Naturally I got my shakuhachi practice in last night, the 4-note figures on page 23. I was struggling to play them 3-4 times but now I'm going at each one playing it 5-7 times, really making myself do my best to make them sound good.
This reminds me a lot of the sport I did, where at first it was just going through the motions and practicing every day, and the subtleties of it were revealed to me gradually. At times I didn't feel like practicing but I was reading every book I could get my hands on about sports psychology and the careers of athletes and I knew that tennis players do a lot of just going out there and hitting "100 balls" or whatever, and even if they don't feel like it that particular day, it makes the *next* day better.
Japanese stores sell those headbands that say things like "Ninja" and so on, I wish they had one that said "Gambatte" which means to keep going no matter what.
I slept deeply, and wasn't up until a bit after 3. So much for going to the Mitsuwa Marketplace today. However I read the reviews for Kumar's Island Market where my Polynesian peeps go, and is not that far away, and one reviewer talked about "strong kava" being available there so while I won't make it there today, I need to get over there and check it out. I'd looked the place up before, in the process of looking up Chaparral Mexican market, which has 99% ethanol, essentially Everclear, and Ken wants me to get him some. Well, just up the street, Kumar's showed up so I knew there was an interesting Polynesian market I needed to check out. Reading about the kava just makes my interest a lot stronger.
I finally got my lazy ass going at about a quarter to 5, and after dropping off trash and bottles, picked up a bunch of old recipe books and stuff from a sidewalk "free sale" and an interesting book from one of the free libraries - a sort of book that's a diary for keeping track of your garden, with no entries in it. I dropped off a big package of roasted seaweed at one of the free libraries too.
As usual there were lots of bums and crazies around. I rode my St. James Park, skirting the region I call "Hamsterdam" and some unfortunate guy, a Hispanic guy who looks like he works some routine job, with a Toyota Camry or some such sensible car, had gotten a flat there next to St. James Park. So the poor guy's raising his car with the little crank jack, and a gaggle of bums are clustering around giving advice: "You need to tighten it!" "Loosen it, you're doing it wrong!" "Take it off!" "Why dat man lookin' at us?", this last referring to me.
I went over to the Amazon place and only got two bubble mailers - oh well. Tine to bounce back to Nijiya.
I locked up the bike and was getting my cart when there seemed to be an enthusiastic discussion with one of the workers, and a couple of other people, about a Stevie Wonder song, something about living in the city ... none of 'em could carry a tune in a bucket so I sang out, showing 'em they were onto the right song and scat-singing that part Stevie scat-sings because I really like that bit, how it seems to waver between minor and major, and that went over great. Always a good time at Niji's! I said if they go on YouTube and search for "Stevie Wonder enough for the city" it'll come up.
I got my usual sake and stuff, a big piece of seared tuna, some little things to try like gingko beans and vegetarian "jerky" and a little bean salad to go with the fish, and a beer.
I was apportioning all this into the bike bags and which ones to hang off the handlebars when I overheard one of the guys talking about the guitars he has and as I was returning my cart I asked, "You play guitar?" and he replied that he's got a guitar, bass, and drums. I told him about my trumpet playing and switch to shakuhachi. We ended up talking about all kinds of things. The guy's name is Ken and he apparently grew up shuttling between the US and Japan so he's got Japanese and of course English down pat "except some of the reading" in Japanese. We talked quite a bit - politics and stuff - and then he had to close up the shop so I left.
The guy's name is Ken so that's easy to remember as the kid I was "partnered" with when I started Aikido class all those years ago in Kahuku was named Kenji. He said he was in a school band in Japan and he remembered the trumpet players doing all kinds of exercises like crunches and planks to strengthen themselves.
I think that even if I knew I could do lots of crunches and planks to strengthen myself and get comfortable up to high E on the trumpet, I would put that same effort into the shakuhachi. I liken hearing Yamahuchi Goro to when Van Halen's "Eruption" came out on the radio and we high schoolers were amazed, because we'd never heard guitar like that. I'm sure it started many a guitar career.
I stopped at the temple and did something I've started to do; I pull weeds out of the lawn in front. Mainly just the annoying ones I know are unwelcome like the milkweeds and "Velcro" plant. There's not really any way to volunteer I know of, but I know that's a little help and not everyone's got as good a tool as my pocketknife for cutting the root of a weed without disturbing the grass.
By this time I needed to put the lights on the bike and it was downright cold riding back. I got back here and had a nice big meal of seared tuna and bean salad.
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