Word and image

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

I've been away for a while, discovered an intriguing martial arts shop on my travels, had a laptop with me and came up with this idea for combining my interests in Gackt, martial arts and poetry.

The image is from a photobook related to the NHK TV drama series Fuurin Kazan which features Gackt in his role as Uesugi Kenshin.  The photographer is Seiichi Nomura.  The imagery and content of the poem comes from a Japanese martial arts notion (e.g. in the bow art kyudo) that the weapon-holder becomes united with the target through the weapon itself, which is converted to a channel for the focus of the warrior's spirit.  The "bridal" nature of Kenshin's costume is, I guess, entirely incidental!
 

Comments

[karadin.livejournal.com]

Since you are interested in the martial arts of Japan and weaponry, you might be interested in checking out this special produced by American Public Television, NOVA Secrets of the Samurai Sword.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/samurai/

I was so saddened to hear that many of the most famous swords were originally nodachi that were cut down in size, like the Honjo Masamune. But I suppose, a weapon has to suit it's time, ne?

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

You are clever at finding things! This looks fascinating and I see you've put up a dedicated post too, which is excellent.

When I was rummaging through a datastick to find a good image match for my sword-finger poem, I was struck by the regular and significant recurrence of the sword theme in Gackt's photo archive. Whether contemporary, period or fantasy, he does preserve that Japanese essence of the sword which I think you get over very, very well in your article.

I'm so pleased and grateful that you have the time and willingness to work some of these themes up. I have lots of ideas but I'm either stretched too thin activity-wise or too lacking (no Japanese, sometimes internet deprived, not very glossy tech base, little knowledge of the resources available etc) to do much.

I've got one or two fun Gackt-based ideas which would make quizzes/games for Christmas but am getting to the stage (near to Christmas!) of making a plea to a couple of likely suspects to take them on.

[ Oh, and your words, "interested in ... martial arts ... and weaponry" are a kindly polite description of an unbalanced and anachronistic obsession! ]

[karadin.livejournal.com]

We share some of the same obsessions, I am research mad, if I want to write a story, or draw a manga, I have to know all about the subject and time period, (down to the food on the table if I can figure out what it is) history has always fascinated because you couldn't make up some of the stuff that happened in rl.

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

I have to confess to having dropped history as a subject at the earliest possibiity opportunity (and have since been reading biographies of people that interest me as a means of repairing the gaping holes in my knowledge!).

I have a nervousness of retrospection, partly because history is so often used as a figleaf for uphelpful political posturing and partly because we can only ever look at the evidence (however representative or truthful that may or may not be) with a modern mind. We are all products of our own times, no? Oxford is a great place for the promotion of Early Music - played on "authentic instruments" (replicas) and often in period costume - but with contact lenses, electric light, printed sheet music and WITHOUT fleas, TB, hunger and fear! I like the spectacle for its difference, and for its assistance in showing how things have moved on, but I'm always conscious that my enjoyment is on an artistic level and I take a pretty lenient view of the anachronisms, because I don't want to keep modernity out of my view of the past.

There's a similar take in my fondness for Minekura's Saiyuki manga (Journey to the West), which has a 7thC Chinese priest using a Smith and Wesson and riding in a Jeep. Oh, and I saw a beer can on more than one occasion! It somehow always the past to poke fun at the present.

I do appreciate decent (reliable) research and admire enormously the way that some people can dedicate themselves to investigating a minute or arcane topic for several years (PhD students spring to mind). I don't think I have the patience or application to do this myself though! The opportunity cost in terms of losing a broad perspective is too high a price for me to pay.

Meanwhile, I'll enjoy all the Saiyuki, Gackt, literature, art, music, martial arts crossovers that I can find!

[karadin.livejournal.com]

A few things I've learned by studying history, the victors always write it, and often you learn more about the biographer and how they use an historical figure as their medium, than the figure him/her self.

That said, there are such wonderful stories in history, it's always been a source of interest to me, not the dry dusty details.

And, I think the idea that the human race is moving forward can be very wrong, there are achievements in ancient times we have yet to surpass, and periods of enlightenment and social justice (gay marriage in Korea a thousand years ago, for one thing) that we still aspire to.

