A couple of days ago, I visited Mugonkan, the Wordless Museum for the Young Painters Killed in WWII, in Nagano. It was the 3rd trip there for me. I have posted the article for each visit in the past.
Getting off the highway near the destination, I drove through the rice paddies on a plain area around Chikuma River. Being several miles far from the river, there were pretty high mountains running along it. It is a wide valley along the river. Some trees were changing their colors on the mountains.
It was a plain week day and there were only few visitors at the museum. Very quiet. The entrance has welcomed me as it used to. As told before, it was on a top of a hill surrounded by trees.
A pallet shaped stone monument. Each painter's name was engraved like a big epitaph.
The museum made of exposed concrete. The museum name was engraved on the front wall above the entrance door. It looked like a church on the hill.
From the entrance way, a town and the rice paddies were seen below.
I have long wanted to return here. I would spend more time to look at the paintings and the painters' short biographies listed with them.
I knew most of the painters had died in 1945 or in the end of the war. It might be because they have been recruited around that time. They could still have survived the war if it was ended earlier. Nearly half of them have died of some illnesses but not of battle. As with the other parts of the war or in the other areas, this means how poor the logistics were then. With better care, they could have lived until the end of the war.
Each work appealed me with quiet but also overwhelming power. The explanation says most of them have not stopped painting until the last moment they should leave home. I wonder what they have done if they could survive it or they were not deplyed for the military service.
My father used to dream of becoming a painter when he was young, as I heard in my childhood. But, as told elsewhere, he had to spend his precious time of youth in the war. I have been sorting out the books he owned and have found a lot of books regarding the war and the responsibility of the war in addition to those of Christianity. In his elderly days, one of his concerns was surely in that subject. And those young painters are overlapped with my father. It was only a coincidence he could survive and come home later. Those young painters deceased in the war must have produced a lot of more works and contributed to the art in our country.
Likewise, I could not help thinking of young people in Ukraine and Israel/Gaza. They are talented with a lot of things. But they are forced to struggle in the battle. Some of them would die in the war. Their talents and capabilities would never be realized but would be lost forever. Non war or anti war ideas might be regarded powerless or helpless. But it is still a definite idea influencing on the international policy. Without it, the total war could result in total ruin. Really hope those young people could survive and exert their capabilities very soon.
Like the other people of my age, I am apt to have pain in the legs after a long drive. That was the reason why I had not driven up there. I found it worth going there again this time. Listening to Impromptu by Schubert on the way back home, I uttered to myself this could be the last drive trip there.
As you may know, Facebook provides a community with friends to us. I have 300 friends registered in my account. Some are quite active posting articles or photos while the others are not. Unfortunately, there are friends even passing one after another since I joined Facebook some 10 years or so ago. So far as I could count, 16 of my friends in Facebook have already gone away.
When each friend's birthday, whether dead or alive, comes on, Facebook tells us to send the greeting for the birthday to him/her. It is the chance for me to visit his/her account. Otherwise, I won't do that so often except for close and active friends. Their pages always tell me how they are doing or how they have lived even if it depicts only small part of them. For those already deceased, it is a proof that they have lived in the world.
Whenever I visit their pages, I feel so sad to have lost them. However, at the same time, I am also caught in thought that they have lived their lives as much as they could and now are resting in eternal peace. They are now free from any anxieties or pains in life. They have transited through this world to another, which we could never know of. Life in this world lasts only for a while. It is a short lived and frail thing. I may finish this journey soon and may join the phase they went for. Such an idea always relieves me. Whenever some friends or family members die, we wish them rest in peace. That implies that we would follow them and join the state of peace later.
Even though I am often captured by worries or even anger at something, I feel I am also getting much freer from any duties or responsibilities when I get older, that is, am reaching the goal of the journey.
Visiting those pages of passed friends in Facebook is a kind of visiting their grave. There, I would see them or, at least, remember of them and swear in my heart I would join them not too long from now.
