Of the many pieces of advice, my dear Mom gave me, one came when I was the small kid with bifocal glasses, trying to be cool in a crappy suburb in elementary school when she said “to get a friend, you have to be a friend”.
Took me a minute to figure this out and sometimes I’ve struggled with it because Warren doesn’t want to be “desperate for attention” but also, in my life I’ve always been that guy who just moved there from somebody else, so you gotta build community and that starts with reaching out to people and finding a way to connect.
Coming back from the BC trip, was just another reminder that this is my home now, here, Japan, in general, while I sort of just live in Okayama and don’t ramble much.
As such, there is a limited amount of people who share my hobbies and interests, sure a couple pop by now and then, which I really enjoy and i make it out to events every once in a while, mostly associated with my wife’s band or tea group or Ichiro’s activities.
But, there’s a smattering of other folks scattered around the country who find themselves in similar circumstances of being “the neighborhood foreigner” and interested in art, music, nature, the sublime, creativity, etc. so: with this in mind, I gathered up nine used copies of Nick Bantock (who’s sort of become my mentor whether he knows it or not), epistolary literature, book “Griffin and Sabine” the first of the first trilogy, and there was another trilogy and many other books by, managed to find reasonably priced used copies of this one which kicks off the series.
The book/series combines art in the form of handcrafted, postcards, variety of hand, writing, styles, custom-made stamps, both ink, and postal, and a narrative with switches between rounds, realities, possibly time traveling, geographic locations, both real and fictional. You can imagine why this is very much my style.
And, I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with the author/artist on several occasions, including on the recent trip, and on a couple of prints, and even originals from the book.Anyhow, sent to a few folks, mostly in Japan, most option with children/youth, who whom they might enjoy and appropriately sent along with a slice of my letterhead (a batch which had been stained by green ink, making them extra awesome) and had the audacity to inscribe the book as well. I find that so many of the books given to me as gifts as far back as the 1980s/90s, are even more treasured because of the inscription of the gift giver. Then, mailed them out into the world. A few lovely comments on back channels, and to which I’ll share here for the permanent record.
Vaguely Related (w/ add more as i gather):