OK, birthday candles are in order. The 40th anniversary of the first edition of Living on the Earth (The Bookworks, Berkeley CA) was in September 2010. The 40th anniversary of the bestselling second edition of Living on the Earth (Vintage Books, Random House, NYC) was in April 2011. It’s still in print as a hardbound library edition. The 40th anniversary of  Mariko Fukamachi's translation of Living on the Earth (Soshisha Ltd., Tokyo) will be in April 2012. It’s still in print as a paperback book.

It sold somewhere in excess of 350,000 copies, and it’s still selling in English, Japanese, Korean and maybe Chinese (I forwarded a letter of intention from a Chinese publisher to the book’s current publisher, Gibbs Smith, Publisher, in Salt Lake City, but I have not seen an actual Chinese copy yet). I heard a rumor that the Provos in Amsterdam made a bootleg translation back in the 1970s (I’ve never seen one of those either, but I would LOVE to have one if it exists!!)

LOTE’s illustration and design style was so revolutionary when it first came out that Publishers Weekly devoted two pages to acknowledging this with an article in handwriting, illustrated with drawings selected from LOTE. I scanned and posted the PW piece here.

LOTE’s illustration and book design begat The Massage Book (and the Random House/Bookworks series), The Moosewood Cookbook series, The Vegetarian Epicure series, Handbook for Survival into the 21st Century, and numerous others. More recently, motivational writer/speaker SARK told me that Living on the Earth’s illustration and design had helped launch her graphic style as well.

Soshisha, Ltd, in Tokyo released a Japanese translation in 1972, with a blurb on the cover from Japan’s poet laureate, Shuntaro Tanikawa. It says, “I want to do everything in this book. If I can’t do everything in this book, then I want to dream about it, because I know that if I do, I will be a better person to the marrow of my bones.”

Onstage May 4, 2007, singing for a thousand people at the Rainbow Festival at Aso Mountain, Kyushu, Japan.  Photo by Tatsuya Nema. It's a rainy night, and I'm wearing Japanese rice planting rubber boots under the patchwork dress made for me in 1971 by Charlotte Lyons, an artist friend who lived at Wheeler Ranch during the time I created Living on the Earth.

Spring is here and I’m on the road again! Here’s my spring 2007 tour schedule:

Adams Ave. Roots and Folk Festival in San Diego, California
Sunday April 22, 4 to 4:45 PM at the Beer Garden Stage between 35th Street and Mansfield Street on Adams Avenue in the Normal Heights area of San Diego. MAP. I will be performing solo (vocal/guitar) psychedelic folk, Hawaiian slack key guitar, and folky jazz blues, most of it original songs. I’ll have all the stuff from my online store available there for sale, too.

JAPAN TOUR!!
April 30 “Living on the Earth Festival” at the Loveland shop and spiritual center in Kumamoto town on the island of Kyushu. Small event, but I’m the star!

May 4 or 5 “Rainbow Festival” at Aso Mountain on the island of Kyushu. I’ll be performing a 45 minute set of my songs (as above) but with a band. =^) !! The festival is using the Living on the Earth cover goddess as the poster graphic!

May 6 through 10th: Five shows on the island of Kyushu touring with the band Amana. On May 6th at the Tomigawa River Festival in the Isahaya district of Nagasaki. On May 7th at the art studio of world reknown granite sculptor Hiroto Sakamoto in the Sazachou district of Nagasaki. On May 8th in the Yobiko area of Saga City. On May 9th at Organ's Melody night club in Yamaguchi.  On May 10 at Chakra store and tea house in Osaka.

May 19 and 20 “Natural High” Festival at Doshi on Honshu island (about two hours from Tokyo). 45 minute set of my songs (as above) but with a different band! Plus I lead a redux of the decoupage visualization shrine-building from recycled objects workshop I did at the same location last October for Artist Power Bank. And it all gets filmed for the Eco-Words television show, which airs nightly on BS Asahi TV, a station watched by half of the households in Japan.

May 29 and 30, workshop and concert on the island of Oshima, organized by my friend Mana. 

June 3, 6 to 8 PM, at Hobbit Theatre, Tokyo, Concert.  Two sets of me and the legendary punk/ska/indie rock singer Yoko Utsumi in a musical dialogue. 

June 9 workshop and concert with Sachiho Kudomi of Amana in Toyko sponsored by Anima.

June 11 and 12, two workshops and concerts with Sachiho Kudomi in Tohoku, which is the moutainous and forested northern-most province of Honshu island, one in the town of Sendai and one in the town of Morioka.

June 17 and 15 “Living on the Earth Festival” at Yukotopia Deadheadsland Nightclub in North Tokyo. This time, TWO 45 minute sets (9 to 11 PM), with Jun and Ken, an excellent bass player and lead guitarist I met last October when I played there last.