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bungalow_mikee

chozubachi

bungalow_mikee
20 years ago

Does anyone have a chozubachi or considering putting a chozubachi in the garden? I find them quite sublime.

Comments (48)

  • Jando_1
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Good Morning Michael,

    I like the estetics of the Chozubachi too. The sound of running water is always soothing. Haven't had the funds for a granite carved one, so I used a natural stone of dark gray for the basin. The water pools in the natural indention of the stone, then spills over the sides and disappears into a stone covered underground holding area. Some day I hope to have the real thing. Although I am growing very fond of the natural stone one I have. And I may just keep it. And mine serves another purpose. It is just steps away from my vegetalble garden and I rinse my hands after working in the garden. That way I don't have to go up the the house and can do other tasks, saves time.

    One thing I found though, if the water is not running a stopper needs to be on the end of the bamboo spout. Mud dobbers closed it off and this spring I have to work on it to get the water flowing. What a pain. I hope I saved someone from having the same problem. Once I have an underground electical source I plan to leave it running during the summer months.

    Cheers Jando

  • yama
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hi
    june and mikee
    I am kind hasting tell.... I am getting old>>>>>> almost half centutry ago my old family farm house had chozuba /toilet . those day no one call toilet as chozuba . I do not know that any other place of japan called toilet as Chozuba...

    sorry I hope did not put you down................ mike

  • Jando_1
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    ;) Hey Mike was it running water way back then!!!!!! Maybe????? HE HE HA HA HA

    Cheers Jando

  • bungalow_mikee
    Original Author
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hehaahahehe at Jando!

    With all the animals and birds that come into my garden you'd wonder if will only become a toilet... Or a bidet!
    hahaha

    We should consider renaming this forum The Sacred and the Profane. ... incensing controversy..

  • Cady
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Sooooo...
    Does anyone have an outhouse in their garden? ;)

  • yama
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    off the topic
    No. we did have well out side of home ,in kichen we had hand pump. few years after all home had runing water/tap water.
    even I was born in Tokyo , my home town was kind rural area at the time. lot's of kid swimming in river naked. water was clean , if thirsty I could drink water from river, parents and school teacher told us not to, but no kids died drinking river water.

    time to time, our farm hand scoop out pee and poops with large ladle from pit. scoop into two wooden tab about 2 feet diamerter two and half feet deep . tab is attached with short rope , use bamboo pole to one tub in front other in back , put on shoulder and take it field . field had small concreat pit about 500 gal or so..keep stuff in pit another few more months to ageing .

    those day we can not use our own waste , but it is ok to use cow , horse, chiken manure . may be our own waste is too polluted to use as fertilizer...........hehehe

    after world war two, many Us solders who stationed in Japan had prasite , some of them/GI noticed that fresh salda has small peice of news paper on vegs... after the war we were shottage of toilet paper , so we used news paper to wipe our butt....

    it is stink ! but it is also true unwritten history of our time. now I am old enough and can tell story to kids.
    mike.

  • yama
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    sorry. misspelled. shortage instead of "shottge" ..... m y

  • Herb
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Michael,

    There's a very modern-looking chozubachi in the picture that I posted a link to in the thread headed 'Smaller Japanese Garden Layout'.

    Despite what would have been my inclination to think that a chozubachi would be more appealing if it looked old, I think that this modern-looking one, in that setting, looks very attractive. When I looked up 'Chozubachi' on the Internet, I found several places that either show identical-looking ones, or show them for sale, describing them as 'Ginkakuji' style -

    http://www.mtfuji.net/Chozbachi.htm

    http://www.marenakos.com/granitestatuary/chozubachi.htm

    http://www.shokoku-ji.or.jp/english/e_ginkakuji/guide/hojo_chozubachi.html

    This makes me wonder - is this indeed a modern style of water basin, or does the name 'Ginkakuji' indicate that it is in fact quite an old style?

    Herb

  • JohnEd
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I am in the process of making a mold to create a chozubachi or Zenigata water basin. I will pour a white portland cement, white sand, vermiculite mixture into the mold to see if I can simulate close to what a granite or stone basin would look like. I will keep you posted.

  • edzard
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Herb, :) modern period in Japanese gardens is the 11C... I guess thats not what you were thinking,... when were you thinking of?
    Ginkakuji basin notes: notice the pattern on the side which is reputed to be that of a monks sleeves, -also being related to the Silver Pavilion, if its histroy is looked up and followed, then the rice paddy pattern shows up which is also available in blue and gold in Katsura... used in gravel raking patterns and part of the garden design in Tofukuji, and evoked by Hermann in grass and stone.

