Several times, in a former job role, I had occasion to travel by train to Edinburgh’s Waverley Station and from thence to our site in Livingston, where I would do my thing, stay overnight, and make the return journey home the next day. Although usually the booked train tickets allowed little room for extracurricular activities, there was one occasion on which I managed to engineer a couple of spare hours to visit Edinburgh’s National Gallery. It’s a five-minute walk from Waverley Station, past the Walter Scott monument and along Princes Street Gardens, and it is well worth the effort.
One of the more unusual of its collection is Henry Raeburn’s The Skating Minister. Painted around 1790, it depicts the Reverend Robert Walker, minister at Edinburgh’s Canongate Kirk, skating on Duddingston Loch. It was practically unknown until 1949 (when it was acquired), but has since become something of an icon of Scottish culture, painted as it was during the Scottish Enlightenment. It is today rare for Duddingston Loch to be sufficiently frozen for skating, but in the Little Ice Age that encompassed the 18th century, the loch was the favourite meeting place of the Edinburgh Skating Club, of whom Robert Walker was a prominent member.
Sir Henry Raeburn was Edinburgh’s own, too. Born in Stockbridge, a former village now part of Edinburgh, he was responsible for some thousand portraits of Scotland’s great and good. He was disinclined to leave his native land and, as a result, his renown in Scotland is not matched in England where the names of Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough dominate the portraiture of the period. But in the Scottish National Gallery, he is far from forgotten, and his Skating Minister will remain a firm favourite there for years to come.
The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) is probably best known over here in the UK for his Song of Hiawatha (which I for one remember doing at school), but also in his native US for his commemorative poem about that iconic event of the American Revolution, Paul Revere’s Ride. He also composed the epic poem Evangeline, about that shameful episode in British history known as the Great Upheaval, or the Expulsion of the Acadians, during the French and Indian War of 1754–1763. This was the forced deportation by the British of thousands of the largely civilian populations from the Canadian Maritime provinces to other colonies (including Spanish Louisiana where the Acadians would become “Cajuns”, but that’s another story).
In addition to the lengthy storytelling poetry, however, there is also a short and simple poem for which Longfellow is celebrated, the inspirational A Psalm of Life. First published in 1838 in the New York magazine The Knickerbocker, it is a subtle glorification of life and its possibilities. As with Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata and Rudyard Kipling’s If, the poem is didactic in tone: an invocation to mankind to follow the right path and think positively about life.
Its subtitle is What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist, which creates some context: it is a psalm in response to a psalm. It is an objection to the idea, gleaned by the narrator from listening to some biblical teaching, that this human life is not important; that we are made of dust and will eventually return to dust. No! he says — life is real, it’s serious, and this is not a drill…your body may return to dust but you have a soul so don’t squander your time here by worrying about death. As the seventh stanza says, we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us footprints on the sands of time…
I can’t do other than endorse that thought! Now, read on…
Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act,— act in the living Present! Heart within, and God o’erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o’er life’s solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.
Walter Becker and Donald Fagen met in a coffee shop at New York State’s Bard College in 1967, discovered that they had similar tastes and opinions about music, and soon started writing songs together. After a stint peddling songs in Manhattan’s famous Brill Building, the duo moved to Los Angeles to try their luck on the west coast. Realising their songs were too complex for other recording artists, they formed Steely Dan, and with producer Gary Katz, would go on to produce seven fabulous albums of sophisticated jazz rock between 1972 and 1980.
Their quest for perfection is legendary, and the duo’s shared aesthetic meant that Steely Dan would soon enough became less “band” and more Becker and Fagen backed by a series of session musicians. They would audition musician after musician and commission take after take in a fastidious search for just the right sound, just the right style, to complement their vision. But boy, did it pay off, as they got to harness the talents of such legends as guitarist Larry Carlton, bass player Chuck Rainey, and drummer Bernard Purdie, not to mention one Michael McDonald of Doobie Brothers fame on backing vocals.
Their well-crafted songs were largely critical and commercial successes and many would become radio staples: Reelin’ In The Years, Do It Again, Rikki Don’t Lose That Number, Haitian Divorce, Peg. For me, one song in particular sums up not only the genius of the music but Fagen’s wonderful storytelling ability: Kid Charlemagne, the lead single from 1976’s The Royal Scam album. The song tells the story of the rise and downfall of counter-culture figurehead Owsley Stanley (nicknamed “Bear”), the Grateful Dead audio engineer and self-proclaimed “King of Acid”. Bear’s clandestine laboratory was responsible for supplying the majority of the burgeoning Californian LSD scene of the sixties, and in him, Fagen found the perfect character to weave a typically noir story around.
