still-sound 209. Highly perfumed

The air outside my front door has been highly perfumed lately.  Although I don't see any, I certainly smell citrus trees in full blossom.  Maybe my neighbors are hiding them in their backyards.  I noticed the scent last week when I was sanding a sculpture on my front porch.  I've been working on one sculpture for two years.  This is the longest I've ever labored over a single object, and it isn't even large or highly detailed.  I just have such little time to be making things.  But while I was waiting for the plumber to finish fixing my drippy kitchen sink, I took advantage of being stuck at home to sand.  The scent of blossoms only made the task enjoyable and I felt lucky to have been able to spend so much time on the sculpture.

Today I waited three hours for the plumber to come back and have a look at the still-dripping kitchen sink.  Not knowing when he'd actually arrive, I dared myself to get one more thing done before he showed up.  I planted lily of the valley bulbs in a shady area, under camellia trees by the side of my house.  I planted a new cactus in a sunny spot next to the driveway. Rosie inspected my work. 

 I finished sanding the sculpture!  And rubbed oil on to its smooth surface.  The plumber arrived and fixed the sink.  

still-sound 208. Mudcloth, scissors and yew

Look at Rosie inspecting the camel saddle.  Brennan found it a few weeks ago and decided to use it as a stool in his living room.  The orange leather upholstering on the seat had seen better days, becoming a bit tattered along the seams.  He decided to reupholster it, went to a fabric store downtown and found African mud cloth.  I never heard of mud cloth but I like the way it looks and think Brennan made the perfect choice.  It looks like it would fit in a Commune-designed interior.  Commune is a Californian design group that combines elements of modernism with ethnicy, craftsy details. Their aesthetic appeals to me.  I bought Brennan a book about Commune for Christmas and we often look threw it while drinking wine.

 I helped Brennan sew because I like to sew and have done a lot of it.  I used to make sewn sculptures back in the day in London (which took forever to complete) so I practically pinned the fabric and threaded the needle with my eyes closed.  I'd call it muscle memory, but it's more like finger memory.

I brought the seat over to Brennan's last night.  The completed camel saddle fit the space perfectly. To thank me for my labor, Brennan gave me an exceptionally thoughtful present that he picked up at a Japanese store in Venice.  It was a pair of 'spring scissors'.  Only a few days ago I described an episode of Begin Japanology which focused on scissors in Japan.  Apparently spring scissors are only used in Japan although they originally came over from Europe many hundreds of years ago.  My favorite scene of the documentary was of an arrow maker using large spring scissors to trim the feathers at the end of an arrow.  The feather trimmings fell lightly on to an indigo-dyed fabric spread out on the floor.  I watched and thought how I would like to be an arrow maker.

When I got home I put my new scissors on the bookshelf in my bedroom next to boxes holding implements for the incense ceremony.  Hanging from the same bookshelf is a brush that my friend Yvettra gave me for Christmas.  It's made of a yew branch, the bristles are horsehair. I've been fascinated by yew ever since I was a teenager and attended a sung performance at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia.  The piece was written in another language and I remember reading the translation which mentioned a yew tree.  I wondered what a yew tree looked like.  I now know because I've been interested in yew ever since that night.  I use the brush to dust off my shelves and shoes.

still-sound 207. Jeans

Sometimes some details have to be perfect, and you can not compromise. At this time in my life, my jeans must be perfect.

I got a pair of forest green jeans nearly two years ago from Levi's fancier, prestige line called Made & Crafted.  You can imagine...Made in the USA, perhaps from vintage looms, based on classic American patterns.  I loved the jeans and wore them nearly every day for over a year.  This isn't an exaggeration.  I still wear them regularly.  They fit my legs perfectly which is not true of most of my other jeans.  I won't wear skinny jeans anymore because only Goths or Emos wear skinny jeans now.  And a 42 year old Goth / Emo is very uncool.  I'm 42.

