Click here to view the video on YouTube.

I listened to Family, with Roger Chapman, Ric Grech, John Whitney, Jim King, and Rob Townsend in the late 60′s. They were a U.K. band that didn’t get a lot of airplay in the states. Lately I’ve been looking for their albums in mp3 and CD format, and really enjoying them. They still sound fresh.

Jim King left the band after the first two records, apparently asked to leave because of deteriorating mental problems. He died this year, in February.

Snowhaiku II

“If you run the beast catches, if you stay the beast eats.” – Brazilian saying

Hyoroku, Yoshida Toshi, woodblock print, 1951

“What is called enjoying a summer evening by the river goes on from sunset until the last glimmer of the moon at dawn. Balconies line the river banks for drinking and feasting. Women knot their obi in splendid bows, men come turned out in long cloaks, priests and old gentlemen mingle with the crowd, even young apprentices of coopers and blacksmiths sing and make merry as carefree as can be. Truly a scene of the Capital!

The river breeze…
Out in a thin russet kimono
On a summer evening.”

Basho, quoted in ‘Beauty and Sadness’ by Yasunari Kawabata.

Curtis W. Hanson in his studio, Cornubia Hall

Following my trip to Gasshuku and my sandan promotion exam I spent two days visiting with my old friend, the painter Curtis Hanson and his wife Onwarin. It was an excellent visit, very relaxing. Curt has made a name and a life for himself in the small, scattered communities of the Connecticut greenbelt, and currently divides his time there with extended visits to Thailand, Onwarin’s native home. His work reflects his split loyalties, with half of the paintings depicting the lush grounds of his Cornubia Hollow home, and half showing the monks, fishing boats and markets of Thailand.

Onwarin is also an artist, making composite clay sculptures of flowers that are absolutely realistic. These elaborate ‘nature morte’ often have falling petals, small signs of corruption, decay and death that tie them to their European art historical counterparts. She is also a master of traditional Thai massage, and an excellent cook. My visit was one long feast of rustic Thai cooking. I’m glad that I was able to aid her in some small way, by installing the necessary files for the Rosetta Stone Language software on her disc-driveless MacBook Air.

We made a visit to Curt’s gallery, an appendage to a frame shop and gallery in Bantam, CT, owned by his friend Ella Crampton. It was nice to see a large body of Curt’s recent work, displayed in an elegant, neutral setting.

Most of the time of my visit was spent talking art. Curt and I grew up together, as children and budding young artists. We shared many formative experiences, at Fort Wright College in Spokane, California College of Arts and Crafts and Fenway Studios in Boston. Though our respective painting styles have gone their own directions, we still share some of the same aesthetic ideals and painterly goals.

A back problem, which had been exacerbated by the promotion exam and extreme workouts of Gasshuku, prevented me from walking the grounds of Cornubia Hall. I regret that, and the fact that I couldn’t stay longer. Still, it was nice to see Curt, and to get to know Onwarin better.

Thailand Night, Curtis Hanson, 50 x 42 inches, copyright ©2012

Mount Saint Alphonsus Retreat Center, Esopus, New York

I’ve recently returned from a weekend on the East Coast. The occasion for my travel was the Annual World Seido Karate Gasshuku, held at the Mount Saint Alphonsus Retreat Center in Esopus New York. It was also the site of a special promotion for out of town black belt candidates. I was traveling with my instructor, Jun Shihan Tom Tanaka, and two other candidates for shodan (first degree black belt) promotion, Becca Taylor and Jack Foy. I was promoting to sandan, or third degree black belt.

We took the redeye from Seattle to Newark, rented a car and drove the two hours to Esopus. Upon arriving at the center we had a brief orientation, followed by a long workout. The promotion candidates were then separated out for about three hours of formal testing, followed by an hour plus of non-stop kumite. The kumite was very lively, and I fought both promotion candidates and other black belts that were there to assist with exams. As if on cue, for the last and longest fight the sky opened up and it poured rain and thunder on everyone.

Following the fighting exams we cleaned up, attended dinner, which was followed by the evening meditation. The next morning we were up at 4 AM for zazen or sitting meditation, followed by kinhin (walking meditation.) Morning meditations began before the first bird started singing, and would be accompanied by a swelling cacophony of birdsong. Kinhin was followed by a vigorous workout and special training. I chose self-defense as my training option, although the other options (senior kata, kumite conditioning, etc.) were equally attractive. Breakfast was followed by another “short” workout that lasted an hour and 15 minutes. After some free time that was devoted to organizing for the afternoon’s scheduled team activities, we retired for lunch. During the afternoon, pre-assigned teams competed in group activities such as tug of war, pony races, water balloon tosses, etc. Evening meditation preceded dinner, and then we met in the auditorium for other contests, including singing, impersonating Kaicho and Nidaime, marshmallow toss, chugging, etc.

