Hi Guys,
This may come as a shocker but I’m suspending all of my guitar activities, probably for at least the next several years. No more recordings or gigs during that time, and in fact, probably little or no practice. All of my life I’ve only been able to focus on one big thing (to me) at a time, whether it was business, finance, or music. Never been able to compartmentalize. The reality is that after retiring 12 years ago and doing almost nothing but guitar all day every day for the last 10 years, I’m burned out. Daily practice became something I wasn’t looking forward to anymore, but more of a chore. That’s not good, so I need to give it a rest.
But the coup de grace is a new focus – Japan and Japanese woodblock prints. Starting last winter I became interested in these subjects and basically turned my website over to them in terms of everything new I wrote for the site on “Tom’s Take”. After my articles amounted to 10 – 12,000 words I kind of decided to develop them into a full-fledged book, with illustrations from my own print collection. Whether this ever goes to completion I don’t know, but I’m acting on that assumption. Talk is cheap before the hard work begins!
What’s so great about this is that I come to the subject at ground zero – before this year I knew almost nothing about Japan or their prints. So it’s the steepest possible learning curve, but endless material to work with. Japan is a fascinating culture going back thousands of years, but my focus will start 400 years ago, which happens to be an important dividing line in Japanese history. I’m completely into it on a daily basis, so there’s no room for another obsession. There’s a ton of reading to be done but I’m doing it slowly and building my knowledge base from the ground up.
I wish you all the best, and will stay in touch. Hope you will do the same and keep me on your mailing lists.
Tom
For those who may be interested, I’ve kept up the Japan obsession described in that letter and now lecture at NJ and Cape Cod libraries and other institutions on various aspects of Japanese culture and history tied into Japanese prints, featuring photographed prints throughout.
My Japan website https://www.japananditsprints.com/index.htm includes articles, film and book reviews along with professionally photographed Japanese prints and crafts. There are also groups of print videos accompanied by Japanese koto music. The site is educational only – I do not sell anything.
It also includes a description of my upcoming lecture at Morristown Library on Nov. 4 here: https://www.japananditsprints.com/japan-and-its-prints-in-the-floating-world.htm All are invited who may find this subject interesting.
Finally, if anyone knows of a library or other institution who might like to host one of my talks (at no fee for non-profits), they can let me know. I’m starting to book for 2019. Thanks.