the further adventures of the netsuke...

Back to our story...In Vienna the netsuke are rescued from the Nazi’s by the Ephrussi’s loyal maid, Anna, who stuffs them into her mattress. Soldiers storm through the Ephrussi Palais stripping the walls of paintings and emptying the cabinets of silver and porcelain but they do not steal the netsuke.

Phew! they're safe. It is perhaps the one small thing Anna can save to pass on to the Ephrussi children.

After the war when the daughter, Elizabeth, visits Vienna, Anna returns the netsuke to her. A welcome gift bringing back happy childhood memories. After returning to England,
her new home, she shares them with her brother, Iggie.

At this point Iggie has been offered jobs in Japan or another country. The netsuke seem to persuade him to pick Japan. He wants to take them back to their home.

It is a good decision. Although Japan is a mess after WWII, he enjoys the country, meets his life partner, Jiro, and becomes a successful banker, like his father.

Our author, Edmund De Waal, visits Iggie in Japan and is first introduced to the family's netsuke collection. Iggie has begun research to discover who has made these small carved figures.

“This is when the netsuke carvers regain their names and start to become people with families, craftsmen in a particular landscape.”

He has catalogued the collection and it is “surprisingly valuable.” Several pieces where made by well known and respected artists.

After Iggie’s death De Waal inherits the collection. As an artist he appreciates their unique "beauty". In England, another new home, they are enjoyed by his children and family.

But once again the netsuke cannot sit quiet or peacefully in their glass display case. For De Waal the netsuke propel him on this journey to discover his family history and write the book, The Hare With Amber Eyes.

Perhaps we should just call them Japanese "action figures" since they do seem to prod their owners to "act".

Why objects are handed on....

Before starting our book I usually check out a few reviews just
to get my mind primed for the read ahead.

I’m recommending Object Lessons, a review by Tanya Harrod
and published in The Times Literary Supplement.
It’s beautifully written and it has really helped me appreciate some of the finer points of our book.

Harrod explains that the netsuke collection was available
for sale in 1880 Paris because the objects had lost their purpose in Japan.

“They functioned, modestly, as a toggle, threaded with cord
tightened with a bead, from which hung useful objects such as tobacco pouches, sake flasks and boxes containing seals or medicines. But when Japanese elites began to Westernize intellectually, industrially and sartorially, a great many objects lost their purpose – most obviously Samurai armour and swords and sword fittings, but also elaborate brocade robes and sashes and the whole world of sagemonon or “hanging things”, suspended chatelaine – like and secured by netsuke.”

Charles Ephrussi enjoys his netsuke collection for awhile
but then sends them on to Vienna, Austria as a wedding gift to his nephew, Viktor and bride Emmy. They are handed on because;

“as small tactile objects…they stood for a fashionable
collecting mania and also, for a love affair.”

Charles had collected and shared the netsuke with a mistress
who has moved on. He is also changing the decorating style of his fashionable home. Japanese objects were new and popular in the 1880’s but in 1899 they were “yesterday” so the netsuke had lost their “purpose” in Paris.

At one point Edmund De Waal, our storyteller, describes each netsuke as a storyteller of Old Edo, Japan;

“…the barrel-maker framed by the arc of his half-finished
barrel; the street-wrestlers in a sweaty, tumbling embrace of dark chestnut wood; the old, drunk monk with robes awry; the servant girl cleaning the floor; the rat-catcher with his basket open.”

These characters are working people, others are animals. Definitely out of place in a wealthy woman’s Viennese dressing room.

The children are allowed to take them out of the virtine and play with them. They are toys and characters in their stories. A new use for the netsuke.

So where will the story take them next?

So who is really big brother?

In 1984 when the Macintosh computer was released Steve Jobs
authorized an amazing televison commercial based on the George Orwell book “1984”.

If you haven’t see it recently, take a look: 1984 Macintosh TV Commercial

It was directed by Ridley Scott fresh from filming the science fiction story, “Blade Runner”.

