House ハウス (1977), directed by ŌBAYASHI Nobuhiko 大林 宣彦

This bizarre and often hilarious Japanese cult classic is perfect viewing for Halloween.  The relatively simple, low-budget special effects are pulled off to unforgettable effects.  (Personally, I will never forgot the scenes with the piano that comes alive and chomps a girl to bits.)  The film is available on the Criterion Collection label. 

Kasane no Boukon 『かさねのぼうこん』 (ca. 1847-1852)
UTAGAWA Kuniyoshi 歌川 国芳　(1797-1861)

The Japanese say that the heat of summer is the best time for ghost stories, as the little tingle they give you helps to fight the heat.  In fact, during the Edo Period (1600-1868), there was a summertime pass time known as “One Hundred Tales” 百物語.  In it, a group of friends would light a group of candles in a dark room.  People would then take turns telling ghost stories; at the end of each story, they would snuff out one candle, making the room progressively darker. By the time all the candles were out, one was practically guaranteed to see a ghost!

It is with that in mind that I thought I would share this story that I read in the newspaper this morning.  A print by the artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi, who is sometimes referred to as “the master of the bizarre,” was recently rediscovered in Tokyo.  The painting shows a gigantic female ghost which is comprised of the bodies of many individual men.  (Psychoanalysts could have a lot to say here.)  Below that are a bunch of terrified men running away in every direction. 

Below, I have pasted an article from The Japan Times.
Click here for another article about the same story in Japanese. 

Saturday, Aug. 14, 2010
Master Woodblock Print Found
Kyodo News

A color woodblock print depicting a female ghost by ukiyo-e master Utagawa Kuniyoshi that disappeared before the war has recently been confirmed as in the possession of a researcher in Tokyo.

The print, “Kasane no Boukon,” depicting the apparition of a woman named Kasane, is “a work of Kuniyoshi’s mature period and is extremely rare in that it conveys colors as if it was an initial print,” said Toshihiko Isao, an oil painter.

The print, 36 cm high and 25 cm n wide, is owned by Isao Shimizu, who studies cartoons and satirical drawings. Shimizu bought it from an art dealer in Tokyo in summer 2007 and has since been working to confirm its authenticity.

Isao said the print was last seen in a black and white photo in an art book issued in 1931.

The ghost’s face is depicted using a collage of images of human bodies in various forms, as well as tools. Given that the print bears a seal issued by the shogunate for publication, it is believed it was produced sometime between 1847 and 1852.

Terminus, directed by Trevor Cawood (Canada, 2008)

While up late at night, suffering from anxiety about my imminent move eastward across the Pacific, I came across this strikingly vivid film about anxiety.  The film is short on words, instead speaking in the uncomfortably close language of dream.

The U.S. National Institute of Medicine has just uploaded a virtual edition of a fascinating illustrated manuscript showing men and women in early 19th-century Japan who came to the doctor HANAOKA Seishū 華岡青洲 (1760-1835) for surgical treatment.  The graphically illustrated, colorful images in his casebook show several surgical problems he treated.  (Click here for the website.)

Hanaoka was the first doctor in world history to use general anesthesia to remove tumors from cancer patients. Some of us in Japanese literature might know about him from the 1966 novel The Doctor’s Wife 『華岡青洲の妻』 written by ARIYOSHI Sawako 有吉佐和子.

The following is from the announcement on H-Japan about the new posting.

Hanaoka studied both traditional Chinese-style medicine and Western-style surgical techniques. At age 25, he took over the family business and began to practice an eclectic style of medicine that combined these two traditions. He was greatly concerned with his inability to treat cancer patients, and over a period of 20 years he developed an herbal concoction he called “mafutsusan,” made up of several highly toxic plants. It did not include opium derivatives which European doctors were only beginning to identify as anesthetics. The narcotic effects of Hanaoka’s anesthetic could last as long as 24 hours, allowing him to surgically remove many different kinds of tumors which previously had been inoperable.

Images from the manuscript were selected and curatorial text was written by Dr. Ann Jannetta, Professor Emerita of History at the University of Pittsburgh. The descriptive text can be viewed if one clicks the “T” in the upper left corner of the virtual book page.

I went yesterday to see a exhibition at the Kyoto Arts Center called 「幻ノ進化論―Saltationism」 (On the Evolution of Fantasy: Saltationism) by the artist EMOTO Hajime 江本創 (b. 1970).  This fun and playfully bizarre show featured a number of startlingly life-like mummies and skeletons of imaginary creatures that Emoto had created and displayed in shadow boxes like scientific specimens.

At the beginning of the exhibition, there was a sign stating that Emoto had just returned from a long trip with an (imaginary) Russian scientist, who had toured the world collecting strange creatures.  Also, there was a large quotation from a seemingly scientific text reminding us that over the billions of years of world history, countless creatures had come into being and gone extinct. Beneath each of the lovingly created creatures, Emoto had placed a label with genus species names, information about where the “specimens” had been collected, plus reflections on the creature and its evolutionary past. Nowhere in the exhibition does the display step out of character to discuss how exactly Emoto made these life-like monsters, helping to preserve the illusion that what one is seeing is a collection of real specimens.  

For instance, the notes accompanying the “ribbed squid” explain it was found in the South Pacific.  Invertebrates such as squid, he tells us, should not have a skeletal structure, but this figure had managed to evolve a bony structure in order to protect its internal organs.  In a humorous touch, he notes that this creature was used among natives of the South Pacific as a penis sheath. 

There was a wall of creatures inspired by Western fairy tales, such as winged demons, mini-dragons, and gargoyles, “collected” from various places in Europe, such as the strikingly lifelike skeleton of a “Dragon” pictured above.  In the text accompanying this and the other dragons on display, he explained that larger ones had apparently come in contact with humans and been largely exterminated, so dragons evolved to become increasingly small.

Also, in another part of the show, he had a number of “creatures” collected from a monestary in southern France.  According to the sign, the inhabitants had treated them as the person-ification of the Seven Deadly Sins.  The one, for instance, associated with avarice was chubby and had big, hungry-looking teeth, while the one associated with lust looked like a big phallus with legs.  (For pictures of this series of creatures, click here.)

In creating a world, full of fantastic creatures, Emoto seemed to be playfully suggesting  how little we know about the natural world.  His shadow boxes and old-fashioned presentations, complete with purposefully aged labels, had a steampunk sensibility, hearkening back to an early moment in early 20th century scientific history when the natural world was still full of mystery, and explorers still traveled the world in search of new discoveries.  The world, he seems to be suggesting, is a strange place, not fully understandable through the operations of science alone, despite our attempts to try.

At the same time, he also seems to be hinting at how important it is to us, as human beings, to try to understand the world (and even the imaginary) through the lens of rationality and science.  Part of the fun and adventure of this exhibition is to show how bizarre it looks when one attempts to apply scientific rationality to things that do not always make perfect sense. 

Interestingly, in this exhibition, the “mysterious world” from which the pieces came was not just the South Pacific, South America, and other “exotic” places, as it was to 19th and early 20th century explorers.  The sources of these strange creatures also also encompassed Europe, which had been made to look every bit as primitive and unfamiliar as the developing world, thanks to all of its fairy tales and weird legends.  At the same time, none of the creatures were supposed to have come from Japan.   Could it be that in Emoto’s eyes, Japan is too rational a nation for dreams? 

For Emoto’s webpage (Japanese only), click here.  The webpages contain an extensive gallery of Emoto’s creations.