A quick taste of some of the wisdom in this book

A person identified only as "Sakuteiki" and who lives in Grants Pass Oregon pulled out a few of his or favorite quotes or scenes in an Amazon review.

Potter Oizumi creates Chernobyl shaped lanterns with permuted fenestrations of the date of the nuclear spill. A tea ceremony performed in a bomb shelter. Making pottery of clay from a nuclear spill site, bread from grain harvested near a nuclear facility, quietly gentling people to consider the meaning of polite behaviors which ignore the unpleasant, while cooperating in implied brutality and contamination.

Osamu Nakamura woodblock carver, hand bookbinder, cook: "I looked at my life, and I knew that I didn't want to wake up one day and find myself an old man filled with regret that I hadn't seen the things of this world."

Batik artist Asha Amemiya: "Maybe it's just that humans are that kind of animal; they don't really want to move toward satisfaction. Or maybe it's just that the place where I'm satisfied is different. . . ."

Akira Ito illustrator, writer, book designer: "The good things of the past, that's what we must preserve. They have passed through the hardships of history to become a tradition, and we who are alive today must treasure them, and take care of them for the future."

Gufu Watanabe potter, journal writer: "People in Japan used to make quality things too because the artisans didn't have any skills. . . . There was power in it. But then they learned all kinds of techniques and the energy and force disappeared."

The reviewer described the book like this: "Thoughtful humble lives of simplicity if one is seeking alternatives, or merely inquiring about possibilities.  A Different Kind of Luxury is a gift of friendship from creative, generous people who engage fully in their communities and have lives full of meaning."

And here are some words of mine that he or she chose to highlight: "There is a larger world surrounding us, not just the resplendent world of nature, but also our own potential as people to live well, to connect with each other, to do meaningful work, and to forge a different kind of future for ourselves and for the next generation."

Please, if you want to get the book for yourself or for a friend or family member, I would like to ask you to get it directly from the publisher here. You will get a beautiful gift card of a piece of calligraphy from Wakako Oe that is not included in the book, with two great quotes on the back of the "folding screen" card from her as well.  Here's that image. You may find that the more you gaze at it, the more you see.... 

"I am practicing being talentless, but I find it very hard to do"

Potter Gufu Watanabe spoke to me about his ideal of achieving a flavorful line.  Read more about him in Chapter 8.  

Here are some of his illustrations, from his hand-painted New Years cards that he sent me.  Beautiful as these are, the ideas and philosophy behind them are even more amazing.

"I'm practicing being talentless.  But I find it almost impossible to do. If I could actually get bad at it…but to imitate being bad at it, that just won't work."  We both start laughing.

            "Those pictures from a thousand years ago in Persia came out of the life of poor people then.  So if I lived a similar way, then maybe I could draw such pictures, but I…I live in Japan.  I grew up poor, actually, but all around me, the culture was at a sophisticated level.  That's why no matter how I try, I can't draw a picture like they did.

            "My goal is to draw a line with some 'flavor' to it.    But somehow, I just end up drawing a clean and pretty line, that is to say, a boring line.  I have to destroy that habit."

A flavorful line.  Such a small thing, but such a big thing if you are trying to make good art.

Calling on you to be part of Community Supported Publishing

Here's a big request to all the friends of this book. PLEASE share this widely. My publisher has gone the extra mile to do a 3rd printing, and they are offering a beautiful limited-edition 'folding screen' card with an original piece of calligraphy, AND a signed copy of the book, all for $20, including shipping. Please buy directly from the publisher and keep this book in print for the future.  You can send a link to this blog to your friends by email, or you can tweet or put it on facebook.  If you can do more than one of these, even better.

Get all these, including shipping for $20.

Peter Goodman at Stone Bridge Press puts it this way:

We have just gone back to press for the 3rd printing of A Different Kind of Luxury. With its color pages and unusual format, it is expensive to produce. But we have kept the price under $20 because we think this is one of the most important books we have ever published and want to be sure it stays affordable to readers.

