I’ve blogged often about my friend Kamada Koji (鎌田幸二), who has been kind enough to devote decades of his life to becoming a master potter in the Tenmoku (天目) style just so that I could take macros of his stuff. Last week he held a yearly show at Takashimaya, one of the fancier Japanese department stores. I would have loved to bring my tripod, kick everybody out, and adjust the light to my specifications, but any picture-taking at all is ordinarily forbidden. I had his special permission, but still felt it was a good idea to be as discreet and fast as possible.
Kamada-san pointing center, with his wife Kazumi
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It’s exceedingly difficult to capture the nuances of nearly all his glazes, but this particular one most of all, because in real life the colors are not only extremely subtle, but they shift mercurially (almost literally because they are metallic crystals) with small changes in light.
We’re having a very good time of things here in Sausolito/San Francisco/Palo Alto. The first week was the best, when all four of us were here (including for Halloween), but I have managed to keep things from becoming miserable for the remaining three of us after Maki had to go back to Japan for work. Helping me has been many of my extended family, who have flown in from various parts of the US to see my kids (definitely not me!).
Anyway, here are a bunch of pics from the second week of our stay. I unwisely unloaded the first week’s pics onto a friend’s computer, then forgot to get them back before I left their house in Palo Alto. Lucky for me I’m going back there before we leave. These pictures are un-edited in any way. I haven’t even had time to go through and make sure I am selecting the best pic of each series. But, I wanted to get something up here before too much time had passed. Hopefully in a couple days I’ll post some of the best of these individually.
(To view full-screen, first press the Play button in the center, then place the mouse over the slideshow to view the control bar on the bottom, then press the symbol in the lower-right corner.)
Taking a break from the macros: just some random shots from the playground today.
I don’t know the origin of this particular Japanese quirk, but they are big into what they call tetsubo, which is what Genbo, Zoe, and their friends are playing on here. They teach ‘em really young how to whirl around on the things forward and backward from the waist, and if you can’t do it it’s a horrible mark of shame. One girl I know who is in second grade (I think) has her name perpetually on the blackboard because she can’t do the backflip. Zoe, obviously, can’t do any of that stuff, but she can hang from the bars for an amazingly long time.
Genbo is being pulled into the vortex!
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Zoe loves going down the slide, and went down today at least 10 times. On the tenth time, however, she decided it was “scary” and she was having no more of it.
“You’re not going to make me go down that death trap, are you daddy?”
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She’s been mastering the swing lately too. She used to be scared of swinging much at all, but now she can go pretty high.
And, finally, Genbo looking dashing as ever as he’s about to go down the slide.
Dang, I cannot believe it’s been an entire month since I wrote what I thought was the first half of a two-part post describing our trip to Kyoto to see the cherry blossoms. I can’t even claim to have been busy with work, since the Great Depression of the Late-Naughts is still taking its toll on that front. I even have a bunch of other good posts I’ve been meaning to make, but they’ve all been butting their heads against this one, which has remained stubbornly 15 minutes away from posting for the past thirty days. Ah well, such is life.
Zoe and Maki in the setting sun against some cherry blossoms
Have no idea where Genbo picked up this quirky expression
This style of exterior is an old Japanese form of weather-proofing, where planks are charred to keep out the elements. It looks beautiful here in the setting sun.
Japanese equivalent of a red barn
Meanwhile, this bald tree offered an interesting study of lines and color.
We visited a nearby park with our friends Anthony and Jeffrey.
Anthony and Genbo riding off into the sunset. 
“Hey there, Pardner”
Zoe sits at the top of the slide contemplating the ride down
It’s easier with mommy. If only they had thought to put a blossoming cherry there instead of that ugly light pole.
Whee!
Three (4?) little munchkins
If you stuck around this long in the hopes of seeing some beautiful pictures of cherry blossoms, I’m sorry to disapoint you. We ended up going back home before it got dark and they were all lit up gloriously. Jeffrey, however, did stick around and took some excellent photos. He also has a great post of some pictures of Zoe that you should check out here.
A little anti-climactic
Today it was raining, and, since it is a national holiday here in Japan (I’m not even sure which one; probably the emperor’s neice’s birthday or something), we all went to Borne Lund on Kawaramachi street in Kyoto, an upscale toystore with a great indoor play area. My friend Jeffrey met us there with his son Anthony, and he happened to have his camera along with him. He was nice enough to send me these photos.
Getting a leg up on that astronaut training
If you can believe it, the rule was no throwing balls in this ball cage
Nice arm, Genbo!
And, no jumping….(but even the nice workers seemed resigned to having their admonitions repeatedly ignored)
Jeronimo!
Today was the first time Genbo really played in this ball thing without being too scared
Guess all it took was a slightly older friend
Zoe got her fill of playing in too, but she’s also just recovering from a cold, so she also spend lots of time exactly as you see here.
Aww….
