He gets all gushy about his favourite magazine

[imomus]

In Britain I spent a lot of time in art and design bookshops, flipping through magazines, researching an article I'm writing for AIGA Voice about design as religion and these bookshops as its chapels and temples. But I must say that, although I saw some nice magazines, none of them comes as close to the things of my heart as Japanese magazine Studio Voice, the latest issue of which, the Life in the Woods issue, was waiting for me in a pile of post when I got back to Berlin last night.



Now, you might say that the timing for this issue is not great; the tsunami has made nature seem less like a benign force, less like a good in itself, than it has for a long time. But trees and forests are a perennial symbol of nature's benign side, its healing and restorative properties. A whole issue of a culture magazine about them is welcome, and this issue more than repays its debt to the pulped trees which were needed to make the recycled paper it's printed on.

The issue proposes its themes as 'dialogue with the life of the forest, the will to freedom'. A quick flip-through gives an idea of the cultural reference points ('keywords', as the Japanese put it), even if you don't speak Japanese. Starting at the back, we get an article about 'Self-Build in the Woods'. Studio Voice has long run photos of self-built houses. (In other magazines and books recently it's been architecture features which have most excited me: Jonathan Glancey on the architecture of Antarctica in the Guardian the other day in an article entitled Cold Comfort, and a book about prefab architecture featuring the work of Adam Kalkin.)

Amidst gorgeous photos of woods and forests, lakes and mountains, Studio Voice continues with an article on the philosophers of the woods, Emerson, Thoreau, Muir and Leopold. The Japanese nature-love and Japanese thoroughness continues; there's an article on 'New Aspects of Thoreau', a study of Frank Lloyd Wright's 'Falling Water' house, three pages about James E. Lovelock and Gaia, two on John Cage's 'Thoreau Mix', a piece on the concept of universality in civil disobedience (it seems to be about Martin Luther King and his concept of nature), an article linking Thoreau to the Beat Generation, an article about the Walden House and the Kit-Kit Dizze Houses (more log cabins in the woods), an article about Rachel Carson's book 'Silent Spring' (appearing in 1962, it's a piece of radical environmentalism which attacks the unsustainable practices of agribusiness), then an article about nature as it appears in children's books, 'The Genealogy of Nature Writing'.



Next it's 'Eliot Porter and Nature Photography', a piece about parks and shrines as 'forests in the city', a lovely piece about 'Thinking in the Woods' (forest cabins as places in which to 'get your head together', write poetry, etc), a nature book guide, a nature CD guide, then Studio Voice's regular round-up of fashion, art, film and music. Plus a special portfolio by Christine Rebet, the French artist whose Robin Hood show last year inspired the song of the same name on my forthcoming album. Robin Hood, a man for whom the forest is a symbol of justice, a corrective to the inequalities and evils of the city.

Many western style mags leave me cold with their brash, nasty, silly and selfish consumerism. Literary reviews recently have been all about the awfulness of the Bush regime or the Iraq war. More specialised magazines about visual culture and taste alienate me with snobby intellectualism which seems, ultimately, to be a matter of class distinction rather than a real interest in the subjects discussed (even favourites like The Wire and Frieze seemed a bit tedious this month). But Studio Voice just confirmed, once again, why it's my favourite magazine. I admire the thoroughness and research that goes into its theme issues, but above all I admire its love and positivity. In a humane and intelligent way, the magazine is showing a way forward, campaigning for values which are both ethical and aesthetic. There's a tender-minded utopianism here which is also a style, a way of being.