I cooked grilled eggplants from the last harvest several days ago. Eggplant is a typical summer vegetables here and would grow much slow at present. The fruits would become a bit harder and bear seeds in them. I love this simple but still quite delicious dish so much. It is a reason why I would grow eggplants every summer.
Eggplants are grilled with sesami oil. When they are well cooked, the seasonings are added, like rice vinegar, soy sauce, sugar and a bit of ginger and garlic.
Eggplants absorb any oil and it tastes sour sweet in the back of seasami oil. It takes only a few minutes to make this dish. My wife is always surprised how fast it is done.
Freshely harvested eggplants are the best material for this recipe.
When I commuted to the office in the city next to ours by car years ago, I always went through rice paddy areas. Very few traffic. Rice was almost all harvested by this time in a year. With the roof window fully opened, I often played a few classical music CDs. One of those was the piano trio in a minor by Ropartz shown with the score below.
I have already written about it in an old post. It was a post 12 years ago.
Several days ago, I went to my wife's office to help her sorting out things there. It was not an easy task. There were a lot of things to be discarded. Having worked there for 26 years, she might find it not be very easy to determine which should be disposed of and, if not disposed, where it should go to.
Worked hard there for a few hours, I dropped by a super market on the way back home to buy some food items for supper. Everything seemed the same as 11 years ago. There was the rice paddy area on the way home. Most rice paddies have already been harvested. An ancient tomb among paddies looked neatly cleaned by someone. This piano trio has rang in my mind at that time.
It starts with dark arpeggio by piano. On its background, strings play a theme which sounds as if I were a bird looking down from the sky. It is sometimes interrupted by a motif which may express hesitation or pauses. Again, it is intriguing the music brings me back to those days. The breeze coming in through the roof window and the piled rice plants at some places in the paddies.
It may take a few more weeks before she finishes all the work at her office.
As always excusing myself not renewing this blog, I have been kept so busy at the garden/farm. Fall is being deepened for now.
Persimmon is fully ripened. Sadly, we won't eat the fruits so much that birds may share this harvest soon. We enjoy it as a material for fresh salad.
Strange enough, mariegold which had not flowered much in the summer started blooming. It might have been too hot for them to come out this summer. I hear they are suffering from drought, poor crop and wild fire in South America at present, which are quite unusual there at this time in a year. I am afraid every event is due to global warming. Almost falling down on the ground, these mariegold plants seem to flower possibly in order to leave descendants with their seeds. I am relieved to have them seed in time. But it is still worrisome they could die without seeding if we have worse heat wave in the future. It may apply to farming. I often hear the farmers in the southern area could barely grow ordinary summer vegetables this year.
Anyhow, the harsh summer has almost gone away now. Weeds are growing much slower and insects eating vegetables are not active any longer. Before we get frost maybe in mid December, I will run around busily the farm planting new vegetables and harvesting such as sweet potatoes and potatoes.
I am still saddened to hear what is going on in Ukraine and the Middle East. So far as I know, the efforts to ban and criminalize any war in the world after the Napoleonic Wars in the 19th century, which caused casuality of more than a couple of millions. There were Peace Associations being established in various countries. To deny any war, Treaty for the renunciation of war was concluded after the WWI. However, League of Nations has not succeeded in preventing the following unprecedented massacre in WWII. Wondering if those efforts have been meaningless in the modern history. I don't believe in that nihilistic view against its effect.
I have long been believing in the opinion against collective defence which always incite crises around the world. But judgement for the cause of war by International Court of Justice and intermediation for peace by the UN or related institutions should replace the military power balance with collective defence. The present wars in the two areas may refute such an idea, some people may insist. Even with UN mediating peace process, if it involves in any military action, there is still the problem of war as a system left unsolved.
I still believe in pacifism against any war with the international institution. The total war involving nuclear weapon may lead us the ruin of humankind. The ideological trend against war may work in the future.
