Watch a Japanese Artisan Make a Noh Mask, Creating an Astonishing Character From a Single Block of Wood

in Art, Theatre, Travel | June 5th, 2023

Noh actors under­go years of rig­or­ous train­ing to per­fect their per­for­mance tech­nique.

The ancient clas­si­cal art requires actors’ faces to be obscured by rigid masks carved from sin­gle blocks of hino­ki wood. A thor­ough com­mand of pos­ture, phys­i­cal ges­ture, and voice is essen­tial for con­vey­ing the char­ac­ters’ emo­tions.

The qual­i­ty of the mask is of utmost impor­tance, too.

Naka­mu­ra Mit­sue, a mak­er of tra­di­tion­al Noh masks, whose inter­est in human faces and por­trai­ture orig­i­nal­ly led her to study west­ern art, notes that the cre­ator must pos­sess a high degree of skill if the mask is to func­tion prop­er­ly. The best masks will sug­gest dif­fer­ent atti­tudes from dif­fer­ent angles.

Tera­su, or an upwards tilt con­veys hap­py emo­tions, while the down­ward tilt of kumora­su express­es dark­er feel­ings and tears.

The most expert­ly carved masks’ eyes will appear to shift as the actor changes posi­tion.

The full range of human expres­sion is the most dif­fi­cult to achieve with del­i­cate-fea­tured female Noh masks.

“I used to change its direc­tion and stare at it in the mir­ror all night,” Ms. Naka­mu­ra writes on her web­site, recall­ing how her men­tor, the cel­e­brat­ed crafts­man Yasue­mon Hori, taught her how to carve Ko-Omote, a mask rep­re­sent­ing the youngest woman in the Noh canon.

When cre­at­ing a mask of a beau­ti­ful girl or child I feel very hap­py but when cre­at­ing an onryo (ghost spir­it) I can feel sor­row or anger.

Ms. Nakamura’s ded­i­ca­tion, exper­tise and patience are on abun­dant dis­play in the word­less Process X video, above.

She is, as the New York Times notes, one of a grow­ing num­ber of female prac­ti­tion­ers:

When she began, she knew of only one oth­er woman in the field, but this year, all four of her cur­rent appren­tices, some of whom study for as long as 10 years, are female. Some adhere to the tra­di­tion­al arche­types and tech­niques, while oth­ers rad­i­cal­ly rein­ter­pret them.

Like many oth­er Japan­ese women of her gen­er­a­tion, she did as expect­ed, mar­ry­ing and hav­ing chil­dren short­ly after com­plet­ing her edu­ca­tion. She began study­ing mask mak­ing when her chil­dren began school, wait­ing until they were 18 to leave her mar­riage. By then, she was well posi­tioned to sup­port her­self as a pro­fes­sion­al nō-men-shi (Noh mask mak­er.)

A sin­gle mask by a respect­ed nō-men-shi can take a month to com­plete, but can fetch a price in the neigh­bor­hood of ¥500,000.

Ms. Naka­mu­ra labors in a work­shop in her tra­di­tion­al-style home in Kyoto.

Her tools and sup­plies are equal­ly old-fash­ioned — a mix­ture of seashell pow­der and rice glue, a mor­tar and pes­tle, a chis­el that she wields per­ilous­ly close to her knees and slip­per-clad feet…

As Jason Haidar writes in Kan­sai Scene:

It may be no coin­ci­dence that Ms. Naka­mu­ra wields a chis­el so nat­u­ral­ly and with such skill, One of the main chis­els used for carv­ing Noh masks is called a tou, which is anoth­er word mean­ing samu­rai sword. Ms. Naka­mu­ra always cred­it­ed her par­ents for encour­ag­ing her to learn a skill that could allow her to sup­port her­self with­out a hus­band, and this mod­ern think­ing could be attrib­uted to her fam­i­ly being of samu­rai lin­eage. After the reforms of the Mei­ji Restora­tion (1868–1912) that saw the ush­er­ing in of mod­ern Japan, her ances­tors learned the impor­tance of being self-suf­fi­cient, inde­pen­dent, and hav­ing a diverse range of skills – val­ues which were passed down to her.

