A riff about (son born June 23rd 2020) Ichiro Stanley Thorvald Olson’s name including the kanji meaning and katakana writing plus inspirations behind each of the monikers and anecdotes about grandparents, teachers, parks, brothers and ice hockey by proud parents Dave and Ryoko in front of the family altar in Tsuchida, Okayama, Japan, August 2020 (Reiwa 2).
Tag Archives: japan cottage musings
Dave + Ryoko Anniversary Tea Time Variety Show (almost live)
Join us for tea at Tsuchida Cottage, Okayama for our 1st wedding anniversary. We’ll play some songs, catch you up on projects, share some scrapbooks and stories, plus update about baby including gender if curious. Was a live stream… not its not :)
Originally live-streamed via Facebook on April 21, 2020 / check out original post for allll the comments and more fun etc.
Scrapbooks for all Reasons / Japan Cottage Musings
With a coffee and pyjamas, Dave riffs about types of scrapbooks, ways to make from scratch, reasons for making (memory and flow), a bit about creative process and keeping organized, handy tools and supplies, and other ways to fancy up your books with inky stamps, postage stamps, stickers and up-cycled meta scraps. Plus hey, fun for the family, liberate the items from shoeboxes, put on an album or two and go with the flow.
fondly, dave
Haikus, Garden + Baby News / Japan Cottage Musings
Wearing a smoking jacket at Tsuchida Cottage, Dave riffs on recent activities including: planting vegetable garden, playing piano, buying baby clothes, and sort-ganizing archives including digging out loads of books. As such, shows books by Douglas Coupland, Nick Bantock, Gary Snyder, Ethan Hubbard, and reads from Jack Kerouac’s American Haikus, plus riffs about Tintin, fire lookouts and mailing postcards.
Creative Life Archive into a Grain Barn / Japan Cottage Musings
Recently my “whole life archive” from 4X+ years of creativity arrived after a trans-Pacific journey to my home is Tsuchida, Okayama, Japan… so, I made a little video spiel – or tried to rather – while sort-ganizing the artifacts the “kura” (grain barn). However, the video was out of focus and the sound well, non-existent (guess i don’t know how to use this new gear… sigh).
This clip (which i didn’t know was filming) of puttering around in schleppy work clothes (and a fine hand-crafted hat) exists… so, here’s a little clip mixed with still photos of putzing around my life’s worth of books, records, scrapbooks, tools, trinkets and whatnot and finding some interesting things (while trying not to be overwhelmed by all the memories and dauntingness of it all).
No narrative per se, just an excuse to play you a song and say hello… carry on.
I was *clearly* saying something fascinating here :) – probably about Kerouac, scrapbooks, artifacts, vinyl etc and likely say “personal archeology” & ”intrepid” + mention stash of amusing hats, lounge wear and of course, smoking jackets but, you will just hafta trust me (or don’t, that’s cool).
Importantly this song: pal George H. wrote music and sings/plays (but says its not “finished” so don’t tell him unless you wanna tell him you LOVE it) – the words are mine from escapades in NYC 1990ish. Anyhow, thanks for coming along for this flashback.
“Elf Care” and Arts + Crafts / Japan Cottage Musings
Dave riffs about “Elf Care” in tumultuous times along with personal archeology from a cottage in Japan including life update about baby and wife, plus “doing what you can” – in this case making arts and crafts and sort-ganizing.
Shared examples of projects are: books of postboxes and paintings, scrapbooks of travel ephemera, family photos, and virtual learning with certificates, as well as upcoming Jack Kerouac story making workshop.
Finally offers support for artist who need a like, subscribe, comment and support. Fondly, Dave (plus plenty of sanitary face touching :))
Life Musings from a Cottage in Japan / baby, books, love, etc #video
A spontaneous life update from Okayama, Japan with annotations about incoming child, state of my health, affection for parents and pals, fixing up our little cottage, plans for schools and playing Santa Claus, notes about birthing clinic, Ryoko’s awesomeness, request for notes of recommendation and preview of some forthcoming book projects.