I decided that I needed to add another pair of jeans to my wardrobe - allowing me the possibility to rotate between two, perfect pairs.  I found some of the raw denim, indigo, selvedge variety in a shop in Venice called Stag. Made & Crafted, like the forest green jeans.  They were even the same style (called Tack).  In the changing room I rummaged through the garment looking for a tag claiming 'Made in the USA'.  They were made in Turkey.  Obviously I have nothing against Turkish clothing but I had expected Made & Crafted to be proudly made in the USA.  I mean, it's kind of the point...

I bought them anyway.  They're perfect jeans.  I wear them with black boots.  

The legs were too long and I cut and hand stitched a new hem but the hem was not perfect.  They need to have been executed on a factory machine.  I wore the jeans rolled up twice so that the hem was not visible at all - but still the imperfect hem niggled at me.

I brought the jeans to a store called Denim Doctor, exactly one block away from the perfume store where I work.  I spoke with a man who introduced himself as Osweyo.  Being an unusual name, he spelled the name immediately after saying it.  I'm not exactly sure if the name was Osweyo in fact - he said it and spelled it all too fast for me to register the information.  I asked him how much it would cost to secure my hem with a sewing machine.  He said "Normally $25, but for you, $20." He wrote 'Rush' on the work ticket and told me that they'd be ready by Tuesday.  I asked him what the stitch would be like, and he answered 'the classic chain stitch'.  There was a display of Japanese magazines in the front of the store.  Apparently Denim Doctor was featured in nearly all of them.

$20 was a bit more than what I had expected to pay for the alteration.  J Crew and Nordstrom does hems for $5 - or at least that's what I had in my head.  But the perfect jeans need to have perfect hems.  Apparently perfect hems are chainstitched.

When I returned to work I told my friend Yvettra about my trip to Denim Doctor.  "Who helped you?  Jake?"  

"He said his name was Osweyo" was my reply.  
"You mean the black guy who runs the shop?'  
"Yeah".  
Yvettra exploded into laughter.  "He told me his name was Jake!"

Yvettra told me that her alterations from Denim Doctor took much longer than what Jake originally told her.  "Like a month.  You might not have your jeans for a month."  A mild panic crept into my shoulders.  Those jeans make up 50% of my wardrobe from the waist down.  A month without them would prove to be a real sacrifice.  And I paid $20 for it?  

Osweyo didn't call me on Tuesday to tell me that my jeans were ready.  No one called me.  On Wednesday several of my errands caused me a fair amount of stress and when I found myself especially strained, started thinking about the jeans.  'My jeans aren't even ready....and I paid $20 too...'

Someone called me at the end of Thursday to notify me that my jeans were ready to be picked up which is what I did the moment I got to work Friday morning.  Osweyo/Jake was not there. A man with a Jesus hair/beard combination with a Jesus physique gave me my jeans.  I put them on immediately.  

They look fine.  They're the correct hem but I'm not sure if I could confidently state that they feel like the perfect hem or if these were the perfect jeans at all.  Maybe I just need to grow into them.  Sometimes you don't realize something is perfect until you're used to it.

still-sound 206. Incense ceremony

On Christmas I made an online order for traditional Japanese incense ceremony tools.  I impatiently waited every day for the mailman to come like a kid having sent off bottle caps or cereal box tops in order to win a free prize.  I know kids don't do things like this anymore...but they used to.  I remember it.

My Koh-Do tools arrived a few days ago.  I worried that I hadn't ordered enough ceremonial ash.  I decided that I would eventually want to have more than two cups involved in the ritual which would certainly require more ash.  I walked down the street to the expensive natural food store and bought three more bags of ash.  I love that I live in a city where you can buy ceremonial Japanese ash down the street at a grocery store.

The ceremony works like this.  You place a lit charcoal in a cup full of ash.  You cover the charcoal with the ash and form it into a little five-sided mountain.  You poke a whole through the mountain allowing heat to rise.  You place a mica plate directly over this hole.  You place a a tiny chip of a fragrant, precious wood such as agarwood or sandalwood on the mica plate.  You hold the cup, cover half of it with your hand and take a sniff.  In Japan this is referred to as 'listening to incense'.

