一九〇四年に永井荷風が滞在した下宿先（米国ミシガン州カラマズー市）
Home in Kalamazoo, Michigan where NAGAI Kafū lived in 1904
Kalamazoo College just published an excellent article about the time that the famous Japanese writer NAGAI Kafū 永井荷風 spent in Kalamazoo in 1904 and 1905.
As Margaret DeRitter writes in this article, we at Western Michigan Univerisity’s Soga Japan Center are working to get a Michigan state historical marker placed in front of the house at 127 Elm Street, Kalamazoo, MI where he once lived. It was there that he wrote the story “Atop the Hill”「岡の上」 included in his book American Stories 『あめりか物語』, soon after arriving in Kalamazoo in 1904. (An English translation of this book was published in the year 2000.)
For a copy of a long article in Japanese about Kafū’s stay in Kalamazoo and Kalamazoo’s interest in Japan during that time, click here. This article was first published in Mita bungaku 『三田文学』in 2006.
Donna Collins
Puffy Bear Panda with Friends
Donna Collins, one of Kalamazoo’s most interesting and consistently fun independent artists, has a wonderful new blog, full of her strange and quirky pieces of art. An article about her in the Seattle Times said the following.
Her materials are a mixed bag of delights: glitter and brown wrapping paper, tempera paints and sewing notions. Her bright, exuberant 3-D pieces are framed in vintage windows; their funky wit and brilliant palette is truly irresistible.
Yet her art has rigor; its humor and its upbeat brilliance are double-edged. This has been recognized by her growing cult of collectors, which include the actresses Susan Sarandon and Roseanne, as well as their fellow L.A. resident Courtney Love.
The Kalamazoo Gazette has said this about her after a show here in Kalamazoo.
It’s refreshing to see that even though Collins has begun to sell more work and get some recognition for the sweet, free-wheeling, funny pieces that she has done up until now, she shows no inclination to stay safely within the confines of what has proven saleable.
Instead, she has followed her natural instincts and turned her attentions toward the mysteries of love, inspiration, and spirituality, delivering work that opens up new territory while retaining the unabashedly goofy wit, imagination and completely uncontrived sincerity that made her earlier works so appealing.
I have two pieces of her art at my house: a gigantic pink cat done in sparkly glitter, and a window dressing in which she has created an elaborate scene with mice and cats sitting down to drink tea. (The mice are created in the same way as the photo above.) Even after looking at them for years, they still give me a kick every time I see them.
Jeffrey Angles, associate professor at Western Michigan University, was ambivalent about leaving Japan after earthquake
Shown here in his home office, Jeffrey Angles is an associate professor of Japanese literature and translation at Western Michigan University and was in Tokyo when that country was struck by an earthquake last month.
KALAMAZOO — Jeffrey Angles was at a central Tokyo bookstore when the big earthquake shook Japan on March 11.
He has been home in Kalamazoo for about a month. And while most would assume it would be a relief to escape earthquake aftershocks and radiation fears, it’s not that simple for Angles.
Coming home meant leaving many friends behind.
As an associate professor of Japanese literature and translation studies at Western Michigan University, Angles visits Japan at least once a year. He has spent about seven years there altogether.
All of his friends survived the earthquake and the tsunami, but a few living in the northeastern part of the country had their homes destroyed. For a week, he was unable to reach one of his friends. It turned out the man had been in China.
Angles hadn’t realized just how worried he had been until he heard that his friend was safe. “When I got his message, I just started crying,” he said.
The earthquake struck during the second-to-last week of Angles’ two-and-half-month visit to Japan to teach at the University of Tokyo. He was scheduled to fly to Kalamazoo on March 22 and had hoped to see many of his Japanese friends to say goodbye. “But no one wanted to go out. They all wanted to be close to home,” he said.
Back in the U.S., his partner and his parents were saying, “Come home. Come home now.” But Angles had “really complicated feelings” about leaving, he said.
At first, he wasn’t very worried about his safety. But then he heard news that “there was a 70 percent likelihood of an earthquake of 7 or above on the Richter scale that could potentially level Tokyo,” he said.
And then, of course, came concerns about radiation from damaged nuclear plants.
Angles moved his departure date up three days, and by the time he left Japan there had been 262 aftershocks above 6 on the Richter scale. “They set a world record,” he said.
Once he got home, he found the situation in Japan had receded from U.S. headlines and much of the news was about Libya.
“I felt sort of weird and depressed for days,” he said. “Nothing much had changed here, and so much had changed there. I felt a little bit bad about being back in this nice and safe area.”
He’s keeping up with news from Japan on Japanese websites. And he’s confident about the ability of the Japanese people to recover from the earthquake and tsunami.