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

"the victors always write it" - that is so true! And the literate. The voiceless have little voice in the past beyond archaeology; their bones do speak sometimes.

Yes, I'm with you on the inspirational quality of many "stories" in history. I can easily see how my adult character had its seedbed in my childhood love of explorers sailing into the unknown and heroes whose (noble) thoughts put their bodies into peril!

I think Man does move forward (in time and technology) but agree that we seem to have progressed very little in the wisdom of using either the time or the technology for anything other than the instinctive feeding of primitive appetites (which you could call selfishness and egotism).

No wonder we enjoy our hard-working, responsible Gackt as a relief, eh?

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

Coming back to the sword them, I forgot to say that I wouldn't see the "cut down" sword thing as anything negative. It's a just a change which preserves the preciousness of the original (in the substance) whilst, as you say, making the thing useful for its time.

Before the manufacturing age, even the most powerful rulers and heroes (e.g. in Europe) habitually recycled their possessions: by adapting from an already successful/famous object, you would be providing the craftsman/artist with the most exciting raw material that they could hope for. Think of all the thrones etc incorporating fragments of "the true Cross"! It's the same idea - passing on the holy glow.

[karadin.livejournal.com]

But coming from the POV of the original swordmaker (long dead probably when these swords were cut down) you can only cringe, because of the very backbreaking work it took to make the longer sword, its sort of like, when I see beautiful old kimono cut up to make handbags. (shudder)

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

I can understand your recycled kimono horror from my imagination but I don't share it in my heart - unless the conversion is wanton or disrespectful.

If the "new" artefact is something which a modern person will like and admire and enjoy, I would credit the original artist with an acceptance of that, in terms of an afterlife for the creation. Surely, very few artists create for an eternal posterity?

My willingness to dump the old is probably inflamed by the fact that I live in a country which is near-paralyzed (creatively) by an obsession with preserving the past. This ingrains ridiculous positions, which were mere historical accidents (and which can keep bad feeling alive in perpetuity), and starves new architects and artists of the space to do anything except fill in the gaps. And I assure you that, on a very small island, the gaps are becoming pretty tiny!

Do you not think that one of the reasons why creative minds use and revel in the internet (in capabilities like LJ indeed) is because the web is not (yet) saddled with all the cumulative and archival baggage of history? The internet has been the only fresh, blank space available to many creative people. Everything else is rather like a palimpsest - you have to make your mark on top of everyone else's.

I've come rather a long way from Kenshin's sword, I'm afraid, but thank you for raising these opportunities for debate.

Your entry on the sword in Japanese culture deserves careful thinking on by the fandom of our katana-loving leader! In the UK, the manner of thinking and living is so entirely materialistic that I am always delighted to see reminders that physical things will never give us more than an understanding of physics (certainly no wisdom) unless we also bring to them something of the spirit. The Japanese sword is pretty well the epitome of that idea so I'm very pleased to see it explained so well here.

[karadin.livejournal.com]

Ah, but I'm always coming from the pov of the artist and their original intent, of course things are going to be re-made and put in a new dynamic, but it's still painful when an art director takes your carefully rendered art and literally slices it up to fit a page!

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

Ouch. That just sounds like crass ignorance at work. Why would you want to be an art director when you're that low down the artistic evolutionary scale? Weird. And sad.

[karadin.livejournal.com]

Art Directors are important! They give the look and feel of a publication, they choose the artists and the art, (and help start new artists) some art directors are well known and feted. If they move from one publication to another they take the artists they like with them.

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

What I meant was that THAT one seems to be in the wrong business: they are not going to generate a following by alienating their artists, are they? I wasn't saying anything about art directors in general; just making a remark about the sad example you gave.

There's nothing wrong with the aim of the role. After all, we all know that some excellent artists are the very worst people to learn about or manage the art business!

[karadin.livejournal.com]

At least now I can submit my art digitally, I know that the original will remain intact. (sigh) but still, if a director wants to change something, I'd rather do it myself, my name will go on it, after all.

[karadin.livejournal.com]

Heh, sort of like Gackt's virulent response when they created 'Remix of Gackt' without his permission.

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

Yes. Think we step out of the realm of art there into pure money grubbing! Always a strong motive for some people.