In praise of low materialism

 

Yesterday’s hanami has been partially ruined by heavy rain but still many people came to yoyogi park.
Since last year I have switched from piano to accordion initially for  practicality ( to rent a piano in tokyo is not easy and my room is as big n half coda piano) and bcause accordion has two important quality that a piano does not have: portability and the “long note” (one note can theoretically last forever).
Switching from piano to accordion has a much deeper meaning: it means switching from high music to low popular music. A piano performs at its best in a concert hall, in silence an accordion gives its best during a fair, in the streets, at night in half darkness. A piano can be played only with cleaned long hands. An accordion gives its best played by small fat greasy fingers. They belong to the sides of music: the high, theoretical abstract, precise, Apollonian and the popular, passionate, ecstatic and Dionysian one.
But both, if well interpreted, can lead make music to be the our unconscious memory of the lost eden (E.Cioran ).

Hanami

Since a week the cherry blossom season started.
It is always a surprise how Tokyo people, which leave in one of the most urbanized area, still enjoy a natural event.  It is interesting because for once japanese seem to care about human relation more than social/work relation.
It is interesting because public space is used not only for mere consumption.
It is interesting because the shinto side of japanese spirits comes out.
Here some very short sequences from meguro river