Kinya Hanada a.k.a. Mumbleboy

I've never been a fan of Michael Jackson really. The fact that he died recently hasn't changed that. It seems famous people's deaths don't quite affect me the same way as they did when I was younger. Kurt Cobain's death was devastating to me even though I wasn't much of a fan of Nirvana. These days, it may sound weird, but I feel sort of relieved when people die especially if they've lead a full life and die amongst loved ones. The death of Japanese rock star Kiyoshiro Imawano felt like that. He had what seemed to me like a very full life and it seemed somehow comforting to be reminded that life does end. Michael Jackson's death may not have been as comforting, but I wasn't saddened by it either. People die whether they are famous or not and you don't necessarily feel sorrow for someone just because he is famous. I've had a lot more opportunities to listen to his music lately though. I'm still not a fan of "Billie Jean" or "Bad", but his earlier song like "Rock with you" ain't too bad. What I've really noticed though is that I keep hearing James Brown in Michael Jackson. A lot of people have told me that Michael Jackson was such a sensation to them when his videos started airing on MTV. I experienced it in real time, but I wasn't too into it. However the first time I heard James Brown's "Papa's got a brand new bag", that was really shocking to me.

It's such a strange song.
It's sort of made up of repetitive phrases with JB's unique howling over it. It's kind of like a precursor to hip-hop in a sense.
"Sex Machine" is even more repetitious.


and it really reminds me of my favorite Talking Heads song "Cross eyed & Painless".

This isn't the best video, but the one I liked better couldn't be embedded. Click this link to see it. It's part of an awesome show they played in Rome in 1980. I'm actually not a big fan of the Talking Heads either. Their 80's stuff is more well defined and more clear, but I like this earlier stuff much better. This song starts out slow, but then picks up dramatically a minute and a half into it (the song is over 6 minutes long!) Aside from the vocals, it's made up of a whole bunch of different instruments playing repetitive notes, but together with the vocal, it created a very strange mix. It reminded me of this song below.

"Horizontal Hold" by This Heat

This is a song by a very obscure English band called This Heat. It is definitely not a pop song and it may sound loud and annoying at first, but it's a very experimental and for me a very exciting song. I only know it because I was a college radio DJ in college and obscure stuff like this was available for us to listen. I don't know much about the band, but its member Charles Hayward seems to have had quite a career. This song reminded me of another song.

"Wide Forehead" by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282

This might be slightly more well known than This Heat, but still probably quite obscure to most people. Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 (TFUL282) was a an Francisco band that existed from the late 80's to mid 90's and had quite cult following. I was lucky enough to see them live many (about 5) times as I lived in Northern California in the early 90's. They were noisy, but quirky and had a charm which is hard to describe in words. This is my favorite song by them although I don't think they consider it to be one of their "hits". This song is weird in a way as the bass is central to it whereas the bass is usually only in the background. It's mostly made up of 2 parts of repetitive parts and it's not complicated in structure, but somehow the noisiness and the weird melody combines into a thrilling song for me. TFUL282 had two albums with the Matador label, but they never quite gained wide popularity.

It's weird that first thinking about MJ's music has lead me to these other musicians. For me, I always had trouble liking music that was popular, but the music that made impressions on me I found mostly by chance. I'm not sure what I'm getting at, but I think popularity or fame ha nothing to do with the quality of music. While these songs may not have a wide appeal, there's people like me who appreciate them anyway. The same can be said for art. There's plenty of talented artists that remain quite obscure, but that doesn't mean their work has no value.

Hello hello,

So, unlike most recent posts here, I am actually writing about something relating to "Mumbleboy".



They have this thing called the PDX Film Fest which happens once a year here and this year's edition which begins tomorrow, Wednsday May 6th, will have the installation "Mumblehop" .



I don't know if there are people reading this blog who has been keeping an eye on my work long enough to remember it, but "Mumblehop" was an installation commissioned by the American Museum of Moving Images (AMMI) back in 2002 which was a collaborative effort with me, Karl Ackermann, E*rock and Karl's brother Oliver Ackermann(he made the pads). It was shown at AMMI and then at a group exhibit called ALT in Pittsburgh later that year. We never documented it very well online, so if you didn't see it at those exhibits, you probably have no idea what it's like.

here's a picture of it I found online.


well, it still probably doesn't give you a good idea of what it is.

It's actually a very simple Flash piece which is projected on a big screen and you could interact with it using floor pads. Thanks to Karl's impeccable programming and awesome music by E*rock, it still feel pretty fresh even after 7 years.

If you're in or around the Portland area, please come and check it out.

The opening is 7pm tomorrow May 6th.
the PDX Fest is going on just 5 days, but the exhibit will be up for a few weeks.