Explore a gallery of Mit­sue Nakamura’s Noh masks here. Click on spe­cif­ic images to learn about each mask’s pur­pose in Noh, rec­og­nized by UNESCO as hav­ing “Intan­gi­ble Cul­tur­al Her­itage”.

via Aeon

Relat­ed Con­tent 

A Hyp­not­ic Look at How Japan­ese Samu­rai Swords Are Made

Watch a Tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese Car­pen­ter Make 190+ Dif­fer­ent Joints, All With­out Nails, Screws, or Glue

Japan­ese Restau­rants Show You How to Make Tra­di­tion­al Dish­es in Med­i­ta­tive Videos: Soba, Tem­pu­ra, Udon & More

20 Mes­mer­iz­ing Videos of Japan­ese Arti­sans Cre­at­ing Tra­di­tion­al Hand­i­crafts

– Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Behold the Bridges in India Made of Living Tree Roots

in Architecture, Design, Environment, Nature, Travel | May 26th, 2023

Liv­ing green walls and upcy­cled build­ing mate­ri­als are wel­come envi­ron­men­tal­ly-con­scious design trends, but when it comes to sus­tain­able archi­tec­ture, the liv­ing root bridges made by indige­nous Khasi and Jain­tia peo­ple in the north-east­ern Indi­an state of Megha­laya have them beat by cen­turies.

These tra­di­tion­al plant-based sus­pen­sion bridges make it much eas­i­er for vil­lagers to trav­el to neigh­bor­ing com­mu­ni­ties, mar­kets and out­ly­ing farms by span­ning the dense trop­i­cal rainforest’s many gorges and rivers.

Their con­struc­tion requires patience, as builders train the aer­i­al roots of well-sit­u­at­ed, mature rub­ber fig trees into posi­tion using bam­boo, old tree trunks, and wire for sup­port, weav­ing more roots in as they become avail­able.

This mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional con­struc­tion project can take up to 30 years to com­plete. The care­ful­ly-tend­ed bridges become stur­dier with age, as the roots that form the deck and handrails thick­en.

The vil­lage of Non­gri­at has one bridge that has been in place for 200-some years. An upper bridge, sus­pend­ed direct­ly over­head, is a hun­dred years younger.

As vil­lage head and life­long res­i­dent Wis­ton Miwa told Great Big Sto­ry, above, when he was a child, peo­ple were leery of using the new­er bridge, wor­ried that it was not yet strong enough to be safe. Six decades lat­er, vil­lagers (and tourists) tra­verse it reg­u­lar­ly.

Archi­tect San­jeev Shankar, in a study of 11 liv­ing root bridges, learned that new struc­tures are loaded with stones, planks, and soil to test their weight bear­ing capac­i­ty. Some of the old­est can han­dle 50 pedes­tri­ans at once.

Humans are not the only crea­tures mak­ing the cross­ing. Bark deer and cloud­ed leop­ards are also known trav­el­ers. Squir­rels, birds, and insects set­tle in for per­ma­nent stays.

The Khasi peo­ple fol­low an oral tra­di­tion, and have lit­tle writ­ten doc­u­men­ta­tion regard­ing their his­to­ry and cus­toms, includ­ing the con­struc­tion of liv­ing root bridges.

Archi­tect Fer­di­nand Lud­wig, a cham­pi­on of Baub­otanik — or liv­ing plant con­struc­tion — notes that there is no set design being fol­lowed. Both nature and the vil­lagers tend­ing to the grow­ing struc­tures can be con­sid­ered the archi­tects here:

When we con­struct a bridge or a build­ing, we have a plan – we know what it’s going to look like. But this isn’t pos­si­ble with liv­ing archi­tec­ture. Khasi peo­ple know this; they are extreme­ly clever in how they con­stant­ly ana­lyze and inter­act with tree growth, and accord­ing­ly adapt to the conditions…How these roots are pulled, tied and woven togeth­er dif­fer from builder to builder. None of the bridges looks sim­i­lar.

The bridges, while remote, are becom­ing a buck­et list des­ti­na­tion for adven­tur­ers and eco­tourists, Nongriat’s dou­ble bridge in par­tic­u­lar.