So, we need your help! We know you can buy it elsewhere. But as an act of Community Supported Publishing, if you believe in this book and its important message, would you do us the favor of purchasing from our website for the regular price of $19.95? 

We'd like to thank you for helping us out:

1. A copy of the book personally signed by the author, Andy Couturier.

2. Our gift to you of a miniature “folding screen” featuring inspiring art by Wakako Oe, one of the rural artists from Japan featured in Andy's book.

3. Free shipping within the USA 

4. The good feeling that comes from supporting a worthwhile project and sharing it with your friends and community. 

We want to keep this book in print and need your help to find new readers. Community Supported Agriculture is all about many people sharing resources to support healthy food outside mainstream agribusiness. Why not Community Supported Publishing to share the message of people living, meaningful humble ways  of life?

Please post the link to this limited-time offer on your Twitter feed, Facebook page, or wherever you hang out in space and online. http://stonebridgepress.wazala.com

This fine piece of calligraphy has been made
into a folding card with two great quotes on the back
as an extra gift.

Three years after publication, the new five star reviews keep coming

If you have enjoyed the book, posting a review on Amazon or on Goodreads really helps other people find the book.  Here are some recent ones on Amazon:  

5.0 out of 5 stars Eleven Signposts: This Is The Way!, February 2, 2013

As we make our way through life, we get guidance. The choices that eleven people made about what they could do to improve the quality and significance of their lives are set out in this book for you to consider. It will affect you deeply. Every time you read it, you will find some new insight into how you can change your life, for the better. When you are ready, a teacher appears.

Himalayan signpost and altar:
line drawing by Asha Amemiya
(profiled in Chatper 5)

5.0 out of 5 stars A Reassessment of Priorities, December 4, 2012

This beautifully-written book is about how 11 people realized, usually through foreign travel and deeper investigation into different forms of Buddhism, that they could choose how to live their lives in ways that are far from the norm in modern Japan. Reading about them enables us to look at how we are living our days, weeks and years. Over and over again, Couturier stresses the fact that the greatest luxury of all is time. Slowing down, doing less and enjoying it more are some of the lessons I received from this delicious, luxurious read.

Inside Nakamura's house
(Chapter 2)

5.0 out of 5 stars In Tune with Life, April 13, 2012

I read this book some time ago after seeing the author at a local reading. It was written, of course, before the nuclear tragedy in Japan but is all the more urgent and timely a book because of that accident. Japanese people, along with those elsewhere who rely on nuclear power for their society's voracious power needs, are asking, "Is there another way?" This book points to that way.

The author, who lived in Japan for four years and originally published the interviews in this book along with others in a series for the Japan Times, sought out a number of people who lived simple and happy lives. Mostly living in the countryside, they had dropped out of the frenetic Japanese way of life, instead preferring an abundance of time for contemplation and enjoyment. Each had a quite different story. Some were artists of various kinds, others were craftspersons, some gardened. Likewise, some lived alone, others had families. Some were off the grid but not all of them. But all shared a deep spirituality and sense of wonder that their contemporaries all too often lack.

Life of the Buddha, hand painted
scroll by Akira Ito (Chapter 6)

The author and interviewer chose wisely and edited wisely as well. I might add that the book is beautifully assembled, with pictures that bring the people interviewed to life. If you are looking for hope that a different, gentler way of life is possible, read this book.

Hand dyed fabric hanging by
Jinko Kaneko (Chapter 10)

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring and Insightful, February 29, 2012

I found "A Different Kind of Luxury" a delightful read. It helped me relax and open my mind to a completely different way of living that is more sustainable, rich and creative. Andy Couturier is an excellent word smith who crafts a delightful image for the mind by combining many different elements of style, much like a delicious meal of many savory spices.

