A call out to my friends and colleagues, visual and multimodal anthropologists, cultural anthropologists, photographers & sake and tachinomiya lovers in Tokyo and the surrounding area; VAoJ is making a rare appearance in Tokyo for a special lecture:「The Intersections of the Sensory, Multimodal and Ba: The Tachinomi Project」Please share and spread the word...

Check it out!

July 17, 2024, 18:00-19:30
Room 402, 4F, Building 2
Sophia University, Tokyo

Abstract:「The Tachinomi Project」is a visual ethnography based upon the con- vergence of social science research and contemporary art. The project began with long-term participant-observation and a photographic exhibition featuring a 40-year-old tachinomiya (standing drink bar) in Osaka called Tenbun. The study sought to explore photography in public spaces, privacy and image ethics while showcasing a “grimy” (Farrer 2019) and stimulating atmosphere with colorful characters including the shop owner, employees and regular customers. The interactions with Tenbun collaborators and gallery audience at the exhibition became the first of several post-fieldwork encounters, leading to the re-positioning of the research into wider social and academic contexts during and after the COVID 19 pandemic. This present account utilizes reflexivity, autoethnographic vignettes (Stevens 2013) and photography to explore the intersections of the sensory (Pink 2013 [2009], multimodal (Collins et al. 2017), and ba (Kajimaru et al. 2021) of Tenbun and other eating and drinking establishments.

Click here for some background on the project.

Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.

Standing Drink Bar「Tenbun」Old Boys Reunion 立ち呑みの居酒屋「天文」O.B. 会

We were on the bus, traveling through the borderlands between Osaka and Kyoto Prefectures when the imojōchū began to kick in.

We had just finished an hour-and-a-half of “all you can eat/all you can drink” at a traditional izakaya banquet. This kind of gluttonous binging and imbibing pushes participants, especially those on a pensioner’s budget with little left over after pachinko and horse race betting activities, to extremes, to make sure they get their money’s worth. Since the food turned out to be only standard fare, we concentrated on the drinking: beer, sake (nihonshu) and sweet potato distilled liquor (imojōchū; usually 25-35% alcohol).

A half hour in we were getting livelier and louder, and receiving dirty looks and disapproving frowns from the shop staff and other customers. Our severs were stingy, only allowing us to order a new drink after giving up the empty vessel from the previous beverage. Some of us countered this policy by pouring alcohol into PET bottles and plastic bags for secret take-out. We drank steadily until the last order. Somehow, we all were able to stand, pay our portions of the bill, use the toilet and stumble to the return bus without too much trouble.

What started out as a gathering of long-lost friends taking a short trip on a privately rented bus with quiet small talk of recent illnesses, hospitalizations and deceased drinking companions, was now a drunken cacophony of laughing, shouting, quiz games and attempts at singing enka. We exited the bus at the Keihan Kuzuha train station, took a memorial photo and made our way to the shopping arcade, formerly the aged, everyman Norengai (“Noren Street”), home to several traditional eating and drinking establishments. Recently this arcade was gentrified and renamed “El Kuzuha.” The older shops, many of which closed due to COVID-19, were conveniently replaced with fashionable chain restaurants. We wandered through the corridors until deciding on an acceptable pub for our continued revelry.

This post-fieldwork encounter chronicles a reunion of the owner and regular customers (the O.B.s or Old Boys) of a 40-year-old tachinomiya (“standing drink bar”) in Osaka called Tenbun, that closed in 2020.

Imojōchū has a strong taste and pungent smell, even when mixed with ice and water. For me, drinking it results in a contemplative body buzz; but when combined with beer and sake, the odoriferous contemplation turns into a gregarious stupidity. Nonetheless, this can be fun with the right people at the right time.

The Tenbun O.B. reunion was such a righteous group and occasion.

After all, we were trying to resurrect something. Not a specific time, place, feeling, memory or dream. Something more, perhaps a sort of fluid liminal communitas (and I do not use these terms lightly) that, in the past, we could enter at will, or at least between Tenbun’s usual business hours Monday through Saturday. The hour of day (or night), people, circumstances, jokes, arguments, daily specials and drinks always varied and at the same time enmeshed to create this familiar something. Looking back, I can see how we took it for granted, the longest-term customers for as long as 40 years. But now we missed it. And we wanted it back, even if only for this one day.

Of course, none of the O.B.s explained the reunion in these terms, except for the over-analyzing anthropologist with a camera, soaking in another post-fieldwork experience. Ba…

To be continued…

Gonzo Anthropology Lives!