The BBC’s Zinara Rath­nayake reports that such out­side inter­est has pro­vid­ed vil­lagers with an addi­tion­al source of income, as well as some pre­dictable headaches — lit­ter, inap­pro­pri­ate behav­ior, and over­crowd­ing:

Some root bridges see crowds of hun­dreds at a time as tourists clam­ber for self­ies, poten­tial­ly over­bur­den­ing the trees.

The Liv­ing Bridge Foun­da­tion, which works to pre­serve the liv­ing root bridges while pro­mot­ing respon­si­ble eco­tourism is seek­ing to have the area des­ig­nat­ed as a UNESCO World Her­itage Site.


Relat­ed Con­tent 

1,100 Del­i­cate Draw­ings of Root Sys­tems Reveals the Hid­den World of Plants

The Secret Lan­guage of Trees: A Charm­ing Ani­mat­ed Les­son Explains How Trees Share Infor­ma­tion with Each Oth­er

Daisu­gi, the 600-Year-Old Japan­ese Tech­nique of Grow­ing Trees Out of Oth­er Trees, Cre­at­ing Per­fect­ly Straight Lum­ber

The Tree of Lan­guages Illus­trat­ed in a Big, Beau­ti­ful Info­graph­ic

– Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Cats Migrated to Europe 7,000 Years Earlier Than Once Thought

in Biology, History, Life, Science, Travel | May 9th, 2023

The ani­mals were imper­fect,

long-tailed,

unfor­tu­nate in their heads.

Lit­tle by lit­tle they

put them­selves togeth­er,

mak­ing them­selves a land­scape,

acquir­ing spots, grace, flight.

The cat,

only the cat

appeared com­plete and proud:

he was born com­plete­ly fin­ished,

walk­ing alone and know­ing what he want­ed.

- Pablo Neru­da, excerpt from Ode to the Cat

We find our­selves in agree­ment with Nobel Prize-win­ning poet, and cat lover, Pablo Neru­da:

Those of us who pro­vide for felines choose to believe we are “the own­er, pro­pri­etor, uncle of a cat, com­pan­ion, col­league, dis­ci­ple or friend of (our) cat”, when in fact they are mys­te­ri­ous beasts, far more self-con­tained than the com­pan­ion­able, inquis­i­tive canine Neru­da immor­tal­ized in Ode to the Dog.

We can bestow names and social media accounts on cats of our acquain­tance, chan­nel them on the steps of the Met Gala, attach GPS track­ers to their col­lars, give them pride of place­ment in books for chil­dren and adults, and try our best to get inside their heads, but what do we know about them, real­ly?

We even got their his­to­ry wrong.

Com­mon knowl­edge once held that cats made their way to north­ern Europe from the Mediter­ranean aboard Roman — and even­tu­al­ly Viking — ships some­time between the 3rd to 7th cen­tu­ry CE, but it turns out we were off by mil­len­nia.

In 2016, a team of researchers col­lab­o­rat­ing on the Five Thou­sand Years of His­to­ry of Domes­tic Cats in Cen­tral Europe project con­firmed the pres­ence of domes­tic cats dur­ing the Roman peri­od in the area that is now north­ern Poland, using a com­bi­na­tion of zooar­chae­ol­o­gy, genet­ics and absolute dat­ing.

More recent­ly, the team turned their atten­tion to Felis bones found in south­ern Poland and Ser­bia, deter­min­ing the ones found in the Jas­na Strze­gows­ka Cave to be Pre-Neolith­ic (5990–5760 BC), while the Ser­bian kit­ties hail from the Mesolith­ic-Neolitic era (6220–5730 BC).

In addi­tion to clar­i­fy­ing our under­stand­ing of how our pet cats’ ances­tors arrived in Cen­tral Europe from Egypt and the Fer­tile Cres­cent, the project seeks to “iden­ti­fy phe­no­typ­ic fea­tures relat­ed to domes­ti­ca­tion, such as phys­i­cal appear­ance, includ­ing body size and coat col­or; behav­ior, for exam­ple, reduced aggres­sion; and pos­si­ble phys­i­o­log­i­cal adap­ta­tions to digest anthro­pogenic food.”