That phrase 'a way of being' was knocking around in my head the last couple of days in London as I tried to analyse why the city grates on me so much these days. I decided that it's London's 'way of being' which disturbs me, its 'habitus', its soul. London drags me down to a dark place of the soul; its way of being seems to me to be fundamentally wrong. Back in Berlin the air is fresher, people are quieter, slower and more serious, the buildings are more solid and the forest doesn't feel far away. Next week (and for the next two months) I'll be in Japan, a land of mountains, forests, cities and sea. Although many of this month's articles are about the forest in American culture, Studio Voice reminds me of how important the forest is to the Japanese too. Even for city-dwellers, the forest can be an important template, a part of our soul, our sensibility, our habitus. Perhaps all London needs is a corrective forest. Perhaps only forest – forest planted through all its streets, thick cone-thudding, car-banishing forest – could save the place.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

It does seem striking that (according to your summary of its contents), this magazine focuses entirely on Western culture. I hope once you're out in Japan you'll write about Japanese concepts of the West and whether there's a complement to Western 'orientalism'. After all, Walden and Thoreau are archetypal American individualists - is this something that the Japanese exoticise?

[(Anonymous)]

I meant Emerson and Thoreau...

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think the Japanese postmodern identity is based on a Japanization of syncretic global influences. (Gulp!) This makes it easy to become 'Japanized' or 'Japan-eyed' (as I've undoubtedly become) without focusing specifically on Japanese culture. You just need to look with Japanese eyes at other cultures. You just need to become a curator of what's best in other cultures. If some Shinto-Buddhist nature-orientation attracts you to Thoreau (and your respect for the avant garde and for experimentalism already tells you that an important figure like John Cage has explicitly linked Thoreau to Zen Buddhism) then you go to Thoreau. Rather than attacking the present American 'way of being' you find a former American way of being which seems to signal a way ahead. This is how, with impeccable positivity and Japan-eyes, you Japanize

[sarmoung.livejournal.com]

I've just finished Iain Sinclair's London Orbital (http://www.spikemagazine.com/1002iainsinclair.php) for the second time. I don't know a better writer on London. You might prefer the text-lite film version (http://www.illumin.co.uk/products/06art/orb/prtext06_6.html), Momu-chan!

If we have a corrective forest in London, it would have to be Hampstead Heath, especially particular areas when night approaches...

Woodwork

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, yes, the woods are very near and dear to me, as well, so what a wise theme for a new year. (I wish I knew Japanese so I could read what looks like a lovely magazine!) I'm fortunate enough to spend half of each summer in a cabin in the north woods, and live at the edge of humble woodland the rest of the year--though the ocean literally surrounds me, it's to the forests that I retreat for solace and restoration. Perhaps it's because the only famous person to come from my small home town was one of the naturalists mentioned, perhaps simply because I love trees more than cars or just about anything else... In my personal utopia the streets and highways would indeed by replaced by forest paths.

Re: Woodwork

[(Anonymous)]

Addendum: The most beautiful book I read last year was Josephine Johnson's 1969 nature unblog, "The Inland Island," highly recommended for anyone who wants to take a mental trip into the woods.

[bostonista.livejournal.com]

Have you read Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Modern Japan? It states that the popular notion that the Japanese admire and cherish nature isn't necessarily true. You might find it interesting.

Never having been to Japan, I can't judge how close the author is to the mark, but I found it to be a fascinating read.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

BAH HAMBUG DO NOT MENTION THAT WRETCHED BOOK (http://www.livejournal.com/users/imomus/2004/11/05/) TO ME!

[me-vs-gutenberg.livejournal.com]

For some reason this reminds me of how they're cutting off all the Beuys oaks in Kassel. And while I never liked the concept very much, I think Kassel sure is a city that needs all the trees it can get.

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

You might be interested in philosopher David Wood (http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/philosophy/faculty/wood.html)'s
tree planting project (http://www.circularsystem.com/trees/).

BTW a prominant university in Kyoto originally planned to sponsor an event relatet to this project. They abruptly dropped the promised sponsership with no explanation, but the inside information was that they became worried when they noticed Joseph Beuys cited as an inspiration.

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

For some reason this reminds me of how they're cutting off all the Beuys oaks in Kassel.

Sounds like a political act. Is their city council anti-Green/SDP?

[samotar.livejournal.com]

Yes Studio Voice is a great magazine. About twenty years ago I was invited
to Japan for the first time for an exhibition of my artwork. Studio Voice did
an interview with me and wrote what was probably the most thoughtful and insightful article ever written about my work.
Anyway I pretty much agree with almost
everything Momus has to say about Japan. I know my
experiences there changed my life forever.