At this time Jobs is in competition with IBM’s PC and he
knows he is loosing the numbers game.

The ad paints IBM as the big monolith who is sucking our
brains and turning us into robots. Theywant total control.

The reality I have learned after reading the Steve Jobs
biography is that he is the total control freak.

He made the engineers building the Macintosh design new
screws so no one from the outside could get “under the hood” and change anything inside. At this time lots of computer users were still hobbyists who loved to open the box to see how it works and personalize it.

Businesses needed to have an open architecture so they could add more memory or application programs.

By making the Macintosh so closed Jobs limited the sales. It was the computer he created…but not the computer all his customers might have wanted.

A great commercial, a doomed computer.

A computer is just a “bicycle for the mind”

During his Lost Interview in 1990 Steve Jobs describes a
computer as a “bicycle for the mind” because it could make a person more efficient and more effective.

This is such a good metaphor but I'm afraid I still operate at a
walking pace. I don’t use the computer everyday. I still read real books and write checks to pay bills. Perhaps there just isn’t enough of that “insanely great stuff” which needs to be sped along.

Perhaps I put up these speed bumps on purpose…something to think about.

It did occur to me so what is I did treat the computer as a “blank,
white canvas” to see what I come up with.

More to follow…

Steve Jobs...what if?

Reading about Steve Job’s younger life there were so many pieces that could have been different and changed the whole story.

What if the first couple had not decided they wanted a baby girl instead of a boy.

What if the Jobs family had stayed in SF rather than taking job in Palo Alto and moving to the Peninsula, also known as Silicon Valley. Steve was able to join the Hewlett Packard Explorers club where he met working engineers who gave talks on current technology like lasers, holography and desktop computers.

What if he had had another father. Paul Jobs, worked on cars in his garage and was a perfectionist. He had an appreciation for clean design and detailing. A real can-do kind of guy he would buy junk cars, fix them up and sell them for a healthy profit. The money would be used to send Steve to Reed College.

What if he hadn’t gone to Homestead High School where he took an electronics class. It was there he met an older graduate, Stephen Wozniak. They both loved the same music, playing pranks and electronics. Their first collaboration was building Blue Boxes so students can make long distance calls illegally. From there they …well Woz designed and built Apple I…and the rest is history.

So what was Steve Job’s most creative idea and what was his dumbest idea?

Who is Hemingway’s Paris Wife?

Heard a good interview with Paula McLain, the author of “The Paris Wife”. She got the idea for the book after reading Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast”. This book was published posthumously in 1964. It’s a collection of stories or memories an old Hemingway puts together describing his young days in Paris.

Interestingly the descriptions of his first wife Hadley are sentimental and rather silly. Their young days of Paris poverty are romantically simple and filled with good eating.

He writes several introductions to the book which are not used. Here’s one:

“This book is fiction. I have left out much and changed and eliminated and I hope Hadley understands. She will see why I hope. She is the heroine and the only person who had a life that turned out well and as it should except certain of the rich.”

She is his heroine!?!

He also writes about her:

“I put my arm around her and felt our hearts beating through our sweaters and I brought my right hand up on her neck smooth and the hair thick against it under my fingers that were shaking.”

Something I learned about Hemingway from this book which I did not know is apparently he suffered from "post tramatic stress syndrome" as a result from his experiences in WWI. He had to sleep with a light on, he had horrible nightmares and he had a bad track record of keeping friends. He's a damaged hero who writes about his ghosts.

What’s so good about sea air?

“Her doctor had urged the trip in response to a spell of poor health – sea air had long been understood to have great curative effect for almost anything that ailed one – but it would seem she needed little persuading.”

So what’s so good about sea air? Is it just the change of air because city air was so bad. Does sea air have restorative qualities? Or is the truth, travel, just getting up and out to see something new and interesting is good for our health?

On a cynical note, if your local doctor sends you off on a trip and you continue to get very sick somewhere else you’re off his books.

More scientific research on this subject to follow…now I must go to my laboratory…no lightweight blog here!