Regard­ing non-anthro­pogenic food, a spike in the Late Neolith­ic East­ern Euro­pean house mouse pop­u­la­tion exhibits some nifty over­lap with these ancient cat bones’ new­ly attached dates, though Dr. Dani­jela Popović, who super­vised the pro­jec­t’s pale­o­ge­neti­cians, reports that the cats’ arrival in Europe pre­ced­ed that of the first farm­ers:

These cats prob­a­bly were still wild ani­mals that nat­u­ral­ly col­o­nized Cen­tral Europe.

We’re will­ing to believe they estab­lished a bulk­head, then hung around, wait­ing until the humans showed up before imple­ment­ing the next phase of their plan — self-domes­ti­ca­tion.

Read the research team’s “his­to­ry of the domes­tic cat in Cen­tral Europe” here.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

An Ani­mat­ed His­to­ry of Cats: How Over 10,000 Years the Cat Went from Wild Preda­tor to Sofa Side­kick

A 110-Year-Old Book Illus­trat­ed with Pho­tos of Kit­tens & Cats Taught Kids How to Read

Cats in Medieval Man­u­scripts & Paint­ings

via Big Think

– Ayun Hal­l­i­day, human ser­vant of two feline Mail­room Böyz, is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Plan Your Trip Across the Roads of the Roman Empire, Using Modern Web Mapping Technology

in History, Maps, Travel | April 28th, 2023

At the moment, I hap­pen to be plan­ning some time in France, with a side trip to Bel­gium includ­ed. Mod­ern intra-Euro­pean train trav­el makes arrang­ing the lat­ter quite con­ve­nient: Thalys, the high-speed rail ser­vice con­nect­ing those two coun­tries, can get you from Paris to Brus­sels in about an hour and half. This stands in con­trast to the time of the Roman Empire, which despite its polit­i­cal pow­er lacked high-speed rail, and indeed lacked rail of any kind. But it did have an expan­sive net­work of roads, some of which you can still walk today, imag­in­ing what it would have been like to trav­el Europe two mil­len­nia ago. And now, using the web­site OmnesVi­ae, you can get his­tor­i­cal­ly accu­rate direc­tions as well.

Big Think’s Frank Jacobs describes OmnesVi­ae as “the online route plan­ner the Romans nev­er knew they need­ed.” It “leans heav­i­ly on the Tab­u­la Peutin­ge­ri­ana” — also known as the Peutinger Map, and pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture — “the clos­est thing we have to a gen­uine itin­er­ar­i­um (‘road map’) of the Roman Empire.”

Though not quite geo­graph­i­cal­ly accu­rate, it does offer a detailed view of which cities in the empire were con­nect­ed and how. “Geolo­cat­ing thou­sands of points from Peutinger, OmnesVi­ae refor­mats the roads and des­ti­na­tions on the scroll onto a more famil­iar­ly land­scaped map. The short­est route between two (ancient) points is cal­cu­lat­ed using the dis­tances trav­eled over Roman rather than mod­ern roads, also tak­ing into account the rivers and moun­tains the net­work must cross.”

You can use OmnesVi­ae just like any oth­er way-find­ing appli­ca­tion, except you enter your ori­gin and des­ti­na­tion into fields labeled “ab” and “ad” rather than “from” and “to.” And though “for some cities cur­rent day names are under­stood,” as the instruc­tions note, it works bet­ter — and feels so much more authen­tic — if you type in cities like “Roma” and “Lon­dinio.” The result­ing jour­ney between those two great cap­i­tals looks ardu­ous indeed, pass­ing at least three moun­tain­ous areas, thir­teen rivers, and count­less small­er set­tle­ments. And accord­ing to OmnesVi­ae, no roads led to Brus­sels: the clos­est an ancient trav­el­er could get to the loca­tion of the mod­ern-day seat of the Euro­pean Union was the Wal­loon vil­lage of Liber­chies — which, as the birth­place of Djan­go Rein­hardt, remains an impor­tant stop for the jazz-lov­ing trav­el­er of Europe today.

via Big Think

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Roads of Ancient Rome Visu­al­ized in the Style of Mod­ern Sub­way Maps