There has been very little looting, he said, mostly of canned goods from destroyed supermarkets. “People are very orderly and respectful,” Angles said. “Those are qualities that are really helpful as Japan tries to rebuild.
“It’s often said that Japanese have a very strong ethic of ‘gaman,’ hanging in there, bearing with it. Even in adverse situations, they’re like, ‘OK, here’s what we need to do to recover. … Here’s how we’re going to fix the problem. …‘Gaman’ means to suffer something in a way that you get through it.”
The Kalamazoo Gazette
The Kalamazoo Gazette published the following article on Sunday, April 17, 2011 about the famous Japanese writer 永井荷風 who lived in Kalamazoo one hundred years ago. The house is located at 127 Elm Street, Kalamazoo, Michigan. I took the photos of the house in the year 2004.
A Japanese author’s Kalamazoo ties
By Margaret DeRitter
Kalamazoo and Japanese literary history share an interesting historical link From 1904 to 1905, a famous Japanese writer, Kafu Nagai, lived for nine months in a Kalamazoo house that still stands at 127 Elm St., said Jeffrey Angles, a Western Michigan University associate professor.
“This guy is as famous in Japan as Hemingway is in America,” Angles said. “He’s so famous people have come to America to research his life.” Nagai wanted to travel to France, but his father wouldn’t let him so he came to the United States, where he spent four years, Angles said.
While in Kalamazoo, Nagai studied at Kalamazoo College and was interviewed by the Kalamazoo Gazette.
In Nagai’s book “American Stories,” one of the characters in the story “Atop the Hill” is based on a Japanese student who was studying at K-College, Angles said.
Angles is spearheading an effort by WMU’s Soga Japan Center to get a historical marker placed in front of the Elm Street house. The current owner is Kathleen Campbell, and she said she is supporting the plan.
People have sometimes mistaken a house at 121 Elm St. for Nagai’s home because the houses were numbered differently until the 1920s, Angles said. But with help from WMU archivist Sharon Carlson, Angles was able to set the record straight in an article he wrote for a Japanese journal in 2006.
Because of Nagai’s fame, Angles said, even Japanese newspapers took note. “There were headlines saying, ‘Japanese author’s house rediscovered in Kalamazoo.’”
漏れ The Leak
As my small way of dealing with my frustration and irritation regarding the seemingly unending Gulf of Mexico oil spill, I wrote the poem in Japanese below. It will be published in an upcoming issue of 現代詩手帳 (Handbook of Contemporary Poetry) late in 2010.
As if the Gulf of Mexico spill was not infuriating enough, there was a 800,000 gallon oil spill yesterday in the river just outside of my own town of Kalamazoo, Michigan. There was also a huge spill off the coast of China. We need to change our energy consumption habits; otherwise, we are all responsible.
メキシコ湾原油流出事故の後、この下に貼り付けた詩を抗議行動として書いた。近いうちに、『現代詩手帳』に載ることになった。
メキシコ湾の事故は充分深刻な問題だが、昨日、私の住んでいるアメリカの街、ミシガン州カラマズー市を通る川にも、石油が大量流出した事故があったというニュースをインターネットで読んだ。問題のパイプを塞げたそうだが、一日に800,000ガロン （約3百万リトル！） が川に流れてしまった。そして、中国の海岸の近くにも巨大な石油流出もあった！ これらのニュースを読むと、メキシコ湾原油流出事故のときに感じた絶望がまた胸に沸いてきた。
我々の先進国の国民は、このようにエネルギーと石油をどんどん使い続けたら、我々全員も責任もある。私たちのエネルギー依存症を治しましょう！
漏れ
ジェフリー・アングルス
二十一世紀に漏れがある
どこか ここから遠い海の底に
壊れたパイプは 怒りに燃える火山になり
石油を 黒ずんだ海に吐き出す
こんな事故は いつも 遠い海に起こり
衛星映像は いつも 見慣れていない海岸を見せる
でも 黒い膜は 勢いがつくと 海に渡り
しばらくして 湾の全面に広がる
ようやく 海は 闇に満ちてくる
北半球を 黒半球と 呼ばれるようになるが
その防止できぬ進行は 大洋の果てまで行く
やがて 大陸のほうへ登ってくる
いや 汚れは もう ここに着いている
わたしたちの住む家は その染みに覆われ
わたしたちの瞳は 黒く染まっている
そして 知らないうちに わたしたちの心も
この黒い惑星から掬い上げる神は いない
最後の日になったら 黒いわたしたちは
黒い家から出て 黒い空にかかっている
白い骸骨の月を どんなに懐かしく眺めることか