    There are many types of chozubachi including those modeled after parables ie: frog jumping up to branch, failing and continuing to do so until succeeding...
    I would be tempted to choose one that relates to what you wish to convey. Not to neglect to mention that a hollowed stump charred to black on the inside, with a crooked branch halved and the pith removed for a channel, and again blackened for waterproofing is a good replacement for the conventional items and conveys the rustic taste of 'so' as compared to the finish of the Ginkakuji basin...
    -it is all in the question, 'what do you wish to convey?'... edzard

  • edzard
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I can not help but smile over the specific coin basin being devalued in similar fashion as the alchemist in the persuit of magicians gold...
    sorry, no offence intended, yet to the Japanese gardener the irony and the message is vastly amusing.
    edzard

  • bungalow_mikee
    Original Author
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    When I posted this message I knew nothing
    of chozubachi. But the ones the struck me the most were
    basins that were made out of millstone or ruins
    like kasa-gata made from roof sections of stupas.
    After a few months of looking at japanese gardens,
    the regular water basins found in catalogues- well...
    I would not have them in my garden-
    they would have no significance to me.

    I'm inclined to agree with Edzard.
    What do you want to convey?
    The charred stump is a very useful idea-
    one I may implement.
    I do much tree trimming in the backyard,
    but I hesitate to throw away some of the
    branches because they are beautiful.
    Maybe they will be part of a gate entrance?

    I think I called some of them sublime
    because I didn't know of any other word
    for it at that time.

    Shibusa is the word with no English equivalent.
    Subject for another post.

  • Herb
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Edzard -

    You guessed correctly - I was using 'modern' in western sense. As to exactly when in the western sense, I would say 'post 1918'. I think it's the sort of design Frank Lloyd Wright might have come up with.

    Herb

  • bungalow_mikee
    Original Author
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Yes, Herb.
    It does look a little bit Lloydy Wrighty.

    ...which reminds me of a story.
    Frank Lloyd Wright approached Alexander Calder
    for a commission. Wright wanted a mobile of
    solid GOLD to hang in the dome of the Guggenheim.

    Calder craftily responded to take up the offer
    of creating a massive, solid gold mobile-
    BUT it must be painted black!

    Don't you love it??!!

  • Herb
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Michael -

    I like the Calder story. And in light of his declared liking for red, I wonder if he'd approve of the red lanterns I drew attention to the other day....

    I've been pondering why I like the Frank Lloyd Wright-esque Chozubachi. I think that it looks good because its 90 degree angles & straight lines tie in with the 90 degree angles & straight lines of the paving stones and the straight lines of the bench opposite.

    Herb

  • Herb
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Edzard,

    You wrote - "...it is all in the question, 'what do you wish to convey?' ".

    Can you elaborate on what this means? With one exception, I've never had the feeling - in any Japanese garden - that the designer wanted to convey something to me, other than a general sense of repose or tranquility. I realise that if I don't sense that something is being conveyed, then it must be my loss, but how important is it that something should be conveyed? What sort of things would be conveyed?

    The one exception was in the Nitobe Garden, as it was years ago. There was, at the upper end, a path over a stream where the path suddenly became quite steep. Immediately after taking the first two steps up, I got the sensation that I was on a steep mountain side. It was quite uncanny. And I got the same sensation whenever I returned to it.

    Herb

  • edzard
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Herb,... hmmmm, where are you going with this??

    In the beginning, along with the begats, there was a clump of grass that got twisted into a knot... and then over in Kumano there was a fellow that decided that grass falls flat in Autumn and hidden in winter, deciding instead to use a tree root that he twisted into a knot.(photo's available)
    And a neighbor cut the root off and placed down his own mark, a vertical stone that the old neighbor could not move.

    What the two were establishing and conveying was boundary. Shime.
    The basis of every garden, enclosure.

    How this can be conveyed is in limitless form, from the invisible line to the decline of altitude as in the Nitobe when the young man has decided to take the low road of life and encounters the pitfalls that will beset him if he continues along that road.
    -a message is conveyed by this construction
    (unless you are referring to the 'mountain path' over the waterfall head, which became the service path and only Junji is supposed to be back there... same difference though, we are to 'feel' something there, what is up to the experiencer)

    what is this?
    :)
    it conveys 'something'

    -if I took a millstone and cut a pie out of it, placed it in a nobedan pavement, someone from the right generation would say, " oh ! Pacman" hah hah.
    another would say, "oh apple-pie"
    yet another would say, "ah awful, what were they thinking??" pachinko is not even Japanese...
    and I would say, " hah, gotcha. 2 out of three were reminded of a simpler time, ie: childhood, which is a precursor to being 'tranquil', ie: Teiji Ito, Space and Illusion.

