The other day the weather was finally cold enough to put on my favorite green coat which was given to me by the Konishi family, relatives of my friend here in the states with whom I had the pleasure of visiting throughout my stay in Osaka. Now in the USA more than a year, I slipped my hand into the left pocket and found a small piece of paper on which was scribed hand written directions to the station where I was to meet before getting a ride to the 51st annual All Japan Collegiate Karate Championships.
Never before had I seen so many karate-ka (practitioners) in one place before! It was pretty awesome to behold. sadly I only had my little point and shoot which is decent for close things but has a terrible zoom. If only I had my new Cannon rebel back then, man!!! Anyway, Iwabuchi sensei and myself plus a few other students of his took to the nosebleed section where we watched from above for about 10 hours, breaking only to go in search of meals.
There was kumite...
and some pretty intense-looking kata from different ryu (styles) including shotokan.
My college (Kansai Gaidai) unfortunately didn't compete that year because the club was banned because one of their members stole one hospital slipper from a local clinic. Luckily I had left the club the week prior to the incident to go train with Iwabuchi sensei at the Iwabuchi Karate Kaikan, so I didn't have to do any community service.
...man, you don't fool around with karate in Japan. I'll tell you what.
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Some people are addicted to coffee, others to shoes, fast food, or any number of more serious things. As for me, I am a flute collector. Some of them are antique but most of them are new. A few are valuable but most aren't worth anything more than their sound. All in all I have over 30 different flutes that I've amassed since the age of 7 when my addiction began. As I coincidentally had placed them all on top of a very tall drafting table before Katrina, they all survived save one.
Recently I thought I had my obsession under control. I thought I could resist the pangs of desire that strike every time I drive past a world market or an art market... but I was wrong. I got distracted waiting for an e-mail the other day and now I am the proud new owner of a keyless Irish flute. It looks and sounds like this one. I can't wait until I get it home and play it!!! AAAA!
anyway, to really get a sense of the level of my illness, I think you should meet some of the rest of the family:
These are my two main flutes. Both are Artleys made in 1960-something. The left is a C open-hole solid silver Western concert flute, and the right is a solid wood (teak I think) C piccolo. Nothing fancy really, just reliable and sturdy. Many claim Artley is somewhat of a mediocre brand, some might even say it's "cheap," but I would have to disagree. I am not the best musician, but still I've played these things on the Jazz stage at the New Orleans Jazzfest, with a Japanese wind ensemble, and even at the National University of Ireland in Maynooth. If cheap can do that, who needs expensive?
The recorder section! The plastic soprano Yamaha in the middle was my very first flute which I received as a gift for my seventh birthday, and before you ask, no I did not bite it like that. My dog stole it out of my room one night when I was sleeping and went to town on it. The one on the right was its replacement. Now, the giant wooden alto recorder on the left has a very interesting story behind it. See, I came upon it one day when I was looking through some sheet music behind our upright piano when I was a kid. Its reed had shrunk with age and was falling out of the mouthpiece and the pieces barely fit together anymore. Well, of course, this didn't stop me from playing it. And you know it's funny, the more I did so, the more the wood swelled back to its original fit. Anyway, yesterday (more than 14 years later) I came to find out its origins. The company that made it, "Johannes Adler" was founded in pre-war Germany and went out of business during World War II when it was taken over by the communist government. That would make this somewhere from 70 to 90 years old! Here I was playing with an antique piece of history all of these years and I didn't even realize it. Anyway, it's got a great rich tone. I only wish I could do the thing more justice.
These three flutes are my "Irish" flutes, although the green one was admittedly purchased at an Irish souvenir shop in New Orleans. The other two I bought while actually visiting Maynooth and Dublin to play flute and sing with the New Orleans Children's Chorus in the summer 2002. I can't remember how much they were exactly but I think they were something like €12. The two on the right are called tin whistles and are in D and C respectively. The silver D whistle bears the unmistakable scar from my friend's crash cymbal. Haha, garage bands, good times. The one on the left is a 4 hole soprano ceramic pendant ocarina aka a "Songstone." Though it doesn't look like much, its small size and portability makes it the life of any fais dodo, boring elevator ride, or whatever else have you.
These are my Japanese fue. They were bought throughout the kansai region for about ¥600 each with the exception of the one on the left which came from e-bay for $4. The two on the left are end-blown where as the three on the right are transverse. To my knowledge, all of them except the one on the right are "uta" or tuned to the western scale. By contrast, the one on the right, my shinobue is "hayashi" style, meaning it was made to be played in Japanese folk songs and is not tuned as accurately (hence it is more traditional).
These I got while running around in the Bahamas with some great girls. GIRL SCOUTS FOREVER! MOULIN ROUGE! (long and awesome story)
Ah yes, my misc. collection. The top four are pretty aren't they? It's too bad I have NO CLUE how to play the darn things. On the other hand, the bottom two are GREAT! Both came from Louisiana. The long bamboo one came from a store in the French Quarter that was covered in pentagrams. My friend brought me in one day because he needed to buy a cauldron and I walked out with a new flute somehow. That thing has three full octaves! I don't know how they did that. The only bummer is that my short little pinky has trouble reaching the last hole. The shorter mesquite transverse at the bottom is really cool too. It's got a good round wooden sound. Also, you can tell that whoever made it thought about the shape of a person's hands when cutting the holes. I think it's brilliant, my most comfortable flute. I can even play a lot of my standard C-flute music on it pretty easily.
These two flutes I purchased from a couple of Peruvian men whom I met at an international music festival somewhere on the other side of Lake Pontratrain. Their songs were so beautiful, I immediately took these home and taught myself a handful of songs. The small one in the back I believe is called an "antara" and the one in the foreground is definitely called a "siku." The siku was my favorite, and sadly was the one flute not to work after the flood. I think mud got in the pipe or something. Anyway, I wish I knew how to clean it out. It had a really good sound.
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