those shoes look otherworldly...and it's hard to believe that's you, tlg!
Wow.
The Littlest Gator is a woman? Who knew?! Definitely not me. I am glad that you had a good time, I'm beginning to suspect that my chemical engineer sister has an eating disorder, I hope I am wrong
that whole make up, clothing, very restrictive and bizarre footwear thing is pretty common in human culture. high soled shoes were de regieur for the courtesans of venice during the rennaisance.
it's another way of objectifying the experience. the ritualized make up takes it away from being a human being and makes it controllable as fantasy.
strange. you were a good sport. i would have insisted on a sword.
i always was a bit nervous about japan. having traveled all over the rest of asia i ran into far too many folks with absolute horror stories of the japanese occupations of south asia. i got to where i could treat the japanese kind of like i treat the germans. individually, or in small groups, they are wonderful people. warm, generous, often very kind. get over eight of them together though and the conversation somehow turns swiftly to world domination. could be something about the language structure, i don't know.
i toured japan with michelle legrand and we had a marvelous, even enchanting time. by the time i returned to the states i was homesick for things like rude waiters and cabbies. a trumpet playing buddy who made the same tour and i were kicking back after a show in vegas. he was trying to impress a keno runner with all the mystical exotic asian wisdom. he was waxing all poetic about the wonders we had seen. i finally decided to set him up and turned the conversation to the fabled kobe beef. he started in on all the padded stall, fed beer, given massages, pampering that goes into the raising of the cows (we had gotten a tour and a taste). finally i pounced and said:
yeah, and when they come to slaughter time they don't do that the same either. they take them all down to kabuki theatre and bore them to death.
lovely photos. great story. more on japan. i'm sure most of my prejudice stems from ignorance.
Thanks LG for reviving some memories for me - I lived in Kyoto and Nara for a year back in the 70's - wonderful memories - I'm glad you had this experience - something to cherish for a lifetime.
Nice story, thanks LG.
LG - Great story. Mam, you are a real trouper! But, seriously - those shoes are true for the period??!
They look much more like instruments of torture than anything else. Ugh.
Well, I guess you wouldn't be running off in those shoes! Cripes, you're lucky to be alive!
Excellent observations and an incredible experience! I wonder if the siliconed "barbie" experience would feel similarly restrictive? I'm guessing it would. Thanks for sharing this, tlg! 
At least (AFAIK) the Japanese never went in for foot-binding.
Minstrel Hussain Boy: Was that the eminent French composer Michel Legrand?
BTW, I didn't mean that question in a snotty "You made a boo-boo" way, MHB, but in a "Holy shit, you've traveled in some interesting circles" sense.
And thanks for the post, TLG. For some unexplainable reason, this Southern boy has been fascinated by Japan and the Japanese since he was very young, so please keep the posts coming.
yes, it was le grand michel himself. he is an excellent composer, superb conductor, and almost any other superlative you might imagine. i had been lucky enough to score a couple of his film gigs and he remembered me fondly. being multi-instrumental and able to deal with different styles made me a logical nod for an orchestra which needed to be trimmed for asian travel.
i'm pretty hard to offend by tone. i took your query exactly the way you intended. i've been very lucky in my career (except for the times when my luck was shitty). one of the more frustrating things about music as a livelihood is that luck figures so large. and, in the absence of luck, you still have to toil away for those endless hours of practice, just in case luck might turn.
that's why miles davis' advice was so perfect when he told young musicians
if you can imagine yourself being happy doing anything else, you should go. do. that.
it was a very fun tour. we had lots of cultural exchange stuff happening where we'd spend a day or two seeing the sights with the locals and then all getting together for the show, then a late dinner party. the japanese were very gracious and completely generous toward us. we, for the most part, were swept along by that good will and return a great deal along the way.
usually, even though i've mostly left the business, i refrain from commenting or writing about folks i play with. but in the case of someone like le grand where there simply is nothing but compliments and praise it is easy.
make no mistake there are some absolute monsters in music. he ain't one of them.
(david geffen, and t-bone burnett on the other hand. . .one of them is surely the antichrist or his herald)
Thanks, MHB. I was watching Richard Lester's film of The Three Musketeers (for the umpteenth time) just the other day, and yet again admiring Legrand's splendid, evocative score. (Now I've gotta dig out the sequel from my vastly disorganized DVD collection.)
So there was a bit of synchronicity involved in my question.
Although it's been at second hand, I know something of what you mean about the precarious nature of a career in music. You can't spend most of your life in Nashville without becoming well aware of at least some of the vicissitudes of this mode of the creative life.
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