    -everything conveys something, nothing in life as we know it is unrelate-able or lacks associative meaning... unless we see with the eyes of the young, and to get there, to see beauty and to be stripped of the overlays of association, one method is to provide alternate associations that gradually overwork the mind to cause it to acquisence and relax, or to under-work it, too numb the mind by gapping (opposite of strobelighting) with dark 'nothing' lapses, which lead to a sudden 'beauty' or 'mental repose'.

    This is the Japanese garden. It doesn't mean anything, but given the individual, means and conveys a great deal.
    Not to mention the periods of history when gardens were political messages... amounting to whose boulders were bigger or better laid...or similarily conveyed meanings.

    ..or would you be referring to recently printed material? In which direction I do not particularily wish to go.
    ;),
    edzard

  • Herb
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Edzard -
    You ask - where am I going with this? I was trying to ascertain what you meant. Perhaps you've tried.

    You mention the "'mountain path' over the waterfall head, which became the service path". I believe the change occurred when the garden was renovated, & the mountain path stopped having any obvious access. I miss it. It's clearly shown on the plan of the garden published in the November 1970 issue of the Davidsonia Magazine. The plan, incidentally, shows what may be a service path even higher up the garden. Maybe I should copy the plan and post the copy?

  • edzard
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Herb,.
    it might be a good idea so that others could follow what we are talking about.. for myself, no need, thank you, the garden is old haunts and work experience.
    I do know which one you're referring to and often take it to remind me of a simpler time.

    and what are your thoughts on 'conveyence' of a thought?
    edzard

  • Herb
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Edzard,

    Oh oh - youve got me going.

    1. First of all, the ground plan of Nitobe. ItÂs here, with the Âmountain path highlighted in yellow -

    http://www.pbase.com/image/31699380

    2. My paramount thought on 'conveyance' of a thought is that to be effective & not misunderstood (or worse, not be understood at all) it must - assuming that it's being conveyed by the medium of words - be expressed lucidly. That attitude comes from my having spent most of my working life being required to practice that - and enjoying it - so maybe I'm biased.

    Of course, language can be subtle & words can carry meanings not apparent on the surface, because those communicating in it share underlying assumptions & understandings that remain unspoken. I've read that communication in Japanese by native speakers is especially replete with this.

    Sometimes, even two speakers of the same language fail to communicate. The Chinese have an expression that suits that situation - they say itÂs like a chicken trying to hold a conversation with a duck.

    Unfortunately, language can be - and too often is - e.g. by politicians, people skilled in 'spin' and salesmen - used not so much to convey meaning as to either hide it, or to induce feelings and attitudes. I'm not sure that this should be called conveyance of a 'thought' except in the loosest sense. Sometimes language is even used to give the appearance of meaning that doesn't really exist or learning that the speaker or writer doesnÂt possess.

    I suppose an adequately skilled painter can convey an emotion by means of a painting, though I find it difficult to categorise an emotion as a thought.

    Similarly I suppose a gardener may be able to 'convey' an emotion by means of where he put rocks and plants in a garden - (Professor MoriÂs placement of the huge lantern in the Nitobe garden does this) but the idea of a gardenerÂs conveying a 'thought' by that means seems to me to be a bit far-fetched.

    Herb

  • edzard
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    ...hm. :), really? why?
    between heavy work demands, what shall we discuss to illustrate this?
    edzard

  • Herb
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Edzard - You & I seem to have entirely different thought processes. What's clear to the one isn't clear to the other - and vice versa. I think we've got to the point where the Chinese analogy of a chicken & a duck trying to hold a conversation applies!.

  • edzard
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    ok, who wants to be the chicken and who the duck?
    both have feathers,
    therefore both can understand the same things.
    ?? are you thinking in terms of black and white? what is thought? or where does thought come from? what induces thought? what (item) begins the thought sequence?

    if you touch something that is 'too hot' at first there is no sensation, then a sense of coolness, then eventually the unconscious thought of removing the hand from unknown discomfort... then pain,... and at that time thought is applied to the origin of the pain. (normally in expletive form)
    :.

    the path I was thinking of is on the far upper left detailing off from #16 and going over the waterfall pumps and filters... and the one you think of is also the mountain path yet lower in the garden, where the misaki lantern is placed for some unknown reason.

    Mori's placement of the Kasuga with the purposely broken screen is to celebrate the light passing through on a given day at a given time to rest on a specific spot in the background. Beyond this it has no meaning that anyone currently knows of. As an iconographic forest icon of Amaterisu it brings Shinto evocation into the 'beginnings' after birth, or awareness to the young person emerging from the forest. if one stretched it adds a sense of vastness in scale with the forest that dwarfs us and positions us in the realm of the forest. However, the forest should never have grown to the size it is...
    or different example:

    Why was the main bridge decided to be the width it is? ( the bridge by the pagoda lantern)
    and why is the path that leads to the lotus a singular path? why the decision for the narrowness.