Take a look at the lyrics; they are full of deft touches. Fagen describes one of Bear’s particularly successful LSD formulations: “Just by chance you crossed the diamond with the pearl”. And on Bear’s dedication to his craft: “On the hill the stuff was laced with kerosene, but yours was kitchen clean”. And when things start to unravel (Bear was inevitably busted of course), we can sense the paranoia: “Clean this mess up else we’ll all end up in jail, those test tubes and the scale, just get it all out of here”. And when the brown stuff is about to hit the fan, the climactic question-response “Is there gas in the car? Yes, there’s gas in the car”. At this point I’m not only engaged with the story, I’m positively willing them to get the hell out of there!
Fagen’s lyrics overlay a musical package that boasts a wonderful funk backbeat courtesy of Rainey and Purdie, razor sharp rhythms and melodies from Becker and Fagen themselves and from jazz pianists Paul Griffin and Don Grolnick, and an astounding guitar solo (and outro) from Larry Carlton. It is musical alchemy of the highest order.
Here’s the best live version I can find, in which the duo seem to have exercised the same rigour with this set of musicians as they did making the album!
While the music played you worked by candlelight Those San Francisco nights Were the best in town Just by chance you crossed the diamond with the pearl You turned it on the world That’s when you turned the world around
Did you feel like Jesus Did you realize That you were a champion in their eyes
On the hill the stuff was laced with kerosene But yours was kitchen clean Everyone stopped to stare at your technicolor motor home Every A‑Frame had your number on the wall You must have had it all You’d go to LA on a dare And you’d go it alone
Could you live forever Could you see the day Could you feel your whole world fall apart and fade away Get along, get along Kid Charlemagne Get along Kid Charlemagne
Now your patrons have all left you in the red Your low rent friends are dead This life can be very strange All those dayglow freaks who used to paint the face They’ve joined the human race Some things will never change
Son you were mistaken You are obsolete Look at all the white men on the street Get along, get along Kid Charlemagne Get along Kid Charlemagne
Clean this mess up else we’ll all end up in jail Those test tubes and the scale Just get them all out of here Is there gas in the car Yes, there’s gas in the car I think the people down the hall Know who you are
Careful what you carry ’Cause the man is wise You are still an outlaw in their eyes Get along, get along Kid Charlemagne Get along Kid Charlemagne
The first member of the artistic Gentileschi family that I became aware of was the Italian Baroque artist, Orazio Gentileschi, whose Rest on the Flight to Egypt I came across a few years back in Vienna’s magnificent Kunsthistorisches Museum. However, as acclaimed as Orazio was, it is his daughter, Artemisia, whose name has come down to us today bearing the most critical acclaim, and not just because she is championed as a woman who thrived in a man’s world, but also because she was literally a brilliant and accomplished world-class artist.
Artemisia flourished in the first half of the 17th century, working in her father’s workshop in Rome but also later working in Florence, Venice, Naples and even in London where both she and her father had a spell working as court painters for Charles I not long before the outbreak of the English Civil War. She specialized in painting naturalistic pictures of strong and suffering women from myth, allegory, and the Bible — Susanna and the Elders, Judith Slaying Holofernes, Delilah, Salome, Bathsheba, Lucretia, Cleopatra, Jael, Mary Magdalene…
Her works are convincing depictions of the female figure, anywhere between nude and fully clothed, and she clearly had a wonderful talent for handling colour and building depth. Her Judith Slaying Holofernes, painted between 1614 and 1620, is a dramatic piece of art theatre. It depicts the scene of Judith beheading Holofernes, an episode taken from the apocryphal Book of Judith in the Old Testament, in which the Assyrian general Holofernes is assassinated by the Israelite heroine Judith. The painting shows the moment when Judith, helped by her maidservant, beheads the general after he has fallen asleep drunk. Artemisia was just seventeen when she painted this, so precocious was her talent.
That she was a woman painting in the seventeenth century is worthy of note, of course (how much more art would exist today had talented female artists, the ones that were less connected or gutsy than Artemisia, been allowed to express themselves?). But purely on her work alone she was one of the most progressive and expressive painters of her generation, and that was a generation that was already rich in artists inspired and flourishing in the footsteps of Caravaggio. As it happens, she is due to be commemorated this spring in a retrospective exhibition at London’s National Gallery. I’ll be there, hopefully!
The Christmas Oratorio (Weihnachtsoratorium) was one of three oratorios written by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1734 and 1735 for major feasts, the other two being the Ascension Oratorio and the Easter Oratorio. The Christmas Oratorio is by far the longest: in full, it is nearly three hours long but it is made up of six parts, each cantata being intended for performance on one of the major feast days of the Christmas period.
