walking

frustrating not being able to upload pictures.

tired, each day long and full (even rest day today) - not only question of internet access, question of erik energy. walking is our primary task.

anyway, will attempt to super-briefly summarize a few experiences, it has already been a meaningful trip, about a quarter of the way in. not sure will blog more without pictures. so frustrating.

ok, leaving, board flight, sleep or try to sleep most of the time. person next to me looks familiar but that would be too much of a coincidence, right? nearing san francisco, for connection to osaka, finally start chatting, where are you headed, why, i say "actually i think i know you, didn`t we meet at a workshop?" and yes, it`s shisano, so we have during the descent to catch up before she heads to nagoya and i board a flight for osaka. feels like syncronicity, the odds are . . . not impossible, obviously, but the chances of being on the same flight, same day, then adjascent seats, i`m still surprised. happy, but surprised.

by the way every night here i`ve had strange dreams. last night there were people in the subway whose heads had been replaced by plants (growing out of their necks, where their heads used to be). they could "see" but not speak, very creepy. part of a government experiment i think.

ok so kyoto, mattew and i get together, we have a sit-down let`s-talk-about-the-art-project meeting at a coffee shop, and come up with a document:

"

METHODOLOGICAL GROUND-RULES:

- evening meeting to discuss prints relating to subsequent day`s trek

- if something is collected, it may not exceed the weight of the current pen nor the size of an A4 (8 1/2" x 11") piece of paper

[coffee stain] <- extraneous coffee (which was awful)

- meetings, as practical, ought to occurr in coffee shops (not hotels)

- trade/barter found objects, and share all photos at the end of each day and/or the end of the journey

- collect travel brochures, etc. for use as background graphics

- will each end up with one collage per walking day

- endeavor to find the literal elements in hiroshige`s prints (e.g., a threesome of women in light travelling garb)

- during evening meeting, choose tasks for following day including following evening

"

looking at this piece of paper now, most of it no longer applies. walking is the thing, and everything else, well, it isn:t quite fair to call it "secondary" - way down there, low low low priority.

jidai matsuri, festival in kyoto, more of a parade, goes backward in time, further and further away from the present, people dressed as historical figures, fitting to see before we started out (one of the main reasons we chose to walk to tokyo from kyoto rather than vice-versa was so we`d be walking forward through time, from the ancient capital to the new capital, the other biggest reasons being that kyoto is at a higher altitude than tokyo so it`s ultimately a down-hill journey, and also greater chance of seeing autumn leaves changing color since we`re heading north should therefore hit them at some point, rather then missing them and chasing them the whole way, or leading them and the leaves are changing behind us - this way, we should see some. already a few, but still just a few.)

then meeting up with john wells, a significant person in my life - friend, guru, collaborator, object of worship, enigma, bringer of friends. anyway he seemed to grasp what we`re doing better then we do, basically an "assault on convenience." not sure if those are his exact words, which i have written down on a scrap of paper somewhere (up in my room, hopefully, standing here at a lobby in the comfort inn opposite gifu station typing this) but that`s how we remember/interperet his message, and it comes up at least once a day.

next morning, on the way to matthew`s hotel i pass men painting the street, which i consider to be a good omen. we ask a taxi driver to drop us off prior to crossing the sanjo bridge so we do it on foot, and begin our journey. lots of hills, narrow roads. all this is days ago, amazing how much longer it feels, we see so much walking, time seems to extend, if that makes any sense.

right, so the art, we changed it after the second or third day, we were too tired to complete our tasks and matthew was frustrated by the travel brochure selection in [wherever day one was]. not much local, everything the same, national tours. as for me, couldn`t imagine bending over to pick up something, or add a single scrap of paper to our loads. in fact, threw out a garbage bag in an attempt to lighten my not-very-heavy pack (but it feels heavy after say mile seven, and then still thirteen miles to go). anyway, the current plan is, we take pictures. especially me. lots and lots of pictures (i`ve started shooting short video clips more, but any still frame can be taken as a pictorial image). we`ve each promised to share all our photos with each other. then, we each make collages, using our images. then, there are some other things i think we want to do, anyway i want to do them, but i'll get to that in a minute. the tasks, i don't know if we're going to keep talking about those, the ones we managed to complete the first couple of days (easy ones like "viewing the moon") i have written down, again, on a scrap of paper upstairs in my room.

in the mornings, though, we do look at hiroshige's prints, over breakfast, before setting out. the prints matching the spots we`re passing that day. and we do refer to them occasionally throughout the day, but my hands are usually busy, camera in one and feeding self snacks with the other. constant clicking, constant chewing.

right, so the next day, more walking, and that`s how it has gone. a lot of walking. the rain made it harder to keep shooting pictures, or write anything down, there were two days of it, but this week should be sunny, according to the weather forecast.

what we have seen, it`s better for me to upload pictures in the future. but we saw a troupe of monkeys crossing a mountain road two days ago.

today, rest day, we went to nagoya, and i was able to introduce shisano to our good friend hitomi. ate hitsu mabushi for the first time. properly.

think better for me to go to sleep rather than blog. not sure if this is coherent, if that matters. mentioned the can`t-share-the-pictures frustration? that`s all i need to share for the rest of the trip, really. incredibly frustrating not being able to share the pictures.