"Requiring billions to change their lifestyle"? Hardly

I posted an article today on "All Voices" a political blog.  Part of it read: 

What does it mean to be truly and deeply humble about our presence here on the earth? It doesn't boil down to a simplification like "conservation." It does start with a radical reduction in consumption. Consumption is what we do with the ignition key, the thermostat, the appliance, the one-click purchase, the light switch, and the part of our paychecks that disappears into something disposable. Whatever it is we do that consumes something (or somebody) else. That somebody may be a human, or an animal, or a species, or an ecosystem, or a tree. Do we really need a limitless amount of free electricity lighting up every part of the planet?

Humility is a training of the soul, to achieve within your day to day life the rich abundance implied by less and to achieve this despite the distractions and attractions, perhaps even against the distractions, is a victory of your spirit against the setup of the world as it is.

And one man, Nathan, commented: 

You are correct that Fukushima should not be considered a natural disaster but a human-made catastrophe. Solving this problem and making sure it never happens again will not be accomplished by requiring billions of people to change their lifestyles. The continued existence of nuclear power plans is evidence of a breakdown in the ability of people to govern themselves. That is the challenge that must be addressed first.

To which I replied:

Thanks for the comment Nathan. I did not by the way however say that we should "require" billions of people to change their lifestyle.  But if it's really a "style" isn't it changeable like the way bell bottom pants are no longer in style?  Rather however, I think it's a *value* where we decide, consciously to use less.  The good news is that the less I consume, the happier I become.  That's the message of the people I wrote about in A Different Kind of Luxury, and they've been living truly sustainable lives for 30+ years.  I would add that, lastly, wresting control of the government of Japan from the technocrats and anti-democrats in Japan may prove more difficult than turning off lights.

"I’m glad you convinced me to buy it"

I got this letter from a new friend Tom Herzog who had been following this blog but who hadn't gotten the book.  I met him at a sustainability gathering here in Santa Cruz (we were meeting to trade home made preserves, what a great idea, and thanks to Meetup!).  So at some point in discussing gopher control, he realized that he knew about my book through the blog but hadn't bought it.  Boldly I said, "You should buy it!"  He did.  He took $20 out of his wallet, even though he was unemployed at the time, and money was tight, and then a few weeks later, I got this email from him.  

Farmer Tom Herzog

"It’s been a while since we first met/talked at the Preserve Swap Meetup Manfred hosted a few months back. I thought the Meetup was great and I’m glad I got to meet you.  I’ve been getting my little farming operation up and going. You might remember that we were talking for a bit about the Natural Process farming method I had learned while interning under Bob Cannard at Green String farm in Petaluma. Then at some point during the night I realized I had been following your blog for some time but had never bought the actual book. Well I’m sure glad you convinced me to buy it that night because you were right, I Loved it.
  

I just finished reading it and it’s almost completely covered in highlighter marking. So much I don’t want to forget! I’ll probably end up reading it few more times when I’m in need of some more inspiration in my life but for now I’m passing it on to friends that I know will love it as well. I really needed to hear the bits about people getting by with so little money and always being confident they will have enough to get by because that has been a current struggle in my life. 

Murata and his son, by the rice fields that feed them

    For me it was awesome to hear about all these different people successfully living the simple life that I’m currently trying to attain in my own life journey. I feel our Western society has done its best to hide these kind of people from us. They want our role models to be rich people, celebrities or musicians with all their expensive material things to trick us into thinking a life full of money is what truly brings happiness, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Most of these fake role models are so miserable and messed up they are dependent on some kind of drug/alcohol just to make it through the day. I know our national happiness has been in decline for some time and I really think it has a lot to do with our disconnect from nature and its daily destruction. I can only hope enough people wake up to this realization before it’s to late to mend all the damage we have caused to the mother of us all.

Gufu Watanabe (Chapter 8) displaying the warm conviviality you will find at all of these people's homes.

    Hopefully I’ll make it to another one of these Meetups and get to talk to you some more. Starting next week I’ll be out on my new farm full-time and trying to get the land/irrigation all prepped to get a good head start on this springs planting! 