I recently received a surprising and wonderful message from filmmaker/multimodal ethnographer/doctoral student Taylor Genovese about his new article, Going Gonzo: toward a performative practice in multimodal ethnography in the journal entanglements (2019), 2(1): 97-110. The article can be found on-line at the following URL:

https://entanglementsjournal.org/going-gonzo/

Genovese writes: I just wanted to send you an email to thank you for paving the way in formulating gonzo anthropology. When I was in my MA program, a friend and I formed an independent study group to think through “gonzo ethnography” using your paper as a foundation. Since my undergrad, I was drawn to visual anthropology since I worked in the local film industry in Tucson, AZ before going back to school. I was interested in how to merge gonzo approaches within the domains of the visual and performance.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying that I have finally published a working paper looking at gonzo anthropology through the lens of multimodal ethnography/performance. I wanted to share it with you since a) you were a big inspiration for my thinking through this; and b) I wanted you to know that the gonzo project is not dead in anthropology!

Wow! I am truly shocked that someone not only found my obscure article but that they wanted to build upon it. Thank you so much, Taylor! And I urge others to read Taylor's article. Check out his web page as well.

https://www.taylorgenovese.com/#

And in case anyone else is interested, you can find my Towards Gonzo Anthropology: Ethnography as Cultural Performance in the Journal of Inquiry and Research (2013), (98): 55-70. URL:

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/147853006.pdf

If you want a small taste of my original essay, you can find it here:

http://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2006/11/gonzo-anthropology-circa-1995.html

Announcement: "Towards Gonzo Anthropology: Ethnography as Cultural Performance"

A recently published article that might be of interest to visual anthropologists...

Abstract: This article provides an “ethnography of ethnography” through exploring the balance between scientific methods and humanistic insights in the process of cultural description. The major argument presented is that anthropological fieldwork (especially participant observation) and discourse (i.e. forms of cultural representation) combine to become a cultural performance where the ethnographer serves as an actor, director, recorder of events, writer, artist and audience all in one. The application of performance theory in all phases of fieldwork along with certain qualities of discourse style are introduced and referred to by the author as “Gonzo Anthropology.” An analysis of the work of Hunter S. Thompson, founder of gonzo methods, will be included along with examples of the author’s cultural descriptions of Hare Krishnas in San Francisco and deaf people in Japan. This essay is a product of twenty years of study, application, consideration and reconsiderations of the ethnographic process and aims to contribute important, relevant and interesting dialogue for multiple and multivocal actors and audiences engaged in anthropological research.

Key Words: ethnography, cultural performance, Hunter S. Thompson, Gonzo Anthropology

Fedorowicz, Steven C. (2013) Towards Gonzo Anthropology: Ethnography as Cultural performance, Journal of Inquiry and Research No. 98, Kansai Gaidai University, Hirakata, Japan.

"Photographer Speared by Javelin at Utah Meet"

This is not Japan or visual anthropology related, but I believe it illustrates the spirit of the Gonzo Visual Anthropologist.

Image and story from The Associated Press.

A newspaper photographer got a little too close to the action at the state high school track championships — and was speared through the leg by a javelin.

Ryan McGeeney of the Standard-Examiner was spared serious injury in Saturday's mishap, and even managed to snap a photo of his speared leg while others worked to help him.

"If I didn't, it would probably be my editor's first question when I got back," McGeeney said later.

The 33-year-old McGeeney, an ex-Marine who spent six months in Afghanistan, was taking pictures of the discus event and apparently wandered into off-limits area set aside for the javelin throw.

Striking just below the knee, the javelin tip went through the skin and emerged on the other side of his leg.

"It wasn't real painful. ... I was very lucky in that it didn't hit any blood vessels, nerves, ligaments or tendons," McGeeney said.

Much of the javelin was cut off at the scene. The piece in McGeeney's leg was removed at a hospital, and he received 13 stitches.

The javelin was thrown by Anthony Miles, a Provo High School student who said when he saw what had happened, "my heart just stopped."

"One of the first things that came to my mind was, 'Good thing we brought a second javelin,'" Miles' coach, Richard Vance, said Monday. He said Miles was "in a little bit of shock," but he assured the athlete that it was not his fault.

With a subsequent throw, Miles went on to win the state title in javelin for teams in Provo High's size classification, 4-A.

Alls well that ends well...

A sad day for Gonzo Anthropology...

Dr. Gonzo Fedorowicz, 1992 - 2008. Rest in Peace.


Visual Anthropology of Japan is saddened by the passing of Gonzo. This blog started out with Gonzo. Like his namesake, he was a huge inspiration for the author. As the cat of a visual anthropologist, Gonzo was widely traveled, well known and admired by many in North America and Asia. He will be missed, but his legend will live on.

"Gonzo Anthropology" Circa 1995

"Gonzo Anthropology" logo creation and first copyright ©1995.

Here are scans of the first two pages of my original "Gonzo Anthropology" essay from my first year of grad school 1995. The ideas started to develop as early as 1989 in my undergraduate anthropology classes.

Please note that this text is protected by copyright (© 1995). For more information, contact the author via this blog.