Consider the lilies

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

Personally I don't think a love of nature has ever really been a dominant part of Japanese culture. Of course, if you ask a Japanes person if they love nature, nine times out of ten they'll say they do, but this love is hardly ever manifest in anything beyond the profession of love itself.

That's why I personally found Japan so sterile - no wilderness, exactly. I grew up in the countryside. I actually do love nature. However bad I might feel about things, if I take a walk where trees and foliage are pretty much left to their own devices, it always makes me feel better.

In the twenty eight months I spent in Japan, I never found anywhere relaxing to walk in quite the same way (incidentally, the Japanese people around me could never understand my wish to simply 'go for a walk' without some purpose such as shopping). I always felt like the proverbial rat in a cage.

I did wonder if - as Alex Kerr seems to believe - love of nature was there before, but I suspect that it wasn't to any significant degree. I remember a Japanese friend telling me about the famous Zen figure Ikkyu, who was a master of the tea ceremony. One day, apparently, Ikkyu invited the local daimyo, or some similar dignitary, to come to his tea-shack to see the lilies that were now freshly in bloom. The daimyo came, and there was not a single lily in sight. He wondered what was happening. Anyway, Ikkyu invited him into the hut, he sat down, and then he saw, in the scroll alcove, in a vase, was a single lily. Ikkyu had cut up all the lilies and thrown them away except for this one. There the story ended. It's supposed to be like a koan or something, and we're supposed admire the esoteric aestheticism of it, and ponder on Ikkyu's meaning. Personally, my first reaction, if I'm to be quite honest, was disgust at the desecration that was involved for the sake of making some etiolated aesthetic statement.

On the other hand, I do see love of nature in some of the literature, and some of the customs. This is usually tied up with events that mark the passing of the seasons - the cherry blossoms and the red leaves of autumn. These never seem to become cliches for the Japanese, but I often felt that most people were unable to see nature outside of the customary poetic images that have been handed down for centuries. So when I say literature and customs, these two things are actually tied together - picnic under the cherry blossoms and write a haiku about them as you do. Perhaps that is one way in which 'love of nature' has become a mere formalised profession of love.

I started this post, and now I find it's all very complicated. I won't write a book on the subject right here and now though.

Re: Consider the lilies

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Considering how huge are the differences between, say, the English garden (romantic, somewhat wild, grassy, irregular, undisciplined) and the French garden (classical, severe, grassless, formal, regular, tightly-controlled) or between the look of the British and Dutch countryside, I think it's hardly surprising that we feel disoriented, often, in Japan. I know what you mean about there being nowhere to ramble. There are really just urban environments that very suddenly transition to mountains. The mountains usually have strictly demarcated paths and temples, a sort of mode d'emploi as conventional as the haikus under cherry blossom scenario you sketch. Nevertheless, I do find a deep love of nature, or perhaps just a shinto concept of nature, very deep in Japanese culture. This issue of Studio Voice has it, the last Cornelius album has it, this girl (http://www.imomus.com/lovethenature.wav) has it, and the city of Tokyo (http://www.imomus.com/dailyphoto020602.html) has it on every little backstreet. Your objection may be to how the Japanese construe nature, or how they negotiate it. Personally, I don't see any American style magazines vaunting nature the way Studio Voice is. I see similar concerns in the work of photographers like Rinko Kawauchi, or in posters on the Tokyo underground. Sure, it's formulaic. Nature + peace + slow life + pomo Japonism + shinto + artisanship + harmony + confucianism + Buddhism + crafts + religion... And there is always something oddly S&M about the Japanese relationship with nature, just as there's a strong S&M theme in representations of women in Japan, from Araki to Tomomi Adachi. 'I am tying you / concreting you up, woman or river, because I love you so much'.