I already had some pieces of agarwood (jinkoh, oud, aloeswood...it goes by many names) thanks to Faruk, a generous client at our perfume shop.  I purchased some sandalwood chips online.  I don't know whether they originally come from India or Australia - the two main sources of sandalwood.

Tonight I practiced the ceremony.  I read that the incenses should have names and that collectively, should tell a story.  I named the three agarwood specimens after birds: ostrich, swan and sparrow.  I named the two types of sandalwood Shoyeido and Yamadamatsu, after the Japanese brands that packaged and sold the chips.  I realize that the latter two names don't tell much of a story so I shall have to be a little more creative the next time I repeat the cermony.

Here's a picture of 'Ostrich' being 'listened to'.  What did it say?  It revealed the early springtime scent of narcissus.  'Sparrow' sounded more like sweet, woody marshmallow - what I typically expect from agarwood incense.  'Swan' said very little to me.  I think the chip that I carved was too small.  Or perhaps I didn't spend enough time with it to figure out what it was doing.

Listening to precious woods in this way is considerably different to my usual incense appreciation.  The cup is warm in your hand, like a small animal.  Your face moves into the warmth and the scent is subtle and close.  It's similar to smelling someone you love.  The scent is elusive.  It appears then disappears.  Then reappears.

The Shoyeido sandalwood was much more indolic in its scent than I had anticipated.  I thought of fine silk unpacked from a box with a suggestion of mothballs.  It reminded me of my Korean grandmother wearing a han-bok.  I remember how my grandmother was a big fan of mothballs.  I was only three when I knew her.

The Yamadamatsu sandalwood had a sweet fruitiness, like tangerine or orange.  This was a lovely surprise.

The ceremony took much longer than I had expected.  I 'listened' for well over an hour.  When I finished I took a very long time cleaning and putting away the tools, materials and implements as though they were all sacred objects.

still-sound 205. Sneaky

I usually devote a good portion of my Wednesdays to my mom.  I have the day off and chauffeur her around Los Angeles since she no longer drives. LA Fitness, the Korean supermarket, the doctor's office and Walmart are the typical destinations. After the gym and a short errand I asked if there was anything she needed to get done.  It was unusually (for November) hot today and I hoped that she wouldn't have any pressing requests.  She wanted to go home and give her dog Genny a bath.  I was very pleased to hear this.

After coming home and eating some Vietnamese spring rolls for lunch I decided to sneak out and get a coffee in Silverlake.  I would have to maintain impeccable discretion to pull it off, otherwise my mom would hear me opening my car door and ask me where I was going.  (I would feel guilty for not inviting her to come with me - especially as Wednesday is 'her' day).  I put on black jeans and laced up my new black boots.  Sneaky people wear black.

Barely audible Chopin nocturnes emitted from my car speakers.  It's not my usual driving soundtrack, in fact I find it frustrating listening to most classical piano music since the audio levels are often very low and I have to turn the volume up to a level that makes me nervous.  I suppose the point of playing at a constant pianissimo is to emphasize the drama of a forte.  I suppose I don't really like drama while I'm driving.  But I kept the Chopin on because it seemed right.

The heavy traffic of the 101 hardly dampened my enthusiasm.  This is rare.  I'm almost always filled with rage when driving.  When I finally reached Silverlake I parked my car and started walking towards Intelligentsia Coffee.  As I got closer to my destination a strange looking guy asked me if I was 'for peace'.  Of course I'm 'for peace' but I didn't want to stop and talk with him and sign something or give a donation.  I suppose this makes me typically Silverlake.  I told him that I couldn't talk because I had to 'get somewhere'.  My face adopted a slightly pathetic expression.

When I reached Intelligentsia, the gates were closed and a guy was sweeping up.  They were going to host a private event there.  I was not invited to this private event.