BUM EQUIPMENT
The PDX Fest Video Installation Exhibition
curated by CARTUNE XPREZ
Opening Reception, May 6 at 7pm
Exhibition Hours
May 7th - 24th from 12PM - 6PM, Thursday through Monday

Artists include
TM Sisters - Miami, FL
Mumbleboy, Karl Ackerman, E*Rock - Portland, OR + New York, NY
Deelay Ceelay (Chris Lael Larson + Delaney Kelly) - Portland, OR
Luke Forsyth + K Syms - Portland, OR
Adam Keller - Portland, OR
Evan Meaney - Iowa City, IA
Shana Moulton - New York, NY
Seth Scriver - Toronto, ON
Sabine Gruffat - Madison, WI
Philippe Blanchard - Toronto, ON
Marc Couroux - Montreal, QC
Emanuele Kabu - Belluno, Italy
Adrian Freeman - Minneapolis, MN
Lief Hall - Vancouver, BC
Stephen Slappe - Portland, OR
AND MORE!

for more info check this link.

I thought I'd write about 3 things relating to water. None of them is even worth mentioning on its own, but I thought the way they are related might be something interesting to write about. We shall see if I manage to write anything worthwhile reading.

The other day, I walked by this business called The Rainbarrel Man Co. I thought that's an interesting idea to sell barrels for collecting rainwater, but didn't think too much more into it. Then later on, I thought about it again and thought that's a great way to make use of a natural resource and lessen the burden on municipal resource.


(Columbia Slough Trail pond)

Another day, I biked up North to Columbia Slough Trail. (I'd been riding my bike to parts of Portland I hadn't been yet) It wasn't the most scenic trail I'd been on, but it looked pretty enough. I came to a pond and decided to take a break there. The pond looked alright at first, then I noticed the air smelled a bit like sewage. There was some weed growing around the pond, but the dirt on the edge of water looked very black and lifeless. On the way back, I noticed that the pond was part of a water treatment facility. That must be where the water we use end up. I don't know the exact process of cleaning up used water, but I imagine, after going through some filtering, the water will sit in a pond like that to let toxic stuff settle to the bottom and then it will be released back into the river. I'm just speculating, but as I sat there smelling the sewage like air, I thought that this is the direct result of how we use water and it's kept away from us (unless we venture out to a place like this), but it's important to acknowledge that.

The third thing. I answered an email interview about our Etsy shop recently and one of the questions was "What is the importance of being eco conscious for you and your store?" I gave a vague answer like we try to do what's good for the environment, etc. Then I thought later on, would it have been more interesting to write something more specific? There is one thing I have been doing which is really not a big deal, but maybe qualifies as "eco conscious". Since I do a lot of painting of paper mache figures, there is always the task of cleaning the paint off of brushes. I think the normal way to go about it is to dunk the brush in water, shake it about to get the paint off and afterwards, dump the dirty water in the sink. This procedure is in effect is putting paint into the water and I didn't feel very good about doing that. So, I've developed a way over time in which I don't have to dump paint water back into the sink. First, I clean the brush with newspaper.(I will use this newspaper for paper mache) Then I soak the brush into a container of water. I don't shake the brush and I wipe the wet brush with a rag. repeat this a few times until not much paint comes off the brush, then shake the brush in the water and wipe it. This way, the water will take much longer to become dirty. I use this same container of water until it's too dirty to get the brush fully clean.(days or weeks depending on amount of use) I usually use another container of water in conjunction to use after the first container to get it fully clean. When the water is too dirty, I don't throw it out, but put the container out of the way to let the water evaporate. Usually, I use the bottom of a paper milk carton for the container and after the water has evaporated, then I could throw that out which isn't the most ecological way, but I think is a slight improvement from putting paint directly into the water. Another thing I do is the brushes I use for gesso, I saw off the ends of them to put inside a gesso container with just a bit of gesso at the bottom. This way the brushes won't dry up, so you don't need to clean them at all.



Well, I thought maybe talking about these 3 different things of human interaction with water would somehow paint a big picture, but maybe this was mostly just practical tips about cleaning brushes! Probably not interesting at all to those of you who don't work with paint, but I think these kinds of mundane things effect our environment. The smell of air at one place maybe a direct result of your action at another place.

I've started using a couple of new things online recently.

(New Mumbreeze card!)

I've joined Twitter a few weeks ago like, I think millions of people have as well. I knew about it for much longer and I didn't have any intention of joining it, but then I started checking Twitter pages of friends and after a while, I wanted to join in. I'd never been a fan of chatting online and hardly ever chatted unless if it was for work or a friend prompted me to do it. I mostly try to avoid having to chat if possible. Twitter on the other hand feels totally different from chatting. For one thing, you can post whatever you feel like any time, but it's not (unless you're responding directly to someone) directed at anyone in particular, so you're not requiring anyone to respond. Likewise, you can look at other peoples' 'tweets', but you don't need to respond to it unless you fee like it. So, looking at your Twitter page is kind of like sitting down with a dysfunctional group of friends. Everyone is tweeting whatever they feel like and some of them, you have no idea what they are talking about, but that's actually more interesting than people chatting with each other. There's nothing as bad as having to listen to a bad conversation, but if it's something written by a single person, there is no small talk involved and it is more informative. Anyway, I wouldn't write about it here unless I wanted more people to know that I am on Twitter. So far I've got a few friends and some other people I'm following, but I think I could do with a few more. There are some people who tweet every little thing they do and it's a bit too much to follow and I don't keep them in my list, but I wanted to see if I'll gain some new people to follow by writing about it here. Likewise, if you're on Twitter and want to check me out, you're welcome. I don't think I'm the most interesting Twitterer out there, but then I think I'm not the most boring either. I tend to be kind of all over the place as far as subject goes, but I think my top subjects are bicycle, environmental issues and artwork. If you're not interested in any of that, then my tweets might be super boring for you. Anyway, feel free to follow me on Twitter. Add me to your list and then delete me if you're not into it. I won't take any offense at all. If you add me, I will check your page too (unless it's private) .


