new scanner soon. That should help get the details and great textures of these papers across a bit better.

And more monkeys wil be forthcoming!