    Why would Mori have decided it should be that scale and not another?

    the answer here would convey first an option, then a suggestion, then a decision, then an action... none of which should ever be conscious, merely conveyed.
    in turn in the flexibility of gardening, I call this a conveyed thought. and... it is an unconscious thought that is brought about by the way in which materials are gathered, placed, to induce an action that if done well, never reached the conscious decision making part of the mind.
    To me, this is conveying the thoughts of the garden, given that gardens are Authored, which is reading the garden, or accessing the messages, all necessary to restore gardens when texts have not been left behind explaining what to do with what. (or is the same as reading someones garden picture when it has never been introduced by a context of association ie: 5 layers to the top of a garden wall or on the side of the wall = Imperial support)

    In this way, 'it' all means nothing, yet these things induced and taught an action that becomes a preferred choice by the comfort of the width of the path or bridge...

    I believe you have the text of the garden there as one of the originals...
    I am not trying to be cryptic in any way and with your text, the storyline of the garden is what needs to be added to this. please elaborate the gaps from the text, or if yours does not contain it, I'll fill in the blanks.
    works?

    edzard

  • Herb
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Edzard,

    I'm going to try to bridge the clucking/quacking gap ..........

    After reading what you say about the mountain path - & looking again at the ground plan, particularly where it places the Nitobe Memorial Lantern (the Kasuga) - I think I was mistaken.

    I now think the path I highlighted yellow is the one where you descend to the stream.

    What I think of as the mountain path - where you suddenly climb up, as on the side of a mountain and then cross the stream - must be the one higher up, shown with dotted lines. That, I think, must be the one that was accessible back in the 1970s but no longer is.

    What surprises me is your mention of a Misaki lantern being there. I guess that back aound 1970 when I was able to visit Nitobe I hadn't formed my interest in lanterns, so perhaps didn't notice the Misaki. Now I have an extra incentive to go over to Vancouver and see if I can both re-discover the upper path (presumably it's still hidden ) and see the Misaki lantern & how it's set. I wonder - did Professor Mori put it there, or is it a later introduction?

    I'd very much like to reproduce here the entire contents of the September 1970 issue of the Davidsonia magazine, because it's devoted almost entirely to the Nitobe Garden and particularly to Professor Mori's role in it and also includes various pictures. To do that though, I'd have to get permission from UBC (which presumably has the copyright). Sadly, I'm not optimistic it will get me anywhere. I've e-mailed them (a few times over several years) about other things related to the Nitobe Garden but have never had even an acknowledgement.

    Herb

  • edzard
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    cluckcluckHerbcluckcluckcluck, yes,
    (what ducks hear because chickens have no vocabulary )... :)
    why Misuno placed the (transl: peninsula) Misaki there is unknown, it came with the latest renovations which... needs more done to them,.. even to Junji and everyone that has viewed it from the VJGA agree's,.. & have no idea why its there, considering the proportions are not the best either... shrug.

    however, it does add depth of field, though I'd think of other ways of doing it. But it stays until it is understood, then a decision will be made.

    John Wheeler is the one to talk to and he is also speaking at the Symposium in Seattle. I'll send an address to you. Good guy. Most times, and especially before John there has been no one to send anything to or with interest, except he that works there Junji... and he 'has no voice', and so would have been fruitless.

    For those not familiar with the Nitobe, the storyline runs... and this has no meaning whatsoever, btw. ;)
    short form:
    That the path from birth (forest) to adolescence (mountain path Herb mentioned) becomes marginally wider as insight is taken on.. until as a young adult decisions must be made, which amount to taking a path, a bridge to adulthood _with someone else, to the comfortable 'gazebo' or to continue to another bridge alone, or to continue life alone having taken the wrong path which leads through the morass... which is where they bury the bodies of the fallen, :) and this is where Bogpeople come from. just kidding.

    the width of the pathways and the pruning adds comfort or discomfort for the path to be avoided in Life which = unconscious thought
    edzard
    (and how do you people get the jpegs into the text of the message, since I had the tiff of the setting sitting here on desktop...? .. on a Mac, not a PC though)

  • Herb
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Edzard -

    I just fed 'Nitobe' into the Google Image Search & what should it produce but quite a lot of pictures including some by Robert Cheetham, and his pictures included this one -

    http://www.jgarden.org/images_gardens/nitobe_ubc11.jpg

    I assume that's the Misaki you are talking about?

    I think you must be right that it was introduced with the latest renovations. The Davidsonia map has black dots showing where all the lanterns in the garden were when the map was made, and I don't see one marked anywhere alongside the stream that feeds the lake, so that confirms what you say.

    But no matter when and by whom it was put there, I agree with you, it's a very odd place to put it. As well, it looks just a bit chunky for my taste.