How the Ancient Romans Built Their Roads, the Life­lines of Their Vast Empire

The Roman Roads and Bridges You Can Still Trav­el Today

How to Make Roman Con­crete, One of Human Civilization’s Longest-Last­ing Build­ing Mate­ri­als

The First Tran­sit Map: a Close Look at the Sub­way-Style Tab­u­la Peutin­ge­ri­ana of the 5th-Cen­tu­ry Roman Empire

How Did Roman Aque­ducts Work?: The Most Impres­sive Achieve­ment of Ancient Rome’s Infra­struc­ture, Explained

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Watch a Transfixing Demonstration of Kumihimo, the Ancient Japanese Artform of Making Braids & Cords

in Art, History, Travel | April 4th, 2023

It’s easy to see why kumi­hi­mo, the ancient Japan­ese art of silk braid­ing, is described as a med­i­ta­tive act.

The weaver achieves an intri­cate design by get­ting into a rhyth­mic groove, over­lap­ping hand-dyed silken threads on a cir­cu­lar or rec­tan­gle wood­en loom, from which up to 50 weight­ed-wood­en bob­bins dan­gle.

If the mind wan­ders too far from the task, the weaver risks screw­ing up the pat­tern or the uni­for­mi­ty of the threads’ ten­sion. The word kumi­hi­mo trans­lates to “gath­er­ing threads” — one mustn’t let them get snarled by a lack of atten­tion.

While sim­ple braids of tree bark or plant fiber have been found in Japan­ese bur­ial sites dat­ing back six thou­sand years, the Gold­en Age of kumi­hi­mo occurred dur­ing the Heian peri­od (794‑1185), when exquis­ite­ly detailed cords began to be incor­po­rat­ed into the nobility’s gar­ments, dec­o­ra­tive fur­nish­ings, musi­cal instru­ments, reli­gious imple­ments, and, most famous­ly, samu­rai arms and armor.

Ani­me fans may recall how kumi­hi­mo shows up and serves as a major metaphor in Mako­to Shinkai’s hit ani­mat­ed fea­ture, Your Name - the braid­ed cords rep­re­sent­ing the threads of time and the strength of the lovers’ bond.

Kumi­hi­mo is still in use today in jew­el­ry and dec­o­ra­tive sou­venirs, and fas­ten­ing obi to for­mal kimono, though 95% of obi­jime are now machine-made.

There are plen­ty of online tuto­ri­als for novices inter­est­ed in mak­ing sim­ple kumi­hi­mo friend­ship bracelets on a light­weight foam disk, but to appre­ci­ate the beau­ty inher­ent in every step of tra­di­tion­al kumi­hi­mo  cre­ation, watch Japan House’s above video, released in cel­e­bra­tion of their recent exhib­it, KUMIHIMO: The Art of Japan­ese Silk Braid­ing by DOMYO.

ASMR fans, pre­pare to be riv­et­ed by the sounds of the silken threads being swished through a dye bath, the gen­tle clack tama bob­bins, and the tap­ping of the bam­boo hera as it snugs the threads of the grow­ing braid sus­pend­ed from the rec­tan­gu­lar stand, or takadai.

The cir­cu­lar loom, or maru­dai, seen lat­er in the video pro­duces a round­ed cord via a cen­tral hole, an engi­neer­ing feat that takes us back to our child­hood pas­sion for fin­ger knit­ting.

Japan House reports that the indus­tri­al sec­tor has tak­en inspi­ra­tion from kumi­hi­mo for braid­ing car­bon fiber and fiber-rein­forced plas­tic:

The con­ti­nu­ity of the kumi­hi­mo braid struc­ture as well as the vari­abil­i­ty of the fiber ori­en­ta­tion angle and the rigid­i­ty of the braids help pro­duce extreme­ly strong cords that can be used in prod­ucts as diverse as air­craft, golf clubs, and arti­fi­cial limbs.

