Updates - Festival, Bedtime Story, and Wolves! (Patreon)

Hey hey there!

1) I'm writing real quick to let everyone know I'm recording the Bedtime Story tomorrow and it will be posted here by Sunday. I returned to the old folklore books I discovered. So this month is a curious little myth from down Kagoshima way. Very curious...

2) Postcards are going out Monday. I got quite a bit back from May (they just recently started showing up in my mailbox), so I'm going to send both this month and any returned cards back in a letter to those patrons. For some reason, letters tend to make it better than post cards. I don't know why. Everything is a mystery to me. 

3) Also, I'm doing research on wolves! I found a wolf shrine about two hours from my house, way up in the mountains. So I'm planning on visiting there and taking a bunch of photos. I'll post here and any cool audio or video if I can get it. 

Next, because it crazy hot Japanese summer here, I wanted to share two very summer videos if you'd like to check them out. 

4) The first is Yaizu Matsuri or Ara Matsuri / 荒まつり. Ara meaning 'rough'. It's one of the top three 'rough' festivals. If you watch it you'll understand why. Evidently, Yaizu has a lot of yakuza and this festival in days past had a lot more fighting going on. All in good fun. Now it's just more rowdiness and less anger. Still a little itimidating, though. The whole event takes place over three days and literally goes on all day and night, ending in a big fireworks display at the port.I love this festival so much. I lived on the route it took for many years and the big old omikoshi / 大神輿 (portable shrine) would come barreling up our little driveway and toward the house. Trivia: If your house, car, or any property gets broken or smashed when this happens it's A-Okay because it good luck! There is a god riding in that shrine. Just having it come near you is good luck. Hence, all the shirozoku /白族 (people in white) vying to carry it on their shoulders. 

The festival is wild, incredible fun with a lot of history, too. I could talk about it for hours. It's all very close contact, though, so it's still not being held this year. But I found a decent video from a couple years ago and you can definitely get the vibe. I get a little weepy eyed watching it. I miss it so much (from a stand back and watch perspective).

Here: 

https://youtu.be/dAmU6yL6UOY 

At night the princess rides a horse through the streets. This always made me nervous. A little boy also rides through and toss an arrow (yabusame/archer). He can't shoot and arrow, but he throws one and holy smokes the fight that ensues for those arrows. He does it twice. Whomever ends up with one is also super lucky. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwEVgjYF_AE 

The second video is Abekawa Hanabi - Abe River Fireworks. This is the first year they've had it since Covid started. Usually it's a two-hour long show, but they cut down to an hour and decided to go ahead with it. They also did a live stream (linked below). The first thirty minutes is just the atmosphere, people gathering and the sun setting. The fireworks start at the 30 minute mark. Very much how a hot Japanese summer evening is spent. 

https://youtu.be/yGFqvHYj9BE?t=2036 

XO,