Thankfully the flower shop next to Intelligentsia was open.  They sell more 'natural' flowers.  Less flower-shop-refrigerator-style foliage.  Things like eucalyptus branches, pincushions, chamomile, rosemary.  I selected some eucalyptus and rose hips.  The woman working there placed the greens in brown kraft paper and threw in a stalk of something exotic that resembled seaweed.  She only charged me $9 for everything.  Everyone seemed to like me on sneaky-Steve day.

I exited the flower shop and checked to see if the weird-'are you for peace'-guy was around.  He was, so I took a right instead of a left and popped into a couple of shops on Sunset Blvd.  I crossed the street and decided to have a coffee at Black Cat.  It was dark and stylish inside.  I ordered a coffee and took a photo of my newly acquired bouquet.  

The coffee was especially dark, rich and delicious.  It tasted like coffee from an expensive restaurant.  I suppose Black Cat is an expensive restaurant. I read my book for a bit until they dimmed the lights in anticipation of the dinner crowd.  When I emerged back on to Sunset Blvd, the sun had mostly set.  We changed the clocks last Sunday and since then have been waking up an hour early every morning and find it surprising when it gets dark by 6 pm.  As I walked towards my car I noticed the full moon, rising above the trees and the El Pollo Loco parking lot.

still-sound 204. What I got today

Rob and I took my mom to the Korean supermarket in Little Tokyo today.  She tends to take a very long time in the grocery store.  I'm learning to deal with it.  Since she doesn't drive in Los Angeles her outings are dependent on my free time and good humor.  A trip to the grocery store is a big deal to her.  So much so that she'll choose an outfit and do her hair and makeup in preparation.  I respect that.

 While she inspected every fruit and vegetable in the produce section, I zipped over to the prepared sushi counter and scoffed down unagi and miso soup in a styrofoam cup.  When I returned to the shopping cart my mom didn't even notice my absence.  

Rob put two jars of honey in the cart.  I liked the label.  By the time my mom paid for her groceries, nearly two hours had passed.  When we returned home I took a nap with Rosie for thirty minutes while watching At Home With Venetia in Kyoto.  It's an episode I've watched countless times.  She makes shampoo with aloe, rosemary and kombu.

When I woke up I walked to a bookstore in my neighborhood called Seite.  Seite means 'pages' in German.  It's so random that it exists only a few blocks away.  I realized as I walked down the street that it was my first daytime walk in the neighborhood.  The only other time was when Brennan and I walked to the metro station on new year's eve.  It's not really the kind of neighborhood where you walk around.  Mostly because massive dogs jump against gates as you past them and this scares the shit out of me.

I liked Seite.  There was a selection of books you might find in a used book store in a small college town.  In the corner of the store was a counter that sold Mexican perfumes and cosmetics.  I bought a book about the techniques of wood sculpture.  I like how it's 'profusely illustrated' (according to the bottom right hand corner).  I also bought a book called The Folkore of Trees and Shrubs.  I was hoping (in vain) that there would be a cool book about Japanese gardens.  The last time I was at Stories Bookstore in Echo Park I found a book about Japanese bamboo fences.  It's the kind of thing I'd probably pick up often and just stare at the pictures.  I didn't buy it though I wish I had.

Now it's nighttime and Rosie is pressed against my leg snoring.  I made myself a Manhattan and will begin to page through my new books.

still-sound 203. A lamp & a picture

A few weeks ago a cold made me miss two days of work.  I stayed home and slept.  Despite feeling miserable, I was delighted by the light in my room.  The blinds on my window filtered the sunlight adequately to create a soft, white glow.  I felt like I was sleeping in an Ingmar Bergman film.

Yesterday I hung a small Noguchi Akari pendant lamp next to my bed.  It blends into the wall during the daylight hours leaving a soft shadow against the wall.  At night it produces a warm, golden light allowing me to leaf through J Crew catalogs.

The lamp didn't suit the black framed drawing hanging on the wall a few inches away.  i cut out a photograph from an album my dad made in the 1960s and placed it in a white frame.  While he was alive I never truly appreciated dad's creativity and never regarded him as an artist.  This is because he never regarded himself as an artist.  He thought he wasn't fancy enough.

The photo on my wall is beautiful.