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

Let's hope that Japan does have some love of Nature: the ecological footprint (http://www.gdrc.org/uem/tokyo-fprint.html) of Tokyo alone is estimated to be approximately 3.6 times as large as Japan's habitable land area.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Footprints are useful, however from three points of view: to shock...

All those statistics and methodologies, and their biggest desire is to shock? A firework down my neck when I'm not looking would work just as well, and save wear and tear on the calculator.

[turkishb.livejournal.com]

You might appreciate this tour through the "worst" of European interior design in 1974: http://www.omodern.com/Eurobad/euro1.html

[turkishb.livejournal.com]

Damnit that should have been: http://www.omodern.com/Eurobad/euro.html

[(Anonymous)]

Wow! I love some of those rooms, even if I can easily imagine how time has dirtied and cheapened them.

SV in Kanji, ne?

[(Anonymous)]

Studio Voice is clearly in Kanji. Whenever I check it there seems to be little or no English in it.
Momus, is your Kanji literacy very good? I know you have written often of the difficulties of learning to speak the language. Does your sweetheart help you read it? Do you consult a dictionary? How is the writing's quality?
I'm just curious. Sometimes I'm intrigued by SV's pics but rarely buy it because I can't read it.
On a side note most of my Japanese friends have dismissed SV to me as being stuck in the 80s.....I wasn't really checking it then so it's difficult for me to judge.

Justin

Re: SV in Kanji, ne?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

What I find is that you can pick up a lot just by looking at the pictures and reading what little there is in SV in English (usually just names and headlines). If I want more detail, I ask the sweetheart and she translates. I get the mag sent free because I've written for it in the past and I asked for a subscription instead of payment. It may be stuck in the 80s, but so am I, so I don't care! It's less 80s than The Wire, which seems to be staffed almost entirely by people who wrote for the NME in 1982 and who refer to Eno and David Sylvian etc all the time. And I don't know if reading Relax - which until the new editor arrived was stuck in the 90s - would be any better. It's good to avoid consecutive decades. One fun thing was when SV did their special issue on Post-modern revival a couple of years back. They curated an 80s revival which was actually better than the one we're now living through. They got in their bid early and did the 80s thing with love, aestheticism and thoroughness.

more brilliant trees

[(Anonymous)]

is there an english summary of stduio voice or else how do you read it?



erik

[(Anonymous)]

We, Japanese used to say a word 'universe':
'森羅万象 shin la ban shou'
When forest range infinitely. those show us whole of everything. This word comes from Japanese original religion,which concerned about a deep veneration for nature and fear of nature in ancient days.

I'm not convinced that most of Japanese people remember this word now.
Since Industrial revolution and WW 2nd,Japan has been invaded by the (western) global homogeneity and the consume society with mass production.Pursuing modern and artificial convenience against nature has destroyed many forest.

Nevertheless,even now, walking around Setagaya park and Komatsunagi Shrine, I can find some traces of the forest. It makes me happy.

By the way, Studio Voice published a special issue of the Beat Generation in July 1992, there was an appendix 'To Thoreau'.
More than ten years, We have been looking for same things...

[(Anonymous)]

yes, this reminds me of a ducamentry i saw once about japanse suicides. alot of people in tokyo (at least i think it was tokyo) go out to a very specific dense forest to hang themselves from a brunch. in the outskirts of my town there is a tiny wood in which a teenage girl commited suicide 4 years ago. i always thought there was something deep in that form of suicide. its like 'ashes to ashes'.. people returning to gaya in their melancholy.

its allways interesting to learn about urban people's connection to nature. its a problematic issue with. how can i tell someone how i love nature but live in the city? i read Thoreau and bought the book (i only buy things i like alot). i think alot about how unavoidable is nature, even in the city. its in the sky, in between the cities, inside them. so i love those bits. even a single tree has that greatness i love.

peace & keep writin, seg

studio voice web site

[(Anonymous)]

hi! been trying to find the web site for studio voice (if they got one?) but can't so i was thinking that maybe you know it?

if so, plese let me know.

cheers!

attila

dictator@john-doe.nl