(Mt. Tabor Park, Portland)

The other thing I've been doing online (for 4-5 months now I think) is the Google reader. I may have written about it a while ago, but It's a Google tool that lets you keep up with all your subscribed blogs, so you can browse through all your favorite blogs without having to go to each site. If you like to read a lot of blogs, this is a good tool to do that with. I'm sure most of you know that already though. With Twitter I could use more activity, but lately dealing with Google reader have gotten me a bit overwhelmed. I know exactly why this is too. I started following Tree Hugger recently through the reader. I really like a lot of the articles they have. The problem is that they upload so many articles everyday and even if I take ample time going through my reader updates, I can never seem to get through all of them. If I can skim through the titles and only read the most interesting ones, maybe I can get through all of them, but they all look pretty interesting to me so that I want to at least read a little bit of most of the articles. Anyway, so I'm in a strange situation of having access to a lot of interesting reading, but not having the time or the mindset to be able to go through all of them. If the number of unread articles get to be too much, I will just have to set the status to "all read" and just forget about all the information I might have missed in them. Maybe it seems strange to you that I am interested in environmental issues at all. Wouldn't it be more appropriate if I recounted some psychedelic dreams I had here? For me though, I'm interested in the environment mostly for selfish reasons. I want to live in a world that feels good basically. My idea of what that world would be like has changed as I've gotten older. I didn't care much for nature when I was younger, but as I grow older, I seem to crave the charms of nature more just as a lot of people do. When I was younger, I didn't really like doing the same things as most people and if people said flowers are pretty, I questioned that statement. I guess maybe I'm not such a rebel anymore and I have come to appreciate nature through first hand experience. Anyway, so the world that feels good to me is one where nature is thriving much more and human civilization is in harmony with it. I think though that the way we are living is destroying the environment and we're getting further and further from my dream world. Maybe it's futile, but still I like to think that we can turn things around. Sites like Tree Hugger, while not all their writers might have high aspirations for a better world, does contribute greatly in sharing news and ideas about our environment and I think the more of us that are better informed can bring change for the better. I've gotten way off track, but that's sort of why, I am stubborn to not to dismiss all the articles in the ever growing list of unread updates. Anyway, Maybe I could just get better at reading them and I won't worry about this any more.

You may have noticed that the name of this blog has changed. It used to be "mumblog2", but now it's "Kinya Hanada a.k.a. mumbleboy". If you didn't know already, Kinya Hanada is my name. I'd been using the name Mumbleboy since like the mid-90's and I'm not sure it still fits with what I've been doing. Also, some of the things I'd been writing here I think might not have anything to do with my artwork, but are more like some random thoughts I had. While I'm not ready to part with the name Mumbleboy altogether, I thought a little change was needed. So now, I will free to write whatever I feel like without having to think if it's relevant to do so here.

Maybe you noticed the little pictures on the top right, they are artworks which are being sold at our new Mumbreeze store at Etsy. We did have a Mumbreeze store already, but it was in Japanese and probably not something you would check out if you didn't know how to read Japanese. We didn't want to exclude our worldwide friends from our stuff, so we decided to open the new shop over at Etsy. Etsy's main thing is that you can only sell hand-made or real vintage stuff, so you don't see mass-produced low quality things there. Also, they allow you to setup your own shipping prices to wherever for each item, so that's really good for us especially because we're in 2 different places at times, but we'll still be able to do the store regardless of our location. The 3 items you see on the top right (if you're reading this at a later date, it may be different) are ones that are available from me here in Portland, so you don't have to pay the overseas shipping if you're in the US. We've just started the store and so far we haven't really told too many people about it, so we could use a few sales to get it going. You want to give a present to somebody, but don't know what to get? Maybe you'll find it there. Also FYI, the paper mache figures are made with plastic and other things (on the inside) that may not be good to throw out, so making them is a kind of a way to intercept that stuff from going into the landfill. That is not the traditional way to make paper mache, but it also helps me that I don't need to throw out things that I feel should be recycled if possible. Anyway the Etsy store is one thing we're trying out, so that we may be able to live more on making things by hand. We're not really the most entrepreneur-minded people, so it may take us a while to get it running, but any suggestions you might have about the shop is very welcome.

Thanks for reading, I hope to be updating this blog more often.