    Maybe it was a gift from somebody, and whoever placed it felt it was best put somewhere inconspicuous?

    Herb

  • edzard
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    chuckling heartily...
    yes, herb that is the same one...
    it is unusual, yet again, I observe that it makes the experiencer 'do' something that otherwise would have been missed.. I'm just not keen on the object used to cause the action.
    (another conveyance causing thought??,... oops, sorry, are we qua-clucking similarily now??)

    Robert... we'll have to discuss this photo taking bit... why do I or you take the same photo's from the same vantages, with the same scope???

    I've come to recognise this as being the same as 25 gardeners will come up with the same design for the same space since there is only one best solution, which is the same as 'what is the best photo op...' In the garden, the best shots are the same... we'll need to discuss this in Seattle.
    edzard

  • yama
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    herb and edzard

    I have a very good book of stone basins.
    title of book is " Stone basins " by Isao Yoshikawa,
    ISBN4-7661-0510-9. The book has many great photos and written both Japanese text and English text. The book also has diagrams of Tuskubai.
    you might want to read this book before exchanging heated ideas. This book and cold iced tea with lemon will help to cool off.

    Micheal : The book mentioned above is very good book. you will find many good informations you wanted. Author is well known Landscape architect. I am kind sorry for my early posting about chozubachi. I did not responded seriously. when I was 5~8 years old , we had and used chozubachi next to benjo/toilet. it wasn't for garden. It was for practical use while we did not have tap water. Benjo/toilet stinks and ofen splsh back to me so that have to aim poops to drop right place. It is same as "portable john" on constraction site of today. our chozubachi was almost same as showing in "Tuskiyama teizoden". It is called Tusri teoke chozubachi , literarly "hanging bucket hand wash" It was only 50 years ago. my grand mother called toilet as "chozuba"

    while you are only thinking tsukubai as garden ornament, back then it had prctical use also.

    Now I can tell living history which made me feel old. hehehe. This is my turn to tell . I waited long time for this oppotunity.... you know rest. right ?.
    Happy gardening.......................mike

  • bungalow_mikee
    Original Author
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hi Yama,
    Good to here from you again.
    I did manage to check this book out from the library.
    Amazing what you can find at the library!
    The funny thing is I stumbled upon it by accident
    while looking for Japanese gardening books.

    Since posting this message, I'm rethinking the whole idea.
    It must be a chozubachi that has great practical use;
    something that I can empty out daily or every other day
    (the L.A. Arboretum and some southern CA areas have been
    hit with West Nile virus from mosquitoes in stagnant waters);
    something that is entirely unique but with my own origins.

    Edzard suggested a wooden one. I managed to haul some
    90 pound logs someone discarded with a free fire wood sign
    in front of their lawn. One must have weight 100 pounds- beech I think.

    Perhaps I will start on this after my enclosure and fences
    are done, all the overgrown trees trimmed, and plants planted.

    Michael

  • Herb
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Michael - You mention a chozubachi with great practical use.

    I decided some while ago that - in our garden - a traditional chozubachi was out of place because we never perform the tea ceremony. However we have a tsukubai & I like to see a basin with water, so our 'chozubachi' - if it can be called that - is a plain, shallow bird bath that sits on the gravel. The birds use it constantly & we enjoy watching them from our kitchen nook at breakfast time or when we're having our morning or afternoon cuppa (Darjeeling & not Japanese green). Maybe that counts as our 'tea ceremony'?

  • Gorfram
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Edzard's hollowed stump chozubachi took me right back to a California childhood:
    "COOO-ELL!!!" (like, mega mondo cool, dude :)

    My garden is on a balcony, so a nice solid stone chozubachi would be problematic :) but I'd love to have a water basin, and had been racking my brain for something that wouldn't be ridiculously out of place.

    But Mike, I think I like your solution (or your grandmother's :) even better! I will have to track down a copy of the Tsukiyama Teizoden and take a look. Could you please let me know whether it's been translated into English, and if it has, under what title? Thank you.

    Also, I don't think that it was the Ginkakuji basin that took after Frank Lloyd Wright. If I recall correctly, Wright's style developed in the early part of the 20th century out of the Arts and Crafts movement.

    The Arts and Crafts movement(a school of artistic & archtectural style, rather than what you did at summer camp) was developed in the very late 19th C. (principally by William Morris), and was, in turn, heavily influenced by Japanese art and style of living.

    A craze for Japanese art and crafts had developed after Japan started trading with the West circa 1868, and really took hold after Japan started participating in International Exhibitions. [This mania for all things Japanese was (one of several things) made enormous fun of by Gilbert and Sullivan in "The Mikado."]