Mean­while sev­er­al schools in Japan are keep­ing kumi­hi­mo alive as a tra­di­tion­al art, as is the Amer­i­can Kumi­hi­mo Soci­ety, in the West.

via Colos­sal

Relat­ed Con­tent 

The Japan­ese Tra­di­tions of Sashiko & Boro: The Cen­turies-Old Craft That Mends Clothes in a Sus­tain­able, Artis­tic Way

Watch Japan­ese Wood­work­ing Mas­ters Cre­ate Ele­gant & Elab­o­rate Geo­met­ric Pat­terns with Wood

The Art of Tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese Wood Join­ery: A Kyoto Wood­work­er Shows How Japan­ese Car­pen­ters Cre­at­ed Wood Struc­tures With­out Nails or Glue

20 Mes­mer­iz­ing Videos of Japan­ese Arti­sans Cre­at­ing Tra­di­tion­al Hand­i­crafts

– Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Behold an Astonishing Near-Nightly Spectacle in the Lightning Capital of the World

in Environment, Nature, Science, Travel | March 21st, 2023

Extreme weath­er con­di­tions have become a top­ic of grave con­cern. Are floods, earth­quakes, tor­na­does and cat­a­stroph­ic storms the new nor­mal?

Just for a moment, let’s trav­el to a place where extreme weath­er has always been the norm: Lake Mara­cai­bo in north­west­ern Venezuela.

Accord­ing to NASA’s Trop­i­cal Rain­fall Mea­sur­ing Mis­sion’s light­ning image sen­sor, it is the light­ning cap­i­tal of the world.

Chalk it up to the unique geog­ra­phy and cli­mate con­di­tions near the con­flu­ence of the lake and the Cata­tum­bo Riv­er. At night, the moist warm air above the water col­lides with cool breezes rolling down from the Andes, cre­at­ing an aver­age of 297 thun­der­storms a year.

Watch­ing pho­tog­ra­ph­er Jonas Pio­ntek’s short film doc­u­ment­ing the phe­nom­e­non, above, it’s not sur­pris­ing that chief among his tips for shoot­ing light­ning at night is a point­ed warn­ing to always keep a safe dis­tance from the storm. While view­able from as far as 400 kilo­me­ters away, the area near­est the light­ning activ­i­ty can aver­age 28 strikes per minute.

More than 400 years before Pio­ntek shared his impres­sions with the world, Span­ish poet Lope de Vega tapped Cata­tum­bo light­ning in his epic 1597 poem La Drag­ontea, cred­it­ing it, erro­neous­ly, with hav­ing  thwart­ed Sir Fran­cis Drake’s plans to con­quer the city of Mara­cai­bo under cov­er of night. His poet­ic license was per­sua­sive enough that it’s still an accept­ed part of the myth.

The “eter­nal storm” did how­ev­er give Venezue­lan naval forces a gen­uine nat­ur­al assist, by illu­mi­nat­ing a squadron of Span­ish ships on Lake Mara­cai­bo, which they defeat­ed on July 24, 1823, clear­ing the way to inde­pen­dence.

Once upon a time, large num­bers of local fish­er­men took advan­tage of their prime posi­tion to fish by night, although with recent defor­esta­tion, polit­i­cal con­flict, and eco­nom­ic decline dec­i­mat­ing the vil­lages where they live in tra­di­tion­al stilt­ed hous­es, their liveli­hood is in decline.

Mean­while the Eter­nal Storm has itself been affect­ed by forces of extreme weath­er. In 2010, a drought occa­sioned by a par­tic­u­lar­ly strong El Niño, caused light­ning activ­i­ty to cease for 6 weeks, its longest dis­ap­pear­ance in 104 years.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ist Erik Quiroga, who is cam­paign­ing for the Cata­tum­bo light­ning to be des­ig­nat­ed as the world’s first UNESCO World Her­itage Weath­er Phe­nom­e­non warns, “This is a unique gift and we are at risk of los­ing it.”

See more of Jonas Piontek’s Cata­tum­bo light­ning pho­tographs here.

– Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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A Visit to the World’s Oldest Hotel, Japan’s Nisiyama Onsen Keiunkan, Established in 705 AD

in History, Travel | March 17th, 2023

Nishiya­ma Onsen Keiunkan, a hot-spring hotel in the moun­tains of Japan’s Yamanashi Pre­fec­ture, has been in busi­ness for over 1,300 years, more than five times as long as the Unit­ed States has exist­ed. Nev­er­the­less, it feels con­sid­er­ably more mod­ern than the aver­age Amer­i­can motel, to say noth­ing of the longer-estab­lished lodg­ings of Eng­land. “I assumed that I’d be stay­ing in some­thing like a liv­ing muse­um here,” says Youtu­ber Tom Scott, vlog­ging from his very own room at Nishiya­ma Onsen Keiunkan, “because that’s what I’ve come to expect from the sort of his­tor­i­cal attrac­tions you’ll find in Britain,” where preser­va­tion ide­ol­o­gy holds that “every­thing must be held at a cer­tain point in time, fund­ed by tourists who want to vis­it the old thing and see his­to­ry.”

Not so in Japan, whose notions of new and old have nev­er quite aligned with those of the West. “There’s still tra­di­tion here,” Scott has­tens to add. “It’s not a West­ern-style hotel. You sleep on futons; din­ner is served at a low Japan­ese-style table.” But the actu­al com­plex in which guests now stay “has only been a hotel in the Eng­lish sense for a few decades. Before that, it was just a place to stay and take the waters. Now there’s very fast wi-fi and, of course, a gift shop.”

The move­ment and replace­ment of its build­ings over the cen­turies brings to mind Mie pre­fec­ture’s Ise Grand Shrine, fresh­ly rebuilt each and every twen­ty years, or even the ten­den­cy of exist­ing Japan­ese homes to be torn down rather than occu­pied by their buy­ers.

Though Nishiya­ma Onsen Keiunkan has long shunned exces­sive pub­lic­i­ty — its cur­rent pres­i­dent Kawano Ken­jiro explains that the Emper­or of Japan’s stay there, in his days as Crown Prince, was kept qui­et for that rea­son — it has late­ly become irre­sistible to Youtu­bers. We’ve fea­tured it before here on Open Cul­ture, and just above you can see anoth­er take on it in the House of His­to­ry video above, which explains how it has man­aged its con­ti­nu­ity. Kawano, who’d worked at the hotel since the age of 25, chose not to go the stan­dard route of being legal­ly adopt­ed into the fam­i­ly that had always owned the place. And so, instead of inher­it­ing it, he cre­at­ed Nishiya­ma Onsen Keiunkan Lim­it­ed, a tech­ni­cal­ly new cor­po­rate enti­ty, but one that ought to be good for at least anoth­er mil­len­nia or two.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Why Japan Has the Old­est Busi­ness­es in the World?: Hōshi, a 1300-Year-Old Hotel, Offers Clues

A Med­i­ta­tive Look at a Japan­ese Artisan’s Quest to Save the Bril­liant, For­got­ten Col­ors of Japan’s Past

Short Fas­ci­nat­ing Film Shows How Japan­ese Soy Sauce Has Been Made for the Past 750 years

A Last Glimpse Inside the Oku­ra, Tokyo’s Mod­ernist Mas­ter­piece Hotel

How One Man Keeps Show­ing Films in a Japan­ese Cin­e­ma That Closed 58 Years Ago: A Mov­ing, Short Doc­u­men­tary

A Vir­tu­al Tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Lost Japan­ese Mas­ter­piece, the Impe­r­i­al Hotel in Tokyo

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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An Architect Breaks Down the Design of New York City Subway Stations, from the Oldest to Newest

in Architecture, Art, Design, History, Travel | March 13th, 2023

With 26 lines and 472 sta­tions, the New York City sub­way sys­tem is prac­ti­cal­ly a liv­ing organ­ism, and way too big a top­ic to tack­le in a short video.

Archi­tect Michael Wyet­zn­er may not have time to touch on rats, crime track fires, flood­ing, night and week­end ser­vice dis­rup­tions, or the adults-in-a-Peanuts-spe­cial sound qual­i­ty of the announce­ments in the above episode of Archi­tec­tur­al Digest’s Blue­prints web series, but he gives an excel­lent overview of its evolv­ing design, from the sta­tions them­selves to side­walk entrances to the plat­form sig­nage.

First stop, the old City Hall sta­tion, whose chan­de­liers, sky­lights, and Guas­tavi­no tile arch­ing in an alter­nat­ing col­ors her­ring­bone pat­tern made it the star attrac­tion of the just-opened sys­tem in 1904.