Sincerely
Tom Herzog"

So, if you've been lurking around the blog, you really are missing out on great material.  We've just gone into our third printing (the first two have sold out), so please consider getting a copy for yourself, or for a friend. 

Outside of Mainstream Bookselling Channels

Books are sold in cities, right?  Book sellers and publishers focus on where concentrations of people are, and that makes sense.  But what about a book about rural life?

A Different Kind of Luxury is about person-to-person contact, about small-scale enterprises, about intimate connections with the natural world, and about doing for yourself.  This happens of course in the US as well.

One of the places that has sold dozens of books is the tiny "Kettenpom Store" in Zenia, CA.  It's in Trinity County near where my partner and I have some land where we live some of the time.  

Kettenpom Store

There are probably less than 200 people in the surrounding 50 miles, but they have stocked the book for two years now, and with a little "local author" sign, it sells.


One day, when I was signing books, a bearded man in overalls walked up to me and said, "You are signing that as if you wrote it."

"I did, actually."

"Wow, I love that book, I've read all the way through it three times."

It turns out that he lives in the same valley, and grows Japanese vegetables, including burdock root, or gobo as it is known in Japanese.

I have been very adamant about this book not being "about me."  Too many books about Asia focus on the Westerner's experience going there and learning about himself (usually it's a he).  There's something vaguely distasteful about that focus to me.  So when I've been asked to "talk more about yourself," I've resisted.  The book is about these people who are so amazing.  I try to move towards their ideal.

However, I think one of the reasons people want to know is because they want to believe that "people like them" can do it too.  And many Japanese people want to know if I live like the people I write about do.

So, over the next few months, I will go ahead and write a bit about ways in which my life has parallels to the people in the book.  But if this is your first visit to the blog, please, please read about them first.  There are many excerpts on this blog, and if you like what you read, please do purchase the book.  I don't make very much money at all on the book, but if it is going to continue to be available to other people in the future, it has to keep selling.  It's only $20, or less, with shipping. ( The computer you are reading these words on is likely more expensive than that.)

In Winter

So, for a bit of a start, here are a few photos of our land (about 15 miles from the Kettenpom store) and the house we built there.  Hand tools only, no generators.  Solar power and a little hydro electricity generator in the creek.

In Summer

Hand built house, from the front

This window arrangement
is based on Japanese flower
arranging ikebana

These solar panels were built in the early 1970s.  We bought them in the early 1990s.  In the summer, they give us more than all the power we need.  Just a few lights and the laptop.  They were $100 each, and boy was it hard to spend that much money!

No nukes.

So, yes, as I wrote in the introduction, "the good life is possible."  This is our version of it.  You too can create one of your own.  Try hard.  This is your time, and your life.

The Explosion of New Creative Work by Osamu Nakamura

When I visited Japan in October, I was absolutely astounded by the number of new creative works by Osamu Nakamura, who I profiled in Chapter Two.  This post will mostly be images of his new works.  

He has completed his move to the next valley since when the book was published.  He's living in a much smaller place, in fact, an old cow shed that he has converted, beautifully.  How does he have so much time??!

So many of my writing students are desperate for more time to write.  It seems so simple when I meet with Nakamura.  Live in a very cheap and modest place, eat simply, do what you can for yourself, and the whole day is yours.

He introduced me to a proverb: "When you are lacking a little bit, just endure it.  When you are lacking a lot, think hard and invent a way."

Included here are his works in paper cutting, "paper block prints,"  collages of matchboxes, collages of indigo cloth, colored pencil abstract designs, and amazingly, digital photo print books.  Nakamura, who doesn't even have a telephone or a car, much less email, was given a digital camera.  As he is fascinated by abstract art, he learned how to take photos of rubber bands, pieces of wire and a glass cup up close, and then bring them to a copy shop, print them on paper, then cut them up, and bind them--as always--into a hand made book.

Click on any image to get a close up.

Enjoy, and share with your friends.