In the Pines

Last weekend I had a chance to visit Mukugawa ( 椋川 ) , a village located about an hour north of Kyoto in Shiga prefecture. I found the area where Mukugawa is located on the internet, and was taken there by a professor from Shiga University whom I had contacted. This professor has been doing fieldwork in Mukugawa since 2005, much of which has focused on reviving past techniques of farming, forestry, and daily life. He began visiting Mukugawa because he had read that the villagers practiced burning of local hillsides up until the 1960’s. This initial interest grew into explorations of a variety of activities including charcoal-making, silviculture, and ox-drawn plowing. It also led him to develop a friendship with a young forester who lives in the village with his wife and three children, and who has also taken an interest in reviving various lifestyle techniques. On December 16 th , the Sunday I was in Mukugawa, several men of the village spent the morning making shi...

I was going to begin by apologizing for not having posted in a while, but realized that there is no one on the other side of this computer screen waiting in anticipation for the next exciting installment of the Sardonic twenty-something Graduate Student . "Oh I love when he makes vague references to theoretical concepts. . .it's da bomb" (my years of isolation from the world 'out there' allow me to continue using 'da bomb' (and my academic superiority allows me to use both 'quotations' and (parentheses) within parentheses))--check out the double parentheses. . .woo woo. I have Japan news, but I'm going to start first with an album recommendation. . .well, half an album, because I've been meaning to write about it for a while now. Again, my existence inside the confines of a tiny office almost certainly ensures that most reading this already know of this album, but here goes. Raising Sand is the album's name, it's by Robert Plant...