(It’s been closed since 1945, but savvy tran­sit buffs know that they can catch a glimpse by ignor­ing the conductor’s announce­ment to exit the down­town 6 train at its last stop, then look­ing out the win­dow as it makes a U‑turn, pass­ing through the aban­doned sta­tion to begin its trip back uptown. The New York Tran­sit Muse­um also hosts pop­u­lar thrice year­ly tours.)

Express tracks have been a fea­ture of New York’s sub­way sys­tem since the begin­ning, when Inter­bor­ough Rapid Tran­sit Com­pa­ny enhanced its exist­ing ele­vat­ed line with an under­ground route capa­ble of car­ry­ing pas­sen­gers from City Hall to Harlem for a nick­el fare.

Wyet­zn­er effi­cient­ly sketch­es the open exca­va­tion design of the ear­ly IRT sta­tions — “cut and cov­er” trench­es less than 20’ deep, with room for four tracks, plat­forms, and no frills sup­port columns that are near­ly as ubiq­ui­tous white sub­way tiles.

For the most part, New York­ers take the sub­way for grant­ed, and are always pre­pared to beef about the fare to ser­vice ration, but this was not the case on New Year’s Day, 2017, when rid­ers went out of their way to take the Q train.

Fol­low­ing years of delays, aggra­vat­ing con­struc­tion noise and traf­fic con­ges­tion, every­one want­ed to be among the first to inspect Phase 1 of the Sec­ond Avenue Sub­way project, which extend­ed the line by three impres­sive­ly mod­ern, airy col­umn-free sta­tions.

(The mas­sive drills used to cre­ate tun­nels and sta­tions at a far greater depth than the IRT line, were left where they wound up, in prepa­ra­tion for Phase 2, which is slat­ed to push the line up to 125th St by 2029. (Don’t hold your breath…)

The design­ers of the sub­way placed a pre­mi­um on aes­thet­ics, as evi­denced by the domed Art Nou­veau IRT entrance kiosks and beau­ti­ful per­ma­nent plat­form signs.

From the orig­i­nal mosaics to Beaux Arts bas relief plaques like the ones pay­ing trib­ute to the for­tune John Jacob Astor amassed in the fur trade, there’s lots of his­to­ry hid­ing in plain sight.

The mid-80s ini­tia­tive to bring pub­lic art under­ground has filled sta­tions and pas­sage­ways with work by some mar­quee names, like Vik Muniz, Chuck Close, William Weg­man, Nick Cave, Tom Otter­ness, Roy Licht­en­stein and Yoko Ono.

Wyet­zn­er also name checks graph­ic design­er Mas­si­mo Vignel­li who was brought aboard in 1966 to stan­dard­ize the infor­ma­tion­al sig­nage.

The white-on-black sans serif font direct­ing us to our desired con­nec­tions and exits now seems like part of the subway’s DNA.

Per­haps 21st-cen­tu­ry inno­va­tions like count­down clocks and dig­i­tal screens list­ing real-time ser­vice changes and alter­na­tive routes will too, one of these days.

If Wyet­zn­er is open to film­ing the fol­low-up view­ers are clam­or­ing for in the com­ments, per­haps he’ll weigh in on the new A‑train cars that debuted last week, which boast secu­ri­ty cam­eras, flip-up seat­ing to accom­mo­date rid­ers with dis­abil­i­ties, and wider door open­ings to pro­mote quick­er board­ing.

(Yes, they’re still the quick­est way to get to Harlem…)

Relat­ed Con­tent 

A Sub­way Ride Through New York City: Watch Vin­tage Footage from 1905

How the Icon­ic Col­ors of the New York City Sub­way Sys­tem Were Invent­ed: See the 1930 Col­or Chart Cre­at­ed by Archi­tect Squire J. Vick­ers

Design­er Mas­si­mo Vignel­li Revis­its and Defends His Icon­ic 1972 New York City Sub­way Map

The Sound of Sub­ways Around the World: A Glob­al Col­lec­tion of Sub­way Door Clos­ing Announce­ments, Beeps & Chimes

– Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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