I had the opportunity to interview Jon Stollenmeyer of Somakosha about his path becoming a carpenter in Japan for the New York Times about his start at Nakamura Sotoji Komuten and most recently at Somakosha with Kohei Yamamoto. The interview was about 4 hours formally, and about 7 days, informally on a visit to Honolulu. Naturally, a lot of our conversations were condensed for clarity in the final piece. I wanted to include some section of Jon's interview in audio form because his explanations are quite flowing and at times detailed in ways that would not fit on the printed page and work better coming from him directly. The transcription will have some errors from software, but the real treat is listening to Jon tell his story in his own words because they roll like a boulder. A warning, the dream he is describing is and living might be a bit hard to follow, but the feeling is very clear.
By the way, I have updated the class listings with schedules for Emi Shimamura, Andrew Hunter and Eric Baker / Wellington Dong at Hida.