    But serious artists were influenced, too. The garden that Monet planted at Givenchy so that he could paint it borrowed a lot from Japanese garden style, including the Wisteria arbor bridge made famous in "Water Lilies" (at least, I think that's the one :)

    I have a Van Gogh (poster reproduction) titled "The Courtesan" in which he tries to copy a Ukiyo-e subject in his own style. I know it's hard to imagine, but the result looks exactly like what you would expect from some one trying to copy a Ukiyo-e subject in the style of Van Gogh, if that some one happened to be Van Gogh. [I have great fun showing it to artsy-fartsy friends and making them guess who the artist is.]

    The above is slightly more art history than I know (and perhaps more than you wanted to know :) but I am fascinated by the way some Japanese influences are so deep in Western culture that we don't recognize them.

    Perhaps I should be storing my J. Garden books in the Mission-style endtable :)

    Evelyn

  • yama
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    hi Evelyn
    "Landscape gardening in Japan" by Josiah Conder. English man. architect. he came to Japan at age of 25 , rest of his life, he spend time in Japan. work of his architects, his students work of architects contributed to emerging
    Japanese culture. ISBN 0-486-26559-7

    Page 74 plate X fig 1 show "tsuriteoke chozubachi"

    Daivissue has this book may be she can post it here or some one else who has this book.
    Boston has strong tie to Japan. .......... mike

  • bambooo
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    During Sunday's rain I hauled a piece of dark granite that had a drill hole in it from blasting down to the garden pond and fitted a bamboo spout and small pump to it. Now the sound of trickling water fills that section of the garden. Does the sound of water universally make you feel a need to urinate?
    Almost like great height makes you want to spit.
    There are too many buttons on the digital camera but a picture will be coming soon.
    The granite came from the side of the highway and was a bit heavy to lift alone, fortunately a cop stopped to see what I was up to and I got him to help me lift it onto my tailgate.
    Maybe some proselytizers will ring my doorbell and I can move a few more stones.

    Words are just marks and noises
    Words are not reality.

  • Gorfram
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Thank you, Mike :)

    My local library doesn't have this book, but I may be able to get an inexpensive copy used. In the meantime, perhaps
    Daivissue (sp?) or someone else would please be so kind as to post the figure showung the "tsuriteoke chozubachi" [Fig. 1, plate X, pg. 74; from "Landscape gardening in Japan" by Josiah Conder]?

    Thanks again,

    Evelyn

  • bungalow_mikee
    Original Author
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Evelyn,
    You are right about the Ginkakuji.
    Many art movements point back to Japanese art/culture.
    One of the favorite manifestations (above art nouveau, art deco.....)
    which you pointed out is the art & crafts, and its better designer William Morris...

    Though I don't see too many gothic-looking (not necessarily
    gothic origin ahahahaa) art objects, the Ginkuji has
    this characteristics which probably reminded Herb of
    Frank Lloyd's design, who employs the heavy lines frequently.

  • bungalow_mikee
    Original Author
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Evelyn,
    My library has everything.... actually a combo of 40 libraries? I just found it online. I did google of tsuriteoke
    and nothing came up, which is strange because it should have popped up this posting at gardenweb.

  • Gorfram
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hi, Bungalow Mikee! (Are you a friend of Bungalow Bill? :)

    As with you, googling "tsuri teoke chozubachi" brought me nothing, as did "tsuri teoke". "Tsuri" on its own got lots of hits for some sort of anime game, and two hits on a Judo site, where it appears to be used in context meaning "hanging" or "suspending".

    "Teoke" hit the jackpot, a Japanese site (available in English :) about traditonal mountain folk life and culture, which I plan to explore at length. It showed me a picture of an old-style water bucket, but I'm still puzzled about how I might put it to attractive use in the garden.

    Unfortunately in some ways, the city of 100,000 that I live in fights hard to remain a small town, and the library is amore than adequate, but not exceptional. I plan to investigate interlibrary loan from other library systems, but wouldn't mind a bit if some one were to post the figure mentioned above in the meantime :)

    - Evelyn

  • bungalow_mikee
    Original Author
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hi Evelyn,

    No... Haven't you guessed? I'm into Craftsman Bungalows.
    I just placed a hold on that book. I'll let you know when
    I get it. Btw, I like your sensibility.

  • Gorfram
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Thanks :) And thanks for working on getting hold of the book.

    No, I was thinking of the Beatles song (now you know roughly how old I must be :)
    I do *like* Craftsman Bungalows, though - hey, do they tie into the Arts & Crafts movement? [I somehow just sort of thought that they were sold by Sears.] If so, then through the influenced-by-the-influenced-by begats, we're looking at Japanese-derived design every time we drive through our nice old neighborhoods.

