Leaving for a tour is always a bit hectic with many balls in the air and not all of them caught before departure. With the lengthy strategic effort this time to get visas for the People's Republic of China taking up a lot of our time ahead of this trip -- tip of the hat to ace assistant Tim Sawyier for braving this procedure for us -- one thing that neither my producer, Matt DeStefano, nor I had done before arriving in Tokyo -- the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's first stop on this five-city (Tokyo, Yokohama, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing) ten-concert tour -- was to get a haircut.
On the flight over, Matt had his eyes on a write-up on Aoyama, a hip district of the city said to have more hair cutteries per square metre than anywhere else on earth. I was just hoping for a place that would leave me in reasonable shape for Aaron the Miracle Hair Man back in Chicago and also not cost me an emperor's ransom. Once we found our digs in Akasaka 8-chome, it turned out that we actually are staying fairly near Aoyama, but as we were still getting our bearings and wanted to explore the more residential and neighborhoody areas of our immediate quarter after a fairly loud night around neighboring Roppongi Crossing down the street, we thought we'd see what hair options might be in our own 'hood.
I go by pretty much the same sussing-out system that I use fairly successfully for eateries and food markets for my rare forays into style -- what's the sense of the location, the signage, and types of people one sees going in and out. After we had passed one place where the staff looked reasonably with-it but the clientele were mostly pensioners -- and lovely pensioners at that! -- we came across a barber pole stuck between an Italian trattoria (i.e. a Japanese Italian trattoria) and an Indian tea house (i.e. a Japanese Indian tea house). We climbed the steps of the two-and-a-half story open-air back of an apartment block, walked down a tiled walkway past a deli and bagel emporium (i.e. a Japanese deli and bagel emporium), and found a small salon whose owner greeted us with a combination of eagerness and a certain quizzical stance.
He was, I would guess, a man in his early '60s with the orangey-brown hair coloring that's popular here among less buttoned-down men of his generation. (A more basic brown is the color of choice these days for those more mainstream men and women who color their hair -- and there are a lot of them.) And when his wife appeared we noted that she, too, had the more honey-brown look.
We went with it and each took a chair. I was directed to Mrs. Oikawa and Matt took the seat with Oikawa-san. Mrs. and I managed to communicate quite a bit despite my near total absence of non-tourist Japanese and her self-described limited English. She was impressed that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was visiting Japan, as many here are, and was curious what Americans thought of Japanese conductors. She knew of quite a few, including some whose names were new to me. It also turned out that she studies classical guitar, "Western," and, although a nylon string player herself, is also a great fan of Eric Clapton. She had tickets to his upcoming arena concert here. This somehow led to the inevitable question one gets in Japan, "What do yout think of Herbert von Karajan?" While imagining von K in a jam session with Eric Clapton, I managed to tread water a bit by saying that I knew he was quite popular in Japan ("Number one!" she nodded), but that his style was not my style. I left politics out of it.
To move on from the Question of K, I mentioned that the music of Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) was quite known among many composers, musicians, and concertgoers in the States. At this she paused and I also heard an exclamation of recognition from her husband's chair. "My customer!" she then said somewhat gleefully. "My husband's customer first!" We continued to chat about this pioneering artist and afterwards recorded a few minutes with both of the Oikawas who, understandably, became a bit more tongue-tied when we turned on the recorder. Oikawa-san had originally been at the classic 1960s New Otani Hotel and Takemitsu, who lived nearby, started coming to him then. When he opened his own salon, the composer followed him. What was Takemitsu like in person? "Elegant. Dignified." What was his mood or style. "Meditative. Spiritual." What would you talk about with him? "Oh, not so much talking," Mrs. Oikawa shook her head and Oikawa-san joined in the head-shaking. "When my husband cut his hair, Takemitsu-sensei would sleep." "Sleep, yes," Oikawa-san agreed.
I'm not sure that a volume of Barbers of the Great Contemporary Composers is required, and I'm actually rather glad that we stumble upon Oikawa-san and not the barber for Takemistu's great inspiration, John Cage. In addition to the honor and the local connection, a spiritual and dignified haircut probably rests more easily on the head than one based on chance techniques.
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Throughout the current CSO Far East Asia tour you'll be able to find pictures, videos (!), and even some audio links, and text and captions from our trip -- all ably assembled by my invaluable WFMT colleague and producer Matt DeStefano on this new WFMT weblog site, "OffMic."
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