Anyway, I wish cease of fire will come in the two areas as soon as possible.
In the end of every August, we have been to Shinshyu in the mountain area in Nagano for the training camp for the university orchestra. Always at the very same place. I have written about this a few times already. One of the unforgettable places for me.
I would drive there once again in August or at least in September this year, when cool breeze flows down from the mountains around there. I am not confident at driving such a long way any longer and also have been too busy to leave my farms. I have given it up.
I know I have posted these photos in the past. Still so precious for me enough to repost them. They have been taken 10 years ago when I drove up there by myself.
A lake near to the camp place.
A road from the lake above to the camping site. Used to walk for an hour or so after swimming the lake with friends.
The camping site. A kind of small inn. It was touching to see it still run the business a few years back. Back to the cedar trees on the left, there was the rehearsal room.
Joining the camp for the first time, I was only a beginner who had started cello only for a year or less. The senior members were practising the 3rd symphony by Brahms. Practising cello for myself out of the hall, I could hear them playing that symphony. I have never been on the stage with that piece. All the more, this music has become unforgettable for me. Whenever I listen to the famous theme of the 3rd movement celli start playing, Ⅰ could not feel more nostalgic for the camp as well as the music itself.
Maybe, I have written about it before but believe the rhythm of syncopation interspersed at various parts of this symphony like the very beginning of the 1st movement makes it sound very vigorous and vivid. Putting the nostalgic movement beforehand, the 4th movement expodes with liveliness. In the end, however, all the activity and enthusiasm are settled down and faded away quietly.
That is consistent with the idea of late summer or rather with our self-recognition just before or in the early elderly age. After composing this, Brahms ran into the music of reconcilliation with life in his 4th symphony. Understanding this symphony in this way, I find it even more precious in my life.
I have missed driving up there. But everything has gone away. Nothing stays the same, even if something looks the same in outlook, as I used to be there almost half a century ago. I have ever played all of his symphonies but not this one. Just enjoy listening to it.
I am saddened to know of the missile attack to Israel by Hamas and the counterattack to Gaza etc by Israel following it. It is beyond our imagination as for in what fright and actual danger people should live on each side.
I could discuss little about this conflict deeply historically rooted in this area.
I just wondered how Hamas obtained and deployed so many missiles without the intelligence of Israel noticing it...they say Hamas has launched even 5000 of them this time.
This paper tells that they have been from Syria, Russia, Iran and China. They are smuggled through Sinai Peninsula. It says there are tunnels to convey them from Sinai to Gaza. The missile attacks have been repeated since the days of HizbAllah. I am sure Israel has made the same missile attacks or even air bombing to the Palestine areas.
The missiles used in the battle seem to have be equipped with bigger warhead and to have had longer distance of flight covering all areas of Israel in the end.
It seems Israeli military started assaulting Hamas. It may victimize a lot of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank. Israeli leaders may rationalize it from the casuality from Hamas' missile and army attacks. But I am very afraid it will bring forth a chain of hatred and hostility. Literally, the most vicious cycle thinkable.
Far away from the area in the battle, I could say only little but would like to point out two things.
First, historically, this conflict is from the selfish diplomacy by UK and the other big powers in and after WW I. Those countries are responsible to mediate for the truce and the peace between those two. Of course, other countries like Japan also should act for that as well.
Secondly, it should be banned to export or smuggle ammunition and missiles to the radicalists, taking it for granted that Israel should not resort to force at any occasion. Israel should refrain from arbitrarily emigrating to Palestine territories. China and Iran have become big exporters of missiles or other arms. UN should prohibit any export of arms to the areas in conflict. It is a shame our government is going to export lethal weapons abroad. They may excuse it saying the export is only to countries not in international conflicts. But, as missiles are carried from Iran to Palestine through Sudan and Egypt, those weapons could be transferred to the areas in conflict. I will go on decrying such a policy against pacifism.
