2nd February 2025年2月2日
Hope is in the air....
きたい


Hello, look who's landed.......like Hedwig, Harry Potter's owl. Though in this case I am going to use this Buzzard to introduce this week's blog
さしば.フランクフルト.

It has landed right outside a flat in the city of Frankfurt......let's take a closer look....

These birds will find any spot of nature in our towns and cities and look for food.
This hole opposite my house has been there since last August (they miscalculated the ground water level apparently), so I am tempted to introduce some fish and see what happens......
この池に魚を放してもいいでしょうか

Sometimes you just have to laugh. I was telling my teacher last week about our family cat, Maggy, who is now blind (I'm not laughing at the poor cat). So blind that she feels her way around a house by brushing her whiskers against the walls. Clever cat. What are whiskers in Japanese? it's this....
髭
😺
just look at those whiskers! (it's spelt hige ひげ). ひげのある漢字!!
Incidentally, and potentially confusing, this kanji character also means moustache 🥸. Languages are funny 🙃.........
..........German being no exception: Do you know what a Steuerhinterzieher is? Add Steuer (tax) to hinter ( behind) and ziehen (to pull), and you get Tax evader. So the ad is a play on words: It says "wanted, tax evaders"......Apply now!, except that what the Hessen Finance Administration is looking for is young people to train.....to find tax evaders. Oh dear that was complicated.

Turning around in my train seat I see that there is a shortage of people to clean the trains, but no shortage of freelance artists......
清掃員はいない。フリーランスのアーティストがたくさんいる

However I doubt that this red spot would make it into the Museum of Angewandte Kunst (Museum of Applied Art) in Frankfurt. Others have........like Shiriagari Kotobuki, who satirizes famous pictures.......here is his "Hommage to Hokusai"........
フランクフルトでの新しい展示会

I went to see this new exhibition at the weekend. It's all about this "Floating World".
It's a mixture, but everything relates in some way to the impermanence of life, a very Buddhist concept known to the Japanese as Mono no Aware 物の哀れ (".....The appreciation of the fleeting nature of beauty.....)
You get the famous 19thc. woodblock prints from Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾 北斎 and Utagawa Hiroshige 歌川 広重 , and a several metre long roll depicting the trade route between Edo and Nagasaki...(some little details....)


Also some contemporary artists, like Hide Nasu, who actually works in Frankfurt. I couldn't photograph his "mirror ponds", so here is a descripton...

Though I did manage to photograph one of his other creations - very ethereal.....

Of course it's better to see the real thing to appreciate it.
We also were treated to poetry. Not printed on paper but mounted either on the window ..........(Matsuo Bashō (1644-94))


or on a wall......(Mari Kashiwagi ......who is on Youtube)


One artist, who lives in the old harbour town of Sakai, south of Osaka, "helps the wind to create art". With very delicate installations he allows a pen to be moved over the paper purely by the action of the wind.....here is one such contraption....

and an actual picture......complete with pen.....

Here's a video about him (in German)
A beautiful laquered bowl from a workshop on the Noto Peninsular. Unfortunately the workshop was severely damaged in the earthquake in January 2024......https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Noto_earthquake

....and finally, easily the oldest exhibit on show. You often see these guardian lion/dogs at temple entrances in Japan. But the amazing thing about this guy is how old he is,- and he's not even made of stone,
but cedar wood! He comes from the time when Kamakura was the capital (1285-1333). Beauty in imperfection - the ageing process of the wood lends another dimension....
Komainu....if you type this into google translate you will get "Top Dog" Is this a joke? 😅.
I have a more useful link here.......https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komainu

On the 23rd February Germany will go to the polls for a General Election (Bundestagswahl)
It is not a happy time. The posters are everywhere......
Parallels have been drawn to the dysfunctional Weimar Republic, which paved the way to you know who.
2月23日、ドイツでは総選挙(連邦議会選挙)の投票が行われます。
楽しい時期ではありません。ポスターは至る所にあります......
機能不全に陥ったワイマール共和国との類似点が指摘されています。ワイマール共和国は、ご存知の通り、誰に道を開いたかご存知でしょう。アドルフ・ヒトラー

Karlsruhe
カールスルーエ

In her introduction to the Liedgestaltung workshop this week, Heike-Dorothee Allardt, who teaches at the Karlsruhe Musikhochschule, explained that the theme was "War and Peace". We live in uncertain and dangerous times she said, and our students have a voice. Thank you, I thought. I'm not only here for family reasons. I simply love listening to song recitals.
The piano was waiting patiently.....
ピアノはしんぼうづよく待つ

Then on came the singers and their accompanists. As over twenty songs were being presented, they came on in groups so we didn't have to applaud after every song. Good idea. Especially as beginners were mixed up in the programme with solo concert level singers. As I listened to songs by Franz Schubert, Edvard Grieg, Hugo Wolf, Henri Duparc, Modest Mussorgski, Jaques Ibert, Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann and Richard Strauss I was filled with gratitude. What a privilege to be there. These singers and pianists (I counted up to 12 different nationalities) working together, doing their best. What a contrast to the bombardment of contempt-filled rhetoric to which we are subjected daily in the media.

Just a snapshot of one group. Not posed.

息子が音楽大学の歌唱発表会で歌いました

So, I will leave it at that for this week. As always, thank you for reading, and if you know anyone who might be interested in this blog then do send it on.
読んでくれてありがとう
See you....... matane!
Nigel🙋
Comments welcome 😉
p.s. An accident in the waiting. Any one who has repaired a double bass will groan at this........😄
もうすぐ事故が起きるよ…

THE END 終わる
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