For a suitably industrious, part-time Santa Claus, it all started with such innocuity:
For centuries the Japanese have dwarfed trees in bonsai gardens which gained fame around the world. Now the delicate art is undergoing a revolution of sorts with some inspiration from Latin music, extraterrestrials and the realities of cramped apartments.The modern twist to bonsai began 20 years ago at a humble drain outside the home of Paradise Yamamoto, also known as Japan's top mambo musician. One day, Yamamoto was struck by the velvety beauty of the moss growing over the drain lid. Soon he started growing chunks of moss in a small container. When he put a miniature train on the moss, he realised something else — he no longer thought he was looking at a pot, but at a wide landscape from Japan's northern island of Hokkaido.
That's when the idea came to him: to make bonsai not just show trees, but scenes from life. Dubbed "Mambonsai," his art entails dwarfing not only trees but also statues to bring a less abstract dimension to bonsai.
The often comic results have drawn young people to bonsai, which had become a pastime largely of the elderly.
Genius being, of course, one part epiphany and two parts happy accident.