The last day consisted of 4 AM zazen, kinhin, an extended workout conducted on the vast front lawn of the retreat center, with all karateka making a huge circle and holding hands while executing kicks and other techniques. We stopped briefly to observe the sunrise, then continued with the workout, ending with advanced self-defence techniques against a knife wielding assailant. In this case the assailant was magic-marker wielding, intent on “slashing” our white t-shirts. Hansekai, or reflections, followed, with everyone giving a brief account of their thoughts on this year’s Gasshuku. As the event broke up, many sincere goodbyes were said, and promises to friend on facebook. It was great to see so many old Seido friends, to reconnect with people like Senpai Mary Nolan, Senpai Todd Solly, as well as meet many new people, all bound by a common interest in Seido Karate. Kizuna!

Group Photo, 2011 World Seido Karate Gasshuku, Esopus, New York

It’s the Fourth of July, a good day to reflect on how tenuous our democracy is, under siege by corporate interests and ideological zealots. I hope the dream that launched our Independence continues to bear fruit in the Real World.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

An old clip of Frank Paris, the man who originated Howdy Doody, performing with his marionettes.

An early photo of Paul Winchell w/ Jerry Mahoney.

In 1994 I began collecting puppets; marionettes, hand puppets, sock puppets, shadow puppets, stick puppets, puppets from Indonesia, Turkey, Thailand, China, Europe and elsewhere. I had been interested in puppets and ventriloquism as a child, even performed regularly with what is now called a ‘vent figure’. My vent figure was a highly modded commercially available character named Jerry Mahoney, by Paul Winchell. My father wrote scripts on yellow legal pads, primarily old vaudeville jokes that he remembered from his childhood. I had an agent that booked me into VA hospitals and local children’s television shows like ‘The Captain Cy Show’, where I would be sandwiched in between the Popeye cartoons and the kids picking their noses. I did this from age 9 through half of my tenth year.

My interest waned, and other things took over. I still really enjoyed watching puppets and ventriloquists, and had the usual fascination with the darker side of the art as depicted by the young Anthony Hopkins in the movie adaptation of William Goldman’s “Magic”. Around 1993 my then girlfriend gave me a marionette, a Pelham Puppet made in Marlborough, Wiltshire. I began searching for other puppets and marionettes, and reading books about their construction, history and performance methodologies.

Marionette by William A. Dwiggins.

My renewed interest as an adult came from a growing fascination with the aesthetics of puppet theater, and with its obvious political dimensions. In more repressive cultures puppets were allowed to say what the adults could not. They were often regarded as children’s entertainment, when in fact, as the Bread and Puppet Theater demonstrated, they could be a powerful source of Brechtian agit-prop. I was also intrigued by the technology. I acquired a set of late 19th Century Spanish marionettes, and I was amazed at how lifelike their movements were, even when handled by someone who had no idea how to manipulate them. They were perfectly weighted, and designed for their purpose. And I loved the high art of Banraku from Japan, or the art deco style marionettes of William A. Dwiggins.

At about the same time I was posting regularly on a listserv called ‘artcrit’. Artcrit was an academically hosted email-based forum for airing thoughts, theories and reviews related to art and art criticism. I frequently found myself in interesting arguments with a very literate and articulate woman named Malgosia Askanas. We discovered a mutual interest in puppets, myself as a student of their history and practice, Malgosia as a contemporary performer. At her suggestion we started a listserv devoted to the practice and theory of the art of puppetry, called ‘puptcrit’. Puptcrit is now nearly 20 years old. It is one of the longest running listserv based forums in the country, and serves thousands of professional puppeteers and fans the world over. The mission charter stated:

“PUPTCRIT is an electronic forum for the discussion of
the aesthetics, history, experience, theory and praxis
of puppet theatre.

“If you are a performer and use any type of puppet technology in your
production, or if you are a historian interested in the ‘bastaxi’ or
wandering puppeteers of the early Middle Ages, the Karagiozis of Greece and
Turkey, the elaborate productions of the Chinese Opera Puppet Theatre, the
oversized theatre of “Orlando Furioso” or Kwakiutal marionettes, or if you
are writing a thesis on the use of puppets in psychotherapy or on the
relationship between “Punch and Judy” and Artaud’s “Theatre of Cruelty”,
you may have something valuable to contribute to the other subscribers to
this list.”

Most of the heavy lifting, the behind the scenes work that has kept this list alive for so long, has been done by Malgosia. I occasionally play list-mom for the brief periods that she is away in Europe or otherwise indisposed. Otherwise I spend time lurking, learning far more than I contribute. You can find out more about puptcrit here.