The first cantata would be played on Christmas Day, and describes the Birth of Jesus; the second, for 26th December, describing the annunciation to the shepherds; the third (27th December), the adoration of the shepherds; the fourth (New Year’s Day), the circumcision and naming of Jesus; the fifth (the first Sunday after New Year), the journey of the Magi; and the final one (Epiphany, on 6th January), the adoration of the Magi.
Bach wrote his pieces in his role as musical director for the city of Leipzig, where he was responsible for church music for the four churches there, and head of the internationally known boys’ choir, the “Thomanerchor”. The oratorio was incorporated into the services of the two main churches, Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche, during the Christmas season of 1734. That would have been some Christmas service to behold!
The part I’m highlighting here is the first aria from Part I, featuring oboes d’amore, violins and an alto voice, and known by its opening line, Bereite dich, Zion, mit zärtlichen Trieben (“Make yourself ready, Zion, with tender desires”). It is here performed exquisitely by this choirboy and soloists from Munich’s Tölzer Knabenchor, and conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. A more haunting piece of music fit for this season would be hard to find. Grab a mince pie and listen to this. Merry Christmas!
Bereite dich, Zion, mit zärtlichen Trieben, Den Schönsten, den Liebsten bald bei dir zu sehn! Deine Wangen Müssen heut viel schöner prangen, Eile, den Bräutigam sehnlichst zu lieben!
Observational comedy takes for its source the minutiae of everyday life that people recognise without necessarily having consciously acknowledged or discussed out loud. Essentially, it begins with “Have you ever noticed…?” and follows up with some amusing observation that hopefully strikes a chord with the audience. A large part of stand-up comedy is based on this premise, of course. When you bring in some well-observed characters, themselves honed from years of observation of various archetypes, and put them into a well-devised situation comedy, you can add a whole new level of humour; Peter Kay is a past master at this.
It’s his observations of life growing up in Bolton that informs Peter Kay’s comedy. In Phoenix Nights, we see his comedy oeuvre at its finest, having filled it with idiosyncratic but true-to-life characters and scenarios gleaned from his experiences of northern working men’s clubs (for fairness, it should be mentioned that it wasn’t solely Kay’s baby: Dave Spikey and Neil Fitzmaurice were co-creators and writers). The Phoenix Club is a fictional working men’s club, home to the usual variety of club themes: cabaret entertainment, bingo nights, karaoke, raffles, fundraisers, and themed nights, with a stage bedecked with a tinselly back-drop and — all mod cons! — a smoke machine.
The scene I’m highlighting is the one starring “psychic medium”, Clinton Baptiste, and it strikes, I think, a seam of comedy gold. Replete with the motifs of the end-of-the-pier entertainer – the campness, the mullet, the flamboyant suit, the local accent at odds with the assumed gravitas of a true mystic – actor Alex Rowe’s character is a gift, and he portrays it brilliantly. The conceit is that Baptiste is a rubbish medium, with no redeeming qualities, and none of the empathy that you would expect from a truly spiritual person.
Not only is he clumsily obvious with his cold-reading techniques (“is there a John in the audience?”), but he also manages to cause offence and upset by delivering the bluntest of messages from “beyond the grave”. To one lady: “You’ve not been well have you? And it is terminal, isn’t it…?” (which is evidently news to her!). And to a man sitting with his wife: “Is there something you wanted to tell her? Get off your chest maybe?”. “What is it?”, we hear the wife demanding, as Clinton walks away.
Incidentally, Alex Rowe has gone on to develop the Clinton Baptiste character, outside of the Phoenix Nights episode – check out the hilarious Clinton Baptiste’s Paranormal Podcast. But for now, let’s watch his original scene, and enjoy Clinton “getting a word”…
My daughters’ piano teacher, Chris, is a gifted pianist who plays in a band called Louis Louis Louis. They specialise in jazz, swing, big band, boogie-woogie and jump blues, focusing (as their name suggests) on the three great Louis’s: Jordan, Armstrong and Prima. Sadly, the time constraint of the piano lesson window (along with the girls’ mortification at any conversation initiated by me going beyond normal pleasantries) precludes me from proclaiming to Chris: “I love Louis Jordan!”. Yet it’s true: I discovered the marvellous up-tempo jump blues and rich vocal tones of Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five many years ago, specifically from this compilation album here called Out Of Print:
Jordan had started his career in the big-band swing era of the 1930s, being a member of the influential Savoy Ballroom orchestra, led by drummer Chick Webb, in New York’s Harlem district. He specialised in the alto sax, but also played tenor sax, baritone sax, piano and clarinet. He was also a great songwriter, a consummately good singer, and had a wonderfully comic and ebullient personality that soon made him stand out from the crowd. This was the same period that a young Ella Fitzgerald was coming to prominence and she and Jordan often sang duets on stage.