    And, while we've got a chozubachi thread going:
    Theres a chozubachi at the Tawara-ya Inn in Kyoto, shown in both Japanese Garden Design (Marc P. Keane, 1996, pg. 89, photo by Ohashi Haruzo), and in Japanese Courtyard Gardens (Haruzo Ohashi, 1997, plate 24, pg. 36). In both photos there are a ladle rest, a ladle, and a nice spray of flowers on and in the basin, and the area has been freshly sprinkled with water.

    But theres a bunch of *stuff* bamboo twigs, short cut lengths of bamboo, and what looks like the broken end of a small log in the basin. The flowers have been changed between the photos and the area newly sprinkled, but the same stuff is still visible. It looks to me for all the world like a bunch of trash, but that lies somewhere in between the just barely conceivable and the utterly inconceivable.
    [Another photo of the same courtyard in Landscapes for Small Spaces (Katsuhiko Mizuno, 2002, pg.94) shows more and larger plants, and is from a substantially different angle, and there is just the barest hint of a bit of green under the water that might be from a fresh cut length of bamboo or not.]

    So what the heck is that stuff, and whats it doing there? Does anybody know?

    Thanks,
    Evelyn

  • bungalow_mikee
    Original Author
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hi Evelyn,
    What a coincidence...when you say your neighborhood,
    I looked at where you're living... My goodness, I've heard
    Oregon has so many bungalows... and your weather...
    does it not resemble Japan's? I've been thinking how nice
    it would be to move to Oregon. Yes, Evelyn, the begats...
    if you check out the books Bungalow Bathroom, and Bungalow
    Kitchen you will see the arts & crafts connections mentioned.
    It's been a while since I've looked at these books...
    it was way before I got into J garden...

    coincidence... more like synchronicity.
    I just renewed my Japanese Garden Design book!
    Actually, for a few weeks, I've been thinking about making my own
    shingles like the one shown on page 72, the middle gate, in Kankyu-an, Kyoto.
    I'm curious how it is place on the roof... glued? The proportions of the shingles are appealing..
    thin and small. Maybe small surface area prevents it from
    warping? I've been reading up on radial spliting( again the grain) versus b-a-s-t-a-r-d splitting
    (with the grain) will prevent warping...but I will have to check out another book on it..

  • yama
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    hi Evelyn
    if you are intresting in bamboo,try Carol Stangler's book. I misplaced her book, can not
    give you title of Book now ( sorry carol).
    it is good book to start. nice photos , show you many appications . you can buy bamboo tools from her too.
    if you are intrested, I will ask her to send you her website

    if you become member of ABS you can get big discount of bamboo books. if you buy one or two books it will pay off member ship fee. I am member of ABS too. NW west coast ABC chaper is very active. you will meet many intresting peoples.

    http://www.americanbamboo.org/
    mike

  • Gorfram
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hi, Michael and Mike! :)

    Michael,
    Yeah, bungalows we've got :) I live in an apartment built about 1970 in the widely practiced Bland-ism style :) but I look enviously at all the beautiful bungalows as I drive past.
    Weather and climate are a lot like Japan's, but we have cooler, drier summers and milder winters. Yeah, it's tough, but us mossbacked webfoots can take it. Sun-loving southrons sometimes suffer from severe photon deficiencies, though :)
    A lot of the native plants are very similar to Japanese natives, too. If I were going to put in another tree (I'd need a very large shoehorn :), I'd go for the native Vine Maple (Acer circinatum), which has lovely fan-like leaves (think A. shirasawanum) with *gorgeous* spring growth & fall color, an elegant gently twisting habit, and grows almost exactly like a weed around here.
    [Don't move here, though, unless you really do enjoy rain, and clouds, and overcast; and don't mind going for as much as two or three months without seeing that big yellow glowing thing up in the sky. If you truly enjoy sitting out in the sun (or want to be able to sucessfully ripen tomatoes), this is not your climate.]

    From the USDA zone map, zone 10 looks like it places you either in the Imperial and/or Death Valleys, or in The Greater Los Angeles Area (as it used to be called when I lived there). Going by raw population numbers, the chances are that you're somewhere in LA, which means that you have all the architecture in the world, from excellent to execrable, just beyond your doorstep. Aren't there some pretty nice bungalows in Pasadena, and in & around the Fairfax District?

    Am looking at that middle gate at Kanjyu-an on p.72 of Keane's "Japanese Garden Design". Is it just me (and/or the angle of the photo), or does that roof have a complex compound curve to it that would do justice to Tomorrowland?
    Nifty as all get out :)

    Could those narrow little shingles be bark?
    Tell me I'm seeing things: it almost looks like some one took a really big (say 8 to 10 foot diameter) tree trunk, quartered it, hollowed out all but the bark and several of the last few tree rings, turned it sideways and set it on that gate for a roof. Is that possible? Or were those mushrooms last night not really shiitakes? :) :) :)


    Mike-san,
    I'll look for Carol Stangler's book at the library today. I only have one bamboo, a Fargesia nitida with seven culms and two new shoots. (My garden is very small, 1.5 m by 3 m, about 1.5 tsubo).

