花見に中目黒の川はとてもきれいです。ほとんど満開でした。２０１２年４月６日。
Nakameguro river is one of the best spots for viewing hanami. Last Friday was approximately 80%. Much family, student, friends, and co-worker public drinking and nature appreciation!
Today it’s windy and raining, so perhaps the season is already over as the petals fall fast.
A costume company had a big hanami party in Yoyogi Koen. There was a ninja, crocodile, lion, bear, rabbit, and frog.
大きいなブルーシートの真ん中で座っている人が寂しいそうだったから、ちょっと話をしました。コンビニのビン二つを飲みながら、会社の花見パーティーのスペースを代々木公園で陣取っていました。
This guy sitting in the middle of his giant l-shaped blue sheet looked lonely so I chatted with him. He was already into his second can of convenience store booze. In Yoyogi Park.
I was delighted to hear from Italian collective Limno, which conducts public research on nature, who informed me about their upcoming issue on “the stratification of floristic, faunal, architectural, landscape elements of a particular place, their overlapping and interaction.”
The open call for “professionals and amateurs” will create material that will be juxtaposed to their study of a Venetian fort.
Please read more about this project and the call for participation. The deadline is April 15.
White mini-daisies on Tokyo balcony. Handmade ceramic pots, all made at Shiho studio. In the background are tulips and succulents. I like mixing up things.
Pink and yellow mini-daisies on Tokyo balcony. Handmade ceramic pot, made at Shiho studio.
恊働会館という木造建築物は１９３６年に建てられて、昔は芸者が話し合いをする場所でした。多分、去年の地震で破損しましたが、まだ上品に見えます。
Called the Kyodo Kaikan, and built in 1936, this wood story house that once was a geisha meeting house is now closed, possibly because of damage from last year’s earthquake. It still looks elegant.
木曜日の夜に、EdobleのジェスとA Small Labのクリス東京ローカル・フードについて発表します。
Together with Edoble‘s Jess and A Small Lab‘s Chris, I’ll be presenting about Tokyo Local Food at the special Global Cities Pecha Kucha this Thursday evening in Tokyo. I’ll post the slides online later, but please attend if you’re here.
今月は、Global Cities Weekと題しまして、世界中のPechaKucha Cityがそれぞれの都市のプレゼンテーションで各イベントを盛り上げています。私たちも東京に関するプレゼンテーションと一緒に皆様をお待ちしております！
http://global-cities.pecha-kucha.org
当日の詳細はこちらをご覧ください。
http://pecha-kucha.org/night/tokyo/89
お墓で、葉を落とした木がとても冬っぽいです。
This bare tree in a temple graveyard is very winter-like.
東京の地元で出来た果物を食べたり、育てたり、分け合ったりしていますか。地元で取れた、非商業の果物に関する話を集めています。あなたの話を聞かせてください。
Do you eat, grow, or share local fruit in Tokyo? We are collecting stories about Tokyo local, or non-commercial, fruit. Please share yours.
Image: Jess Mantell. Project partners: Jess Mantell and Chris Berthelsen.
農大の鈴木誠先生のおかげで、足立区の桜の木のバスツアーに参加させてもらいました。今年は東京がワシントンにあげた桜の百年記念です。今では、ポトマックという川の桜は有名な風景になりました。寒い日なのに、たくさんの人がツアーに参加しました。足立区はたくさんの種類の桜を育ています。冬に咲いているの木もあります。残念なことに、桜を植えた場所は高い電線や高架高速道路の下です。
Thanks to Professor Suzuki Makoto at Nodai, I went on a bus tour of Adachi ward’s cherry trees. They are celebrating the ward’s role in the 100th anniversary of Japan’s gift of cherry trees to Washington DC, where they are now a landmark landscape along the Potomac.
It was fun to see how many local people turned out for the tour and ward office symposium. Adachi-ku continues to cultivate many types of cherry trees, including this winter blooming one. Unfortunately, many of the open spaces for tree-planting are marginal spaces: below the high voltage power lines, and along the Arakawa River, where they are drowned out by multiple levels of elevated freeway.
Like most of Tokyo, it all depends in which direction you’re looking. Adachi-ku is proud also that it retains many views of Mount Fuji. Many of these views include the river and also smokestacks and factories.
アメリカの大学院に応募する方がこのブログの読者に質問したいそうです：日本の自然とランドスケープ文化の意味について、何かおすすめの学術本がありますか？ 私も読者のアイデアを聞きたいです。Image credit: Luis Mendo. From TEDxSeeds プレゼンテーション.
Which books define a Japanese cultural outlook on nature and landscapes? A perspective PhD student wrote to me asking about scholarly works that would allow a comparison with England. Is there a Japanese counterpart to Raymond Williams and William Hoskins, author of The Making of the English Landscape?
I am equally curious to hear what Tokyo Green Space readers know about this topic. So please help this perspective graduate student and share your favorite in the blog comments. Thank you!
はじめまして。
My name is Jennifer Jane Riddle, and Mr. Braiterman has kindly allowed me to introduce myself and use his blog space in order to ask readers about any texts or articles by Japanese authors that address spaces and landscapes in Japan. I am currently applying to various PhD programs in the United States, and my goal is to examine how cultural attitudes towards natural spaces are cultivated and understood and how cultural values affect the way in which countryside spaces are used. Comparatively, I am looking at the countryside of England and English authors, such as Raymond Williams, who wrote about British culture in relation to nature and the English countryside. I am also using more anthropological centered works, as well, such as the landscape histories of William Hoskins. As for works on Japan, I have read Jinnai Hidenobu’s work on Tokyo, and I am looking for similar writers, anthropologists, or theorists who write about Japanese relationships to countryside spaces, nature, and the environment. If anyone who enjoys this blog is aware of any Japanese scholars, past or present, who focus on culture, space and place in such a way, I would love to know more.
どうぞよろしくお願いします。
Image credit: Luis Mendo. From TEDxSeeds presentation.
史火陶芸教室の生徒さんの一人、萩原さんがしめ飾りの作り方を教えました。材料はとても素敵だったと思います。様々なマツ、松ぼっくり、紙垂、稲穂、リボン、縄、ベリー、バラの実、乾燥した葉や花を使いました。お店で買ったしめ飾りよりずっと素敵です。萩原さんはこのブログをいつも読んでくれています。ありがとうございます。
Fellow Shiho ceramic studio student Hagiwara-san organized a new year ornament or shimekazari workshop. It was so fun to work with beautiful, fresh materials, including several types of pine needles, pine cones and woody seed husks, Shinto folded paper, rice, ribbons and ropes, berries and rose hips, even dried chocolate cosmos and other leaves.
In past years I’ve bought them from Muji or even the supermarket. It was fun how all of the hand-made shimekazaris turned out differently. Some had circular and oval bases made of twigs and bamboo, others were tied together in a bunch. I used wires to attach the mini pine cones and even a yuzu.
Hagiwara-san is also a loyal Tokyo Green Space reader. Thank you!