Jordan would soon have his own band, pared down to a sextet, and a residency at the Elks Rendezvous club, down the street from the Savoy on Lenox Avenue. Their style was a dynamic, up-tempo, dance-oriented hybrid of earlier genres which became known as “jump blues” and was an instant hit with the audiences. His band, the Tympany Five, started recording music with Decca records in December 1938, and throughout the 1940s they released dozens of hit songs, including Saturday Night Fish Fry, the comic classic There Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens, and the multi-million seller, Choo Choo Ch’Boogie.
From July 1946 to May 1947, Jordan had five consecutive number 1 songs, and held the top slot for 44 consecutive weeks, an amazing testament to his popularity at the time. It’s true to say that history has given him a raw deal, since his name is not as widely known as it should be, given the above stats (outside sophisticated circles such as our own, of course!).
I’ve selected a song (from many candidates) that is typical of Jordan’s wit and charm: 1953’s A Man’s Best Friend Is A Bed. As well as being a jumping tune, the song extols the comforts of the bed, and on cold mornings like today, who can’t relate to that?
Listen to Louis:
I want a great big comfortable bed, so I can really spread out, and all that Take it from me Ed, A man’s best friend is a bed
I want a big fat pillow that’s softer than a billowy cloud, for my head Take it from me Nat, the best head piece ain’t a hat
Yes, a friend will ditch you, a horse will pitch you A car will give you lots of grief A dog will bite you, your wife will fight you But if you want some genuine relief
Just get a great big comfortable bed, where you can really spread out, and all that Take it from me Ted, a man’s best friend is a bed
When you’re in trouble, worries double And everybody’s talking back Just take your shoes off, you’ll shake the blues off If you would just let go and hit the sack
In a nice cool comfortable bed where you can really spread out, and all that Take it from me Ted, a man’s best friend is a bed
Ask any soldier, marine or sailor Or anyone who’s been without, what do they miss most, What thought is foremost? No Sir, you’re wrong!
It’s just a great big comfortable bed, where you can really spread out, and all that Take it from me Ted, a man’s best friend is a bed
Yeah, if you dig me Jack, you’ll hit the sack This ain’t no junk boy, hit that bunk Take it from me Ted, a man’s best friend is a bed
Many leading artists in mid-19th century France liked to test their artistic skills by depicting farm workers and peasants at toil in the countryside – Courbet’s The Stone Breakers (1850) and Millet’s The Gleaners (1857), for example.
As the century wore on, some artists began to explore the concept of men and women at work in urban settings – Manet’s The Road-Menders in the Rue de Berne (1878) springs to mind, as does Women Ironing (1884) by Degas. Of this genre, a personal favourite of mine comes from Gustave Caillebotte and is called The Floor Scrapers (Les Raboteurs de Parquet).
It depicts three topless men working on hands and knees, scraping away at a parquet floor in a Parisian apartment (thought to be Caillebotte’s own studio). The composition is documentary-style, focusing on the actions and techniques of the floor-scrapers. Daylight enters the room from a window on the far wall and glosses the smooth floorboards with a white sheen. There are several floor-scraping tools as well as an opened bottle of (presumably cheap) wine. The diagonal alignment of the floorboards is offset by the rectangular panels on the far wall and by the curlicue motif of the iron grill on the window and the wood shavings that litter the floor. It is a masterpiece of realist painting.
His piece was perfectly in keeping with academic traditions, in terms of its perspective and the modelling and positioning of the nude torsos of the workers. However, despite this, the painting was rejected at the 1875 Salon because of its ‘vulgar’ realism. There’s no accounting for taste. So Caillebotte threw his lot in with the Impressionists and exhibited it at the Impressionist Exhibition of 1876.
These days, The Floor Scrapers is held in the Musée d’Orsay, although when I visited, a few years ago, I was disappointed to find it was not on display – you can’t win ‘em all (and I’ll just have to visit again when next in Paris)!
Thomas Stearns (T S) Eliot (1888–1965) was a giant literary figure: one of the major poets of the 20th century, as well as essayist, publisher, playwright, and literary critic. He was born in St Louis, Missouri into a prominent Boston Brahmin family, but moved to England at the age of 25 and settled and married here, becoming a British subject in 1927.
Within a year of arriving in Britain, Eliot had published his first major poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915), which came to be regarded as a masterpiece of the Modernist movement, and he followed that up with some of the best-known poems in the English language, including The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930), and Four Quartets (1943).