    I read in Ted Meredith's bamboo book that this bamboo species is the favorite food of giant pandas. It is also my cat's favorite plant to eat; and since she weighs about eight pounds (3.5 kg or so), I think she must have delusions of grandeur. (She likes to eat all the plants except the hemlock (smart cat :), the hinoki cypress, and the catnip that I got just for her.)

    I'm trying to keep things that look strongly Asian to minimum; I want people to look at the garden and say not "Oh! How Japanese!" but "Oh, how serene and pleasant!". I think that in such a small space, I have to be very careful about this.

    But I had to have one bamboo: I kept thinking about that quote (which you know better than I): "Without food, people become hungry, but without bamboo, they become vulgar."

    Thanks,
    Evelyn

  • Cady
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hi Evelyn,

    Fargesia nitida is a nice bamboo for cool, shady locations. It does fine with dappled sun or part- to full shade. I planted one in 1997, and it is now 12' tall and the clump is about 4' in diameter at the bottom -- it fans out in a vaselike shape at the top and so covers more area.

    I've heard that old-generation clones of the species form is currently in flower in Europe, but mine (and others I know of) haven't showed any signs of flowering yet. These bamboos die after they flower and set seed. Once this generation sets seeds, growers will start a new generation from them that will not flower for 80-120 years.

    Here's a shot of my planting. The pic is a couple years old, and the plant has grown a lot since then.

  • yama
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    hi bamboo
    I missed good one

    I remember that I had deam of fire engine, not so much of truck part but running water of end of hose . when I realizeed I am still in bed, it was too late.

    dreaming water while in sleep, accidents will happen. during day ? it is not so bad............ mike

  • Gorfram
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Found 'em!

    Went to the library to get Carol Stangler's "The Art and Craft of Bamboo", and my hold was in on "Japanese Gardens: An Illustrated Guide to Their Design and History" by Josiah Conder, which turns out be a new title for a later edition of "Landscape Gardening in Japan" :) :) :)

    So I got my look at the tsuri teoke chozubachi. I think the reason that I couldn't quite imagine how it might work in my garden is that it probably wouldn't quite work there - although it work work great outside a toilet without running water :)
    But Conder's book makes reference to metal and pottery chozubachi: I had not heard of using anything but stone for chozubachi before. I've only skimmed the book so far, but I'm going to read it thoroughly now.

    Stangler's book is excellent: thank you for recommending it, Mike-san :) I have some bamboo projects I've been putting off, and now I feel much better about being able to do them well.

    Cady, your Fargesia looks gorgeous! :)
    The reason mine is so small is partly that I keep cutting awkward-looking culms to keep it looking nice up close, and partly because it's growing in a 15" (380 mm) container. My garden is all containers because it's on a balcony 10 feet off the ground. Figuring out how to place them in a coordinated and aesthetic way is one of my gardening challenges :) (Cady, I saw on your page profile that you design balcony gardens. Do you design Japanese gardens for balconies? I'd love hear about that :)

    Mike-san, perhaps it would be helpful if you thought carefully about deserts and high, empty windswept rocks, and dry dull books and papers just before you go to sleep tonight ;)

    Gotta go,

    Evelyn

  • Herb
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    And also, if you speak any French, put Dandelions out of your mind....

  • yama
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Herb
    evelyne can think dandelion as french cusine salad. it may wake up her all night. hehehehe
    when I see dandelion, I automatically think 24-D and trimec.

    Evelyne :
    sutra is my a cradle song . I have to have strong coffee before read sutras and nap. ...............mike

  • Gorfram
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Mike-san,

    I'm afraid I don't need "salade de pissenlit" (that's French, Spike, so it must be okay, right? :) to dream repeatedly of restrooms that can't be found, restrooms reached only at the end of labyrinthine corridors and staircases, restrooms with every toilet already taken, and restrooms with sinks, showers, and even bidets but no toilets at all.... until all this futility (or something :) wakes me up; at which time I usually notice a need to use the bathroom.
    (So far, so good :)

    If you run out of coffee for your sutra-reading, you can always make a substitute "coffee" from roasted dandelion roots (it's an old Georgia tradition :) It's good for you, and will help clease your liver of toxins such as herbicide chemicals (if you dig *before* spraying :) No caffiene, but it just might keep you awake anyhow :) :) :)

    Perhaps I will make sutras my own cradle song, and read them when I can't sleep: maybe I'll even dream of soemthing better than restrooms...

    - Evelyn