Eliot also had his whimsical side, however, and in 1939 published Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. This was a series of light poems about cats and their traits which he’d written throughout the thirties in letters to his godchildren (“Old Possum” was fellow poet Ezra Pound’s nickname for him). The best-known poem from that collection, Macavity the Mystery Cat, is the one that arrested my attention the moment I read it (or heard it recited) when I was a lad (it may well have been the only poem from the Book of Practical Cats that I read or heard recited, given that it was the “stand out” that primary school teachers regularly latched onto).
Eliot was a big fan of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and the character of Macavity is a literary allusion to Moriarty, the arch-villain and mastermind of those stories (Holmes dubs Moriarty the “Napoleon of crime”, which is how Macavity is described in the last line of the poem). I loved that repeating final line: “Macavity’s not there!”. It conjures up the trope of the master jewel thief or gentleman spy, always one step ahead of the Law, always outwitting his pursuers. You can imagine the nonchalance.
But of course in reality it’s a cat, so it’s the spilled milk, the feathers on the lawn, the crash of a dustbin lid, the scratch on the sofa…and of course he’s never there. The little devil’s scarpered!
Here’s a recording of the man himself reciting the poem:
Macavity’s a Mystery Cat: he’s called the Hidden Paw— For he’s the master criminal who can defy the Law. He’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad’s despair: For when they reach the scene of crime—Macavity’s not there!
Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity, He’s broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity. His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare, And when you reach the scene of crime—Macavity’s not there! You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air— But I tell you once and once again, Macavity’s not there!
Macavity’s a ginger cat, he’s very tall and thin; You would know him if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in. His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly domed; His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed. He sways his head from side to side, with movements like a snake; And when you think he’s half asleep, he’s always wide awake.
Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity, For he’s a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity. You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square— But when a crime’s discovered, then Macavity’s not there!
He’s outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.) And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard’s And when the larder’s looted, or the jewel-case is rifled, Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke’s been stifled, Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair Ay, there’s the wonder of the thing! Macavity’s not there!
And when the Foreign Office find a Treaty’s gone astray, Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way, There may be a scrap of paper in the hall or on the stair— But it’s useless to investigate—Macavity’s not there! And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say: It must have been Macavity!’—but he’s a mile away. You’ll be sure to find him resting, or a‑licking of his thumb; Or engaged in doing complicated long division sums.
Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity, There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity. He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare: At whatever time the deed took place: MACAVITY WASN’T THERE ! And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known (I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone) Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime!
2nd June 1951: American-English poet and playwright, TS Eliot (1888 — 1965). He wrote amongst many other things, ‘The Waste Land ’ and the plays, ‘The Cocktail Party’ and ‘Murder in the Cathedral’. Original Publication: Picture Post — 5314 — Are Poets Really Necessary? — pub. 1951 (Photo by George Douglas/Picture Post/Getty Images)
The Edo period in Japan was a 250 year period of stability, lasting between 1603 and 1868, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate. It was a rich time for the development of Japanese culture and saw the development of Japanese cultural themes recognisable today like kabuki theatre, Geisha girls, sumo wrestling and ukiyo‑e woodblock print art.
Ukiyo‑e translates as “pictures of the floating world” and referred to the hedonistic lifestyle prevalent in the pleasure districts of Edo (modern-day Tokyo). Thus, we see a variety of erotic themes in this art, but also plenty of landscapes, flora and fauna, and scenes from history and folk tales. A famous proponent of ukiyo‑e was Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), best known for his woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji which includes the internationally iconic print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
Hokusai created the Thirty-Six Views both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal obsession with Mount Fuji. The series depicts Mount Fuji from different locations and in various seasons and weather conditions. It was this series, and specifically The Great Wave print, that secured Hokusai’s fame both in Japan and overseas. They are wonderfully simple yet evocative pieces.
The series was produced from around 1830 to 1832, when Hokusai was in his seventies and at the height of his career. As well as The Great Wave, you may also recognise Rainstorm Beneath the Summit and Fine Wind, Clear Morning. My personal favourite, however, is Ejiri in Suruga Province: a sudden gust of wind takes some travellers by surprise, blowing away the hat of a man who tries in vain to catch it. Bits of paper whirl away from a woman’s backpack and scatter into the air. The woman’s wind-tossed cloth covers her face, and the tall tree in the foreground loses its leaves. Other travellers face the wind, crouching low to avoid it and clinging to their hats. Fuji, meanwhile, stands white and unshaken, affected neither by the wind nor the human drama.
Ejiri in Suruga Province
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